Christmas Cake Batter Cookies

Merry Christmas Eve!

I woke up a bit groggy this morning, I'm not sure why. I awoke with kind of a jolt, only to immediately realize I hadn't overslept, missed an appointment, or something like that. A second of panic, followed by an immediate slow-down. As my heartbeat returned to normal, for whatever reason, I was thinking about how I got here. Waking up in this house. In Kentucky. Chihuahuas curled at my side. 

10 years ago, if you'd said this would be my future, I would have laughed. I was 21, a senior in college, single, and had not a second to spare. I took a full load of classes, worked 30 hours a week, and coached a club volleyball team that monopolized my weekends. 

I was waking up in a sorority house. In Oregon. To the sound of girls squabbling over who knows what (If you've ever lived with 60 girls, you know they argue about absolutely everything. No joke. Everything). Dreading having to drag my exhausted butt out of bed and into the rain to trudge to classes. 

5 years ago, the hubby and I were newlyweds. I was 26. Working crazy, long hours for a large regional bank. I was working 60-70 hour weeks. Going to work at 6:30 in the morning and sometimes having to stay till 10 o'clock at night. 

I was waking up in a rental house in Beaverton. In Oregon. To the sound of my roommate's blowdryer and the smell of Chanel perfume. Hating my life, because all I did was work. I was living to work, instead of working to live. 

I still never would have believed I'd end up in Kentucky. 

3 years ago, the hubby and I were starting to slide into a hopeless situation. We were living in Ashland, KY after packing up our lives to start over. In a tiny, very rundown rental. The 2 jobs that we had moved there for the hubby to get had fallen through, and the hubby was working for his father finishing concrete. For all of you who don't know, finishing concrete is extremely hard and takes a giant toll on the body. It is definitely a young man's job. The work was back-breaking, and very unsatisfying for the hubby. I didn't have a job, the hubby's job didn't pay well, and there weren't a lot of options for good jobs in the area. We'd burned through our savings and were beginning to accumulate debt.

We both felt the panic. And the heaviness of what we thought was a mistake. 

It was around this time that the hubby got his job with the company he works for now. And life turned around.

The hubby loves his job. It pays well, enough that I don't have to work unless I want to. We were able to build our dream home out in the country. And I've been extremely thankful ever since. 

Because now I feel grateful almost every morning I wake up. Because I wake up in my nice, warm bed in my beautiful master bedroom with 2 beautiful dogs right next to me. Because I'm not exhausted. Because I don't hate my life. Because it's not misery to get out of bed. 

Life works in such mysterious ways :)

And... it's Christmas!

I have realized that all the treats I've shared thus far require very little work, and little-to-no baking. Well, this cookie takes care of that. The baking, that is. They are still very little work, though. These cookies actually utilize boxed cake mix with fantastic results. I was surprised by how much these cookies taste like sugar cookies. Really, really soft sugar cookies. Biting into these cookies is like biting into a little pillow. They really are that light and soft. Plus, everyone loves sprinkles, right? If you need a last minute cookie, these would be great. Thanks to the cake mix, it takes no time to mix the dough. They bake quickly, and come out delicious. No chilling. No rolling pins. You don't even need a mixer if you don't want to use one. I mixed these by hand. Easy peasy. 

Seriously. Whip some up today! 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas friends! :)

Ingredients (makes ~25 cookies):

1  (18.25 oz) box vanilla cake mix

1 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sprinkles

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Lightly coat 2 cookies sheets with cooking spray. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix and baking powder. Whisk to mix.

3. In a separate large bowl, combine eggs, oil, and vanilla. Whisk vigorously. Add cake mix mixture to wet ingredients. Stir vigorously until there are no remaining pockets of dried cake mix. 

4. Add sprinkles to dough, use a spatula to fold in. Do not oevermix, or the sprinkles will start to bleed.

5. Using a 1 tbsp cookie scoop, drop rounded balls onto cookie sheet. I placed 16 cookies per sheet. They don't spread a ton. Bake for 8-9 minutes, but do not allow the cookies to get brown. 8 minutes was perfect for my oven. Remove from heat and allow to cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Remove from sheet and place on a cooling rack. Cool completely before storage.

Printable Recipe

Recipe courtesy of Sally's Baking Addiction.

Looking for other quick cookie recipes? Try these!

