Happy Chocolate Chip Day!

I found this recipe on Picky Palate's blog....oh boy! How appropriate with today being Chocolate Chip day! Let's celebrate with a big fat XXL cookie!!! Jenny from PP used M&M's....that was my springboard....so I hit the candy aisle....lookee what else I put on the cookie...

What makes these cookies so large is that you use the muffin top pans. I have 3 of them at my school so I borrowed them for this recipe. Perfect! If you'd like more of a tutorial how to use these pans with these cookies check out Jenny's Picky Palate blog for more detailed pix...

XXL Candy Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Picky Palate

2 sticks softened butter
3/4 Cup sugar
1 Cup packed light brown sugar (I used half dark brown and light brown)
2 extra large eggs
2 Tablespoons pure vanilla
3 3/4 Cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 oz bag chocolate chips
1 bag M&M’s, Reese's Pieces, Almond or Peanut M&M's, Heath Bar Bits

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer beat the butter and sugars until well beaten. Beat in eggs and vanilla until well combined. Place flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl; mix. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with the chocolate chips. Do not mix in M&M’s!!

2. Scoop 1/4 Cup of dough and press into a muffin top pan (or just press onto a parchment or silpat lined cookie sheet) using your hands or the bottom of a moistened glass. Now, press your M&M’s onto pressed cookies. I did a pan of M&M's (dark) and a pan of Reese's. Another pan of Heath Bar bits....Bake for 12-15 minutes, until edges just start to turn golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes on muffin top pan or cookie sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

About 18 XXL cookies!

I made a DOUBLE batch to take to my GIRL's weekend at the beach. I know we all needed to have some homemade chocolate lovin' from the oven.

Don't worry....I left a few (like 10) for K-man to enjoy while he spends the weekend alone. Care to guess how many will be left when I return after 3 days?

Thanks Jenny....this XXL ROCKED....I hope we don't eat them all on the drive over to the beach!

Cookie Club No Bake Goodies and 2 winners!

My after school group called Cookie Club was busy this week. We planned to do some no bake goodies with a candy bar theme. After you check out my posting today be sure to scroll down below to see who my CHEESY winners were! We made Baby Ruth Bars, Twix Bars, Mounds and had a 'happy accident' which we are calling Pay Day Bars.


Babe Ruth Bars
Makes 18 bars

" These taste like the candy bar. "

1-cup peanut butter
1 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
6 cups cornflakes cereal
1-cup semisweet chocolate chips
1-cup peanuts

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the peanut butter, corn syrup, brown sugar and white sugar. Cook stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and quickly mix in the cornflakes, chocolate chips and peanuts until evenly coated.

2. Press the entire mixture gently into a buttered 9x13 inch-baking dish. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.


Twix Bars

35 unwrapped Kraft caramels
1/4 cup water
1 box Nabisco Lorna Doone shortbread cookies -- (40)
2 bags milk-chocolate chips -- (12 ounce)

Combine the caramels with the water in a small pan and melt over low heat.

Place the shortbread cookies side by side on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Spoon a dab of caramel onto each cookie. Then place all the cookies in the refrigerator until the caramel firms up. In the meantime, in a double boiler over low heat, melt the chocolate chips. You may also use the microwave for melting the chocolate. Just heat the chips for 1 minute on high, stir, then heat for another minute. Remove the cookies from the refrigerator. Rest each one on a fork and dip it into the chocolate. Tap the fork on the side of the pan or bowl to knock off any excess chocolate. Then place each one on a sheet of waxed paper and let them cool at room temperature (65-70F). This could take several hours, but the bars will set best this way. If you want to speed up the process, put the candy in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Makes 40 bars.

Mounds Bars

7 oz sweetened condensed milk (1/2 can)
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup powdered sugar
14 oz flaked coconut
1 24 oz bag of semisweet chips

Blend the milk and the vanilla. Add the sugar a little at a time till smooth. Stir in the coconut. The mixture should be firm. Pat firmly into a 9x13 pan and chill till firm. Cut into bars and dip into melted chocolate and let cool on waxed paper for several hours.

The following was our 'happy accident' no bake treat. We had a whole bunch ingredients leftover from our making the three from above, the kids were hungry and we had some time left. The kids said:
"What would happen if we threw all these leftovers together?"
I said.
"Well, whatever we do, we need to pay attention to the amounts for if it's a hit....we will want to know what and how much we put in so we can do it again!"

After trying them out, the kids thought it tasted great. The used the 'word' "caramelly." Due to the peanutty taste to it I thought more "nougatty" Whatever, it WAS good.


