Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

People that know me, know that when I'm stressed, like really stressed, I like to bake/and or eat sweets.  I've been like this for as long as I can remember.  Sometimes, I'll just grab something at the store, but most of the time, I will make something from scratch.  Yesterday was no exception. I received a call that my parents had been in a car accident. It is awful having to sit around (being 10 hours away from my parents), and wait for a phone call to know that everything is ok. It reminds me of the first time my sister and I made chocolate chip cookies all by ourselves. Our cousin had gotten into a accident with our youngest brother and sister. Because my sister and I were so worried, we made cookies. They were AWFUL. I remember that my Grandpa kept eating them saying how good they were until my mom made him stop because all you could really taste was baking powder!  I swear, I've gotten better at baking since then.

While waiting around, my daughter and I made these chocolate chocolate chip cookies. I made this recipe up myself so it's a cookie I'm really proud of.

 Ingredients (minus salt and eggs)

First things first. As with almost every cookie recipe, you start with softened butter.  Once your butter is softened, add your sugar and brown sugar. Combine both until creamy.

Cutest helper every mixing in the sugars

Add in your eggs and mix well.

Doesn't that look.... nice.

Once the eggs are mixed in add your dry ingredients.  I am not one to use separate bowls, so I just pile all the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt) on top of the wet mixture and stir.  I ALWAYS add the chocolate chips last because I almost always taste the dough first.

Dry ingredients piled on

 All mixed (minus the chips)

Once you mix in the chocolate chips (I did not photo this), place the dough on your baking/cookie sheet. I usually use a cookie dough scoop, but this time I just guesstimated about a tablespoon of dough and plopped them onto the sheet. I got about 24 cookies from this. Bake them for about 9minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Ready for baking

 

Done

The thing I love about these cookies is that they bake with a crispiness on the outside and a softness on the inside. I love the mix of crisp and soft.  I also really enjoy the chocolatey flavor these have.  Kaedence enjoying making them too, though she regretted sticking her finger and tasting the plain flour and cocoa powder. And yes, I laughed at that.

Recipe

1 stick softened butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (or more) chocolate chips  *I like lots of chocolate chips*

Combine butter and sugars until creamy

Add egg and mix well

Add all dry ingredients, mix well

Add chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto baking sheet

Bake in a 350 Degree oven for about 9min.

 Closeup of the cookie

Thankfully, everyone came out of the accident fine albeit bruised and battered. Their car wasn't so lucky. But, cars are replaceable. Parent's aren't.  I don't want to come off preachy (especially since this is a cooking blog and mostly happy), but I just wanted to say: Seat belts are important. Airbags are needed. Wear one and make sure your car has the other.

And on that note... Enjoy this recipe  <3

Easy Individual Beef Wellington

I don't know if anyone watches Hells Kitchen, but I do. I LOVE me some Gordon Ramsey.  One of the things that the chefs constantly cook on Hells Kitchen is Beef Wellington. It's one of the things that they almost always screw up ("It's RAW!!").  For some reason after seeing it messed up time and time again, I wanted to try my hand at making it.  I'd say for my first time, they came out pretty freaking perfect. There are a few things I would modify, All in all though, I'd say it was a great first try!

Ingredients

Surprisingly, it was not very hard to make.  The prep was pretty intense though. The first step is thawing the puff pastry. It takes about 40 minutes to thaw. I just put them on a plate to thaw. The next step is seasoning the steaks.  You rub them with olive oil and then salt and pepper them to your liking.  Then you cook them in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes. Then you refrigerate them for about 10 minutes.

Seasoned uncooked steak

After 10 minutes of cooking

While it's in the fridge, you can start prepping the puff pastry. I used 1 sheet for both steaks. I cut the pastry in half and on a floured surface, rolled it out. You don't want it rolled out too thin, but thin enough to cover the steak. Once it's rolled out, you place about a spoonful of the mushroom soup on the pastry and spread it a bit.

Ready for the steak

 

Place your chilled steak on top of the mushroom soup and place another spoonful of mushroom soup on top of the steak and spread it around to coat the streak.  Carefully fold the pastry up and over the steak, sealing it in. Brush it with a bit of water to seal the pastry closed.  Repeat the process for the second steak. Once they are both sealed, place seam side down on to a baking sheet. Take a small bowl and whisk together 1 egg and 2 tablespoons of milk. Brush your egg mixture over both pastry wrapped steaks.

