Berry cobbler - 2 WW points

When it's 2 smart points, I always have room for dessert.

This berry cobbler uses a variation of the fabulous 2-ingredient dough where you add an egg which gives you a fluffier dough. This dough topping isn't as buttery as a typical cobbler topping because, well, it doesn't contain any butter but it works pretty well for a lighter version of this summer dessert staple.

Fruit with sweetener and flour

This was one of my baking experiments using my new monk fruit sweetener. This is actually a blend of monk fruit & erythritol, which gives it the same sweetness as sugar so you can use it to bake at a 1:1 ratio, which is convenient! You can use another sugar replacement or real sugar if you prefer, but this will impact the point count of the recipe.

You can use any kind of fruit you would like, either fresh or frozen. I used mixed frozen berries and added some extra blueberries because I didn't have quite enough. For the 4 cups of fruit needed, I used more than whole 16 oz bag of frozen fruit. If you use frozen fruit, you need to thaw it first.

Ingredients

cooking spray

Fruit, all mixed up!

Filling:
4 cups of fruit, chopped, thawed if necessary
1/4 cup of flour (doesn't need to be self-rising, but can be)
4 tsp Lakanto Monkfruit sweetner

Topping:
1 cup self-rising flour
1 egg
1/4 cup of Lakanto Monkfruit sweetner
1/2 cup of Greek yogurt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray a 10in square baking dish with cooking spray. Mix fruit with 1/4 cup of flour and 4 tsp of Lakanto Monkfruit sweetner. Spread the mixture on the bottom of the baking dish.

Using a dough hook, blend all of the topping ingredients. If you don't have a dough hook, you can use a wooden spoon. Spread small amounts of the dough on top of the fruit mix, using your hands to flatten the dough. The dough doesn't need to fully cover the fruit.

Bake for 23-28 minutes until the dough has lightly browned on the top.

This recipe is 2 points for a serving on Weight Watchers Freestyle, one serving is 1/9 of the recipe. I normally like to cut the pan into servings but this is a little liquid-y for that, one serving was about 3/4 cup.

This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in August 2018 on the Weight Watchers Freestyle program. This post main contain affiliate links, if you make a purchase using one of these links this blog may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Black bean peanut butter brownies - 1 point on WW

These might be the world's healthiest brownies. No flour, lots of protein and no artificial sugar and only two points on Weight Watchers Freestyle. They are lightly sweet and would pair great with some light ice cream!

When I told my husband I was going to make black bean brownies he was very skeptical. I had to convince him this was a real thing that people do! At least people on Weight Watchers who still want to eat brownies.

When I got ready to make these, I thought, "hmmm....maybe I should put some peanut butter powder in them? and make peanut butter brownies." so I rolled with the impulse. Why not? If you are not familiar with peanut butter powder, it's a low fat peanut butter that has the oil removed, such as PBFit or PB2.

I think this was a good edition and helps make the batter a little thicker and the brownies more cake-like since in recipes peanut butter powder acts sort of flour-like. I used regular peanut butter powder but you could also use the chocolate flavor and make it more chocolatey.

If you don't have an powdered peanut butter you can use protein powder, regular peanut butter (if
you're doing Weight Watchers this will add points) or skip it.

You will need a large food processor to make this recipe. You'll want to mash the black beans up thoroughly.  I used an 8-cup Hamilton Beach food processor.

Ingredients:
1 can of black beans
3 eggs
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 Tb powdered peanut butter
3 Tb unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
2 pinches of salt
cooking spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 10 inch square pan well with cooking spray. Drain and rinse black beans well in a small colander. Put black beans and all other ingredients in an 8-cup food processor and pulse for 3-4 minutes until the black beans are well-ground.

Pour batter into baking pan and back in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cut into 16 servings the recipe is 1 point per serving. If they are not sweet enough for you, you can add another 1/4 cup of brown sugar, which raises the point count to 2 points per serving.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links this blog may receive a small commission, thank you for your support. This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in June 2018 using the WW freestyle program.

Mini apple pies - 3 points on Weight Watchers

These mini apple pies were our Memorial Day weekend treat! What could be better than apple pie?