Pay Day Bars

1/2 smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup corn syrup (we used dark)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
7 oz. sweetened condensed milk
1- cup lightly salted peanuts (divided into 2>1/2 cup)

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the peanut butter, corn syrup, brown sugar, white sugar and sweetened condensed milk. Cook stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup peanuts.

2. Pour in lightly greased 8X8 pan. Press remaining 1/2 cup peanuts on top. Chill in fridge until firm. Cut into squares. Makes 20-25 bars.

OK Drumroll please! My two Cheesy winners are.....

Rachelle and Topher! I hope the PO doesn't xray the packages and wonder what this white powder is!!! I will be emailing my winners for their addresses! I can't wait to see what you guys come up with....of course just plain mac and cheese will do as well! Congrats Rachelle and Topher!


Have Fun!

I would have never THUNK it.

Both K-man and my dad ADORE those orange slice candies. It's not a birthday or Christmas without each of them getting a bag of them for the holidays. I can eat probably like three and then I am over it. I usually just suck off the sugar and let the jell melt in my mouth for a bit until I chew it up. That is probably why only 3 do it for me. In my travels I found a cookie recipe using orange slices and I found it very hard to believe for I would think they would just melt into oblivion all over the cookie sheet....Heading off that mess....I decided to tweak the recipe...


Notice the gram weights on the side. I used my digital scale and weighed those things that said grams instead of cups only for I am beginning to be a believer is weighing is better that using measuring cups when it comes to baking....

Orange Slice Cookies

1 cup butter flavored shortening (192 grams)

1/2 cup Splenda brown sugar blend (105 grams)

1 cup white sugar (192 grams)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour – (260 grams)

1 teaspoon baking powder – 5ml

1 teaspoon baking soda – 5ml

2 large eggs

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 cup orange slices, chopped

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degree F.

1. Cream shortening and both sugars with an electric mixer. Beat in vanilla. Add eggs and beat just until mixed (about 30 seconds).

2. Thoroughly stir flour, baking powder and baking soda together and add to sugar mixture. Stir until incorporated, then stir in chips, orange slices, oats and nuts.

3. Line a 10X17 cookie sheet (the smaller one) with non stick foil. Press down mixture onto sheet. Making sure you don't see 'pockets' of too much orange slices clustered.

4. Bake for 20 minutes or until they appear set. Cool in pan until warm and cut into desired bar sizes.

We loved the fact that these were like oatmeal bars, very hearty with the rolled oats and toasted nuts but not overly sweet from the candy and mini chips. And guess what? The orange slice chunks stayed intact and did not melt as I thought!

You could definitely drizzle more chocolate on these or a powdered sugar with orange juice glaze if you like. But we thought they were great the way just they way the came out of the oven!

For a fun alternative to your standard oatmeal bar...give these a try!

Enjoy!

Chunky for your Hunky

Does someone in your family look at you all 'pouty' wishing they had a particular favorite of theirs around to eat? K-man gave me that look when I made those wonderful crunchy biscotti yesterday and they didn't 'float' his boat....LOL. He said exactly:

K-man: *pouting* I want a candy bar.
JennyMac: You do? What candy bar do you want? (please don't say Butterfinger, his other favorite.)
K-M: Chunky.
JM: Oh okay. I can do that.
K-M: What?! You have some hidden in the house?
JM: (not answering exactly) I have some. (I immediately disappeared into the kitchen)

Of course, I was not able to appear with a 'chunky' in hand immediately. Even though, it didn't take me long to make these; cooling them in the fridge to set was going to take a little bit.

K-man looked at my empty hands sadly when I returned and said "You couldn't find them?" I laughed and said "Patience, hunny!"

Copycat Chunky Bars
this is a 'there-abouts' recipe

approx 8 oz of chocolate (I had bit and pieces of chocolate in the freezer), melted.
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup peanuts (mine were a mixture of dry roasted and unsalted)

Melt you chocolate in a bowl in the microwave. Start on 1 minute and keep moving the chocolate around after each minute until melted. Remember some times the chunks left will melt as you stir just from them being moved around in the warm chocolate.

Add your raisins and nuts. Mix well. You want a good ratio of raisins/nuts to chocolate. Not mostly chocolate. That is why this is a 'there-abouts' recipe.

Now I could have put this mixture in a square pan and cut them into little squares to make them look more 'authentic'. But I knew K-man wouldn't care if what SHAPE they were, he just wanted his chocolate, raisin and peanut combo! I did what was convenient....

