Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

 



Apparently my love of fall is not just limited to decorating, but has also grown to include the flavors of fall.  I have seriously grown to love pumpkin.  It doesn't match my love of cheesecake, but it's up there and it's tied with anything caramel and apples.

I combined 2 or 3 different recipes to make these oatmeal pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  I love the flavor of the chocolate and the pumpkin mixed together, but these would also be fantastic with just the pumpkin flavor alone. 

Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate ChipCookies
Ingredients:
2 1/2 c. quick-cooking oatmeal
2 c. flour, spooned and leveled
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

1 1/4 c. lightly packed light brown sugar

1 c. sugar

1 T. vanilla extract

1 c. pumpkin puree
2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t. cinnamon

1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 and 1/2 t. cornstarch
1/2 t. salt

3/4 c. (1.5 stick) butter, melted

1 and 1/2 c. chocolate chips

 

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray cookie sheets with non-stick spray or line with parchment paper.

In a large mixing place the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice all together.

In a separate bowl, mix together the melted butter, light brown sugar and white sugar.  Mix until no brown sugar lumps remain.  Whisk in the egg, the egg yolk and the vanilla extract. Mix in the pumpkin.   Combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients.

Mix in the chocolate chips and oatmeal.  Allow to chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Drop by tablespoons 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 11-12 minutes. Let stand for approximately 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!
Shayna

Hockey Puck Cookies 2

These are my son's favorite cookies.  When my son asked me to make these cookies he gave me his version of how to make these.  He said, "first you take the round crackers and you put peanut butter in the middle.  Then, you put the black over it and TA-DA you're done!"  The whole time this description was going on he was bouncing around.  That is actually a really good description of how to make these cookies.  They are that easy!

I've heard tons of different names for these cookies.  When I first tried these cookies my husband's family named them after my BIL.  I have since heard them called PMS cookies and hockey puck cookies.  Since we are big hockey fans at our house we've begun to call them hockey puck cookies.  I think when they were called PMS cookies they had the addition of marshmallow fluff along with the peanut butter.

Hockey Puck Cookies
Ingredients:
2 Sleeves Round Butter Crackers (I used Ritz crackers)
Creamy Peanut Butter
1 pkg. Chocolate Candy Coating

Instructions:
Melt the Chocolate Candy Coating.  You can use a double boiler or a place it in a microwave and melt at 30 second intervals.  Take a cracker and spread peanut butter on top.  Place a 2nd cracker on top of the peanut butter.  Dip the peanut butter crackers into the chocolate until completely coated.  Place on wax or parchment paper to allow the chocolate to cool and harden. 

Enjoy!
Shayna

Peanut Butter Monster Cookies

Peanut butter is HUGE at our house.  I think my son would eat peanut butter for breakfast, lunch and supper if he could.  This recipe makes a ton of cookies, but they will be gobbled up fast!

Peanut Butter Monster Cookies
Ingredients:
4 1/2 c. quick-cooking oatmeal

3 eggs

1 1/4 c. packed light brown sugar

1 c. sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

2 c. creamy peanut butter

2 t. baking soda

1/2 stick butter, softened

1/2 c. Reese's pieces

1/2 c. peanut butter chips

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray cookie sheets with non-stick spray or line with parchment paper.

In a very large mixing bowl (this recipe makes a ton of cookies), mix the 3 eggs, light brown sugar and sugar.  Add the vanilla extract, peanut butter, baking soda, and softened butter.  Mix in Reese's pieces, peanut butter chips and oatmeal.  Drop by tablespoons 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Let stand for approximately 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

This recipe was shared on:
Weekend Potluck
Friday Follow Along Party

Enjoy!
Shayna

3-Layer Chocolate Decadence

 

This dessert oh so decadent and easy to make.  The brownie and ganache layers are fudgy and wonderful.  The white chocolate layer is sweet without being too overpowering and adds to the decadence of this dessert.

 



3-Layer Chocolate Decadence
Ingredients:
{For Brownie Layer}
Brownie Mix
Ingredients called for on brownie mix box

{For Chocolate Ganache Layer}
2 c. milk chocolate chips
8 T. cream

{For White Chocolate Layer}
16 ounces cream cheese, softened (2 packages)
2 C powdered sugar
1/2 C white chocolate chips
1 t. vanilla
1 container cool whip

Instructions:
{For Brownie Layer}
Prepare and Bake brownies according to package directions.  Allow to cool completely.

{For Chocolate Ganache Layer}
In a small mixing bowl, combine 2 c. milk chocolate chips and 4 T. cream.  Melt in a microwave at 30 second intervals until completely melted.  Stir in between the 30 second intervals.  Once melted, pour over the brownie layer and spread out over brownie layer.  Allow the chocolate ganache layer to cool completely.

{For White Chocolate Layer}
In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth.  Mix in the powdered sugar, vanilla, and cool whip.  Beat until smooth.  Melt the white chocolate chips in 30 second intervals in the microwave.  Allow to cool slightly and add the white chocolate to the cream cheese mixture.  Spread the cream cheese mixture over the chocolate ganache layer.  Refrigerate until ready to serve. 

Shared on Weekend Potluck
Shared on Friday Follow Along Party

Enjoy!
Shayna

butterfly cookies

My little Cinderella girl is a girly girl and loves butterflies and flowers.  When she saw that her brother and sister were getting cakes and cookies for their birthdays she immediately said that she wanted some cookies too.  I figured why not, one more opportunity for me to practice cookie decorating.  I figured I was already doing 3 different cookies that day, why not add a 4th. 

