Maple Bacon Cookies

Maple Bacon Cookies

I get that it’s an odd combination but let’s be honest, everything is better with bacon.

These are surprisingly amazing and have that whole sweet and salty thing going on. They taste like breakfast in cookie form. DELISH.

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 1/2 sticks of butter (1 1/4 cups) at room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
  • 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cup of bacon, broken into small pieces (save the 1/4 cup for garnish)
  • Maple Syrup (for icing)
  • 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar (for icing)
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon (for icing)

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
  3. In a mixer, cream together butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.
  4. Slowly mix in flour mixture into the mixer.
  5. Mix until fully incorporated.
  6. Fold in a cup of the bacon pieces.
  7. Spoon dough out on baking sheets (I did about 2 tablespoons for each cookie)
  8. Bake for 7 minutes
  9. Let cook completely
  10. For icing: Mix together powered sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon until you get a consistency that you can drizzle on top of cookies
  11. Put about a teaspoon on each cookie and then garnish with remaining bacon bits
  12. Let the icing set for about 10 minutes
  13. DEVOUR.

Greek Yogurt Pumpkin Cake

Greek yogurt is SO in right now.  It’s a great healthy replacement for butter in cake recipes and actually makes the cake very moist.

This recipe is delicious,  low-fat and super easy to make.

Ingredients:

For Cake:

  • 1 15 ounce can of pumpkin purée
  • 1 cup low-fat greek yogurt
  • 4 egg whites
  • 1 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For Icing:

  • 6 ounces low-fat cream cheese (at room temperature)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans

Directions:

For Cake:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease a 9 by 11 glass baking dish.
  2. Mix together pumpkin, yogurt, egg whites, sugar and vanilla.
  3. Add in the baking powder, baking soda, flour salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix well at a low speed.
  4. Pour batter into the baking dish and bake for 25-30 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean from the center)
  5. Let cool completely before icing the cake

For Icing:

  1. Cream together the cream cheese and vanilla with a mixer
  2. Slowly add in the powdered sugar
  3. Spread mixture evenly over the cake
  4. Top with the pecans

Apple Crisp

This is a great recipe to have on hand because it can really be used for any type of fruit crisp.  I generally make fruit crisps when I have a lot of one type of fruit left over and need to use them before they start to go bad.  It’s a great dessert in the fall and kinda just warms the soul, ya know?

Ingredients:

  • 5 cups sliced, peeled cooking apples (pears, peaches, or apricots also work)
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 1/3 cup chopped pecans

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375F
  2. Mix together fruit and sugar in a large bowl.  Transfer to a 2 quart square baking dish.
  3. In another bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, nutmeg and cinnamon.  Add in the butter in small chunks.  Mix together until it resemble coarse crumbs.  Stir in the pecans.
  4. Sprinkle topping over the fruit.
  5. Bake for 30 minutes.
  6. Let cool for 20 minutes. Top with ice cream and serve 🙂

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Apple Crumb Cake

Who doesn’t love Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Seriously, if you don’t like it please leave my blog immediately and never come back.

This past weekend I went apple picking at Wilkens Farm right outside of NYC (see this post to read more about it) and came home with 10 pounds of apples. I’ve wanted to bake something with Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for a while and this seemed like a great combination.

This is an adaptation of a recipe on Food Network and it.is.amazing. The cake is really moist and the cereal compliments the apple in the cake perfectly. Enjoy 🙂

Ingredients:

Cake:

  • 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups peeled and chopped apples

Crumble Topping:

  • 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup crushed Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

Glaze:

  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons water

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. Grease a 13×9 inch glass baking pan with 1 tablespoon of butter
  3. With a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in each egg slowly. Add in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  Mix well.
  4. Add in the sour cream and vanilla. Mix.  Slowly add in the apples with the mixer at a low-speed.
  5. Pour into the baking dish.
  6. To make the crumble: Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, butter and half of the cereal in a small bowl. Mix until it resembles coarse crumbs.  Spread evenly over the cake batter in the baking dish.  Sprinkle the rest of the cereal over the top.
  7. Bake for 35 minutes.
  8. For the glaze: Combine sugar, vanilla and warm water in a bowl.  Mix until smooth.  Drizzle over cake.
  9. Let cool for at least 40 minutes.
  10. ENJOY!

Apple Picking…near NYC!

Let me begin this post by saying that I live in Manhattan, so, rarely do I see trees or dirt or anything really besides concrete.

Will the summer coming to an end, I wanted to do something to enjoy the beginning of a new season.  Wilkens Farm is about 45 minutes outside of the city (by train) and is a GREAT family owned fruit farm. There were both Gala and Macintosh apples available to pick, a cute hayride to the orchard and a great little bakery on site.

I really enjoyed my day at the farm and the change of pace from crazy city life.  Also, the apples were AMAZING. You can definitely tell the difference between these farm fresh ones and the waxy ones at the grocery stores.  If you live around NYC this is a trip worth taking.  You can find more information here at their website..happy apple picking!

