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LB’s Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

Also Kim’s Favorite Oatmeal Cookies!

Sometimes you have a craving for a small bite of sweetness.

Sometimes You

JUST NEED A COOKIE!

 

Or several.

And since you are always on a diet, there are no cookies in the house.

Desperate times call for desperate measures…

It is Time to Bake!

These Oatmeal Cookies are soft and chewy but also crispy on the outside.

They’re also very hard to resist!

To make these cookies you will need:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 eggs, 2 tsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 2 cups flour, 2 cups oatmeal, 1/2 cup coconut, and 1/2 cup pecans (pronounced pee-CANs) which are optional.

This is what to do:

Cream together butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.  Brown sugar contains more moisture than white sugar. If you’re like me and you enjoy tweaking recipes, remember… it is important to include brown sugar as it lends itself to softer, chewier cookies.

Whisk all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.  Whisking will aerate the flour and thoroughly mix the salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well.

Measure cookies using a tablespoon and roll into balls.

Then lightly press onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 350°

for 8 minutes.

My recipe makes about 6 dozen.

Pictured is slightly less than 6 dozen because I’ve already enjoyed taste testing.

Here’s the Recipe:

 

LB's Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

2 cups flour

2 cups oatmeal

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup pecans (optional)

Directions:

Cream together butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.

Mix all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well.

Roll into balls 1 Tbsp and lightly press onto  parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.

prettyis.me

 

I’ll be referring to this recipe again.

 

Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by my blog.

What’s Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday

wednesday GIF

to say the least.

And with that, I bring you another edition of

What’s Up Wednesday

Which is not an account of this peculiar young member of the Addams Family, but all about what is happening in my world on this wonderful midweek day.

Here goes…

 

What We’re Eating This Week

As I’ve mentioned before, LB can eat anything he wants and Kim has to watch what she eats or she will pay the price.  HOWEVER once in a while I throw caution to the wind and go on a baking spree.  In addition to the Mother’s Day pound cake I baked on Sunday, I baked the best oatmeal cookies ever!  The cake went home with Mama, but the cookies are still here.

And they keep screaming at me.In an effort to save myself, I have banished most of them to the freezer.

 

What I’m Reminiscing About

Having dinner with the little ones on Mother’s Day.

 

What I’m Loving

This tiny little Glammy’s girl is already 3 months old.

  I am loving her tiny profile, tiny hairdo, and tiny pink gingham Mother’s Day dress!

 

 

What We’ve Been Up To

Work Work Work all week long and fun on the weekend!

 

What I’m Dreading

My 6 month dental visit is coming up.  While I’m sure it is just as pleasant as any dental event could possibly be, I don’t love it and always leave feeling slightly damp from the experience.

 

What I’m Working On

Being positive.

This requires a lot of self talk.

 

What I’m Excited About

Memorial Day Weekend which gives me an extra day to be OFF WORK!

I found this fun collection of celebratory paper products at Costco which would be great to use for a Memorial Day cookout

It doesn’t take much to get me excited!

 

What I’m Watching/Reading

There is neither a show that I feel I have to see, nor am I reading anything at the moment.  I’ve thought about using Audible to listen to books while I commute, but that plan has yet to be put into action.

 

What I’m Listening To

Me: “Alexa, play Hall and Oates Greatest Hits”

Alexa: “Shuffling songs by Hall and Oates”

 

 

What I’m Wearing

At the moment I’m wearing workout clothes.

Some of the pictures in this post feature a favorite Old Navy blouse that I wore Sunday.

For work today I wore a pretty blouse from LOFT.with light blue jeans

and these shoes.

 

What I’m Doing This Weekend

At the moment I anticipating sleeping in on Saturday morning.  My Saturday evening plans are not yet secured so I’ll save those for another post!

 

 

What I’m Looking Forward to Next Month

My Birthday happens next month.

While I’m not looking forward to my new number (age is just a number, right?), I am totally looking forward to another day off from work.

 

 

 

Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by my blog.

