All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel
This Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Crumble Topping is the perfect bread pudding that will satisfy your sweets cravings with the chocolate and the buttery texture from the crumbly topping.
I love bread pudding because it’s a great dessert. Plus, it’s a great way to transform some old bread into a delicious treat.
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These Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars are a simple way to be creative with a classic Girl Scout Cookie. Loaded with chocolate and mint- yum!
Post Contains Affiliate Links. Read my full disclosure HERE
I think that Girl Scout cookie season is the best time of the year. It basically ranks right up there with Christmas. The cookies are great and buying them helps support the Girl Scouts. Win Win!
Making these Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars will have you loving the classic Girl Scout cookie even more than you already do!
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Edible Cookie Dough that is just as yummy as your favorite chocolate chip cookies that is safe to eat. Now that is a real treat!
There is a really cool edible cookie dough place here in Tampa.
It is fun, trendy, tastes so good, and does good.
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I love any excuse to enjoy some chocolate at breakfast, so these Strawberry Chocolate Chip Muffins are the perfect breakfast when you are on the go. Or you can enjoy it as an afternoon snack with a cup of tea or coffee. You won’t be able to resist these fresh strawberries and bits of chocolate in these muffins.
Rise and Shine!!!!
I swear the whenever I think that I am going to get the chance to sleep in, it seems like I am up earlier than ever. If it’s not from a kid waking me up with some demand (food or boob), it’s something so ridiculous like some loud crane yelling from a roof top, or I just wake up early AF and can’t go back to sleep.
It’s always something…
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Growing up in New England, I know winter storm season well.
The season is long and it can produce winters filled with lots of snow or just a wee bit. There might be some epic storms that drop 20 inches with blizzard conditions, or you might just get dusting after dusting.
I loved tracking the weather patterns and the predictions of accumulations so much more than I loved dealing with the snow.
That is one of the many reasons we are now living in Florida.
So now I get to follow Tropical Storm and Hurricane Warnings.
And that is what I am doing right now. Tropical Storm Colin… I’ve got my eyes on you.
The storm shouldn’t be so bad, thankfully. So my plans to stay home in my PJ’s dissolved as the storm’s targeted landfall location moved North. We should still get plenty of rain and have some wind squalls but there should not be issues where we are specifically are located. So my day of baking, PJ wearing, and blasting music to dance around with Autumn will have to come with another storm.
For years and years I did not like butterscotch but I started to turn the corner when I started to bake up the Oatmeal Scotchie Cookies from Krusteaz and I now I am hooked. I even had ice cream the other night with butterscotch in it.
So now this cake is a favorite of mine since I am now hooked on butterscotch. And chocolate always is a winner. The glaze, oh man, that glaze ties it all together.
Stormy weather or not, you need some cake in your life. Especially one that packed with butterscotch and chocolate chips and topped off with a chocolate glaze.
Makes 1 bundt cake
Ingredients
For the cake
For the glaze
Process
Adapted from Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook
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hmmm, what do I talk about today?
Maybe how Autumn has a wicked stomach bug and spent all last night throwing up on everything- including me. So much laundry, so little sleep.
nah. let’s not get into that grossness!!!
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I have a new addiction. Oh baby, it’s a good one!
I can’t stop watching “Married At First Sight”. I just discovered it a few weeks ago so I am so into now. I am watching the latest episode as I write this. I know it’s going to take me 5x longer to write this post as I will be so distracted watching it.
ummm, 5 minutes just passed as my fingers rested on the keys as I watched…
It’s so interesting! It’s so weird. It’s so amazing. I mean, these 3 couples met each other at the alter. For real, they learned their names then. That’s insane, but cool.
I can’t figure out which couple I like the most. Or which one will actually continue on by committing to stay married after the ‘experiment’ phase.
All I do know is that I love to watch the current season and watching last season.
Anyway, I made these Bacon Chocolate Waffles a few years (ago and shared it then but I wanted to share it again as I had make some tweaks over the years. Mainly more bacon and more chocolate, obviously.
They do such a good job of combining the salty and sweet flavors. Every bite gets a bit of bacon and chocolate. I’ve made them with both regular semi-sweet chocolate chips and mini chips. It’s good both ways. When you make it with regular chips you get bigger bursts of chocolate in each bite, but with the mini chips you get more chocolate coverage. You can’t go wrong either way.