This recipe uses homemade apple pie filling. You can feel free to use store-bought but you need to be aware of how much sugar it has it in, this will impact the points calculation. It's possible to find lower sugar filling or fillings that use artificial sugar that are lower in points but the only way to really control it is to make it yourself! I try to avoid eating too many artificial sugars. Plus making the filling only takes about 10 minutes and is a great use for any apples you might have that are a little past their prime.

One thing to be aware of if you use purchased filling, is that the apples are really big slices normally. This is fine if you make a full-sized pie. Since the pies are mini, there might be some messy apple cutting in your future. If you make your own, I would suggest dicing the apples into 1-inch cubes. They will fit in the mini pies much better.

The other key element in this recipe is the miraculous 2-ingredient dough. This stuff is so amazing.

*Apple pie filling ingredients:
4 small apples, cored and diced (you can also peel them if you prefer but I don't)
juice of half a lemon
3 cups of water
1/3 cup of cornstarch
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt

Dough ingredients:
1 cup of self-rising flour
3/4 cup non-fat, plain, Greek yogurt

Cooking spray
Extra flour to roll out the dough

You will also need a muffin pan with at least 10 spaces, rolling pin and a large whisk.

Directions:
Toss your chopped apples in lemon juice. In a large nonstick sauce pan (I use this one), add water and whisk in cornstarch until it's fully incorporated with no lumps. Turn on med-high heat and add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Bring to boil and allow to thicken for two minutes. Add the apples and reduce the heat to low-med level and cook the apples until they are tender, approximately 7-8 minutes. When they are cooked, remove from heat and set aside.

While your apples are cooking, you can prepare your dough. In a large mixing bowl, add flour and yogurt. I like to mix the dough using a dough hook in my kitchenaid mixer because it is less sticky but you can also mix it using a wooden spoon.

Spray your muffin pan very well with cooking spray. I also suggest spraying your hand with cooking spray before rolling out your dough, it helps prevent sticking.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take a small of dough, about the size of a ping pong ball and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. It should be rolled to about an 1/8 of an inch thick and its should stick out beyond the sides of the muffin opening.

Repeat until you have rolled out all of the dough, approximately 10 pies.

Scoop a small amount of apple pie filling (approximately 1/4 cup) into each dough circle. until the compartment is full. Fold any extra dough on top of the filling.

Bake mini pies for 17-19 minutes at 375 degrees until the dough is lightly brown on the top.

Each mini pie is 3 points on Weight Watchers Freestyle, based on 10 servings.

*Apple pie filling recipe was adapted from Crazy for Crust to be more Weight Watchers friendly.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links this blog may receive a small commission, thank you for your support. This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in May 2018 using the WW freestyle program. 

Banana muffins - 2 points on Weight Watchers

I think I am definitely baking more since starting Weight Watchers! I was holding off before because I was gaining weight and the baked goods were so unhealthy. Now that I'm on the "reasonably healthy baked goods that fit in to my food plan" train, there seems to be no stopping me!

Plus, if I want baked goods now, I have to make them myself it seems like. 

If you have checked out my other Weight Watchers friendly baked goods recipes (pumpkin muffin recipe, blueberry lemon cake recipe), you will notice that I don't use artificial sugars, instead they are only lightly sweetened and rely on fruit and a little brown sugar to get the sweet taste. These banana muffins follow the same plan.

You can use over-ripe bananas from the freezer in this recipe. I used one from the freezer and one from my counter. If you are using frozen ones, thaw them out first. You can microwave them a little it you don't have time to wait for them to thaw (15-20 seconds).

I have also used almond extract in these muffins to give them a nutty flavor without using high-point nuts in the recipe. You can use vanilla extract if you prefer but they won't have the nutty taste.

Ingredients:
2 medium, very ripe bananas
1 cup self-rising flour
1 egg
1/3 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

You will also need:
Cupcake liners, I suggest silicone liners when cooking without oil.
Cupcake pan 
Hand mixer, I use my kitchen aid hand mixer.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 12 cupcake pan with liners. In a large mixing bowl, put all ingredients in the bowl and beat with the hand mixer until well mixed. Take care to ensure the bananas are mashed up and mixed in well.  If you have a good hand mixer, you don't need to mash the bananas in advance.

