Marble cookies for week 18 football friday

Marbled cookies

Today felt like a day for celebration. There was a miraculous update on Bills Safety Damar Hamlin. He collapsed during the Monday Night football game and was rushed to University of Cincinnati medical center. Each day there were updates of reported progress. Then today, the update was on “remarkable” progress, although he still has other progress to be made. One of the things that made me smile – Damar communicated to doctors asking, in writing, “did we win the game?” All the prayers made a big difference. God is good. Thanks to so many people who’s quick actions saved his life. And the outpouring of love for this young man has been overwhelming. All the donations and prayers made in his name and wonderful stories about him are just beautiful. My hope is all the love, kindness, and positive vibes and prayers put out there can remain and make the world a better, friendlier,more loving place.

And with that, I decided to bake marble cookies at 9 pm. Just a cookie made with browned butter and instead of adding all chocolate chips, I melted them and swirled them in.

Notes – I used bread flour in these in hopes they would not spread out too much. I did not have time to chill the dough. Remember to spoon your flour from your flour bag into your measuring cup so you get the right amount. And preheat your oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking.

  • Ingredients
  • 1 cup butter browned, not cooled
  • 1 1/4 cups butter, browned
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tbs cream
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup chocolate chips,melted
  • Extra chocolate chips

In a bowl, combine browned butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add egg, yolk, vanilla and cream. Blend in dry ingredients. Swirl in melted chips to marble dough. Scoop out 2 tbs dough and form mounds. Lightly press a few chocolate chips on top. Chill a few hours. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking. Stagger cookies on prepared sheer. Bake 10 minutes (no longer). Cool completley. Store in covered container.

Easy chocolate snowball cookies

Chocolate snowball cookies

These are simple and will satisfy any sweet tooth. They use a sugar cookie mix (17.5 oz), flour, baking cocoa, an egg and butter. I stuffed some with hershey kisses.

  • Ingredients
  • 1 sugar cookie mix (17.5 oz)
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup baking cocoa
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
  • Hershey kisses, if you want stuffed cookies
Cookie monster at it again!

Directions – preheat oven to 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Line a cookie sheet with nonstick baking liners or parchment paper. In a bowl, combine cookie mix, butter, egg, flour, baking cocoa and vanilla. Mix in chips. Scoop out 1 to 2 tbs cookie dough and roll into a ball. You can leave them plain or stuff them with kisses. Place on prepared sheet. Bake 10 minutes (no longer). Immediately after removing from oven, Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cool completely. Sprinkle with more powdered sugar. Store in covered container.

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a wonderful day, filled with love, peace and joy.

Red velvet oreo bars topped with fudge and oreos

I wanted to whip up something for work tomorrow morning. I saw this box of red velvet cake mix and decided make it into bars with a fudge topping and crushed oreos. I also thought about adding m&ms, but that might have been a bit much! You can use whatever cake mix flavor you want.

  • Bars ingredients list
  • 1 red velvet cake mix
  • 2 eggs
  • 8 tbs butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes so it cycles to the right temp. Line a 9×13 pan with tin foil and spray with baking spray. In a bowl, combine cake mix, eggs and butter. Press evenly into prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes. (No longer). While bars and baking, make the fudge topping

  • Fudge topping ingredients
  • 1/3 cup evaporated milk
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups milk chocolate chips
  • 8 tbs butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla

In a saucepan, combine butter, sugar and evaporated milk. Cook, stirring occasionally, to a boil. Remove from heat. Add chips and stir until melted. Blend in vanilla. Pour over cooled bars.

Sprinkle with crushed oreos.

Store in covered container. Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you have a wonderful day, filled with peace, joy and love.

Caramel bars with an oreo crust

Caramel bars with an oreo crust

This is a fabulous, yet pretty easy treat to whip up. It features an oreo crust, homemade caramel and melted milk chocolate on top. You will need oreos, butter, heavy cream, brown sugar and chocolate. I made these in a bread pan. I used a food processor to crush the oreos, but you can also use a rolling pin.

  • Oreo crust ingredients
  • 30 oreos, finely crushed
  • 6 tbs butter, melted

Line a bread pan with tin foil. In a bowl, combine crushed oreos and butter. Press in bottom of foiled pan. Freeze 15 minutes.

  • Caramel filling
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 8 tbs butter
  • 2 tbs heavy cream

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar and butter. Cook over low-medium heat, whisking, to a boil. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in heavy cream. Let set for 15 minutes. Pour over oreo crust.

Top with melted chocolate. Chill 30 minutes. Cut and store in covered container.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Wishing you a day of peace, love and joy.

