Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too. 😉

This is the cake to make for people who generally tell you that chocolate cake is ‘too rich’ or ‘too heavy’. It’s also the cake to make for people who complain of cakes being too dry. The buttermilk here makes this cake seriously moist without being too fudgey or puddingy. It’s another winner from one of the first cookbooks my husband ever bought me, yes I’m still working through the Good Housekeeping cookbook – it’s that good.

I have made this cake so many times now that I haven’t been making the Stir and Bake Chocolate Cake that I used to make on the regular. This one is just as easy but even better, I swear.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake via The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book

2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa
1 3/4 sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix the buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla extract.
Mix till well combined, then add the flour mixture to it and beat. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes.

Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too. 😉

I started adding chia seeds to my smoothies about a year ago, and when I started making pudding with almond milk and the kids complained it wasn’t ‘pudding-y enough’, I started crushing the chia seeds and blending them into the pudding because they have a weird ‘pudding-y’ quality about them and since then the kids happily eat the almond milk-based pudding. I honestly thought their usefulness ended there. I know, I know. They’re an ancient superfood May!, you say. I hear you, I know it. I’m not a fan of little seed sin my salad or on my oatmeal or where ever else you’re going to tell me to put them.

(I walked right into that, didn’t I?)

However, when I saw this recipe I had a huge DUH moment. Of course they’d work in cookies! For suspicious kids (and husbands and friends), they look pretty normal alongside chocolate chips! You know the chocolate dust at the bottom of the bag of chocolate chips? When they’re baked, they look just like that. There’s no rule that says I have to openly advertise all the ingredients in my kitchen, right? Right.

The original recipe yields a dozen big cookies. I made mine more like regular size cookies and got about two dozen. It was hard to tell with how fast the wee ones (and then later my girlfriends) ate them! They hardly hit the plate, it was pretty amazing. When I finally made some coffee and had one I was glad there were not many left because I easily could have polished off the tray myself. Easily.

Chia Seed Peanut Butter Cookies via Yummy Mummy Kitchen

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tablespoons chia seeds
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, mix the oats, baking powder, flour, chia seeds. Then with your electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together.
Now add to the butter mixture, the peanut butter, eggs and vanilla. Bit by bit add the oat mixture and mix till combined.
Fold in the chocolate chips, and bake at 350F for about 12 minutes.

Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too. 😉

These muffins are a lunch box staple around here, (they are also a middle of the night snack and a running out the door breakfast). So I make these a lot. So much that it seems like the fam should be sick of them by now, but somehow they’re not. Somehow, I still hear requests for them almost daily. Truthfully, I can make them without looking at the recipe and even Wee One #2 gets in on the action now, being able to make these mostly herself!

They clock in at about 230 calories, so I encourage my children to have at them because they are built like supermodels. No lie. I, however, try not to eat quite as many as they do…

Chocolate Chip Muffins via The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a smaller bowl, with a fork, beat the milk, melted butter, egg and vanilla until totally blended.

I was inspired recently by (what else) Pinterest to make Snickers Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. I tried a version with Snickers bits mixed in with the cookie batter, but they turned out all leaky and weird when I baked them. The children happily ate my mistake, naturally. Stuffing the cookies with a hunk of Snickers was the only way to do it right. The only reason I put them in the batter along with the chocolate chips in the first place was because the Snickers and Peanut Butter Muffins I make from my Nigella Lawson Domestic Goddess cookbook are uber good. Note to self (and to you, obvy): That shit does not translate to cookies.

Moving along.

I picked my Granny’s standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. It’ll be two years this July since she passed and some days it’s still hard to believe she’s gone. She is very, very much alive in my kitchen though. I try to bake as much of her staples as possible and these cookies are defo one of her staples. I do ‘bastardize’ her recipes (as my mother would say) on the regular, but my Granny was always cool with that. They are very simple chocolate chip cookies, I’ve been making them since I was about 5 or 6 and could push my stool over to the counter to reach the bowls!