Fill each liner 3/4 full, diving the batter among the 12 liners.

Bake at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.

The recipe makes 12 banana muffins, that are 2 points each on Weight Watchers Freestyle.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links this blog may receive a small commission, thank you for your support. This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in May 2018 using the WW freestyle program.

Blueberry lemon cake - 3 WW pts

Summer is coming! This great cake has all the summer flavors you crave and less guilt.

Even though I'm trying to eat healthy, sometimes I still feel like baking. I mean I want to eat the baked goods too but sometimes you really just feel like baking. Just me?

So I decided I would bake something to take to my friends house. That would kill the urge and I'd only eat 1-2 pieces.

Even though it was for non-WW people, I baked it WW style and planned to warn them that it was healthy.

This cake is light and summery. You could almost eat it for breakfast with a side of yogurt! It's not overly sweet, with about half the amount of sugar of similar cakes. I avoid artificial sugars, if you want it sweeter you could add some stevia or drizzle some honey on top.

Ingredients
2 large eggs
1/2 brown sugar
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups self-rising flour
1 Tb lemon juice (approximately the juice of half a large lemon)
16 oz frozen blueberries, thawed
1 Tb corn starch


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9-inch square cake pan.

Whisk eggs with sugar until it's light in color and thick. I use the whisk attachment on my Kitchenaid stand mixer.

Fluffy egg sugar

Add yogurt, applesauce, vanilla and salt and whisk on low speed until mixed thoroughly. Add flour and whisk until incorporated fully. Add the lemon juice and stir well until fully combined.

Rinse thawed blueberries thoroughly. Pat dry with a paper towel and toss with corn starch until no white remains from the corn starch.

See the white corn starch? Keep mixing!

Pour half of the batter into the greased cake pan and top with half of the blueberries. Add the remaining batter and top with remaining blueberries.

Bake at 375 for 38-40 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cut into 12 servings, each piece is 3 points on WW freestyle or 2 pieces for 7 points.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links this blog may receive a small commission, thank you for your support. This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in April 2018 using the WW freestyle program.

Apple muffins - 2 points on weight watchers

These apple muffins make a great snack when you craving the carbs but trying to behave. They are not very sweet, which is why I'm calling them "muffins" but they could easily be a cupcake if you wanted to toss some frosting on them. They have a moist bread-y texture and are great fresh from the oven or if you microwave them for about 10 seconds.

They are only 2 points each for a full-sized muffin on Weight Watchers freestyle!

This recipe grew out of the two-ingredient dough (1 part self-rising flour and 1 part fat free Greek yogurt) that is all over Weight Watchers circles. I was using that to make bagels one Sunday and thought, "what else can I do with this?" A few test batches later and these apple muffins were born.

After a little tweaking, my official taste tester (also known as my husband) pronounced them delicious.

If you leave out the sugar, or use a point-free sugar substitute you can actually get the recipe down to 1 point each, however, I prefer to use real sugar when possible. I made a sugar-free batch and honestly, they're not bad but I'll take the extra point for the sugar.

I am using brown sugar because it's fewer points than white! I seriously sat with the recipe builder and looked at how much sugar I could use before the points went up.

Yum! Brown sugar.

They stick to the paper cupcake liners a little bit at the bottom, I would recommend using silicone liners if possible.

Ingredients
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup fat free Greek yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
2 eggs
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup unpacked brown sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 small/medium apple, cored and diced into small pieces

Ready to mix!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all ingredients until thoroughly blended. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners (ideally silicone ones) and place 1/4 cup of batter in each liner. Bake in preheated oven for 17-20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins. Each muffin is 2 points on Weight Watchers freestyle. Muffins can be stored in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to a week.

If you like these, try my 2 point pumpkin muffins, they also don't have any artificial sugar.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links this blog may receive a small commission, thank you for your support. This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in April 2018 using the WW freestyle program. 

