A Midsummer Night's Pean-ut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie

• Once upon a rainy Friday (which are just so rare in Vancouver) I felt the urge to take full advantage of the, as some would call it, "crappy" weather and bake up a nice batch of cookies. Not content to go for an old staple I raided my Pinterest and came up with these beauties. A twist on a classic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, already a favourite in my house, the addition of peanut butter could only make them that much more delicious I thought. And I was right. Described by some as "the best cookie they've ever had" the 400 or so cookies this recipe makes (I'm exaggerating but not by much) disappeared quickly, most of which went into my own belly. I will admit I tried to freeze a few for "later" and which turned out to be the next day after a particularly long day. I regret nothing. However, if you haven't quite developed the skill that I have perfected for putting away mass quantities of sweets you may want to half the batch, or you can just give some away. You know where to find me!

  • Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

  
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
  • 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 4 1/2 cups rolled oats
  • 11.4 ounce bag chocolate chips
  Preheat oven to 325ºF/160ºC
  ✩ Beat together butter and peanut butter in a large mixing bowl until well combined. 
  ✩ Add sugar and brown sugar and mix until smooth. 
  ✩ Beat in eggs and vanilla.
  ✩ Add honey and baking soda then stir in oats and chocolate chips. 
  ✩ Using an ice cream scooper or large spoon, spoon heaps of mixture onto ungreased cookie sheets leaving room for the cookies to spread out while baking. 
  ✩ Bake for 15-17 minutes until golden around edges and just a hint gooey in the centre. 
  ✩ Allow to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack. 
  
  
  In my opinion it's better to take them out a little too soon than too late as slightly gooey is better than crispy in my family but they still taste good either way. Whatever floats your boat. 
  
  
  -H
  
  
  from the post on A Dash of Sanity
  
  

  
  

Oreo By Any Other Name

       After moving back to Vancouver (for now) I quickly discovered one thing: I no longer have any friends in Vancouver. If there's one thing I think all people in my mid (okay late) twenties age group can agree on it's that it's hard to meet people when you move to a new (or old) city. Luckily while working in my local salon I stumbled upon Cam, an apprentice and all around wonderful human being who does my hair and listens to my complaints about how terrible my white privileged life is. I am self aware to know that I have no right to complain but it doesn't stop me from doing it.

  He recently celebrated a birthday and to make him feel special and make sure that he doesn't stop liking me I took it upon myself to bake him a birthday cake! I chose an Oreo drip cake because I knew he liked chocolate, as all good people do, and I'd never attempted a drip cake before. I did actually try it myself as it's hard to explain a birthday cake showing up with a piece missing and I had to run off to my other job but he has assured me many times that it was delicious and so it has earned a place in my arsenal of recipes.

OREO Drip Cake

Cake

– 400g Unsalted Butter, softened
– 400g Light Brown Sugar
– 400g Eggs (roughly 8 Medium Eggs)
– 325g Self-Raising Flour
– 75g Cocoa Powder           
 –1tbsp Instant Espresso
– 2tsp Baking Powder
– 4tbsp Whole Milk

Oreo Buttercream

– 300g Unsalted Butter, softened
– 650g Icing Sugar       
– 2tsp Vanilla
– 154g Oreos
– 2-5tbsps Whole Milk

Drip

– 175g Dark Chocolate
– 1-2tbsps Vegetable/Sunflower Oil

For the Cake:  

Preheat your oven to 350ºF/180ºC and line three 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add in eggs, flour, cocoa powder, espresso, baking powder and mix until just combined. Add enough milk to loosen the batter a little, it should be a similar consistency to brownie batter. Divide between the three pans and spread evenly. Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the buttercream: 

Beat the butter until smooth then add the vanilla and then the icing sugar 1/3 at a time. Continue to beat until nice and light and fluffy. 

Crush the Oreos using either a food processor for nice fine crumbs or a good old fashioned Ziploc bag and rolling pin. I chose the latter and got out some aggression on those poor defenceless cookies. 

Add the crushed Oreos to the buttercream and enough milk so the buttercream becomes a nice spreadable consistency. 

Make sure your cakes have cooled completely and then assemble by spreading a layer of buttercream on a layer of cake and then stacking them on top of one another. Use remaining buttercream to ice the top and sides. 

For the Drip:

Melt chocolate over very low heat and then stir in oil. If you want to get fancy with your decorating you can just drip it down the sides and then save some buttercream to make fancy designs on the top. I just dumped it all on the top spread it around so it dripped off the sides and then squished my leftover Oreos around the edges. I think it looked just fine. 

Leave the cake in the fridge to cool and the drip to harden. 

Slice. Eat. Repeat as necessary. 

-Holly

Buttermilk Chocolate Cookies

I made some cupcakes last week to celebrate the last day of school and the last day of our Alexander Technique teacher, the amazing Penny O'Connor. They went over very well but left me with about half a tub of buttermilk in the fridge with absolutely no purpose. Realizing it was about to go off I decided to spend my Friday night in baking cookies with it and watching Inside Amy Schumer. I found a recipe that consisted of mainly things I already had that didn't seem like a lot of work which after a day of dress shopping on the dreaded Oxford Street and a trip to the gym was all I could muster. These are amazingly gooey and chewy and fudgey and chocolatey and all the things a cookie should be and I just ate three.

Enjoy with a cup of "T"!

Buttermilk Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 C butter

3/4 C cocoa powder

2 C sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 C buttermilk

100g chocolate chips

100g milk chocolate chips

Instructions

• Line baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 180º
• Whisk the flour and baking soda together in a small bowl.
• Place the cocoa powder into a large bowl, melt the butter and add it to the cocoa whisking until smooth.
• Add the sugar, vanilla, and buttermilk, and continue to whisk until all ingredients are combined.
• Add in the flour, a little at a time, and mix thoroughly after each addition.
• Add the chocolate chips and stir.
• Form the dough into 1 inch balls and place them onto the baking sheet 2 inches apart. 
• Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes. 
• Allow to cool on the baking sheet for three minutes, and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to completely cool.