Salted Dark Chocolate Caramel Cookies

Soft and Chewy Snickerdoodles

Chewy Mint Chocolate Cookies

Linked to: Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party, Weekend Potluck

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Ah, the first pumpkin recipe of the season. Fall truly has descended upon us. On this day in NE Kentucky,  this means the humidity is gone, there's a crisp chill in the air, the leaves are falling at an alarming rate, and... pumpkin recipes are all the rage. And I love me some pumpkin. Pumpkin pie is one of my most favorite pies. It's right up there with cherry and raspberry pies. Oh, and chocolate pie. Blueberry. Mmmmm. Ok, maybe I just like pie. Good thing, because these little muffins truly taste like pumpkin pie. 

These muffins are so perfectly moist and tasty. The vanilla-cream cheese topping makes it taste like a dollop of whip cream on a slice of pie. I wasn't expecting such WOW results, but hey, I'll take it. The recipes makes a fairly large batch, about 18 muffins, but I had no trouble pawning these off on family members. They were gone in the blink of an eye. Well, excluding the ones I saved for hubby, but let me tell you, those are long gone too.

Making and devouring these were a little like dipping my toe into the water. I'm fully ready to be submerged in pumpkin now. I'm craving pumpkin bread, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin smoothies- doesn't a pumpkin pie smoothie sound to-die-for?? Meaning, this is only the beginning. Beware-plenty of pumpkin recipes to follow...

I am feeling a little pep in my step this morning. I just got word from my mom, who was waiting on results from a bone density test, that her scan was clear! This news made my morning. On top of that, it's a perfectly, crisp fall morning without rain. One thing I'm seriously enjoying about this fall is running. It was a difficult, struggle-some summer running in the humidity. Where I thought I'd gotten out of shape because I could only run 2.5 miles without getting dizzy, lightheaded, nauseous, and cold, I've realized I was overheating. Simply due to the weather, not to my conditioning. But running in this cool weather, I feel like a million bucks. I ran 5 miles in 48 minutes yesterday, definitely a feat for me. And not something I could accomplish at 75º with 90% humidity. Most of my miles were sub-10's. I'm pretty darn slow, so I'm super-proud I was able to do this. 

One other fact that has me in the groove this morning? The hubby and I leave for Cancun in 9 days! Holy moly. I've still got a few items to pick up for the trip (i.e. 20 bottles of SPF, please) but I've got the essentials. A million swimsuits, since I'll be living in them. Plenty of sundresses. Flippy floppies. A house sitter :) Yep, I think we are set and I'm just counting down the days till the hubby and I fly out of Cincinnati. Finally, 5 years later, we are getting the honeymoon done. 

So, yay, it's almost the weekend! Truth be told, the hubby's had the whole week off and we have been maximizing his down time. Lots of movies. Bingeing on TV shows. Making homemade Chinese food. Devouring carrot cake. And for the hubby, an abundance of video games. We love making the most of our relaxation time. Sadly though, he has to work all weekend, so I'll be left to my own devices. I'm halfway through "Divergent" (I know, I'm so behind the times) so finishing that book and moving on to the next is numero uno on my list.

After baking something pumpkin, of course :)

Happy Thursday!

Ingredients (makes 18 muffins):

Muffins-

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup canola oil

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree

2 eggs, room temp

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups flour

1/4 cup milk

Cream Cheese Topping-

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Line 2 cupcake pans with liners (18 liners). Set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, oil, and pumpkin. Mix with a whisk by hand until combined. Mix in eggs. Mix in cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, combine baking soda and flour. Mix in one cup of flour mixture. Mix in milk. Mix in remaining flour mixture. Do not over mix, mix until just combined. Divide batter equally among liners.

4.  In another bowl, mix together cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla with a hand mixer. Mix until completely smooth. Drop 1 tbsp of cream cheese mixture onto each muffin.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Cool completely before storage. I stored mine in a bowl with a kitchen towel over them due to how moist they turned out. Store in the fridge if you are not eating all the muffins within the first day or two.

Printable Recipe

Recipe adapted from Crazy for Crust.

Looking for other fall recipes? Try these!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Snickerdoodle Blondies

Creamy Pumpkin Custard

Linked to: Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friend's Friday Linky Party, Treasure Box Tuesday

Banana Split Truffles

It happened one day at the store.

