Category Archives: cookies

Triple Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies

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 Triple Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies


I doubt it’s a secret anymore that I have six kids (and eleven cats…and one husband). For the newbies to my blog….ummm…I have six kids. 😛 I think of them as separate batches. There’s my three oldest, all within a few years of each, my next two, also close in age and then my baby, who is only five while the rest are grown or almost grown. I swear; it was something in the water.

When my oldest were young, I was baking all the time then too. I had to if my kids were going to get any treats at all, because we were stone broke. With, at one point, five kids at home, plus myself and my ex husband, I had to learn to bake (and cook) in bulk. No “this makes four servings” foods for my household; not if I wanted to let everyone eat. These cookies are one of the first things I ever made. I remember that the first time I made them, all I did was double the recipe for Toll House Cookies and that was that. Yummy, sure, but over the years, it has morphed into what I make now.

For the most part, these are like the back of the bag cookies. The changes are subtle. But they are enough to make this a very different cookie. I lowered the amount of sugar, I added orange zest and extra vanilla and when I have it in the house, I use some Fiori di Sicilia from Williams Sonoma. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that this used three different types of chips? Yep. Semi Sweet, White Chocolate and Butterscotch. All three of these chips go so well with the subtle orange flavoring (and it IS subtle, so don’t worry; it’s NOT a “chocolate/orange” flavor by any means.) and the Fiori di Sicilia, plus they complement each other as well.

This makes a TON of cookie dough, so you can either half the recipe or do as I do when I make them now (since I’m not feeding as many anymore and I’m more careful with how much sweets I keep in the house) and just bake half of the dough and  freeze the rest. You can either make preshaped balls of dough, freeze them and then transfer them to ziploc bags or just wrap the full half of dough in heavy duty foil and freeze it that way.

No matter what you do, definitely make these cookies. They are totally fantastic, if I do say so myself. 😀

You know the drill….get to cookin’!

Triple Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • 2 cups unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons orange zest
  • 4 1/2 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 12 ounce bag semi sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 bag butterscotch chips
  • 1 bag white chocolate chips
  1. In the bowl of your stand mixer (you can also do all of this with a hand mixer, but make sure it’s a strong one; this is a lot of dough), combine the butter and sugars. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until smooth and creamy.
  2. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, orange zest and Fiori di Sicilia, if using.
  3. Beat well, until the mixture is well combined.
  4. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Whisk to blend. Pour into the butter mixture, put on the splatter shield and beat at low speed until the dough comes together in a soft dough.
  5. Add in the three bags of chips (make sure to snag a few first; quality control and all) and beat on low speed until combined.
  6. The dough will be soft. Transfer it to another bowl, cover and chill for at least 2 hours and up to 24.
  7. When ready to bake, either grease your cookie sheets very lightly or use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat ( I love these mats) and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
  8. Scoop rounded tablespoons (or do as I do and use a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop. What? I like large cookies! :-P) of dough onto the prepared sheets and bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes or until the tops are firm and golden brown. If making the big cookies, bake for 14 to 17 minutes.
  9. Let cool on the sheet for one minute, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.

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Toasty Browned Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

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Toasty Browned Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Toasty Browned Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies




My husbands favorite cookie is a plain old fashioned oatmeal raisin cookie. While I like them, they aren’t my favorite and because of that and cause my husband is diabetic yet would eat every single cookie made, I don’t make them often. But I had been craving some the last week or so and decided to see what I could do to change them up a bit. I love using browned butter in baking so that was one thought. It adds such a delicious nutty flavor to foods. But then I decided to take the nuttiness one step further and I toasted the oats for these cookies.

These turned out wonderfully. They have a yummy, toasty, almost butterscotch flavor due to the browned butter and toasted oats. The edges have that sought after crispness with nice soft chewy middles. I was rather tickled with myself on how these turned out and can’t think of anything I would change next time I make them. I wasn’t sure what to name them so I asked my facebook readers to help me. Unfortunately, though they made some awesome suggestions, none quite resonated with me so the above name is what we ended up with.

