Chocolate Almond Cookies

My brother is coming home from college today, and my Mom always like to make sure the house is fool of food for when he arrives. Though the cabinets and fridge are now full of thinks to snack on, the kitchen is still missing one thing that I know my brother will want when he comes home- freshly baked goods.

Usually my Mom makes these decadent chocolate and caramel sandwich cookies for when my brother comes home, but I thought I would try something different. He loves nuts and chocolate so I thought to just put those two flavors in a cookie.

What came out were what my mom proclaimed were "THE BEST COOKIES EVER!"

So here's the recipe for you to try:

Chocolate with chocolate chips and nuts, what's not to like?

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup softened butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar


2 teaspoons vanilla extract


2 eggs

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa

2 ¼ cups flour


½ teaspoon almond extract

2 tablespoons plain yogurt

1 teaspoon baking soda


¾ teaspoon salt


1 2/3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips


¾ cup chopped almonds

Don't cut the almonds too small, you
want to leave something to bite into.

Directions
:

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease 2 baking sheets.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until fluffy. Add in the vanilla, almond extract, and yogurt and eggs and mix well. Sift the cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt in another bowl and slowly add this into the wet ingredients as you mix until just combined. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips and chopped almonds.

Scoop dough into large spoonfuls and roll into balls to place onto the baking sheets.

Bake cookies for 11-12 minutes and remove from the oven.

Let the cookies cool for about 3 minutes before transferring to wire racks to finish cooling.

"Crack Brownies" Version 2

Every Thanksgiving my mom makes an array of amazing desserts, and always has a tray with all different types of cookies and squares. My Aunt Amy particularly looks forward to this one type of bar that never ceases to be included on that Thanksgiving platter. Because these bars never had an official name, we have deemed them "crack brownies" for their ridiculously addicting-ness.

Make sure to evenly pour and spread.

At this time I am forbidden to disclose the exact recipe (hence the "version 2"), but I have since made my own version of these "crack brownies" that are based upon the recipe for magic cookie bars on the back of the Eagle sweetened condensed milk that is an easy, and tasty classic that's just as easy to turn up a notch.

You can use really any type of chips or nuts you like to create your own favorite version, but here's mine- 

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

3 cups graham cracker crumbs

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1 cups semisweet chocolate morsels

1 cup butterscotch chips

2 cups flaked coconut

1 ½ cups chopped walnuts

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 F and grease a 13 x 9 inch pan.

Over low heat, melt the butter in a saucepan. Once melted, add in the graham cracker crumbs and cinnamon. Stir well and pour this mixture into the greased pan and pat it down evenly so it is distributed evenly throughout the entire pan.

In a bowl, dump the different chips, coconut, and nuts and mix with a spoon or your hands (cleaned of course).

Pour the bowl’s mixture over the graham cracker crust evenly, and press this mixture down slightly as well.

Then, pour the sweetened condensed milk evenly over everything.

Bake for 22-26 minutes until lightly browned.

Let cool before slicing.

The sweetened condensed milk gives these an almost
fudge-like texture too.

These are great to make when you're running out of eggs in the house and need to bake but don't feel like putting in a lot of effort or time. Don't worry though, everyone loves these.

Whole Wheat Spiced Sweet Potato Muffins

This week is AP testing and since my teachers are therefore not giving any work and I don't really plan on studying, I have more time when I get home to cook and bake. I literally sat in the testing room for an hour after I took one of my exams waiting for the time to be up that I could leave. The people around me probably thought I was impressively fast, but I actually just ran out o things to say on the free response section. (That's not too good of a sign now is it...)

Spiced sweet potato muffin with a brown sugar, oat, and almond topping.

Anyways, I had some sweet potato puree left from the brownie recipe, so I needed to come up with another recipe so I wouldn't waste it. I decided to make muffins. You can make them in any size you want, but I love to make mini muffins since you can easily take one to go  and pop in your mouth.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

All the topping ingredients before being mixed.

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup sweet potato puree

½ cup milk

2 eggs

Topping-

¼ cup oatmeal

3 tablespoons brown sugar

¼ cup almonds

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a muffin pan well.

In a large bowl, mix together the sweet potato, milk, brown sugar, and eggs. Add in the vanilla and other spices and the baking soda and baking powder. Gradually add in the whole wheat pastry flower. Once all the ingredients are well combined, pour the batter into the greased muffin tins until each is about ¾ full.

