Peanut Butter & Dark Chocolate Drizzle Cookies

Peanut butter and chocolate go together like a pool and a hot summer day, Monday nights and the Bachelorette, or Butler students and Broad Ripple. It just makes sense! So, I have taken the classic "peanut butter blossom" and put my own twist on it.

ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter - unsalted, room temperature
• 3/4 cup peanut butter - chunky or creamy (I used chunky)
•  1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 Tbsp milk (I used fat free milk)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup Nestle Dark Chocolate morsels 

directions:

First, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. It will take you approximately 10-15 minutes to prepare the peanut butter dough, so you want the oven to be ready whenever you are finished. 

Step 1: Mix all of the ingredients together - minus the chocolate chips, obviously. 

Step 2: Take approximately a tablespoon of dough in your hands and roll into a ball - about the size of a large gum ball. Don't forget to spray your cookie sheet with non-stick spray!

Step 3: Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes or until they are a light shade of brown. Remove and put on wax paper to cool.

Step 4: The chocolate! Put about 3/4 cup of morsels in a microwavable dish and heat the chips, stirring periodically, until all are melted. If you are like me and don't own an icing bag, you can make your own using a Ziplock baggie. Place the melted chocolate in the baggie and cut a very small snip off the corner. Use this as you would an icing bag, squeezing the baggie and coating the cookies with melted dark chocolate. Cover the cookies to your preference. (I made these for some of my co-workers, so I did varying chocolate amounts. Some have lots of chocolate and some only have a little. It's up to you!)

 

If you are not planning on serving this delicious treat right away, let the melted chocolate harden before placing them in any sort of container. This will help the cookies not stick together. If you don't have time to wait for the chocolate to cool down and harden, you can always put them in the refrigerator to quicken the process.

suggested serving: 

With a tall glass of milk!

This is a recipe that your family, friends, neighbors, book club members, boyfriend, co-workers and Santa will be extremely happy that you stumbled upon!

ENJOY!

-ck.

inspired by : http://www.kaceyskitchen.com/2009/11/peanut-butter-blossoms.html 

Berry-licious Blueberry Muffins

Baking has never been so easy! This homemade blueberry muffin recipe takes only half of an hour (10 minutes to prepare, 20 minutes to bake) and will leave your tummy completely satisfied. This is a recipe for basic blueberry muffins, but nothing about them tastes basic. I will also include some tips on how to make them as moist as possible!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of milk (I used skim)
• 1/2 cup of salted butter - melted
• 1 cup of fresh blueberries (I used about 1/2 cup more to make them extra blueberry filled)

optional:

• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon & sugar (gives the muffins a little extra flavoring)

First, preheat your oven to 375. By the time it gets preheated, you will be ready to put the muffins in!

Step 1) Mix your dry and wet ingredients separately. This will help make your muffins as moist as possible. After you have mixed both the wet and dry ingredients with a whisk separately, it is time to combine the two. Mix until all the dry ingredients have mixed completely with the wet ingredients. 

Step 2) Time to add the star of the show - the blueberries! Mix the berries in with the muffin dough and then pour into 12-count muffin pan. (Make sure you spray your with non-stick spray. I use PAM Original Non-Stick Spray.)

Step 3) Put muffins in the oven (preheated to 375) for 20 minutes. After time has expired, check the center of the muffins with a toothpick to make sure that they are completely done. (When checking with the toothpick, stick it in the center of the muffin and if it comes out without any dough on it, they are done!)

Step 4) Let the muffins cool before you take them out of the pan. I recommend putting a little dollop of butter on top of a warm muffin - ENJOY!!!

I'm sure you can tell from pictures, but these turned out amazing!! They were extremely moist and lasted for multiple days. To keep them fresh I put them on a paper plate and put them in a large Ziplock bag.

-ck.

Homemade blueberry muffins inspired by Team Breakfast.