I insist that you make these! Plus, you gotta binge watch “Married at First Sight” so that we can catch up and dish on your favorite couple!!
Makes 12-14 (4″ Square) waffles
Ingredients
Process
*If you don’t have buttermilk on hand you can make your own with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar for every cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes
Muffins make me super happy.
They are really so good. Just delightful. A great way to start your day. Or have as an afternoon snack. Taking the time to bake them up on the weekend just signifies taking the time to treat yourself. Plus, they make your house smell so good. That smell should be a candle. Well, it probably already is.
We haven’t been eating muffins as much as before as we have been following a more Paleo- friendly diet, but that hasn’t stopped me from making them. We bring them to work or Autumn’s daycare. Sharing is caring.
But the thing I love most about muffins now is that Autumn and I get to make them together. She really wants to be involved when I am in the kitchen. I’ve found that baking works pretty well as there are no sharp knives. Yeah, knives don’t really work with tiny toddler hands. But she likes when I count out the Tablespoons or Cups of ingredients. and he LOVES cracking eggs. Seriously loves to crack eggs. She loves when I make crustless quiche as she can crack a dozen eggs.
So when it came to picking the recipe for month’s Secret Recipe Club post I knew I would have to check out all the baking related recipes from Karen’s Kitchen Stories so I could keep Autumn envovled. And Karen has so so many awesome recipes. I enjoyed browsing through all of Karen’s bread recipes as her recipe annex is quite extensive and they all looked so good. I have bookmarked so many recipes like her Chocolate Walnut Babka, Overnight White Bread, and Transitional Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread.
While bread would have been delicious to make I wanted to make something that Autumn could really help with. So I turned back to her well organized recipe index to find another recipe. I saw these Double Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins and knew they would be a great muffin and something manageable to involve a toddler.
These muffins are a real breakfast treat as they have 2 kinds of chocolate in the batter. But some days you just need a treat. But the banana makes them healthy, right? ha! The recipe calls for the addition of sour cream to the batter, but I didn’t have that on hand and knew I wouldn’t use the rest of the container, so I used Greek yogurt. I thought the taste and texture of the muffins so I think the ingredient swap worked just fine.
I also added chocolate chips to the tops of the muffins as you can’t have too many chocolate chips. That’s a fact.
I really suggest that you whip up a batch of these Double Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins for, or even with, the ones you love. Thanks for such a good recipe Karen!! So yummy!
Slightly Adapted from Karen's Kitchen Stories
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The year is winding down. Just a few days to go!! I just can’t believe it. Time is flying.
Sure, sure, I can comment on how fast Autumn is growing but the real thing that ‘gets’ me is that the show Friends has been off the air for 10 years. And that it started 20 years ago. OMG.
That is just too much for my brain to comprehend. I mean, I still watch Friends A LOT.
I can tell you the story-line just by hearing the title of the episode... all of which start with “The One Where…”
I know random factoids about the show. I know silly little things about the cast, characters, and the show. I will kick some butt at Friends trivia. Kick butt!
I pride myself on that fact that I can quote a lot of it. “They don’t know, we know, they know!”
Anyway, when I was making these Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups, I remembered that Rolos are Joey’s favorite candy. Loved them so much that he ate them all over the apartment, including in his recliner, Rosita. I’m sure that he would love these babies.
I suggest that you make these guys for a party or cookie exchange as you get a lot from a batch. 60 cookies in fact! Hey, just invite Joey Tribbiani over. He will help you eat all these cookies. Or just eat them all yourself. I don’t judge.
These cookies are super simple to make. I actually had Autumn help me. She helped push some of the Rolos in the cookies. Aww! Anyway, the only thing that is ‘tricky’ about the cookies is that you need to wait until they are completely cooled before taking them out of the muffin tin. If you rush it the cookies will break apart or collapse in on itself. I ending up putting mine in the refrigerator for a bit so they were really cool before running my knife around them and just popping them out. I just put the chilled cookies in the microwave and nuked them for bout 15 seconds to get ooey gooey again. yum!!
So, enjoy some of these Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups while watching your favorite Friend’s episode.
What’s my favorite episode? ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!
Makes 60 cookies
Ingredients
Process
Cookie dough adapted from Nestle
I’ve put in my time off requests for the holidays (and for our upcoming cruise in January)!! Once it was all signed off (by 4 diferent people) I almost danced around the office.
