April 25, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Nutella Whoopie Pie Cookies

I know.

It is at this point that you are probably wondering if I am sticking to my diet. The answer is, “yes.”

“How?” I can hear you wonder.

Well, I do not recommend that you do what I do. But let’s just say, a cookie for lunch ain’t somethin’ I’m new to.

You, of course, could eat some carrots, too.

I won’t.

But you could.

Priorities, peeps.

I recently shared my Peanut Butter Nutella Cookie recipe here. These are very similar. One day, I thought, Hey, Jenni. Why don’t you add all Nutella and skip the peanut butter?

So I did.

Only… While the rest of my family liked the cookies just fine. Well, I thought to myself, Self. These are still needin’ somethin’.

What if you added frosting? Self, what if you made a cookie sandwich and put the frosting in the middle?

Then when someone asks you what you had for lunch, you can say, ‘a sandwich.’ And nobody will be the wiser.

So I did.

If you cannot tell by now, that voice pretty much makes all of the decisions in my life. I am not sure… But, you guys, I think it is coming from my thighs.

The voice is booming. And it’s ~~kinda~~ shaky.

And that is why I am writing this recipe and not doing laundry.

And that is why I had a sandwich for lunch.

And that is why I am happy.

On to the happiness:

Ingredients:

1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 stick (1/2 cup) softened salted butter
1 egg
1 and 3/4 cups flour
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. Milk
2/3 cup chocolate hazelnut spread (I use Nutella)
Caviar from one vanilla bean (if you do not have this, you can use 1/2 more tsp. vanilla extract)
1/2 cup melted semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 Tbsp. Cold brewed coffee
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup organic brown sugar (organic brown sugar is so much better. I am not part of the organic movement, but I will not buy anything else.)

Ingredients for frosting (you have options here):

1 can of cream cheese or vanilla frosting

Nutella

Or my favorite: I chose to use this recipe for most of my cookies. You will need: 5 Tbsp. Flour, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup butter, 1 cup granulated sugar. It is a surprisingly easy and delicious frosting.

Marshmallow fluff

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Or 325 degrees Convect Bake if you have a convection oven.

Pour the 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a separate bowl and set aside while you work on the following.

In a bowl with a hand mixer or in your bowl on your stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light. Stop mixer and add in your vanilla and vanilla bean caviar. Mix.

Now add Nutella, melted chocolate chips and coffee and mix together until completely incorporated.

Add the milk and mix.

Add the egg and mix until light and fluffy.

Turn mixer to low and add in salt, cocoa powder and baking soda. Mix until incorporated.

Add flour and mix.

Turn off mixer. Now take a small ball of cookie dough and roll it on your hands. Drop the ball into the bowl of granulated sugar and gently roll it around.

Place the ball of dough on a baking sheet. Repeat this step until your baking sheet is filled with cookie dough balls evenly spaced apart.

With a fork, make two flat indentations onto each cookie.

With a spoon, scoop up some of the granulated sugar and pour a little sugar over marks left from the fork.

Place baking sheet into the oven and bake for 10-11 minutes until edges are just a little brown. Do not cook longer. You do not want these overcooked.

Transfer baked cookies to a cooling rack.

Repeat with remaining dough. Turn oven off.

Let the cookies cool.

For these cookies, I opted to make the best frosting to put between them. This version tasted like a homemade Oreo. Frost one backside of a cookie. Place the backside of another cookie against the frosting.

You made a sandwich!

Now eat your lunch!

I also did a pure Nutella Whoopie Pie (the cookie appears lighter because I forgot the melted chocolate chips in this batch. Doh!) by spreading Nutella in between the cookie layers.

Gosh. I love that voice inside my ~~thighs~~ head.

And that voice loves…

~~Ryan Gosling~~ Sandwiches.

Oh! But what about a Ryan Gosling Sandwich?

Self. You’ve gone too far. Eat your cookie.

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

April 4, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies

Be still my heart. Girdle my belly. Cinch in my thighs.

‘Cause I am about to share a cookie recipe that has become my new favorite.

And I cannot stop making them.

And I cannot stop eating them.

This is a humble cookie. It is simple. I find I like cookies with those two descriptions the best.

Most cookies are best the very first day you make them. These cookies stay soft and yummy for at least two and a half days (this is the longest length of time they have ever lasted in our house).