Brushed with egg and ready for cooking

Pop in a 450 degree oven for 15-25 minutes or until golden brown. I cooked mine for about 20 minutes, but I think they would have been even better if I had taken them out at 15. I like my steaks RED.  I did have some bubble out of the mushroom soup too, but I think I was very generous with it so next time I just wouldn't use as much.

Perfectly golden brown

Once you take them out of the oven, you want to let the steaks sit for about 5 minutes and then cut into them. We just cut both steaks in half. We ate ours with broccoli and salad but you can really serve anything you want with them. They came out really, really good. And they tasted great.  Very happy for my first real culinary feat!

Recipe

2 6-8oz Filet Mignon

1 TB Olive Oil (give or take)

1 Can Condensed Mushroom Soup (you'll use about half)

1 Sheet Puff Pastry (I used half a box of Pepperidge Farm frozen pastry)

1 Egg

2 TB Milk

Salt and Pepper to taste

Rub both sides of steaks with olive oil. Salt and pepper. Place on cookie sheet.Bake at 450º degrees for 10 minutes. Chill 10 minutes.

Cut pastry sheet in half. Roll out the thawed pastry sheet to 8” diameter (big enough to wrap each steak).

Spread about a tablespoon of mushroom soup on the pastry shell and place the steak on it and then spread another tablespoon over the top of the steak

Bring pastry up over steak and wrap completely. Brush with water to seal. Place, seam-side down on baking sheet.

Beat together the egg and milk in a small bowl. Brush mixture over steaks.

Bake at 450º degrees for 15 - 25 minutes or until golden.

Take out of oven and let rest for about 5 minutes before serving.


Hope you find this recipe as easy as I did!

Slutty Brownie Cups

A couple months ago, I made these Chocolate Chip Cookie & Oreo Fudge Brownie Bars. This recipe is a spin/updated version of that.  These came out MUCH better than the bars did. It also uses boxed brownie mix, and refrigerated cookie dough so the prep time isn't as long as the bars.

 Ingredients 

I'm sure you all are wondering about the name.  Well, Chocolate Chip Cookie & Oreo Fudge Brownie is super long. Like SUPER long.  And in an interview, Jessica Simpson called them Slutty Brownie bars. One quick internet search showed me that a lot of people do indeed call them Slutty Brownies. So, voila: Slutty Brownie Cups!

The first thing you want to do is grease your muffin pan. And grease it well. You want to make sure these babies come out of the pan in one piece (more on that fun later). Once it's greased you want to smash 1 1/2 pieces of cookie dough into the bottom of each muffin cup.

Once you have the cookie dough all set, place one Oreo in the middle of each cup and press down to incorporate it into the cookie dough. You do not want it to just be sitting on top.  We used double stuffed Oreo's but you may want to use original because the double stuffed Oreos did take up a LOT of the space in the cups.

Ready for the chocolate topping

You are now ready for the brownie portion! You could probably have the brownie mix ready to go before this point, but I had forgotten about it until I was ready for it.  You just prepare the brownie mix according to the box. No variations required. My favorite boxed mix is Betty Crocker's Dark Chocolate.  Once your mix is prepared you spoon it over the oreo & cookie dough until the cups are 3/4 of the way filled. 

As you can tell from the above picture, my cups were filled to the brim. DON'T DO THIS!  I had major overflow and it made this first batch almost impossible to get out of the pan in one piece. My second batch, which I failed to photo before cooking, were filled much better.  You cook this for about 18 minutes in a 350 degree oven. 

All Done

 How the inside looked

Once you've let them cool completely, you are ready to remove the Slutty Brownie Cups from the pan. I used a butter knife to scrape around the edges and then just popped them out. The first batch went awful, but the second batch was MUCH easier to get out.

On a side note... I don't have a recipe really for this, but I did have leftover cookie dough and brownie mix after I had filled all my muffin cups. So with the leftovers I filled a greased mini muffin pan with brownie mix (each cup about 1/2 filled) then pushed in about 1/4 of a piece of cookie dough, then topped with more brownie mix (so now it's 3/4 filled), then baked for 18 minutes.  So I had mini cookie dough filled brownie bites! 

