Baking – Michael Makes

Week 1: Vegan Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy New Year! For 2023, I have made a modestly triumphant return with a new challenge for the year: 52 weeks of vegan and/or gluten-free recipes. When I did my 52 weeks of cookies in 2021, the most popular cookie was The Healthiest Breakfast Cookie, and I wondered if you can make tasty desserts that were either vegan and/or gluten free, so that’s my challenge for the year.

My goal for this year is to try out recipes that are vegan and/or gluten-free. There are a lot of vegan recipes out there, but you’re not sure which ones are worth trying. This is where I come in: to try things out so you don’t have to.

That always seems to the problem with vegan or gluten-free cookies: they remind you that you’re missing something, and my goal is to make it feel like you can still enjoy good stuff while cutting out gluten, dairy, and/or eggs.

For this first recipe, I decided to go with something simple: peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, but in vegan form!

First, let’s prepare all of our ingredients.

First, we’re going to combine the peanut butter and maple syrup.

Once the peanut butter and maple syrup was well mixed, put that bowl aside.

Grab another bowl to mix all the dry ingredients together (oats, cinnamon, baking soda, and sea salt). Put that aside.

Now, back to the peanut butter and maple syrup. Before we put in the dry ingredients, mix in the chocolate chips. I use the Enjoy Life chocolate chips since they’re vegan.

Go with these if you want vegan chocolate chips in your peanut butter cookie.

Make sure you combine the chocolate chips with the peanut butter/maple syrup mix because if you put the chocolate chips in later, they won’t bind well.

This step is crucial to making this cookie stay together.

Now go ahead and pour in the dry ingredients you mixed in earlier.

This dough mixes together better if you put the chocolate chips in before the dry ingredients.

Alright, so now our dough is made, let’s go ahead and preheat the oven to 350℉ and line a couple of aluminum cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using your trusty 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop, place 10 cookies on the cookie sheet and flatten them with a spoon or fork.

They taste better than they look. Trust me.

You’ll want to flatten them because they will retain whatever shape they go into the oven with.

Place each cookie sheet in the oven for about 14 minutes.

Let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes before eating.

This could almost be a breakfast cookie honestly.

Overall, this is a very good, yet simple, cookie to make that doesn’t require too much effort. Despite it being vegan, it doesn’t feel like you’re sacrificing anything when it comes to these cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup organic peanut butter
⅓ cup organic pure maple syrup
1 ½ cups rolled oats
¼ tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
2/3 cup vegan chocolate chips

Instructions:

Mix peanut butter and maple syrup in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix the rolled oats, baking soda, ground cinnamon, and sea salt. Set aside.
In the large bowl with the mixed peanut butter and maple syrup, add the chocolate chips. Mix well.
Pour the dry ingredients into the large bowl and mix thoroughly.
Preheat the oven to 350℉.
Line two aluminum cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Using your 1.5Tbsp scoop, place 10 cookies on a cookie sheet at a time, and flatten with a spoon or fork.
Bake for 14 minutes.
Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes before you enjoy them!

Source

Dessert: Peanut Butter Brownies

Original Recipe: https://preppykitchen.com/peanut-butter-brownies/

It has been a while since I’ve posted a recipe. I have been baking, but not too much due to the heat wave we recently had out here in California, and I had to tend to my sister’s animals as well, but Toby is always worth it.

This time, I was in the mood for my favorite dessert combination: chocolate and peanut butter, and what better way to enjoy it than a peanut butter brownie recipe?

For this recipe, I put my camera on a tripod to keep the angle consistent, so the pictures will look a little different this time.

Alright, let’s start off by getting your brownie pan. Spray it with baking spray and line with parchment paper.

I think it’s supposed to be either one or the other, not both. This seems like a bit much honestly.

Alright, now that your brownie pan is greased and lined with parchment paper (you can probably get away with one or the other), prepare a bowl with about 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Next, drop two sticks of room-temperature unsalted butter into your bowl.

Paula Deen approves of the butter to chocolate ratio.

Melt the butter in the microwave for about 20 seconds at a time until the chocolate and butter are melted together.

This honestly reminds me of the chocolate that you dip your bread into for breakfast in France.

Alright, so put this aside for now, and get your flour and cocoa powder ready. Weigh your flour on a scale.

I love having the exact measurements for each ingredient.

Next, tare your scale and add about 50g of cocoa powder.

I accidentally tared it after adding the cocoa powder, but it was 50 grams!

Whisk them together with a teaspoon of salt.

Now, take that bowl aside and prepare another bowl. First, add the sugar and brown sugar into the bowl.

Make sure you whisk the sugars together first! Very important!

Combine the sugars with the melted chocolate first in a larger bowl.

Next, add your three eggs and…1 tablespoon of vanilla?!

Mix it all together.

Once this is all mixed up, add the flour-cocoa powder mixture to the bowl, and mix it all up.

Next, toss in the remaining 1/2 cup of semi-sweet morsels, and mix it all up.

You can probably add more than 1/2 cup of morsels if you want, honestly I won’t judge.

Pour the brownie mix into your prepared pan.

Once you have it spread evenly, preheat the oven to 350F. While the oven is heating up, grab your peanut butter and drop spoonfuls of it on top.

You probably don’t need to add this much, but that’s okay, I won’t judge.

Use a knife to mix it on top of the brownie batter. You can have fun with it if you feel like it.

I was trying to go for a “starry night” vibe, but that didn’t work very well.

Once the oven has heated up, bake these for 35 minutes to give it a fudgy texture. It’s worth it.

I ended up going with a giant swirl of peanut butter on top.

Once it has cooled off, remove it from the baking pan and cut it into 16 brownies.

Once you’ve cut them up, enjoy them!

All and all, this is a very easy recipe, and you don’t really need any special ingredients, unless you count peanut butter. It’s very tasty, and cooking them a little less than normal brownies gives it a nice chewy texture that I really like. Plus, they’re great to make on impulse, so try them out!

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (227g)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips divided (175g) (or however much you want)
1¼ cups all-purpose flour (150g)
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (50g)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar (200g)
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (220g)
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup creamy peanut butter (doesn’t matter really)

Instructions:

Spray your 8″x8″ square baking pan with baking spray, or line it with parchment paper.
In a bowl, melt two sticks of butter with approximately 87 grams of semi-sweet morsels. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, measure your 150g of flour and 50g of cocoa powder. Add your 1 teaspoon of salt and whisk together. Set this bowl aside.
In another bowl, mix your 200g of granulated sugar and 220g of brown sugar together. This is to ensure you get the right consistency.
Pour the melted chocolate into the bowl with the whisked sugars. Add your three eggs and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.
Add the flour-cocoa powder mix to the melted chocolate and sugars.
Add semi-sweet morsels to the dough.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Pour the brownie batter into your sprayed (or lined) pan. Make sure it’s even.
Drop spoonfuls of peanut butter and mix it around with a knife.
When the oven is heated up, bake the brownies for 35 minutes if you want them to be fudgy, and 40-45 minutes if you want a more traditional texture for your brownies.
After they cool off, cut them into whatever size squares you want.
Enjoy!

Source

Cookies: Rainbow S’moreo Cookies

Original recipe: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/rainbow-s-moreo-cookies/

I was in the mood to try something different, and I wanted something related to summer. I came across this recipe, and thought I would give it a try.

I tried making this once before, but I forgot the crucial step of flattening the cookies before baking them. I left them in balls, and wondered why they didn’t flatten, and then I realized my mistake. Plus, I didn’t photograph anything that I did, so I had to make it a second time, and correctly.

Let’s start off with the usual first step: combine butter and sugar.

After mixing them up for about a minute, drop in your egg and vanilla.

After those are mixed up, add your cocoa powder and mix.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder, and salt.

The usual fun of whisking the dry ingredients together.

Slowly pour in the dry ingredients into the stand mixer as it is running.

Next, you should refrigerate the dough for a while, about 30 minutes. This is actually necessary as you will need the dough to be scoopable, and be able to flatten it. If the dough hasn’t been refrigerated, this becomes very tedious.

At this point, you will want to preheat the oven to 350F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using your 1tbsp scoop that actually works, make some 1″ balls with it.

Our trusty and reliable 1tbsp cookie scoop!

Next, using some small glass, dip the bottom in sugar and squish the balls of dough.

As it turns out, these cookies don’t flatten on their own…

They’re not perfectly pretty, but they’re going to be tasty!

Bake these in the oven for 10 minutes if you’re using an aluminum cookie sheet.

Let them cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to your cooling rack.

Using marshmallow cream, spread it on the bottoms of half of the cookies.

Honestly, you could just stop here and make your own oreo cookies from here…

Make your cookie sandwiches with them. Using a bowl of sprinkles, roll the cookie sandwiches in it.

There’s just one problem with using marshmallow cream…

It expands and gets really messy very quickly…

I think the cookies in this recipe are meant to be enjoyed right away, like an actually s’more.

Overall, this is a good recipe that requires some extra ingredients to make it happen. You’ll need some graham cracker crumbs as something extra to make this happen. Also, the marshmallow cream is extremely messy.

If I was to make this again, I probably would use a frosting for the filling, or make my own because the marshmallow cream is tasty, but extremely messy. Plus, it seems to continue to expand like crazy.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup baking cocoa
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 jar (7 ounces) marshmallow creme
Rainbow sprinkles

Directions:

In your stand mixer, mix together the softened butter and sugar for about 2 minutes.
Add egg and vanilla and mix for another two minutes.
Add cocoa and mix for yet another 2 minutes.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder, and kosher salt.
On a piece of parchment paper, slowly pour the dry ingredients into the stand mixer as it is mixing.
After thorough mixing, refrigerate for a minimum of half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350F
Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Using your trusty 1tbsp cookie scoop, scoop 24 1″ balls and place them on the cookie sheets.
Using a glass dipped in sugar, flatten all your cookies.
Bake each cookie sheet for 10 minutes.
Let each sheet of cookies cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a cookie sheet.
Spread some marshmallow cream on the bottom half of 12 of the cookies. Make your sandwiches with them.
On a small plate, dump some sprinkles, and roll each cookie into them.
Enjoy them before the marshmallow cream expands and makes messes in your kitchen.

Source

Dessert: Zucchini Muffins

Original Recipe: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/zucchini_muffins/

I normally don’t bake in the middle of the week, but I didn’t want the zucchini to go bad, so I decided to make some zucchini muffins on a Tuesday.

First, we need to use our cheese grater to grate all the zucchini that we have on hand.

I wish there was an easier way to grate them.

I had to use 6 small zucchini to make the 3 cups necessary for this recipe. I recommend doing this first because how much grated zucchini will have will determine how many muffins you make (if you want to maintain the right ingredient ratio).

After grating the zucchini, you need to remove all the water by putting itin a towel that you don’t care about, and squeeze all the water out of it. Then you can measure how much you still need. Luckily, I got the 3 cups necessary.

Next, you need to add a couple of eggs into the bowl of your stand mixer.

Then you need to measure your sugar. Luckily this recipe gives you the weight in grams of how much sugar you need.

I didn’t need to pull out the 1/3 cup measuring cup for this…

Add the sugar to the stand mixer and then add your 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

This mixture will mix better than just the eggs.

While this mixing is taking place, prepare your 1.5 sticks of butter. The butter doesn’t have to be at room temperature since you’re going to melt it in the microwave anyways.

I’m not really sure why I took a picture of butter.

Melt that in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Add your shredded zucchini to the stand mixer, followed by the melted butter.

Mix on low for about 2 minutes.

At this point, you will want to preheat your oven to 350F.

While the stand mixer is…well, mixing, prepare your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Start off with your 400 grams of flour.

After the flour is weighed, add your baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, and nutmeg.

Whisk it together.

Once the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, pour it onto a sheet of parchment paper. Also, attach the feeder cover for your stand mixer so the dry ingredients don’t go all over the place.

As the stand mixer is on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the mix.

While the ingredients are mixing in the stand mixer, prepare your muffin pan, and add some cupcake liners for good measure.

Why make your job difficult later when you can make it easy?

Fill all the cupcake liners with the zucchini dough.

Once the oven is ready, place these in the middle rack for 30 minutes. After the time has passed, check with a toothpick to make sure it’s clean.

Let them cool off for about 10 minutes before taking pictures for your blog or social media.

Overall, this is a pretty simple recipe that you can make on impulse, as long as you have all the ingredients. You don’t really need to prep any ingredients ahead of time for this, so it works well if you’re in the mood for a different type of muffin. Plus, it’s very tasty, and they taste good with a bit of butter after being reheated.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
1 1/3 cup (270g) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups packed grated zucchini
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 3/4 cups (400g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions:

Prepare your shredded zucchini with your cheese grater. After grating the zucchini, squeeze the water out of it with a towel you don’t care about. Place it in a small bowl and move to the side.
Break open two eggs and place them in the stand mixer. Mix up the eggs.
Add sugar and vanilla and mix on low for one minute.
Melt your 1.5 sticks of butter and pour into the sand mixer.
Add the grated zucchini and mix on low for about 2 minutes.
Preheat the oven for 350F.
In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together. (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, and nutmeg).
Place the dry ingredients onto a sheet of parchment paper, and slowly feed into stand mixer while it is on low.
While mixing, prepare a muffin tin and place your cupcake liners in it for easy cleanup afterwards.
When all the ingredients are mixed thoroughly, slowly fill the muffin tins with the mix.
Place in the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes. Ensure it is baked completely with a toothpick.
Let sit for 10 minutes before eating.

Source

Cookies: Monster Cookies

Original Source: https://cookieandkate.com/monster-cookies-recipe/

So it has been a while unfortunately. I caught COVID-19, and I don’t recommend it honestly. It put me out for a while, and I’m now getting back into the swing of things.

I was in the mood to make some cookies again, and I wanted something related to summer, so I found this recipe for Monster Cookies. I’m not sure why they’re called Monster Cookies honestly; maybe it’s because it’s a monstrosity of ingredients, or maybe it’s just because they’re huge. Either way, let’s get right to it!

So this is a pretty easy recipe that doesn’t require any planning of ingredients. As long as you have all the ingredients, you can make these on the fly.

For this recipe, we’re going to make the standard batch and use the ingredients to make it taste good.

First things first: prepare a minimum of two aluminum cookie sheets, and line them with parchment paper. Also, preheat the oven to 350F.

Let’s start off the recipe with our peanut butter. You can use either creamy or crunchy peanut butter for this recipe. I’m going to use creamy since I keep it on hand in case of emergency. You never know when someone is going to want some Buckeye Brownie Cookies.

Next, add in the brown sugar, because we want these cookies to actually taste good.

Trust me, there’s peanut butter under there.

Next, melt your 5 tablespoons of butter. It doesn’t need to be at room temperature beforehand, so you can cut 5/8ths of a stick of butter and just melt it in the microwave.

Mix this on low in your stand mixer for about a minute.

After your minute, throw in your eggs, vanilla, and baking soda.

Mix that on medium-low for about a minute or two.

Alright, so now we start to add some of your dry ingredients. This is where you would add in the oatmeal. I just used regular old-fashioned oats.

Next you, add your, ahem…candy-coated chocoate pieces into the mix, along with your pieces of bittersweet chocolate. Not sure why the recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate, but you can probably get away with using regular semisweet morsels.

They look like M&M’s, but they’re not M&M’s due to copyright infringement law!

Mix it all up in your stand mixer for a couple of minutes.

The dough binds together very well, and it doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl as much as you would think.

When it’s done, get your 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop the dough.

You could spray this with cooking spray if you feed like it. I didn’t really need to.

Scoop your 1/4 cup portions onto the parchment-paper lined aluminum cookie sheets. I put 6 of them on a cookie sheet since they will expand quite a bit.

They’re called Monster Cookies, not Perfect Cookies, lol

With the aluminum cookie sheets, bake these for 14 minutes in your oven. You’ll see some browning on the tops.

Let them cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Overall, these cookies are really easy to make, and can be made on impulse, as long as you have all the ingredients on hand. No flour is needed, and if you use gluten-free oats, you can essentially make a gluten-free cookie if you so desire. They’re very tasty and don’t take up a lot of your time.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups creamy peanut butter
2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
¾ cup bittersweet (or semisweet) chocolate chips
¾ cup candy-coated chocolates (like M&M’s) or additional chocolate chips

Instructions:

Prepare two aluminum cookie sheets and line them with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a stand mixer, combine peanut butter, brown sugar, and melted butter. Mix on medium-low for about a minute.
Add eggs, baking soda, and vanilla, and mix on medium-low again for about a minute.
Add oatmeal, candy-coated chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate to the box and mix on medium-low for about 2 minutes.
Using your 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop dough onto cookie sheet. Place six of them on a cookie sheet at a time.
Bake in the oven for 14 minutes.
Let cookies sit on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to cooling rack.

Source

Dessert: Cookies & Cream Brownies

Original Recipe Here:
https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/cookies-cream-brownies/

This weekend, I decided to make brownies, but I wanted to do something different. I was in the mood for something along the lines of cookies and cream, and I wanted something with Oreos in them, so I found this recipe for a cookies & cream brownie.

Alright, so we need to start with a brownie base:

Here we go! Regular good ol’ fudge brownie base.

You’ll follow the recipe on the back of the box, which is illustrated below:

Yes, we’re going to follow instructions on a box for brownies…for the most part…

Alright, so you have your brownie mix in your medium-sized bowl, go ahead and throw in 3 tablespoons of water, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and 2 eggs. It should look like the mess below:

Once it’s all mixed up with your spatula (or whatever mixing device you use, although a hand mixer would be overkill), it will look like this below:

You almost want to eat all the batter right there and then…

Set the bowl aside, and grab that 9″ x 13″ pan that we all totally have in our kitchens.

For the record, I’ve had this pan the whole time! Seriously! No joke!

After grabbing your giant brownie pan, preheat the oven to 350F.

Line the pan as best as you can with a giant sheet of parchment paper and then pour the brownie mix into it. Distribute it as best as you can while making sure the parchment paper lines up against all the edges.

This might be the most difficult part of the whole recipe…

After you’re satisfied with your distribution of brownie mix, slowly add in your double-stuff Oreos. For the record, you will need a total of 30 of them for this recipe, and 24 of them will go into the brownies themselves.

If you’re wondering, yes, someone at the factory put one of the cookies on the sandwich upside down. I had nothing to do with that.

Once that’s done, the oven should be ready for baking, so go ahead and throw it in the oven. I recommend about 35 minutes for these, despite what the box says.

Alright, so once that’s done, you’ll have to let the brownies cool off. You will need a few hours to refrigerate the brownie mix so that you can spread the next layer of goodness on here.

