Apple Oatmeal Muffin Cookie Deliciousness...yep

Is this small mound of cinnamon-y deliciousness a cookie? Is this perfect little bite full of oatmeal, brown sugar, and subtle bits of tart apple a muffin? Is it the 8th wonder of the world? It's all of the above, and I'm quite alright with that (Okay MAYBE not the 8th wonder of the world, but definitely the first two). These little guys are so comforting and so moist. If you can make these cookies hard I'll give you a prize (and then hit you with it for destroying them).

There are two things tricky about these cookies... 1: deciding if you eat them for breakfast or for dessert at night. But let's be real... you'll eat them all day, and that's okay.

2: Mixing these little monsters, this recipe makes A LOT of cookies and uses A LOT of oatmeal. Get your arm ready, and call in reinforcements.

These cookies have fruit and oats... just keep telling yourself that as you throw in three sticks of butter.

Bake and enjoy.

(I couldn't resist the placement of this cookie on my mothers vintage Christmas tablecloth)

Apple Oatmeal Cookies from the talented Sophistimom

2 1/4 cups (340g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 sticks (336g) unsalted room temperature butter
1 1/2 cups (300g) brown sugar
1 cup (190g) granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups (360g) quick oats
3 small apples, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch chunks.

1. Preheat oven to 350 (180 degrees celsius). In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt , and spices. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars until fluffy, about 2 minutes on medium speed. Add in eggs, one at a time, incorporating well after each addition. Add in vanilla.

3. Slowly add in dry ingredients, and mix until just incorporated. Remove mixer from the stand and stir in oatmeal, and apple chunks. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

4. Use a small ice cream scoop (if you have one—mine’s in storage right now) or a tablespoon to drop golf ball sized dough onto the cookie sheet, keeping at least an inch and a half between each cookie.

5. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until just turning golden brown.

Baseball, Toasted Ravioli, Pork Steaks, Ted Drews...

and gooey butter cake--welcome to Saint Louis, Missouri.

Gooey butter cake is pretty much sin on a plate. It's been graciously adopted and embraced by Paula Deen, if that means anything to you. If you are one of those chumps vowing to lose weight this New Year, close this window NOW. There is nothing figure friendly about this cake, and nothing figure friendly about these:

gooey butter cookies.

It's fair to say I prefer the cookies over the cake, but don't get it twisted. It's not because I don't love all 9 zillion delicious calories in the cake, rather, I feel less guilty eating the cookies.

Gooey butter cookies:

-8 oz package cream cheese

-1 stick of butter

-1 egg

-1/4 tsp vanilla

-Package of golden butter yellow cake mix (I think Duncan H. makes the golden

butter cake mix, but any yellow cake mix will work really)

-1/4 cup of powdered sugar (possibly more)

•Preheat oven to 350F

•Cream butter and cream cheese together in a medium bowl

•Stir in egg and vanilla

•Stir in cake batter until well blended

•Roll into 1" balls and then roll the balls in the powdered sugar (coat them

well)

•Place 1" apart onto an ungreased baking sheet

bake for about 10 min, these cookies are supposed to be SOFT and gooey. Let them get SLIGHTLY brown, at most. The gooey-ier the better!

Cashew Thumbprints with Dulce de Leche Stars

Cashews? Check. Dulce de Leche? Check.

Cookie nirvana has been reached.

Honestly, these cookies bake beautifully, are simple to make, and hit every taste bud in your mouth exactly the right way. I won't bore you with details, and frankly I'm too exhausted to try. I followed the recipe below exactly, and they turned out like a champ.

Bake and enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

Go ahead and get em folks, you can thank me later.

*recipe courtesy the fabulous Peabody

Brownies or cookies? I'll call them... Brookies.

WARNING: If you can't handle rich, chewy, decadent dark chocolate you have no business reading the rest of this entry. But, if you have a brain and functioning taste buds (harsh? okay, maybe a bit), get ready.

These cookies are... phenomenal. I ate three of them before they even cooled. Oops! I also brought these to the tattoo shop, and well, they didn't last long. Also let me add this... probably 3/4's of the tattoo shop is lactose-intolerant, but they find my baked goods so delicious they eat them anyway--I consider this the highest form of flattery. Ha!

The contrast of the dark chocolate and beautiful mint chips... fabulous! (The chips are almost Tiffany's blue so if you are trying to drop any hints to that special person in your life...)

Dark Chocolate Mint Chip Brookies (go with it)... adapted from this fabulous blog.

-1 1/4 c flour

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup dutch-process cocoa (I believe this is what makes them so brownie like, if you can't find dutch-process cocoa use the darkest you can find)

-1 stick unsalted butter, cubed, and at room temp.

-1/2 c white sugar

-1/2 c brown sugar

-1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

-1/3 c milk

1 bag mint chips (I strongly suggest Guittard for this recipe)

*You could add a splash of Creme de Menthe in these and probably cure illnesses.

1) Preheat oven to 325 F and line your favorite cookie sheet with parchment.

2) Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa, and set aside.