Line your muffin tin with 8 muffin papers, lightly spray them with non stick cooking spray. Carefully divide out your chocolate mixture into the sprayed cups. You will need to take a rubber scraper and press them down so their are flat on top.

Place in fridge for approx 30 minutes or until set. Peel off muffin papers.

Cut foil into squares and wrap.


Since I didn't go with the 'authentic' square shape of the candy. I tried to make up for it with the wrapper....LOL

You may want to write CHUNKY on the foil BEFORE you wrap your 'bars'.


Well, this copycat inside sure looks like a REAL chunky to me!


K-man LOVED these. He was impressed that I had made them. I purposefully didn't tell him I was going to make them for he'd insist that it was too much trouble and to NOT make them. I wanted to surprise him and he was thrilled. He ate two in one sitting.

Enjoy!

Unlike anything I've tried....

ALERT: BUY IMMEDIATELY FOR VALENTINES DAY...GO NOW TO STORE AND PURCHASE...YOUR CHOCOLATE LOVING SPOUSE WILL THANK YOU FOR IT....later.

As adults....(if you are a candy eater...) we've tried alot of candy by now. I am a confessed chocoholic (eaten lots of brands/types) and rarely at this point in my life has something I've tried brings me to talk it up to people: "Have you tried these, OMG...you better, they are heavenly."






















I received this candy as a gift this Christmas, we chuckled for a bit that the package said "Made in Poland." The gifter being from Romania and me the giftee...we've had a few conversations about the similiar European foods we've grown up eating (1/2 my roots being Polish). She saw them, noticed where they were made....was testing me to see if I caught it. Sure DID!!


I also noticed that these candies were made by the same company Ferrero Rocher. You know, the little balls of chocolate hugging a crispy shell containing a toasted hazelnut epicenter that is enrobed by a soft rich truffle-like chocolate? Remember now? I know you've seen millions of these especially around Christmas with their copious amounts of combo gift packages! Now they are back for Valentine's Day!


So I went home and tried one of these:

Rolled in Coconut. Be careful...more coconut will fall on your lap from inside the package. Looks like the Ferrero Rocher chocolate ones. But these aren't chocolate. Cuz you know white chocolate really isn't chocolate at all (only the cocoa butter from the cocoa beans). But these don't have cocoa butter in them. Perhaps I shouldn't tell you....otherwise you healthy/diet conscious folk may not want to eat them...But a splurge every so often is ok...everything in moderation right?

I could smell the almond as soon as I open the package. Coconut, almond....I love almond joys, oh man, I am in trouble here!. I bit into it (you can't be a glutton and pop it all in...you have to explore first what you are about to discover!

My teeth hit that same crispy shell and soft almond filling hits my lips. Coconut falling all over my shirt now...I pull away and see this. I haven't even hit the little toasted almond in the center yet. Of course, all the crunchiness, creamy, chewy goodness is flooding my senses...NOW...the impulse to throw it ALL in my mouth. So smooth, little chewy coconut. It's all coconut and almond! Have you ever hummed a little song to yourself and popped your shoulders up and down while you chewed it was so good? It's THAT Yummy.

In the package of 15 I originally got...I was miserly passing one to K-man, one to my mom, one to grandmom,etc....they were Mmmm'ing in unison...hopefully they wouldn't see that I snatched the box back and closed it....hoarding the rest for me.

So here's the problem....I NEVER saw these in the STORES!!!! Now I've seen their combo gift packages....I've only bought the one type with the Hazelnuts. I didn't know if those other wrappers were just colored to be different colors or if they had different flavors inside. Yet these wrappers were white and red plastic, not the foil wrappers. I didn't have time to go around and mess with this....I WANTED MORE BEFORE THEY RAN OUT!....JennyMac goes online...finds it on Amazon and Candyshoponline. Now it's a matter of which is the better price. Amazon wins of course...and they were ordering it from Candyshoponline anyway LOL....too funny.

So I ordered two boxes. One for Mom and Grandmom and the other for the house for guests (afterall, I was being so miserly at first) and I knew Mom and G-mom would appreciate that they were made in Poland...the boxes come in and I look at my new boxes: WTH?



GEEZ!!!! Of course I know that chocolate is made all over the world and many companies have several locations to manufacture their chocolate. No, the Polish ones don't taste any different than the Belgium ones...if you are wondering. Sniff, sniff....But they just don't seem so special to me now.

Maybe if I ate another one....I'd feel better....