Double Chocolate Cookies

My friends and I had a little dinner party recently. We all gathered in an apartment, sprawled on various chairs, couches, and the ever-lovely floor, and ate our potluck dinner off of paper plates. While it certainly wasn't the most cohesive dinner I've ever eaten, I laughed until my sides hurt and realized that college is probably the only time where such a random, eclectic dinner party is truly acceptable.

I was tasked with dessert. Let me tell you, I dithered for a solid thirty minutes about what to make. See, I bought a container of cocoa powder at Trader Joe's recently (read up on that adventure here), and I absolutely wanted to use it. I looked up various recipes ranging from ice cream to cakes to truffles and everything in between. However, at the end of it all, I decided on something fairly easy and non-messy: chocolate cookies studded with chocolate chunks.

It was really quite easy. I didn't really use a recipe, I just subbed out a bit of the flour for the cocoa powder. While the baking time was a little iffy due to their awesome thickness, I figured it out in the end! My roommate N said that these are the best things I've ever made. I think that phrase gets thrown around a lot with what I make (humble brag), but everyone who tried these absolutely loved them.

You will need:
 -1 stick of butter, softened
 -1/2 cup of granulated sugar
 -1/4 cup of brown sugar, packed
 -1 egg
 -1 tsp of vanilla extract
 -1 cup of flour
 -1/3 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
 -1/4 tsp baking soda
 -pinch of salt
 -1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks (or chips)

Oven temperature: 350˚F.

As with most cookies, start by creaming together your butter and your sugar with an electric mixer. You want all the sugar to be incorporated into the butter, for the mixture to have no lumps, and to be light and airy.

Then, add your egg and vanilla. Continue mixing until fully combined.

In a separate bowl (or Tupperware), combine your dry ingredients. That'll be your flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Using a fork or your fingers or whatever, mix it all together until combined.

Then add about a third of the dry mixture to the butter and thoroughly combine. Continue until all of the dry mix has been added, and keep stirring/combining until the dough forms a bit of a ball and has an even texture, with no un-mixed lumps.

Now throw your chocolate chunks in there and mix to evenly distribute. Like with any cookie, you could add anything you like to these, including nuts, other types of chocolate, dried fruit... the list goes on and on!

This recipe only yielded ten cookies, since I love 'em huge and chewy. Each cookie was about two tablespoons' worth of dough, rolled by hand then pressed onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Then, place them in the fridge for about half an hour, up to overnight. You'll notice as you roll them out that they're very soft and malleable, and for thick cookies, you do not want to have warm dough going into the oven! Otherwise, they'll spread far too much and you'll have thin cookies.

Once they've chilled, put them in your preheated oven for about twelve to fifteen minutes. Mine took about fourteen. You want the tops of the cookies to look lighter, dry, and a bit dull. Pull them out when they're an even brown, but keep them on the cookie sheet to cool, since their bottoms will cook some more while they're on the sheet.

These cookies pack a ton of intense flavor into each bite. They're chocolaty without being overly sweet, and they're deliciously soft. Serve them warm with a glass of milk after dinner with friends, and prepare to reap praise! Everyone loved these, and I loved how easy they were to make. I had all the ingredients I needed at home, and I only dirtied two bowls!

Since we didn't exactly have any leftovers, I wouldn't know how long these would keep for... but I'm sure they'd at least keep for a few days in a Tupperware container!

I can't wait to continue to experiment with cocoa powder in the kitchen. Single's Awareness Day Valentine's Day is fast approaching, so there's my excuse!

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Peppermint Bark

I've been having a really hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. As Colbie Callait says, "It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall", and I have to wholeheartedly agree. While it's awesome wearing a t-shirt in December, I greatly miss everything about a New England winter at the moment. There's something special about the smell of fresh snow, and the beauty of snow-covered trees.

Of course, I'm sure I'll remember how much I hate the cold once I'm home, but that's a different story.

One of my roommates has no trouble getting in the spirit--she's really into the 25 Days of Christmas on ABC Family. I swear I've seen The Grinch about four times and I'm starting to get sick of it. Therefore, I decided that I needed another way to get into the holiday mood.

Enter peppermint bark, stage left. Stupid easy and really, really tasty. Like, I glanced at a recipe to make sure my intuition was correct (it was) and that was that. It took about half an hour to make... that's it. And there are only three ingredients. So what are you waiting for?

You will need:
 -One bag of chocolate chips (milk or dark, your choice)
 -One bag of white chocolate chips
 -A few candy canes

And you don't even need the oven! It's a Christmas Miracle!

Start by lining a baking sheet with tin foil. Parchment paper would probably work just as well! This just makes for easy removal.

Next, get a bain marie going. You can read more about how to do that here, but basically boil water and melt the chocolate in a bowl over the steam.

Stir frequently to ensure even melting. It's ready when it's shiny and smooth.

