Just a Mom, HA!

Wonder Bars (AKA Homemade Reese’s)

Now to reveal this other mystery goody on our caroling plate this year…

Wonder Bars – a classic, Mama D treat.  They are a wonder, because they are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – homemade style.  They are wonderfully tasty, but also wonderfully fattening, so proceed with caution.

Wonder Bars

• 3/4 c. margarine or butter
• 1 3/4 c. graham crackers, crushed (11 crackers)
• 1 c. peanut butter
• 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 16oz. milk chocolate chips

Melt margarine, add peanut butter and mix. Add graham cracker crumbs and powdered sugar to butter mixture then blend well. Pad “dough” into a 13×9 in pan. In a microwave safe bowl, microwave chocolate chips for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Spread on top of PB mixture. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to help the chocolate set.

Kim’s tips:  Doing half of this recipe in an 8×8 square pan is great for smaller families.  Also, if you choose to chill your wonder bars to help the chocolate set faster, let them come back up to room temp before cutting them so that the chocolate doesn’t crack.

Happy Cooking!

Hot Fudge Slow Cooker Cake

Love chocolatey goo?  Love easy homemade desserts?  Have I got the thing for you:

This cake is simple, rich, and when paired with vanilla ice cream is basically unbeatable (Jay even said it was better than the restaurant chocolate cake he’d eaten that same day!).  It doesn’t look like a lot, but it served me, Jay, Cee, 3 twenty year old boys, with a leftover scoop remaining.

Hot Fudge Slow Cooker Cake (adapted from Betty Crocker)

• 1 c. flour
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 Tbs baking cocoa
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 Tbs canola oil
• 1 Tbs natural applesauce
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3/4 c. packed brown sugar
• 1/4 c. backing cocoa
• 1 1/2 c. hot water
• possible add-ins: 1/2 c. chopped nuts, or 1/4 c. chocolate chips, or nothing at all

Mix together first 8 ingredients.  Once combined add your chosen mix-in, or move on to the next step.  Spread batter evenly in the slow cooker (will be kind of thin, don’t worry).  Next mix the brown sugar, 1/4 c. cocoa in a small bowl, add the hot water stirring until dissolved and smooth. Pour sauce evenly over batter in the slow cooker.

Cook on high for 2 hours, or until cake passes the toothpick test.  Turn off the slow cooker and allow cake to rest 30-40 minutes.*  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Kim’s note:  When I opened my slow cooker I thought I’d burnt my cake!  But it turns out that the sauce settles to the bottom and the cake rises up to the top during the baking process.  The top will look dry, but the gooey sauce is just down under the surface.

Happy Cooking!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana Bread

I’ve mentioned now a few times that I’m no baker.  7 out of 10 things that I bake seriously fail.  But today I’m proud… I’m oh so proud that I baked something that I made up and it was a success!

The flavor combo of banana, Peanut Butter, and chocolate has got to be one of my favorites of all time.  So I looked over some banana bread recipes that I know, made some adjustments, broke the batter down and made chocolate-peanut butter-banana STRATA!

Can you see the three strata?  Chocolate, PB, and then plain banana on top.  Delish!

This bread is fab, but I’ll also let it slip that I have more in store for this bread, but that is to come on another post. : )

The banana and peanut butter flavors are the strongest by far, so I may try adding chocolate chips next time to bring in more chocolate.*

Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana Bread

• 2 c. flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 ripe bananas (mashed)
• 2 Tbs natural applesauce (you could use oil or softened butter here, but applesauce worked fine)
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/4 c. peanut butter
• 1 Tbs cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, prepare pan with cooking spray and a light dusting of flour (I used an 8×8 square glass dish, but you could use a loaf pan).  In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Stir until evenly combined.  In another bowl stir together the sugars, eggs, applesauce, vanilla, milk, and mashed bananas.  Add half of the powder mixture to the wet ingredients, stir to combine, then add the remaining powder and continue to stir until evenly combined.

Distribute the batter evenly into 3 bowls.  To one bowl add the peanut butter and stir until combined.  To another bowl add the cocoa powder and stir until combined.*  Now layer the batter starting with the chocolate into the prepared baking dish.  Turn or shake the dish until the batter lays evenly.  Next add the PB batter – this will be thicker than the last, so you will need to help it disperse.  Next add the plain banana batter and again shake dish until the batter lays evenly.

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until bread passes the toothpick test.

*In the future, I will try adding 1/4 c. of semi-sweet chocolate chips to both the PB and banana batters to help boost the chocolate flavor.

Happy Cooking!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip [Cake Batter] Cookies

It’s the season for pumpkin cooking!  I’ve got two pumpkin recipes for you this week, but since it’s getting late I’m just going to start with the easier of the two.