Mini Cookie Dough filled Brownie Bites

Since I had made a double batch of the Slutty Brownie Cups, we had TONS. I made them for a 4th of July cookout and I kid you not, every one of them was eaten by the next morning. Including my Cookie Dough Brownie Bites. Even all the rejects got eaten. So if that isn't a sign that these were delish, I don't know what is!

Recipe: *single batch*

1 box Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix (prepare according to box)

1 pkg Ready to Bake Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (24 count)

12 Double Stuffed Oreo's

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees

Grease muffin pan generously

Smash 1 1/2 pieces of cookie dough in each muffin cup

Top each one with an oreo and press down slightly

Prepare Brownie Mix according to box

Top each cup with brownie mix, filling cup to 3/4 filled.

Bake for 18 minutes.

Cool COMPLETELY before removing.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Fourth of July!!

Pepperoni Pizza Quiche

I made this quiche a month ago, but somehow forgot to post about it.  It was a huge hit in my house.  I find quiche's REALLY easy to make.  Especially since you can make them ahead of time and just reheat. I also find that I like the flavor better eating it the next day (as leftovers). I think it's because the herbs and spices having more time to sit have more flavor. Naturally, I got this recipe from Pinterest and it is from the Carnation Website.

Ingredients

 Cheese sprinkled Pie crust

The first thing you do is take your frozen pie crust and sprinkle 1 cup (half the package) of shredded Italian cheese. Then cover the cheese with pepperoni.  The recipe called for chopping the pepperoni, but I used mini sized ones, so I didn't bother. It is really up to your preference. 

I'll admit, I ate quite a few pepperoni's while making this. We are BIG pepperoni lovers.  Once you start the first layer, you start on the filling. Whisk evaporated milk, eggs, flour, basil and garlic powder in bowl until blended. Then pour the mixture into your pie shell. The pepperoni's I had laid in the bottom of the shell floated to the top. Not sure if that was supposed to happen, but I doubt it would matter.

See?

Then top  off your quiche with the remaining cheese and pepperoni.  Then bake in a 350 degree oven for 40-45min. 

Ready for baking!

 Done!

Once it is done, let cool and eat or you can pop it in the fridge to eat later! The next time I make this, I may try sausage. Or sausage AND pepperoni.  Good thing is, you could pretty much throw any meat in here and I'm sure it would be good. And in my opinion, it's a really kid friendly recipe. What kid doesn't like eggs or anything that resembles pie or pizza?? Enjoy!

Recipe:

1 unbaked Deep Dish Pie Crust  *I used Pillsbury*

1 8oz pkg shredded Italian Cheese

2oz Pepperoni (about 20-30)    *You can chop these if you choose, I did not*

1 12oz Can Evaporated Milk

3 Large Eggs

2 Tablespoons AP Flour

1 Teaspoon dried Basil

1/8 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Sprinkle 1 cup of Italian Cheese into Pie Shell.

Top with half of your pepperoni.

Whisk evaporated milk, eggs, flour, basil and garlic powder in medium bowl until blended. Pour mixture into pie shell. 

Sprinkle with remaining cheese and top with the rest of your pepperoni.

Place quiche on baking sheet.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. 

Cool for 5 minutes before serving.

S'mores Tart

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone enjoyed their day.  We finally got completely settled and unpacked in our new apartment. That with the blueberry pancakes my husband made for breakfast and the fact that he and my almost three year old had cleaned up and organized ALL her toys before I got out of bed... Well, who could ask for a better present??

For my special Mother's Day treat, I wanted to make something easy and quick that my daughter could help make. I've been seeing the displays at the store for S'mores and I LOVE them. However, they aren't exactly toddler friendly.  I couple years back, my husband and I made these S'more tarts (like mini pies) just on a whim.  So I decided to make them again. They are SUPER easy and are only three ingredients: Chocolate Chips, Marshmallow Creme and Mini Graham cracker crusts.

