Mmmm Mmmm Good

I love PB&C so much that I could never possibly put into words the extent to which that love radiates. Dramatic, yes. Over-exaggerating, no. Anyway, as I was browsing Amy's blog, South In Your Mouth (I will never look at that blog name and not giggle) and I found a work of art. Amy calls it a rut, but I call it delicious.

This lovely dessert consists of a cookie crust bottom, a cream cheese peanut butter layer, followed by some yummy Reese's Cups, topped with a fluffy chocolate pudding, and finally adorned with more crushed cookies. Well I decided to change things up a bit for a couple reasons. My first was that Glenn and I hate Oreo's and even more so when they are in crust form. I asked him to pick some cookies when we were in the cookie aisle at Target, and since the Sausalitos were too pricey, he settled on Market Pantry chocolate chip cookies (the crunchy kind). Good choice love. The second alteration was due to a mistake on my part. I forgot that Cool Whip comes in two sizes and silly me, I bought the small one. Thus, my dessert was a little less fluffy in parts, but in my opinion, that made it better. Here is my version of the Peanut Butter Chocolate Dessert:

24 chocolate chip cookies (the crunchy kind)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 8 oz package cream cheese
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 8 oz tub of Cool Whip
20 miniature Reese's Cups
1 cup cold milk
1 3.9 oz package instant fudge pudding

Crush 18 of the cookies into fine crumbs and combine with melted butter until it holds shape when pressed together. Press into an ungreased 8 x 8 pan.

Beat cream cheese, peanut butter, and 1 cup powdered sugar in a bowl until very smooth. Gently fold in 1/3 of the Cool Whip. Spread evenly over the crust.

Chop 15 of the Reese's Cups and sprinkle over the peanut butter layer.

Beat the milk, pudding mix, and powdered sugar in a bowl until smooth. Fold in the remaining 2/3 of the Cool Whip. Spread over the peanut butter layer and candy layer.

Top the dessert with the remaining cookies and candy all chopped up or left whole, however you please.

Enjoy! I know we did.

How Is This Even Possible?!?!?

PB&C is never bad, right? Wrong. I found this recipe online from a link on yumsugar that led me to here. From the looks of it, these cookies seem very tasty and combine the two most perfect things on earth, foodwise. Unfortunately, this combination of chocolate and peanut butter proved disastrous. The cookies were as easy to make as cookies are, the pre-bake dough taste test received raves from Glenn, but as soon as they came out of the oven they were defeated. They did not taste good warm. I gave them a chance to cool and they did not taste good cooled either. I am chalking this one up to an unfortunate baking event and so life goes on. Just for future reference on what not to bake in case you ever come across this, here is the recipe.

By the way, this recipe won the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest back in the day, 1951. I guess in 1951 they had crappy tastebuds, because this recipe would come in dead last on my scorecard.

Chocolate Nutbutter Cookies

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup chunky or creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups Pillsbury all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a large baking sheet.

Beat sugar, shortening, and peanut butter together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla.


Stir together flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in a separate bowl. Gradually mix in the egg mixture and the milk alternating between the two.



Drop the dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto baking sheet. Flatten cookies slightly with a fork in a criss cross pattern.


Bake for 6-10 minutes (in my oven, 6 minutes was probably a little more done than I like).

Soda Bread = Better Than Soda Muffins

A while back I made soda bread and Glenn and I really liked it. Glenn always brings me home the Bon Appetit Magazine from work and as he was going through it, he spotted a recipe that intrigued him. This was Giant Soda Muffins. Soda Bread is super easy to make and I figured I could just whip those together while the ice cream was being mixed and the brownies from hell were baking because I only need a bowl and a wooden spoon.

Giant Soda Muffins

nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter at room temperature
1 cup raisins
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a jumbo muffin tin (1 cup capacity) with nonstick spray.

Whisk next six ingredients in a large bowl.

Add butter. Using fingertips, blend butter into mixture until it is incorporated and it starts to forms crumbs.

Whisk buttermilk and egg together. Add to dry ingredients and stir to blend.

Spoon batter into muffin cups.

Bake muffins until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 23 minutes.

Remove muffins from pan and cool slightly on rack before serving.

More Celebration of Peanut Butter Lover's Month

Hooray for more peanut butter! I am going to make myself sick eating all this peanut butter, but who cares. I don't like biscotti and that was the second recipe in my book, so I skipped to the third recipe which was peanut butter cookies. Sounds great to me. Only problem is I start gathering my ingredients and realize that I have a half a stick of butter left. Bummer, that means less cookies. Oh well, I just half the recipe and then throw in some chocolate chips for good measure, and these little beauties are what comes out. They aren't bad or anything, I am just not that impressed. A peanut butter cookie is something to savor, to truly experience, and I am just really picky about them. I want them to be soft and chewy and a tad bit too sweet. I just didn't get that from these, but they were still good. Glenn suggested that next time they be flattened more because one bite is a little too much rich sticky peanut butteryness to handle in your mouth. I am still working on developing a better pb cookie recipe, but this will suffice until it is complete.