Pour it onto your prepared pan and spread it around. It will all get broken up eventually, so don't be worried about making it touch the edges or whatever.

Also, you can make it as thick or as thin as you choose! Mine was pretty thin, about an eighth of an inch maybe? Just try and make it one nice even layer. Once it's spread to your satisfaction, pop it in your fridge to solidify.

Now, prepare the candy canes. Pop them in a plastic bag and (gently!) bash with a hammer to crush into little pieces.

Combine them with the white chocolate chips as you melt them in the bain marie! This way, you'll get peppermint throughout the chocolate.

Take the solidified milk chocolate out of the fridge and spread the melted white chocolate and peppermint over it. Your milk chocolate may re-melt a bit, but it's not a big deal. Spread what you can, then sprinkle more crushed candy cane over the top. I would suggest pushing some of the bigger pieces down a little bit, since I didn't and some of mine fell off... womp womp womp.

Set it back into the fridge to solidify.

After it's all solid, take it out of the fridge and slightly lift up the tin foil. Get under the bottom and break it into pieces. It may get a little soft in your hands, so work quickly!

Once it's all into pieces, store it in your fridge and sneak little pieces every time you're in the kitchen. Or, you can do as I did and try and give as much away as possible! There's nothing like making a holiday treat to get yourself out of a Grinch-y mood.

Next time I blog, I will be back at home in the beautiful snow! I can't wait to get back in time for Christmas goodies and the holiday spirit.

Good luck on the rest of your finals, and I'll be back with you soon from a different timezone!

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Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

It was inevitable, really. I've been interested in cooking and baking since I was four and I have never made brownies from scratch before this recipe. Really. Never.

Well, folks, it has finally happened. I took the plunge and deviated from my usual Ghiradelli Triple Chocolate brownies for some homemade chocolate-y goodness. I used an extremely basic brownie recipe, and added a ton of chocolate chips and a peanut butter swirl. Let me tell you, this one is a winner. I gave literally all of them away so they wouldn't sit in my kitchen. All my friends were texting me telling me how amazing these were. Trust me, totally worth the effort.

You will need:
 -8 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
 -1/4 cup of unsalted butter
 -1 cup of dark brown sugar, packed
 -1 tsp vanilla extract
 -1/2 cup all-purpose flour
 -1 tsp baking powder
 -1/2 tsp salt
 -2 large eggs, room temperature
 -3/4 cup of chocolate chips
 -1/3 cup of smooth peanut butter

Oven temp: 325˚F.

Start by taking your chocolate and breaking it into smaller pieces. I thought I was going to use the knife and then I realized that Baker's chocolate is meant to snap easily, so the knife was for decoration. Looks legit though, so I suppose that's all that counts?

Melt your chocolate and butter in a bain marie.

Disregarding the French name, it's actually a super easy way of melting sensitive ingredients without any danger of water contamination or burning. You'll set up the bain marie by filling a saucepan with a few inches of water, then heating to a nice simmer. Place a heatproof bowl snugly over the top, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the surface of the water. Boom! That's it! Place your chocolate and butter in the bowl and stir constantly until everything's fully melted and combined, about five minutes. Once it's done, set aside for another five minutes to cool.

Add the sugar to the cooled chocolate mix. Stir it up really well, because you do not want any lumps!

It will look very grainy once all the sugar has been incorporated. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl as you mix so that you don't miss mixing anything in.

Add eggs one at a time to the mixture. Crack one in, then mix like crazy. The batter will get much more liquid-y as you mix, but make sure that all of the first egg is incorporated before you add the second egg! You want no bits of raw egg visible in the mix.

In a separate small bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. It's that straightforward!

Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture. You can just throw it on in there...

...and stir it up! Again, make sure that you are completely combining the two mixtures. Scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl in order to confirm that you're not missing out on anything.

Hey, this looks familiar, right? This is when I started to breathe easier because it looked a heck of a lot like the premade brownie mixtures of my past. The batter should be completely smooth and reasonably runny. Make double sure that there are no clumps of flour left in the batter!

Now, add your chocolate chips. I added 3/4 of a cup, but feel free to scale down or up as needed. I found that these made the brownies extremely chocolate chip-y, but that's really how I like them. They would still be delicious without, I'm sure! You could also add peanut butter chips or nuts if you so desire. Just chuck 'em in and mix it all up.

Pour/dollop the batter into a greased baking ban. My apartment only has a 13x9 pan so I used that... honestly, sometimes I think my blog could be accurately titled "Janky Kitchen Adventures" but I don't think it's super catchy.

For the peanut butter swirl: Microwave the peanut butter in ten second increments until it's very runny... obviously a scientific term. Once it's sufficiently liquified, pour it on top of the brownie batter and run your knife through it a few times. I tried to get it sort of evenly distributed, but it's not a huge deal. Think of it as avant-garde baking.

