Cookie Dough Brownies

About a week ago, I went on a double date with a friend and his girlfriend. It was great to see them both again. I hadn't seem the two of them for months, I want to say. Naturally, we caught up over Korean food (we do always seem to get Asian food). Since I hadn't baked anything for them recently, I figure I could make a whole batch this stuff and give some to the boyfriend and his coworkers. I tried a couple of bites and I was addicted. I cut them into bite sized portions to make it easier to store (because I apparently cannot cut straight) and I had 5 of them. RIGHT THERE.

They are really good. The cookie dough topping is great because it has no eggs in it, so anyone who is worried, no need to worry! Although the amount of chocolate chips said in the recipe was a bit ridiculous, I'm sure if I had actually added a cup of chocolate chips, the boyfriend's coworkers would have had sugar highs and lows. Probably not good for people who work in the hospital. All the boyfriend said was that the hospital how complain how I'm making them fat (their fault for eating them) and that it was too much sugar. I will agree, that was probably a little excessive, but I'm still going to make desserts. It's like a nice little thing to eat at work. I can't imagine college students complaining about free food.

I found the recipe while I was digging up recipes to pin on my board of things I want to bake. I've got some baking items, but also some cooking items. I've recently picked up cooking so eventually, I'll have post those things too!

Pecan Shortbread Cookies [sms...err smw]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Pecan Shortbread Cookies, was chosen by Lara of The Lab.

Okay, I know its Wednesday and not Sunday anymore, but I promise I have a good reason to why this didn't get made until Sunday.

First, I wanted to make them Saturday, but my roommate had a birthday party that lasted until about 12 and I didn't feel like baking that night
.

So Sunday, I make the cheesecake bars, but then I realized that I didn't have the coconut needed for the topping for the bars. Being lazy, I actually never got to that part, but I hope you enjoy my cheesecake bars and I will make those girl scout cookie cheese cake bars eventually! I promise!

I made these with walnuts instead of pecans...well because that's all the nuts I had here! I hope my roommates and friends at Circle K enjoyed them!

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Oreo Fudge Bars

These Oreo Fudge Bars were something I was actually debating whether or not I should give him. He's a huge chocolate person - he loves it, but fudge, that may be too rich for him. Oh well, I had lots of extras and when friends came over to pick stuff one, one of them renamed it Oreo Orgasm. I am not promoting that name, but apparently to them, it was really good!

Secret Baker!

For the past two posts, I was posting what I had made my Secret Baker! Well, I got my package yesterday!

The box, shall I open?

YES!

I opened and found three different things in it!

All of them are so yummy! Thanks Julie!

November Baking GALS

For this month's Baking GALS, I had decided to bake by myself instead of with Circle K since its been a crazy couple of weeks doing so. In addition, they needed to be sent out by the 14th and last weekend was my crazyyyyy fun FTC weekend and this weekend, well it would be too late. But this weekend is masquerade ball.

So Vetern's Day, day off of class, I decided to take my time and start baking. In the morning, I trekked the mile or so to go and shop at safeway. This was my change to try and bake all day and see if that was possible. I think I started baking around 12pm and didnt finish until about 6pm the same day. Even while baking, I think I may have tried to fall asleep since I was so tired of everything.

So here are the pictures and recipes that I used to bake some of the various yummy things for the soldiers!

Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Butterscotch Cookies: this one and this one.

sorry I dont have pictures of the rest, but I do have pictures of the filled boxes. well mostly filled!

Grapefruit Bars

So my mother decided to have me bring lots of grapefruit back up to Berkeley. Why - I have no idea. I think she just likes feeding me because she thinks that i get no food here...which is partially true because I'm too lazy to cook and buy food and because I have no time.

With an excess of apples and grapefruits, I got started. I know that I didnt have many apple recipes left - so if you have any good ones suggest them! Other than that, I needed to get rid of these grapefruits. I cannot eat them all.

I looked on my list and I had a grapefruit squares recipe that I had wanted to try. These seemed perfect for this little kickback that I was invited to last minute.

Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour + 1/4 cup for filling
1/4 cup white sugar + 1 1/3 cup for filling [I couldn't find my 1/3c so I just used 1 1/2c of white sugar]
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt + 1/2 teaspoon for filling
1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
4 eggs
Zest 2 grapefruits
Zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 1 grapefruit
Juice of 1 lemon
powdered sugar (for dusting)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and set aside.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Slowly add in the flour and salt mixture until combined.
Press this mixture into a greased and/or lined 9×13 pan.
Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes or until just turning golden on the edges.
While the crust bakes, combine the grapefruit and lemon zest and 1 1/3 cups of white sugar [like I said above, I used 1 1/2 c] in a medium sized bowl and rub them together until the zest is incorporated into the sugar.
Whisk or beat in the eggs and add the juices.
Add 1/4 cup of flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and whisk them in, too.
Pour the lemon filling over the hot crust and bake for 20-25 minutes [I think mine took about 30 mins or so] or until the top is set and doesn’t wiggle.
Remove the bars from the oven and allow to cool COMPLETELY before sprinkling with powdered sugar and cutting.

I thought these had a nice sense of tartness and it was really good. I think that everyone had really enjoyed it as well.

Triple Threat: The Cookie Cake Pie...sorta

I had all the intentions of making the Cookie Cake Pie for the district board meeting this weekend, but what had happened was that:
1) no good pie pans at home [Brea] and I was being lazy and didn't want to go out and get some more
so instead of a pie looking pie, it's going to be in a 8 by 8 pan and a mock-pie. They're more like cookie cake pie bars.

The cake would just not set, but eventually...it did! But it

Sugar Cookie Bar

Oh, this recipe was both easy to make and really good.
So, my little choir kids are graduating - they just grow up so fast. It makes me realize that I'm getting older and therefore have to take on more responsibilities and learn how to be an adult. We had a long conversation at night talking about how our parents treated us. If you were to think that your parents were strict because they gave you a curfew and didn't let you drink and do drugs, think again. Asian parents are even worse. None of that stuff, and you weren't allowed to go out...like ever. Anyways, back to the story about these, I dropped them off, and I'm sure they all like it. When I went "backstage" after the concert, half of it was gone. I'm sure most of them were just eating it =]

The bar itself came out to be a little bit undercooked. The middle of the sheet was still like cookie dough, but then again, who DOESNT like cookie dough. I also used canned frosting because first off, I was running a little late and second off, I'm a lot lazy. I know I'm normally totally against canned frosting, but seriously, I had no time, and I didn't want to clean up afterwards, the kitchen back at home is smaller than the one at school so I didn't want to clean.

I had bought the funfetti kind so that's the sprinkles, and decided to dress it up a little bit by putting the crystals on it.


<3 Nina

S'mores Bar

So being at home means less baking. EEK! But I had time to make these s'mores bars. There was a potluck for UCLA Circle K and I decided to bake for it, even though we didn't need to bring food. Regardless, I knew my two friends, Andy and Jaymie wanted me to bring things for them. So I baked these S'mores bars. I'm not sure if the recipe can be seen without a LJ account so I'll repost it here.

Recipe:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 regular sized milk chocl (e.g. Hershey’s)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.
Beat in egg and vanilla.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt.
Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan.
Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff.
Place chocolate bars over dough. Break them up to small pieces to fit them better.
Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the chocolate bars (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together).
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned.
Cool completely before cutting into bars.

YUMYUM!

S'mores Bars with some noodles next to it =]. That's how college students do it. All on one plate!

<3 Nina