You know the drill… 🙂

Toasty Browned Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup wheat germ (I used the honey crunch flavored type)
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries (you can obviously sub out all of one or the other if you prefer)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon orange zest (optional)
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 cups oats
  1. Preheat the oven to 350.
  2. Place the butter in a medium pot. Over medium to medium high heat, let the butter melt and cook, swirling the pot periodically, until the butter is a dark golden brown and has a nutty scent. Do NOT turn our back on it once it starts to color. This can go from browned to a smelly burned mess quickly. When done, set it aside to cool.
  3. While this cools, toast your oats. Pour the oats onto a cookie sheet and shake to settle them into a single layer. Toast them until they are a light brown color, stirring and spreading again a couple of times,  about 20 minutes. Cool for about ten minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, combine the eggs, orange zest if using and vanilla and beat well. Dump the raisins and cranberries in there and just let it sit while the butter cools. This gives the fruits time to soften a bit.
  5. In a large bowl, combine the cooled butter and the two sugars. Beat well to combine. Add in the flour, wheat germ, baking soda and salt. Beat on medium speed to combine. Add in the egg/fruit mix and beat just until combined.
  6. Fold in the oats. Make balls of dough about 2 inches in diameter (you can make smaller or larger but adjust the cooking time accordingly) and place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 8 to a sheet.
  7. Bake at 350 until the tops are firm and cookies are a medium golden brown, about 13 to 15 minutes, depending on size. Let cool on pan for a minute then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.

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Thumbprint Cookies

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Thumbprint Cookies

Back when my oldest (now grown) kids were little, I started a tradition that has stuck to this day and will probably continue until I am too old and feeble in mind and body to get to the stove. Mind you, there are some who would say that I already am feeble in mind, but that’s another story. And those people don’t get cookies from me. 😛

The tradition started because when they were little, I was too broke to buy them Christmas presents. I always had food in the house though so I figured that I may not be able to get them gifts, but they could have cookies. Plus, I always seemed to be trying to recreate a festive Norman Rockwell sort of holiday (even though my family is more like one of those Christmas movies where they are dysfunctional as all heck, yet are funny and have each others backs) and cookies seemed one way to do it.

So even now, I make cookies. Lots…and lots…of cookies. Oh my gosh, do I make cookies. I am the reason there is a shortage of baking supplies in Kentucky every year. And the reason my kids, husband and myself all need larger clothing come New Years Day. I usually make about 15 different kinds of cookies plus fudge, scones, all sorts of baked goods. Then we get fatter.

One of the ones I have been making since the first year I started this is Thumbprint Cookies. Who doesn’t like those, huh? The ones I make aren’t fancy; there are no unusual ingredients in them though I have branched out in the toppings since back in the day. These are simple, easy for a beginning cook, great for the kids to help with and they taste yummy. You can top these with jam, marmalade, different curds, chocolate kisses. You name it. This makes a LOT of cookies but the recipe is easily cut in half.

You know the drill… 🙂

Thumbprint Cookies

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 1/2 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 bag mini chocolate chips (make sure it’s the mini ones; the regular sized ones poke out and get hard when baked plus make it difficult to shape the cookies)
  • toppings of choice
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs until light and creamy.
  3. Add in the flour and baking powder. Mix well.
  4. Fold in the chips; mix well.
  5. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for about 30 minutes.
  6. Shape the dough into 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Make a bowl shaped indent on the top of each cookie ball. I use the cap from a 2 liter bottle of pop; it works perfectly.
  7. Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes; until the edges of the cookie are light brown and the tops are set. While still in the pan, lightly repress the indentation since baking will have made it puff out.
  8. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack. When they are cool, fill with your choice of toppings. Store with waxed paper between the layers so they don’t stick together.

