Cookies for Santa- a chewy chocolate chip cookie

These days my little one always asks me to bake. She will take a bowl and a spoon and say, "Mummy put some stuff into this, I will help you mix mix mix..... ", does it really help??
I normally give her flour and baking powder to be mixed, but the end result, flour all over the place and of course on herself, but surprisingly every time she helps me mix, whatever I bake turns out to be extremely good. Magic of little hands.Three days before christmas she went on nagging me that we need to bake cookies for Santa. I was really tired and was looking forward to my vacation, finally I gave up to her request and decided to bake some simple chocolate chip cookies, following the recipe on the shortening container :). Sometimes they have the best recipe out there.

So we made a batch of cookies and she kept on peeking into the oven to see if they were done and constantly telling me, "I need to be careful right mummy, remember the oven is hot". When the oven beeped, she stood there, with an oven mitt for me to pull out the baking sheets, of course giving me a piece of advice, that I need to be careful or else I will get booboo.

My little baking assistant

The cookies came out and guess what, I tried to taste them and she goes ,"They are for Santa mummy, he come our home tonight". I  stored the cookies in a container and left them on the table hoping that she would eat, but she would sincerely take a cookie out of it, put it in a bowl and give it to Santa to eat. Me and my hubby ate the cookie left for Santa in her absence and she assumed that Santa ate them all :). None of us were allowed to eat the cookie from the box in her presence. So we still have cookies left and everyday she has been giving Santa some cookies. Yesterday morning she found a small cookie box filled it up and left in front of Santa. Now Santa no more sits near the christmas tree, he is enjoying the comfort of our couch and the soft chewy chocolate cookies......

 
Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies:
source- Crisco shortening container
Makes 36 cookies 

What you need:
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening
2 Tbspn whole milk
1 Tbspn vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 All purpose flour
1 tspn salt
3/4 tspn baking soda
1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 

How I made it:
Preheat oven 375 F. Combine brown sugar, shortening, milk and vanilla in a large bowl and mix until well blended and creamy, add egg and beat it well into the mixture.
Combine flour, salt and baking soda and mix into the wet ingredients mixture until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop tablespoon full of cookie dough on an ungreased baking sheet about 3 inches apart.
Bake for 8 minutes to get nice soft chewy cookies. Cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet and than place cookies on cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Simple Banana Icecream

It's been raining crazily here and I was feeling very gloomy. I turned on the TV and was flipping through the channels, when I came across this banana icecream being shown by Claire Robinson on Food network. The simplicity of this preparation caught my attention and I had to give it a try ASAP. All that it contains is banana and some peanut butter. But the experimentor in me never lets me do things straight. Here is the recipe with my little modifications. If you like bananas, you sure should give it a try.

What you need :
2 Bananas
2 table spoon creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoon honey
Few drops of vanilla essence
chocolate syrup

How it's Made :
Cut banana's into 1 inch pieces and freeze it (1-2 hrs). Once frozen blend the banana's in a blender. Keep scrapping the sides in between and bland until you gt a smooth texture. Add honey, peanut butter, vanilla essence, little chocolate syrup and blend it well. Scoop out into cups and drizzle som chocolate syrup over it and serve.

Right now as I am blogging about it, my mind is racing about the endless possibilties I can try out. What about some peaches, strawberries, apples, cookies or fudge along with bananas. Got to try...... You guys can try out and let me know the best possible combinations.

Tips:
-Use ripe but firm bananas
-If the frozen banana are very hard, thaw them a little bit, this way you won't have trouble blending.
-It's possible the icecream could turn out more like a custard because of the heat of the blender (mine gets heated very quickly), put it back in the freezer and scoop it out when set.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I had some bananas getting very ripe, so thought of making my usual banana bread. When I checked my ingredients I was out of butter so had to make something without butter, so my search for the recipe begin and I got the perfect recipe for which I had all the ingredients at allrecipes.com. These muffins turned out to be very soft and tasty. Though I have baked cakes before this is my first ever attempt at baking muffins. I am sure to try more variations soon....

 

What you need:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

How it's made:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Add bananas and chocolate chips. Fill  paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Chocolate dipped Strawberry

My hubby loves strawberry dipped in chocolates (dark chocolate in particular), that's the only way he would eat strawberry. So I often end up making this for him during the strawberry season. This are quick and easy to make and you can top the chocolate according to your taste. This time I started with the idea that I would decorate them with white chocolate swirls, only to find out that I didn't have any white chocolate left at home. So ended up with this. Looks so holiday like, may be it will be a nice idea as a holiday gift for this year :).

What you need :
Chocolate chips
Fresh strawberry
Tooth picks

for garnishing I used :
butterscotch chips
crushed cashews
white chocolate

How it's made :
Melt the chocolate chips in microwave or double boiler. Insert toothpicks into the strawberry and dip it in th melted chocolate. Swirl the strawberry as you pull it out of the chocolate to remove excess chocolate. garnish with toppings of your choice ( crushed nuts, white chocolate, sweetened coconut flakes etc). Stick it in styrofoam and let it dry.

Well now to my garnishing story, as I said earlier I didnt have white chocolate at home, so thought of using butternut chips for the design. But they didn't melt soon and I didn't have patience to wait for long. So I ended up picking the slightly melted chips and sticking them to the strawberry, I thought they looked pretty. I had one small white chocolate covered cookie, so I melted it and used the white chocolate from it and applied with a tooth pick, not very clean lines :(.
I also dipped some blueberries in the chocolate, I ate most of them by the time I put them in the basket, so only few were left.

chocolate cups with berries

Why eat chocolate off a bowl, when you can eat a chocolate bowl !!!.

Who doesn't love chocolates, each one loves it for different reasons and yes, chocolate is scientifically proven to be beneficial for health. Science!!, lets keep it out of our delightful chocolate cups and check how it's made. This is my trial version of the cups, not so perfect as I expected.

What You need:
semi sweet chocolate bar / chips
mixed berries ( raspberries, blue berries, strawberries)
whipped cream
cup cake liners


How it's made:
Line cupcake tray with cupcake liner. Melt chocolate in microwave. Using a pastry brush coat the inside of the cupcake liner with chocolate. Refrigerate the tray for 10 min, apply another layer of chocolate and let it set in the refrigerator for 10  min or until use.
For serving the chocolate cups, keep the cups outside for few minutes to thaw, this makes removing the liner easy. Fill in the mixed berries, top it with whip cream and serve.

Chocolaty Note :
- You can use any container of your liking to make the mold for chocolate cups (small cups, shot glasses, cookie molds etc).
- you can use any chocolate or combination of white n dark to give a artistic look
- Make in large quantities and store in the refrigerator ahead of time for a nice quick dessert or for  large parties.
- you can go creative with your fillings from ice-creams, cold custard. peanut butter or fruits. After all its a cup, what you want to eat in it depends on you.