Mini peanut butter cheesecakes

These mini cheesecakes whip up in no time and are delicious. They bake much faster than a full sized cheesecake and since they're small, you can eat two without guilt!

Ingredients:

2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3   eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups of creamy peanut butter
24 Oreos
cupcake liners
muffin pans

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put cupcake liners into a muffin tin for 24 mini-cheesecakes. Put an Oreo in the bottom of each liner (for the crust). Beat all of the other ingredients in a large mixing bowl and put about a 1/4 cup of filling in each cupcake liner until it's full. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool and chill for 3 hours prior to serving.

You can also top them with whipped cream if you like!

Butter nut flavored whipped cream!

I have tried a new whipped cream flavor and I had to share because it is the BEST one thus far.

For my birthday I had a Harry Potter themed costume party (yes, I'm that friend) and I of course made butter beer and as a result I had some butter extract hanging around the kitchen. If you recall, I really, really like making fresh whipped cream with my whipped cream gizmo. I was mixing up some cream and the butter extract was there so I put it in. Wow is it good.

Butter whipped cream
1 pint of heavy cream
3-5 Tb of Agave syrup (or 3-5 Tb of powdered sugar)
1 tsp of butter flavor extract

The extract gives it a nice off-white color that I found made it look more delicious. Does that sound weird? Well try it and see what you think.

This was an excellent "basic" whipped cream, almost like plain vanilla and can be used with a variety of other flavors. I was mostly eating in on berries and oranges and BF was putting it in his morning coffee. I expect this to be the new standard at our house instead of vanilla.

Nutella Speckulas Cheesecake

Bf and I were supposed to go to a friend's place for dinner this week, so I made a cheesecake. Then it was cancelled, so oh well, we'll just eat the whole thing!

A few years back I was experimenting with nutella cookies, this time I wanted to make a nutella cheesecake. One of the really great things about cheesecake is you can add about a cup of anything and give it a different flavor without messing up the baking science too much. Experiment!

When I went to the grocery store, I was excited to see Speckulas cookies! If your not familiar with speckulas, they're a spiced German/Dutch cookie commonly eaten in the fall and around Christmas time. They are very thin and normally shaped like windmills.  My boyfriend has been steadily working his way through the leftover cookies for the last few days.

If you're trying to find speckulas, I found mine at Aldi but you can also try World Market or Trader Joe's, I have seen them at both. If it's not fall you might have a hard time, in which case you can use a graham cracker crust or try shortbread!

If you have a basic cheesecake recipe you like, you can use it and just mix in 1 cup of nutella. If you cannot find speckulas Or if you need a little more direction you can follow my recipe here:

Crust:
25 speckulas cookies (about 1 cup crumbs)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 tablespoon sugar (optional - I think the cookies already have enough, you might taste one first)

Filling:
2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3   eggs
1 heaping cup nutella
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place speckulas cookies in a zip bag. Crush into fine crumbs using rolling pin. Combine crumbs, butter and sugar (optional); mix well. Press crumb mixture onto bottom of springform pan . Bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven to cool.

Meanwhile, place cream cheese in large mixing bowl with sugar, flour, eggs, and vanilla or almond; beat until smooth. Pour batter over slightly cooled crust. Return to oven. Bake 50-55 minutes until center is just set.

Remove from oven. Cool 20 minutes and carefully run sharp knife around edges of cheesecake. Allow to cool and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Enjoy!

Whipped cream explosion!

For my birthday last year, I asked for a whipped cream dispenser. What can I say? I'm a woman with limited interests and these days they primarily consist of food and sewing.

It started when I saw the one Boyfriend's parents have a few months beforehand, before then I had really only seen them at like Starbucks and it did not occur to me that this was something people had in their own kitchens. And it was amazing. You fill it with cream, snap in the little nitrous cartridge, shake it and bingo! Fresh whipped cream.

Yes, I know it's not that hard to make the old fashioned way. Be honest, how often do you do it? That's what I thought. Plus after the Thanksgiving when I made it alone with a whisk, not a mixer, I have become lazier than normal.