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Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies With Apricots & Blueberries

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Double Chocolate Chip Cookies With Apricots & Blueberries

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies With Apricots & Blueberries


I remember how back when I was a kid, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and we wore Saber Tooth Tiger skins for clothing,  some years at Christmas time, my mom would get a fruit tray to set out. She also got a bag of shell on mixed nuts every year that we loved but that’s neither here nor there other than a memory I have. As for the fruit tray, you know the kind I mean; all neatly set up, with dried peaches, pears, apricots, prunes and dates on it. In our household, the peaches and apricots would get eaten first and the prunes would sit there until we kids got desperate. I actually like prunes sometimes now but I still prefer the apricots.

When I got older, I got into the whole cover perfectly good and nutritious fruit with chocolate thing. Easy enough; take a nice piece of fruit, fresh or dried and dip it into chocolate and cover up any nutritional value it ever had. What’s wrong with that, right? 😀 My favorite was of course to take a dried apricot and cover it in either semi sweet or white chocolate. The chewy tangy fruit mixed with the sweet chocolate… pure Heaven. So when my friend Jenni over at Pastry Chef Online came up with an utterly delicious Apricot Swirl Brownie, it got me craving that fruit/chocolate combo again.

So what did I do? It isn’t entirely original because I have seen cookies with dried apricots and white chocolate in them before but I combined two of my favorite fruit flavors (in the Summer, I am constantly eating sliced fresh apricots and fresh blueberries with a little sugar and cream) in a cookie with both white and dark chocolate. I love the way this turned out; fairly reminiscent of those chocolate covered fruits I love. The soft sweet cookie, tangy fruits and bites of chocolate just go together so well! These are extremely easy to make so….

You know the drill….

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies With Apricots & Blueberries

  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 6 ounce package dried apricots
  • 1 6 ounce package dried blueberries
  • 1 cup good quality white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup good quality bittersweet or dark chocolate chips (Ghirardelli makes a good 60% dark chocolate chip; not too sweet or too bitter)
  • 1 cup boiling water
  1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put the dried fruit into a small bowl and cover with the boiling water. Let sit for 30 minutes. Drain well. Lay the berries in a paper towel and gently blot dry. Blot dry the apricots and chop into small bite sized pieces.  Set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugars, and extracts. Beat well, until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir to mix, then add to the butter mixture all at once. Beat at low speed until fully combined. Alternately, you can use a heavy wooden spoon to mix.
  4. Add in the white and dark chips; stir well. Add the apricots; stir well. Last, gently add the blueberries, being careful to not break them up more than can be avoided.
  5. Roll golf ball sized pieces of dough in your palms to get them rounded, then lay about 3 inches apart on large ungreased baking sheets.
  6. Bake at 375 degrees for about 14 minutes or until the top is light golden brown and the cookies look just set in the middle. They will firm up as they cool. If you prefer a crisper cookie, let cook for maybe an extra 2 minutes, until the top is golden brown and looks dry.
  7. Let sit on the pans for two minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.
  8. I got 27 good sized cookies from this. You could make them smaller but make sure to adjust your cooking time.

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Coconut Chocolate Fudge Truffle Cookies

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Coconut Chocolate Fudge Truffle Cookies

Coconut Chocolate Fudge Truffle Cookies


I think we’ve all learned by now that I like the combination of chocolate and coconut. I don’t think I realized it myself until I started this blog. But now, when I look back through the blog and see the recipes for different treats with that flavor combo, like Mounds Bar Brownies or Chocolate Bundt Cake With A Creamy Coconut Filling orrrrrr Browned Butter German Chocolate Chip Cookies or 😛 Samoa Wanna Be Cookies, it makes me realize that umm, yeah, I guess I use that combo a lot. But my family hasn’t killed me yet and they are actually some of my more popular postshere so it seems I’m not the only one who likes it. That of course means I feel perfectly safe posting yet another hehe.

These cookies, like practically everything else I make, started out somewhat different. The original recipe comes from The Gourmet Cookbook I actually wasn’t that thrilled with that  cookbook. I only found two recipes in the book that interested me enough to try them and their Truffle Cookies was one of them. On a side note however, if you can get a hold of a copy of Gourmet Today  grab a copy. I personally found about 25 recipes in there that I tabbed, which for me, was enough to make it worth buying from Amazon. Just got it in the mail today actually and I’m looking forward to making some recipes from it.

But, as I was saying, the recipe was somewhat different when I saw it in the book. I didn’t make a ton of changes to it but enough to make the flavor profile of it quite a bit different. The original was just a plain chocolate truffle cookie and while there’s nothing wrong with that lol, I am, as we know, incapable of keeping a recipe the same. So I went to that favorite of mine… chocolate coconut. I love Almond Joy candy bars so I also threw in some sliced toasted almonds. I’ve mentioned before that while I like coconut, I won’t use it unless it is toasted. I just don’t like the texture of it untoasted. But if you don’t mind it, feel free to omit the toasting of the coconut and almonds. But I highly suggest doing it. It adds a nutty crunchiness to the cookies. If you want to try the cookies the way the book wrote it, just omit the coconut and almonds altogether as well as the coconut extract.

You know the drill…

Coconut Chocolate Fudge Truffle Cookies

  • 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced thin
  • 1 12 ounce package semi sweet chocolate chips, divided
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 cup coconut
  • 1/2 cup sliced almonds
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon coconut flavoring
  • 3 eggs
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small baking dish, combine the coconut and the almonds. Toast at 350, stirring once during cooking, until both are light golden brown. Don’t overcook. Nothing worse than the smell of scorched coconut. Don’t ask me how I know this *whistles innocently* Go ahead and shut off the oven after that because the dough has to chill.
  2. Melt together the unsweetened chocolate, butter and one cup of the chocolate chips in a small heavy bottomed saucepan, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool.
  3. In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and the coconut almond mixture.
  4. Beat together the sugar, extracts and eggs. Pour in the melted chocolate mixture and beat until well blended, then add the flour mixture and mix until well combined. Stir in the remaining chocolate chips.
  5. Chill the dough in the fridge in a covered bowl for about two hours or until firm.
  6. Preheat oven to 350. Using your lightly dampened hands, roll the dough into small (about 1 inch) balls and place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
  7. Bake at 350 until puffy and set, about 11 minutes. They will still be soft in the center
  8. Cool on the baking sheet for ten minutes, then remove to a rack to finish cooling.
  9. Hide from the family and eat them all yourself because you love them and want to save them from overeating.

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Oatmeal Raisinet Cookies

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Oatmeal Raisinet Cookies

I feel sorry for my husband at times. Why? He’s type 2 diabetic but man, does he love his sweets. Though he would deny that to his death bed. He also loves his savory snacks mind you but when I bake, he is all over it. There was a time I would buy him sugar free treats from the store, but he has come to realize that he prefers a few of the ‘real thing” as opposed to more of the artificial ones. He gets jealous as can be of me (in a loving way of course lol) because, even though I’m overweight (perils of food blogging) I have great blood sugar readings. If anything, I run too low. He also hates me for my low blood pressure too hehe. I am one weird fat woman physically. :-p

One of the things he loves is cookies. Non sweet lover or not (yeah, right. You know better, darlin’), he can eat his weight in cookies. Especially if it’s chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin. So I have had to make sure I have good recipes for both to keep the man supplied. The things we do for love, huh? *Bats eyes in my husbands direction and attempts to look flirtatious* But hey, the man willingly makes me cups of tea whenever I ask and sometimes, I don’t even have to ask. PLUS, he is the one who gets our 16 year old up for school in the mornings. He’s pretty awesome.

Ok, I’m done gushing now lol.