When I was eight, my grandmother gifted me a cookbook called, “For Good Measure: A Cookbook For Children” (I highly recommend this cookbook for children. Heck, I still use it myself). In it, was a peanut butter cookie recipe. I have never made or had a peanut butter cookie as good as the peanut butter cookies made from that recipe. I have been making those peanut butter cookies for twenty eight years. Sometimes I change it around by adding new ingredients. This recipe is adapted from that one. Because that recipe is so simple, this makes these cookies a cinch to put together.

Here is a little poem my thighs threw together for you, in honor of these cookies:

The faster to make.
The easier to bake.
My mouth will wake.
And my thighs shall quake.
For goodness sake.
This poem shall take.
The cake.

For being the worst…

The cookies take first.

On to the recipe!:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup of Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread)
2 Tbsp. Milk
1 stick of softened salted butter (8 Tbsp.)
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Caviar from 1 vanilla bean (if you do not have this, you can increase your total vanilla extract to 1 1/2 tsp.)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup organic brown sugar (it makes a difference)
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda

This recipe makes twenty four cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you have a convection oven, preheat oven to 325 convect bake.

Pour the 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a separate bowl and set aside while you work on the following.

In a bowl with a hand mixer or in your bowl on your stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light. Stop mixer and add in your vanilla and vanilla bean caviar. Mix.

Now add peanut butter and Nutella and mix together until completely incorporated.

Add the milk and egg and mix until light and fluffy.

Turn mixer to low and add in salt and baking soda. Mix until incorporated.

Add flour and mix.

Turn off mixer. Now take a small ball of cookie dough and roll it on your hands. Drop the ball into the bowl of granulated sugar and gently roll it around.

Place the ball of dough on a baking sheet. Repeat this step until your baking sheet is filled with cookie dough balls evenly spaced apart.

With a fork, make two flat indentations onto each cookie.

With a spoon, scoop up some of the granulated sugar and pour a little sugar over marks left from the fork.

Place baking sheet into the oven and bake for 10-11 minutes until edges are just a little brown. Do not cook longer. You do not want these overcooked.

Transfer baked cookies to a cooling rack.

Repeat with remaining dough. Turn oven off. Enjoy!

I think these cookies are better completely cooled down. There is just somethin’ that happens to the Nutella and peanut butter when they blend together at that time.

Now I’m off to make these guys.
My thighs…
They sighs.

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

April 19, 2013 by gn0mel0ver

Wee Little Cakes

Come closer, I have a secret to tell you. I like Cool Whip. I could eat a whole tub of the stuff. Even that commercial, “oil or cream,” did nothing to dissuade my opinion. I found myself wishing the woman would choose oil every time. I have to control myself around the cloudy pools of crack. If I ate the whole tub, that would just become another story. Another time for my family to be able to say, “remember the time when Jenni ate that whole…”

I have heard they only sell Cool Whip in the United States and Canada. If you live in a different country, you can always use whipped cream (my friend Kerri makes the best, most amazing whipped cream). I love whipped cream, but I do not like making it. Here is a picture of the treasure I speak of:

I found this recipe from the Pioneer Woman and I knew once again my self control would be tackled.

Look at this wee little cake. Isn’t it precious? It is almost as glorious as a store bought sheet cake.

I am not good at baking cakes. I have gotten a little better. My sweet, sweet friend came over one day and helped me bake my daughter the most beautiful cake (thank you Kellie). But it has been a slow road. The first cake I ever made was a “Welcome home!” cake for my husband (then fiance). I forgot to grease the pans and the whole thing turned into a puddle of tears and mushy flour. This time, I followed the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I will not give you a play by play, because she did it much better!

I will normally sprinkle sugar or cocoa powder over a cookie cutter to make a pretty design on top. However, sugar would not show up. A recent pantry cleaning revealed all of my cocoa powder had expired and I have yet to pick up a new tub. This is a sad little demonstration using chocolate chips.

Lest you think I can actually bake. This is what the second cake turned out like. It is completely lopsided. “I can’t wait to eat that!” does not come to mind when one looks at this cake. In fact, it sat lonely in the fridge. It sat there for four days. I had two bites of it in that time. It did not taste as good as the pretty cake.

My husband really liked the cake. In fact he has asked me to make it again. It is incredibly rich. I think next time I would use lemon curd. The chocolate was a little much. It took me five minutes to make the first cake. Another two minutes to make the second travesty of pastry. I suggest you take your time cutting so you do not end up with a depressing sight greeting you in the refrigerator for four days in a row. It is an easy (for most) quick trick in case you forget a birthday.

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

Nutella

Wee Little Cakes