My very Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think I could be the next cookie monster. He was definitely my favorite Sesame Street character. But did you know, that now, Cookie Monster also eats healthy food. What's the point in calling him Cookie Monster if he eats other things too...?Dumb. This is is too funny Cookie Monster v. Martha Stewart . I crack up EVERY time.

Here is a fun fact. Growing up our school buses were named after Sesame Street characters. Instead of kids having to remember numbers they just had to remember the Sesame Street character, which was easy because they had their pictures on the bus. I rode Count. 1! AH..HA...HA 2! AH..HA..HA. I think it was a clever and helpful idea.

I made Chocolate Chip Cookies a few weeks ago and I was underwhelmed at how they turned out, The flavor was pretty good, but I just wasn't super impressed with the over all look and taste. I didn't want to be bested by a cookie so I began devising a plan to beat my original recipe. I schemed and plotted then stewed my ideas waiting for the precise moment to attack. I waited and then last night I pounced like a tiger, the cookies were mine. MUAHAHAHAHA....

But seriously, I wanted to make a fabulous cookie, and I think this is. I did a few things differently and then I made them much bigger than I normally do. It made a smaller batch, but who really needs 3 dozen cookies...(me!)

I think you should make these the next time you have a chocolate chip cookie craving.

1 C. Brown Sugar
1/2 C. Sugar
1/2 C. Browned butter
2 Eggs
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Vanilla
2 1/2 C Flour
1 C. Chopped Bittersweet Chocolate
1/2 C. Toasted Pecans

Pre-heat oven to 350

Over medium heat brown the butter until it's bubbly and a dark amber color. In a medium sized mixing bowl add sugars then mix in browned butter. Add eggs one at a time. I added just the yolks here then the whites just before the chocolate chips. I'm not sure it made a difference.  Mix in vanilla, baking soda and salt. Now gradually add the flour, one cup at a time. Now the best part! Fold in your chopped chocolate and toasted nuts.
I chopped 5 (squares) oz of chocolate for this and coarsely chopped 1/2 cup of pecans. I toasted the pecans over medium heat. Shuffle the pan while the nuts cook so they toast evenly.

Using a 1/4 C. measuring cup scoop out 4 - 5 cookies per sheet. No need to grease the pan. Bake for 10 minutes. If you have multiple trays in at once swap the top rack trays for the bottom rack tray at about 5 minutes. Allow cookies to slightly cool before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Pour yourself a tall glass of cold milk and dig in!

Piece.

Butterfinger Ice Cream

I don't have any pictures for this, but the recipe is SO easy and the ice cream is crazy good. As you will recall from two or so posts ago, I have and ice cream and I'm super excited for it.

                                    

I was getting an itch to bake something but really didn't feel like turning the oven. Summer has officially started here, 90's plus in temperature every day and what feels like 85 percent humidity. You may think I'm exaggerating, but no. Summers in Raleigh NC are brutal. Eventually it gets too humid and storms mid-day every day. And one may think the rain would cool off the later part of the day, but you are wrong, very wrong. Instead of cooling down the surface, you get stuck in this awful humid haze of hard to breath air trying to be sucked back into the air while the earth is trying to suck it up. Then the sun comes out and starts to heat the Earth again (as if the morning half wasn't enough), all the while you have this awful humid haze that feels like you are walking and water. Then to make it more enjoyable all you smell are earth worms and hot wet pavement... ugh...

I shouldn't complain though, we made it all the way until the end of May without going over 90, where as last year we didn't even make it through the first week of April. Oh, I would also like to add that summer lasts here until like October... awesome (insert sarcasm here).

But onto better more delightful things, ice cream.

I wanted to make coffee ice cream, but RJ doesn't like it, so I made something at his request. Next time coffee, I heart coffee ice cream. I heart it more than regular coffee, which isn't that impressive because I only kinda-sorta- like coffee. I do like the dolled up coffee drinks though :) So, he requested Butterfinger Ice cream. I searched around a bit and found a recipe to follow. I was good and the cool thing was no eggs. I don't like tempering eggs, too easy to mess up...

Butterfinger Ice Cream:

1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1/2 C. Peanut Butter

1 C.  Heavy Cream

2 1/2.C.  Whole Milk

1 tsp Vanilla

1 C. Crushed Butterfingers (7 fun sized)

In a small pan over medium low heat melt peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk together. Remove from heat stir in milk and cream. Mix in vanilla and refrigerate until cool. Add mixture to ice cream maker and follow manufacturers directions.

I mixed my for 30 minutes then added the crushed butterfingers and let that go for another five minutes. It has a really soft consitency. Place in an air tight container and put in freezer. Will keep for at least a week, unless of course you finish it off before the week is over.

