Cookie Dough Ice Cream

The semester is over. School is over. I feel really, really good about that, but before it was all over, I was a giant ball of stress. That's how this ice cream came to be. If you combine this (minus the OJ) and this, you get delicious, delicious ice cream. I've made two batches now because it is easy, everyone likes it, and it can take stress down a notch.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream mostly from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book:

Makes one quart

Sweet Cream Base #1 -
2 large eggs
¾ cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
and 2 tsp. vanilla

½ recipe peanut butter M&M cookie dough

Make the cookie dough and roll into small balls. Put it on a baking sheet and stick it in your freezer while you work on the ice cream base.

Prep the sweet cream base with vanilla. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. . Pour in cream and milk and whisk to blend. Then whisk in the vanilla. Easy.

Get it going in the ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. About 2 minutes before it is done freezing, add in the cookie dough balls. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 2 hours (overnight is better) to get hard pack. 

And then you eat it and it is good.  I'm really proud of this ice cream and though it can be a bit messy to make, the smiles on the faces of your husband (if you have one of those) and your friends (if you have these...which are really nice things to have) makes it so totally worth the mess. Plus, the smile on your own face because seriously...so good.

PB Chocolate Cupcakes

It’s my birthday, so I’m going to blog about the special extra cupcakes Jamie and I made. I was going to do that after I blogged about the winners anyway, but let’s pretend like this is a special gift to you all because it’s my birthday and not just because I like announcing my birthday everywhere. Moving on…

As part of the cupcake baking deal, Jamie said we had to make some with peanut butter and chocolate as that’s her favorite combo. I scoured some recipes and this one was the winner. Unfortunately, it involves cake mix, which is fine on some occasions, but not usually what I am down with. So I had to find another recipe for the chocolate cake part and it had to be one that was 12 cupcakes. I have a hard enough time getting rid of cupcakes normally and the idea of having 36 cupcakes total was not my idea of a good time. Or at least a healthy one. So I found this one and scaled down the other one…mostly. This happens to me occasionally. I forget I’m scaling down a recipe and one ingredient will stay at full strength. In this case, it was peanut butter, but I think that just made it better. Oh, and we got the wrong kind of Reese’s Cups because they have miniatures (fun size) and minis. We got the minis instead of the miniatures. Don't worry,  it worked out.

My other modification was a ¼ reduction in the frosting recipe. Since I was going for ½ size and because frosting recipes always make way too much, I cut it in half again and I’m glad I did. It was a reasonable amount of frosting.

Check these out because they are a killer combo.

Reese’s Cup Peanut Butter Cupcakes modified from 52 Cupcakes:

Makes 12 tasty cupcakes

For the cupcakes -
1/3 c. Dutch-process cocoa powder
½ c. boiling water
1 c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
6 Tb. unsalted butter, softened
½ c. sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 whole large egg
1 large egg yolk
½ c. creamy peanut butter
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup minis

For the frosting –
¼ stick of butter, room temp
¼ c. shortening (Spectrum makes an awesome organic one)
1 c. confectioners sugar (sifted)
¼ tsp. vanilla
2 Tb. milk
1/8 c. cocoa powder
¼ c. creamy 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 cupcakes cups with paper liners. Place two peanut butter minis on the bottom of each paper liner.

In a small bowl whisk together the cocoa powder and the water until the cocoa powder is dissolved and let the mixture cool to room temperature. In a bowl whisk together the flour, the baking soda, and a pinch of salt. In another bowl with an electric mixer cream together the butter and the sugar and the vanilla extract and then beat in the whole egg and the egg yolk, beating until the mixture is combined well. Beat in the cocoa mixture alternately with the flour mixture, beating well after each addition, and then add the peanut butter and mix well.

Spoon 1/3 cup of batter on top of the mini peanut butter cups.

Bake the cupcakes until they spring back when lightly pressed with your finger. Check them after 15 minutes. They may take 17 minutes, depending on your oven temperature. Ours came out looking like brownies, which I thought was kind of rad. Let them cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, put all ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. We decorated a few with more peanut butter cups. These make for a dense cupcake, most likely because of the extra peanut butter in it. They are very peanut buttery and the minis basically melted into the batter. I’d love to give these a try with the right amount of peanut butter and the right type of peanut butter cup, but overall, I think these were quite the tasty crowd pleaser.

Peanut Butter Balls

I was asked specifically before baking to make something with peanut butter and chocolate. And why not? It's a great combination. Corey found these ones and even though we left out an ingredient, it worked out rather well.

Peanut Butter Balls from food.com:

Makes a lot

1 c. sifted powdered sugar
½ c. creamy peanut butter
3 Tb. butter, softened
1 lb dipping chocolate

Stir together powdered sugar, peanut butter and butter until well mixed. Shape peanut butter mixture into 1 inch balls, placing them on a baking sheet covered with waxed paper. It was at this point Corey realized she had forgotten the butter. We decided to roll with it anyway.

Let balls stand for 20 minutes until dry.

