Chocolate cherry oat cake

I raided the pantry the other day to make something out of the oats and chocolate chips I had on hand. I also wanted to use some frozen cherries. This recipe was adapted from a bar recipe I found (which called for dried cherries and a square pan). My cake came out nicely, if a little crumbly. I would have liked more cherry flavor to come through, which might have occurred if I used dried cherries. Nonetheless, a good snacking cake.

7 tblsp butter, softened1/4 c white sugar1/2 c brown sugar1 egg1/2 tsp vanilla extract3/4 cup flour 3/4 cup oats1 tsp baking powder pinch coarse sea salt Heaping 1/2 c chipsScant cup frozen cherries, thawed and chopped
Round cake pan350 for 30

Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour a round cake pan. Cream butter and sugars. Add egg and vanilla till just combined. Add remaining ingredients till just combined. The batter will be sticky. Spread evenly over the bottom of the cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookies

So even though this little archive is full of desserts, the majority of the recipes have very little butter or sugar, or can somehow otherwise masquerade as being "healthy." These cookies...not so. There are TWO sticks of butter (!), quite a bit of sugar, and an entire bag of chocolate chips. They are decadent and delicious and buttery and indulgent. I have no regrets.

Photo doesn't do them justice

Magic Apple Cobbler

I haven't been updating here much because I haven't been trying out new recipes; I've been making a lot of old favorites though :) I only post a recipe when it's new (to me at least!)

Deb at Smitten Kitchen only posted this recipe two weeks ago and I've already made it twice: once with apples, once with pears. It was super easy, definitely "magic," (because you don't mix the batter into the butter and it magically comes together while it cooks) and worked well with both fruits. A nice recipe to have on hand to quickly throw together a dessert.

https://smittenkitchen.com/2016/09/magic-apple-plum-cobbler/

Cherry-Peach Summer Slump

This recipe is one of the main reasons why I am keeping this little dessert diary: to help me remember things that I make! Last week, I had a bunch of peaches and cherries that I wanted to use up quickly, and I recalled making a sort of cobbler-ish dessert a few years back. I couldn't remember where I got the recipe or even what it was called, and after wracking my brain and doing some googling, I finally found this blueberry slump recipe, from Saveur (from 4 years ago!). I swapped the peaches and cherries for the blueberries - I think pretty much any fruit or combination of fruits could work great here - and threw it together,

LUCKILY, I remembered from the last time I made this, that the blueberry juices leaked all over my oven, so I had the foresight to put a cookie sheet under my pan. The cherry-peach juices leaked everywhere. I might be using a slightly smaller cast iron pan than is called for in the recipe, because this made a lot of dough. Too much dough. It basically covered all of the fruit in the pan - it did not look like drops of dough-y biscuits, like the photo from Saveur - and then I think I cooked it for a few minutes too long because it was not an airy biscuit, even straight out of the oven.

All that said, this is a really easy, but impressive, dish, especially if you use the right fruit-to-dough ratio. Next time I make this I am going to cut the dough amount in half.

Jeni's Splendid "Buckeye State" ice cream

I love natural peanut butter so much that I often snack on it directly from the jar, sometimes dropping chocolate chips on top of my spoon to make it fancy. I also love ice cream. However, I never really liked peanut butter flavored ice cream. But I do really like buckeye candies....so, I tried a recipe from Jeni's for "buckeye state" ice cream which includes salty peanut butter, honey and chocolate (I used my Jeni's book to make the recipe, which can also be found here via another blogger). I liked it because it really does taste like a frozen buckeye, but I am still not sure I am a peanut butter ice cream fan (it's so weird to me!). But Eric stated that it was teh best ice cream he ever tasted, so at least one of us was happy :)

Halva Chocolate Chip Cookies

On an unusually cool July afternoon, I decided to bake. I ransacked my pantry and threw together this recipe with the random ingredients I had on hand. Riffing on this salted tahini chocolate chip cookie recipe that I made in the Spring, and these "Famous Oatmeal Cookies" from my old Quaker Oats tin, I came up with these Halva Chocolate Chip Cookies and I am really happy how they turned out. I love the combo of oats and chocolate, and the chopped halva melts in the oven and adds a nutty sweetness. I also tossed in about a teaspoon of instant espresso which helps to bring out more flavor. My only complaint was that these cookies spread in the pan SO much; I am not quite sure why that happened. They had perfect chewiness, which I was aiming for, but would have preferred if these didn't spread so much. (Including a link to this cookie cooking chart here to help me prevent that in the future).

1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp instant espresso
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 heaping cup halva, chopped (I used pistachio)
1 scant cup semi-sweet chocolate chips


Heat oven to 350. Combine first 7 ingredients; mix well. Add next 3 dry ingredients and mix just till combined. Stir in chopped halva and chocolate chips. Spoon onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake between 12-15 minutes (mine cooked for 13.5 minutes).

Enjoy :)

Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Blackberry-Raspberry Swirl

Made this delicious frozen yogurt from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams while trying to use up my berry bounty from last month. I used a mixture of raspberries and blackberries (instead of blueberries) to make the swirl. This was a winner. The berry swirl was tart and delicious, and the lemon frozen yogurt could have even help up on it's own without a fruit swirl. We all really liked this one.