Piece. 

Too good to name Cupcakes

I know ya'll know I love desserts, and I'm sure you know I love cupcakes, but these may, just may take the cake. Yesterday I was discussing with my oldest sister cupcakes. What she has made, what type I should make etc etc. Anywho, she suggested a banana salted caramel cupcake which I thought was funny because I literally, not two days early, had been thinking about the same flavor combo. Great minds think a like!

But today I wasn't going to make that flavor combo just yet, I was going to make a coconut-lime white chocolate cupcake, sounds good right? I think so...but I didn't make that.  My sis planted a salted carmel frosting in my mind I just couldn't shake it. My mind was consumed. So, I googled how to make it and then I bing-ed how to make it. I was hesitant, I wasn't sure I wanted to boil sugar, looks dangerous. Then I remembered I was a Pirate and I laugh in the face of danger... HA!

So Salted Carmel Butter cream was chosen as my frosting. Banana cake, however was not my cake choice, Dark Chocolate cake was. Oh yea, think about that combo for a minute, I'm hitting your salty taste buds, sweet taste buds and bitter. FABULOUS!

As you may remember from my previous posts,I haven't had luck with chocolate cake. This recipe I think, may be keeper, maybe. It's a fudgier more brownie like, but I think it pairs well with this frosting. Let me be honest with you though, anything would pair well with this frosting.

Since I'm being honest, I'll give you a heads up. This cupcake isn't exactly a weight-watchers dessert, it's more anti weight-watchers, in a really good I-can't-help-but-eat-two-of-you kind of way. Just trust me, make this.

Salted Carmel Butter Cream:
1/2 C  Sugar
4 Tbs Water
1/2 C  Heavy cream
2 tsp   Vanilla
1 1/2  Sticks Salted Butter
2 C. Powdered Sugar

In a medium sized sauce pan add water and sugar. Only stir to combine, nothing more. Place over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Do not stir sugar water, it could cause crystallization. If you feel the need to stir, just give the pan a little swirl. Allow the sugar to boil to an amber color, this happens after about 6 minutes of boiling. Be very careful, the sugar go from light brown to amber to burnt in less than a minute. Once the sugar turns amber, remove it from the heat. Gradually stir the cream into the hot mixture. Adding the cream will cause the sugar to bubble up something fierce to slowly add it. Stir with a wooden spoon and add vanilla until all lumps are removed. Set aside and allow mixture to cool. About 25 minutes.

In a medium bowl beat the butter until fluffy then gradually add the powdered sugar. Once the butter and sugar are combine slowly add the carmel. I added about 3/4 of the caramel and left the rest to drizzle of the cupcake. Once everything is combine put it into the refrigerator until ready to use.

Dark Chocolate Cupcake:
1 1/2 Stick Butter
4oz Bittersweet Chocolate (chopped)
3/4 C Flour
1 C Sugar
2  Eggs
1/8 C Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp Vanilla
3/4 tsp Baking powder
Pinch of Salt

Melt together the butter and bittersweet chocolate. Add to sugar and combine. Add eggs one at a time allowing them to combine before adding the next. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl when needed. Fill wells 3/4 full. Bake for 25 minutes. Once out of the oven allow muffins to cool for 10 minutes then remove from pan and cool on a rack. Frost with frosting and eat eat eat!

Piece!

Strawberry Ice Cream!

Oh man, I have an Ice Cream machine!!!! I have been wanting one for at least 4 months now. Ha! That's not a long time, but it feels like it has been. I came home last week and saw a package sitting outside the town home and I thought to myself, great what did RJ get now?!( Just kidding I don't care what RJ gets) But then I took a closer look and the packing tape was labeled Bed Bath and Beyond, RJ doesn't get things from there... hmmm. I take another step closer, I see it's addressed to me, what could it be? I unlock the door to my house and bust into the box and to my delight and surprise Ice Cream maker!

A gift, from one of my best friends mom... Happy Day, heart you, THANK YOU! After much deliberation I decided to let my dogs outside before I opened the box. This is what my Ice cream maker looks like, kinda old school without the crank.

I'd like to tell you I made ice cream that night, but I didn't. Apparently it is a long process, pre-making things and freezing the tub etc etc. But I did get everything set-up so I could do it the next day. I wanted to stick to something simple for my first go 'round, but RJ didn't want just vanilla, so we went with strawberries. It's strawberry season here in NC, but the ones we put in the ice cream weren't local, oh well, next time.

I had to pa ruse for recipes on the internet I had no idea how to make ice cream. I chose to combine 2 recipes and I think it was successful.