Snickers Cookies
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

You know the drill, sift the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. Then in the mixer bowl, cream the butter and both sugars together.
Add the egg and vanilla, then slowly add the flour mixture.
Stir in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon. Voila!
Chop up your Snickers bars and pop one in the middle of a ball of dough. Probably about 2 tablespoons worth. Make sure you mold the dough all the way around the Snickers piece.
Then bake at 375F for about 15 minutes.
These are especially fun if you don’t tell anyone there’s a surprise inside!

I made these as part of a cookie platter for our aunt and uncle who came for a visit to the woods. I love when people drive all the way out here to hang out for lazy afternoons on the back porch. Though I don’t know how lazy it really is when all three kids want to do stuff with everyone who comes over and then Wee One #2 convinces us to play hide and seek for at least a little while. Seriously. She’s gotten grandparents and jaded aunties in their 20s and everyone in between to play hide and seek with her. She’s very convincing!

So back to the cookies. I love the idea of the combo of oatmeal and jam but it’s never really worked out for me until this recipe. Yet another hit from my Great Cookies book! Maybe it’s the choice of jam? This recipe called for blueberry when usually recipes with oats call for strawberry or raspberry? I dunno, but it’s a winning combination and unlike a lot of ‘just ok’ recipes I’ve made, I will be making these again and again for sure!

Oatmeal Almond Jammies via Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
3 ounces shredded almond paste
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten with 2 teaspoons water
1/2 cup blueberry preserves

First, process the flour, oatmeal, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt for about 15 seconds. Do this four times until the mixture is ‘cakey’. Then, in a separate bowl, cream the butter and add the almond paste, it’ll take a few minutes until it’s smooth. Add the sugar slowly, then the egg, egg yolks, and extracts and mix, mix, mix! With the mixer on low add the dry ingredients until just blended. Chill it for about 45 minutes. These three bowls are the dough, the almonds and the egg whites with water. Preheat the oven to 350F, line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough into 1″ balls, dip in the egg whites and then roll in the almonds.
Then I used the back of a spoon to make ‘thumbprints’ in the dough. Are thumbprint cookies EVER made with actual thumbs? I think not! What a farce! I dropped less than a tablespoon into each ‘thumb’ print and baked for 12 minutes. I think it’s the blueberry that has me smitten, I loved these – and so did everyone I served them to!

Shortbread cookies, of any variation have a very distinct texture and really nothing else will do when you’re craving shortbread. I’ve tried too many types of shortbread to remember but only baked a few. I’ve made a few different recipes of traditional shortbread recipes, and a few with dried fruits in them (cranberries and cherries, natch) and of course these – Chocolate Shortbread. I have to admit I really, really love shortbread that has very finely chopped nuts in them but even against those, I think this is my favorite bastardization of shortbread.

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies via Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup strained Dutch process cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
2/3 cup superfine sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon sanding sugar
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 teaspoon canola oil

To prep, preheat your oven to 350F and line a baking dish with aluminum foil. Then sift togetherthe flours, cocoa and salt. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and the sugar, then add the vanilla and mix again.
This next step is a lot easier if you use a big bowl. Add half the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and combine, then add the rest. Don’t overmix it!
Now dump the mixture out onto your foil-lined dish and press it into it. Try to make it as even all the way around the pan as possible. Bake it for about 45 minutes, turning it twice during baking. Once it’s cooled off a bit, (but not totally cool), cut into bite sized squares. Then melt your chocolate and mix in your oil. Dip the cookie pieces into the chocolate and let dry on parchment paper. Sprinkle with sanding sugar and voila! Cute, yes?

