Two friends, miles apart, who love to bake!
While making more technical, impressive looking desserts can be fun, there’s something to be said for a quick batch of cookies. You know, the kind you make when you find out you’re supposed to bring dessert to someone’s house later that day and have nothing …
Let me start out with a confession: I originally only made these brownies because I had leftover caramel and pretzels from the Everything Cookie Bars. But, they resulted in the best brownies I have ever made! Now, there is a time and place for a boxed brownie …
Sometimes you move to a new city and have to make new friends. And sometimes these new friends invite you over and tell you to bring dessert. Being a food blogger, you feel like you need something impressive. As usual, your other half suggest “those pretzel cookies“, again, and you eventually start throwing everything in your cupboards into the dough and you get these cookies.
Also sometimes you forget to pack your silicone baking mats and don’t have any parchment paper yet and you’re too lazy to want to wash baking sheets so you just make one giant cookie instead. Welcome to my life!
These cookie bars turned out even better than I imagined. They are crunchy on the outside, but still soft on the inside. And the combination of salty pretzels, sweet chocolate and gooey caramel…delicious! Oh, there’s also oatmeal and peanut butter in them. A little bit for everyone!
In case you weren’t already convinced to make these cookie bars for yourself, I’m here to tell you these cookies are good enough to be eaten out of the garbage. No, thats not my new way of describing how delicious things are, my friend told me she literally ate one of these out of the garbage. After deciding she’d had one too many of the cookies, she threw the rest of the bag away. But when she got home from work and was craving a snack decided “wellllll….it can’t hurt to eat it if it’s still in the bag…” and proceeded to dig the bar out of the garbage.
Now if that doesn’t prove how good these cookie bars are, I don’t know what will.
~Stephanie
Everything Cookie Bars
My roommate and I just celebrated our 5 year anniversary (awwww!). It’s true, somehow we survived 5 years under the same roof without killing each other. For two twenty-something year old girls? That’s a cause for celebration. I know other people make Better Than Sex …
I love baking homemade goodies for people for Christmas gifts. I know everyone ends up with piles of cookies and chocolates and candies around the holidays…but I can’t help it. I love baking for people! It seems so much more authentic than just buying them …
Before I begin, this isn’t technically pie- there is no crust. But, it’s baked in a pie tin so I took the creative liberties of calling it a pie. Cool? Great!
So this Caramel Pretzel Brownie Pie… it’s delicious! I have been on huge caramel kick lately. I was sick all last week and caramel was the only thing I craved. Weird, I know, but since I was feeling much better this weekend, I thought I deserved a caramel treat.
These brownies are very reminiscent of LDB’s Samonies and Turtle Brownies. In place of coconut or nuts, I opted for more of a crunch and went with pretzels. Definitely a great substitution! Chocolate, caramel and pretzel is very tough combination to beat.
Brownies are super easy to make homemade but if you have boxed mixed at home, which I used, the taste is not compromised.
These brownies are rich… and I mean rich. I love caramel and chocolate but could only handle a few bites. Which is fine by me because I now have dessert for the week! Hope you enjoy 🙂
-Kelly
Ingredients:
Directions:
Sometimes you just need chocolate. Rich, dark, ooey-gooey chocolate. With maybe some caramel deliciousness. And nuts. Lots of nuts. I used to be a firm believer in always keeping a box of brownie mix on hand. You never know when that craving will strike! I’m …
Caramel. Apple. Spice. Blondies. Do these scream fall or what?! I was questioning saving this recipe for later. Figured even though I’m obsessed with everything fall already, maybe other people are still enjoying the last rays of summer. Maybe they’re not ready for fall yet. But then I …
Happy 4th of July!! I often wonder when reading about the American Revolution and the early years of our country (I do this fairly often), what our Founding Fathers would think of America today. Do you think that too or am I just nerding out on history??
Also, as a side-note, one day when I own a house with a backyard and get a dog, preferably a husky or lab, one of the potential names of my future dog is George Washington. I also have the names of my future children picked out and they all happen to be from presidents… I swear I’m not that history obsessed I just really like presidential names! I mean, come on, how cute would it be to see a little Abe and Teddy running around?
Anyway, back to the dessert at hand: Chocolate Caramel Peanut Clusters. These are seriously the easiest thing you will ever make. In fact, if you need to whip up a dessert for today, look no further! These are inspired by my Aunt Joy’s peanut clusters that she used to make every year around Christmas. I was going to recreate her classic recipe but I had a huge hankering for caramel so I decided to incorporate caramel into the mix. These definitely hit the spot and satisfied my caramel craving!
Although this is a super simple recipe, it is done in two steps with refrigeration time in between. Step one is the caramel/peanut cluster formation. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before step 2, which is dipping the clusters in chocolate. Refrigerate for at least another hour before serving!
Be warned, these are addicting but totally delicious! Hope you enjoy and have a wonderful 4th of July!
-Kelly
Ingredients:
Directions:
I have taken a little 2 week hiatus from baking (sorry for slacking Steph!) so this weekend I decided to do nothing but bake! Well and sleep, read, workout, go to church, watch the Oscars, take two naps… ok so I didn’t spend the whole …