Old Fashioned Apple Nut Crisp

My favorite thing about fall is apples. I love cooking with them, eating them, and apple cider. While I know its almost spring, I wanted to make this dessert again.

Old Fashioned Apple Nut Crisp
Adapted from: EatingWell.com
Servings: 8

Ingredients:
5 tart apples (McIntosh, Granny Smith, Cortland) peeled and thinly sliced
3 tbs. granulated sugar
1 tbs. lemon juice
2 tsp. ground cinnamon, divided
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (Not instant, I use Quaker)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar (I used the granulated kind because I think its easier to work with)
2 tbs. butter, softened and cut into small pieces
2 tbs. canola oil (I used vegetable because its all we had)
2 tbs. apple juice concentrate (I used 3 tbs. apple juice)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375. Coat an 8x8 square baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Combine apples with granulated sugar, lemon juice, and 1 tbs. of cinnamon in a large bowl. Toss to combine. Transfer to the baking dish, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
3. While the apples are baking, combine whole-wheat flour, oats, brown sugar and the other tbs. of cinnamon in a medium bowl. Mix to blend. Cut in the chunks of butter until evenly distributed and there are no chunks. Stir in the oil, apple juice and the toss. Combine well. Mixture will be moist and clumpy.
4. Remove the foil from the baking dish and scatter the topping evenly over the apples. Bake uncovered until the topping has browned and the fruit is soft and bubbly, about 30 minutes more. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

This is absolutely amazing when served warm over vanilla ice cream!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

What do you do on a cold rainy day? Buy more strawberries than necessary and make chocolate covered strawberries. Well, at least that is what I did.

Usually I'll buy the little plastic container of chocolate that you stick in the microwave until it melts, but I forgot to pick it up at the store.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Ingredients:
15-20 medium to large strawberries
3-4 squares of semi sweet baker's chocolate

Directions:
1. Wash off the strawberries and pat them dry with a paper towel. If you don't, the chocolate won't stick to the strawberries and just makes a mess.
2. Put the chocolate squares in a plastic bowl and microwave for 30-45 seconds at a time or until the chocolate is melted.
3. Scrape the chocolate to one side of the bowl and dip the strawberries. I spin them around a bit to get all sides covered with the chocolate.
4. Place on a sheet of wax paper.
5. Once you have all of the strawberries covered and on the paper, I like to stick them in the freezer for a few minutes to get the chocolate to harden up. I tried this in the fridge before but it pulled the juice out of the berries and made them rather difficult to eat.
6. Enjoy!

Black Bottom Cupcakes

This was the first dessert that I made for Tom. He had never heard of them before. So, since Valentines Day is tomorrow, I figured I'd make them again.

Black Bottom Cupcakes
Servings: 24
Source: Knottie JVeaux

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
1/3 oil
1 tbs vinegar
1 tsp vanilla

Cream Cheese Filling:
1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 bag of mini chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Mix the first 4 ingredients for the cream cheese filling together. I use a hand mixer for this especially if the cream cheese isn't quite room temperature yet. Add in the mini chocolate chips and then set aside. If your mixture is a bit runny, stick it in the fridge until you need it.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Stir until well combined. Add in the remaining wet ingredients and mix until everything is well incorporated and there are no lumps. You can use a hand mixer for this too.
3. Preheat the oven to 350. Line cupcake tins with paper wrappers.
4. Fill the liners a little less than half full with the batter. Add a generous scoop of the cream cheese filling to the top.
5. Wipe off all of the drips on the pan with a wet paper towel. (I can never get these to come off the pan easily if I don't do this before baking, even with hot water and the dishwasher!)
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
7. Let cool before eating. I think they taste better if you stick them in the fridge overnight.

Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars (Holy Unhealthy)

This gooey bit of unhealthy-ness comes from a Nesties cookbook, taken from Picky-Palate.com. I had to use the photo from the Nesties cookbook because this was a real pain to get out of the pan. I definitely do not have 9 bars that look like slices of pie. I have a gooey piled mess that looks kinda crappy but tastes awesome.

Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars

Servings: 9

Ingredients:

3 tbs melted butter

3 cups Golden Grahams cereal, crushed

1 roll Pillsbury sugar cookie dough

8 oz. softened cream cheese

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

21 oz. can apple pie filling

1 package (2 bars) Nature Valley Oats N Honey Granola Bars

Caramel ice cream topping

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Combine melted butter and crushed Golden Grahams into a medium bowl.

2. Line an 8x8 inch baking dish with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.

3. Press Golden Graham mix into the baking dish.

4. Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven.

5. Break off small pieces of cookie dough (use half of the roll) and flatten on top of the crust.

6. Place cream cheese, sugar and vanilla into a mixer and beat until smooth. Spread over the cookie dough and bake for 25 minutes.

7. Top with 3/4 of the apple pie filling (or the whole can) and top with the rest of the cookie dough roll, spread out thinly. Crumble the Oats n Honey bars and sprinkle on top.

8. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

9. Let cool completely and cut into squares. Drizzle/pour caramel on top. Refrigerate leftovers.

This kind of tastes like a super sweet not rich cheesecake with apples. Its hard to explain really, but its definitely a sugar overload. The apple flavor also doesn't come through as well, so I'm thinking the filling could be replaced a fresh baked apple:

1 red apple, peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup sugar

Bake until the apple is soft.

Another idea would be to refrigerate the bars after cooling them but before adding the caramel. I think they would be easier to manage and get out of the pan. A cake server might also help, considering I don't have one of those either.

Its definitely something that I'm going to make again though! 

Reeses Pieces Cookies

This was a completely random recipe. The recipe on the back of the Reeses Pieces wanted oatmeal cookies and I didn't feel like doing that; plus I had used the rest of the shortening on the Chocolate Caramel Cookies.

So I decided to randomly make my own cookie dough. Its pretty similar to chocolate chip cookie dough because I figured that would work best. I don't actually have a chocolate chip recipe, I just use the one on the back of the chips. I was too lazy to look one up, so I just added the basic ingredients until it looked right.

Reeses Pieces Cookies

Servings: 48

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

Reeses Pieces minis

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla and eggs and mix well.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Stir to combine.

4. Slowly add flour into creamed mixture, about 3/4 of a cup at a time.

5. Pour 1/2 bag of Reeses Pieces into a bowl. 

6. Drop teaspoon sized balls of dough onto the cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until slightly brown.

7. Press Reeses pieces into cookies. Work quickly!

8. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then cool for 10-15 minutes or a wire rack.

I tried some of these by adding the pieces onto the dough before I baked it, but I didn't think they turned out as pretty looking. They kind of melted into the dough and the colors spread.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies

There is about 2 foot of snow on the ground. Since I'm a great procrastinator and I don't feel like shoveling out my car or cleaning the bathroom, I decided to bake cookies.

When I was at the grocery store last week I saw Hershey's Kisses with caramel in the middle. I bought them and wondered if I could turn them into a cookie. I used a basic sugar cookie dough.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies 

Servings: 48

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I used a little less than 1/2 a cup and this produced the easiest sugar cookie dough to work with...EVER!)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 bag Hershey's Kisses with Caramel

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease baking sheets. (I used Pam instead of butter and I think it turned out better)
3. In a mixing bowl cream butter, sugar and shortening.
4. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well.
5. Combine flour, baking soda and baking powder into a separate bowl and stir to combine.
6. Gradually mix the flour mixture into the creamed mixture; about 3/4 of a cup at a time.
7. Roll dough into a ball and place it on parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
8. Unwrap 48 of the kisses.
9. Roll dough into teaspoon sized balls and place on cookie sheet. Press down to flatten.
10. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.
11. Take cookie sheets out of the oven, place kisses in the center of each cookie. Don't press down too hard or the kiss will go through the cookie. Work quickly!
12. Put cookies back in the oven for 1-2 minutes.
13. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before cooling on wire racks.

I ended up with 46 cookies. A few were a little on the larger side so I probably could have gotten 50 some cookies from this recipe. I tried adding the kiss half way into baking but it melted through the cookie and left a mess on the cookie pan, so you're definitely better off  adding them at the end. You could also stick them in as soon as the cookies come out of the oven but I'm too impatient for that.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies

There is about 2 foot of snow on the ground. Since I'm a great procrastinator and I don't feel like shoveling out my car or cleaning the bathroom, I decided to bake cookies.

When I was at the grocery store last week I saw Hershey's Kisses with caramel in the middle. I bought them and wondered if I could turn them into a cookie. I used a basic sugar cookie dough.

Chocolate Caramel Sugar Cookies 

Servings: 48

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I used a little less than 1/2 a cup and this produced the easiest sugar cookie dough to work with...EVER!)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 bag Hershey's Kisses with Caramel

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease baking sheets. (I used Pam instead of butter and I think it turned out better)
3. In a mixing bowl cream butter, sugar and shortening.
4. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well.
5. Combine flour, baking soda and baking powder into a separate bowl and stir to combine.
6. Gradually mix the flour mixture into the creamed mixture; about 3/4 of a cup at a time.
7. Roll dough into a ball and place it on parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
8. Unwrap 48 of the kisses.
9. Roll dough into teaspoon sized balls and place on cookie sheet. Press down to flatten.
10. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.
11. Take cookie sheets out of the oven, place kisses in the center of each cookie. Don't press down too hard or the kiss will go through the cookie. Work quickly!
12. Put cookies back in the oven for 1-2 minutes.
13. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before cooling on wire racks.

I ended up with 46 cookies. A few were a little on the larger side so I probably could have gotten 50 some cookies from this recipe. I tried adding the kiss half way into baking but it melted through the cookie and left a mess on the cookie pan, so you're definitely better off  adding them at the end. You could also stick them in as soon as the cookies come out of the oven but I'm too impatient for that.