Since getting my new gizmo, there has kinda been fresh whipped cream on every dessert. And not just plain, flavored. Some of my best experiments are below. You can make this the "old-fashioned" way if you don't have the gizmo :-) or you can buy the gizmo from amazon for $30-100. I have this one from Amazon.

All of the recipes I have below call for Agave syrup because I have found it mixes in easily when using the dispenser, you can substitute 3-5 Tb of powdered sugar. The cream will keep in the dispenser for at least 3-4 days, I suspect up to a week but we always use it all before then.

Plain
1 pint of heavy cream
3-5 Tb of Agave syrup (really, I do three good squeezes of the bottle)
1 tsp of vanilla

Orange dream (I served this with at New York Style cheesecake)
1 pint of heavy cream
3-5 Tb of Agave syrup
1 tsp of orange extract*

*Do NOT use orange juice, the citric acid in the juice will curdle your cream.

Chocolate cream (I served this with a raspberry swirl cheesecake)
1 pint of heavy cream
2-3 Tb of Agave syrup (Or 2 squeezes of the bottle)
3-5 Tb of Chocolate syrup (Or 3 good squeezes of the bottle)

I also made a chocolate with coco powder that was more a subtle chocolate, too subtle for my taste, but if you want something less chocolatey (I can't imagine why!), you could use 4 Tb of coco powder.

Peppermint (excellent on a chocolate cheesecake or in coffee)
1 pint of heavy cream
3-5 Tb of Agave syrup
1 tsp of peppermint extract

Cheesecake brownies

If you've been on pinterest ever, you've probably seen some of these brownie + other dessert recipes (mostly they're brownie cookie combos). I recently saw one for cheesecake brownies. I love cheesecake and I love brownies. Cheesecake because it's delicious and brownies because they're easy and delicious.

The inspiration for the cheesecake brownies came from this recipe for frosted cream cheese brownies but to be honest, it looked a little complicated and I thought that frosting brownies was overkill on the sugar.

My version went like this:

Brownie mix, family size, prepared

Cheesecake mix*
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

*You might want to double the cheesecake mix.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 9 x 13" pan. Prepare your brownie mix according to the package directions and set aside. In a medium sized bowl beat the cream cheese, egg, vanilla and salt together. Pour brownie mixture into your pan, reserving 2 cups. Scoop the cheesecake mix on top and then the remaining brownie mix. Using a knife swirl the brownie mix and cheesecake together. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

The cheesecake was a little lacking in the brownies, so you might want to double that. The pan will be full so definitely use a 9x13 pan, you'll get pretty thick brownies even with the larger pan.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin cupcakes with buttercream icing

It is officially Fall. Alright, it's been Fall for a while but the weather has been surprisingly warm during early Fall in DC so I wasn't feeling very Autumnal. However, that has changed now and I'm ready to bake with pumpkin, make butternut squash soup and drink hot coca!

Plus I've been seeing pumpkin recipes on Pinterest since at least July.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
adapted from Martha Stewart's pumpkin cupcakes

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

 

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly (be sure the butter mixed in well). Fill  muffin cups with paper liners and then fill 1/3 full with batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Makes 2 dozen.

Buttercream icing

Ingredients*

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

2-3 cups of powdered sugar, divided

1 tsp vanilla extract

In medium mixing bowl, beat the stick of butter, 1 cup of powdered sugar and the vanilla until well mixed. While mixing, add additional powdered sugar until it reaches the desired sweetness.

*Note: You can also add 1-2 Tb of heavy cream to get a fluffier icing

These cupcakes were amazing. I already want to make more. The biggest compliment was my boyfriend (who doesn't eat) eating 3 before 1pm. My biggest mistake was taking them to work and giving a bunch away instead of eating them all myself. Unfortunately the photos did not turn out well but trust me - they were so, so good.

Hurricane baking

Hurricane Sandy is currently dumping rain on the East Coast. Thankfully, DC is further inland than a lot of other cites and we don't (so far at least) have any high winds, just lots and lots of rain.

What to do when there is a hurricane and you can't go outside? Why bake of course! Gotta use all the eggs in case the power goes out. Plus, baked goods are already prepared and make a great high calorie food source should the need arise (hopefully, it won't).

