Nutella cookies

One of my favorite things in the world is peanut butter cookies. A good peanut butter cookie is a wonderful thing. Paula Deen makes one of the best, easiest peanut butter cookies. I change her recipe a bit: I put 3/4 cup of sugar, and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and I add about a 1/2 tsp of vanilla. (Really, I just pour a bit of vanilla in. But if you measured it, I think it'd be about 1/2 tsp.)


Some people love Nutella the way that I love peanut butter cookies. I don't feel that way about Nutella. Really, I could take it or leave it. But I had some left over from another baking adventure, and I thought I could improve on Nutella by combining it with my peanut butter cookie recipe.


They turned out pretty good. They tasted a little bit like hazelnut brownie cookies. Which I don't hate. 

Nutella cookies in the oven.

Nutella Brownie Cookies
(adapted from Paula Deen's Peanut Butter Cookies)


1 large egg
1 cup Nutella
1/2 cup flour (the Nutella is more liquid-y than peanut butter, so I had to add flour)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla


Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. 


Mix all ingredients until dough forms. Drop by spoonful onto parchment paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from sheet and allow to cool. 

Homemade Oreos

Yep. You heard that right. Homemade Oreos. I first saw them posted here, at the Bake at 350 site, which I love. In the not too distant future, I see myself making Homemade Nutter Butters, Homemade Animal Cookies, and Homemade Hostess Cupcakes.


When I made my first batch, I never realized how many more batches I would need to make. They are so good that I want to share them with everyone. But they are so good that they also disappear faster than I can make them. I made them so often that I nearly had the recipe memorized. Seriously. They are good. 

Happy (belated) Halloween

I made all sorts of Halloween/Harvest type desserts, and I'm not posting them until November. Maybe I'm not cut out for this whole blog thing...


Every year, my roommates and I throw a "Nacho Pumpkin" party. We get together to carve pumpkins and eat nachos. I stole the idea for these "Caramel Apple Cookies" from the decorated cookie blog.

I also made fall leaf cookies, using royal icing and my Food Writer markers. (I need more practice with both.)

Also for the party, I made pumpkin cookies and candy corn cookies, using some sparkle Wilton frosting I found. You can kind of see those cookies in the background of the leaf picture, but I don't have any good pictures of just those cookies.

Another fun October event is my church's annual "Harvest Fest". We set up a carnival and invite everyone in the neighborhood to come play games and eat lots of treats and candy. I made some cookies for the treat table, and made four cakes for the cake walk. My original plan was to have a cake that looked like a pumpkin face, a cake that looked like a spiderweb, a cake that looked like Frankensteins monster, and a cake that looked like a caramel apple. Once I had frosting on all four, I realized the pumpkin cake looked goofy, but was okay, and the spiderweb and apple cakes were hot messes. I liked the Frankenstein face, so I decided to scrape all the frosting off of the other cakes and make them Frankensteins monsters, too. I'm not super proud of any of the cakes, but they worked out for the cake walk.

Super goofy pumpkin cake. Not even the right orange color.

First Frankenstein cake. I used a different frosting, so he looks a little nauseous. 

Frankenstein #2. Used to be a spiderweb cake. 

Frankenstein #3. Those sticks are to hold the Press and Seal wrap off of the frosting while I transported them to church. Don't want to make them look even more goofy.

I'll try to be better about posting things in a timely manner. :)