 

Chocolate Lava Cake 101

Chocolate Lava Cake is a dessert that I decided I wanted to learn to make.  A google search that began with “how to…” lead me to “how to learn something new everyday”.  I decided that learning something new everyday sounded like a good idea.  Do you know how much information you consume every day?  Today I read that we are constantly consuming information in amounts that can be measured in gigabytes.  In case you didn’t know, one gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Click here for a more detailed explanation.

To put this into perspective, 1 gigabyte equals an entire pickup truck filled with paper (source).  According to this site, we consume 74.92 gigabytes of data every day. That’s enough to fill 74 pickup trucks filled with paper (source).

Wow.

For LB the number is likely doubled.

“Boy Genius”

 

 

What does this information have to do with the [blog post title] Chocolate Lava Cake?

Nothing.

But it may appeal to any technical enthusiast that happens onto my blog.

 

Also it has everything to do with learning something new.

That said, welcome to

Chocolate Lava Cake 101

What you’ll need for class:

•             no stick cooking spray

•             cocoa powder (for dusting)

•             8 Tablespoons butter

•             2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

•             2 ounces semisweet chocolate

•             1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

•             3 eggs yolks

•             2 eggs

•             1 teaspoon vanilla

•             1/2 cup all-purpose flour

•             Recommended for topping: vanilla ice cream, berries, whipped cream

Here is how it is done

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Spray four ramekins with non stick spray and place on a baking sheet.

 Dust ramekins with cocoa powder.

Microwave the butter, bittersweet chocolate and semisweet chocolate in a large bowl on high for about one minute, until the butter is melted.

Stir until the chocolate is also melted.

Stir in the powdered sugar until well blended.

Mix in the eggs and egg yolks. 

Add the vanilla…

and the flour…

and wisk.

Divide the mixture among the ramekins.

Bake until the sides are firm and the centers are soft, 11-13 minutes.

Let cool 1 minute. Invert onto plates or serve in the ramekin while warm…

 with one or all of the recommended toppings.

And now you know about chocolate lava cakes as well as gigabytes.

We’ll be well rounded in more ways than one.

 

 

Chocolate Lava Cake

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients

•             No stick cooking spray

•             cocoa powder (for dusting)

•             8 Tablespoons butter

•             2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

•             2 ounces semisweet chocolate

•             1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

•             3 egg yolks

•             2 eggs

•             1 teaspoon vanilla

•             1/2 cup all-purpose flour

•             Recommended for topping: vanilla ice cream, berries, whipped cream

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Spray four ramekins with non stick spray and place on a baking sheet.  Dust ramekins with cocoa powder.

Microwave the butter, bittersweet chocolate and semisweet chocolate in a large bowl on high for about one minute, until the butter is melted. Whisk until the chocolate is also melted. Stir in the powdered sugar until well blended. Whisk in the eggs and egg yolks.  Add the vanilla. Stir in the flour. Divide the mixture among the ramekins.

Bake until the sides are firm and the centers are soft, 11-13 minutes. Let cool 1 minute. Invert onto plates while warm and serve with recommended toppings.

prettyis.me

 

 

 

Special thanks to Lacie at easypeasypleasy.com for the lesson on “How To Add And Embed A Printable Recipe To Your WordPress Blog”.

 

Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by my blog.

The More You Weigh

…the harder you are to kidnap.

Stay Safe.

Eat Cake.

Good Advice!

 

Sometimes I have a yearning to bake.

It makes me happy.

 

Luckily LB also has a yearning…

 

 A never ending yearning

 

for dessert.

Groundhog Day Eating GIF

Specifically CAKE!

 

 Pinterest provides me with a great deal of inspiration.

Recently I found a recipe on Pinterest that I knew I to had try.  As usual, I didn’t feel like going to the store for two of the ingredients that were missing from my stock: Meyer lemons and Greek yogurt.

Not a big deal, I used lemons in place of Meyer lemons (yes, they are a bit different) and buttermilk in place of Greek yogurt (yes, I actually had buttermilk on hand).

