Peanut Butter Butterscotch Cookies

So when I get super stressed out at work and don't want do anything except bake, I sometimes go looking for recipes. I know it's not the best thing to do, but 15 minutes and I'm back to work and much more concentrated. With stresses coming up soon with a whole bunch of deadlines, there will be a lot more baking on, unless I start having 12+ hour days again. Then it's just sleep when I get to my apartment.

Anyways, I promised that I would help a friend in any way that I could. Farah is a friend from high school. We met in sophomore year and to be honest we've never been super great friends, but we've always been there for the other person. We went to different colleges and have grown into our own. She has decided to be a producer for a great documentary coming out soon. I know this may mean nothing to you, but being an Asian American, I can see that her documentary meaning a lot to people who are in the same boat as I am.

I made some brownies and decided to decorate one with her logo, to the best of my abilities. It didn't turn out so well, but I'll do better next time. Actually, next time I would make sugar cookies and decorate using royal icing. Back to the cookies, they were super delicious. They were like peanut butter cookies and I added some butterscotch chips. The added chips gave the cookies a great dimension that I didn't think would be amazing.

Recipe:
(adapted from here)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (6-ounce package) butterscotch morsels


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar and butter. Beat with an electric hand mixer until fluffy.
Add the peanut butter, vanilla and egg, blend well. Add the flour, baking soda and salt to dough mixture and mix well.
With a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, stir in butterscotch chips. Take a tablespoon of dough and shape, with your hands.
Flatten the balls lightly with the fork in a crisscross pattern (like you would with a peanut butter cookie).
Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove cookies from cookie sheet immediately and place on wire racks to cool thoroughly.

Banana Butterscotch Bread

So I know that I normally have quite a few pictures, but sorry, I was not able to take pictures of the bread myself since I brought it to a "banana" breakfast. It was super fun to eat with my friends in the morning after a couple hours of class. I love these guys. The bread was delicious and a great addition to the breakfast. It was great to sit there and talk and hang out. The banana bread had a great banana flavor, but also, the butterscotch added a great flavor to it without overpowering it or anything.

We also made some banana pancakes with some chocolate chips - they were super delish!

Banana Butterscotch Bread [adapted from allrecipes]

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
4 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup butterscotch chips

Directions
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pans. Set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a bowl. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color.

Beat in the egg, then stir in the mashed bananas.

Pour in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated.

Fold in the butterscotch chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 50-60 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Pumpkin Butterscotch Chip Cookies

These cookies were for another one of the many committee banquets I have been participating in.

I have so many extra cans of pumpkin puree when I stocked up for the "shortage" of pumpkin puree, but now I do have lots of extras. I have at least 3 cans of the huge Libby pumpkin cans at home including 2 and half here with me in Berkeley.

Although it is not the fall anymore, I thought the flavors of pumpkin could be quite interesting on a sunny spring day. So I started looking through various bookmarked and starred recipes. I had quite a few that used pumpkin puree. After I narrowed down my choices to only pumpkin choices, I had to find a recipe that only used 1 egg since that's all I had in the house. [note to self: I need more eggs] I found the perfect recipe after a couple minutes of searching.

Pumpkin Butterscotch Chip Cookies
[adapted from My Baking Addiction]
Ingredients:
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup medium brown sugar [but any brown sugar will work]
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips

Method:
1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg.
2. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt.
3. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
4. Add vanilla and chocolate chips.
5. Drop by spoonful on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

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!