Chocolate stuffed cookies

Chocolate stuffed cookies

In an effort to use up our remaining Halloween candy (Rob bought 24 bags, but we only used 15), I opted for a stuffed cookie. These are chocolate and use melted chocolate chips in the batter. Half of these are stuffed with Reese’s peanut butter cups, the other half with oreos. We have a lot of oreos around too, plus not everyone loves peanut butter. So people can tell the difference, I placed 3 white chocolate chips on the top of the oreo stuffed cookies.

Remember to spoon your flour from your flour bag into your measuring cup so you get the right amount. I chilled these overnight to keep the dough from. Spreading too much. Preheat yourboven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking so your oven cycles to the right temp. Don’t bake these longer than 10 to 12 minutes because the bottoms will burn. These will firm up after you take them out of the oven.

  • Ingredients list
  • 10 tbs butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 2/3 cups dark chocolate chips, melted
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup baking cocoa
  • 2 tsp baking powder

Directions – cream butter, brown sugar and sugar. Blend in melted chocolate. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Fold in dry ingredients. Scoop out 2 to 3 tbs of dough and evenly divide in half. Slightly flatten each half.

On one half, place a peanut butter cup or oreo

Top with remaining flattened half of cookie dough

Seal edges to completley cover oreo or peanut butter cup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking. On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or nonstick baking liners, stagger cookies.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes (no longer or else the bottoms could burn)

Cool completely and store in covered container.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Wishing you a wonderful day filled with joy, love and peace

Small batch, XL Peanut butter cookies

XL Peanut Butter cookies topped with melted hershey kisses

It is rainy and windy here today, so I am baking more cookies (in addition to steak pizziaola), as we watch hockey. Instead of putting a Hersey kiss on top to make peanut blossoms, I melted a bunch of Hersey kisses and out that on top of the cookies instead.

Cookie monster!

A couple of notes about these cookies – I used a mix of cake flour and all purpose flour. If you don’t have cake flour, you make make it by adding 1/2 tbs of cornstarch to 1/2 cup flour and soft together. Remember to scoop your flour from your flour bag into your measuring cup so you get the right amount. I froze the cookie mounds for 30 minutes to help prevent spreading. I preheated the oven to 410 degrees for 20 minutes before baking. I did not cook these longer than 13 minutes. I did not want them to get too done and dry out.

These make 5 really big cookies. You can double the recipe and make 10 if you want.

  • Ingredients list
  • 12 cup butter, cold, grated with a cheese grater or cut into small cubes
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • 1/2 tsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 cup cake flour
  • 1 cup flour

Directions – cream butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add egg, vanilla and peanut butter. Blend in dry ingredients. Divide evenly into 5 pieces of dough and roll into tall mounds. Roll each in sugar. Freeze at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 410 degrees for 20 minutes. On a cookie sheet lined with nonstick baking liners or parchment paper, place 5 cookies on it, leaving room between each because cookies spread. Bake 10 to 13 minutes. No longer than 13 minutes. Cool completely.

Topping – in a bowl, combine 20 unwrapped hershey kisses with 1 tsp vegetable oil. Microwave in 30 second increments until you can stir smooth. Spoon on top of cooled cookies. Store in covered container.

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you have a day filled with happiness, love and kindness!

Triple chip cookies

Triple chip cookies

I am absolutely delighted how these turned out. Huge mounds of puffy goodness. I do not like flat cookies! I am not quite sure why. These were a last minute request from Rob, so I used crisco, which I believe helped with the puffiness. I also made peanut butter cookies and those are not his bag, if you will, so I whipped up a few of these triple chip cookies, which we also call “the franks” because our friend Frank loves them!

Look at all those chips!

Remember to scoop your flour from your flour bag into your measuring cup so you get the right amount. Also preheat your oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking so it cycles to the right tem (a tip from a Sears appliances tech – thanks Stanley for the invaluable advice). If you use butter instead of crisco, I recommend chilling the mounds of dough for a few hours or freeze them for 30 minutes to avoid them spreading too much.

This recipe made 8 good size cookies (I uses 1/4 cup dough scoop for each one)

  • Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup crisco
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1.7 ounce instant vanilla pudding mix
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions – preheat your oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or nonstick baking liners. In a bowl, cream crisco and brown sugar. Add pudding mix. Blend in vanilla, egg, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Fold in flour. Stir in chips. ( I used my hands to blend the dough together once I added the chips). Scoop out 1/4 cups of dough and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 13 minutes. You will see golden patches on top. Cool completely. Store in covered container.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Wishing you a day filled with peace, love and joy!

Mini chocolate chip cutouts

I hope you can tell this is a Christmas tree

For my first cutout cookies of the season, I opted for a mini chocolate chip recipe and tossed in a few mini m&ms. I like my cookies thick, so these spread out a little more than I prefer. I will try to tweak the recipe to see if I can remedy that. I do recommend mini chocolate chips because the dough is easier to cut with cookie cutters.