Alright, I was planning to make banana bread anyway, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Since I really can't (and shouldn't try to) go anywhere, I found the time!

There are hundreds of banana bread recipes out there. Why do I like this one? It makes one loaf. Most quick bread recipes make at least two. Now, breads do freeze very well so if you want to make more, go for it.

You can find the recipe here. If you want to add chocolate chips (like I did), mix 1 cup of chocolate chips into the batter.

Make pudding with almond milk!

You may have noticed a small notice on the back of instant pudding boxes warning users that instant pudding can't be made with soy milk. The internet tells me this is because something in cow's milk it what causes the pudding to set up.

I unfortunately noticed this little moniker after coming home from the grocery store, intending to use almond milk to make pudding for dirt cake. There was no way I was going back to the store.

Enter cornstarch.

You can make instant pudding (I made butterscotch) with almond milk! This is what you need:

1 (small) package instant pudding
2 tsp corn starch
1 1/2 cups almond milk

Mix the corn starch in with the pudding mix and slowly add the almond milk while whisking all of the ingredients together. Allow the pudding to chill.

Update: this has become one of my most popular posts of all time. Tell me, what are you making with your pudding/almond milk? How is it working for you?


This post contains affiliate links, if you make a purchase from one of these links this blog will receive a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Grandma's Apple Pie

Making a pie from scratch has been a goal of mine for a long time and I've finally done it!

I started out by looking at apple pie recipes online and they looked very complicated...one said I needed to refrigerate the crust dough for 4 hours or ideally overnight! I called my grandma and she set me on the right track. Grandma says that refrigerating the dough is completely unnecessary and her pie crust had 4 ingredients and one of them is water. The one I was looking at online had at least 8 - yeah, Grandma's won.

Ingredients

Pie crust
2 cup flour
4 Tb butter or crisco (grandma says a "good Tb" so you might toss in a little extra)
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp cinnamon *I added this because I'm making apple pie
water, as needed (approx 2 Tb)

Filling
6 apples, cored, sliced
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
Additional 2 Tb of sugar

Equipment
Pie plate, 10"
Aluminum foil
Rolling pin

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix salt, cinnamon and flour together, cut in butter. Add enough water to moisten the crust as you work it into dough. Kneed for 5-10 minutes. Take half of the dough and roll it out (using a little flour) until it's about 1/4 in thick and place it in the bottom of a greased pie plate. The bottom crust should go up the sides of the plate, trim any excess away.

Place sliced apples in a medium sized pot with 2 Tb of sugar and enough water to cover the apples. Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Drain any excess liquid and allow to cool. Mix the 1/2 cup of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg with the apples and place them in the pie plate.

Roll the second half dough out until it's a 1/4 in thick. Place on top of the pie plate and press around the edges to seal with the bottom crust. cover the edges of the pie with foil (or a pie shield if you have one) Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes.

Date & walnut "icebox cookies"

My aunt made the best cookies when I was home for Christmas! Well, truthfully, she made lots that were so-so and one kind that was fantastic! It came from a Taste of Home cookbook/pamphlet that looked like it was circa late 80s.

1 cup butter/margarine/shortening

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup chopped dates*

3/4 cup chopped walnuts*

 Mix ingredients thoroughly and then shape dough into a log (or two),wrap in plastic. Chill logs for 2hrs or up to 1 week, unwrap and cut into 1/2in slices. Place on  un-greased baking sheets and bake 350 for 10 minutes. Yield 2 1/2 dozen.

*The original recipe says 1 1/2 cups of "extras" and suggests different types of raisins, chips, nuts or various other things. The dates & walnuts are what my aunt used and what made this yummy.

I changed the recipe to call for more flour because I don't know what happened but this was the stickiest cookie dough I have ever encountered. It stuck to me, the mixer, the spatula - everything. I added almost a whole cup of additional flour. It might be because I did not have enough stick butter and used some spreadable margarine to get up to the needed 1 cup, but I would plan on having some extra around if I were you. I could not fathom how I was to form this sticky, gooey dough into a log, so I added flour until it was workable and used more to coat my hands when I made the logs.

