Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (with Coconut)

Brown butter is quite the craze lately and it's easy to see why.  It turns plain butter into a caramelly/toffee tasting substance which is SO yummy to cook with.  These cookies were really delicious but I couldn't help but think how much yummier they would be if they morphed with my new favorite cookie recipe-  Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies

This brown butter cookie is SUCH a great base but I think it could be even better if you added the mix-ins from the cookie above. If you want to do this I wrote the step into the recipe for you, but you'll need 3/4 cup broken pretzels, 3/4 cup peanut butter chips, and 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips.

There is coconut in this recipe but you can't really taste it.  It is more of a texture thing.  You can omit it if you want or replace it with oats.

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Chewy Snickerdoodles

Sometimes you hafta post a recipe just so you can post ANOTHER recipe that uses the first recipe.

(Does that make sense? Keep a look out for a yummy dessert that uses Snickerdoodle pieces in the next week or two.)


I know Snickerdoodles are kind of a *boring* cookie, but my husband says these are the best chewiest ones he's ever tasted.  So I figured you deserved the recipe to these.

Please pronounce them "schhnicker-doodle" when offering them to others.

It's funny.  I promise.

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Toasted Coconut Ice Cream & Almond Joy Ice Cream

This morning I walked in to get my 2 year old from his crib to find he had styled his hair with poop.


True story.
 

An experience like that completely qualifies you to eat ice cream for breakfast.  (And lunch) (And the rest of the day if you want to.)

But first you have to wash your hands A LOT and sanitize your house for three or four hours.

I know you came to a dessert blog to read about this.



Anyway, this is my very favorite homemade ice cream. The toasted coconut is really good, but you can omit it if you want a smooth texture.    (This will make the ice cream less coconutty, but a little bit of coconut extract can help that.)

If you had a *REALLY* bad day- make yourself the almond joy version- (below) and go heavy on the fudge.

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Strawberry Blonde Ice Cream

You know that blonde's are the best, right? :)

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Pina Colada Starfruit Push Pops

As of this week my preschooler is out of school for the summer, so we are celebrating (mourning?) by making popsicles this week.  These are pretty darn good even if they don't have Flinstone's characters printed on the outside.

You can make these with any kind of juice you want.  Hawaii's Own makes lots of tropical juice flavors that would be yummy.  You can also sub coconut milk for the regular milk if you have it, or omit the shredded coconut if you want a smoother pop. 

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Samoa Bark

Many moons ago I was a 'Brownie' and sold Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties door to door.  One year my mom was driving me around the neighborhood to deliver my cookies and we had a big fight.

(I was like 7 and I'm pretty sure I didn't want to deliver cookies to my mean neighbors so I tried to convince her to do it.)

Anyways, I stomped off and ran home.

Except she thought I stomped off to deliver the cookies.

So she waited in the car outside my neighbor's house.  And waited.  And waited.

And then she went up to their doorstep and accused them of kidnapping me.

They had a big doorstep scene. 

You can probably see why Girl Scout cookies bring back good memories for me.  

Sorry Mom!!

While these don't taste exactly like real Samoa's, they are still dang good, and they are super simple and look fancy to boot.  

I used Walker's shortbread because I had some left over from my huge Christmas tin, but they were a bit overwhelming in the buttery dept.  I think Lorna Doone's would have been even better.

(By the way... my shortbread were still sealed and not expired, so it's ok that they were from Christmas, right? :) )

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Cotton Candy Cupcakes

So I tripped over a dead body laying in my hall last night.  And then again about ten minutes later, and ten minutes after that the dead body zombie-chased me through the house while I screamed bloody murder and attempted to run away.

I will probably think twice before buying my 4 year old "body pajamas" again.

If I had a mom who made me cotton candy cupcakes I would not zombie stalk her.

Just sayin...



I made these cotton candy cupcakes a couple months ago right as the Lorax craze began.  These certainly have nothing to do with truffula trees as much as they might look like it, so I decided to wait to post them.  The cupcakes have cotton candy sandwiched inside them before baking (it melts into the batter as they bake) and are topped with a sugary cotton candy frosting.  These definitely make kids' eyes light up.

And keep zombies at  bay.

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Snicker's Salad

Forgive me for going all health-kick on you lately.   I thought you might need a recipe or two for when you're asked to bring a green salad to a summer BBQ or something.


You know you want to :)


I've noticed Snicker's salad making an appearance in the blog world lately, but every recipe I've seen is different than ours.  Some call just for Cool Whip and some for Cool Whip + vanilla pudding.  Our family recipe uses cream cheese along with the Cool Whip.  It's kind of tastes like caramel apple cheesecake.

Totally a salad worthy of summer BBQ season. 

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Almond Sugar Cookies

When I was a kid we used to get Marzipan treats in our stockings.  (In Europe they make marzipan pigs, marzipan fruits, all kinds of stuff.)  I think because of this I have a HUGE almond-extract aversion.  

 It probably has NOTHING to do with overindulgence.

Or I thought I did.  Recently I've discovered I actually like pure almond extract in moderation, it's just that imitation stuff that gives me the shivers.  

These cookies are a nice spin-off of the usual.  They are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. Feel free to roll them in any color sugar you desire.  I think the thick granulated sugars used for cupcakes are the prettiest.

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Coconut Cream Cupcakes

I feel like I might be running out of ways to tell you how good things are.  Let me just say, these are beyond fantastic.  I could NOT stop eating these.  The cream filling isn't very sweet and pairs perfectly with the sweet sweet frosting and the crunch of the coconut on top.  I screwed up and made the frosting with salted butter which made them a little strangely salty and they were STILL fantastic.  That, my friends, is the sign of a great recipe.

This is one of those weird cupcakes where the pieces all by themselves are just ok, but when you combine them all together, something magical happens. So wait until they are all assembled to judge.  (I actually think they get better as they age so you may want to make these 24 hrs before serving.)

Don't be intimidated by the long recipe.  Yes, there are a lot of steps, but they are all easy (the coconut cream filling doesn't even require any cooking!)

When I do cupcakes I usually bake them the night before and do fillings/frosting the next day to break things up a little bit. Plus then you'll have naked cupcakes to munch on the night before.


For an Easter version you can throw a few jellybeans on top of the coconut or stick a peep on top.

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