Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recently, I was lucky enough to be able to attend Coachella! It was an amazing weekend with some of my best friends and I was especially grateful to my friend Katie for letting us stay at her house in Palm Springs! She's the one on the right!

Her parents were so generous to let us stay and so Coco and I wanted to thank her by baking her something! We decided on these red velvet cookies that turned out really good! I was not always a huge fan of red velvet because it tasted like a whole lot of red dye to me, but I have made it a couple of times (which you wouldn't know because I haven't been updating...) and I have gotten used to it! My mom also bought me gel colorings instead of liquid so there definitely isn't as much dye in these than normal!

They originally were for Katie's parents but they headed home to Minnesota before we could send them, so Katie got to enjoy them instead!

Thanks for an amazing weekend Katie!!

Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies: from thecurvycarrot

1/2 cup butter- room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 + 1/2 all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder (and if more gets in... so be it)
red food coloring (I used the gel, around 4 toothpicks)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder.
Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. At this time, add in the food coloring. Then, mix in the egg and vanilla making sure to mix well.
At low speed, gradually add in the flour mixture. If you feel the need, add in more food coloring. But, be careful if you are using liquid coloring to make sure it doesn't get too liquidy.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Roll into balls around two inches apart on lined baking sheets.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until slightly golden.

(Don't eat too many)

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recently, it was my friend Sarah's birthday and of course, I made her something sweet :] She is much healthier than I, so when I asked what she liked to eat she responded with bananas and peanut butter! Sounds like something Elvis would eat... but delicious nonetheless!

I found a recipe for these cookies and the only problem was that they sounded a bit too chewy for my taste. I feel like banana flavored things are better cakey (banana bread? banana muffins??) rather than chewy. So I fixed up the recipe a bit and they turned out amazingly soft!

And it always helps when you have a couple of overripe bananas on hand!

 Recipe: Adapted from howsweeteats

2 cups + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter- melted and cooled
6 tablespoons of peanut butter (I used creamy)- melted and cooled
1 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk + 1 egg- room temperature
2 teapsoons vanilla extract
2 medium bananas, mashed
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl.
Whisk together peanut butter, butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until combined. Whisk in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Mix in mashed bananas, it will not be completely smooth. Gradually add in the flour mixture until it makes a dough. Fold in chocolate chips.

Place balls of dough onto nonstick baking sheet or parchment paper, but leave at least two inches apart as they will spread. Bake 12 minutes or until the edges are turning brown. Don't overbake because they are supposed to be soft and cakelike! Let cool completely as they are soft. Enjoy :]

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

Taking a break from the heavy, chocolate filled treats that we normally make...

comes strawberry lemonade cupcakes! I've been keeping this on my list of things to make and one day I decided to finally take a crack at it. I wanted them to be very light because I already knew what frosting I wanted to use with it, so I needed to find the perfect lemon cake. I found one that was supposed to create a sponge cake texture and after I made those I began to make my favorite frosting!

It's a straight whipped cream with completely fresh strawberry puree mixed right in. My roommates and I saved all of the extra and ate it straight... no regrets.


It matches perfectly with the light cake. Refreshing!

Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting:

1 cup of heavy whipped cream
1/3 cup of sugar
Strawberries!

1. Whip cream with beaters/ stand mixer until thick
2. Mix in sugar
3. Fold in pureed strawberries. I used an entire package of strawberries but it really is up to you and how much taste you want!

Make sure you have good tasters :] I don't think you will have any problems getting people to taste test.


cake: todaysnest

Sooo... I'm back? With Snickerdoodle Cookie Cupcakes

Hey again! After months of computer memory problems and limitless procrastination.. the blog is back in action!

I'll be randomly updating for all of the things that we have made during the past couple of months as well as trying to blog the real time current endeavors!

So back in December, I made these delicious snickerdoodle cupcakes! They had a crunchy cookie in the bottom which made them that much better (and made them take double the time to make).

One of the worst parts about making cupcakes is the waiting time between baking them and being able to frost them...
and because I took so much time on the cookie dough and cupcake dough... I didn't want to wait.

so I popped some in the fridge!


They turned out pretty delicious if I say so myself :]

recipe: howsweeteats

Rolo Stuffed Pretzel Blondie Bites

I have been on a huge chocolate and pretzel fix lately, so this recipe obviously had to be made! 

These bite size muffins? cupcakes? blondies? (not sure what to call them) were very easy and fun to make! I had a baker's assistant for this one, as Kelly came over and hung out with me while I made them!


The trick to these little bites was that first, you stuck a rolo into the batter (which was really hard not to just eat by itself...)

 

but then, right when they came out of the oven you put a pretzel waffle in the warm dough so that it stuck! Some of them were hard to take out of the mini muffin pan...

and they got stuck but the diva was nice enough to model it for me...

But, other than that they turned out really good! the little bit of caramel in the middle was amazing!

yummmm


recipe: cookiesandcups