I get a lot of traffic to this site because of my recipe for Cake Batter Cookies – they’re easy, they’re delicious, you can really cut a lot of the fat, and they lend very well to add-ins.  One of my favorite variations of this recipe is to take spice cake mix and change it into pumpkin cookies!  This is a big fav for Jay too, so when I had some spare pumpkin lying around after a dinner I hosted last week, I knew that the time had come for this:

Hold me back from the cooling racks, I seriously have little restraint around these bad boys.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip [Cake Batter] Cookies

• 1 box spice cake mix
• 1 c. canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix, they are typically sold side by side)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 c. water
• 1/4 c. canola oil, applesauce, or a combo of both (I’ll fill my measuring cup most of the way up with natural applesauce, then just top it off with the oil – you can cut the oil completely, but I find that it adds a little extra weight and moisture to the cookies.)
• 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Mix first 5 ingredients together in a big bowl – I find that a hand mixer works well for this, but by hand gets the job done too.  Once blended and lumps are out of batter, fold in chocolate chips.  If not using oil, spray your cookie sheets before scooping dough to prevent sticking.  Bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes.

Happy Cooking!

Zucchini Bread Brownies

A college roommate and friend of mine is a baking genius. I’m lucky to have her.  I’m a baking bumbler.  I do it only for birthdays, when I want a treat, and when I feel at peace enough with myself to do it (since I generally end up laughing at my foolishness).

Her baking blog (And Now For Something Completely Delicious) is an inspiration and I’d highly recommend it for baking enthusiasts.  I saw her post about Chocolate Zucchini bread and knew I’d have to give it a try, but with a few switcheroos to make it a little more “Average Pantry.”

I was thrilled with the results, Zucchini Bread Brownies.  Jay claims their more cake-like than brownie-like, but that hasn’t stopped us all from gobbling them down.  The day that I baked these to surprise Jay, he came home with a little carton of ice cream to surprise me.  We ended up making a warm brownie sundae to split and it was out of this WORLD!

I just love it when fortune smiles on you like that.

Zucchini Bread Brownies

• 1 1/2 cup (about 1/2 pound) fresh grated zucchini
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin spice
• 1/2 cup natural applesauce minus 1 Tbs
• 1 Tbs canola oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8×8 pan. In a medium bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and pumpkin spice.

In another mixing bowl stir together the zucchini, apple sauce, oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla together until combined well. Add the dry ingredients in two additions, mixing between each until the batter is just combined. Add the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the greased pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan, but on a rack at least 10 minutes before cutting into it.

86 calories per serving when cutting pan into 5×5 squares.

Happy Cooking!

Chocolate Banana Biscotti

Last weekend I posted a link about cutting eggs out of baking.  Since I’d never really thought about taking out eggs I decided to give two of the suggestions a try in one recipe – Chocolate Banana Biscotti.  These turned out 100 times better than I ever imagined!  First out of the oven they have crip outsides, a warm and chewy inside, and a flavor that is sweet, but not too sweet.  I could have eaten them all day, but I stopped myself after two. : )

The best part is the calorie count – I sliced my logs to make 19 cookies, and with a little math I discovered that puts the average sized ones at 93.42 calories.  And with the fat corners I cut, the only fat involved is what comes in the original batter, and what’s in the chocolate chips.  Not a bad treat!

Chocolate Banana Biscotti

• 1 package banana bread mix (I used Pilsbury)
• 3 Tbs water
• ½ banana, mashed
• 4 oz plain, fat free yogurt
• 2 Tbs natural applesauce
• 2 servings of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I actually counted them so that I could do the calorie math and I used 64)

Combine all wet ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until combined.  Add wet ingredients to banana bread mix and stir until mixed.  Chop half of the chocolate chip pieces until slivered, then add them and the rest of the chocolate chips to the batter.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with foil or parchment paper.  Since I took all of the oil out of the recipe, I sprayed the foil with cooking spray until well coated for ease of removing logs.  Divide dough in half and form two rectangular logs (about 4.5 inches x 8 inches) – dough will be sticky, but touchable (use wet hands if needed).

Bake logs for 30 minutes, remove from oven and cookie sheet, and allow to cool on wire racks.  Once the logs are cooled cut them into ½  inch strips.  Put strips back on the cookie sheet, cut side down, and bake for another 10 minutes.  Flip strips to other side and bake another 10 minutes.

Kim’s note:  Mine were crisp on the outside with a chewy center using the method described above, but have softened even more as I’ve stored them.  If you want them to be truly crispy throughout like a coffee house biscotti, I’d suggest baking the strips longer, but still doing the 10-minute flip so that the edges don’t have the chance to burn.

Happy Cooking!

Mama D’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

My mom is a lot of things – you might say she’s the epitome of “Just a mom? HA!”  Among her traits and talents she happens to be a world class cookie maker (at least in the eyes of her family and friends).  These cookies have been bringing my family happiness and good luck for years, and now I’m passing the recipe on to you.  When I told my mom that I was going to take her recipe public she said, “Be sure to tell them how I halved the fat from the original recipe.”  See where I get it. : )

Mama D’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 stick margarine, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• ¾ c. sugar
• ¾ c. packed brown sugar
• 2 ½ c. flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Stir together margarine, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until smooth and creamy.  Add flour and baking soda and stir thoroughly. (My mom always sifts them in, but if you don’t have a sifter that’s ok – you may just need to add a little water to moisten the dough if the unsifted flour makes it too dry.)  Add chocolate chips and stir to mix them in evenly.  Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake at 350 degrees.