These are some pretty good oatmeal cookies. The original recipe came from food.com and I have just barely adapted it. One thing I do is just make half the recipe because the full recipe makes an ungodly amount of cookies, which is fine for say, Christmas goodie trays but not for everyday unless I’m serving cookies for dinner. The half recipe makes about 5 dozen smallish cookies. I also added the raisinets as the original just called for chocolate chips as we love raisins in oatmeal cookies here, plus I added more vanilla, some cinnamon and a little less sugar because they were far too sweet as written. Ok, so maybe I adapted it a bit more than I thought lol. When cooking these, watch them carefully. With a 375 temp, they can get overdone quickly. If you want chewier cookies, go for the lower cooking time. If you prefer crispier, go for the higher cook time. Either way though…

You know the drill. 🙂

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, room temp
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 1/2 cups oatmeal, divided in half
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 18 ounces raisinets (one bag and 2 individual sized boxes equals this amount)
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets (I do two at a time) with cooking spray. Set aside.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (you can do this with a heavy wooden spoon or hand mixer but it’s a fairly thick dough so it will be harder to stir) cream together the butter and sugars.
  3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed, then add in the eggs and vanilla. beat well on low speed.
  4. In a food processor or blender, pulverize 1 1/4 cups of the oatmeal. In a large bowl, combine it with all the other dry ingredients, including the rest of the oatmeal. Don’t add the raisinets yet. Stir well to combine.
  5. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ones, about 1/3 at a time, and mix well.
  6. Scrape down the bowl again, take the bowl off the base and stir in the raisinets.
  7. Use a small scoop to make cookies on the prepared sheets.
  8. Bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes. Let sit on sheet for one minute, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.


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Browned Butter German Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Browned Butter German Chocolate Chip Cookies

Browned Butter German Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a major personality flaw. Well, I have more than one but we won’t get into the others today. The one I’m talking about right now is my inability to let things alone. I am that person who when being sarcastic, always has to say that one last sentence that gets people wanting to look for cement shoes for me. I’m that person that when a joke goes flat, will be standing there saying “no, no, let me explain it to you! It’s funny! Really, it is!”. I’m also that person who, once I’ve made a recipe, then has to make it about 463 times more in different variations just because I love to play around with recipes and put my own stamp on it. I guess that’s one reason I’m a food blogger, huh?. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it’s a case of I should have left well enough alone.

Today it was a definite case of “it works”. Oh…my…gosh…did it work. Now, contrary to what one would think, I’m not a huge cookie person. I prefer my sweets to be floating in a puddle of cream and maybe even have fruit in them. I know, I know, I just shocked a bunch of you. I LOVE sweets, don’t get me wrong but creaminess (aka fat lol) and fruit put together tend to do it for me more than cookies. But there are times I like something a little homey, a little old fashioned, a little…well…cookieish.  So yesterday, on my Facebook Page, I mentioned that I was making These cookies. Well, I never got to them yesterday and this is a good thing because overnight, I got the inspiration to try to make them a bit different. My husband, who is my favorite person ever, was my inspiration. He LOVES German Chocolate Cake and I make it (or buy it) for him every year on his birthday. So I decided to make these Browned Butter cookies in a way that mimics the flavors in his favorite cake. And since I love the chocolate/coconut flavor combo myself, I am kind of in love with these cookies myself. The dough alone was fantastic lol. I kept snagging bits of it from the bowl. The nutty taste of the browned butter, the chocolate, the crispy toasted coconut, the caramel… oh my *drools*