3) Beat the butter on medium-high until light and add sugars, creaming well.

4) Add the vanilla and beat until smooth.

5) Add the flour mixture in 2 batches. Alternate with the milk in one batch, mixing well.

6) Fold in the mint chips.

Chill dough for at least 15 minutes.

Scoop on your pan and bake for about 12 minutes (you know your oven more than me)

*I rolled these guys up in parchment to do a slice and bake, and they turned out fine, but I'd suggest scooping them--the dough wasn't the greatest slice and bake.

**One super important step is to let the cookies cool completely ON the cookie sheet, they will appear to be underdone, but they aren't. Once they cool they'll set up and be epic in their fudgy brownie glory.

delicious and dainty

Hershey’s Candy Cane Kiss Brownie Bites

I’m not sure if you are as aware of the fact as I am that there are now something like 10 different varieties of Hershey kisses, but believe me… there are. Currently in my apartment I have cookies n cream kisses and candy cane kisses. I’ve yet to bake with the cookies and cream ones, but fear not… they’ll get used (or maybe eaten whatever). This is a super easy recipe and super delicious.

Inspired by the talented and brilliant Picky Palate

What you'll need:

Your favorite brownie recipe or 1 brownie mix [9×13 inch size]

Candy Cane Hershey Kisses

½ lb chocolate chips

1 oz butter

¼ c light corn syrup (optional) <--this adds shine to your chocolate

a few candy canes, crushed

•Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare brownie mix according to suggested directions. Scoop (with small portioning or ice cream scoop) brownie batter into HEAVILY greased mini muffin tin or mini cheesecake pan (if you haven’t tried it use that Crisco butter spray, seriously it’s incredibly) so that it’s about ¾ of the way full. Press one (unwrapped, duh) kiss into each soon-to-be-brownie and press down gently. The kiss shouldn’t be on the bottom of the pan per say, and the tip should stick out a bit, no worries!

•Bake 18-20 mins (or until done you know your oven better than me!) Let cool completely. If brownies are sticking run a toothpick around the edges so that they plop out easier.

•Melt your chocolate chips whichever way you prefer (microwave, double boiler, whatever floats your boat). Let’s say microwave this time around, put chips in micro safe bowl for 30-second intervals. Stirring each time after a minute. Once it’s all pretty well melted add your butter and corn syrup and stir until perfectly smooth (the fat allows this chocolate to harden on top of the brownie so that it doesn’t stay soft and smooshy).

Take brownie bites and dip the tops in the chocolate. Sprinkle crushed candy canes on top for garnish while chocolate is still soft.

Mini Pancups?

I love pancakes because they’re simple and quick. Whipping up a buttermilk pancake batter, and bowling up your favorite condiments is always a failsafe weekend treat. You can add whatever you’d like in the batter and in a few quick moments you have a personalized breakfast to satisfy your early morning craving. Delicious! Some of my favorite combos are raspberry and white chocolate, my mother is a die-hard bacon pancake advocate, my dad is a banana walnut kind of guy (with apricot syrup), and my brother is hands down a chocolate chip fan. No matter what you drop in ‘em, these tasty guys are easy to drop in your mouth!

Gabe decided peanut butter and chocolate chips, and they turned out absolutely adorable. I cannot wait to make these for… every occasion I possibly can.

The greatness of pancakes with the simplicity and cuteness of cupcakes. No flippin’ no icin’ just dunkin’ and munchin’. Bake and enjoy.

(ps, these little guys freeze like a champ… so maybe when the morning comes a little too early or the night ended a little too late you can take these guys out of the freezer and have a fabulous cough hangover cough cough breakfast)

Not to be forgotten, this entire concept comes from Bakerella who makes everything delicious and adorable. Read her and love her, and thank her for this fabulous recipe.

*the only thing I did differently was use peanut butter and chocolate chips, and I added pure vanilla along with the maple syrup.

Gingermoose. All love.

GINGERMOOOOOOSE.

Okay, I got out all of the excitement, sort of. These cookies are just TOO cute!

The fact that I am making Christmas cookies at all this year is shocking (well, not really because let's be real... you'd have to clock me over the head and stuff me in a trunk in order for me to not bake for any Holiday), and the fact that I'm making GINGERBREAD is pretty much a miracle. Only because I've been making Christmas cookies at work since BEFORE Thanksgiving, and we've been making gingerbread houses since...I think the day after Halloween? Anyway, I've never personally made gingerbread at home, but I got SUPER lucky with this recipe. The recipe is from a blog called Baking Obsession which is fabulous (follow it, love it)! But truthfully, this gingerbread has the greatest taste, ever. It's so spicy and well, it's just perfect. I let the dough chill over night, and I rolled it out chilled. Fabulous!

My friend Kim gave me a moose cookie cutter forever ago, because I guess you can say I have a mild moose obsession. So I decided to take my cookie cutter off the shelf and make some gingermoose. I'm not entire positive how I'm going to decorate all of these adorable guys, but I decided I couldn't wait and HAD to share these adorable guys with you.