In a separate bowl, combine the ¼ cup oatmeal, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, ¼ cup almonds, and ½ teaspoon cinnamon. You can either chop the almonds and then just stir all the ingredients together, or put all the ingredients into a food processor to create a more homogenous mixture.

Sprinkle this “topping” on top of the unbaked muffins.

Now, place the muffins in the oven for 11-13 minutes.

Remove the oven and wait until cooled before removing from tin.

My sweet potato creations, all from one can of puree.

Sweet Potato Brownies

The other day my mom accidentally bought sweet potato puree instead of pumpkin puree. Since I didn't have any recipes using sweet potato puree and I wasn't really sure how to use it, I decided to turn to Martha, Martha Stewart I mean.

Since my family is pretty healthy anyways, I thought her recipe for sweet potato brownies looked worthwhile to try. I added in walnuts (which turned out to be a good addition) and they turned out to be immensely fudgey and good tasting brownies that you don't feel icky after eating.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Using good cocoa really
makes a difference.

½ stick butter

2/3 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder

½ cup whole-wheat pastry flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup sweet-potato puree

1 large egg

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon instant coffee powder

½ cup walnuts

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square pan; set aside. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Remove pan from heat, and stir in cocoa. Let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Stir in sugar and sweet-potato puree, then egg. In a small bowl, stir together vanilla and coffee until coffee is dissolved; add to cocoa mixture.

Add flour mixture to cocoa mixture and stir until no traces of flour remain. Spoon into prepared pan; smooth the top.

Make sure you smooth out the top
before placing in the oven.

Bake until surface of brownies looks barely dry and an inserted knife comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature before serving.

To make these more decadent, you could always add in a half cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I would suggest you first try them to see if you want that added taste.

Very fudgey with walnut chunks.

Sweet potatoes are actually considered a "super food". One medium-sized sweet potato has ons of beta-carotene and a day's value of vitamin A as well as a third of your daily vitamin C's needs. One sweet potato even has as much fiber as a  ½ cup of oatmeal.

Banana Bread Cookies

While banana bread is tasty, it sometimes isn't the best for serving because you have to slice it. To solve this, I designed a recipe that combined the great taste of banana bread in a cookie style that everyone loves. The result is cookies that are crisp on the edges like regular cookies, but have a middle that is the classic banana bread consistency.

Ingredients:

Don't worry, the batter is
supposed to be gloopy.

½ cup of softened unsalted butter

1 cup of sugar

1 egg

2 large bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups of flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

½ cup sweetened coconut flakes

½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

½ cup of pecans

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease two cookie sheets.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until well combined. Mash the bananas in a separate bowl and add them to your butter/sugar mixture. In another bowl, Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg and slowly add it to the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined. Add in the coconut flakes and finally fold in the pecans and chocolate chips.

Drop in spoonfuls of the batter onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks.

In order to make these healthier, you could replace some of the white flour with white whole wheat flour and still get great cookies.

Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My Dad absolutely loves tennis and has for a while now volunteered to teach tennis to underprivileged children on the weekends with the program Grassroots. As a special treat, my Dad invited some of the kids over to our house to watch a tennis match and have pizza. In order to top off their meal, I decided to make special cookies for them to enjoy after pizza. 

They scarfed them up instantly and told me they were the best cookies they ever had.

Right out of the oven.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/44 cups oats

1 stick softened butter

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup sugar

1 egg

1½ teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

2/3 cup dried cranberries

2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks

½ cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease cookie sheets and set them aside.

Beat together the butter and sugars and slowly add in the egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Slowly stir this dry mixture into the wet mixture until well mixed. Afterwards, stir in the oats, and finally the cranberries, chocolate chunks, and walnuts.

Roll the dough into small balls and place on the greased baking sheets.

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes so the centers are still soft.

Let cool and then remove from cookie sheets.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

Yesterday I was at Starbucks with my friend and she asked for a slice of pumpkin bread. I looked at it and said, “hey I bet I can make pumpkin bread that tastes better and is better for you than that.” My friend was glad to hear this remark because she knew it meant I would try it out and give her some, and since I don’t want to do any homework, that’s exactly what I did!

So here you go, a healthy version of pumpkin bread that doesn’t compromise health for taste.

Recipe:

Getting every last drop
out of the honey.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup unsalted melted butter

¼ cup honey

½ cup plus 2 ½ tablespoons packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 eggs

1 ½ cups pumpkin puree

1 ¾ cup white whole wheat flour

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¾ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions:

A clever is perfect to chop up nuts.