You know the drill…

Browned Butter German Chocolate Chip Cookies

    • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, browned to a golden brown color & cooled
    • 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
    • 1/3 cup sugar
    • 1 egg
    • 1 egg yolk
    • 2 tablespoons cream
    • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
    • 1 teaspoon coconut flavoring
    • 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
    • 1 teaspoon baking soda
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1 12 ounce bag semi sweet chocolate chips or chunks (I actually used more like 3 cups because I had a partial bag opened that I wanted to use up so extra wouldn’t go amiss 🙂 )
    • 1 1/4 cup sweetened coconut, toasted, 1/4 cup set aside
    • 25 Kraft Caramels,
    • 1/4 cup heavy cream or half & half
  1. To brown the butter, in a medium saucepan, over medium heat melt the butter. Let cook,stirring frequently, until it turns a golden brown color. This can take anywhere from five to ten minutes. It will sputter and spit a lot at first then that will stop. Do NOT walk away from this as it can go from yellowish butter to burnt garbage very quickly.
  2. Pour the browned butter into a large bowl and let cool.
  3. When cool, pour both kinds of sugar into the bowl with the butter. Beat until well mixed.
  4. Add in the egg and egg yolk, then pour in the vanilla, coconut flavoring and the cream. Beat on low speed until well mixed.
  5. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt.
  6. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and at slow speed (unless you want to be covered in flying flour), mix until you have a cohesive cookie dough.
  7. Fold in the chocolate chips and one cup of the toasted coconut.
  8. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.. Spray the cookie sheet with baking spray before lining it if using the parchment paper.
  9. Scoop the cookies up and place about 2 inches apart on the lined cookie sheet.
  10. Bake at 350 until golden brown on the edges, about 10 to 12 minutes.
  11. Let cool for a minute on the sheet then transfer over to a wire rack to finish cooling.
  12. When the cookies are cool, make the caramel drizzle.  Unwrap your caramels and put them into a bowl. A cereal sized bowl is sufficient. Pour the cream over the top. Then microwave at 70% power for 30 second intervals until the caramel is melted and bubbly. Stir well to mix. Be careful… there is nothing as fun as scraping out a bowl of hardened burnt caramel because you didn’t watch carefully. Please don’t ask how I know this.
  13. Drizzle each cookie with some of the caramel and while it’s still gooey, sprinkle some of the reserved toasted coconut over each one.

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Peanut Butter & Jelly Chocolate Whoopie Pies

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Peanut Butter & Jelly Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Peanut Butter & Jelly Chocolate Whoopie Pies


I have mentioned more than once that generally speaking, I don’t care for peanut butter. never have, never will. Strangely, while five of my six kids like peanut butter, one of my sons has never liked it either. That is so weird to me! You don’t think of food liking as being in any way genetic, but with six kids, I have learned that they really do seem to be in some cases. That same son hated bananas for many years. His father, whom he hadn’t lived with since an extremely young age, also hated bananas. Go figure.

But every once in a while, I get a strange (strange because well… I don’t LIKE pb so it’s akin to a rabid vegetarian suddenly craving steak tartare) craving for something peanut buttery. Usually I just have a peanut butter sandwich and that’s that; I’m done for 6 months or so. But today I was working on a blog post anyway. It was supposed to be chocolate whoopie pies with chocolate filling (I hear some of you sobbing out there because I changed it lol) but the peanut butter and jelly sandwich craving hit (twice a year, like clockwork 😛 ) and my 4 watt mental light bulb went off and I thought to myself “self ( I call myself self when I’m not calling myself somewhat obscene names), why not make a peanut butter filling for these instead?! The you can use that bag of mini reeses cups you bought and never ate!” Then I had another flash of brilliance and decided to add some raspberry jam in them pies. Raspberry goes well in PB&J sandwiches and it definitely goes well with chocolate so… voila, Peanut Butter & Jelly Chocolate Whoopie Pies were born. Well, born in my household anyway. I’m sure that at some point they were born somewhere else already lol.

I then congratulated myself for being a genius, made myself a cup of tea and had some chocolate as a reward for being so brilliant and got started. The end result is pretty yummy if I do say so myself. Mind you, my whoopie pies aren’t flat and tiny like most. Why you ask? Because I’m lazy. It was much easier to put the cookie batter in my muffin top pan than to spoon out each individual cookie and make sure it was shaped nicely. The benefits of this is that you also get these cool crispy edges as well as some HUGE arse whoopie pies hehe. But I will write the directions as written in the cookbook (aptly called “Whoopie Pies” by Sarah Billingsly). Just know that you CAN do these in a muffin top pan too. You’ll just get less but bigger pies and they will be thicker.