Pumpkin Pancakes

I may be jumping the gun here since it’s not quite Fall yet but I have a mild obsession with pumpkin.

I totally cheated by using boxed pancake mix but umm…I don’t care. They were delicious.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup pancake mix (I used Aunt Jemima)
  • 3/4 cup almond milk (You can use regular milk if you’re into that sort of thing 😉 )
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin purée
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
  • Butter (for cooking the pancakes)

Directions:

  1. Whisk together all ingredients (besides the butter)
  2. Put half a tablespoon of butter on a frying pan on medium heat
  3. Pour 1/4 cup batter on pan.  Cook for about 3 minutes on each side. Makes about 8 pancakes.

Top with maple syrup and enjoy!

 

Strawberry Cake Cookies

Cake cookies! These are a hybrid of a cookie and a slice of cake..moist and fluffy at the same time. YUM.

I love these because you can really taste the fresh strawberry flavor and they’re just so darn pretty.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup of chopped fresh strawberries
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. With a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy
  3. Add in the strawberries, egg and vanilla.  Mix completely.
  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Add this mix to the wet ingredients.
  5. Put a tablespoon size amount dough on baking sheet (make sure you flatten with a fork) and bake for 8 minutes.  *For decoration, push a small slice of strawberry on top of every cookie.
  6. Remove and let cookies cool for 20 minutes

Batman Sugar Cookies

Tickets purchased for the midnight showing of Batman? Check.

Themed cookies for the event? Check.

These are a little time-consuming to make…but so, SO worth it.

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • Black food coloring (optional)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375F
  2. In a mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy.
  3. Add in the baking powder, salt, egg, milk, vanilla and slowly add drops of the food coloring until you get your desired color.
  4. Slowly add in flour.  Mix until fully incorporated. (Add in more food coloring if needed to reach desired color).
  5. Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes.
  6. On a floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/2 inch thickness.
  7. Using a cookie cutter, cut out dough. Place on cookie sheet.
  8. Bake for 6-7 minutes.

*If desired, wait until cookies cool completely and line edges with colored frosting.

Red Velvet Cookies

So, red velvet cake is kind of my favorite thing, ever…in life.

My birthday cakes are always red velvet, my wedding cake will be red velvet..I will name my first-born child Red Velvet. IT’S THAT SERIOUS.

And so, from my odd obsession…red velvet cookies were born. Please love, cherish and devour these little pieces of heaven like they’re your own. Okay, this is getting weird. But seriously, make these.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • Red food coloring, liquid works better than the gel
  • 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375F
  2. With a mixer, cream the butter and sugars.  Add in several drops of food coloring to get a deep red color.
  3. Slowly incorporate the rest of the ingredients (except the white chocolate chips) until completely mixed.  Add more red food coloring as needed to get a deep red color.
  4. Fold in the chocolate chips.
  5. Drop rounded tablespoons of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  With the back of a spoon, flatten out the cookie dough into disks.
  6. Bake for 9-11 minutes

Blueberry Pie

Happy Birthday, America!….This one’s for you.

This was perfect for an Independence Day cookout but will also work for all types of gatherings in the Summer. You can decorate using any type of pie/cookie cutters that you can find (or keep it simple with a traditional pie crust).

Pie Crust:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 cup butter, chilled and cut into 1 inch chunks
  • 1/3 cup cold water
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 2 tablespoons half & half or cream

Pie Filling:

  • 4 cups fresh blueberries, washed and with stems removed
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 1 large lemon)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Directions:

  1. FOR CRUST: In a food processor, blend the flour, salt and sugar.  Add butter and process until it’s a coarsely mixed.  Pour in the water and process for another 30 seconds.
  2. Take the dough out and put it onto a floured surface.  Form dough into two, equal sized disks.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
  3. After an hour, remove and put one disk on a floured surface.  Roll the pastry into a 12 inch circle (roll from the center out to create a circle).  Place dough into pie dish.  Put this back into the refrigerator.
  4. Take out the second disk and roll it out into another 12 inch circle.  Using pie cutters, cut out shapes for the top of the pie.  Transfer the cut out shapes to a sheet of wax paper and put back in the refrigerator.
  5. FOR THE FILLING: In a bowl, mix together the blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and zest.
  6. PIE ASSEMBLY: Pour this mixture into the prepared pie shell.
  7. In a small bowl, mix together the egg yolk and cream.
  8. Brush the rim of the pie shell with the yolk mixture.
  9. Cover the top of the pie with your crust cut outs.
  10. Brush these with the remaining yolk mixture.
  11. Put the pie back in the refrigerator for another 30 minutes.
  12. COOKING THE PIE: Preheat the oven to 400F.  Place the pie on a baking sheet.  Bake the pie for 20 minutes at 400F.  After 20 minutes, reduce temperature to 350F and cook for another 40 minutes (or until the crust is browned and the juices are bubbling)
  13. Allow the pie to cool for 1-2 hours before cutting then…ENJOY! 🙂