A Smorgasbord of Treats

For those of you alarmed by the different nature of my last post, this post should make up for it.

Last night I made brownies, but I didn't stop there. While the brownies were in the oven, I made mints too! Then I went to bed and woke up this morning and made peanut butter cookies! Lots of baking going on when I really should be doing anything but. I have a lot going on since it is my last semester of college, which I have mentioned, but it is getting a little hectic to say the least with under a month to go.

Lets start with brownies. I wanted to experiment with some kind of add-in that I hadn't tried before. I had some cream cheese in the fridge and some blackberries so I made a blackberry cream cheese to swirl in. Since I wasn't sure how berry cream cheese would compliment the brownies, I only added it to half of the brownies. Both sides turned out wonderfully. I have been craving brownies for a long time and these hit the spot. The berry cream cheese totally worked with the brownies, and the blackberry taste wasn't too strong (which I was worried about). My favorite part of the berry cream cheese brownies was how the seeds from the berries mixed in so every couple of bites I'd get a seed. Those of you who aren't a fan of crunchy seeds probably wouldn't enjoy these brownies as much.

Mixing up the brownie batter.

My very elementary attempt at blackberry cream cheese, with a touch of honey

Since brownies take forever to bake, I decided to occupy my time with another recipe. I actually found the brownie recipe in the little recipe book that came with my stand mixer (which I've used many other times). This same recipe book has a recipe for no-bake mints that I have always been curious about. The mints were very simple to make, just a few ingredients; all I had to do was mix it together, shape the mints, and then store them in the fridge! I was done in 20 minutes. The mints are pretty good, but I think that tonight I may try dipping some in chocolate for a peppermint patty effect.

Mints!

Half and half brownies... just ignore the fact that I poked them a billion times...

Today also happens to be the birthday of one of my awesome friends, Holley, so I wanted to make some cookies for her. Since Holley is the birthday girl, I asked what she had in mind and she requested peanut butter cookies. I've been wanting to make peanut butter cookies forever and had them in mind as well; apparently these cookies were meant to be! In case the coincidence wasn't enough, I recently purchased a giant tub (see photo below) of peanut butter from Costco, so I definitely had the means (and then some) to make peanut butter cookies.

In case you didn't believe me; this thing is enormous! Also, that is a full-sized mixing spoon.. mixing this jar of peanut butter up for the first time was extremely difficult as evidenced in the mess that I was making when I took this photo.

The peanut butter cookies turned out a little crunchier than I would have liked, but they still have an addictive property about them... I ate three right away. I also dipped some of the cookies in chocolate to mix it up, but I was operating under a time crunch so I wasn't able to share any because the chocolate hadn't hardened enough by the time I needed to leave. The chocolate had set by the time I got home and is a nice compliment, but I think next time I'll mix peanut butter in with the chocolate to give it more flavor.

Peanut butter cookies ready for the oven.

Chocolate-dipped! Holley, if you read this... I'm sorry these weren't ready in time to bring to class!