My Take on the Magic Cookie Bar

I have been neglecting my postings recently. April has been an extremely busy month, and I haven't done much experimenting in the kitchen to produce new dishes to share. One glimmer from the last four weeks is the one sweet indulgence that I baked. Bars are so quick and simple to make when you have a hankering for something sweet. I threw these together with some basic ingredients that I always have on hand.

My Magic Cookie Bars

2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup pecans
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix the first three ingredients together in an ungreased 9x13 inch pan until incorporated and all crumbs are moist. Spread across bottom of pan and press evenly into the corners with fingers. Pre-bake for 5 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Sprinkle evenly over the crust the coconut, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and pecans. Drizzle all over with the sweetened condensed milk. Return to oven and bake for 20 minutes or until set. Let cool thoroughly, and then cut into squares to serve.

Fresh out of the oven and so ooey-gooey! I plated one and took a side-on view so you can see the crust:

Very indulgent with many layers of flavour. I have been the envy of my colleagues at work bringing a square in every day as part of my lunch.

For my beats, I decided to turn to an indulgence from my youth. Since these bars are sweet, frivolous, and satisfying, I'm going with a good old Spice Girls tune. I have a very vivid memory of making a music video to this song with my friends and my little brother (wearing a Baby Spice blonde wig!), so this song never fails to make me smile and feel silly. Here's Stop by the Spice Girls.

My All-Time Favourite: Everything Cookies

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I do in fact have a favourite cookie of all-time. This is a big deal for me, because I tend to be a very indecisive person, and I rarely have a favourite anything. If you asked me for my favourite movie/book/song/actor/singer, I wouldn't be able to even begin to narrow down the field. Now if you've been reading the blog, I think it's obvious that cookies are one of my favourite things, as I have more posts about baking cookies than any other item. Although I love them all, I have one "go-to" recipe, adapted from The Happy Baker Cookbook (ironically, in the book, it's called "Erin's Go-To Cookie"). I call my version the Everything Cookie. Why? Because it has a little bit of everything to satisfy all the indecisiveness inside me.

Everything Cookies

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup quick cooking oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut

Preheat oven to 375F. In a small bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In a large bowl, combine sugars and butter. Beat until light and fluffy. Add peanut butter, vanilla, and egg; mix well. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips and the coconut.
Drop by teaspoonfuls on a cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes until centres are puffed.

Add a tall glass of cold milk, and all of my cookie desires are fulfilled!

For the beats, I'm choosing a throw-back to my childhood since these cookies make me feel young. I grew up listening to Motown. No, I didn't grow up in the 60's. My parents did, however, and they controlled the stereo, so I came to love the music. I'm choosing I'm Gonna Make You Love Me by The Supremes and The Temptations. It combines two power groups of Motown (much like how these cookies combine many staple cookie ingredients), and with just one bite, these cookies will make you love them too.

Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

First treat of the blog! These I made yesterday in the heat of the afternoon. One of the favourite recipes in our family growing up was Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. The recipe evolved over the years, but none of us ever had the idea to add peanut butter. I'm a fan of bananas, peanut butter, and chocolate together, so I thought they could make a perfect marriage in a muffin. Because I couldn't find the original family recipe on my computer, I did a quick google search and came across a recipe on Baked Perfection that I modified slightly to make my muffins:

Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (my teaspoon is generous…more like two!)
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup peanut butter (I would add more next time, at least ¾ cup)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/4 cup butter melted
3/4 cup chocolate chips

¼ cup peanut butter chips
1 tablespoon cinnamon sugar (just cinnamon and white sugar stirred together)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease or line 12 muffin cups.

In a medium-sized bowl mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a second bowl beat together bananas, peanut butter, sugars, vanilla, egg, and melted butter. Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture in two additions until just combined. Stir the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips into the batter. Spoon batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops of each muffin with cinnamon sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

You can tell that's an old pan...pretty certain that's one from my childhood that my mother donated to me when I moved out! But the muffins turned out quite well. As I stated in the ingredients, I would add more peanut butter next time as there wasn't quite enough of a peanut butter hit for my tastes, but they're still moist and delicious!

To power me through the muffin-making, I threw on my favourite band this month, Mumford and Sons. I can't believe that I just discovered them this summer. Love the harmonies and the instrumentation in their stuff. Puts me in mind a bit of the Rankin Family, who my Mom listens to quite a bit. Anyway, this is their newest single - I Will Wait - that I was belting out while baking: