snack 'n go

I've been a dedicated granola bar consumer since I was in high school. They've always been a quick, convenient and portable snack that bordered the "healthy" category. I also loved that I could get away with eating these for breakfast, even though there were chocolate chips sprinkled throughout. 

But when I say "healthy" they're not even close. Most store-bought granola bars are loaded with sugar and other preservatives, so these bars contain honey, unsweetened cocoa powder and natural peanut butter to pack in the flavor. Now before I get attacked for adding mini chocolate chips... yes I know they contain sugar but if you're really being careful just don't add them. It's as easy as that!

I keep the bars in individual snack bags and store them in the fridge. I love that I can grab one, run out the door and know that I'm getting a snack with some protein and nutrients, but really it just tastes like a chocolatey treat. 

forget the cake...

So it's a chocolate cream cheese cookie with chocolate chips and cream cheese frosting on top... are you with me? Yes these are everything you'd want from a chocolate cheesecake, but in a handheld cookie form.

The picture above should really be captioned #lazy (p.s. this video explains my love of the hashtag). Basically, I just plopped the frosting in a ziploc, snipped a corner and bunched the cookies close together so that I could frost all of them at the same time. I mean, they all tasted great so that's really what counts here, right?

Monster cookies

Could there ever be a more appropriate name for a cookie the week of Halloween? I think not. If you like the following variety of cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, m&m, then you'll love Monster Cookies because they contain all of the aforementioned flavors.

In the many years that I've been baking, I can't believe I've actually never made these before. They're easy to make, have chocolate and peanut butter (one of the best flavor combo's) with candy pieces thrown in... why didn't I think of this? It's basically Halloween candy stuffed into a peanut butter cookie. Can't go wrong here.

chocolate addition

I love pumpkin-flavored baked goods so much, that when I was organizing my recipes, I devoted an entire section to all things pumpkin. It's so convenient having them grouped together, so when I flipped to the pumpkin tab and came across these cookies, I knew I had to showcase them here.

These delicious, cake-like, cinnamon pumpkin chocolate chip cookies contain some of my favorite flavors. I don't know where this recipe originated, just that I had copied it from my mom's recipe box when I was a teenager.

These cookies make four dozen, so they'd be perfect for a bake sale or a Halloween party, and believe me they go fast. 

Fluffernutter Dreams Come True

I don't often make many recipes using store-bought cake mixes because they just don't taste right. About five years ago I got sick with a terrible chest infection and lost all my taste buds for like a month. When they slowly came back, a lot of foods just didn't taste the same anymore, in fact, they tasted gross. Over time I got over a lot of them, like peanut butter, but to this day most soda's and pre-packaged cake mixes just taste... off. It's not the worst thing that could've happened, I mean, everyone knows you shouldn't drink soda anyways, so losing my taste buds really did me a favor in the long run.

Anyways, back to this recipe. Yes, there's a store-bought cake mix used here and I couldn't help but be swayed by the fact that: 1. it's a super fast, layered dessert and 2. gooey layers of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff always trump a store-bought mix.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Perfection

JacquesTorres is a pastry chef unlike any other- this man can manipulate chocolate into sculpture and art. He is so talented and basically I would make anything he recommended, even something as boring as white rice. I used to watch him, like a million years ago, on the food network. He would make pastries and desserts that seemed impossible to replicate, but so effortless for him (it’s the same feeling I have watching the gymnasts flit around on the narrow beam at the Olympics- they make it look so easy).

This chocolate chip cookie recipe has been around the blog/Pinterest world for a while now. It wasn’t until my friend said I had to try it that I discovered who originally made it- Jacques Torres, who had written it for the New York Times. Done and done. I had to make them. And you know what? He’s never wrong. These cookies are that ideal ratio of crispy outer edges, soft, chewy center, lot’s of chocolate chips and the sprinkle of sea salt on top gives it that salty/sweet wonderfulness. 

This isn’t your typical cookie dough, which is what makes it so perfect. But with perfection you need patience, and there may be few obstacles to overcome. Here are 3 issues I have with this recipe:  1. The flours. Not everyone has cake flour and bread flour stocked in their pantry (these are supposed to help give it that crispy/soft texture-thing) 2. This is not an instant gratification cookie. You can’t spontaneously decide you want a warm cookie with milk for an afternoon snack- it needs to refrigerate for 24-72 hours for the flavors to really develop and the butter to harden. Which leads me to 3. Leaving yummy cookie dough in the fridge for more than 5 minutes is dangerous… I mean, who doesn’t love to eat cookie dough? Sometimes it’s better than the baked version, which may result in fewer cookies than you originally planned on having because someone couldn’t resist a spoonful now and then (not that I speak from experience or anything).

But seriously, get the flours, make the time (try to resist eating all the dough) and make these delicious cookies! I don’t think you’ll regret it.

(recipe after the jump)

Blog redesign & Taza Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Welcome to my redesigned blog! I’m so happy with how it turned out and I have lots of exciting changes. I’ll be integrating beauty info along with actual recipes of desserts, instead of just posting pictures about them. This format fits my personality and interests and I hope you like it enough to subscribe! Now on to chocolate…

My sister lives near a chocolate factory.... so jealous. It's called Taza Chocolate and is located in Cambridge, MA. It is really unique chocolate because they use a Mexican-style method. This method makes the chocolate slightly grainy because of a larger sugar crystal that doesn't dissolve, so it's not your typical smooth chocolate. Nonetheless, it tastes fantastic. They have permanent and seasonal flavors and they're all in dark chocolate. I think their specialty, and what really sets them apart, are these chocolate discs. They recommend melting them for baking or for making a delicious hot chocolate. 

Taza chocolate discs

Taza has a lot of fantastic recipe cards throughout their store, so I picked up a few and decided to make their Taza chocolate cookies... with my own spin on it, of course. There’s a hint of cinnamon in these cookies, which give it that “Mexican Chocolate” vibe. When I took these cookies out of the oven, my daughter, Ruby, came running into the kitchen sniffing the air saying, “Mama! Chocolate! Mama!”. Yes, I have created a mini-me chocolate loving monster.