Chocolate Lava Cake

Picture and recipe taken from Creations By Kara. (obviously)

I pinned this recipe a while ago and while deciding what dessert to make for Seth's Father's Day dinner, I came across it again and knew I needed to make it.
It was surprisingly easy and incredibly yummy. I really thought it tasted like a dessert you'd get a restaurant.

Chocolate Lava Cake
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate (I used Baker's chocolate bars found right by the chocolate chips, but the other lady used chocolate chips)
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
9 Tbsp flour
Butter 6 ramekins or custard cups. (I found a pack of 4 custard cups at Target for just over $6 and they came with lids, so I thought it was a pretty good deal.0 Put chocolate and butter in a large glass bowl. Melt in microwave at 50% power, stirring every 30 seconds till smooth. Whisk in powdered sugar till thoroughly combined and melted. Whisk in eggs and yolks. Stir in flour. Divide batter between the 6 ramekins, I actually made 7 and thought the portions were still good. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake in a preheated 425° oven for 13-14 minutes.

You must absolutely serve this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it is for sure rich, but oh so yummy. Since it has odd numbers of eggs and yolks you can't really cut it in half for those of you with smaller families, but I bet you could keep the batter in the fridge for a while and just bake a couple at a time. Although, I microwaved our extra ones the next day and they still were yummy. (Although they definitely did not come out as easy of the cups as before.)

 Hope you'll splurge on this extra special dessert. :)

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Picture and recipe from LDS Living.

If you came to the temple picture making class I did, these are some of the cookies I made. They are some of my most favorite cookie. They're unique, light, and full of yummy flavor. If you like lemon, you'll LOVE these. ;)

Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Makes 2-3 dozen

Ingredients:
½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cups powdered sugar

 Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

*If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

MY TIP- the first time I made it was doubling it, so I used 1/2 cup butter AND 1/2 cup margarine (cause I'm cheap like that) and I thought they were delish. The next time, I used only margarine and I could definitely tell they weren't as good. I've never made it with all butter, but I'm sure if you're a butter lover, that would probably make them divine. But using half butter and half margarine is a great alternative. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Picture and recipe from Creations By Kara.

I made these the other day when we were having presidency meeting at my house so I wouldn't be tempted to eat them all alone. :) And they were super yummy!! And they were all very impressed as they look pretty fancy. They are very rich though, so definitely only make them when you have lots of people to share with.


Magic Middle Cookies
Peanut butter filling:
3/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
Dough:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp soda
1/4 tsp salt
Sugar for rolling
For filling, stir together peanut butter and powdered sugar till smooth. Cover and chill while you prepare the dough. Beat sugars, butter, and peanut butter till creamy. Beat in vanilla and eggs till well combined. Stir together dry ingredients and add. Stir till well mixed. Roll dough into 24-26 balls. Remove filling from fridge and roll into balls.
To make cookies, take a ball of cookie dough and flatten it out in your palm. Place a ball of filling in the middle. Wrap the dough around the PB filling and pinch together to seal. Roll the ball in your hand to smooth it out. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Roll the cookie dough balls in sugar and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Flatten to about 1/2" thick using the bottom of a glass. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

MY TIP- scoop out all the cookie dough into balls so you'll know how many cookies you'll be making. Then roll the peanut butter mixture into a long snake and cut it into the correct amount to match up with the cookies. Otherwise you'll be like me and have some in the beginning with very little filling cause you have no idea how much to put in and then some at the end with TONS.

These are really quite easy for how impressive they look. Enjoy!!

Walnut Blondies with Maple Butter Sauce

Okay, as if that title needs any more of an introduction...  THESE ARE SO GOOD.  I made a batch on Sunday... minus the walnuts and the white chocolate chips, hahaha.  Even without they were still sooo delicious.  Then Ging and I made the real recipe on Tuesday, and they were at least 10 times yummier.  That said, here are a few notes:

- These are super rich, so I would definitely recommend eating them with plenty of ice cream. :)

- I didn't make the sauce either time, so I don't know if that's hard... Plus, like I said, it's super rich, so I think it's fine without.  But if anyone makes it with the sauce, let me know.

- I think this recipe might be easier to make if you double it... just because of some of the weird measurement sizes.

- When I baked it at my house, I used a 9 x 9 pan, and they cooked just fine.  At Ginger's we put it in a pan that was a little smaller—so they were thicker—and we had to cook them for extra time and they still ended up a little doughy in the middle.

http://www.recipesecrets.net/blog/recipes/copycat-applebees-walnut-blondie-with-maple-butter-sauce/