Egg Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Finally, I can give Ryden a cookie without feeling guilty about it! These actually were really good even without the eggs!

These bad boys came from melskitchencafe.com

*Makes about 2-3 dozen cookies

INGREDIENTS:
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
12 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment or silpat liners. In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric stand mixer, cream together the cream cheese, melted butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until mostly incorporated by a few dry streaks remain. Add the chocolate chips and mix until combined and no dry streaks remain.

Roll the dough into 1 to 1 1/2-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten each ball slightly with the palm of your hand (just barely press, you don’t need to flatten it all the way). Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes until the edges are just barely golden brown. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Molten Lava Cakes

I've had these before at a friends house, but never made them until last night. I was so scared they wouldn't turn out, but they did and I could have eaten like 5 of them. I didn't have enough ramekins for everyone so I used muffin tins and it worked great! Some had vanilla ice cream with it, some had whipped cream...I had both :) This came from ourbestbites.com

Ingredients:

4 T real butter

1/3 C sugar
3 large eggs

1/3 C flour
1/4 t salt
8 oz bittersweet chocolate*, melted

*8 ounces is about 1 1/3 C of bittersweet chocolate chips. Make the 1/3 cup a little over-full and you should be good

Additional Ingredients:
powdered sugar for dusting

sweetened whipped cream for serving

butter and sugar for preparing pans

You can either bake these in a muffin pan, in ramekins, or even oven-proof

mugs. If you use a muffin tin you’ll get 6 cakes and depending on the size of the ramekins you’ll get 4-6.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To prepare pans, use your fingers (or the butter wrapper) to rub butter in the muffin tins or ramekins. Sprinkle in some granulated sugar to coat the entire inner surface and tap out any extra discard.

In a bowl with a mixer beat the 4 T butter and 1/3 C sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour and salt and slowly add it into the butter mixture just until combined. Stir in melted chocolate by hand, just until combined. Don’t over mix.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups or ramekins and then place them on a baking sheet. (If using ramekins you’ll want them not quite 3/4 full)

Bake just until tops of cakes no longer jiggle when pan is lightly shaken, about 8-10 min for a muffin pan, and 10-12 for ramekins. Remove from oven and let stand 10 min.

Pina Colada

I found this recipe on the back of a can of cream of coconut (which was found at Walmart). It is more like a shake, since it uses ice cream instead of ice...but oh my goodness, yumo! We are kind of obsessed with coconut and pineapple around here :)

Ingredients:
1 cup pineapple juice
4 oz. cream of coconut
6 scoops of ice cream

Directions:
Mix all ingredients in blender, then pour into fancy glasses like the one shown...umbrella's are optional.

Mini Cheesecake Tarts

{One day I'll have a cool camera that makes my food look 100x better}

I just made these little cuties tonight for a good-bye bbq we had for some friends. I used the recipe from Our Best Bites blog, but found my own crust recipe. The original calls for a vanilla wafer on the bottom, but I prefer a graham cracker crust. The original also is for a regular size muffin pan, but I think the mini size ones are way cuter and just the right size!!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoon white sugar
• 3 tablespoon margarine, melted
• 2 8oz packages cream cheese
• 3/4 C sugar
• 2 Tbs flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease paper liners in mini muffin pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and margarine with a fork until combined. Measure a rounded tablespoon of the mixture into the bottom of each muffin cup, pressing firmly. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 4 minutes, then remove to cool. Turn oven up to 375 degrees.
3. Soften cream cheese if needed. With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar. Add in flour and baking powder and beat to combine. Then add in eggs, one at a time, lemon juice, and vanilla. Beat to combine.
4. Divide batter between 48 muffin papers, filling each cup up to about 1/4 inch from the top. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. They’ll puff way up during baking, but they’ll settle after being chilled (make sure the tops don't jiggle).
5. When you take them out of the oven, place them on a cooling rack and let them cool completely. While they cool, they will sink down in the center. Don’t worry- that’s normal! It makes the perfect little well to fill up with the fruit filling. Before you top them, chill in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours or preferably over night. Then top and serve. You can be creative and top with whatever you like, like chocolate, cherry pie filling, caramel, lemon curd, whatever! I used homemade whip cream and fresh berries. Makes 48 mini cheesecakes.

