Sweets For Sweet Friends

Wow! It’s been a tough year. But things seem to be looking up. We’ve seen more friends, been out and about more, and given more hugs than we did all last year. It sure feels good! You know what else feels good? Gifting our sweet friends with our favorite sweets. Chocolate is our love language and we feel that a gift of chocolate will ALWAYS brighten someone’s day. This Saturday we’re baking our favorites, brownies and chocolate chip cookies, and giving them to some of the sweetest people we know. Friends, hugs, chocolate…yep, things are definitely looking up!!!

Pop’s Top Sweet

Celebrating the fathers in our lives always means showering them with love and…sugar. But as far as dads go our guys like to keep things pretty simple. That’s why our Chocolate Chip Cookies always top the list of their all time favorite treats. What Pop wants Pop gets. At least on this special day!

Sister Sweetly’s Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Birthday Sweets

They say it’s your birthday and you can cry if you want…but we’ll happily treat instead! Cookie Butter Cookie Crack! Our wish came true! Cookie Butter Cookie Crack

Ingredients

• 16 ounces dark chocolate chips melted
• 4 ounces creamy cookie butter, warmed until pourable
• chocolate chunk cookies, crumbled (ingredients and recipe)
• 1 extra large dark chocolate bar
• 15 mini Heath bars

Directions

Bake 1/2 dozen chocolate chunk cookies according to recipe above

Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Pour the dark chocolate onto the wax paper and use a spatula to spread out the chocolate into a thin layer.

Pour the cookie butter over the chocolate and lightly swirl.

Crumble the chocolate chip cookies onto the chocolate mixture and lightly press down to adhere. Do the same with the dark chocolate bar and mini Heath bars. 

Place the baking sheet into the fridge or freezer until fully hardened, about 2 hours.

Break into pieces and store in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to serve.

Celebrate! 

City Sweets

We have had a lot of fun being tourists in our city. From riding the streetcar to trying out hip downtown restaurants, the city has been our favorite destination. Lucky for us the city offers lots and lots of sweets. In particular, one day we sampled a delicious cookie at quaint little downtown cafe. So delicious, in fact, that we knew we’d need to have another one soon. Good thing we love to bake because Ultimate Sea Salt Cookies are what you will find in our oven this Saturday. With a little bit of salt and a lot of sweet they’re the perfect way to reminisce about our wonderful adventures in our very own city.Ultimate Sea Salt Cookies

Recipe:

Follow the recipe for our Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies, except replace the M&Ms with butterscotch chips and sprinkle with sea salt before baking. YUM!

Sister Sweetly’s Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sweet Celebration

Well hello Saturday! It’s nice to see you. We could not wait for you to be here. This week our sweet tooth was kicking in extra hard but we managed to refrain from indulging until you arrived. Today we are not only sweeting it up, we are getting our craft on too. First, we are creating Jolly Rancher Cross Lollipops. Tina’s daughter is getting confirmed in our church on Sunday so we thought these would be a great addition to our brunch. They fit perfectly with the theme of our celebration and are a fun little goody for kids of any age. 

Secondly, as you know by now, our preferred treat usually consists of something gooey and chocolaty. So…we are whipping up a batch of our favorite Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies to have on the side. Having chocolate on the side is very important to us! 

We’re looking forward to our day of baking and creating and celebrating Tina’s daughter’s accomplishment tomorrow. Way to go girl!

  Jolly Rancher Cross Lollipops

The supplies you will need:

1 bag of Regular Jolly Ranchers

Wooden Kitchen Skewers

Parchment

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit.

Unwrap the jolly ranchers and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 

The Jolly Rancher in the middle of the cross needs extra oven time, so put it on the cookie sheet and in the oven on the center rack for 1 minute. 

Remove the tray from the oven and arrange the rest of the Jolly Ranchers around the middle one in a cross shape. Put them as closely together as possible. 

Put the tray back in the oven, and heat for about 5 minutes, or until the Jolly Ranchers melt together.

Take the tray out of the oven, immediately place the stick on the cross, and roll until the candy surrounds the stick. 

Allow the candy to cool and harden, then lift off the parchment. 

