Blackberry Pie with Hazelnut Glaze

If I had to name a pie as my favorite, this would be it!

I found this recipe years ago in a magazine. I think it was Good Housekeeping, but I am not positive.

Blackberry Pie with Hazelnut Glaze
4 cup of frozen or fresh blackberries (I always use frozen)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp lemon zest ( I also squeeze the juice from half of a lemon into the pie ingredients when I add the zest)

Pastry for a double crust pie (from Pampered Chef)
2 cups flour
1/2 tablespoon of sugar
3/4 teaspoon of salt
3/4 cup shortening
1 small egg, beaten (I use a large egg and just get rid of a 1/2 to 1 tbsp of it)
1/2 tablespoon of white vinegar
1/4 cup of water

Sift or whisk the flour, sugar and salt together. Cut in the shortening until course crumbs form. Mix the beaten egg, vinegar and water together and then add to the flour mixture. Mix until the dough forms into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 2 and roll out the top and bottom crusts on a lightly floured surface.

Hazelnut Glaze:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons of half and half or light cream ( I have used whole milk before)
1/3 cup chopped, toasted hazelnuts

Make your pastry first. you could use store bought but homemade is so much better! Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Frozen blackberries should thaw about 15 to 30 minutes at room temperature. Combine sugar, flour and lemon zest,. Add the blackberries and lemon juice if using. Put mixture into the bottom crust of the pie. Add the top crust and add slits for the air to escape. Cover the edges so they don't over brown. Bake 50 minutes for frozen berries (25 for fresh). remove the covering on the edges and bake another 20-30 minutes (20-25 for fresh). Make the glaze by mixing the brown sugar and half and half in a small sauce pan. Cook on low until the sugar melts. Stir in the hazelnuts and pour over the hot pie, just out of the oven. Let cool til room temperature.

Raspberry Jam Bars

These could really be called raspberry, strawberry, apricot, or blackberry jam bars. Any kind of jam you prefer. I need to make some boysenberry ones for my Mom the next time I go to our hometown. She loves that kind of jam. When I was younger my oldest brother's wife would send us 12 jars of jam from Knot's Berry Farms for Christmas. We loved to open that package when it came. There was always boysenberry jam in there.

See that delicious ribbon of jam in the middle? I am not sure where this recipe came from but I got it from my sister Rose and she also gave me another version to use if you don't have a cake mix. My favorite cake mix to use for this is the French Vanilla. I am crazy about vanilla and the flavor really comes through if you use this. Any white or yellow mix will do though, with good results.

Raspberry Jam Bars
1 white or yellow box of cake mix
2 1/2 cups of quick oats
3/4 cup melted butter
10 to 12 ounce jar of raspberry or and type of jam you like
1 tablespoon of water

Preheat the oven to 375 degree. Mix the cake, oats and butter together into coarse crumbs. Press 3 cups of the mixture into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan firmly. Combine the jam and the water and spread over the cake/oats mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the crumbles over the jam and pat down a bit to even out. Cook for 20-22 minutes. It will start to turn golden. Cool completely and cut into bars.

Here's the version if you don't have a cake mix:
Jam Bars
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of quick oats
1 10 to 12 ounce jar of jam/preserves
1 tablespoon of water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the butter and brown sugar together. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt and oats together. Add the butter mixture until coarse crumbs form. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan firmly. Combine the jam and the water and spread over the crumble mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the crumbles over the jam and pat down a bit to even out. Cook for 20-22 minutes. It will start to turn golden. Cool completely and cut into bars.

Whopper Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everybody in this house loves Whoppers. I have been varying my favorite chocolate chip cookies when I can. My sons would probably eat the same chocolate chip cookies every week, but I need some sort of baking variety. I like to put M&Ms in them. I also made the S'more ones and now these.

These are big as saucers! They were crunchy with some chew in the middle. I will have to play with the recipe more, because I would have liked them a bit thicker than this. I subbed out 2/3 cup of the flour for the malted milk and maybe I should have just added the malted milk and the full amount of flour for the thickness I was looking for. The flavor was still great though.

Whopper Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 1/2 cups butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
2 cups brown sugar (I use dark brown sugar)
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
3 teaspoons of vanilla
2/3 cup malted milk powder (I used Carnation)
4 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of baking soda
2 teaspoons of cornstarch ( I will try 2 tablespoons next time)
1-2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup mini chocolate chips
2 cups of coarsely chopped Whoppers

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix the melted butter and sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla. Sir in the malted milk powder and then the rest of the dry ingredients. Add in the chips and Whoppers. I measured a 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie and put 6 on a large parchment or foil lined cookie sheet. Bake 14-17 minutes. Get them out before they are fully set in the middle. This recipe made about 26 cookies and they didn't last long. I gave some to the neighbors so they would quit tempting me.

S'More Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love s'mores and try to make them a few times each summer. My husband and I built a fire pit in our yard years ago and it is nice to sit out there and relax after a long work week. My youngest shares my love for them to. When I saw a recipe for s'more chocolate chip cookies, I knew they would be perfect for him.

I followed the directions of this recipe at Baked Perfection closely, but again added some changes to a half batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't stop eating this cookie dough before I even put any chocolate in it. The graham cracker taste comes through very well in these. These are a chewy cookie, which is what I prefer in a cookie.