*In a French accent* “Several hours later…”

Now we’re ready for the next layer of brownie goodness. First, you’ll need a stick and a half of butter to put into your stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

It’s a buttercream base, so we need to start with…well…butter.

Soften it up as best as you can with your stand mixer.

Next, you’ll add your sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, and then mix it up.

Did I intentionally put pictures of myself screwing up on my own blog? Yes I did. As it turns out, if you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, you probably wouldn’t have realized that you didn’t read the recipe correctly and put in regular sugar instead of confectioners’ (powdered) sugar.

Alright, anyways, let’s start over, and put powdered sugar in there instead. Throw in a pinch of salt for good measure. I used about 1/8th of a teaspoon.

So now that you’ve been doing this correctly the whole time, and didn’t put in the wrong sugar, go ahead and turn your stand mixer on to low, otherwise you’ll get a cloud of powdered sugar in your kitchen. After it has started to mix up, crank the little booger up to maximum.

While the stand mixer is going, you’ll need to cut up the 6 Oreos I told you about earlier.

Once the frosting actually looks like frosting (and not clumps of sugar and butter), remove the bowl from the stand mixer and stir in the Oreo bits.

Do your best to not lick the buttercream frosting as well…

After you feel satisfied with your mixing, go ahead and bring it over to your cooled-off brownie slab and evenly add the buttercream frosting to the brownie.

Refrigerate the pan for another half an hour for the buttercream to solidify.

After the buttercream is nice and solid, it’s time for the final layer of chocolate! This step is pretty easy, as you just need about 200g of semi-sweet morsels, and one stick of butter cut into quarters.

I feel like I’m channeling Paula Dean at this moment.

Throw the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, pull out, and stir.

I was a bit nervous about this as well, as I thought it was going to be way too much butter…

I put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds, and mixed it up again. This was the final result:

Yes that toothpick was for the brownies.

Go ahead and spread it on top of your brownie stack by just pouring it on and evening it out.

Let that refrigerate some more, and then you’ll have a completed recipe!

Here’s how it looks on a cross-sectional view:

There’s an Oreo cookie in there somewhere…

All and all, this is a great recipe that requires a lot of time, so if you’re going to make this for a dinner dessert, start early in the morning, or make it the day before. These took a lot of time, but honestly they’re worth it. It’s actually pretty easy, and doesn’t really use anything weird. The only thing you might not have on hand are Oreos, but everything else is stuff you can find in a normal kitchen, even in my tiny apartment.

Ingredients:

Brownies

One box of brownie mix from your local grocery store (9×13 inch pan brownie batter)
24 Double-Stuf Oreos

Cookies & Cream Buttercream

3/4 cup (one and half sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 Double-Stuf Oreos, chopped (I use Double Stuf Oreos)
1/8 teaspoon of salt

Chocolate Topping

1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter
1 heaping cup (around 200g) semi-sweet morsels (or melting chocolate)

Directions:

Brownie Base

Preheat the oven to 350F
Prepare the brownie mix in a medium bowl as per the instructions on the box.
Get your conveniently placed 9″ x 13″ pan and line it with parchment paper. This will make it easy to remove the brownies when done.
Pour the brownie mix into the parchment paper-lined pan.
After evenly distributing it, add 24 Oreos in a neat 4×6 pattern.
Bake the brownie mix for about 35 minutes.
Remove and let cool for a few hours at minimum.

Cookies and Cream Buttercream

Prepare your stand mixer and throw in your 1 1/2 sticks of butter into the bowl.
Run the stand mixer on medium to get it softened up a bit.
Add three cups of confectioners’ (powdered) sugar, along with the 2 tbsp of milk, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Start the stand mixer on low so it doesn’t throw powdered sugar all over the place and make a mess for you to clean up.
After the butter and powdered sugar come together, add in the 1/8 teaspoon of salt, and turn the stand mixer to high. Let it run for about a minute or two.
While that’s going on, get your 6 Oreos and cut them into pieces.
Turn off the stand mixer after a minute or two, remove the bowl, and pour the Oreo bits into the buttercream. Mix it nicely with a spatula.
After you’re satisfied with the mix, spread it on top of the giant slab of a brownie.
When you’re done, refrigerate it for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Chocolate Topping

Grab a microwave-safe bowl, and add in about 200 grams of semi-sweet chocolate for melting.
Take a stick of butter, cut it into quarters, and put it in the bowl.
Microwave the mix for 30 seconds on normal.
Pull the bowl out and mix the butter and chocolate a bit.
Repeat step 3.
Pull the bown out again and aggressively until you get a picture-worthy bowl of melted chocolate.
Pour on top of the buttercream and even it out as best as you can.
Refrigerate for another 30 minutes at minimum.
Enjoy!

Source of original recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/cookies-cream-brownies/

Cookies: Butter Cookies

Funny enough, last year when I was doing my cookie challenge, I never once did a butter cookie, and someone suggested I try making on, so here’s my attempt at a butter cookie.

