This is a few recipes I found online mixed together: (cooks.com and verybestbaking.com)
Ingredients:
1.5 cups creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons softened butter (I use mix the salted and unsalted)
2 cups powdered sugar
3 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 package (12 oz) Semi-Sweet Chocolate chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Have ready 9x13 inch greasted baking pan.
2. Mix confectioners' sugar, graham crackers, peanut butter and butter in medium bowl until well blended.
3. Scrape into baking pan and press into even layer.
4. Melt chocolate (I put chocolate in a bowl, and place it over a pot of boiling water. It's really easy to burn chocolate if you do it in the microwave).
5. Spread melted chocolate over top.
6. Refrigerate at least 2 hours until chocolate is firm.
7. Let stand 10-20 minutes at room temperature before cutting into bars.
ALTERNATE (if you want it to be more like a pie):
Use 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs, and place into a graham cracker pie crust.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
I found this recipe online a few years ago (I forgot where), and have modified it a bit. I increased the chocolate chips from 1 cup to 1 1/4 cup, and added 1/2 cup of chopped nuts.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (if you use chunky, don't use the nuts)
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips/chocolate chunks (more or less to taste)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the peanut butter, water and vanilla.
4. Combine the flour and baking soda, stir into the creamed mixture.
5. Finally, stir in the rolled oats, chocolate chips, and nuts.
6. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an unprepared cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the cookies are lightly toasted on the edges.
8. If you want the cookies to stay softer/chewier, remove from the baking sheet immediately to cool on wire racks.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (if you use chunky, don't use the nuts)
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips/chocolate chunks (more or less to taste)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the peanut butter, water and vanilla.
4. Combine the flour and baking soda, stir into the creamed mixture.
5. Finally, stir in the rolled oats, chocolate chips, and nuts.
6. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an unprepared cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the cookies are lightly toasted on the edges.
8. If you want the cookies to stay softer/chewier, remove from the baking sheet immediately to cool on wire racks.
Boxed Cake Mix - Tricks
A lot of times, I want to bake, but don't have the time to make cupcakes from scratch. To make it taste more "homemade", I sometimes do the following:
1. Use coconut water instead of water in boxed yellow cake mix. This gives it a hint of coconut. You can also do this with chocolate cake mix. If you add some graham cracker crumbs and coconut flakes to the icing, it can taste like Samoas.
2. Add fresh strawberries to strawberry cake mix.
3. Add Andes Baking Mint pieces (this is only available around Christmas, so I stock up!) to chocolate cake mik. This goes well with brownie mix, and even coookie dough. People tend to have a love/hate relationship with mint chocolate, but I know our family loves it.
4. You can use orange juice instead of water to white cake mix.
5. Add fresh lemon rind to white cake mix so it's a bit lemon flavored.
This is really easy to do, and pretty self explanatory. You can use almsot anything! I think boxed cake mix is great, but this is just small things you can do so people don't necessarily realize you are using boxed mix, and it makes it a little bit more unique.
1. Use coconut water instead of water in boxed yellow cake mix. This gives it a hint of coconut. You can also do this with chocolate cake mix. If you add some graham cracker crumbs and coconut flakes to the icing, it can taste like Samoas.
2. Add fresh strawberries to strawberry cake mix.
3. Add Andes Baking Mint pieces (this is only available around Christmas, so I stock up!) to chocolate cake mik. This goes well with brownie mix, and even coookie dough. People tend to have a love/hate relationship with mint chocolate, but I know our family loves it.
4. You can use orange juice instead of water to white cake mix.
5. Add fresh lemon rind to white cake mix so it's a bit lemon flavored.
This is really easy to do, and pretty self explanatory. You can use almsot anything! I think boxed cake mix is great, but this is just small things you can do so people don't necessarily realize you are using boxed mix, and it makes it a little bit more unique.
Favorite Chocolate Pie Recipe
This is ridiculously easy to make, and everyone seems to love this. I found some recipes online over the years, and modified this to the following:
Ingredients:
1. 12 oz bag of semi sweet chocolate chips (you can use more/less depending on taste)
2. about 20 large marshmallows
3. 1/2 cup milk
4. 1 tub of cool whip (you can get reduced fat, and use more/less depending on taste)
5. graham cracker crust
Directions:
In a large heavy saucepan, combine the chocolate chips, marshmallows and milk. Cook and stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from the heat; cool. Fold in about 2 cups of the cool whip (or more if you want the chocolate to taste lighter); pour into crust. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Garnish with additional whipped topping and chocolate shavings if desired.
Note:
A lot of online recipes usually tell you to use candy bars, so you can use plain chocolate, or snickers or something. i like the richer taste of chocolate chips, especially ghiradhelli. if you are making this for people are not as into chocolate, nestle will do :).
Also, many times people use chocolate pudding instead of the chocolate chips and marshmallows. this is really good too, but I prefer the chocolate chips and marshmallow becuase it gives it the texture of chocolate mousse pie. Again, this is a personal preference.
I found this picture online. It looks similiar to this.
Wedding Cake
So, Praful and I are getting married on April 4th, 2009, and I want to get a lot of the work out of the way before I start school (I'm starting my LLM in taxation at Georgetown this fall). I'm a little nervous about juggling school, work, wedding planning, and of course friends and family! Everyone was making fun of me for sending out save the dates in June, but hey, whatever... :)
Anyways, because I love to bake, and I love dessert (especially cupcakes!) the wedding cake was very important to me. I wanted cupcakes, and with the help of my sister in law, Jamie, I found the perfect vendor.
http://mainstreetcupcakes.com/
So far, they have been really easy to work with. We can choose as many flavors as we want, and they'll dye the icing to match the colors we use for the reception.
So far, we (me, Praful, Deeds, and Pranav) tried mint chocolate chip, wedding cake white, chocolate ganache, red velvet, yellow with chocolate chip, and strawberry champagne. Deeds and I liked the wedding cake white and mint chocolate chip. Praful liked mint chocolate chip and chocolate ganache (you need milk with his, so we all agreed classic chocolate will be better), and Pranav liked the mint chocolate chip and strawberry. The wedding cake white had hint of almond in it, which Deeds and I liked, but Pranav and Praful found it to be gross. We are all disappointed in red velvet.
The mint chocolate chip was fabulous, so we are definitely going to use that! They have tons of other flavors, so we'll sample more the next time we're in Cleveland.
Anyways, because I love to bake, and I love dessert (especially cupcakes!) the wedding cake was very important to me. I wanted cupcakes, and with the help of my sister in law, Jamie, I found the perfect vendor.
http://mainstreetcupcakes.com/
So far, they have been really easy to work with. We can choose as many flavors as we want, and they'll dye the icing to match the colors we use for the reception.
So far, we (me, Praful, Deeds, and Pranav) tried mint chocolate chip, wedding cake white, chocolate ganache, red velvet, yellow with chocolate chip, and strawberry champagne. Deeds and I liked the wedding cake white and mint chocolate chip. Praful liked mint chocolate chip and chocolate ganache (you need milk with his, so we all agreed classic chocolate will be better), and Pranav liked the mint chocolate chip and strawberry. The wedding cake white had hint of almond in it, which Deeds and I liked, but Pranav and Praful found it to be gross. We are all disappointed in red velvet.
The mint chocolate chip was fabulous, so we are definitely going to use that! They have tons of other flavors, so we'll sample more the next time we're in Cleveland.
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