This cake was adapted from the recipe for meyer lemon iced raspberry yogurt cake

 

For the cake:

9 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, separated
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen

To make the cake:

  1. preheat the oven to 320F. grease and line two 8″ or 9″ cake pans with parchment paper and set aside.
  2. cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing after each addition.
  3. add the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and mix until mostly combined. add the buttermilk and mix until combined.
  4. in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to medium peaks and fold into the cake batter.
  5. fold the raspberries into the cake batter.
  6. divide the batter evenly between the pans and bake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  7. let the cakes cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

For the icing:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
zest and juice of 2 lemons
pinch of salt
4 cups powdered sugar

To make the icing:

  1. cream the cream cheese and butter together until smooth.
  2. add the lemon zest, lemon juice and salt; mix until combined.
  3.  add the powdered sugar and mix (beginning on low speed) until combined.
  4. mix on medium speed for a couple minutes until light and fluffy.

 

if your buttercream is softer than you’d like, you can either add more sugar or chill it for 30 minutes before spreading.

Mine turned out perfect!

 

 

Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by my blog.

Kim

XO

Lunch Lady Brownies

Since baking is my superpower, I don the cape every other week or so and bake up a sweet treat using a recipe I’ve found on Pinterest.  Last week I made brownies, but not just any brownies.

I made

Lunch Lady Brownies

I don’t remember having brownies prepared by the Lunch Lady from my school cafeteria, however I’m fairly certain that there was nothing to be found in the school cafeteria that remotely resembled the brownies pictured on this page.

 

This is more like what I remember…and I don’t see any brownie.

If you search “Lunch Lady” on Pinterest you will discover many Lunch Lady recipes, and several variations of Lunch Lady Brownies.  I adapted (and by adapted, I pretty much mean copied) my recipe from one published by Holly Lofthouse.  The recipe on her blog Life in the Lofthouse is simple and the photos are more appealing than others I’ve seen.

The following are not the aforementioned photos.

But my cameraman took them for me and I like them.

My giraffe inspired KitcheAid makes short work of the brownie batter

The frosting is the best part… spread while the brownies are still slightly warm

It is a good idea to use foil for easy lifting from the pan

 

Here’s the recipe

Ingredients
  • 1 cup butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with foil and spray foil with non-stick spray.
  2. Combine the melted butter and cocoa powder; blend until smooth.
  3. Add the flour and sugar. Beat together then add eggs and vanilla. Mix just until combined. Don’t over mix. (Batter will be thick)
  4. Pour batter into prepared baking dish and spread out evenly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove brownies from oven and let stand 15 minutes before frosting.
Chocolate Frosting
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/4 cup softened butter
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat together all the frosting ingredients until smooth. Pour and spread over warm brownies. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

No kidding… these are the best brownies I’ve ever tasted!

 

Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by my blog.

Kim

XO

Cookies & Colored Eggs

The Saturday before Easter Sunday would not be complete without coloring eggs.  This year I decided the day wouldn’t be complete without cookies as well.  I started early in the day with spritz cookies.  The recipe I used is from Remarkable Home and I found it on Pinterest.  When I first came across this post, it was cuteness overload.  The Artist has sandwiched the cookies onto pop sticks and formed them into a bouquet.  Intent on using my new bunny platter, I had no intention of going to bouquet route, but it was certainly adorable.

With my handy spritz cookie press and the basic recipe from Remarkable Home I was able to create these festive flowers:

And they are tasty.  The cookies are all brushed with a light glaze.  The pink and orange have colored sprinkles; the green and blue do not.  The general consensus is that the sprinkle cookies taste better, however those without sprinkles look better.  Maybe I went a little overboard on the sprinkling.

After I decorated all the flower cookies I placed them on the Garden Bunny Cake Stand from Pier One that I purchased on a recent shopping trip.

Isn’t it cute

 

This evening I drafted my daughters to do the egg coloring for me.  Stephanie and Amanda took care of the metallic and tie dye Easter eggs and did a great job.  We decorated 18 but my math/division skills were lacking at the time so we ended up with 10 metallic and 8 tie dye.  My bad.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the time with my girls.

 

This is Eloise

 

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