Melt the dipping chocolate or confectioners' coating. Drop balls one at a time in melted chocolate. Using a fork, remove from the chocolate, letting excess chocolate drip off. Place back on the waxed paper. Let stand until dry.

These are super rich. I'm not sure if forgetting the butter ended up being a good thing or not, but these were a nice addition to our cookie plates. To wrap up the whole bake day extravaganza, here are the completed plates themselves. I hope you all had a great Christmas!

Muddy Buddies

Remember when I had the panna cotta at Ciao Vito? That's also when this whole baking extravaganza idea got started. Corey mentioned that she really liked baking and she knew how much I liked baking, so why not have a great big bake day together and give the results to our friends? Why not indeed! So for a few of the upcoming recipes, I’ll be mentioning her a lot as she did a bunch of the work and had a lot of great ideas as well. It was a fun day.

We started out in the morning, went grocery shopping, and came back to my place to bake the day away. And that’s what we did until after 6 in the evening, with only one small hummus break so we wouldn’t die of sugar overload…which I nearly did. Anyway, this was one of the first things to be completed and I only watched it happen. This was all Corey. In fact, I’d never even heard of muddy buddies (original recipe here) before we started this, but I am glad to know what they are now!

Muddy Buddies from chex.com:

Makes 18 ½ cup servings

9 c. Rice Chex
1 c. semisweet chocolate chips
½ c. peanut butter
¼ c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ c. powdered sugar

In a large bowl, measure cereal and set aside.

The directions then have you microwave the chocolate, peanut butter, and butter, but I know that’s not what she did. Since we already had the double boiler out for other things, she used that to melt the above ingredients and blend together. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.



Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. She then put them into a bowl and we kind of, maybe, snacked on a bunch of them throughout the day. They are fantastic!

Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

I have been told a number of times, mostly by my husband and former roomie, that I make amazing chocolate chip cookies. The thing is, I don’t really do anything special. The recipe I use is on the back of the chocolate chip bag and I never change anything about it. So what follows here is less a recipe and more tips on what I do specifically that might make your chocolate chip cookies a little more fantastic. I replaced 1½ cups of the chocolate chips with peanut butter M&Ms as my husband and I had part of a bag left over from when we snuck some into the movie theater the other day. The other ½ cup I did with mini chocolate chips so they wouldn’t be too obtrusive and also because I have a bunch left over from this project.

Peanut Butter M&M Cookies (basic recipe from the back of the chocolate chip bag):

Makes about 24, but I rarely get the same amount as I like cookies of varying sizes

2¼ c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened
¾ c. granulated sugar
¾ c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1½ c. peanut butter M&Ms
½ c. mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.



Before getting started, take your butter out of the fridge and let it get soft. This is part of how it will get really creamy and make your cookies extra chewy and delicious. Take it out and go do something else for a bit. Set it on top of the warming oven. Come back when it’s softened. I use my KitchenAid for the whole process and it makes quick work of it. Muscle power, a bowl and a spoon also work well. Cream one stick of butter and then the other. Let it get really soft and whipped up.

In the meantime, mix the flour, baking soda and salt into a small bowl. Set aside. Once the butter is really creamy, add in the granulated sugar. Once that is fully incorporated, add the brown sugar. Again, wait until it is incorporated and then add the vanilla. Once everything is well mixed, add in one egg and then the other, again waiting until the first egg is incorporated before adding the second. Slowly add the flour mixture. Wait until each little bit is mixed in before adding more. Patience is key here. Once that is fully mixed in, add in the peanut butter M&Ms and the mini chocolate chips. Once it’s fully mixed, you’re ready to get them into the oven.



Lightly grease at least two baking sheets. When I say lightly, I mean lightly. If you use too much grease, the cookies will spread too much and they’ll stick together or become too thin or too crunchy or all of the above. Using a spoon, take out a tablespoon-ish sized blob and place it on the baking sheet. I sometimes use a spatula and form a palm sized ball in my clean hands and then put it on the sheet. I have small hands, so they don’t end up huge. Make sure you don’t place them too close or they’ll stick to each other. This time, I had 12 cookies on each sheet. In the past I have ended up with fewer because my roommate would not only be stealing cookie dough while I was making it, she’d also steal it from the pan. It is pretty dang good.

Place one sheet on the middle rack of your oven. Bake for about 10 minutes. It will depend on your oven and how big you made the cookies, but you need to watch this. It can go from underdone to over baked very quickly. The outer edges will be browned and the centers will have fallen in slightly. In short, they look like cookies instead of blobs.



Cool on a rack while the other sheet bakes. Don’t remove them from the pan too soon (unless you’re eating them warm, which does taste amazing) or they will stick to each other on the plate. Wait until they have cooled and then put on a plate. These were, for some reason, even better than last time. It may be the M&Ms adding a little somethin’ somethin’. In any case, I made these Wednesday night for NYE and they barely made it to New Year’s Day. They did not make it to today.

This is a really fast recipe and it tastes so good. I highly recommend it for that last minute party you got invited to or when your fiancé and roommate are staring at you and begging you to make cookies.