Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies.  The most basic sweet treat.  And sometimes the most complex.  Milk chocolate or semi-sweet.  Or both, and call it double chocolate.  Add cocoa to the batter, and you've just upped your cookie game to triple chocolate.  Some swear by cornstarch to keep them soft.  Or ground oats for a subtle crunch.  Chocolate chunks instead of chips, for big pockets of melty chocolate.  Maybe a sprinkle of sea salt for a gourmet touch.

But sometimes you have to keep it simple.  They don't last long enough around here to justify anything complicated.  This recipe made 36 cookies and by the time they were finished cooling, there were 16 left.  I ate two.

Oh, and I used my super shiny, brand spanking new, grown-up mixer for these.  A Christmas present from my hubby.  I have never been so excited to cream together butter and sugar.

For real.

Crispy at the edges and chewy in the middle.  Chocolate chip cookie perfection.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Beat together butter and both sugars until fluffy.  Be sure to admire the paddle as it perfectly beats it's way around the bowl.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.  Stir into butter mixture until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.

Scoop (approx. 2 tbsp scoops) onto cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown and firm to the touch.  Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to cooling racks.

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Chocolate Upside Down Cake

We don't usually do dessert, unless it's a special occasion, or we have guests for dinner.

So Chocolate Upside Down Cake on Sunday was a big deal.  The kids decided we needed cake after dinner, and I couldn't come up with a good reason why not.

This cake is messy business.  The cake layer bakes on top of a molten, chocolatey, pudding-like sauce.

It's a quick and easy cake to put together.  Waiting on the one hour bake time was the hardest part.  I think I last made this cake about 10 years ago, from a recipe card written out long ago by my teenaged self.

As with many things I make for this crew, I could have easily made twice the amount.  This cake lasted about 3 minutes.

Chocolate Upside Down Cake

Bottom layer:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp cocoa

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients.  Add wet ingredients and combine.  Press into lightly greased 8x8 pan.  I used a 9" round cake pan.

Top layer:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tbsp cocoa

Sift together and sprinkle evenly over bottom layer.

Just before baking, pour 2 cups boiling water over cake.  Bake at 350°F for one hour.  

Lining the bottom of your oven with foil is a good idea.  Things might get messy in there.

Serve warm.  Vanilla ice cream would go well with this!

Need more chocolate?

 

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Homemade Hot Cocoa

I love cookbooks.  

I have a lot of cookbooks, and recipe magazines, and recipes clipped from magazines.  And we won't even talk about the hundreds of recipes I've pinned on Pinterest.  If I made a new recipe every day for the rest of my life, I would never get through them all.  It's interesting how cookbooks have changed over the years.  The newest ones suck me in with their amazing photography, and the storytelling that accompanies the recipes.  I could sit and read one just for the enjoyment of it.  Older cookbooks were usually just another kitchen tool.  No stories, no photos, just recipes.  It was one of those older cookbooks that I turned to when I needed a good recipe for homemade hot cocoa after my kids spent over an hour outside shovelling snow.

We keep the instant hot cocoa packets in the cupboard, for the kids to make for themselves, but this time I wanted to make a large amount - and I always prefer real ingredients over processed convenience items.

Milk, cream, cocoa, salt, and vanilla.  That's it.

It was a little bit more work than putting on the kettle to boil, but oh so worth it.  This is a very rich and chocolately hot cocoa recipe.

Homemade Hot Cocoa

1 cup cocoa ( I used half regular cocoa and half dark cocoa)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp sea salt

1 1/2 cups water

4 cups milk

2 cups half and half cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together cocoa, sugar, and salt over a large pot.  Add water and whisk until smooth, bringing to a boil over medium high heat.  Simmer for a few minutes until slightly thickened, whisking constantly.  Slowly stir in milk and cream and continue heating until scalded.  Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and serve.

Serves 6-8 depending on how big your mugs are!

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Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Hemp Seed Muffins

I was up at 5am today.  Early enough that I finished two cups of coffee before the sun even came up.  Usually, I'm hitting the snooze button at 6am, sometimes even at 6:30am... playing the can-I-still-get-ready-and-get-lunches-packed-in-less-than-an-hour game with myself every time I whack the alarm clock.

I am not a morning person.

But this morning I was on a mission.  Evenings have been busy since school and hockey have started back up.  We spent most of the weekend at a hockey tournament, and even though I was patting myself on the pack for getting the laundry done, the much needed trip to the grocery store didn't happen.  Instead we were picking up milk, bread, bananas, juice, hot dogs, and pizza on our way back and forth to the tournament.

Last night, after spending the evening back at the rink, I realized there wasn't a bagel or slice of bread left in the house.  No cold cuts, no cream cheese.  The staples required to feed my sandwich and bagel loving crew were gone, and I was too tired to do anything about it.  So I did what I've done many times before.  I set my bread maker on time delay, and got busy making pizza buns bright and early this morning.

Of course, there weren't any granola bars left either...just three empty boxes sitting in the cupboard masquerading as granola bars.  So while the pizza buns were rising, a quick batch of muffins took shape.

Over-ripe bananas, oatmeal, chocolate.... and hemp seeds.  I sort of  felt like I was cheating on my beloved chia seeds when I threw them in, but these are some healthy little seeds, and they made me feel a whole lot better about the pizza and hot dogs.