Peanut Butter & Nutella cookies

My contribution to the office holiday party this year was none other than peanut butter and nutella cookies. If you don't know what nutella is, you should. Just go buy some, you'll love it, I promise.

This all started when I saw a recipe somewhere for peanut butter and nutella cookies but they were no-bake and frankly, did not look too tasty. This got the idea in my head. What could possibly go better? So I got to thinking, nutella is not so different from peanut butter, why couldn't I just make peanut butter cookies and sub-out some peanut butter for nutella? No reason I could think of, so that is exactly what I did.

You can probably do this with any peanut butter cookie recipe but this one from Simply Recipes makes a fairly small batch - a plus for us single ladies.

1/2 cup sugar *and additional to roll dough balls
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup nutella
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients together to form dough. Roll dough into small balls, roll in  additional white sugar and place on greased cookie sheet. Using a fork, press into each ball twice, making a cross-hatch design. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

They will look a little darker than typical peanut butter cookies, so watch that they don't burn.

While these were tasty, I feel like the peanut butter and nutella flavors competed a little bit with each other. In the next round, I might make all nutella cookies and see how that turns out.

Repeat offender: pumpkin cheesecake

This was so good the first time, I made it again. This time with a little cinnamon in my homemade graham cracker crust - I did not cheat so much! Follow your normal graham crust and add just a 1/2 tb of cinnamon (or this recipe).

Did somebody say ganache?

Maybe. Perhaps it was even peanut butter ganache. Are you excited yet? Do you need a quick explanation of what ganache is? Basically, it's fancy frosting/glaze made with cream and butter. It's French. The French like cream and butter. This is why we're friends.

Chocolate-peanut butter ganache

A few weeks back, I had my first fluffernutter. We had Fluffernutter Friday at the office. Half of you are appalled and the other half have no idea what a fluffernutter is, yeah I did not really either, but they are delicious. As a result of this culinary adventure, I became acquainted with the idea of fluffernutter cupcakes - but chocolate, of course. Why would you ever make cupcakes any other way?

Chocolate "fluffernutter" cupcakes
12-18 chocolate cupcakes
For filling:
1 container of marshmallow creme or fluff
Equipment: decorator's bag + tip OR 1 qt ziploc freezer bag
For ganache:
1 cup heavy cream
1 ½ cups chocolate chip morsels
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup powdered sugar
½ cup smooth peanut butter

Cupcakes that have been injected with marshmallow cream

After your cupcakes have cooled, fill your decorator's bag with marshmallow cream. If you are using a ziploc bag, try to fill it will as much cream as you think you'll need the first time, it's very hard to refill (and messy). Poke the tip of the bag into the center of each cupcake and squeeze a cream into the center. You need to fill them somewhat aggressively, or you  won't end up with any noticeable cream in the middle (this happened to a few of mine). After you've finished injecting the cream, prepare your ganache according to the recipe here. Pour ganache over cupcakes.

The finished product!

These were yummy! Make sure to let them cool before injecting the cream, or it will melt out the top. Otherwise very easy and quite fancy seeming = my favorite kind of recipe.

Cinnamon scones

This time around I made a sweet scone. Cinnamon scones seemed like they would be tasty, so I started with my basic scone recipe (see below) that I used for the cheddar & thyme scones I made a while back. I'm still shocked how easy scones are to make!

Basic recipe

2 cups flour
1 Tb sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Cinnamon editions

2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 Tb of sugar

Cooking Equipment

Pastry blender

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl. Blend butter in using either a pastry blender (or fork) until well blended and a mixture of course crumbs forms. Stir in milk and lightly beaten egg. A slightly moist, crumbly dough will form. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface and form in a round, flat mound. Place on a greased cookie sheet and cut into 8 wedges. Separate the wedges and bake for 15-20 minute or until lightly browned.

The cinnamon scones were pretty tasty, however, I think that I should have added more sugar. The scones weren't quite sweet enough and therefore slightly lacking in flavor. I might add a little more cinnamon the next time also. Keep this in mind if you use this more 'savory' basic recipe but want to make a sweeter scone. Happy baking.