On our Sunday trip to the grocery store  I picked up two pints of Blueberries. Gotta love Summer and the $1.50 per pint price! Blueberry Muffins were a must with these beauties so I went straight to Tasty Kitchen to look for a recipe. I came across a recipe that was titled “Best Blueberry Muffins Ever” With a title like that how could I resist? craftedmybones posted this recipe and turns out she also has a sweet blog called Vanilla & Lace. Thanks Abi for sharing this delicious recipe. They really are The Best Blueberry Muffins Ever!

Ingredients:

For the Muffins

1+1/2 cups All-purpose Flour

3/4 cup Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/3 cup Vegetable Oil

1 whole Egg

1/3 cups Milk

1 cup Blueberries

For the Crumb Topping

1/2 cup Sugar

1/3 cup Flour

1/4  cup Butter

1 + 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tin or use those nifty cupcake liners. – Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add vegetable oil into a one cup measuring cup, add the egg and the milk. It will look like this….

Pretty cool looking! Now take this egg, milk, oil mixture and add it to your flour mixture. Mix it up and fold in those blueberries! For the crumb topping, mix together the sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon. Mix with a fork and sprinkle over the muffins before you bake them. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I set my timer for 20 minutes and at that point they were browning so I pulled them out.  I set them out to cool for a few minutes then shared one with my husband. The BEST. We both agreed! Thanks again Abi for sharing! If you would like to print this recipe then click here.

It’s all good. ~ Donna

Graduation is time for celebration and celebrations call for cake! My son Andrew does not eat cake but he loves cookie cake! I have made cookie cakes before using Nestle Cookie Dough that I bought at the grocery store but this time I wanted to try one from scratch. I found a recipe at the Food Network site and with my Mom’s help we gave it a go! This recipe is from Emeril Lagasse. This is the first recipe of his I have ever tried and it was a huge success! I did make a few changes by using all semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet and white chocolate it called for. I also omitted the nuts. I used a buttercream icing to decorate the cake and found the paper decorations in the scrap book section of JoAnn’s.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts
• 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
• Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish
• Sweetened cocoa, for garnish
• Sweetened whipped cream, accompaniment

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 14 inch, light colored, round pizza pan with parchment paper and grease the parchment paper. Thanks Mom!

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Add the eggs, beating well after the addition of each. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix with a wire whisk. Add to the butter mixture, mixing to incorporate.

That’s Mom adding the vanilla extract to the mix.

Fold in the chocolate chips and nuts if you are using them.

Spread across the bottom of the prepared pan. Now, we were not sure if we were supposed to cut the circle to fit just the bottom of pan and we decided to leave room up the side. It turned out to be helpful when I was moving the cookie around when I took it out of the oven. As you can see, this picture of the cookie cake was taken in the oven. With Mom visiting, I skipped a lot of photos! The recipe calls for a cooking time of 20-25 minutes. I checked it at 20 minutes and it was still too mushy in the middle so I let it cook for a total of 25 minutes. The cookie will look golden brown on the edges and the center will be still slightly soft. We  used the toothpick test in the middle and it came out clean. The cookie cooled in the pan for 10 minutes and then I transferred it to a wire rack to cool completely.

We did it!! The icing got a little smushed while sitting on the counter but I was really happy with the result!

I took this photo just so you can see the depth of the cookie. Look at those chocolate chips! The cookie was moist and so delicious! I will be using this recipe for cookie cakes from now on! Thanks Emeril! You can find the original recipe here. Big Thanks to MOM for helping out in the kitchen. It was really wonderful having you visit and so much fun having you participate in this blog post! I had to giggle when I was taking the photo of the ingredients. The vanilla was turned to the side and Mom said ” Don’t they need to see the word Vanilla?”

It’s all good. ~Donna