Blueberry & Chocolate Chip Muffins

I made these Blueberry & Chocolate Chip Muffins for our morning Easter celebration. They were really easy. I modified this Dark Chocolate Blueberry Muffins recipe from How Sweet It Is.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup blueberries


Combine the first six ingredients.
When well mixed, add in the egg, butter, milk, and vanilla extract. Use a whisk to mix. Then, fold in the chocolate chips and blueberries. Pour the mixture into muffin liners in a muffin tin. Bake at 350 for 14-16 minutes. Do the toothpick test.


Isn't that easy? They were really delicious, especially when they were still warm.

Chocolate Chip, Bacon, & Pecan Cookies

One of the biggest reasons that I cannot go completely meatless is because of my love for bacon.

Do you follow the dessert trends. I recently read that the current dessert hype is pies. Some past trends include cupcakes, whoopie pies, and yes, bacon.

I found this bacon cookie recipe on NPR last year, and I have baked these cookies at least five times. I'm in love with these cookies. I just ate one, and now crumbs are all over my keyboard. I don't even care because my taste buds are so satisfied.

This most recent time that I made these cookies, I was able to use my FANCY new red KitchenAid Anniversary Edition Mixer. It was a Christmas present from my parents. I absolutely love it. The mixer lives on my counter because it is too heavy to move around. The red looks so great. I'm going to decorate it like a Christmas tree next year.


Ingredients:
5 strips of bacon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips


Preheat your oven to 350.

Start by frying up the bacon goodness. Don't burn the bacon. You don't want burnt bacon in your cookies, but the bacon should be quite crisp. Then, use paper towels to get rid of some of the grease. Chop up the bacon into really small pieces.

Whisk the baking soda, salt, and flour in a medium bowl.

Then, with the butter at room temp., cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Then, toss in the vanilla extract and egg. Beat this mixture. I used my beautiful KitchenAid Mixer. Toss in the dry ingredients from the other bowl. Beat all of these ingredients, and then finally gently stir in the chopped pecans, bacon, and chocolate chips.

The NPR instructions call for parchment paper on your baking sheets, but I never use parchment paper, and my cookies are fine. Make tablespoon sized balls of the cookie dough, and put them on the baking sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes, and then move the cookies to a drying rack. I love my drying rack.

Since there is bacon in these cookies, they need to be refrigerated. The recipe says that the cookies can be at room temp. for 1-2 days, but I prefer to just keep the cookies in the fridge all of the time.

Let me know what you think about these cookies! I didn't have time to make appetizers for a mini party a few weeks ago. Here I just ended up serving these cookies and popcorn.

Double Chocolate-Peppermint Crunch

These cookies are really delicious. I will definitely be making these again before Christmas.

The recipe is from Epicurious. You can find it here.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (My grocery store only had the Ghirardelli brand, and they weren't cheap.)
1 1/5 cups flour
1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp peppermint extract
2 eggs
4 candy canes, crushed

Preheat the oven to 375.

I don't always have the right tools in the kitchen, but I try to make do with what I have.

The recipe instructed to melt 2 cups of the chocolate chips in a metal bowl over simmering water. I don't have a metal bowl. I used another small saucepan. After the chocolate chips are melted, you are supposed to set aside 2/3 cups of the melted chocolate in a metal bowl. I used a small frying pan.


Next mix the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and salt. In another large bowl, beat the butter at room temperature. I used a mixer. Then, add the sugar, vanilla extract, and peppermint extract. Add the eggs and beat. Mix in the melted chocolate chips (not the 2/3 cups from the metal bowl that was set aside). Then, add the dry ingredients. Use an electric mixer to blend. Then, add 1/2 cup of the unmelted chocolate chips.

Form balls of about the size of 1 tablespoon of dough, and place the balls on your baking sheet. Bake for 8-9 minutes.

While the first batch of cookies are baking, start crushing the candy canes. To crush the candy canes, I used a beer bottle. It was really loud, and my neighbors probably wanted to kill me.

When the cookies are done baking, put them on parchment paper on a drying rack. I used wax paper, and it was fine.

Use the reserved melted chocolate (needs to still be warm), drizzle the chocolate on the cooled cookies. Sprinkle on the crushed candy cane pieces.