White and Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies

I've explained before that I absolutely love cookies, so here's one of the ABSOLUTE BEST cookie recipes I've ever made and tasted.  Seriously, every person who has had these has loved them.  At least every adult.  I think the reason kids don't care for them as much is because of the butterscotch chips.  If you only make these with white chocolate and semi-chocolate chips, the kiddos will love them.

I wish I could take credit for this awesome recipe, but I must give credit where credit is due.  Picky-Palate is a fantastic site which has a boat load of all types of recipes.  I've tried some from every category, but I must say that Jenny makes the most fabulous cookies and desserts.  They are about a fattening as you can get, but, boy, do they taste great!

Just a side note - I always use Splenda, Egg Beaters, whole wheat flour, and yogurt as substitutes unless I've used them in the past with the result of some bad tasting desserts.

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White and Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies
adapted from Picky-Palate

2 sticks softened butter
3/4  cup Splenda
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup Egg Beaters
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups semi-chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

Place flour, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl; sift of stir to combine. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients along with all the chocolate/chips. Mix until just combined.

Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet placing about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 9-12 minutes or until edges just barely start to turn golden. Remove and let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

About 3 dozen cookies

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes With Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Last spring, Hubby and I went on a cruise.  Even though there was food galore, and we could eat whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, we were pretty good at watching our food intake.  That is until we had the Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes for dessert.  Oh. My. Gosh.  They were the best - I had one for dessert each night of the trip.  Not too bad since I didn't really snack during the day.  We ended up getting a recipe that I tried when we returned home.  Perfect lava cakes!

Now you're probably looking at the title of this post and shaking your head.  What does this have to do with cupcakes?  Well, these cupcakes taste exactly like those scrumptious lava cakes.  They don't have the flowing chocolate center, but the cake part is soft as well as moist, and they taste the same since both use semi-sweet chocolate chips.

This is another recipe from My Baking Addiction - one of my favorite sites - and also includes a recipe for chocolate cream cheese frosting.  The frosting is good, but I actually like the cupcakes without anything on them while they're still a little warm.  Mini Me thinks the same thing.  She asked for a cupcake in her lunch today but made sure to ask for an unfrosted one.  Mini-B likes the frosted ones.  No shocker there.

A few notes for you while you're trying out this recipe.  I'm baking at high altitude, and while I almost never make changes to recipes, I did for these.  Here they are:
1.  I filled the cups up to the top with batter, not 3/4 full.  That gave me 12 cupcakes total.
2.  I added an extra 2 heaping teaspoons of flour to the batter.
3.  I substituted Egg Beaters for the eggs and used half vanilla yogurt half sour cream instead of all sour cream.

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Homemade Granola Bars

My kids absolutely love granola bars, but I don't really like all the extra sugar and stuff that make them such unhealthy snacks.  So I went on a hunt for a homemade recipe that was simple and had "normal" ingredients that I already have.  My search led me to My Baking Addiction, a great blog that has a ton of delicious recipes.

I was able to whip up a batch of these goodies in no time.  Super easy and so yummy!  I like this recipe because now I have a basic recipe and can include my own add-ins based on the measurements provided.  For example, I know I can add 3/4 cups of chips (whatever type - dark, white, buterscotch), 3/4 cups of any nut, and 3/4 cup of any dried fruit.

In addition to changing the dried cherries (in the original recipe) to dried mixed fruit, I made some substitutions in order to make the granola bars more healthy - I noted my changes in the recipe below.

I hope your little people love these as much as mine did, and if you don't have ankle biters, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

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Homemade Granola Bars 

2 cups rolled oats
¾ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup wheat germ
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup all-purpose flour (I used ½ all purpose, ½ whole wheat flour)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup honey
1 egg, lightly beaten (I used Egg Beaters)
½ cup vegetable oil (I used ½ oil, ½ plain yogurt)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¾ cup dried sour cherries, chopped (I used dried mixed berries)
¾ cup dark chocolate chips
¾ cup slivered almonds 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, oil and vanilla. 

Mix well using your hands, add in cherries, chocolate chips and almonds. Pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden around the edges. Cool on wire rack for about 30 minutes before cutting. Do not allow the bars to cool completely before cutting because they will crumble. Makes 32 2x2 inch bars.