Wee One #2 is a serious Barbie kid and loves all things pink, so naturally for her 6th birthday we went all out. She’s really turning into a mini May and it’s totally happening just by watching me. When she decided she wanted a Barbie party she did three things that struck me as so very … me. First, she went to Google for inspiration. Next, she made a board on Pinterest (right here if you’re interested) and pinned things she found and wanted to incorporate into her party. These two steps alone only really prove that she was born after 2000, right? I mean most kids (especially kids with computer geeky parents) would think to do this, right? The third thing though, totally me. She passed over all the glossy post-1980 Barbies and was only interested in the vintage style black and pink old school Barbies. Love!!!

I whipped up some fuchsia buttercream for her three tiered cake, strung vintage Barbie printables and small disco balls from pink curling ribbon from our kitchen chandelier, and set up a cute pink table with treats, loot bags, cutlery, and candy kabobs – as per her instructions! The pink cookies I had made before and liked, but I didn’t loooove them. She however, did. So she insisted they be included in her party and all her wee little girlfriends really, really liked them. I thought the bright pink and black candy kabobs would have stolen the show, or that the crazy sugar coma inducing cake with buttercream would do it, but no. It was the pink jello cookies.

The Chocolate Cake was the same chocolate cake I usually make, with Classic Wilton Buttercream.

Pink Jello Cookies via Kraft Recipes 3 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened 1 cup sugar 2 pkg. (3 oz. each) Jello Cherry Flavor Gelatin, divided 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream the butter till smooth (don’t skip this), then add the sugar and one of the jello packages. Beat till totally smooth.
Now add the egg and vanilla.
Slooooowly add in the flour and stop once it’s all combined and pink.
Empty the other jello package in a small bowl, and roll up all of the dough into smallish balls. I got almost 5 dozen. Drop each ball hehe into the jello powder to coat it.
Flatten each ball with the back of a glass and bake at 400F for 8 minutes.

I don’t know if this even qualifies as a recipe, and if I posted step by step pictures of all of it, it’d be a seriously epic post. You may have heard about a bakery in Philadelphia that baked up a two layer cake with two pies in it. Then of course other bakers made it, and most added a third layer. Depending on what cakes and pies used, the name differs. Made from cherry, pumpkin and apple pies, this one is called the Cherpumple. I first saw it on Outrageous Food about a year and a half ago and naturally, I had to make it.

My version is three layers, two medium tiers and one big one. The top tier is an apple pie baked into a vanilla cake, the second tier is a pumpkin pie baked into a spice cake and my personal favorite is a chocolate pecan pie baked into a chocolate cake! So what is that?! Apppumpecan? Or maybe a Pecapumple? I dunno, but it’s like 2000 calories a slice and so good it’s a little frightening.

I trust you can handle the how to of each recipe. If you’re super lazy or really just feel like you can’t do it, go ahead and get some premade pie crust. Just please, don’t use cakes mixes. I’ll know!

This is how I pulled it all together. First, I baked an apple pie, a pumpkin pie and then a larger chocolate pecan pie. As they were all cooling, I made the batter for a vanilla cake, a spice cake and a larger chocolate cake and poured each into their cake pans. Theeeeen, I turned the pies upside down and slammed them into their respective cakes-in-waiting.

Also note these recipes made more than I needed for this project. Extra cake batter was made into cupcakes, pie filling was either made into tarts with extra pie crust or snarffled down from a bowl in the kitchen standing over the sink. What?! Don’t look at me like that!

Apple Pie waiting it’s turn for the oven!
Chocolate Pecan Pie headed for the oven.
Baked Apple Pie sitting face down in it’s Vanilla Cake batter (left) and the beginnings of the Chocolate Cake (right).
Chocolate Cake batter, ready to be poured (left), and the starting of the Spice Cake batter (right).
Finished Chocolate Pecan Pie baked into the Chocolate Cake (left), innocent looking Vanilla Cake that’s hiding an Apple Pie (right).
The teetering tower of pies in cakes (left), the dowels I decided to stick in the top of the Pumpkin Pie/Spice Cake to make sure the Vanilla/Apple didn’t fall off.
And voila! This took one day and about an hour the following afternoon. I made it for a party about 2 hours from home so I had to finish assembling it there.
Everyone had a favorite layer, mine was defo the Chocolate Cake / Chocolate Pecan Pie. I always add espresso to my pecan pies because I’m a total coffee junkie and that layer is a dessert I would make again on it’s own.

