Biscoff Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Today was supposed to be a day of cleaning and organizing. This all changed on my way to take the trash out when I saw two very ripe bananas sitting on the counter. Banana bread would be made and that was that. I couldn't decide whether I wanted regular plain old banana bread or chocolate peanut butter banana bread but then an idea struck to add Biscoff Spread to the batter and of course some delicious chocolate chips! It was quite a fabulous idea, and am quite pleased with the results!! 

Ingredients: 


2 Ripe Bananas 

2 Eggs

2 Cups Flour 

1 Cup Sugar 

1 TSP Salt 

1 TSP Baking Soda 

1/2 Cup Biscoff Spread

3/4 Cup Chocolate Chips

Directions: 
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer mash bananas, then add two eggs and mix together. 

2.In a separate bowl combine flour, sugar, salt & baking soda. 

3. Alternate mixing dry ingredients and Biscoff to the banana/egg mixtures. 

4. Add chocolate chips. 
5.Pour into buttered & floured pan. Sprinkle some brown sugar on top of batter and bake for 1 hr-1hr 15 minutes. Enjoy :) 

Cabo San Lucas for one of my best friends weddings!

Last week I was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico celebrating one of my best friends, Courtney's wedding! We stayed at the Marbella Suites and it was wonderful, the staff were so nice. The beach was gorgeous. I had a fabulous time and can't wait to go back! 

Courtney has an amazing blog,Star Systemz, it is all about being healthy and working out tips and tricks! Basically she is the blog you should visit to recover from visiting my blog ;) 

This is the view from our room

 Girls Lunch 

Had to take some pictures on the beach! 

We took a boat ride to Lover's Beach & this beautiful cove, Lover's Cove, right before Lands End

Before the wedding pictures with the beautiful bride :)

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Taxes are a tedious task! I was trying to file my own taxes but in the end it was too confusing (as a waitress it's a bit trickier)! So on the Sunday before taxes were due I stopped by an accountant I knew and she offered to file them for me and in return asked for some baked goodies with lemon. 

I came across this recipe and it was DIVINE! These cookies are perfect not overly sweet or tart. Beware you may find yourself eating them by the handful, lord knows me and my sister did! Luckily, they make a good size batch so we had plenty for my amazing accountant!! :)

Ingredients: 

1/2 Cup Butter (1 stick) 

1 Cup Sugar

1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Egg

1 TSP Lemon Zest

1 TBSP Fresh Lemon Juice

1/4 TSP Salt 

1/8 TSP Baking Soda

1/4 TSP Baking Powder

1 1/2 Cups AP Flour

1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheet with Silpat liner. 

2. In bowl of an electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla extract, egg, lemon zest & juice. Make sure to incorporate it all together. Add flour, baking soda & powder, salt and mix until combined. 

3. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a large teaspoon size of dough into a ball and then roll in powdered sugar. Repeat for all cookies. 

4. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges of cookies begin to barely brown, cookies will no longer be shiny. Let cool and enjoy! :) 

Recipe source Tasty Kitchen

Chocolate Mousse Stuffed Chocoalte Cupcakes Topped with Snickers

I find myself constantly arguing with myself whether I really like cupcakes or not. Obviously I LOVE a good cupcake. But the whole every other corner having a cupcake store thing kinda bugged me. And then ordering a cupcake from one of those stores and it being dry and crumbly or the frosting tasting fake and yucky or just so not worth eating has made me think negatively upon these usually sweet, moist, delicious little cakes! 

Anyways, I made these and... I and quite a few other people LOVED them! So delish. Moist, chocolatey, full of flavor, rich... I could go on and on describing them. I topped them with snickers but honestly you could do anything really or no topping at all! If you are over the whole cupcake fad these will definitely make you appreciate why they became a fad in the first place. 

Ingredients: 

Cake: 

1 box Devils Food Cake Mix
1 small box Jello Chocolate Fudge instant pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
1 cup sour cream

Chocolate Mousse Filling:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups milk chocolate chips

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1 stick softened butter

3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla

6 regular size Snickers

Directions: 

Cupcakes: 

1. Preheat oven 350F and line tray with cupcake liners. 

2. In bowl of an electric mixer place cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, oil, milk and sour cream. Mix until well combined. Distribute batter into cupcake liners evenly. Bake for 20-23 minutes. You will know when the cupcake is done if you stick a toothpick in the center of the center cupcake and it comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack. 

Chocolate Mousse Filling:

1. Melt the milk chocolate either in the microwave or over a double broiler. Be careful when you are melting chocolate chips because they go from melted to burnt in seconds. I like to let them melt until the chips are really shiny and starting to look mushy and then take them off of the double broiler or out of the microwave and stir until creamy. Once melted set aside. 

