Tis the Season for Chocolatey Goodness

It is baking time up in here!

Yes, that is my refrigerator's crisper full of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, chopped walnuts and shredded coconut. Clearly, I got issues, man.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake Mix Cookies

Baking is my form of stress relief and luckily (or unluckily for my co-workers), I work in the kind of environment where making treats is okay. I fear that I will over load them tomorrow for our White Elephant gift exchange but, well, I just couldn't help myself. I love all the recipes on Pinterest that I have been seeing and I definitely can't keep everything for myself otherwise I would gain 100 pounds! 

The cookies above, pinned from Plain Chicken, are amazing. I really, really should have sifted the cake mix a bit more before mixing it into the other ingredients but otherwise, they turned out delicious! If you like big, soft, fluffy cookies and have a special place in your heart for all things peanut butter, I definitely recommend these.

Need something a little more holiday? These cookies below are SO DELICIOUS. They come from the team over at Two Peas & Their Pod. They are always putting up great recipes so I knew that following this one would have been a no brainer. Getting everything together below including substituting my favorite Dark Chocolate Almond Milk.

 The ones on the left have been cooling on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes while the ones on the right just came out of the oven. Chilled. Puffy. Chilled. Puffy.

 Mmmmmm.

And of course I had to try one. These have just enough mint to compliment the brownie-like texture of the cookies. They do firm up as the cool but are still incredibly soft and rich.

Pinterest Palooza: Biscotti!

For some crazy reason, I have always thought biscotti was super sophisticated and elegant, and, in turn, would be really hard to make. I get easily intimidated by kneading of breads and any sort of shenanigans that may have to happen just to make something that will only add inches to my waistline. Being in a new office and it being the holidays, I decided to make some treats for my co-workers and also include a few in packages to send back home. I looked on Pinterest for recipes that gave me good vibes (you look for those, too, right??) and found one for Pumpkin Biscotti and Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti. I followed the recipes exactly..kinda..so feel free to follow the links and pins those suckers!

Here is the outcome of the pumpkin walnut biscotti with chocolate drizzle:

This was a perfect recipe and came together quite well. I got a super arm workout but the dough was incredibly easy to work with and I tasted it throughout the process and it was damn tasty!

Here is the outcome of the cherry, coconut, white chocolate biscotti: 

 

See what I did there? Totally didn't follow the mix-ins on that recipe. I thought I had a good handful left of dried cherries in my pantry and low and behold, I had about eight of them. My first thought was, "Why did someone leave eight little dried cherries in a baggie?" and secondly, "Why would I do that to myself??" Rummaging through my kitchen, frantically searching for a substitute left me with throwing in the dried cherries and white chocolate chips like I initially planned on but also adding in some shredded coconut. It was a shot in the dark but came out pretty well! I wish I could have had some more colors going on in the dough but as long as it tastes good, I shall be proud.

All packaged up and ready to go: 

These will go great with some chai tea or hot chocolate!

Pinterest Palooza: Christmas Crackers

I have always been fascinated and in love with the idea of Christmas crackers. Wiki says:

Christmas crackers or bon-bons are an integral part of Christmas celebrations in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as the United States of America to a lesser degree. They are also popular in Ireland. A cracker consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of paper, making it resemble an oversized sweet-wrapper. The cracker is pulled by two people, and, much in the manner of a wishbone, the cracker splits unevenly. The split is accompanied by a small bang or snapping sound. 

Crackers are typically pulled at the Christmas dinner table or at parties. Typically these contents are a coloured paper hat or crown; a small toy, small plastic model or other trinket and a motto, a joke, a riddle or piece of trivia on a small strip of paper. 

So with the loveliness that is Pinterest, I kept seeing homemade examples of how to make your own Christmas crackers and with various ideas of how to fill them. Here are some awesome ideas and links if you want to try yourself!

Oh Happy Day (Pin)

And here is a different take on constructing a cracker from MinieCo:

Armed with mounds of tissue paper, a small collection of toilet paper rolls, and random toys and candy from the Christmas isle, I went to assembling! These are so great because the materials can be cheap or expensive and you can customize them for any event. These would be really cute wedding or birthday party favors.

TIP: Make sure to use the toilet paper rolls to support both the main area that is filled with treats and to shape the ends. They look amazing when done!

Ta da! The finished product. These were actually very fun and calming to make. Bonus: recycling!! Inside are jokes, paper crowns, candy, and little toy surprises. If you can't tell, I was thoroughly excited that these came out so cute and sweet.

Some hilariously corny jokes that just may be included in some lucky recipient's cracker:

What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck? A Christmas Quacker
What's a child's favorite king at Christmas? A Stocking
What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations? Tinselitus


Have you made anything lately from Pinterest? How did it turn out?