If you’re tired of your chocolate chip cookie recipe and just want something new you’ve got to make these! We can guarantee that you will not be disappointed! Everytime we make these we eat 4 too many! We won’t be making them again until after Lisa’s wedding. They’re that dangerous!

A warm chocolate chip cookie out of the oven, with the gooey chocolate bits, crispiness around the edge, and barely cooked middle, is…everything that is good in the world of cookies.

These fulfill all of our requirements for a perfect chocolate chip cookie: they are dense and chewy on the inside, with a crispy and sturdy outer shell; the flavor of the cookie itself is rich and buttery.

We have no criticisms for this cookie. None. They were given enthusiastic thumbs up by everyone who has tasted them. Everyone just wanted more and more.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from MyBakingAddiction.com

originally adapted from Parsley, Sage, Desserts & Line Drives

Ingredients
2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon table or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 cups good quality semisweet chocolate chips or chunks

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
1. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mix in vanilla and beat until well incorporated.
2. Add flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips/chunks and nuts.
3. Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients.
4. Scoop the dough into balls using a medium size ice cream scooper.
5. Place each on sheet pan lined with parchment paper and bake in the preheated oven 15-20 minutes depending on how gooey and rawish you like the interior, until very lightly browned, taking care not to overbake. I baked mine for 15 minutes, which seemed to be perfect in my oven.
6. Let cool on rack and store what you don’t immediately eat in an airtight container.

*We always let our cookies cool on a rack for a few minutes and while they are still warm we transfers them to a large ziploc big. The cookies stay soft and chewy for a couple days!

Have you guys ever visited the food blog, Smitten Kitchen?? If you haven’t, we recommend you become fans of it! That is one of the food blogs we check regularly and we always LOVE what she makes. Deb is someone that we look up to in the food blog world. Her blog is just amazing and she is just wonderful at what she does!

We came across this recipe on her blog. Deb claimed that these cookies were scandalously good and that they were the best cookies she’d ever had! We knew right away that we HAD to make them. These cookies are topped with sea salt, and we love that. Salt brings out such great flavors when sprinkled on sweets.

These aren’t your ordinary chewy oatmeal cookies. We love those, but these are taken to the next level. They are crispy,  with bits of smooth white chocolate in them. While these cookies bake, they puff up and hollow out in the center.  The sprinkle of salt on top of these cookies just puts them over the edge and makes them perfect!

We will definitely be making these again!

Here is the recipe we got from Smitten Kitchen

Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

6 ounces good-quality white chocolate bar, chopped (not “white chocolate” chips; they’re almost always artificial. I am adamant about this.)

1/2 teapoon flaky sea salt (like Maldon or fleur de sel) (for sprinkling on top)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt in a medium bowl.

2. Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula, then add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Scrape down bowl again. Add flour mixture gradually and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add oats and white chocolate and mix until well incorporated.

3. Divide dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons. Roll between palms into balls, then place on lined baking sheets about 2 1/2 inches apart. Using fingertips, gently press down each ball to about 3/4-inch thickness.

4. Sprinkle a flake or two of sea salt on each cookie

5. Bake until cookies are deep golden brown, about 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack to cool.

Do you ever have those days where nothing goes right?

You’re just a little clumbsy?? Or a LOT….

Well, Lisa had one of those days on Saturday. We can say that she almost set Maria’s kitchen on fire not once, but TWICE!

Both incidents involved parchement paper. Lisa was baking a few desserts and had two baking dishes lined with parchement paper.

The first incident occured because she placed one of the baking pans on top of the stove to cool. What she didn’t know was that when she had previously used the stove she didn’t turn it completely off. This was our conversaton:

Lisa: Maria, do you smell something burning?

Maria: Yah, what is that?

Lisa: (Turns and looks at the oven) Everything looks ok.

Maria: Hmm, thats weird.

Lisa: (Turns again to look at the stove) S**T, I forgot the stove on!

Maria: Lisaaaaaaa

Lisa: =) oops..

The second incident occured because Lisa placed the second pan to close to the broiler in the oven and it caught on fire. Luckily Lisa was smart this time, and realized the mistake she made. Just as she went to pull the pan out of the oven, it had just started to smoke and flame up!

These bars are what she almost caught on fire first.

We came across this recipe over at Annie’s Eats. As soon as we saw them we knew that we HAD to make them. We love anything with coconut in them! Coconut combined with chocolate is insanely good! These bars were very simple to make and they were fantastic.  We highly reccommend these. If you’re a coconut lover then theses are a MUST!

Chewy Coconut Chocolate Chunk Blondies
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. coconut extract
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

For drizzle and garnish: (optional)
1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks
1 tsp. butter or shortening
Sweetened shredded coconut

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter and flour an 8- by 8-inch square baking dish.  In a small bowl, sift together the flour and salt; set aside.  In another mixing bowl combine the melted butter and brown sugar and beat until well combined.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg, and mix until incorporated.  Mix in the vanilla and coconut extracts until well blended.  Add in the dry ingredients and mix just until they have been incorporated.

Add the shredded coconut and chocolate chunks to the bowl, and fold in with a rubber spatula until evenly distributed.  Transfer the batter to the prepared baking dish and spread evenly with a spatula.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until set in the center but still soft.  Do not over bake.  Let the bars cool slightly before drizzling.

To make the drizzle, combine the chocolate chunks and butter or shortening in a small, heatproof bowl.  Microwave in 15-second intervals, stirring in between, until completely melted and smooth.  Transfer the melted chocolate to a plastic bag with a very tiny piece of the corner cut off and drizzle over the bars.  Sprinkle with additional shredded coconut before the chocolate sets, if desired.  Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.

What a way to end our 12 days of Christmas. We wanted to end it with a bang, and after MUCH thought we came up with this combination.

Here are some pictures of the step by step processes.

• Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

• 1/3 cup eggnog
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• • 1/2 tspn salt
  • 1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

  Directions:
  
  
  Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and mix until combined Last, add the eggnog, vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
  


This was the first time we tried this cupcake/frosting combination, and we have to say that we absolutely loved it. The only thing we would change is that instead of putting a whole hershey kiss at the bottom of each cupcake, we would chop them into tiny pieces and mix it into the batter.

On the 11th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me..
My families traditional Italian Christmas cookies, Scalette.

These cookies are very important to our family. A Christmas without Scalette is no Christmas at all. This recipe has been handed down several generations. We love Scalette because they are fun to make and you can top them with anything you want!

These cookies are from the region of Calabria. In our town they are called scalette but they are also know in other towns as scalille or scalidde.

Some of our favorite toppings are: honey,a homemade anise flavored liquor icing, and even melted chocolate! They are even so good plain!

Scalette are composed of only a few ingredients, the time consuming part is rolling out the dough and shaping it in the traditional design.

Now that our Mom has taught us how to make Scalette, we promise to make them for every Christmas and to continue to pass it down to future generations.

Here is the recipe along with some step by step instructions!

Ingredients
makes around 2 dozen

12 egg yolks
8 TBS sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 shot anisette liquor
12 TBS melted vegetable shortening, crisco
2 1\2 cups all purpose flour
Vegetable oil

Directions

Put the yolks in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and mix on medium speed for about 7-8 minutes.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

These TO DIE FOR Oreo Truffles.

That’s right, 12 days in a row, one recipe per day. We thought about this for a bit, since it would definitely be quite a bit of work to bake, photograph and blog all these recipes. We’ve been trying to think of ways to get many recipes posted within a short period of time, so we decided, since it’s the holidays, to blog about our favorite old and new recipes! Welcome to our first post!

Let the Baking Begin!

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
Some tri-color Italian cookies.