These cookies are super simple and super silly! The cookie itself is simple enough, a basic ginger cookie. It’s the little creative addition of button holes and then yarn, yes yarn, threaded through the button holes that make these little cuties so adorable. You’d think having the yarn in them would make eating them a little annoying and that you’d be less likely to stuff your face. Sorry people, no such luck.

Wee One #2 insisted in doing the needlework herself! She has been fallen pretty hard for embroidery and wants to sew every chance she gets.

Ginger Button Cookies via Diamonds for Dessert
1 2/3 cups flour
1 tablespoons ginger
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons cloves
1/2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons room temp butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 egg whites

So, as you’d expect, you cream the butter and the sugars together. Then add the egg whites one at a time. Mix the dry ingredients in a different bowl and then mix the dry into the wet and voila! Ginger cookie dough. I totally sped through the actual recipe because I trust that you can handle that part. Now roll the dough into a log and cut off slices!
Shape your slices as well rounded (or not) as you’d like. I used a straw to poke out my button holes.
You’ll have to scour your kitchen to find a small circle shape that you can use as the inner edge of your button. The original recipe used the lid of a water bottle. I happen to have a crazy narrow shot glass – class all the way.
I baked them at 350F for about 15 minutes. Leave them in longer if you like a better crunch. The tops of the button holes didn’t shrink in baking, but the bottoms almost closed up. No biggie, we just used an actual needle and sock yarn!
I packaged some cookies in a mason jar for our next door neighbors. I can’t tell if they think I’m cute or totally crazy. Let’s just say it’s a fine line and I’m at least endearing. Right?! Ha!

I’m linking up with Flock Together Blog Hop and Inspiration Linky Party.

I mentioned a few months ago about my ever mounting paranoia general concern thoughts on how processed some most all of the garbage touted as ‘healthy’ and marketed to kids has become. Though to be fair, I don’t know if it’s right to say ‘has become’, it’s probably always been pretty negative and unhealthy but I didn’t know better as a kid and my hippie father did a pretty good job of sheltering me from stuff like that. I however? Do not do such a great job with the sheltering of my wee ones. They can ask for store those chewy granola bars all they want, I’m not caving, and this is why.

The granola bars I make have 14 ingredients, including the granola. They could only be healthier if I made the marshmallows myself and now that I type that, I will totally make the marshmallows myself next time!

The granola bars with the shiny commercials have 31 ingredients and while most of them are not so bad, too many of them are totally unnecessary. I know they need to be shelf stable, and that’s what they are loaded with preservatives, but man. Like, if I can make and eat them within a few days I don’t need to add any preservatives so while the additives are justifiable for shelf stable, pre packaged crap snacks, I don’t have any use for them – and if you have half an hour or so once a week, neither do you.

Granola via Amateur Gourmet (modified) 2 cups rolled oats 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil 1/4 cup honey 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Bars via Back to the Cutting Board 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/4 cup honey 2 cups plain granola 1 cup rice cereal (Rice Krispies, etc.) 1 cup mini marshmallows 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

First, preheat the oven to 325F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Mix the oats, cinnamon, and salt on a small bowl. Then in a separate bowl, mix the vegetable oil, honey, brown sugar and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and make sure all of the oats are coated.
Bake for about 10 minutes, take out and mix it up, then another 10 minutes, take it out and mix it up again and then bake for another 5 minutes.
Now on to the actual granola bars! Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the brown sugar and the honey. Stir and heat till it’s melted.
Now add the rice cereal and the granola.
Marshmallows!!
When the marshmallows are partially melted, spread the mixture into a parchment lined brownie pan.
Then cover with chocolate chips!
Cut them into bars and voila!

2 Comments

baking, granola bars, homemade granola, school lunches