We got WAY to much candy for Easter!  I want to eat responsibly, but with all this candy laying around… well, I just can’t.  So I decided that I  need to get rid of the candy asap!  I found the perfect method!  Candy bar filled snickerdoodles.  I got the idea from thebakerchick.com who filled her snickerdoodle cookies with caramels.  If caramels work, why not these easter chocolates?

Too much candy!

I ended up using Snickers, Rollos, and Reese’s peanut butter eggs in mine.  They were awesome!  All the cookies were on way tray and you never knew which candy bar would be in the middle.  It didn’t matter though… they were all delicious!  My favorite was the Reese’s!  The candy bars melted into the center of the cookies and were seriously soooooo yummy!

So all you need to do to get rid of all that Easter candy so you can start eating responsibly again is to invite a bunch of kids over and make these cookies!  They were gobbled up!  I was barely able to save one for my husband to try when he got home from work.  Here’s to no more Easter candy!

Candy Bar Stuffed Snickerdoodle Cookies
Adapted from thebakerchick.com

2 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 3/4 cup of sugar (put 1/4 cup of this aside)
2 Tb cinnamon
2 large eggs

1.  Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl (flour, cream of tarter, baking soda, and salt)

2.  Mix butter, shortening, and 1 1/2 cups sugar together until light and fluffily.  Add eggs, mixing one at a time.

3.  Add dry ingredients to butter mixture gradually.

4.  Mix 1/4 cup of sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.

5.  Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Using a ice cream scooper, scoop up a ball of dough and roll into a nice ball.  Break ball apart and put a mini candybar in the center of each one before rolling back up.

6.  Roll each dough ball in the sugar/cinnamon mixture until it is well coated.  You really can’t overdo it here.

7.  Bake on 400 degrees for 10 minutes and let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes.

***She said this would make 48 cookies, but my batch only made 24.  Maybe my ice cream scoop was a lot bigger than hers.  Either way… they were yummy and I didn’t have to adjust the cooking time.

Looking for a fun St. Patrick’s day treat for the kiddos?  I came across this recipe from Betty Crocker.  Green and cute, but with lots of mint and chocolate flavor.  Simple recipe and the grown ups will like it too!  I love the mint taste in these!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Any sugar cookie dough you want (homemade, mix, premade… doesn’t matter)
6 – 8 drops of food coloring
1/2 tsp mint extract
1 cup Creme de Menthe baking chips
1 cup chocolate chips

***Make up your sugar cookie dough, add the food coloring and mint extract and mix well.  Gently stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chips.   Bake the cookies how your sugar cookie recipe directs (although mine needed an extra few minutes).

Most important ingredient! So yummy! You can find them in the baking section in your local grocery store.

The dough is yummy too! Love the chocolate mint flavor in these!

The fluffiest peanut butter cookies on the planet!  Seriously, I am not kidding here!  They are so good!

My boys have been begging for the past week for me to make some cookies.  I have been refusing because I have no will power as of late and I know if I make them I will REALLY enjoy eating them!  I started to feel bad though and caved to their sweet little faces.  However, I  decided that if I was going to make them then I was going to make sure it was worth it!  I started searching pinterest for the most delectable fluffy cookies and was thrilled to find these at howsweeteats.com.

Seriously, next time you are in the mood for some fluffy, chewy, chocolatey goodness… MAKE THESE!  🙂   I was actually torn between trying this recipe or trying a similar one that included oatmeal.  I love oatmeal cookies so after using half the dough I mixed 1/2 cup of oats in the rest of my dough so I could have both.  Love them, loved them, loved them!  The oats gave them a great texture.  I will add oats to the entire batch next time.  Drool, drool…

I was hoping to tell you how they taste the next day, but they did not last that long!  Guess that is what happens with 3 little monkeys (and a mom with no will power… hehe).

These ones have the oats added.... mmmmm

Adding the melted peanut butter to the sugars

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from www.sweeteats.com
Makes 18 cookies (although my batch made 30 so clearly I didn’t make mine as big as recommended)
1/2 cup salted butter
6 Tb peanut butter (I didn’t measure just estimated since it is just over 1/3 cup)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg + 1 egg yoke
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup Oatmeal (optional, but I am telling you it is delish!)

1.  Melt the butter and PB together in the microwave for about 30-40 seconds.  Mix and let cool completely.
2.  Wisk flour and baking soda together and set aside
3.  Mix both sugars and PB mixture together in large bowl
4.  Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix well.
5.  Slowly add flour.  Mix until just combined.  You may need to add 2 Tb of milk if your dough is too thick (I did).
6.  Stir in chocolate chips (and oatmeal if you are adding it)
7.  Bake at 325 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.  Do not over bake.  Cool completely on rack.

No oats in these ones, but still oh so good!

Nice and fluffy inside! Love these cookies!

Pinterest has caught  my attention again!  I can’t get enough of it!  It has the best of everything!  I saw these cookies and cream cookies floating around on pinterest a lot lately so when we got invited over to a friends for dinner I immediately thought of these cookies as something fun and different to bring along.  They were yummy and fluffy, but I must admit that the dough was just as good as the baked cookie!  So good… I am such a sucker for cookie dough!  It was a great compliment when I had no cookies to take home at the end of the night…  I think that speaks for itself.

So good... I love the dough!

How could you not love a cookie full of Oreo bits! MMMmmmm!

Cookies and Cream Cookies
(makes about 30 cookies)
From Ericassweettooth.com

1/2 cup butter, at room temp.
6 Tb sugar
6 Tb. brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 Oreos broken into pieces

***Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Cream together sugars and butters.  Add egg and vanilla. Wisk dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then slowly add to sugar mixture.  Mix slowly until just combined.  Gently stir in oreo bits.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper and bake 8 to 10 minutes.

Cool completely on a wire rack

As the warm weather has drifted away I have had to come to terms with the fact that camping season has also come and gone.  I love camping season though, and am not ready to give up all its fun completely.

So what is the best part of camping?  The S’mores of course!

I found this genius s’more cookie recipe on a food blog I just started following.  They turned out so great!  The kids couldn’t get enough of them.  The neighbor kids came over and had some too.  The kids sat outside on the deck eating them with their friends talking about different camping trips we took this past summer.  Love it!  Camping lives on!

Here you can see I averaged between 1 and 2 Tablespoons per scoop

Almost done... just need the hershey piece to melt into the cookie a little more

 
S’more Cookies
Source:  The-girl-who-ate-everything.com

11 Tb. unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. sea salt
2 ½ cups flour
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup mini marshmallows
3 regular sized Hershey’s bars (I ended up needing 4)
1-2 package graham crackers, broken into squares (I ended up using 1 entire box, I also used the cinnamon graham crackers to give it an extra cinnamon taste)

• Preheat over to 375 degrees and line 2 backing sheets with parchment paper.
• Put graham crackers side by side so they are touching across pan.  How many graham crackers you use really depends on how much cookie dough you use on each cracker.
• Whisk flour, baking soda, sea salt, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl; set aside
• Beat butter and both sugars together until fluffy
• Add eggs and vanilla until combined
• Using low speed, combine the flour mixture with butter mixture
• Gently stir in chocolate chips and marshmallows
• Place 1 to 2 Tb of dough on each graham cracker square and press down lightly with fingertips
• Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from oven and press Hershey’s bar piece in each cookie
• Bake for 5 to 7 minutes more then cool on wire rack
• Cut cookies with a sharp knife to separate after cookies are completely cool

I stored my cookies in an airtight container and the stayed perfectly soft and were delicious even days later.  Loved this recipe and would definitely make these again.

So last night my husband and I were really having a sweet tooth craving and were trying to decide what we wanted.  I decided to browse my pinterest food board to see if I had anything good saved on there.  I came across these chocolate chip snicker cookies I have been dying to try for a while.  They are chocolate chip cookies with a mini snickers wrapped in the middle!  What’s not to love!  These cookies were relatively easy to make, but did have an unusual step in it I wasn’t expecting.  You actually brown the butter in a pan over the stove instead of just using softened butter.  Interesting!  It gave the cookies a really flavorful toffee taste.  And just a warning… the toffee taste made the cookie dough IRRESISTIBLE.

M

I adapted the recipe slightly because I felt like the cookies were too doughy and I couldn’t mold the cookie around the snickers very well.

CHOCOLATE CHIP SNICKER COOKIES

Adapted from bakersroyale.com |   Makes 24 large cookies

2 ¼  Cups flour
½ Teaspoon baking soda
16 Tablespoons butter
¾ Cup brown sugar
½ Cup granulated sugar
¾ Teaspoon Salt
2 Teaspoons Vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 Cup chocolate chips
I bag of mini or fun size snickers

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray baking sheet or line with parchment paper.
• Whisk together flour and baking soda in separate bowl
• Put 10 of the 16 TB of butter in a skillet pan and heat over medium until completely melted.  Then continue to brown the butter until it is a dark golden brown color.  Make sure to stir continually or swirl the pan so the butter doesn’t burn.  This only takes a couple minutes.  Put the butter in a large bowl and stir in the remaining 6 TB of butter until it is completely melted.
• Add the sugars, salt, and vanilla.  Then come the eggs.  Add the eggs and whisk for 30 seconds. Then let it sit for 3 minutes.  Repeat this 30 second whisk-3 minute rest two more times.  The dough should now be thick and smooth.
• Add the flour. Mix very briefly… this is the key to good cookies!  The more you mix the more cake-like your cookies are… the less mixing you can get away with, the more chewy your cookies will be.  I love my cookies chewy so I mix until the flour is just barely combined.
• Stir in chocolate chips
• Scoop cookies leaving at least 2 inches between cookies… I used an ice cream scooper to scoop.  Place the snickers slice on top of each cookie and fold the edges over to completely hide the snickers.  Dice up the remaining cookie and press them into the top of the cookies.
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.  The cookies should still be puffy and the center will have just begun to set.  Cool on a wire rack.