 Ingredients

Best Invention Ever

Lay out your crusts on a cookie/baking sheet.  Then fill your crusts about halfway to 3/4 full with chocolate chips. I put about 2 handfuls in each one. Or like 6 child handfuls if you have a special helper. Now, most people know that I am partial to Nestle semi-sweet chips. However, for these I love Hershey's Special Dark chips.

She spent more time eating than filling.

Once they are filled to your liking, pop them into a preheated oven for about 2 min. This is to melt the chocolate chips so you get a nice layer. They should look like the picture below when they are done.

MMM Glistening melted chocolate

Once I take them out of the oven, I usually give them each a good shake. Chocolate chips hold their shape pretty well when melted so shaking allows them to spread out. Now I caution that these will be HOT. So I place one on an oven-mitted hand and using my other hand, tap the crust until the chocolate smooths into a somewhat even layer. Once you've done that to each one, add a dollop of Marshmallow Creme. It does not have to cover the whole top. It will spread a bit once it goes back in the oven.

Topped with Marshmallow Creme!

Notice how in my picture they are NOT perfect. Once they puff up a little bit you can smoosh them a bit to cover all of the chocolate and move it around a bit.  So, once you have placed the creme on top, pop them back in the oven. I usually leave them in until they start to brown a bit on the top. I didn't leave them in as long today because I was kind of rushed.  Usually it's about 10 or so minutes. Also, if you save them for the next day and reheat, you get a crispy shell of marshmallow on top that is SO good.  

Slightly Browned

Once done, they just need a few minutes to cool and then they are all set to eat.  Like I said, super easy.  Plus they are so unbelievably less messy than traditional S'mores.  Like eat them with a spoon or fork not messy.  And as always, the vote that most matters. Kaedence LOVED them.

Recipe

1 pkg Keebler Mini Graham Cracker Crusts

1 bag Hershey Special Dark Chocolate Chips (you'll use about half or so)

1 Jar Marshmallow Fluff

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees

Place pie crusts on cookie/baking sheet

Fill crusts half to 3/4 full of chocolate chips

Heat in oven about 2 min

Shake each crust individually so an even layer of chocolate forms

Top each crust with a generous dollop of Marshmallow Creme

Pop back in oven for about 10min or until your preferred brownness has been achieved.

Allow a few minutes to cool and enjoy! 

Again, I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and Mother's Day!

Buttercream Eggs

 

I'll admit it... I'm cheating. I did not actually make these. At least not this year.  Sadly, now that the girls and I have relocated to Pittsburgh and are staying in a 1 bedroom apartment while we find a permanent residence, most (albeit all) of my baking equipment is in NC. Bummer. I'm really upset about my now inability to bake and the fact that I can't make these super yummy Buttercream eggs that I LOVE to make and eat for Easter. My mom would make these for Easter and I was really excited about keeping up that tradition with my family. So the fact that I can't make them stinks! But I did take pictures when I made them last year for Easter so I will just use those.

 Buttercream Ingredients

These are really easy and simple to make and only use 4 ingredients (counting the chocolate they are dipped in). I prefer to make these using the KitchenAid mixer, but you could use a hand mixer too. The first step is to soften your butter. You want it room temperature NOT melted. Once it's soft toss it in the bowl. I usually will give the butter a spin just so it's already a bit stirred. In my opinion it helps with the mixing. Then you SLOWLY add the confectioners sugar to your butter. You want to be mixing as you add the sugar.

Mixing in the Confectioners Sugar

Once the sugar is all mixed in, you add your teaspoon of vanilla. Stir for an extra minute to make sure the vanilla is evenly mixed. Now the fun part! Take small amounts of your 'dough' and with your clean hands, roll and form it into egg shapes.  It is up to you how big or small you want to make them. Place the eggs on a cookie or baking sheet lined with parchment paper and refrigerate for a couple of hours until they are nice and firm. The colder they are, the easier they will be to dip.

My not so uniform 'eggs'

Once your eggs have chilled and hardened you can start melting your chocolate.  I like using Nestle Semi-Sweet chocolate chips, but you can use whatever chocolate or candy melts you like.  I also typically use a double boiler to melt my chocolate. I have had not so great experience with burning chocolate in the microwave.