You know the drill… get to cookin’!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Chocolate Whoopie Pies

  • Whoopie Pie-
  • 1 2/3 cup flour
  • 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 4 tablespoons butter, room temp
  • 4 tablespoon shortening, room temp
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cup milk
  • Peanut Butter Filling-
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy)
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • about 1/3 cup raspberry jam (or whatever flavor you prefer)
  • 1 2.5 ounce bag mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (find at the check out lanes in the grocery store), each cup cut in half
  1. Preheat the oven to 375. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt onto a large piece of waxed paper.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer (can use a hand mixer if you need to),  beat the butter, brown sugar and shortening on low speed until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, increase the speed to medium and beat for about 2 minutes until smooth and creamy.
  4. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat on low speed just until combined. Turn off and scrape down the bowl again. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk and beat on low until combined. Add the remainder of the flour and milk and again, beat on low until just combined.
  5. Spoon batter, about a tablespoon at a time, onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes at 375 degrees or until the cookies spring back when touched gently. Let them cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.
  6. Make your filling- In a medium bowl, combine the peanut butter and butter. Beat at medium speed until smooth & creamy. Add in the powdered sugar and beat on low until combined, then turn the mixer up to medium and continue beating until it is creamy and fluffy looking.
  7. Fold in the chopped reeses cups.
  8. Spread a good sized dollop of the peanut butter filling on the flat side of half of the cooled cookies. Top with another good sized dollop of jam. Top each cookie with another of the unfilled cookies, flat side inwards. Magically, your cookies are no longer just cookies, but are now Whoopie Pies. Enjoy!! 🙂

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Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookie Cake (With An Adult Twist)

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Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookie Cake

Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookie Cake

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a drinker. I like my wine a time or two a week and I like some sweet liquors every once in a while; things like Baileys, Amaretto (it’s wonderful in hot tea) and Butterscotch Schnapps. Yep… they actually make a schnapps with that flavor.  And add Pinnacle Vodka in there sometimes too. I’m not normally a vodka drinker but the ones they make are actually creamy tasting and if you’ve read my blog for more than five minutes, you know creamy tasting and I are BFF’s from way back. 😀

When I was a kid, I loved those hard yellow butterscotch discs. Still do actually, though my teeth (or lack thereof hehe) can’t handle them anymore. So, years back, when I saw the schnapps with that flavor, I had to try it. And lo and behold, it tastes exactly like one of those candies. The problem is that I DON’T drink enough (laughs cause I’m whining that I don’t drink heavily. Go figure.) so a bottle lasts me approximately as long as it takes to go from birth to puberty. So I like to think of ways to use the stuff up that doesn’t involve me and a headache from syrupy booze.

Today, I was looking through my copy of Dam Good Sweets and I noticed a page I tagged. It was for Chocolate Chip Cookie cake. That alone sounded good and I was going to make it but then boozy inspiration entered my head (that sounds like I was sloshed when I thought of it lol. Y’all know what I meant right?) so I played around with the recipe. Not much… just enough to make it say “Janet Made Me!!” How, you ask? Simple. I added butterscotch chips as well as the chocolate and I added a slug of butterscotch schnapps to the batter. I also omitted the almond extract they called for and used dark brown sugar instead of light.

This worked out nicely. You can definitely taste the butterscotch flavor in the dough. Combined with the two different flavors of chips that are all melty and ooey gooey and the soft chewy cookie with crispity (yes, that too is now a word) edges, this all becomes one decadent treat. I had originally thought about sending it in to my husbands work with him, but no way is that happening now that I’ve tasted it hehe.

Now go bake a cookie!

Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookie Cake

  • 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 9 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons butterscotch schnapps (you could sub 1/4 teaspoon of butterscotch candy flavoring if you wanted to)
  • 1 egg
  1. Make your ganache- this will be the glaze later. Put 2/3 of a cup of the chocolate chips in a bowl. Microwave the cream until boiling, then pour over the chocolate chips in the bowl. Let sit for about a minute then stir well to melt the chocolate and make a smooth mixture. Cover and set aside. You can make this hours before hand if you want. Just leave out because it will harden in the fridge.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a buttered 9 inch cake pan with a round of parchment paper (easiest way is to trace the outline of the with pencil on parchment then cut it out) then butter or spray the paper.
  3. Whisk the flour, salt and baking powder in a small bowl. Set aside
  4. In a large bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and schnapps. Mix with a hand mixer until well combined and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl, then add the egg.
  5. After the egg is well combined, stir in the flour mixture.. Stir just until well combined, then add the rest of the chocolate chips and the butterscotch chips
  6. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown and puffy and the edges look set. The middle will still look and feel somewhat soft..
  7. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for about an hour. Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan. Carefully lay a plate over the top of the pan and invert the cookie, then do that again onto another plate to get it back right side up.
  8. Spoon your cooled ganache into a sandwich bag. Snip off the corner and pipe the ganache onto the top of the cookie. Eat the leftover ganache hehe.
  9. Serve this to hungry kids who will love you (the alcohol has cooked off). Or just do the usual… hide in the closet with it and don’t share. I’m cool with that too.

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White Chocolate Coconut Mojito Cookies

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White Chocolate Coconut Mojito Cookies

I’m not a huge imbiber when it comes to hard alcohol. I joke about it on my facebook page and yes, I do like my wine and every once in a while something harder. But generally speaking, I’m pretty darn boring that way. I did all my drinking in my wild younger days (someday I’ll tell the story of waking up in the backseat of a car, unclothed, with no memory of how I got there. I was…interesting when in my late teens and early 20’s). But even then I tended to drink wine. When I drank the hard stuff, I ended up..well, in situations. Learn from me, grasshoppers.

So I’ve never had a mojito. But the IDEA of them has always intrigued me since I absolutely LOVE lime and enjoy mint too. So the thought of them together sounded yummy. But it meant buying rum and the only time I buy rum is when I buy an airline sized bottle around Christmas to soak my fruitcake in.

So I saw a recipe a few days ago for a Mojito Scone. That sounded interesting but I know I do a lot of that type of baked goods in here and hadn’t done any cookies for a while <insert Cookie Monster voice here saying “COOOOOOKIEEEESSSS!”>. So I thought. Then I thunk some more. Then I answered the door cause the fire department was there saying they had multiple reports of the smell of burning coming from my house.

So I stopped thinking. And that’s when it came to me. These cookies. Mojito flavored. As well as tasting of some toasted coconut just because I love any excuse to throw toasted coconut into things.

These turned out both good and not to my taste, all at once. Will I make them again? Yes, but next time I will double the lime zest, add some lime oil, cut the mint extract in half (it was a bit overpowering for me) and add some coconut extract as well. Then, I think they would be absolutely perfect. But if you prefer the flavor of mint to be more prominent, make them exactly as I will type them out here. Otherwise, try them the way I just suggested up above. that will make the lime and coconut flavors more noticeable. But for an experiment, I was really pleased with these. They are nice and chewy, the toasted coconut was a great addition and were pleasantly buttery. I WILL be making these again 🙂

White Chocolate Coconut Mojito Cookies

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon rum extract
  • 1 teaspoon mint extract (cut in half if you want mint flavor lighter)
  • zest and juice from one small lime (remember, double the zest and add some lime oil if you prefer the lime to dominate over the mint)
  • 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut, toasted in a 350 degree oven until light brown (also, about 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract if you want a heavier coconut flavor)
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 11 ounce bag of white chocolate pieces
  1. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and the sugars.
  2. Add the eggs, the extracts and the lime juice and zest. Beat until well blended.
  3. In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the butter mixture. Mix just until blended. Stir in the white chocolate pieces and the toasted coconut.
  4. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.
  5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and/or line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  6. Spoon or scoop rounded spoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. They should be just barely browned on the edges of the cookies.
  7. Let cool on pan for a minute, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.


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