BakeAwayGirl

 You read that right: these are THE best chocolate chip cookies ever. I found a basic recipe back when... I'm not even sure now? I think I still lived at home so let's just say it's been well over a decade! Anyway, the recipe was fine but regularly made thin, crispy cookies which are awful (sorry, not sorry). I spent many hours, tears, and pounds of butter throughout the last fifteen-ish years, tweaking the recipe slightly here and there to find just the right balance. I can finally say I have achieve the most perfect cookie, and it's my first real recipe... as in, I created it!  They are chewy and thick, with a crunchy edge and hold up their soft, chewy insides even after being left out overnight. Honestly, I even skip the cookies at the store because I prefer these. Chocolate Chip Cookies 3/4 cup unsalted butter (1.5 sticks), softened 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup white sugar 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 whole egg 1 egg yolk 2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda Pinch ...

Couldn't even wait to take a picture! My favorite way to find a new recipe isn't actually Pinterest.  I prefer accidentally discovering a food I love (by eating it of course) and then asking someone for the recipe.  This past summer, at my cousin's birthday party, her roommate brought out a chocolate cake.  Me and chocolate are besties, so of course I took a piece.  After the first bite, I decided I had discovered my new favorite chocolate cake! This cake is luscious.  Decadent.  Sinful.  Devil's Food Cake, you naive child, you haven't tasted sinful yet. There is so much chocolate, but it is balanced out by enough moisture that it never becomes cloying and overdone.  It's just delicious.  Every bite is worth the calories.  I will admit I have only made it once because we had company in town and I wanted something to wow the crowd.  Simply making it for Jeff and I, or even a small party, feels too gluttonous.  After all...

Believe it or not, folks, this was not  a Pinterest find.  I know, shock and awe.  You see, while I spend many hours browsing Pinterest, Jeff reads articles and browses pictures of ridiculous people and cats.  He sends me so many links that I ignore half of them, but I was lucky I looked at this one.  It was a Buzzfeed article on the best one-bowl cakes. I had offered to make cupcakes for a friend's baby shower, and I knew she wanted chocolate, so when I stumbled on this Buzzfeed article, I made sure to pin it for later.  The original recipe only made 12 cupcakes, which is just ridiculous to me.  Who eats only 12 cupcakes?!  Silly. These were a hit at the baby shower and the few leftovers I had went quickly.  I will admit that I did not eat one.  There were fantastic cake pops at the shower as well, and I hit those hard.  So, personally, I cannot vouch for these cupcakes.  However, based on how fast they went, I will gues...

When I'm craving something sweet and homemade, I bake one of two things:  brownies or chocolate chip cookies.  What can I say?  I like the basics.  I will eat tiramisu all day long, and if you want to bring me your fancy dessert, I'll eat that too, but my favorites will always be the classics. In my mother's house, if you ever bake a full batch of cookies, you're doing something wrong.  Lecture all you'd like about raw eggs.  I'll listen politely... as I stuff my face with raw cookie dough.  Mmmm salmonella!  My mother would rather have a spoonful of cold cookie dough than a warm chocolate chip cookie any day, so in her house, we made whatever dough she liked best.  As a result, we always made the standard recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip bag. Which made flat, hard cookies. Blech. Not my picture! I tried undercooking them.  I tried melted butter, cold butter.  It didn't matter, they were always f...

Every year, my aunt hosts Easter at her house, and it's a giant potluck brunch.  There's always more food than any one person should eat (doesn't stop us though).  We all come equipped with tupperwear so we can take leftovers home and eat for days.  As such, I like to experiment with new things because I know it will get eaten. One year, I tried out some new cake decorating... Chocolate cake, white butter cream icing -- 2010 Another year, I did some Easter-inspired sugar cookies.  This was particularly awesome because we were going out of town and I didn't even get to eat a single cookie! This year, my aunt asked me to bring cupcakes.  Well I just haven't been much in a cake-decorating mood lately.  In fact, I don't think I've decorated a cake or cupcake since February.  I'm dissatisfied with my frosting since it doesn't taste as delicious as the professional bakers.  Silly reason, but nonetheless, I am on the quest for the perfect f...