Sister Sweetly’s Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Sweet Smell of Success

Woo Hoo! We did it! We completed our 3 week clean eating cleanse. Now it’s time to celebrate. And boy are we gonna! This Saturday we’re goin back to the basics, old school if you will. We’ll be treating and cheating with our favorite cookie recipes. Both Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies and Oatmeal Scotchies are just what our tummies ordered. Let the baking festivities begin! 

  
Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

  
Oatmeal Scotchies

The Motherload of all Sweet Treats

Around here we’re all about fitness. However, lately we’ve been nursing some injuries and not feeling so willing to over-indulge. But after some time of tightening our calorie belts we’re ready to spoil ourselves. Prepare yourself people for the supreme, the outrageous, dare we say, the motherload of all sweet treats! We present to you The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie n’ Oreo Fudge Brownie Bar! Leave it to chocolate to make us feel much, much better! 

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie n’ Oreo Fudge Brownie Bar

  
Ingredients

Cookie Dough

3/4 stick Crisco® Baking Sticks Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening 

1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons almond milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

1 3/4 cups  All Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

HEAT oven to 375ºF.
COMBINE shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Beat in egg. Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Mix into shortening mixture until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips. 

* recipe adapted from Crisco
1 pkg Oreos

1 Family Size (9×13) Brownie mix + eggs and oil as called for on the back of the box

¼ cup hot fudge topping

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with foil. Coat generously with nonstick cooking spray.

For the Cookie Dough
Spread the cookie dough in the bottom of prepared pan. Top with a layer of Oreos. Mix together brownie mix according to directions, adding an optional ¼ cup of hot fudge topping to the mix. Pour the brownie batter over the cookie dough and Oreos. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-55 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting. Brownies may still be gooey in the middle when still warm, but will set up perfectly once cooled. Enjoy!!
* recipe adapted from Kevin and Amanda

A Sweet Gift For Grads

If you are like us, you have many graduations to attend. Besides cash, what’s something every grad will love? Homemade chocolate chip cookies! Indeed!!! Take a batch to your favorite graduate and send them on a journey to the sweet life!  

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies 

 

Ingredients

3/4 cup Butter Flavored Crisco Stick

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together Crisco, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla using an electric mixer. Beat in egg until well combined.
Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together into a separate mixing bowl. With mixer on low speed, carefully add flour mixture 1/4 cup at a time until a soft dough forms. Add chocolate chips, Heath, and M&Ms to dough, stirring by hand.
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough 3 inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet after removing from oven, and transfer to a wire rack to allow cookies to cool completely.
* recipes used from Crisco

Spooktacularly Sweet

Halloween is one of our most favorite times of the year. Why, you ask? Sweet treats galore, we answer! This Saturday we are baking up a treat with a little trick. It’s a simple one, but  guaranteed to give you the EEK factor. Spider Infested Chocolate Chip Cookies are the perfect snack to feed all of your hungry little ghosts and goblins.

Spider Infested Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

 Ingredients

3/4 cup Butter Flavored Crisco Stick
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup dark chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, cream together Crisco, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla using an electric mixer. Beat in egg until well combined.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together into a separate mixing bowl. With mixer on low speed, carefully add flour mixture 1/4 cup at a time until a soft dough forms. Add 1/2 cup of both kinds ofchocolate chips, stirring by hand.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough 3 inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet.

Place some of the reserved chocolate chips on top of each cookie just to be sure you have chips with which you can make your spiders.

Remember to keep about 1/2 cup of the dark chocolate chips for the spiders.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet after removing from oven, and transfer to a wire rack to allow cookies to cool completely.

Place 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips in a small microwave safe bowl. Heat for 20 seconds, stir, then for 15 seconds, stir. Allow the chocolate to sit for 1 minute, then stir again. If you need to, heat it for 10 more seconds, then repeat until melted. Pour into a squeeze-it mold painter bottle fitted with a #2 round pastry tip, or a disposable pastry bag or zip top bag with the tip snipped off.

Pipe on spider heads and legs around some of the larger chocolate chips. Allow to dry.

*Recipe adapted from Hungry Happening

*Chocolate chip cookie recipe adapted from Crisco Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe