Pistachio Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

What to do during spring break? Make yummy food of course.  Today started with this recipe for cookies.  I found a shortbread pistachio recipe that I contemplated to make for St. Patty's Day but found another recipe today that included chocolate.  Original recipe is from a blog called Baking Banquet.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup brown sugar

3 tbs white sugar

2 (3.4ounce) packages instant Pistachio Pudding mix

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 or 2 drops green food coloring (optional, I did not use this)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped pecans (You can use any nut you want, pecans just happened to be in the pantry.)

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside. 
3. Cream together butter and sugars. 
4. Beat in pudding mix until blended.

   

   Pistachio pudding being added to the creamed butter and sugar.  Love the color!

5. Add the eggs, vanilla and food coloring (optional). Mix well. 
6. Add the flour mixture and mix to combine. 
7. Stir in pecans and chocolate chips.

   

   Ready to scoop!

8. Place golf ball sized dough balls on a cookie sheet.

   

   Ready for the oven.

9. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
10. Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet before moving to a cooking rack.

Aren't they pretty?

Close up!

These turned out really well.  I will definitely make them again!

Homemade Nutella

Ever wonder what it takes to make Nutella? It is a lot easier than one would think!

How to Make Homemade Nutella

I will definitely try this recipe! Thanks Mo' for the heads up!

Lindsie Birthday Cookies

We (Greg and I) have made these for Lindsie a couple of times now. Since she likes them so much, there's no need to send her anything else. Her former roomie from Berkeley enjoyed them as well. (She called me a cookie goddess. I'll take that as a compliment!) We sent these to our mom this year for Mother's Day and they were well received.

Ingredients

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cup (milk or semi-sweet) mini chocolate chips (we cut up some Hershey's candy bar one time instead of the chocolate chips)
• 1 cup of toffee (Sometimes Heath bars come pre-chopped in the baking aisle or you can buy a bag/bars and chop away!)
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix/cream the sugars and butter together.
3. Add egg and vanilla.
4. Sift/mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix.
6. Fold in chocolate and toffee.
7. Place tablespoon sized balls onto non-greased sheets.
8. Bake for 10 minutes.
9. Let cool before eating. :)

Happy Birthday Lindsie! Have fun in Wisconsin!

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

To my surprise, this case of strawberries was only $10. Less than half this size is $8 at the grocery store. Thank you to the man on the side of the road selling them! I was in San Jose teaching piano lessons as I usually do each Saturday morning and saw all these glorious strawberries waiting to be eaten. I had to eat one in the car on the way back to Fremont. When I got home I melted about a 1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and dipped a few strawberries in it. They are hardening in the fridge as I type this. I'm sure they'll be divine. This is also the first time I've used my silicone baking liner. Strawberries should have no trouble coming off the pan. (Pics were taken from my phone, hence the poor quality).

Chocolate Mint-Chip Muffins

I received a gift card to King Arthur’s Flour back at Christmas and ordered mint chips. They’ve been sitting on the kitchen table ever since staring at Dean saying “eat me!” I saw a recipe on tv for chocolate chocolate-chip muffins and figure I could easily add my mint chips. I seem to need a reason before baking and this time they are for my Aunt Dawn. She won’t actually see these until she gets back from Lodi over the weekend, so hopefully it’ll be a nice birthday surprise for her when she gets home. (The formatting is not cooperating with me today.)

Chocolate Mint-Chip Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour


• 2 teaspoons baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• pinch of salt


• 3 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder


• 3/4 cup superfine sugar


• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus extra for sprinkling on top


• 1/4 cup mint-chips


• 1 cup milk


• 1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons olive oil


• 1 egg


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

• Special equipment: Muffin tin with paper muffin cases


• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.


• Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, salt, sugar, and all the mint & chocolate chips into a large bowl.


• Pour all the liquid ingredients into a measuring jug.


• Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. (It's ok if the batter is lumpy).


• Spoon into the prepared muffin cases.


• Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top and then bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are dark, risen and springy.

I added mint chips to the top as well but the color bled and even though it tastes great, it looks a little weird. They taste lovely so I hope she enjoys them. Happy Birthday Dawn!

Double Chocolate-Almond Biscotti

While Lindsie was in town, we actually baked together! I think she wanted to show she can care about baking. We have not had success in the past.

When I was in SF a few weeks ago, I bought this marvelous book from Ghirardelli Square.
So naturally we picked a recipe from here. Page 46 has the 'Double Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti' recipe. Since we do not have hazelnut on hand, we went with almonds.

Double Chocolate-Almond Biscotti

Should make 48 cookies, but we cut ours a little bigger.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa
4 ounces Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate baking bar, finely chopped (We used semi-sweet chocolate chips chopped because that's what we have on hand)
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup almonds, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets.
   
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, ground chocolate and semisweet chocolate.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla, and stir until well-blended. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until a dough forms (it should adhere to the beaters), 2 to 3 minutes. Fold in the nuts. It is a sticky batter.
4. Divide the dough into 2 equal parts. On the prepared cookie sheets, using lightly floured hands, shape each portion into 1 1/4-inch-by-12-inch logs.
5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the logs are firm to the touch. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 15 minutes or until cool enough to handle.
   
6. Lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees.
7. Transfer 1 log to a cutting board and with a serrated knife, cut in half, and then into twelve 1-inch-wide cookies. Repeat with the remaining log.
8. Return cookies to baking sheet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until crisp.
   
9. Transfer the cookies from the sheet to a wire cooling rack and let cool completely. Store at room temperature in a tightly covered container. This step is very important because the cookies will not stay crisp for too long if left out or not tightly covered.

I had a few with my herbal tea and it was great! They still had a crunch after dipping but not completely hard to chip a tooth.

Happy Birthday Uncle Dean!

Today is Dean's birthday. To celebrate, we had people over last night for what was supposed to be a 'play cards and eat cake' night. Ended up just being a 'eat snacks and chatting fest' but I think everyone had a good time.

Birthday boy!

Not wanting to be overwhelmed with serving an actual dinner, I kept it to finger foods and guests could help themselves.

We had veggies (zucchini, cauliflower and celery), spinach dip, olive-cream cheese tea sandwiches with pumpernickel bread and herbed goat cheese bruschetta.

Our kind neighbors brought over a cheese and salami tray which was great because it fit in beautifully with the spread.

Dean thought there should be a picture of me so here it is.

For dessert we had German Chocolate Cake. We made it for Dean last year and he requested it again this year. We had a few issues last year (over beating the egg whites and the frosting never set up) but practice makes perfect and it turned out great! Next thing I need to work on is how to decorate.

The recipe called for 3 9" round pans. We only had 2 and used a square pan for the third.

This year I cooked the frosting for 30 minutes instead of the 12 minutes which was the suggested time on the recipe. It set up beautifully and I was so happy not to have to frost the cake with a slotted spoon again!

It was moist and the frosting held up well on the cake.

I placed the square layer on the bottom so even with a round cake, if someone wanted a corner piece, they could have one! :-) A Carrie original.

Happy Birthday Uncle Dean!!

Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

Tonight my Monday night group was getting together to have fajitas. Each person was asked to bring a food item to contribute. Knowing most were bringing tortillas, I figured I'd bring a dessert. Shocker, right?!? Wanting to bring a dessert that went along with the meal and not wanting to make flan, I googled 'mexican desserts' and came across a recipe for which I had all the ingredients. They actually turned out quite well though I altered the recipe slightly from the original.

Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup margarine
  
• 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup ground pecans
• 1/2 cup ground semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar (after the cookies are baked)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, ground pecans, 1/2 cup ground chocolate, cinnamon and salt; mix well.
3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.
4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill 1 to 2 hours, or until firm. (I put mine in the freezer for an hour and a half.)
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (180 degrees C).
6. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until the cookies are firm to the touch. Cool 1 minute on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack. (I baked it for 17-18 minutes. I had expected them to be like chocolate chip cookies and to spread out while baking but they did not do that. They pretty much stayed in the same form into which I had rolled them.)
7. For the coating, sift 1/2 cup of the confectioner's sugar into a shallow bowl. While cookies are still warm, roll them in the coating. (Not sure if the cookies were still too warm, but I coated the first batch and the confectioners' sugar started to melt. So in the second batch, I waited til the cookies were pretty much cooled off.)

The cookies were only slightly sweet but still very good. I had a request to make them with pumpkin next time. That would definitely bring a different element/texture to the cookie.

Peppermint Bark

Must be the season to make candy! Last week I needed 2 desserts for various church functions and for one it had to be either green or red. I made peppermint bark 2 years ago and thought it turned out pretty good so I made it again. My friend Erika gave me 3 bottles of green food coloring so I knew what color I was going to make it.

Peppermint Bark

Ingredients

• 12 ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 12 ounce bag of white chocolate chips
• 2 tsp peppermint extract
• 3 candy canes
• green food coloring (optional)

-Place contents of 12 ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips into a bowl and into the microwave for 90 seconds (check & stir every 30 seconds)
-Once chocolate is melted, stir in 1 tsp of peppermint extract
-Spread out onto aluminum foil lined cookie sheet
-Place in fridge and let it set up for about 10 minutes
-After 10 minutes in the fridge, start the second half:
-Crush up 3 candy canes
-Place contents of 12 ounce bag of white chocolate chips into a clean bowl and into the microwave for 90 seconds (check & stir every 30 seconds)
-Once white chocolate is melted, place candy canes and 1 tsp of peppermint extract into the chocolate.
-You can add food coloring of your choice if you please
-Spread white chocolate over the semi-sweet and leave it in the fridge for an hour until it sets

I left it in the fridge over night and the next morning I flipped it over onto the cookie sheet and smashed the semi-sweet side with a cup to break it up. People seemed to enjoy it. :-)