Peanut Butter Chews

The holiday season is when everyone's baking guns come out. At work potlucks, everyone brings a dessert and I'm no different. While I like trying to bake new things, such as attempting to bake a pie this season, for the most part I like to stick to my tried and true recipes. Peanut Butter Chews is one of them. I wish take credit for this peanut butter goodness, but it came from a recipe book that one of my relatives gave to my family twenty years ago. I remember baking this the first time and bringing them to work and they were an instant hit that I would bake them all the time and eventually gave my co-workers the recipe. Now you can try the recipe yourself. 

Peanut Butter Chews

 

Recipe by Stacie H. from the Sony San Diego Family Cookbook

Ingredients

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2/3 cups margarine (I use butter when I make it)
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups coconut (or 1 cup oatmeal)
• 1 cup of milk chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

 Combine sugars, peanut butter, margarine (or butter), vanilla, and eggs in large mixing bowl and cream.

 Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and coconut together. For my twist in the recipe, I also add 1 cup of milk chocolate chips. 

Add 1/2 to creamed mixture and mix thoroughly. Add the rest and mix. 

Spread in greased oblong pan and about 1/2 inch thick. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 to 30 minutes. Cut into squares while still warm. Spread with thin powdered sugar frosting or leave plain. 

There you have it, Peanut Butter Chews. They are great hot from the oven but taste even better the next day. Make sure you put it in a sealed contained so it doesn't get stale. The chews pair well with a cold glass of milk. 

What are your go to baking recipes?

Quick and Easy Pumpkin Cupcakes

One thing that immediately reminds me of fall is pumpkins. I love it pie, latte, and even in ice cream. So when I came across this pumpkin cupcake recipe on Pinterest, I immediately had to try it. The cool thing about this recipe is that it doesn't use any oil or eggs. It's just cake mix and pumpkin puree.

Recipe adapted from Big Red Kitchen.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of yellow cake mix
• 1lb can pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
• 2 tsp of cinnamon
• 2 tsp of vanilla extract

 Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F if you are using a non-stick/dark baking pan. Pre-heat to 350 degrees F for a glass/shiny baking pan.
•  Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix. 
• Bake for 30 minutes.

Once the cupcakes are cooled you can either sprinkle powederd sugar over them or frost them with some cream cheese frosting. I used this frosting recipe from Paula Deen, but I cut the powdered sugar to 2 cups because it made it less sweet. 

There you have it, some wonderful pumpkin cupcakes that you can make during the fall season. 

Creamsicle

Tank, cardigan and sandals: Old Navy

Skirt: Target

Belt: American Eagle Outfitters

Ring and earrings: Forever 21

Wore this yesterday as I went to get some crafting supplies and the library to check out some books/DVDs and pay my fine. I 'm so horrible at turning my books in on time. I've been making a lot of necklaces and bracelets latey and soon I'll be listing them on my Etsy site. I missed doing crafts so it's been nice tapping into my creativity. 

Another thing I haven't done in a while, mainly due to the sweltering heat, is bake. My dad a reunion picnic for his high school on Saturday and we ended up coming home with a lot of rolls and French bread. We didn't want it to go to waste, so I made a bread pudding out of it. I got the recipe from here and I kept to the directions with a few minor tweaks. I used heavy whipping cream and evaporated milk, (since there was no regular milk in the fridge) used raspberries and blackberries instead of raisins and placed it on a shallow baking tray filled with water so the pudding would have a more custard texture. 

It was my first time baking it and I didn't know how it was going to turn out. But once I pulled it out of the oven it looked ok. It tasted like french toast with berries. Yum. The greater test would be if my family liked it and they did since it was gone by the end of the night. There's still have more bread left, so I'll be trying some other bread pudding combinations this week.

Just Desserts

I love to bake and for a while I was without an oven. But after my dad installed a new oven in our house a couple of months ago, I've been a frequent baker.
I love baking desserts especially when it's from scratch.

This holiday season I plan on making some of these mouth-watering goodies...

Maple French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes


It's the perfect trifecta of the foods I love, bacon, maple syrup and french toast. All in a cupcake. It's basically breakfast disguised as a dessert.

Brown Sugar Pecan Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

It's described as an alternative to pecan pie. While I do love pie, It'd be easier for me to tackle baking these cupcakes, than a pie.
With all the cupcakes I plan on making, I'll to invest in a cupcake holder.

Starbucks-style Cranberry Bliss Bars

Every holiday season I look forward to these staring at me in the display counter. But getting them when I get my latte can get expensive. As if getting the latte wasn't expensive enough.
So I was excited to find a recipe for it last week. Ok it's not the exact recipe, but I hope that it'll be a fairly good facsimile of the orignal.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blondies

I know I posted about these before, but they are sooo good that I had to post it again. I probably going to bake quite a few batches of it this season. This week alone, I'll be baking three.

What desserts are you going to bake this holiday season?