Here's what you'll need

Piping icing (I used white)
Flooding icing (I used pink)

 

Put dots down the middle for the body of the butterfly

 

Outline the butterfly and separate the wings.

 

 

Fill in the butterfly with the flooding icing

 

I decorated the butterfly in 2 different ways.

 

 

The first with dots

 

 

The second with lines.

 

Enjoy!

 

Shayna 

Hockey puck cookies

 

My husband and son are HUGE hockey fans.  My husband and son recently went to an outdoor hockey game.  When they returned my son decided to re-enact the entire game for me.  Right down to the hockey players taking off their skate guards as they were getting ready to go onto the ice.  Of course, we had to have some hockey cookies to help celebrate Wildman's birthday! 

 

My husband took the camera to work with him on the day I was decorating the cookies so I wasn't able to get pictures of the decorating process.   

 

Here's what you'll need: 

 

Black 10 second royal icing

Piping icing (the colors depend on your favorite team)

 

Luckily, my son was happy with the simplified version of his favorite hockey teams logo.  The current logo fun to do for one cookie, but not several.

 

Enjoy!

 

Shayna



Spiderman cookies

 My son badly wanted me to make him some spiderman cookies for his birthday.  I looked online for some spiderman cookie tutorials and I found a tutorial done by sweetsugarbelle.  As soon as I saw her tutorial I knew I had to make them. 

Here's what you'll need:
Egg shaped cookie cutter
Your favorite sugar cookie recipe
black piping icing
piping bags
Wilton #5 tip
Wilton #2 tip
White 20 second icing
Red flooding icing
Black piping icing

 

I found a coloring picture of Spiderman online, printed it out and cut out the eyes so I could use it as a stencil.  I figured I was meant to make these cookies because the coloring page I found was the exact same size as my egg shaped cookies.  How perfect is that!  Coming from someone who is not at all a computer person I was pretty pleased.

 

Using the Spiderman stencil and a black food coloring marker I drew on the eyes.

I drew on the eyes with a Wilton #5 tip and black piping icing.  I'm still learning about the consistency of royal icing and I made the black a little too thin for my taste.

 

Let the black icing harden and outline and flood with red royal icing.

 

 

While the red icing is still wet pipe on the lines with the black piping icing.  I split the face into 8 different sections.  Almost like cutting a pizza.  I then connected them with the lines inbetween.

 

 

Fill in with white 20 second icing.

 

I hope you enjoy these as much as my little boy did!

 

 

Enjoy!

 

Shayna

Heart Cookies 2

Lately, I have been subscribing to the youtube school of cookie and cake decorating.  Learning this way allows me to learn the different techniques and I can learn when it's convenient for me.  Free time is not something well known at my house so I work videos in whenever I can.  In one of the youtube videos I watched I saw someone creating patterns on cookies using a food coloring marker and then covering it with royal icing.  I wanted to try this technique out ASAP, but I knew that I'd have to wait for an opportunity to present itself.  I found my opportunity with the heart cookies!

In a previous post I showed you how to make heart cookies.  I made them in 4 different colors:  pink, purple, blue and green.  Once I was done making the original heart cookies I had some left over 10 second royal icing.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. 

Using a black Americolor food coloring marker I drew a heart and split it into 4 different sections.

 

I started out with the purple royal icing

 

Pink next

 



 

Green and Blue last

 

 

When I was done I realized I had created a cookie with most of my wedding colors.  Pretty appropriate since we'll have been married 6 years soon.  The only wrong color is the blue.  I had yellow instead of blue.  My husband and I wanted to use the flowers and colors from each of parents weddings and then have our own color and flower also.  My in-laws had pink roses, my parents had yellow daisies and we had purple tulips.  We also had green to tie everything all together.  Blue is my son's and my favorite color so of course I had to add it!

 

Since these were pretty close to the colors from my wedding and it was a heart I had to add a saying, of course! 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

Shayna

Birthday Time!

I have to say, I love birthdays and holidays.  I think the main reason I love holidays and birthdays is because I get to do two of the things I love, cooking and baking.  I admit, I definitely use my children's birthdays as an excuse to get creative and have fun with their birthday cakes and to make them cookies.  Two of my children, Wildman and Tinkerbell, are having birthdays pretty soon.  We'll end the month by celebrating Wildman turning 4 and 5 days later we'll celebrate Tinkerbell's 1st birthday. 

We're having a little birthday celebration with friends for Wildman and Tinkerbell's birthdays so I'm bringing cookies.  Wildman has requested Spiderman cookies and hockey cookies.  Wildman has an unbelievable hockey obsession.  I've also decided on butterfly cookies for Tinkerbell.  I was in the middle of putting supper in the oven and Cinderella, who will be turning 2 1/2 at the same time her brother and sister turn 4 and 1, said "Are you making my birthday cake?"  That's when I realized that I would need to at least make some special cookies for her as well.  My kids, even at their ages, have already figured out that when it comes to making and decorating cookies and cakes I'm willing to attempt just about anything. 

Here is my cookie list as it stands now: 

hockey puck cookies
butterfly cookies
conversation heart cookies
spiderman cookies

This list doesn't even include the birthday cakes.  My son has already requested a hockey cake.  The past 2 years I've done a hockey rink cake for his birthday.  This year I'm doing something new!  I'm making him a cake with the logo of his favorite hockey team.  I still haven't quite decided what I'm doing for my youngest.  I think I'll be looking through my cricut cake creations and make something using one of the cartridges.  I received several cartridges for Christmas and I've been itching to use them.

Shayna