To start things off, we need two sticks of butter, and 140 grams of sugar.

One cup of butter? Nah, two sticks of butter!
Perfect!

Add the sugar to the butter, along with a 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Run them in your stand mixer.

Once you’ve got the butter and sugar mixed up, add in the two egg yolks and 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla.

Also, on an unrelated note, I emptied out a container from Kirkland vanilla.

This is the second time I’ve done this in two years since I’ve started baking.

Next, you’ll need to measure out your flour. Luckily, we can measure out an exact amount of 283 grams. It’s always confusing when recipes tell you to “spoon and level 2 cups”. The weight makes it easier so there’s no discrepency.

Add it to your stand mixer as it is running, and make sure you have the cover on otherwise you’ll get flour all over the place. After the flour is mixed in, add 2 teaspoons of milk. If you feel it needs to be a bit softer, you can add a couple more.

I kinda want to eat it all before it is used for baking.

Once the dough is ready, get your two cookie sheets and line them with some parchment paper. While that is being prepared, set the oven to 350F.

Now, for the part that I failed miserably at: putting it in a bag and piping it out.

I didn’t have the large enough tip for it to make the wonderful aesthetic of the cookies. When I extruded it out, it was about the thickness of a straw, and I didn’t feel like putting forth that kind of effort, so instead I took my trusty 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop and did it the old-fashioned way. Also, maybe don’t use a ziploc bag…

Can’t go wrong with trusty 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop!

The oven was ready to go, and each sheet was baked for 16 minutes. With aluminum cookie sheets, and their inability to retain heat compared to their steel counterparts, I usually put the cookies in at the maximum, or add a couple of minutes.

Once the cookies have cooled off, it’s time to dip them in some chocolate. Luckily my past self is much smarter than my current self, and I had some melting chocolate ready to dip the cookies in.

It’s probably easier to just use a bag of morsels.
These melt easier.
Smooth as…butter…
Ready for action!

Melt the chocolate, and dip each cookie halfway.

A few of the cookies broke when I dipped them in because they weren’t baked enough. They were pretty flimsy and so I had to get the spoon to pull them out safely.

In the end, here’s the result:

In the end, this is a pretty easy recipe to make. The only thing you might need is a kitchen scale to ensure that your measurements are accurate. If you’re going to melt chocolate for these cookies, I’d just use a bag of morsels from the grocery store instead of some sort of specialty thing like these melting chocolates. If you always have milk on hand, along with a bag of morsels, you should be able to make these fairly quickly. There’s no need to refrigerate the dough, so these can be made on impulse in very little time.

If you don’t have any piping mechanism, a cookie scoop works just fine, and they still come out amazing, despite my utter failure of my piping setup.

Ingredients:

1 cup (226g, two sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (140g) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp (1/2 tbsp) vanilla extract
2 cups (283g) all-purpose flour (scoop and level to measure)
2 – 4 tsp milk
Chocolate or candy melts, optional

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together butter, sugar and salt until combined.
Mix in egg yolks and vanilla.
Add flour and mix until crumbly then add in 2 tsp milk, if needed add in another 1 – 2 tsp milk for a more pipe-able consistency – add as little as possible for less spreading though.
Transfer to a 16-inch piping bag fitted with a very large open star tip (or just using your cookie scoop).
Pipe dough into rounds onto two ungreased baking sheets
Bake one sheet at a time in preheated oven until golden brown on bottom, about 12 – 16 minutes.
Let cool on baking sheet 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

If you’d like to dip in chocolate or white chocolate, melt 10 oz chopped chocolate, chocolate melts, or white chocolate melts in a microwave safe bowl on 50% power in 20 second intervals until melted and smooth.
Dip half of cookies into chocolate let excess run off (while also brushing some off bottom across bowl) then transfer to a sheet of parchment paper. Immediately add sprinkles if using then let set.

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Bread: Keto Zucchini Bread

The guy I get lettuce from at Farmer’s Market had his first batch of zucchini for the season, and you know what that means? Zucchini bread time! For this entry, we’re going to make a zucchini bread that is not only tasty, but…keto-friendly!

For the record, I have made this previously in a post, but I wanted to go into more detail with some more pictures.

Alright, let’s start with the most annoying part of the recipe: grating the zucchini.

My rotary cheese grater wouldn’t have been very useful for this recipe.

Because this requires one and a half cups of grated zucchini, I ended up using two of them to get the necessary amount, and that is after squeezing all the water out of it.

Zucchini doesn’t look as good in this form…

It took two zucchini to make this happen.

Once the zucchini is ready, put it aside. In a medium bowl (I used a large bowl, and it was a bit much), mix the 2 cups of almond flour, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 cup sweetener, and 1 teaspoon baking soda together.

