Toffee Logs

As you can probably tell if you follow this blog, I have a serious love of heath bar. I know, I know, what am I, 64? I fell in love with the candy back during my Dairy Queen days (have a heath bar sundae with hot fudge, seriously) and I just can't get enough. I found these special Hershey's Nuggets candy bars in Price Chopper one day and knew they needed to be stuffed into a nice, dark brown sugar-butter cookie. And so they were. 

Peanut Butter Snowflake Blossoms

I made these cookies for my students the last week of classes and they disappeared pretty fast--but when are peanut butter blossoms ever neglected? 

I'd like to drawn attention to the fact that I made these the last week of classes, which means they came from a mix, and I'm totally not ashamed. They're adorable. But this also means I took pictures on my kitchen counter as I was rushing out of the door, so my apologies. 

Quintuple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Are you having a terrible day? Papers due? Roof leaking? Did you forget to buy milk and now you're forced to eat dry cereal for breakfast? Is it Tuesday? Basically, what I'm saying is you need to find some excuse to make these deliciously indulgent cookies. I made them a couple of weeks ago to mitigate the damage of a particularly hellish week and they disappeared fast. The trick to these is mixing a hazelnut chocolate bar right into the batter so it melts as the cookie bakes. Oh, and big, fat Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

If you only make one batch of cookies a year, make it this one. These chocolate peanut butter cookies are made extra delicious by mixing in a half-packet of chocolate fudge pudding mix! They were soft, and gooey, and I ate far too many with milk. What's better, these are also nice, big, chunky cookies. You might want to double this recipe, however, because two dozen might not be enough for you. What are you doing? Go bake these cookies. 

Oatmeal Pretzel M&M Cookies

Everyone made fun of me when I told them what was in these cookies because they sound like I just emptied out my cabinets and threw whatever I had into a cookie. Which is partially true. I really like pretzel M&Ms for their salty-sweet crunch, and they blended perfectly with this soft oatmeal cookie base. I'll admit, I have a soft spot for oatmeal cookies, but I think these turned out really well! I had like five.. ok, I had like ten.

This is a great, basic oatmeal cookie recipe that can be modified to fit whatever you have in the kitchen! I beg you to make this dough a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The cookies turn out incredibly soft and moist!

Rugelach

So a funny thing has happened since I started this blog. I called (and continue to call) myself a haphazard baker because I bake through adversity (or laziness..) Last week I ran out of vanilla and just baked without it for a couple of days because I was too cheap to go buy some pure vanilla, for example. But today I bought a rolling pin, an item I had never purchased for some reason I can't explain. I have literally been using my hands and just flattening out dough for sugar cookies and pies for like three years. But today I got a little less haphazard an a little more legit, which was kind of weird to me!

Aside from my quasi growth as a baker, today I made rugelach. I'm sorry, I don't think you heard me. Today I made RUGELACH. I have wanted to make this recipe for years and years and years. I don't know why I never did (maybe the rolling pin requirement?) because they weren't difficult at all! And they are AMAZING. I'm a little giddy about them if you can't tell. I love baking things from other cultures. I feel this odd connection to the past knowing these recipes have been around for hundreds of years.