Here you can see the method to the madness in greater detail. It's really that easy--stick your knife in the mix and drag it around.

Now, stick the brownies in the oven. I kept mine in for 27 minutes and they were a little gooey for my taste, so I would recommend keeping them in for thirty minutes. Check for doneness when a toothpick (or in my case, a knife) comes out clean.

For smaller pans (8x8, 9x9) I would guess that they would take closer to forty minutes. However, check for doneness regularly by the toothpick test and noticing if the brownies are pulling away from the edges of the pan.

Since these were pretty thin brownies, I gave my friends huge pieces. And dang, were they a hit. Rich chocolate flavor, with molten chocolate chips, and that delicious peanut butter undercurrent... yum. I'm insanely proud of my first foray into brownies from scratch!

These took about an hour to make, start-to-finish. While I will never discourage the use of Ghiradelli mixes (let's be real, they're dang good), I have to say that homemade brownies are simply incomparable. They are gooey, rich, and absolutely delicious. I highly recommend these for an easy recipe that produces some show-stopping brownies.

Also, in humble-brag news, my amazing friend Natasha interviewed me for part of an article on O2 Max Fitness about how to eat healthily in college! I'm so honored and flattered that people besides my parents (love ya, mum and dad) read this little blog. You can find the article here.

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Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well, how's that for some alliteration?

School's back in full swing again! I flew back to California on the 14th to spend some time in NorCal with N. You remember her, right? I stayed with her in February for a week before we drove back down to Los Angeles.

We're living together this year, so moving back in was super easy. Our other roommates, J and D, were already there when we arrived. It was a simple move in, but class and sorority rush really were draining!

Thankfully, everything has settled into a nice routine. And with that, I have time to blog!

I made these cookies last April for a family Easter party. I took pictures of about half of the process... then promptly forgot about photographing in all the excitement. Without any further ado, coconut chocolate chip cookies! Here's my inspiration.

You will need:
 -3/4 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
 -1 cup of light brown sugar
 -1 egg, room temperature
 -1 tsp vanilla extract
 -pinch of salt
 -1 tsp baking powder
 -1 cup all-purpose flour
 -1 and 1/2 cups coconut flakes
 -1 and 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Oven temperature: 350˚. Rack in the middle, please and thanks!

Get those cookies started by creaming together butter and sugar. Use a mixer if you have one, or get your arm workout by using a fork. Guess which one I did? (Side note, does anyone want to buy me a mixer for my birthday? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)

When creaming together butter and sugar, make sure that they are fully incorporated. The butter should be fluffy and there should be no clumps of either sugar or butter.

Then, add the egg and the vanilla extract. Mix very, very well. You do not want any bits of un-mixed egg or vanilla. That will be extremely nasty both taste-wise and texturally. Trust me. The incorporated mix will look sort of gross at this point but it'll look better in a minute. Promise!

Now, add the baking powder and the salt. Combine well. Then, add the flour bit by bit and mix until all is incorporated. It should be nice and smooth. This is when it'll really look like cookie dough! Sample a tiny bit just to make sure it tastes delicious, as it should!

Add all that delicious coconut. Like delicious, sweet, textural snow... can you tell I'm a bit obsessed? It makes these cookies so gloriously chewy! Combine it so that the coconut flakes are evenly distributed through the dough.

Then, stir in the chocolate chips. The dough is going to be super chocolatey. Just chips on chips on chips! It may look like all the chips won't fit in the dough, but stir them in. You're gonna have a lot of chocolate, I guarantee it. I forgot to take a picture in my excitement but no worries! Plenty of pictures of steps to come.

Dollop your cookie dough onto a lightly (lightly!) greased baking sheet. I like me some big cookies, so they're probably about a tablespoon and a half/two tablespoons worth of dough. Pat them down lightly. It's sticky dough so it may be hard to shape, but feel free to chill it before baking if you'd like to be able to shape them.

Sprinkle with some sea salt and pop those suckers in the oven! I baked mine for nine minutes, since I like soft cookies, and then left them on the sheet to cool. If you want firm, crunchy cookies, leave them in the oven for closer to twelve minutes. Just check frequently so nothing burns!

Once they're cool(ish), dig in! They're chewy and delicious. My roommates (and the girls across the hall) came flocking with glasses of milk. Not to toot my own horn, but one of my friends took a bite, looked straight at me, and exclaimed, "Dude... On. Point." (toot toot)

Side note: these are not my fingers. Thanks I!

These took about half an hour from start to finish. These cookies are quick, easy, and absolutely delicious. They were all gone within six hours of completion!

Now I have friends to bake and cook for, I will hopefully be back to blogging more often! Stay tuned for more simple college recipes from my shiny new apartment. Next week, look forward to a Mexican-inspired dinner for one!

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