White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

It’s Christmas baking season! With only a few weekends left before Christmas, there isn’t much time for baking. Today, I dedicated the afternoon to baking these yummy treats. Hopefully, I will have time to bake more cookies in the coming week. I originally wanted to make reverse chocolate chip cookies, but I only had about a half cup of white chocolate chips left. Oh no! Time to get creative! I decided to add some chopped up Hershey’s Cookies and Cream bar, some smashed up peppermint candies, and finally I topped the cookies with candy cane bits before placing them in the oven for a festive touch.

White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup Hershey’s cookies and cream bar, chopped
4 mini candy canes, smashed
15 peppermint candies, smashed (If I had more candy canes, I would have used those)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 ̊F or 177 ̊C. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugars, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Add in eggs one at a time, mixing completely. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Fold in chocolate chips, Hershey’s chocolate pieces, and peppermint bits. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Push the balls down slightly and sprinkle crushed candy canes on top of each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes and let cool.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Banana Oatmeal Muffins

Muffins, muffins, muffins! It’s time for another marvelous muffin recipe. Last week, I had a bunch of bananas that were going brown and was thinking about making some lovely banana bread, but the Simmering Seoulmate had a hankering for muffins. So, we decided to make oatmeal banana muffins. I’ve got quite a sweet tooth, so I incorporated some chocolate chips. You can customized this recipe to suit your preferences by omitting the chocolate or by adding add other types of chocolate chips, such as peanut butter chips, or even add some nuts or berries. These delightful treats make a great mid afternoon snack or a quick and easy breakfast. I like to eat them warmed up with a bit of butter on chilly mornings with a cup of coffee.

Ingredients

2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 ̊ F or 190 ̊ C. In a large bowl stir together all of your dry ingredients, with the exception of the chocolate chips. In a smaller bowl, combine vanilla, butter, eggs, and bananas. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and mix until all the dry ingredients are just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips. Spoon the mixture into greased muffin tins. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed clean. Let cool on a wire rack.

Makes 15 muffins.

Pancakes

I am the luckiest girl in the world. My boyfriend cooks me breakfast every day. Sometimes its French toast or fried potatoes and other days it’s a slice of toast with peanut butter or a bagel with cream cheese. It doesn't matter what it is, it’s that it is served to me as I primp myself for work every day. What a guy. So, once and awhile I like to treat him to one of his favorites. Pancakes. Store bought mixes are okay, but I really don’t care for the ones they sell in Korea. Homemade pancakes are easy and delicious, so that’s what I prefer to do. This past weekend, I whipped up a batch. They end up fluffy, but still light. For mine, I always include chocolate chips, while my boyfriend prefers his au natural.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp melted butter
A small handful of chocolate chips, blueberries, or sliced strawberries

Directions
In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and pour in milk, butter and egg. Mix together with a wooden spoon.
Heat a lightly oiled pan over medium high heat and use a soup ladle to pour batter into the pan. Add chocolate chips, fresh fruit, or leave them plain. When the batter begins to bubble flip the pancakes and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with butter and classic Canadian maple syrup. Enjoy!

Makes 10 pancakes.