I wasn't in a hurry, and that's always a bad idea for me. When you are obsessed with food, the grocery store can be a dangerous thing. All the sights and sounds make my creativity swirl, and I get too many ideas. I spend way too long perusing the fruit and veggies, occasionally putting something that looks really fresh in my cart. The baking aisle is another aisle I get into trouble in. There's always newer, cuter cupcake liners to snatch up. A great sale on sugar or flour will move me.  I've also been know to acquire cake mixes on occasion. While I bake mostly from scratch, you can really doctor cake mix into something amazing. Or donate it to charity. The cookie aisle (i.e. the Oreo aisle) is another problem area for me. My family (ok, the hubby's family) is obsessed with Oreo truffles. They love these things. I've made countless batches since I debuted this recipe in December. I'll be making some today, in fact. So when I saw a package of Banana Split Oreo's, I could not resist. I would not resist. 

And I went for it.

And wow! These taste exactly like a banana split! While I thought they would be good, and might taste something like banana, I had no idea just how good they would be. Or how much they would taste like a banana split. Have no fear, these are perfectly banana-y. If you have a banana split lover in the house, they will luuuuurve these. Luckily, I was able to take most of the batch out to my sister-in-law's for her birthday, so I was saved from what would doubtlessly have been a binge-fest on Oreo truffles. 

I've mentioned before, these are completely easy-peasy to make. There's no baking! I think that's the best part. All you need is a food processor, a microwave, and a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Actually, I used a little bit of gel food color, but that's totally optional. And technically,  technically, you could make these without the food processor. It would just take a bit longer and some elbow grease to mix them by hand. But on the bright side, hey, you could totally crush the Oreo's by putting them in a ziploc bag and beating the crap out of them. A good exercise in releasing some negative juju, if you will. 

Someday, I will have made truffles from all the Oreo flavors. Mwhahahha! I already have Pumpkin Spice Truffles on tap, followed by Berry Truffles. All in good time my friends, all in good time. 

Total change of subject time. Here in NE Kentucky, we were treated to some spectacularly bad weather yesterday. First of all, I woke up to my back porch in complete and total disarray. All of the chairs had been blown over. Gusts of wind had knocked half my plants over. Rain had gotten in the kitty box. I cleaned everything up, righted my plants, and shook out the kitty blankets. I've turned the kitty box, so I'm pretty sure rain won't be getting in there again. The hubby is also going to build an extremely small lean-to to protect Sam's food from rain. Right now, we have a tote on its side that Sam can crawl into to eat his food. Something permanent is in order, though. After cleaning everything up, wouldn't you know, more severe weather rolled in that afternoon. The news hadn't exactly prepared us for this weather pattern, we usually have several days warning. Luckily, the hubby and I were both home when the sky turned black and a tornado watch was issued. We spent a little time in the basement during one squall, but as usual, we ended up being safe. For the severity of the storms, there wasn't a lot of damage in our area. We never even lost power. It still ended up being a pretty crazy afternoon.

And now today? It's supposed to be clear and sunny. Crazy weather. Crazy good running weather :)

So, in conclusion, if you see Banana Split Oreos at the store, I highly recommend picking up a package and giving these a whirl. You will not regret it.

Have a great Hump Day friends!

Ingredients (makes ~20 truffles):

1 (18 oz) package Banana Split Oreos

4 ounces cream cheese

1 (16 oz) package of Vanilla Melting Candy

yellow gel food coloring (optional)

Directions:

1. Remove 2 cookies from package. Place in a ziploc bag and crush. Set aside.

2. Place remaining cookies in food processor. Pulse until cookies are crumbs. Add cream cheese to the food processor, and pulse until you have one solid chunk of "dough".

3. Scoop out balls of dough using a 1-tbsp cookie scoop. Place balls on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. 

4. Melt candy according to package directions. Add desired amount of food coloring, if using. Dip balls into melted candy, then place back on the cookie sheet. Dust truffles with crushed cookie crumbs before the melted candy sets. Let truffles sit for 30-60 minutes before digging in. Store in an airtight container. 

Printable Recipe

Love Oreo truffles? Try these recipes!

Oreo-Reese's Peanut Butter Truffles

Mint Chocolate Truffles

Oreo Birthday Cake Bites

Linked to: Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friend's Friday Linky Party, Treasure Box Tuesday

Soft and Fluffy Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookie time!

I remember, very clearly, the first time I realized that baking wasn't just tossing some ingredients together and throwing them in the oven. I was young, in elementary school I believe. Third or fourth grade. My childhood best friend and I decided to make some peanut butter cookies. In what kind of house are third graders allowed to pull everything out of the cupboards and turn the kitchen into a demolition zone? A house where my friend's mom ran a boutique out of the downstairs of their house, that's where. 

