I have a confession to make... I love cupcakes. But, I especially love cute cupcakes. Cute cupcakes make my life. Cute cupcakes like... these!
Cupcakes with smooth, off-white frosting, and chocolate jimmies, and a sprinkle of oatmeal flour that looks like little gold bits. Love love love! There is nothing more satisfying when baking than turning out unbearably adorable cupcakes that are almost too cute to eat. Almost, because not eating these would be a sin. These are oatmeal chocolate chip cupcakes, and they are out of this world. They are like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies... but, you know, better, cause they are cupcakes and topped with deliciously sweet frosting. Yum.
Happy Sunday! As my Facebook fans know, I am a mere nine posts away from 100! Eight including this one. I can hardly believe it! It would have been cool if I had been organized enough to post on my blog's birthday, but that was in March and it just went completely over my head. Whoops! But I should point out that it's not even my real blog birthday! I started this blog a good 6 months before then, but I just wasn't organized and I put WAYY too many pictures (I blame you, Pioneer Woman), and I went over my data allowance really, really soon. Being cheap and lazy, I abandoned it rather than pay for additional storage. Hah! I then went back awhile later and wiped the blog completely clean. Like, NOTHING was left. And then I started again in a much better and more organized way. With a lot less pictures. I would like to point out I literally had like 60+ pictures on a SINGLE BLOG POST. Oh.My.Gah. Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that is coming up soon! Now, onto today's recipe... chewy, crunchy peanut butter banana chocolate chip cookies. A bit of a mouthful, but... I can't leave any of that out of the name. Just deal with it. :)
I had to include both chewy and crunchy because the cookie itself is wonderfully soft and chewy thanks to the bananas... but it also has crunchy peanut butter and some ground oatmeal for a little crunch. These are fabulous. I have made How Sweet Eats' original recipe like a bazillion times for my nanny kids, and they LOVE it. They go crazy for bananas and peanut butter and chocolate, and they requested the cookies on back to back to back days. I had some overripe bananas at home, and I figured I could finally make them for my family. But not without messing with them! Because a recipe is no good if you can't fudge it up. These came out awesome! I think I like my version better than the original because it has some extra texture... the others are very soft and chewy, but these are soft AND have little crunchy bits. Mmm. Also, I would like to point out my family loved them even though they claim to not like bananas in desserts. Or peanut butter. Whatever. I think this proves that if I make something, they will eat it without question. So yummy. Make them! :)
Happy Saturday! I was gonna post again sooner, I swear! I had made you guys some awesome-looking chocolate muffins and I was ready to tell you all about them. But then... I actually tasted them and they were just... blah. Totally not blog-worthy. I was so sad. And THEN, I had to wait for my family to eat all of said muffins before I could make anything new. So, without any more stalling, here is my newest treat! Dark chocolate caramel corn. Mmmmm.
I was at the store earlier today with my little brother, and he wanted me to spend a ridiculous amount of money on some gross 100-calorie packs of chocolate drizzled caramel corn. I told him, "I am not buying those! I can so easily make caramel corn at home, and it will taste so much better!" And you know what he said? "You always say that, but then you never make the stuff." Well, excuuuuse me if you don't remind me! So I made this immediately after dinner, mostly just to prove him wrong. See, I do make treats when I say I will! Hmph. Silly little 10 year old. This caramel corn is sticky, ooey, gooey... and terrible if you have braces. I could hardly eat it cause it glued my mouth shut! But what I did eat of it tasted delicious. Easy treats are the best. Enjoy! Even your inner pre-teen will be pleased.
Before you say anything... I know. I am SO on a blogging roll. Three days in a roll, whooop! Am I making it too obvious that my boss is out of town this week and I don't have work? Oops. I do not care. I love baking and baking loves me and I love to share this with you guys. :) And now, I will tell you a story. I went to the health-food store with my mom last week and bought several stalks of rhubarb thinking about Smitten Kitchen's rhubarb snack cake. Well, lo and behold, I completely forgot about the sad little rhubarb dying in my fridge until just a couple days ago when I had those black bean brownies in the oven. Of course I remembered as something else was already baking. Lucky for me, those brownies were gone in a little over a day, which left me free to make something else. Namely, this.
Holy yum. Say hello to this strawberry rhubarb crumb cake. This is the perfect summery dessert. It is a little sweet and a little tangy and full to the brim of crisp rhubarb and juicy berries. The cake base is perfectly lemony and buttery, and the brown sugar crumble topping just seals the deal. I had never baked with rhubarb before, and I had only tasted it once... and it was with strawberries. I was a little scared of making this cake with only rhubarb, and I added some berries as I remembered about our last encounter. I think this may have saved my cake, as we could barely taste the rhubarb! I did not even tell my picky brothers this was anything besides a strawberry crumb cake. I am just sneaky like that. :)
Okay, um. I think by now we all know I kinda have a brownie problem. I have made them with diet coke, with sweet potatoes, with pumpkin (more than once); I have mixed them in banana bread, I have covered them in peanut butter, and I have turned them into s'mores. And now? I put beans in them. I seriously just can't leave brownies alone! I have a confession though... this may be my all-time favorite brownie recipe. No joke!
This brownie recipe gets a nutritional boost thanks to a whole can of black beans, which add fiber and protein, and sub in for flour. I am not a gluten expert, but I do think this makes them gluten-free. Score! I love that these are embarrassingly easy, and are minimally messy.... they are one-bowl! Or, well, one-blender. You make the entire batter in the blender. You don't even have to mix anything! It can't get any easier than that.
Who loves chocolate-covered strawberries? Everyone, right. And who loves cookies? Also everyone. So... how about combining the two into an amazingly delicious concoction? Yes, absolutely. Let's do this!
These cookies are deeeeelicious. They have a sugar cookie base that is soft and chewy and studded with chunks of fresh strawberries, and then it's topped by a dark chocolate drizzle. Drool! The cookie dough itself was to die for... I probably shouldn't have eaten as much of it as I did, but I seriously could not stop. Oops. I loved this recipe because it's a little different than usual. I haven't seen many recipes that combine chocolate and fruit, especially not cookie recipes. Somehow, this just works. It doesn't taste much like an actual chocolate covered strawberry, but it is by all means scrumptious!
Okay. I have decided I owe you all an apology. I have not posted in goodness-knows-how-long, and I really feel bad about it! I truly do. But I have realized that blogging is unfortunately not at the very top of my priorities. I mean, yes, I love blogging, and I adore baking, but there are often just so many things standing in my way, stopping me from doing this whenever I please. I apologize for being the most inconsistent blogger, who does not blog every day (how do you guys do it?!) or every couple days, or even once a week on a regular schedule. I basically just blog when I have time. But you know what? That's just real life. I do what I can, when I can! Anyways, apology over... I'm glad I got that off my chest. Okay, so reason number one I have not blogged in quite a bit... I was out of town for a whole week! In Las Vegas! Whooop! That was fun. In case you missed it, I documented my trip quite a bit through Instragram, so if you do not follow me on there, that needs to change! You will never guess my username....thebakingfairy. Yes, I am nothing if not predictable.