Oh yes, you read that right... Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies.  It's a mouthful of a name and, I mean, just look at this picture from Pinterest... Not my picture!  Stolen from SweetestKitchen.com How do you not start drooling?  I know I did!  And I had been craving something sweet that evening, so I popped right up off the couch to make these.  The recipe is very simple, so it wasn't hard.  When they came out of the oven, they looked very similar to the picture above and I was so excited!  But then I took a bite... and it was dry and crumbly.  Not exactly my favorite baked goods flavor.  Then, after being covered overnight, the next day, these were rock hard. Not exactly my favorite Pinterest recipe.  But I like soft, chewey cookies, not crunchy ones.  If you like a crunchy cookie, this is for you!  Also, I used crunchy peanut butter because we don't ever have creamy peanut butter in the house (mostly 'ca...

What a slacker!  I've been making things like crazy, but haven't put them up here.  Good thing summer break isn't too far off, because I have some sinfully delicious things for you guys.  Just be aware that your adorable bikini won't be so adorable after eating some of these things... I won't worry.  I don't do bikinis!  :) In the meantime, I do have two amazing recipes for you today.  Not sure if you heard, but the Chicago area decided to become a serious if islands this past week.  Jeff and I went from a lovely apartment by a very small river to lake-front property renters!  We're considering buying a boat! Time to get a boat! So everything was shut down for a while, and I had some time to just hang out in the apartment.  I was craving brownies, so I went to the pantry and... NO BROWNIE MIX! What?!  I have never  been out of brownie mix in my life !  Simple, we'll just run to the store... oh wait, the parking lo...

This little beauty of a recipe was accidentally stashed on the wrong Pin board, and as soon as I rediscovered it, I knew it was time.  Jeff makes some killer homemade brownies, and he suggested we use his recipe, but I wanted to do it exactly the way the original had it. I'll put the original recipe on here, but I will probably never make it the same way again.  The alcohol is mixed (uncooked) into the cream topping, and it tastes pretty boozy.  That sort of bitter taste ruined the brownies for me.  Don't get me wrong, I love me my booze.  Nothin like coming home from a Monday and knockin back a bottle of wine (ok, not a whole bottle) or going out on Friday with friends for beer.  But this was too much. When I make this in the future, I'll pass on the alcohol.  There is enough orange zest to give it the flavor.  We also discussed using raspberry extract instead of orange zest to make raspberry brownies, but we haven't tried it yet.  I'l...

I don't have enough adjectives to describe these.  Just trust me, they are awesome. What drew me to these were (of course) the Pinterest pictures.  Who doesn't want food that tastes delicious and looks amazing too?  Problem is, I'm no artist.  I'm not patient enough or steady enough to make things look as nice as they do on Pinterest, and the fancy camera is currently in my father's possession, so my little digital camera has to do. But something miraculous happened with these cookies... they came out beautifully!  I think it's the dark cocoa powder in it.  They were just stiff enough that they held the cookie cutter shape perfectly.  Even before refrigeration, they were stiff enough to cut out (but I didn't).  It turns out that I didn't have the heart-shaped cookie cutter I needed for a perfect Valentine's Day treat.  So my cookies refrigerated overnight, and it didn't do any harm.  They have almost the consistency of an Oreo. ...

You'd think with the holidays just passing that I'd have enough sweets to last me a lifetime.  I do, and I did.  I'm looking forward to going back to work on Monday just to start eating normally again!  But when my mom mentioned our weekly pizza date with my grandparents, I immediately thought of making a double chocolate chip cookie.  I've never (successfully) made them before, so I thought I'd go to my trusty Pinterest to find it. Problem was... I fell asleep on the couch.  When I woke up, I had just over a half an hour to find a recipe, bake it, and be in the car.  I will tell you now, I didn't make it.  But I was close!  At 5:03, I jumped off the couch and by 5:43, we were pulling out of the garage with a delicious smelling plate of cookies.  Here's the recipe! Decadent Double Chocolate Chip Cookies Adapted from Kitchen Simplicity 1 cup flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1/2 tsp baking soda Pinch of table salt 2/3 cup chocolate chips ...