Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Here is a yummy dessert recipe for you.  It's from the Nestle Toll House Best Ever Cookies book.  Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars are so easy and so scrumptious.  It will be hard to resist eating the whole thing by yourself.

 

 

Ingredients



1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter (I prefer creamy)

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 egg

2 cups (12 oz package) semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided

 





First, combine flour and baking soda in a small bowl.

 

 

Beat granulated sugar, peanut butter, softened butter and vanilla extract in a large bowl until creamy.

Beat in egg.





 

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in 1 1/4 cups morsels.  Try to resist eating the whole bag of morsels.  But enjoy the smell! Note:  I used mini morsels in this recipe, but regular sized morsels work just as well!

Press into ungreased 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

 

Sprinkle with remaining morsels; press down slightly.

 

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until center is set.  Cool completely in pan.  Chill for a few minutes and cut into bars.

Hot Chocolate Cookies

At our recent Children's Fine Arts event, Kaitlyn entered the Baking Category, just like Preston. My mom had told us about a recipe for Hot Chocolate Cookies from Baked Bree and let us sample them when we saw her during Spring Break. It was something different and easy and was the perfect creation for Fine Arts.
Kaitlyn got to work gathering the ingredients and even used a hand mixer.

The ingredients formed a very thick dough. Doesn't it look so scrumptious already?

I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper and Kaitlyn formed cookie dough balls.

They turned out so well. I know you're drooling just by looking at this picture!

I guess the judges loved them too because this was all that was left. Kaitlyn received a Superior rating and a medal. Another job well done!

Hot Chocolate Cookies

2 sticks of butter, room temp

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 1/4 cups flour

4 pkg. hot chocolate mix

1 tsp. salt

1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1 cup mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream both sugars and butter until light and fluffy. In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, except chocolate chips and marshmallows. Mix eggs and vanilla into the sugar/butter batter. Slowly add in dry ingredients. Do this in small amounts because this is when the batter starts to get very thick. Stir in chocolate chips and marshmallows. Form balls to desired size. Bake 9-11 minutes. Let cool.

Peppermint Cookies

For our recent Children's Fine Arts event, Preston wanted to bake. After looking through several of our cookbooks, he settled on Candy Cane Twists from Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Desserts cookbook. You can read about my interview with Sandra Lee here.

So, the night before the event, we gathered the supplies and Preston got busy pouring, stirring, and rolling. He was very thorough and followed instructions very well.

Once the cookie dough is at room temperature, you have to separate it into two balls. Add red food coloring to one ball and peppermint extract to the other ball. The recipe originally calls for making the dough into sticks so you can twist them to look like candy canes. We decided to do an easier, less time-consuming route and just made a bunch of balls.

Then. we rolled a red ball and a white ball together and the dough had a really neat, marble effect.

This is what the cookies looked like after they're baked. They received a superior rating and Preston was soooo proud of himself! They are soft, moist, and very delicious. If a 5 yr old can make these cookies with very little help, it should be super easy for anybody to do.

Peppermint Cookies
1 pkg. (18 oz) refrigerated sugar cookie dough, room temperature

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. peppermint extract

Red food coloring

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cut roll of cookie dough in half. Place halves in separate mixing bowls. In one bowl, mix 1/4 cup of flour and peppermint extract into cookie dough. In the second bowl, mix remaining 1/4 cup of flour and enough food coloring to make dough red. Mix well. (Warning: if mixing with hands, which is sometimes easier to do, your hands will smell minty and look red. It will remind your family of Christmastime.)

Divide white and red dough into balls. You can make them as big or as small as desired. Then, roll a red and a white ball together, making sure they don't separate. Place on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake 10-12 minutes.

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