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer whip the heavy whipping cream until stiff.
3. Once the chocolate has cooled for 5-10 minutes gently fold it in to the whipped cream. 


Chocolate Frosting: 
1. In bowl of an electric mixer whip the butter for 2 minutes. 
2. Slowly add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla. 
3. Mix until the perfect frosting consistency! :) 


Assembly: 


Once the cupcakes were baked and completely cooled I filled a large piping bag with a large round tip and stuck the tip into the middle of each cupcake and filled a little. I also piped on the frosting but you could just as well use a knife. I then placed cut up pieces of the Snickers. Enjoy 


Recipe source: Kevin & Amanda

Extraordinary Desserts

A few years ago one of my best friends was attending school in San Diego. I would visit her every so often and one trip she told me about this place that I would LOVE, Extraordinary Desserts. So naturally we went. And, yes I did LOVE it! 

Over the weekend I spent the day in San Diego with my family and we hit up Extraordinary Desserts on the way out and took some desserts to go! :) 

If you find yourself in the San Diego, CA area please visit Extraordinary Desserts you will not be disappointed! 

Creme Brûlée so yummy. 

Chocolate Dulce De Leche Bar was very decadent and rich I enjoyed it :) 

White Chocolate cake with fresh berries- This was my favorite the cake was SOO moist, fluffy the cream was amazing the fresh berries and the white chocolate shavings just took me over the moon :)

This VERY chocolatey cake was scrumptious! There is a layer of blackberries in there as well

Monkey Bread Stuffed with Cream Cheese

Warm Gooey Sweet Bread stuffed with Cream Cheese? HELLO! Can I have some NOW! I waited to make this recipe because I just knew it would be AMAZING! And as much as I overload on sugar every single day I knew this would make a large portion and I would end up eating it all. I would happily do it but I am trying to be "healthy" :( 

So a few weeks ago for my birthday I went to Glen Ivy Hot Springs with some of my best friends. There was 10 of us, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make this! I got up early and prepared it before all the girls came over- It smelled amazing in the oven and took all of 10 minutes to prepare. 

Once we dug in we couldn't stop it was so scrumptious! And very nice because you could easily break off a ball or two of dough stuffed with the cream cheese! Cream cheese really does make everything better :) 

Ingredients: 

3/4 Cup Brown Sugar 

3/4 Cup Sugar 

1 TBSP Cinnamon 

1 Cup Butter 

1 8oz Block Cream Cheese 

2 16oz Cans Refrigerated Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits ( I ended up with 4 extra biscuits) 

Directions: 

1. Grease a large Bundt Pan and preheat oven to 350F I sprinkled some extra brown and white sugar onto the bottom of the pan as well :) 

2. Mix together the sugars and cinnamon

3. Cut 20 discs of dough from the biscuits and cut the cream cheese block into 20 squares

4. Wrap each disc around a square of cream cheese then place 10 of the dough/cream cheese balls inside the prepared pan

5. Melt 1 cup of butter and add it to the sugar mixture, Spread half of the mixture over the dough balls 

6 Layer the rest of the dough balls on top and sprinkle the rest of the sugar mixture on top. Bake for 40 minute and enjoy 

Recipe adapted from: pipandebby

Biscoff Mallow Bit Chocolate Chip Cookies

The other day I was at my local Cost Plus World Market and picked up some more of one of the most addicting things ever!! BISCOFF SPREAD!! I LOVE IT!! Then I was at Target and picked up some Mallow Bits which I also LOVE! 

Later on in the week I was craving cookies (I always crave cookies who doesn't?) and decided I wanted to throw in some mix-ins to a basic chocolate chip cookie. I decided on these and it was wonderful! If you have never had the joy of tasting Biscoff Spread you are surely missing out! The great thing about it is that the consistency of the spread is like a creamy peanut butter so it is super easy to add into baked goods :) 

The cookie had a caramelized taste to it and the mallow bits added a nice sweetness too! 

Ingredients: 

1/2 Cup Butter 

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Sugar

3/4 Cup Biscoff Spread

1 Large Egg

1 TSP Vanilla Extract 

1 3/4 Cup AP Flour / Whole Wheat Flour 

1/2 TSP Salt 

1/2 TSP Baking Powder 

1 Cup Mallow Bits 

1 1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips 

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line your baking sheet with silpat liner if you have them 

2. In bowl of an electric mixer cream together the butter and sugars. Then add the Biscoff Spread. Add egg and vanilla

3. Whisk together flour, slat and baking powder in a small bowl then add to the wet ingredients 

4. Mix in the chocolate chips 

5. Hand stir in the Mallow Bits

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool on wire rack. Enjoy