My friend and I had the fantastic idea to mix flour with some milk to make a batter. Yes, when you are in third grade flour and milk sound like cookie dough. I wasn't even aware ingredients like butter, baking soda, salt, and, not to mention, SUGAR were in cookie dough. We then took the flour mixture and wrapped it around balls of peanut butter. As in, balls of peanut butter plucked straight from the jar. I remember at the time feeling excited and expecting amazing cookies. We stuck them in the oven for about 5 minutes.

What we had when we were done was oh-so gross. Squishy, doughy balls of nastiness were what we had. All that plus a blob of thick peanut butter in the middle. We tasted them, and I think we were afraid to admit defeat. "Not bad!" I told my friend. "Hmmm." she replied. The moment I will never forget is the moment that my mom came to pick me up. She pulled into the drive, and immediately had 2 very enthusiastic children running up to her car.

"Mom! We made cookies! You have to try them!" I excitedly chattered to her.

And try them she did. Her face was, and still is, unforgettable. The memory can still make me laugh. Her face said, "What the hell did I just put in my mouth??" To her credit, I don't remember her spitting out her bite. I'm fairly certain she didn't finish that cookie, though.

This is the moment I realized baking is harder than it looks. I was teased about those cookies for years. I'm still teased about them today. Luckily for you all, I've come a long way!

This batch of Peanut Butter cookies is a lot more technical than flour, milk, and peanut butter. Thank goodness right? However, this is a really, really easy cookie to make. The dough took me about 20 minutes to throw together, I took a shower while the dough chilled, and then I was ready to bake. It was a really fast process, and if you are looking for an easy, tasty drop cookie recipe to share, you've found it! I actually made this batch for my dad, since I never got around to making cookies while he was here. I shipped these yesterday, so these cookies are literally crossing the country as we speak. They may be traveling across your state as you read this. There's a good chance, it is 2700 miles from Kentucky to Oregon. 

Not to say these weren't taste tested. I do taste-test every batch.

Don't worry Dad. I only taste-tested what was necessary :)

Happy Tuesday friends!

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen cookies):

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 egg, room temp

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Mix in peanut butter. Mix in egg. Mix in vanilla.

2. In a separate bowl, combine flour through salt. Whisk to combine. Add flour mixture to butter mixture, mix until just combined. Cover, and chill for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 350º. Coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray. 

4. Using a 1-tbsp cookie scoop, drop cookies onto cookie sheet. These cookies don't spread much so I baked 12 to a sheet. Slightly flatten the cookies after dropping them. 

5. Bake in oven for 9 minutes. Remove from oven. Cookies will look slightly undone, but will set as they cool. Leave on cookie sheet for 10 minutes, then carefully remove to a cooling rack. Cool completely before storage. 

Printable Recipe

Recipe adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction.

If you liked this recipe, you may enjoy these!

Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookie for 1

Zucchini Cookies

Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Linked to: Treasure Box Tuesdays, Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party

Classic Chocolate Cupcakes

with whip cream frosting and sprinkles

I warned you it would happen, and it did. It's September. Waaaaah! As we leave summer in the rearview mirror, what better way to distract ourselves than chocolate? I love a classic chocolate cupcake. There are a couple of things that a chocolate cupcake must be:

1. Moist- above all, a classic chocolate cupcake must be moist. I slightly changed my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe (which always turn out perfect!) by decreasing the vanilla extract and adding a bunch of cocoa. These cakes didn't fail me, turning out perfectly luscious.

2. Chocolatey- To start, I added a half cup of cocoa to the batter. One taste was enough to let me know I needed MORE chocolate. 3/4 cup cocoa was optimal.

3. Delicious Frosting- I hate frosting. I'll rephrase that- I hate most frostings. I hate how commercial frostings are overly sweet and excessively grainy. I also have great disdain for piling a pound of frosting on a cake. Yuck. I made my absolute favorite frosting to go on these cakes. Homemade and whipped into submission, this frosting tastes like whip cream, not commercial frosting.

And I won't add this as a requirement to a classic chocolate cupcake, but I love me some sprinkles! Really and truly, I sprinkled these cupcakes because I made them for the kids. I'll just keep telling myself that :)

I made these for our family Labor Day Cookout, and they were a hit. The kids were clamoring for cupcakes before dinner (as usual!) and I must admit, they got a few bites. My niece, the little resident sweet tooth, had 2 1/2 while I was there. Sweets never go untouched with our crowd.