MMM Melted goodness

 

Once your chocolate is melted, you take your buttercream eggs one by one and dip them into the chocolate making sure they are totally covered. I've found that sticking a toothpick in the egg and dipping it is pretty easy. Though this time, I was out and used two spoons to roll the egg through the chocolate.  Once it's covered you want to let some of the excess chocolate drip off before placing the egg back on the parchment paper. After you've dipped all the eggs, place them back into the fridge until the chocolate hardens. 

All Dipped!

Now you want to keep these stored in the fridge. I pop them off the tray and keep them in a Tupperware container. I'm not really sure how long these stay good for since they RARELY make it past a week in my house. 

Recipe

1 Stick of Butter (Softened NOT melted)

1 Box (1LB) Powdered/Confectioners Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

12-24oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips *I like a thick covering of chocolate so it's better to have more*

Soften Butter

Using mixer, add in all Confectioners Sugar

Add in the teaspoon of Vanilla Extract and mix well

Taking small amounts of your dough, form into egg shapes

Place on parchment paper and refrigerate until firm.

Melt Chocolate using double boiler

Dip eggs one by one into chocolate coating well

Place back on parchment paper and refrigerate until chocolate hardens

Keep in fridge!

 

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter and I hope you all like this recipe!

Mel's Famous Fudge!!

Now, I don't want to toot my own horn or anything... but if there is one thing I am known for making, it is FUDGE. I've been making it for years and have tweaked recipes until I came up with my own. I started making this in High School a whopping 10 YEARS ago. The last few years, I haven't made it as often, but it is still one of my favorite things to make while I'm visiting family. 

Ingredients

Now, my recipe makes like a lot of fudge (some thing like 4-5lbs or about 2 cake pans and some left over to eat out of the pot) and uses a LOT of sugar.  You can make a smaller batch by just halving everything. I always make a lot because I usually end up bringing some to my in-laws or to my old work. 

The first step is the easiest.  You melt the butter, add the evaporated milk and stir until combined. Then you add your sugar. And stir, stir, stir!

Mixing in the sugar

This next step is probably the hardest. Once the sugar is mixed, you bring the mixture to a rapid boil.  Now, at this point, most people will use a candy thermometer or a softball test, but I don't. I test for done-ness by checking the spoon to see if the sugar has dissolved.  It typically takes about 5 after the mixture starts boiling. If you boil to long, you will end up with fudge that is super hard (and gets hard once you add the chocolate). That sorta happened to me this time. It wasn't that bad, but I knew I had done it a bit too long. If you don't boil long enough, you can end up with gritty fudge. Confession time... When I first started making fudge, I didn't realize you had to boil until the sugar dissolved. I would bring it to a boil, then add the chocolate. So my fudge was SUPER gritty. And people still ate it and talked about how good it was!!!!

Boiling

Checking the spoon

Now, I'm sure taking pictures didn't exactly help my timing. So, once you have dissolved the sugar, turn your heat off and add in your chocolate chips stirring until the chocolate is melted. Then you immediately stir in the marshmallow fluff.  At this point I usually have someone help me stir because it gets really thick and can by hard to stir.

 My sister's boyfriend helping stir in the Fluff

As soon as the fluff has been mixed in, you pour the fudge into greased pans.  I used just a regular square cake pan and then tried using some heart mold pans.  The heart ones weren't as easy to fill as I thought. But they did pop out easy and were nice looking to gift to people.

PANS

My favorite part about making fudge is eating it out of the pot.  I always leave a bit extra in the pot and my mom, sisters and I will just grab some spoons and eat the super warm fudge. YUMMY.  

Recipe

1 Stick of Butter

10oz Evaporated Milk

5  Cups of Sugar

24oz of Chocolate Chips (2 standard 12oz bags)

3/4 Container of Marshmallow Fluff (15oz container)

Melt butter in large pot

Add evaporated milk and stir to combine

Add Sugar slowly, stirring constantly

Bring to boil of medium-high heat. STIR  CONSTANTLY (it will burn to bottom if you let sit)

Boil for 5 minutes or until sugar is dissolved

Add Chocolate chips and stir until melted

Add 3/4 container of Marshmallow Fluff and stir until combined. *Best guess of amount is fine. I'm sure I never get it exactly right*

Pour immediately into greased pans. 

Let cool.

 

Eat and enjoy!!!!