 

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Hemp Seed Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• ½ cup plain yogurt
• ½ cup milk
• 1 ½ cups flour
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• ¼ cup hemp seeds
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 3 ripe bananas - mashed
• ⅓ cup oil
• 1 egg
• ½ cup chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375°F and line a muffin tin with 12 baking cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, hemp seeds, yogurt and milk. Set aside to soak for 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, whisk together remaining dry ingredients in a small bowl: flour through nutmeg.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together mashed bananas with oil and egg. Add to the soaking oat mixture and stir to combine.
5. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until just barely combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Do not overmix or you’ll end up with tough, dry muffins.
6. Scoop batter evenly into 12 lined muffin tins, filling each to about 3/4 full. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

This made 18 small muffins.  I should have doubled the recipe!

Click here to go to my Pizza Buns recipe:

And if you're looking for another chocolatey oatmeal muffin, try this one.  It has pumpkin, flax, and chia seeds:

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Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins

We spent the better part of the weekend preparing hubby and number one son for their trip across the pond this week.  There was last minute shopping and a mountain of laundry to work through.  Seriously, I think these kids conspire against me.  No sooner can I see the laundry room floor, and someone decides to 'clean' their room... ie. move the heap of clothes from their bedroom floor to the laundry room floor.

Fast forward to Sunday night...my big boys are on their flight and I realize that baking needs to happen if anyone wants snacks in their lunch the next day.  I was so focused on the ones that were leaving that I'd given little thought to the upcoming week for those of us still at  home.

I had some leftover pumpkin in the fridge from the homemade dog treats I'd made earlier in the week, and the idea of oatmeal muffins with pumpkin began to take shape.  As with any baking around here that starts out with the healthiest of intentions, chocolate becomes part of the equation to make it more agreeable to fussy palates.  So, Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins with Flax and Chia were created.  

Photos taken with my phone, late at night, as my camera has gone overseas with my boys.  I hope it comes back with hundreds of new photos.  And in one piece.  

The flax seeds are milled, and the oatmeal has been processed into a coarse flour in the food processor, so that the muffins have a finer texture than some of the multigrain versions I've tried.  The chia seeds soak in a milk bath to plump them up.

Rich, dark cocoa and chocolate chips hide all the healthy things going on in here.

Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins with Flax and Chia.  Deliciousness.

Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins with Flax and Chia

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tbsp chia seeks, soaked in 3 tbsp milk for 10 minutes

1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats, processed in food processor for 30 seconds

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup milled flax seeds

1 cup chocolate chips, I used a mixture of white and milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Prepare muffin tin.  I use cupcake liners for easier clean-up, but you can also grease and flour the muffin tin.  Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl.  Whisk in processed oats and flax seeds until well combined.  

Cream together vegetable oil, pumpkin, eggs, soaked chia seeds, and brown sugar in a separate bowl.  Add milk and vanilla, whisk together until well combined.  Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Let batter sit for 10 minutes so that the oats and flax can absorb some moisture from the batter.  The batter will be thick.

Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling almost to the top.  I got 18 muffins out this recipe.  If you aren't able to fill the entire muffin tin when you make the second batch, fill the empty muffin cups halfway with water before you put it in the oven.  Bake 15 - 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Let muffins cool in tin on cooling rack for 10 minutes before removing from muffin tin.  Allow to cool completely before devouring.

 

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Avocado Quinoa Brownies

I've been getting pretty sneaky in kitchen lately, and becoming a expert at hiding nutritious ingredients in the food I prepare.  My kids aren't opposed to the idea of eating healthy foods, but their palates are less refined, their tastes are not always adventurous, and they still turn up their noses at less conventional foods.  If they're looking for a treat, they would choose something refined and sugary over protein and fibre.  If I want them to eat enough of the good stuff, sometimes I have to disguise it.  Our banana, berry, and yogurt smoothies also have spinach and avocado in them.  Most of the muffins I bake include quinoa, flax, and chia.  I hide finely chopped veggies in sauces and stews.  Pureed dates sweeten baked goods instead of sugar.  And they have no idea that the tuna salad in their sandwiches is hiding sardines and avocado.  Most of the time no one notices, the food tastes good, and everyone's happy.  But there have been a few failures along the way.  I'm still struggling with homemade granola bars, and I haven't quite nailed a few cookie recipes I've been working on, but I think I've figured out brownies.

I shared this photo of black bean brownies a while ago.  They were my first attempt at healthifying brownies, and they tasted great, but the texture was terrible and they fell apart as soon as they came out of the pan.  

I haven't abandoned black bean brownies yet, and I have plans to modify the recipe a bit, but in the meantime I made up a batch of avocado quinoa brownies.  And they were amazing, fudgey and chocolatey, just as a brownie should be.

I might increase the amounts next time, or use a smaller pan, as they were a little on the flat side.  There was an ever-so-slight crunch from the quinoa, which I liked and the kids didn't really notice.  Maybe I could cook the quinoa a bit longer.  Other than that, I won't change a thing.  These are really good brownies.

Feeling sneaky?  Or just craving chocolate?  Either way, these are what you need.

Avocado Quinoa Brownies

1 avocado, mashed

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/3 cup agave syrup

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup cooked quinoa, cooled

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup cocoa (I used dark cocoa)

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Prepare an 8x8 pan.  I usually put parchment in the bottom.  Stir together the wet ingredients with the quinoa and brown sugar and combine.  One of my teenagers walked into the room at this point and told me it looked like vomit.  Charming.

Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cocoa.  I used dark cocoa, which has a slightly bitter taste.  Next time I might try half regular cocoa and half dark cocoa.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.  Stir in the chocolate chips and pour into prepared pan.  Bake for 20 min, or until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out almost clean.  A completely clean toothpick means overcooked brownies.  Cool in pan.

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