By the way, trying to figure out what half of an egg looks like is an interesting task.

PB Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar (I used dark brown because it's yummier)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy is best)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Sift the flour and baking soda together. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugars until soft and creamy. Combine the egg, flour mixture, peanut butter, and salt. Add the butter and sugar mixture and mix until smooth.

Wrap the dough in foil or parchment and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. (I totally skipped this step)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Shape the dough into 1 1/4 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Flatten slightly with a fork. Bake 15 minutes, or until golden. (I thought peanut butter was already golden)

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Don't Discriminate Against the Shortbread

I have never liked shortbread, it's just so plain to me and it is severely lacking in the chocolate and/or peanut butter department. But when I asked Glenn what I should make yesterday, he suggested just starting at the beginning of my 500 Cookies book and knocking out each recipe, one by one. That first recipe just happened to be shortbread. Incredibly easy and incredibly tasty. Needless to say, I actually like shortbread now... I guess as long as I make it myself. I don't like that shortbread is traditionally extremely dry and crumbly. I prefer a little chew to my cookies.


Scottish Shortbread (I don't understand the Scottish part)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons rice flour (I just used regular flour since I didn't have this specialty kind)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
Raw sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F and line a 7 x 11 inch pan with aluminum foil. Sift the all purpose flour into a bowl and stir in the rice flour.

Beat the butter and the sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla extract. Work the dough until it starts to clump together, then press it into the pan.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. The shortbread will seem to be done before it is, so ensure that it cooks the full 45 minutes (or if you are like me, you completely ignore this warning and do it your own way).

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the raw sugar, and cut into fingers. Cool for 20 minutes and remove from pan. For an extra tasty treat, dip half of the cookies into melted chocolate.

Best. Cheesecake. Ever.

Cheesecakes are probably my favorite indulgence. Then if you decide to go and add peanut butter and chocolate to the mix. Well, I am sold. I found the easiest, most incredible recipe that combines the best of both worlds into one wickedly good tasting cheesecake. Not only is it wickedly good, it's wickedly easy. I had never made cheesecake until I attempted this, and it came out absolutely perfect. No complicated water baths to scare you off.

Aside from not having any pictures, I don't have a suitable camera for taking pictures of all my yummy treats, so in the meantime, until I can get some pictures, just imagine complete and utter decadence in your mind.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 2/3 cups (10 oz package) peanut butter chips melted ( Reese's is best)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and grease a 9 or 10 inch springform pan.

Mix together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, cocoa, and butter in a medium bowl using your hands. Press into bottom and onto sides of springform pan.

Beat cream cheese in a large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk, then melted peanut butter chips until very smooth. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Stir in chocolate chips.

Bake cheesecake in center rack for 55-65 minutes or until the center of the cheesecake is set. (Tip: place a cookie sheet under the cheesecake to catch any drips) Let cheesecake cool to room temperature and then place in the refrigerator to chill. Serve cold. (Another Tip: to make the cheesecake truly decadent, pour Reese's Shell Topping for ice cream over the top and chill)

Cupcakes Anyone?

I love cupcakes. I don't think I know anyone who doesn't love cupcakes. My husband doesn't like frosting very much, but he still loves when I make cupcakes unfrosted for him (kind of blasphemous in my opinion). I got this great cupcake book as a wedding gift, simply called Cupcakes! by Einor Klivans, and I have found nothing but success from here.

Everyone needs a great classic yellow cupcake recipe, and from there you can spin it all sorts of ways. The tops bake up to my slightly crunchy and perfectly sweet. There is also a great chocolate cupcake in there that I modified to make Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes. Back to the yellow though, it actually tastes great unfrosted! Imagine that!

I can always use more cupcakes, well my waistline could pass on them, but whenever I get to making some, I will definitely put up some pictures of them all dressed up and pretty.

Easy-Mix Yellow Cupcake Batter (makes 12 regular cupcakes, 9 big-top cupcakes, 6 extra-large cupcakes, or 42 mini cupcakes)

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola or corn oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

Beat, in a large bowl, the egg, yolk, and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until thickened and lightened to a cream color, about 2 minutes.

Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix in the oil and vanilla until blended. Mix in the sour cream until no white streaks remain. Mix in the flour mixture until it is incorporated and the batter is smooth. The batter is ready to bake, or for additions such as nuts, fruits, or other flavorings.