S'more Chocolate Chip Cookies
3/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cornstarch (optional-this ingredient seems to be all the rage on Pinterest for chocolate chip cookies. I will add 1 tablespoon next time)
1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup graham cracker crumbs (Sorry, I was too lazy to do the math-about 7 ounces altogether)
1/2 to 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
1 to 1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
2 -3 regular size Hershey milk chocolate bars

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter and cool slightly. Add the sugars, eggs and vanilla.Stir in the flour, salt ,baking soda, and cornstarch. The add the graham cracker crumbs and mini chips. Roll into balls the size of golf balls. Place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake for 8 minutes. Pull the cookies out and lightly press 3-5 mini marshmallows and 1 square of the Hershey's milk chocolate bar onto each cookie. Bake another 3-4 minutes, depending on how dark you like your cookies. Allow to cool on the pan at least 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

Brownie Chocolate Chip Cookie Peanut Butter Cup or Oreo Bars

My son gave me a challenge to make these brownie chocolate chip cookie peanut butter cup (that's a mouthful!) bars. I decided to also make a batch of brownie chocolate chip cookie Oreo bars. Liam liked them both but really loved the Oreo ones.

I liked the Oreo's best myself, not to say that the other ones weren't really good also!

I looked up some recipes for this but I decided to go with a half batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookies and my favorite brownies. I did cut down on the flour a little because one of the recipes I found said this was a good idea. Here is a link to Kevin & Amanda's blog to that recipe because I followed the directions for baking these and it worked out. This could be made in a 9x13 pan. I used two 9x6 1/2 in pans since I was making the 2 kinds.

Brownie Chocolate Chip Cookie Peanut Butter Cup or Oreo Bars

For the Chocolate Chip Cookie base:

3/4 cup of butter, melted and cooled for 10 minutes

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg
1 egg yolk

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla

2 cups flour

1/2 tablespoon of baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips (regular of mini)

For the Brownie base:

2 square Baker's unsweetened chocolate
6 tablespoons of butter
1 cup sugar
1 -2  eggs (I actually beat an egg and used half of it with the other whole egg. You could probably get away with just one large egg)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 cup flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

For the cookie dough: mix the melted butter and sugars together, add the eggs and vanilla. Mix the flour, salt and baking soda together separately and then add to the wet ingredients. Add the chocolate chips. Spread the cookie dough into a well greased 9x13 pan.

Place of a layer of Oreos or peanut butter cookies on top of the dough.

For the Brownies: Melt the unsweetened chocolate and butter in the microwave. Cool 10 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Spread over the Oreos or peanut butter cups.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for about 15 to 25 more minutes. Mine took 15 and now I am realizing that I could have made the full batch of brownies and this would be even better. They were very good nonetheless. It is a good excuse to make these again though!

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was not too impressed with my regular chocolate cookie recipe anymore. I was using a mix of butter and shortening in my recipe for years, but they were suddenly turning out either cakey or hard. I like my chocolate chip cookies with some chewiness. This fit the bill!

The recipe comes from Anna at Cookie Madness, who got it from a Top Chef Challenge (made by Eric). This is a recipe where you don't need to pull out the mixer. I just use a wooden spoon.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 sticks of butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 cup brown sugar (I used dark brown)
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
3 teaspoons vanilla
4 2/3 cup of flour
1 tablespoon of baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
18 to 24 ounces of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips (I use 1 1/2 to 2 bags of chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Melt the butter and cool about 10 minutes. Add the sugars, eggs, yolks and vanilla to the melted butter. Mix the salt, flour and baking soda separately and add to the wet ingredients. I like to make these big with 1/4 cup of dough. I bake them on parchment lined cookie sheets for 15-17 minutes. You want to pull them out when they look like they are almost but not quite done. Let them sit for a few minutes on the pan before removing to cool. I love this recipe!. I have played around with adding 2 teaspoons of cornstarch to the dough. I am not sure if it makes a difference yet or not. The next time I make them I will do half with the cornstarch and half without.

 It is easy to half this recipe and put into a greased 9x13 pan and bake into bars for about 22-26 minutes. I did this for Valentine's Day this year.

Whopper Malted Ice Cream

I made this ice cream for my son's 21st birthday.

It was an easy ice cream to make. The recipe comes from Your HomeBased Mom. I modified it a little to fit my ice cream maker. The last time I made it there was extra. I would never want to waste potential ice cream! I also changed the ingredients some because I  didn't want to buy both heavy whipping cream and half-n-half. I already buy whole milk for my teenager. He doesn't have an extra ounce of fat on him so he doesn't need skim milk (lucky boy!).

See-totally to the top!

Whopper Malted Ice Cream from: Your HomeBased Mom

1 cup of sugar

2 cups whole milk

1/4 teaspoon of salt

2 cups whipping cream

1 tablespoon of vanilla

1/2 cup malted milk powder (I use Carnation)

1 cup coarsely chopped Whoppers  (I like some bigger chunks in there)

Mix everything but the Whoppers together and put in the ice cream bowl. My ice cream maker takes about 25 to 30 minutes to process. Add in the Whoppers at the end and put in the freezer until it is frozen to your liking.