Preheat the oven to 325°F and lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Whisk these dry ingredients together and set aside. In another large bowl, combine the melted butter, canola oil, honey, and ½ cup of the brown sugar and beat until well mixed. Add the eggs and lightly beat and finally mix in pumpkin and vanilla. Slowly add in the flour mixture until combined. Stir in the chopped nuts last.

Crumble the brown sugar evenly
over the entire top layer.

Pour the batter into the greased pan, and tap the bottom so that the batter evens out. Take the last 2 ½ tablespoons of brown sugar and sprinkle it over the top of the batter.

Place the pan into the oven for 55 to 65 minutes.

Remove, and let cool before slicing.

If you don’t give the bread enough time to cool, then your slices will have no chance of coming out even.

The brown sugar on top is a perfect crumble, and especially perfect for people who love the texture of the muffin tops (and by that I don’t mean the rolls coming out on top of your pants).

Whole Wheat Banana Bread & Muffins

So Dad wasn’t very happy with me the other day (not like I did anything wrong- jk love you daddy if you’re reading this!). To make him happy I decided to make his favorite whole what banana bread. He’s not big into cookies and cupcakes, but he loves his banana bread recipe because there is enough sweetness while it’s still decently healthy. The recipe is actually from my grandmother who’s a health nut in Florida, so thanks Nona!

I actually doubled the recipe this time and used half of the batter for bread, and half for muffins

Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup butter

½ cup sour cream

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup (basically 2 whole) bananas

1 2/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour

½ cup pecans

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, beat eggs sugar and butter together and mix well. Stir in bananas, sour cream, and vanilla. Stir in flour, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Chop pecans and then add them to the batter and blend them in.

Grease and flour either a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan or muffin tine. Fill the loaf pan with all the batter or fill the individual muffin cups ¾ of the way full.

If making a regular loaf, bake the bread for 60 minutes or bake the muffins until an inserted toothpick comes in clean (you will obviously need to bake larger muffins for more time, I needed to bake mine for about 15 minutes). If you are making muffins, make sure that you fill cups that are not filled with batter with water in order to prevent the cups from burning.

Remove from oven and let cool before slicing.

I slid a knife around the edges to make it easier to take out
the muffins from the tin.

Creamy Almond Butter

I always make baked goods for my English teacher, and though she is always pleased with my creations, she complains all my baking is going to make her fat. To compromise I decided to make her some healthy almond butter. Though this may not be a baked good, it can certainly fill your sweet tooth if you place it on top of sliced apples and drizzle them with a smidge of honey.

To make the butter is very easy, just take 2 cups of whole almonds and spread them out onto a baking sheet and place them in a 350° F oven for 12 minutes, stirring them around halfway through to prevent them from burning.

Ready to spread and enjoy in about 20 minutes.

Though toasting the almonds is not essential, I find it really helps to bring out the “nutty” flavor.

Let the nuts cool and then place them into a food processor. You could also use a blender but you won’t be able to put in as many nuts in the blender at a time as you can with a food processor.

Now for some slight amusement, my food processor is currently not working properly so I had to hold down the button the whole time because it won’t stay down. Fortunately, it only took about 6 minutes for the nuts to become creamy. I periodically scraped the sides as the nut’s oil released and the nuts went from becoming what looked like crumbs to real smooth nut butter.

When it was all finished I placed the end result in a small mason jar. I didn’t add salt or honey, but if you want you can put them in and pulse the food processor a couple times to mix in the flavoring evenly.

After tying a bow around the jar I was finished,

Can you say A+ on that essay I just wrote please?

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

It’s Saturday and being a little tired from last night, Olivia and I thought we should chill out and bake…chocolate chip oatmeal bars of course!

This isn't an 8x8 but it is equivalent in size.

Ingredients:

1 ½ sticks of softened butter

1 egg

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup milk

1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup flour

1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes

2 cups oats

¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts

Don't mind the X on her hand.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix together butter, vanilla, eggs, brown sugar, and milk. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt and then slowly add it to the other mixed ingredients. Once those ingredients are mixed, stir in the sweetened coconut flakes and oats and then add the chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. Pour the batter into a greased 8 x 8-inch baking pan and bake for 23-25 minutes in the oven. Remove from the oven, let cool, and cut into squares.

These turned out thick and crisp on top with just the right amount of chocolate and nuts.