The baking time is my mom’s big secret.  She doesn’t like hard or overdone cookies, so she bakes hers for only 7 minutes, then sets them on top of the stove to continue warming/cooking for about 3 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

When I make these cookies Jay prefers that I cook them a little longer, so I let them go 9-11 minutes, then do the same cooling method my mom uses.

Here’s the side by side comparison:

My mom’s cookies are done when there’s just a little browning on the edges.  They are very chewy and go great in the freezer because they are still soft right out of the cold.  My cookies are done when there’s coloring on the edges and on the top cookie peaks.  Mine are better right out of the oven, but aren’t as chewy.

Happy Cooking!

Easy Oreo Fruit Salad

In my house, if I suggest that we have fruit as a side dish I usually get met with dull, bored stares.  But when I threw this little treat together I had both of my guys scraping the bowl for every last drop.  The thinner Oreo crackers really soak in the moisture from the cool whip and become a smooth chocolate – delicious!

Easy Oreo Fruit Salad

• 3-4 c. fresh fruit cut to bite size pieces
• Light Cool Whip
• 1 – 100 calorie package Oreo snacks (these are the Oreos that are more like crackers)

Put all fruit in large mixing bowl.  Add cool whip until everything is just coated.  Crush Oreo crackers into crumbs of all sizes and mix in to salad.  Chill until time to serve.

*Kim’s notes:  For my salad I used 1 apple, 2 bananas, and 1 mango, but you could use any fruit based on your family’s preferences.  Can be served as a dessert or side.  Also, if you aren’t trying to be calorie conscious, another fun way to make this salad is replacing the Oreo crackers with chopped Snicker’s bar.

Happy Cooking!

Oreo Truffles

Here’s a great dessert for sharing at parties that is super easy to throw together and doesn’t require baking!

Oreo Truffles
1 regular sized package of Oreos (18 oz)
8 oz fat-free cream cheese
any flavor Almond Bark (this can be found in the baking section of your grocery store)
chocolate chips for drizzling (if desired)

First crush Oreos – not to dust, but to small crumbs. Add softened cream cheese to crumbs and mix until thoroughly blened together. (The recipe says to use your hands, which I did. It was messy, but probably easier than using utensils). Roll batter into balls – these can be any size you wish, but bite size will be easier to eat – and place on wax paper or tin foil. Refridgerate 3-4 hours, or put in freezer for one hour. (I left mine in the fridge over night and it worked peferctly.)

Melt almond bark according to package directions. (I only used about half the package for my batch). Using forks or spoons roll the balls in the melted almond bark (mine here is chocolate) until coated, then return to the wax paper/foil. Allow to set. If desired, melt additional chocolate, place in plastic bag, cut a very small hole in the corner and drizzle over truffles.

Return to refridgerator until ready to serve.

*Variations: The original recipe called for white almond bark, but when I went to the store they were out so I went with chocolate. You could also try white chocolate drizzle for added flair.

Another version of this easy dessert is to bake a red velvet cake, crumble it, add a can of cream cheese frosting, then follow the same directions. I’m hoping to give this version a shot soon too.

Peppermint Patty Poke Cake

This is a recipe that I found on a cake box, but that I switched up a little to make it work with the ingredients that I had. I’m happy to say that it was a very yummy success.

Peppermint Pattie Poke Cake

For the cake:
Make a chocolate cake from a mix or from scratch in a 13×9 in pan, substituting natural applesauce for the oil.

For the filling:
2 c. skim milk
1 package instant white chocolate (or vanilla) pudding mix
1/2 tsp peppermint extract

For the toppings:
White frosting
8 broken up miniature peppermint patties
1/4 c. semi sweet chocolate chips, melted

To put the cake together:
Bake cake according to recipe directions. Allow it to cool for only about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, combine ingredients for the filling mixture. Poke holes in the cake with the end of a mixing spoon every half an inch. Pour filling over cake and spread evenly so that the filling gets into each hole (I didn’t use all of the pudding mixture). Loosely cover and refridgerate for at least 2 hours.

I tried to frost this cake in the normal way, but I had a hard time with it since the pudding was already so slick, so instead I microwaved the frosting until it just liquefied and then poured it over the cake, allowing the frosting to spread and completely cover the cake. This makes for a very smooth “iced” look. After frosting the cake, sprinkle peppermint pattie pieces all over, then drizzle everything with the melted chocolate chips. The easiest way to do this it to melt the chips in a ziplock bag, snip a small hole in the corner and squeeze the chocolate out slowly.  Happy cooking!