These are very old, yet I can’t part with them!

I made my cutouts into cookie sandwiches because I am a terrible decorator. I use a simple vanilla and /or chocolate frosting.

A gingerbread man
Flip the gingerbread man upside down and you have a reindeer

Notes – remember to scoop your flour from your flour bag into your measuring cup. If you chill the dough, take it out a few hours before so it is easier to roll. And preheat your oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking so your oven cycles to the right temp.

  • Ingredients
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup crisco
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 cup mini chocolate chips
  • 1 cup mini m&ms (or you can use another cup of mini chips)

Directions – preheat oven to 350 degrees for 20 minutes before baking. Line a cookie sheet with nonstick baking liners or parchment paper. In a bowl, cream butter, crisco, brown sugar, sugar, vanilla and salt. Blend in yolks. Fold in flour. Dough may take a while to come together. Add a tbs or 2 or water if you want to help blend dough. Mix in chips and m&ms. On a floured surface, roll and cut. Place on your prepared cookie sheet. Bake one sheet at a time, for ten minutes. Cool completley.

Frosting – combine 2 tbs butter (melted), with 2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbs milk, 1 tsp vanilla. You can add more milk or powdered sugar to get the texture you want. I added green food coloring

These are a Christmas tree, Santa’s ans stockings
A stocking sandwich cookie.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Appreciate you!

For those who have not entered the “this is too sweet” phase of life.

Tollhouse pie!

I am late posting this,but here is the recipe for the pie I made for Thanksgiving. It is a version of tollhouse pie (some also call it Derby pie). I opted to make a chocolate pie crust, but the traditional flakey pie crust works too.

It is pretty sweet, too sweet for me.. so I have apparently entered the “too sweet. Too salt. Too loud. Too tired” phase of life. Yowsa!

Remember to preheat your oven for 20 minutes before baking.

  • Ingredients for pie crust (king Arthur flour recipe)
  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup baking cocoa
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 10 tbs butter, cut into cubes
  • 5 tbs cold water

Directions – preheat oven to 350 degrees before baking. In a bowl, combine flour, baking cocoa, and powdered sugar. Using a fork or pastry blender, blend in cubed butter. Mix in water, one tbs at a time. Once well mixed, roll into a ball. Press evenly into prepared 9 inch pie tin. Set aside. Do not bake yet.

  • Filling ingredients
  • 1 cup corn syrup
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup melted butter
  • 1 tbs vanilla
  • 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions – blend corn syrup and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Blend in butter and vanilla. Mix in 1 cup chips. Pour batter into unbaked crust. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup chips on top. Bake in preheated oven, 350 degrees for 55 to 75 minutes, until top is relativelt firm. Keep an eye on the pie, as baking times can vary. Cool completley. Store in covered container.

Thanks for stopping by today! I wish you much love and happiness. Also, remember to be kind. You never know what battle a person is facing

Chocolate chip/chocolate chocolate chip cookies

While trying to decide between. A chocolate chip and chocolate chocolate chip cookie, I just decided to combine them and present this monstrosity for the Bills victory cookies. Wow, does my mood change after a win.

I decided to brown the butter with these. You don’t have to, but browned butter can give treats a unique and delicious taste. I recommend chilling this dough. Remember to spoon your flour from your flour bag into your measuring cup and to preheat your oven to 325 degrees before baking. I baked these for 18 minutes. I have no idea if they are done, but did not want to burn them. I think my ESPN friends will still be happy with them.

Here are some tips to brown butter – cook it in a pan over low to medium heat, stirring occasionally, until you see little brown bits. Remove from heat and cool 5 to 10 minutes.

Cookie monster!
  • Chocolate chip cookie dough
  • 3/4 cup butter, browned
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tbs cornstarch
  • 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions – in a bowl, combine browned butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add egg, yolk and vanilla. Blend in dry ingredients. Stir in chips

  • Chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough
  • 3/4 cup butter browned
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup baking cocoa
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tbs cornstarch
  • 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions – in a bowl, combine browned butter, brown sugar, sugar. Add egg, yolk and vanilla. Blend in dry ingredients. Mix in chips.

Forming the cookies – scoop out 3 tbs of each dough and mold together, forming a tall mounds of dough. Chill a few hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Stagger cookies on it.

This is what I mean by staggering cookies

Bake 15 to 18 minutes (you will see a few golden patches on top). Cool completley. Store in covered container.

Now that’s a cookie!

Thanks for stopping by today!!! Sending you love, peace and joy!