Once the dry ingredients are whisked together, then you’ll go ahead and add the grated zucchini to the mix.

Once the zucchini is in place, you’ll need to beat a couple of eggs and pour them into the bowl.

I think I need to use a bowl that is a little less like a mirror and something more solid. That polished surface is a little distracting.

The last ingredient you will add is some melted butter. Take half of a stick of butter, melt it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, and pour it in.

Sweet, all the ingredients are in. Now for the fun part…

Once everything is together, mix it all up with a spatula of sorts.

Once it’s mixed up, get your 9″ x 5″ loaf pan and coat it with cooking spray.

Take my word for it, it is lined with cooking oil.

Once you have your loaf pan ready, pour the mix into it and level it as best as you can.

With your oven at 350F, place the pan in the oven for 1 hour.

After an hour, it should be ready.

After you have let it cool off, make sure you gently remove it from the pan. You might have greased it well, but it might not unstick easily.

This recipe is pretty simple, but it requires quite a bit of effort to grate the zucchini. As for ingredients, Costco seems to be amazing when it comes to a ketogenic diet, as I was able to find my almond flour and monkfruit sweetener there. It’s also very tasty and makes for a great breakfast with some butter in the morning. This can be made on impulse, but you will need to put in some extra effort to make it happen.

Ingredients:

2 Cups almond flour (click here to see my favorite on Amazon)
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Cup Granular Sweetener (Click here to see my favorite on Amazon)
1 teaspoon Baking soda
2 Large Eggs, Beaten
1/4 Cup Melted butter
1 1/2 Cups Grated Zucchini with peel

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 9×5 loaf pan with butter or cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, cinnamon, swerve, and baking soda.
Wrap the grated zucchini in a kitchen towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Discard liquid and add zucchini to the dry ingredients followed by the eggs and melted butter. Stir batter until combined. See notes for instructions on adding walnuts, chocolate chips, or blueberries.
Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake in the 350F oven for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before serving. Slice into 12 slices. See notes for freezing, making muffins, and for a savory bread.

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Cookies: Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pies

It’s been a while since I’ve done a cookie, but these ones were so good that I needed to try them out. This is another one of those cookie recipes you can make on impulse if you have all the ingredients.

Alright, let’s get started with the fun stuff.

You will need two and a half sticks of butter for this recipe, so make sure they’re at room temperature already.

Make sure you mix your white and brown sugar before adding it to the butter. Mixing the sugars ahead of time ensures good cookie consistency.

Once the sugars are mixed up, dump that bowl into the stand mixer and mix them up!

Once the sugar and butter are mixed together, add the egg, vanilla extract, and molasses.

Closer shot of the three ingredients added.

Mix it all up.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and your quick oats..

Whenever I need to add dry ingredients to the stand mixer, I always take the mixture and put them on a sheet of parchment paper and slowly pour it into the stand mixer as it is mixing. I don’t have video of this because I don’t have a tripod for this kind of thing. Plus, I don’t have a YouTube channel to show how all this is done, since I’m a one-man crew.

After mixing for a while, you can stop the mixer and gaze at the magnificence that is the raw cookie dough…

Scoop it out using your trusty 1.5Tbsp scooper from Oxo, unlike their crappier 1Tbsp scooper. Make sure your cookie sheets are lined with some parchement paper for easier cleaner up. To make your life easier, I’d recommend using two cookie sheets to get the baking done quicker.

Make sure your oven is at 375F. I baked the cookies for 12 minutes despite the recipe calling for 10 minutes. The aluminum cookie sheets require a little longer since they don’t absorb heat as much as their steel counterparts.

While cookies are baking, it’s time to get the filling ready.

For the filling, beat the butter with your hand mixer.

Yeah, this whole recipe requires 4 sticks of butter

Next, add the powdered sugar.

To thicken it up, we need to add some heavy cream.

Once the filling is complete, it’s time to make the sandwich cookies!

I don’t think I’ve ever used those BB-8 measuring cups in the back…

I had a lot of filling left over, and had to do my best to not eat it with a spoon.

In the end, this is the result:

These cookies are a lot of work, but they’re so good and worth the effort. As long as you have the 4 sticks of butter at room temperature, this won’t take too long to make.

Do I recommend these? Absolutely! This is definitely something worth your time, and they’re so good. The recipe calls for each cookie size to be 3Tbsp, but using the 1.5Tbsp size makes the cookies just right. Plus, at 1.5Tbsp, it’s still chewy.

