Cake Batter & Crumbs

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

Recently I had the opportunity to bake with my teenage cousin Emily. She’s learning about all kinds of new interests and hobbies that she can develop, so I really enjoyed showing her my most favorite hobby – baking! My mom was there helping out too, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I love baking with my family.

Emily chose this recipe, which calls for a giant cookie baking pan. After making a batch and spreading it out in the pan, we realized that one batch wouldn’t be enough. So, we made a second batch and used around half of it to fit in the pan. One batch might have been enough, but I thought it would make a really thin, crispy cookie bar, and that’s not what we wanted. We used the rest of the second batch to make little cookies that she used to decorate the top.

The cookie really turned out perfectly. It was just the right thickness – around ½ to ¾ inches thick and she loaded the top of it with the classic vanilla buttercream icing I used a while ago for these cupcakes.

Ok, so in actuality I had to force her to stand there so I could take a picture of her and the cookie for my blog... (Darn teenagers!) … but she did a fantastic job and I look forward to baking with her again.

Thanks, Em, for letting me show you my favorite hobby! =)

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray pan with vegetable pan spray. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter with sugars. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Spread dough into prepared pan with spatula. Bake 15-20 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool before cutting. Decorate.

Makes 8-10 servings.

"Create Your Own Flavor" Chewy Granola Bars

At work we just finished up moving offices to a new building across campus. I've been so tired from the packing and unpacking that I've lost the energy to bake this week. Instead I have a recipe that I made a couple weeks ago and never got around to posting.

This recipe came from allrecipes.com for Easy Granola Bars. I chose this one not only because it received high reviews, but it also appeared to be a good base recipe that you could easily customize the "mix-ins".

For mine, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips, macadamia nuts, coconut, and a handful of dried blueberries. Also, I only had about 1 1/2 cups of the quick cooking oats in the house, so I used that and also 1 1/2 cups of the old-fashioned oats-- and they turned out fine.


These were great and are an excellent portable snack or yummy breakfast. It'll be fun to experiment with flavor combinations. I'm thinking some with cinnamon, dried apples, pecans, and a touch of maple syrup might be really good in the Fall.

Here's the recipe as it was listed with my adjustments:

Easy Chewy Granola Bars

                                 INGREDIENTS

•                                                                                   3 cups quick-cooking oats [I used half each quick cooking and old fashioned]
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
•                                          2 tablespoons butter, melted
•                                          1 cup flaked coconut
•                                          1 cup sliced almonds [I used macadamia nuts]
•                                          1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
•                                          1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries [I used a little less than 1/2 cup dried blueberries]

                                                                                          

                                 DIRECTIONS

                                                                  

1.                                          Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, sweetened condensed milk, butter, coconut, almonds, chocolate chips and cranberries with your hands until well blended. Press flat into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, depending on how crunchy you want them. Lightly browned just around the edges will give you moist, chewy bars. Let cool for 5 minutes, cut into squares then let cool completely before serving.