Annnnnnnd, I think y'all really need to see how much the cupcakes were enjoyed-

My niece, hamming it up for the camera. I could barely get the boys to smile for the camera, but my niece? She loves the camera. If I want a picture of someone devouring a cupcake, my niece will be the first one to shove that confection in her face. And enjoy the heck out of it while she's doing it!

Boy were they mad when they realized I took a picture :)

The other ham in the family. Could this be where my niece gets it from? Haha.

Did everyone have a fun holiday weekend? We had our family barbecue on Saturday due to everyone's buy schedules. The hubby and I had a fantasy draft on Sunday afternoon that went semi-distastrously. Our league is scattered over the country, with half the faction living on the West Coast and the rest of us stretching from Northern Kentucky to Cincinnati. After some serious finagling with schedules, we found time to do an online draft. The only problem? Our friend's account wouldn't let her draft a single player. The option was simply greyed out. The other gigantic problem? We couldn't stop the draft once it started. We all had to go on auto-pick and wait for it to end to start over.  Talk about taking the air out of your tires. We thought we had our friend up and running, only to come up with the same problem when we re-started. We came up with a work-around (eventually) but a draft that should have taken an hour and half ended up delayed and stretched over a 7 hour period. Now that I think about, we just had our friends over for 7 hours. The draft may have wrapped around the 5 and a half hour mark :)

Regardless, we now have our fantasy teams, so bring on the season!

Have a great week everyone!

Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes):

1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

2 egg whites

1/4 cup Greek yogurt, plain

1 cup almond milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Whip Cream Frosting

sprinkles (garnish)

Directions:

1. Line a cupcake pan with liners. Preheat oven to 350º.

2. In a small mixing bowl, combine flour through baking soda. Whisk to mix. Set aside.

3. In a large microwave-safe mixing bowl, melt the butter. When melted, add sugar. Whisk until no lumps remain. Mixture will be very grainy. Mix in egg whites. Mix in yogurt, milk, and vanilla until batter is smooth. Batter will be very thick. Distribute evenly among cupcake pan. Bake in preheated oven, 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean with moist crumbs. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

4. Prepare frosting. Frost and sprinkle cupcakes to taste. Store in an airtight container.

Printable Recipe

Looking for other cupcake recipes? Try these!

Chocolate Malt Cupcakes with Malted Buttercream

Mixed Berry Cupcakes

Spiced Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Linked to: Treasure Box Tuesday, Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party

Everyone Gets Homesick...

A funny thing happened. I was editing photos for this week's recipes in iPhoto. I had just finished up the work I wanted to do that day, when an older photo album caught my eye. Actually, it was the first photo album the hubby and I have on iPhoto. I'm not sure why, but I felt compelled to browse through the photos. That album happened to be the first trip the hubby and I ever took to Hawaii. Looking at that album inevitably led me to looking at quite a few other albums. Which led me to feeling a touch homesick. I've been here for 3 1/2 years, but I still get pangs of homesickness that are as strong as they ever were. It's hard living so far away from everything you grew up around. Don't get me wrong, I love living in Kentucky. I love the weather, the wide open spaces, the old-fashioned politeness people still have around here. But, I love everyone and everything I left behind too. Well, maybe not the weather, but you know what I mean! I'll be back with recipes tomorrow, but here's what's on my mind today:

Well,  duh. The main reason I always get homesick. My parents and little brother. Yes, I said little brother :)

Boating with friends at Fall Creek Reservoir.

Grilling out at my parents house.

Autzen Stadium!!!

Oregon football. It's tough watching games out here on the East Coast. First of all, you're lucky if the game is on a channel you have. Second, you're lucky if the game starts before 11 pm. Damn prime time!

Multnomah Falls.

Haloti loves the falls :)

Going to the coast whenever you feel like it. Heck, having fresh seafood whenever you feel like it!

Being so close to California. I was only a {long} day's drive away from San Francisco.

Camping at Detroit Lake.

Fresh crawfish from Detroit Lake. I didn't eat them, but the boys sure gobbled them off. Could be all the cocktails they downed with them... :)

I miss all the evergreens! Taken from a bridge that my brother jumped off. Yep, the hubby and I watched the little brother bungee jump from here. I stayed up high with my feet safely on the bridge.

Dog parks. Actually, I think both Haloti and I miss the dog parks.

Uh, my friends. Another duh :)

So many gorgeous parks. This park was near the hubby and I's last house in Beaverton. 

One of the last sight's the hubby and I saw as we were leaving Oregon in December 2010. 

Annnnnnnd, I think it's time to book my trip home this year!  

Happy Monday everyone!