Oatmeal Trail Mix Cookie Bars

Another day - another cookie bar. There are few things I really, really love in this world. At the top of the list are cookies and bars. Okay, so maybe I’m thinking of another kind of “bar” right now, but it’s just Tuesday of a week that already looks like it will never end. I need something to carry me through! Cookie bars. Enough said.

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups oats (quick-cooking)
1 cup trail mix
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 11x13” pan with cooking spray, and set it aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the first 5 ingredients, and set it aside as well.

In a separate bowl, cream together the softened butter and both sugars. Once that is fully incorporated, stir in the eggs and vanilla and mix again.

Slowly add in 1/3 of the dry flour/oat mixture and stir until combined. Repeat with the rest of the flour/oats (adding 1/3 at a time) until all ingredients form a thick batter.

Lastly, stir in the trail mix. I used already prepared trail mix from Trader Joe’s, but feel free to make your own using nuts, raisins, M&M candies, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, etc.

Spread the batter evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan and bake it for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Tollhouse Cookie Bars

The first cookies I ever remember making are these Tollhouse cookie bars. I don’t think anything has compared to them since, and trust me I’ve done a lot of “comparing.” These cookies are simple and easy to throw together, but the variations to the recipe are endless. My mama always made them using semi-sweet chocolate chips, and halfway through the bake time, she’d run a knife through the dough to create a swirly chocolate pattern. My version includes pecans and dark chocolate chips, but you can substitute with white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, your favorite nuts, dried fruit, coconut, etc. Go crazy and clean out your pantry! Empty pantry = full tummy = happy Natalie.

Ingredients:

2-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (1, 12-oz. pkg.) dark chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9”x13” pan with cooking spray and set it aside.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and sent this aside as well.

Beat together the butter and both sugars until thoroughly incorporated.

Add in the vanilla and eggs and beat again.

Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the egg/butter/sugar mixture and stir until well combined. Continue to add the rest of the flour mixture (1/3 at a time) until it all the flour is used. The dough will be extremely thick at this point.

Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.

Smooth the dough out evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan, and bake it for about 20 minutes or until the top of the cookies becomes golden brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for at least 15 minutes. Once cooled, cut into bars and serve.

Glazed Orange-Sour Cream Cake

Sometimes I walk into my kitchen and feel like I should be on an episode of “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, but I do have pans stacked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa on top of my refrigerator. My lack of kitchen storage is pretty awful, but it doesn’t help that I routinely find excuses to buy yet another pan. This week’s purchase: a bundt pan.

I made an orange-sour cream cake for a friend's bachelorette party this past weekend. Of course I didn’t dare bring it in a plain old rectangle or square pan. Oh no! I needed a whole in the middle! So off I went to Sur La Table and picked up a great little non-stick bundt. Add another couple of inches to the tower!

Cake Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 sticks of butter, at room temp.
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup orange juice
3 tablespoons fresh orange zest

Glaze Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. zest
2-3 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a large bundt pan (or two normal round cake pans) with cooking spray. Do this even if you have a non-stick pan. It can’t hurt!

Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda in a medium sized bowl and set it aside.

Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth (about 2 minutes). Add in the eggs and sour cream, and beat again. While still beating, alternate adding half of the flour mixture and half of the orange juice until all are incorporated. Lastly, fold in your zest. Using a large spoon, carefully transfer your batter to the bundt plan. Bake the cake for about one hour (if using a large bundt pan) or 30 minutes (if using two round cake pans).

Once the cake(s) is finished baking, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for about 5 minutes before inverting it onto a large platter. Allow the cake to cool completely before glazing.


For the Glaze:
Whisk together the powdered sugar, juice and zest. Drizzle the glaze all over the cake. It’s okay if the glaze pools at the plate. It’ll just give you a reason to lick the plate when no one is watching!

Recipe adapted from www.eatingoutloud.com

World's Simplest Apple Tart

Puff pastry makes me look good. Really good. Not only can you fool people into thinking you are an extraordinary baker, you can almost fool yourself into believing it too. Even the most inexperienced bakers can look all fancy-pants when using these sheets of frozen pastry. If you’ve ever used them, you know it’s true. All you have to do is thaw them a little, top them with your favorite fruits, bake, and BAM you’ve got yourself a tart!

Ingredients:

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 apples, cored and sliced thin
1 cup brown sugar
Ice cream or whipped cream to top

Preheat your oven to 415 degrees.

Remove one sheet of frozen puff pastry from the box (they usually come in packs of two). Wrap any unused pastry in foil and return to the freezer to use later.

Allow the puff pastry to sit out (still folded) on your counter while you prepare the apples.

To prepare the apples, core and slice them very thinly and place them in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Mix the sliced apples with the cup of brown sugar. Allow this mixture to sit for a few minutes and become juicy.

Meanwhile, carefully unfold the partially thawed puff pastry dough. Slice the dough down the center of the pasty (from long end to long end) with a sharp knife.

Line one baking sheet with parchment paper or foil and place the two sheets of pastry on top of the foil/parchment.

Arrange the apples in the center of each pastry sheet, slightly overlapping. Eat any gooey apples that don’t fit on the tart. Pop the tarts in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the pastry “puffs” and becomes golden brown around the edges.

Remove the tarts from the oven and place them on a serving dish. Slice and serve with ice cream or whipped cream. This recipe makes 2 tarts.

Recipe adapted from www.thepioneerwoman.com