Peanut Butter Blossoms

Posted by: Annie

These cookies almost didn't happen. Almost two weeks ago, I purchased a giant wholesale sized bag of Hershey Kisses from Costco with the intent of being a nice teacher and having candy in my classroom. Well, this bag never made it to school. It started in my room, and then Scott and I would put it on the coffee table to munch on while we were watching television. And then, you know, a handful would be thrown into my purse, and before I knew it, the bag was dwindling in size and I was falling into a Hershey Kiss induced coma.

I decided I needed to do something "productive" with my giant bag of Hershey Kisses, and peanut butter blossoms immediately came to mind. So, to any readers out there considering making these cookies, my advice would be to buy a normal-sized bag of Hershey Kisses, or else accept that you will be finding little silver wrappers in your car, purse, and bed (ahem), for weeks to come.

Here's what you'll need:

48 Hershey Kisses
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup shortening
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar for rolling

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Unwrap your Hershey Kisses.

In a large mixing bowl, combine shortening and peanut butter. Mix well.

Next, add both sugars to the shortening/peanut butter mixture and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla, and mix well.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add the dry mixture into the peanut butter mixture and mix well.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and roll in granulated sugar. Place on an un-greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.  Remove from the oven, and immediately place a Hershey Kiss in the center of each cookie. Place on wire rack to cool.

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Source: Hershey's

Pumpkin Bread

Posted by: Maggie

Uhhh...we're almost two weeks into September, and I haven't posted a pumpkin recipe yet.

That's just not right.

Annie shared a recipe last fall for pumpkin apple bread, but I still wanted to post the pumpkin bread recipe that we both grew up eating.  I call this my mom's recipe, but she may have gotten it from a cookbook or magazine somewhere back in the day.  Despite living 215 miles away from my mom now, I almost felt like I was back in her kitchen when I had a slice this morning for breakfast.

For those readers who haven't been around for long, here are some of our past pumpkin recipes in case you're looking for fall baking inspiration:

Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies
Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies (best. thing. ever.)
Pumpkin Pie Bars
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Looking through those past posts made me realize how much my photography has improved over the past year. Granted, it's still nothing to write home about, especially compared to my food photography idols (Joy the Baker, and My Baking Addiction in case you're wondering.) Definitely an improvement though. Hurray for natural light!

Here's what you'll need:

2/3 cup shortening (I know...don't yell at me anti-shortening people of the world!)
2 2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 15 ounce can pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
2/3 cup raisins (I used golden raisins because they're what I had on hand)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottoms only of two 9" loaf pans. Mix shortening and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs, pumpkin, and water.  In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves. Gradually beat dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Gently fold in nuts and raisins. Divide batter evenly between two pans, and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool for 45 minutes to an hour before removing from pans. Cool completely on a rack before slicing.

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Banana Pancakes

Posted by: Maggie

I was planning on waiting til Monday to share these pancakes with you, but it's such a good lazy Saturday morning recipe that I figured it would be more logical to give it to you before the weekend.

I don't really like bananas until they're covered in black spots - anytime before that I find them to be too firm, and not sweet enough to eat. Since I always wait until my bananas are super ripe, and since I tend to overbuy them, I always end up with a couple that I waste. In the interest of not throwing away perfectly good food, I made these delicious pancakes. This is definitely a recipe that I'll make again and again - it was super easy, I had all the ingredients in the house, and it kicked the butt of every pancake mix I've ever tried.

This recipe makes 8 pancakes that are approximately 5 inches in diameter each. I was just cooking for myself when I made these, so I stuck the 5 pancakes that I didn't eat in the freezer, and plan to reheat them in the oven at some point according to the directions here. Has anyone ever tried this? I'll be sure to update this post once I know how they turn out after being reheated from frozen.

Here's what you'll need:

Butter for greasing the pan
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 small, very ripe banana, peeled and mashed well
1 cup milk (I used 1%, but any type should work)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Maple syrup, sliced banana, and butter for serving

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together mashed banana, milk, eggs, and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold wet mixture into dry ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix or your pancakes will be tough! The batter will be slightly lumpy.

Preheat your frying pan or griddle (this is my favorite griddle for making pancakes). Butter the griddle and spread around so the cooking surface is evenly coated. Using a dry 1/3 measuring cup, scoop batter onto the griddle. Cook pancakes until the bottom is golden brown, and small holes start to form on the uncooked side. Flip pancake to the uncooked side, and cook for about 2 minutes more, until golden brown.

Repeat with remaining batter until it's all used up. If you can't cook a lot of pancakes at once due to having a small griddle, or just a frying pan, here's a tip that I use sometimes: Preheat your oven to 200 degrees, and line a pie plate with foil. As you cook the pancakes, stick them in the pie plate to stay warm, and gently cover with foil so they don't get dried out.

(Note: I updated this recipe on 9/12 to clarify the addition of butter to the recipe. When I made this, I only used butter on the skillet, and did not add it to the batter as the original recipe instructed. I think it's probably why they turned out so fluffy, instead of flat! If you would like to use butter in the batter please refer to the original recipe at the link below. Sorry for any confusion!)

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Adapted from Williams-Sonoma, The Kids Cookbook

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