31 Days of Cookies . Day 18. Birthday Cake Cookie

Last week was Kate's birthday. We had a family celebration on Thursday, and I really wanted to make birthday cookies (since I have to make cookies for this month anyway) instead of birthday cake. But thought that might be a little lame. Kinda tough to put candles into cookies.

But then... what if I used that delicious Blondie recipe I made the other day and put it in a round pan and slice it like a cake. We could even put candles in it. Yay! Solution.

Sophie loves cookies too, and she loves to help, so I enlisted her help to get this done for her mommy's birthday.

Here we go...

2 sticks butter (I just noticed that I was supposed to melt the butter. Maybe that's why my dough was so thick. Oh well, it came out fabulous anyway!)
1 1/2 C brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 t vanilla

Beat all that together, then mix and add:

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t kosher salt

Stir in about 1/2 bag chocolate chips (or some mini peanut butter cups)

Spread into a pan. I used an 11-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.

Bake about 40-45 minutes. You're supposed to let it cool completely in the pan, but since we wanted it really warm to melt the ice cream a little (BJ's Pizookie-style), I served it warm.

Sophie and I were having so much fun I had Kate take some of the photos. Here's my not-so-great, evening-lighting photo of the cookie cake right out of the oven. (excuses, excuses...)

Such a fun birthday cake-ie.

And Happy Birthday, Kate!

 

31 Days of Cookies . Day 9 . Blondies

Yesterday got a little crazy so I missed getting my post up. But I'm back with a really good one.

Someone asked me the other day what a blondie is. Hmmm... how do you describe it? Sort of like a vanilla brownie with chocolate chips, maybe? I don't make them often, and have a couple recipes that I like, but here's a new one...

I got this from RealSimple.com, and of course I made some changes. The most notable being that I used chocolate chips instead of mini peanut butter cups. I had none in the house, and didn't want to wait to make them. I bet they are delicious!

RealSimple.com

Their instructions said to butter the pan, then put 2 pieces of buttered parchment in the pan criss-crossed. The recipe has so much butter, I didn't think it was really necessary. And it wasn't. I put one piece of parchment just to make it easier to take out of the pan and cut with a longer knife. But I did butter the sides that didn't have parchment paper, just to be sure...

I expected the dough to be like brownie batter, but it was actually pretty stiff. More like cookie dough, so I had to spread it in the pan.

Don't they look so good just out of the oven? I had a hard time waiting for them to cool to have a taste!

They are yummy! Get the recipe here and enjoy!