Carmel Brownies

{This recipe came from 350 degrees. They are pretty rich, but AMAZING!}

Ingredients:

2/3 c. evaporated milk, divided

14 oz. pkg. caramels

3/4 c. butter, melted

1 pkg. German Chocolate cake mix

1 c. chocolate chips

1/2 c. chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.

Directions:
Melt caramels with 1/3 c. evaporated milk over low heat. (Unwrapping the caramels is the most tedious part of this recipe.) :)

Combine the melted butter, remaining 1/3 c. evaporated milk and cake mix.

Spread 1/2 the batter into an ungreased 13 X 9" pan. (An offset spreader really helps with this, but you could use the back of a spoon, too.) Bake for 6 to 8 minutes.

Sprinkle the top with the chocolate chips and pecans. Spread melted caramels over the chips and nuts. Drop remaining cake batter on top. (Don't worry about spreading the batter out; it will spread while baking.)

Bake an additional 15-20 minutes.

One Ingredient Ice Cream

I was pretty skeptical when I saw this post on 'Our Best Bites' blog, but thought I'd give it a try. The only ingredient..........BANANAS! And actually, it's pretty delicious! So here's what you do: Cut up as many bananas as you want (make sure they are a little over ripe), and stick them in a ziploc and put in freezer. When you're ready to eat ice cream, just place the bananas in a food processor or a blender. We used our vita mix and it worked great. It comes out like soft serve ice cream, if you want it to be a harder consistency just stick it in the freezer for a little while. We like to add nutella, peanut butter, or even strawberries to it. Sure it's not one ingredient anymore, but it's SO good! And the best part, my kids think they are getting treated with ice cream! Sneaky sneaky!!

Candy Bar Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this recipe from Picky Palate, and made them for bunco last month, DE-VINE!
I used recess and snickers, but I think I'll just use snickers next time.

2 sticks softened butter

1 Cup granulated sugar

3/4 Cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla

3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

10 oz bag chocolate chips

Variety of snack size Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers and Kit Kat

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer, cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2. Place flour, baking soda and salt in large bowl; mix then slowly add to wet ingredients. Add chocolate chips to combine. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of snack size candy bar. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of candy bar. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until candy bar is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!

Makes about 24 LARGE Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 3/4 teaspoon soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

Cream sugars, butter or margarine, and peanut butter. Beat in egg, then stir in remaining ingredients. Shape dough into a small balls; place on lightly greased baking sheets then press the dough balls down with a fork to make ridges down the center. Dip fork tines in flour the fork each time before pressing a cookie. Bake at 350° for about 12 minutes. (Bake for a little less time for chewier cookies.) Makes about 2 dozen peanut butter cookies.

Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup walnuts or pecans, toasted and coarsley chopped (optional)
Chocolate chips (optional)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaton
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 ripe large bananas mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and spray bread pan
In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nuts. Set aside.
In a medium sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients into the dry just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky ( Do not over mix the batter) Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (about 50 minutes).

Carmel Cobbler

This was delicious! Ryan brought this home last night from the Evans' house, and I about died...I had to get the recipe from Steph because it was delicious and not so nutritious....Ryan and I call it "death by dessert"....

Caramel Cobbler

3 sticks butter at room temp

2 1/4 cup quick oats

2 cups + 2 Tb flour

1 16 or 18 oz jar caramel sauce

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 c chocolate chips

Mix butter and brown sugar together. Add the oats, 2 cups flour, salt and soda. In a greased 9x13 press half the dough mixture in the bottom of pan. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips on top. In a seperate bowl stir caramel sauce and 2 Tb flour together then pour on top of choco chips. Press remaining dough on top then put back in the oven for 20 more minutes.

Yummy served hot over ice cream!

Fruit dip

1 block cream cheese
1 container cool whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk
some lemon juice

Mix all ingredients with mixer and let chill.