**once again the recipe is above, and here incase you missed it.

Mini Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread

I was lucky enough to acquire some ripe bananas, so obviously I was set out to make banana bread or banana muffins or something of the sort. I was planning on trying some pumpkin banana muffins, but last minute decided to pass. So after some browsing online I got some ideas and came up with this. Truthfully upon making this the first time (two days ago) I wasn’t entirely pleased. I thought it was good, but not mind blowing. However I brought it to both the kitchen and the tattoo shop, and both parties RAVED. Two different groups of boys devouring one baked good is always a great sign, especially when one group are total and complete gourmet foodies. Needless to say, this is my second time making this in three days. If that’s not sheer proof of a winner I’m not sure what is. Bake and enjoy, friends.

*Also, let it be known I'm obsessed with my mini loaf pans, because they bake quick and come out clean and cute every time.

Mini chocolate-chip peanut butter banana bread (yields 10 mini loaves)

•1 ¼ c All Purpose Flour

•1 teaspoon baking soda

•½ teaspoon salt

•½ c peanut butter (use the old school fattening kind, not organic, sorry)

•2/3 c granulated sugar

•3 large super ripe bananas, pealed

•2 tablespoons honey

•1 ½ tablespoons real maple syrup

•1 tablespoon maple-cinnamon

•2 tablespoons brown sugar

•2 eggs lightly beaten

•½ c mini chocolate chips

-Grease mini loaf pans with your

favorite baking spray. (I suggest Criso butter flavored spray), and preheat oven to 350 F.

-Whisk together flour, baking sod

a, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

-Place bananas, honey, maple syrup, maple-cinnamon, and brown sugar in a large bowl and smash to a mush with fork.

-In a mixer cream peanut butter and granulated sugar.

-Add eggs, and mix until fully

incorporated.

-Add delicious banana mush and mix for about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl.

-Add your dry ingredients that are sitting aside in your ever-loyal medium bowl.

-Pour batter into your greased loaf pans (or whatever you may be baking this in) about half full. Place in preheated oven for 18 minutes.

Peppermint Swirl Cheesecake with Chocolate Cookie Creme de Menthe Crust

Holy Christmas. I'd be a dirty liar if I told you I wasn't giddy as a child on Christmas eve, thinking about all of the holiday baking I'll be doing. Gingerbread, gingersnaps, eggnog, peppermint, creme de menthe, cider, it doesn't end.

I'd also be a dirty liar if I told you all of my cheesecakes turned out this beautiful. The original plan for this cheesecake was to make it a peppermint tuxedo cheesecake, but when it came out of the oven the top was too immaculate to cover. Seriously, zero discoloration, no cracking, nothing. It looked as though it was painted on! But anyway, enough gloating... If by chance the cheesecake gods are not on your side, this cheesecake will still taste fabulous just make it "tuxedo" and cover your mistakes/imperfections in chocolate (wouldn't it be magical if we could hide all of our imperfections and mistakes in chocolate!?).

I wound up cutting this guy and covering the sides with crushed candy canes. It was so freaking Christmasy Santa himself would probably puke at the sight of it (though such an ugly analogy it's a good thing, I promise).

Crust:
•30(ish) chocolate sandwich cookies of your choice (let’s be real you’re going to use Oreo’s, as you should)

•1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted (plus a pad or two extra to grease the pan)

•crème de menthe

Filling:

•2 1/2 pounds bar cream cheese, room temperature

•1 1/2 cups sugar

•1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

•4 large eggs

•1 cup sour cream

•Crème de Menthe

•Peppermint extract

•red food coloring

To make crust:
-Butter a 9-by-3-inch spring form pan.
-In a food processor, pulse graham crackers until fine crumbs form; add melted butter, and sugar, and pulse to combine.-Add 2 tablespoons of crème de menthe.
-Press crumb mixture into bottom of greased pan and about 1 inch up side of pan.

-Boil some water (the essential step in cheesecakes are WATER BATHS).

Make filling:
-Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese on medium until fluffy, scraping down side of bowl.
-Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy.
-Add salt.-Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down side of bowl after each addition.
-Beat in sour cream.

-Take about 1 cup of filling and pour into medium bowl.
-Add ¼ tsp crème de menthe (this actually gives your mouth a cool after taste with each bite), and then add peppermint extract to taste.
-Feel free to add more crème de menthe if your taste buds need more, but make sure it doesn’t dye your filling green.

-Add red food coloring until you reach your preferred shade of red (remember this is “peppermint” even though mine was more pink).

Wrap bottom half of pan in foil (so the water bath does not actually bathe your cheesecake).

-Pour plain batter in pan; place in a roasting pan.
-With a spoon drop 9 blobs of red-peppermint filling (rows and columns of 3x3 tic tac toe style).
-With either a toothpick or knife point marble the cheesecake by making “S” formations.
-Pour in boiling water to come halfway up side of springform. Bake at 200 F until just set in center, about 1 3/4 hours. Remove pan from water; let cool 20 minutes. Run a paring knife around edge; let cool completely

Cover; chill overnight before serving.