Ingredients:

COOKIES

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter softened at room temperature (2.5 sticks)
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon dark molasses
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats NOT whole-rolled oats

CREME FILLING

3/4 cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature (1.5 sticks)
3 cups Powdered sugar
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch of salt, as needed

Instructions:

Instructions

For the cookies: With a stand or handheld mixer, cream the butter and sugars together at medium speed until light and creamy. Add egg, vanilla, and molasses, scraping down the sides as needed. Set aside.
In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves. Whisk it all around. Add the quick oats and combine.
With the mixer running on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to wet ingredients. The dough will be quite thick and you may have to mix it all by hand after a few seconds in the mixer.
Preheat oven to 375F degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or nonstick baking mat. Drop dough with a large cookie scoop, or make sure each ball of dough is 3 tablespoons in measurement. Cookies will spread in the oven, so drop each ball of dough 3 inches apart.
Bake for 10 minutes, until cookies are lightly golden around the edges. Allow cookies to cool on cookie sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the filling: With a stand or handheld mixer, beat butter for about 1 minute until creamy. Add the powdered sugar and mix on medium speed for 1-2 minutes. Pour in heavy cream and vanilla extract. Mix on high for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Taste and add a pinch or two of salt, as needed. If filling is way too thick, add a couple more teaspoons of heavy cream.
Spread 1 1/2 tablespoons of cream filling on the bottom side of half of cookies; top with remaining cookies, right side up.

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Bread: Pretzel Buns

My phase of making bread/biscuits continues, and today we’re going to talk about something fun and tasty: pretzel buns!

This isn’t as time consuming as the Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks, but some work still needs to be done. It’s actually pretty simple to make, and I’ll give some tips on how to make it easier for yourself if you decide to make this recipe.

It first starts off with getting a large mixing bowl (you’ll see why later). Once you have your bow, you need to warm up 1/2 a cup of water. While the water is heating, measure out your white sugar and active dry yeast. To make it easy, use two packets of the active dry yeast that comes in the 3-pack.

To save yourself the frustration, use two of these packets for 4 1/2 teaspoons.

You’ll put the warm water in the bowl and add the sugar and yeast together. Let them do their thing in the bowl for 5 minutes.

After the five minutes are up, add in the milk, shortening, eggs, vegetable oil, flour, more sugar, and salt.

Then you need to get your hand mixer and start it up while adding the rest of the flour (1/2 cup at a time). This will get a little messy, because the dough will bunch up in your mixer.

Once you’ve had enough of your hand mixer, you’ll need a surface that is lightly floured, and you’ll need to knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

I had to wash my hands to get this picture.

Once you have kneaded the dough enough, spray another bowl with cooking oil and place the dough in there. Cover it with plastic wrap and put the bowl in a warm environment for an hour.

After an hour, the dough should look like this:

The recipe tells you to pull out dough balls the size of baseballs, which will make them large (I guess hence the name “buns” instead of “biscuits”).

You’ll need to make the dough lengthen like a breadstick, and then you roll it like a cinnamon roll.

This picture makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Do this so you end up with 12 buns.

Make sure your oven is preheated to 350 degress for these. If you’re like me and put the oven on at the last minute, preheat the oven while you do the next step.

Get 4 cups of water and heat it up. Put that in a bowl and mix it with 1/2 cup of baking soda. With the water-baking soda mix, dip the buns into that water before placing on the cookie sheet. Put 6 on a cookie sheet at a time, and use aluminum ones so you don’t burn the bottoms too quickly. Once on the cookie sheet, spread melted butter on each bun and top with a little bit of sea salt.

Bake each set of 6 for about 22 minutes in the oven.

Overall, I would say that this is a keeper. I’d recommend this recipe for anyone, but just make sure that you have an extra hour set aside for the dough to rise. These are delicious and very fluffy. One of my coworkers saw me eating one, and was extremely jealous. Now they want me to make them some, although if I were to do this again, I would make them smaller and more along the lines of a pretzel biscuit.

Ingredients:

4 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
½ cup warm water
2 cups warm milk
6 tablespoons vegetable shortening
2 eggs
6 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¼ cup white sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ cup baking soda
4 cups water
¼ cup melted butter
sea salt

Directions:

Sprinkle the yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar over 1/2 cup of warm water in a small bowl. The water should be no more than 100 degrees F (40 degrees C). Let stand for 5 minutes until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam.
Add milk, shortening, eggs, oil, 3 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Blend with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Mix in remaining 3 cups of flour by hand, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. The dough will be sticky.
Lightly oil a large bowl, then place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a light cloth and let rise in a warm place (80 to 95 degrees F (27 to 35 degrees C)) until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Uncover the dough and punch it down.
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Pull off baseball size portions of dough and roll into “snakes” about 6 inches long. Roll each “snake” into a spiral to give the tops some texture. Set each formed bun aside.
Mix the baking soda and 4 cups hot water in a bowl. The baking soda does not need to dissolve completely. Dip each bun in the baking soda solution before placing on a baking sheet. Brush each bun with melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in the preheated oven until brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack or brown paper bag.

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