I am taking Christmas week off for some ME time… lots of PJ wearing, garlic noodle making, You’ve Got Mail watching, with some scrapbooking in the mix. Damn, I really miss scrapbooking. I could have a sob fest about it right now, but I will soilder on and focus on how I get 2 whole days to myself (the others will be with Miss Autumn) to make a mess with pictures, washi tape, stamps, and such. Bliss.
In the 9 days from when I leave work to return from the holidays I’m sure I’ll do some baking as well. Or plan on it and maybe I’ll just scrapbook instead. I dunno. I’m trying to stay quite focused on that so that I can zen out while I watch Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan exchange witty emails back and forth while I work on our 2014 project life.
I am thinking about making these babies again though. They are perfect. Minty. Chocoately. They scream winter to me. And there is plenty of minty frosting smack dab in btween 2 cookies. Aren’t cookie sandwiches the best?
I have a funny story about making these cookies.
It involves a thief (Price) who snagged a cookie while they were cooling before I had put a generious amount of frosting between the paired off cookies. So when I was a nearly done with the sandwiching, I noticed I was off. I searched the counter. I recounted. I looked on the dining table. A cookie was missing. I knew had made 13 pairs. And then I asked…
“Yeah, I took a cookie. Why?”
UGH!!! And that is why you must notify other thieves in your house when making sandwich cookies. ha!
I’m starting to think that all cookies should come in pairs with frosting in between. The world needs more cookie sandwiches. Def.
I brought they babies into work to share so I cut them up. They cut in half pretty easily as the cookies are delightfully soft, and yet dense to hold up to the frosting filling.
If you don’t feel like making sandwiches cookies then at least the cookies since they are so Christmasy good.
What are you doing for the holidays? Any movie marahons? Crafting? Cooking and baking? Traveling? Stuffing your face with cookie sandwiches and spiked nog?
Makes 12-13 Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
For the frosting
Process
I have a project under construction that is in Miami that I needed to visit so I just ‘dragged’ Price and Autumn along with me this past weekend. Friday was a work day for me and the weather was down right crummy, but the weekend was beautiful so the trip was totally worth it.
Since I was working, Price and Autumn hung around the hotel in the morning and then they went to the Miami Children’s Museum in the afternoon. It was so cute to see their pics pop up on my phone while I was taking pics of stone tiles. Let me tell you, it’s a wee bit stressful to have to select pallets of stone tiles when each tile is about $120 each!! Anyway, Price suggests taking kids to the museum, it’s pretty cool.
After my site review, construction meeting, and nerve wrecking tile selection, the fun began for the weekend!! The weather got better and better so we got to enjoy the pool on Saturday. We took dips in the pool and splashed around with Autumn. And then while she took her afternoon nap in the room I snuck away for some solo lounge time!
I was initially really bummed that we didn’t go to Miami Beach but once we figured out the logics of getting from the hotel Downtown to the beach associated with the hotel (25 mins each way for a cab/1 hr each way on public transportation) and the cost (~$50 round trip for cabs & $15 per chair & umbrella), it was very clear that we made the right decision to stay at the hotel.
Plus, it gave us a chance to hang out on the hammocks, we couldn’t have done at the beach. I put Autumn in one and at first she was spooked but then she relaxed and settled in. Within just a few minutes her eyes began to flutter so I hopped in a different one and Price brought her to me and we snuggled while she (we) slept for about an hour. Pure bliss I tell you!!
Speaking of bliss… these cookies!
I’ve been recently making chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese since I had a 1/2 of an 8 oz block left over that was begging for me to use it in something. I was craving chocolate chip cookies and when I went to grab the butter out of the fridge I saw the cream cheese and figure ‘hey, why not!?’ I had made a 1/2 batch of cookies then since I knew I would have inhaled them all so the proportion worked out perfectly. Since then I’ve scaled back up to a full batch of cookies and a full 8 oz block of cream cheese.
The cream cheese just adds a bit of tang to the cookie, which goes well with the semi sweet chocolate chips. And since you don’t completely mix it in you get some streaks of it in the cookie which changes up the texture, but in a really good way. They are still super soft and not dense so they hold up their fluffy texture well, making them pillowy. I suggest eating them hot from the oven- well that holds true with any cookie, no? But they will last up to 2 days in an air-tight contianer.
PS- Sprinkle a tiny bit of sea salt on the top right before baking and it will knock your socks off.
Makes 32 Cookies
Ingredients
Process
