Sweet Endeavors

I mentioned a while back in a post that I have been doing a little bit of baking, so I'm finally sharing the sweets that I've made!  (Note that the recipe name is a link to the recipe.)

Peanut Butter-Nutella Swirl

This was the first cookie I attempted because you don't need a mixer for this.  Oh, and duh, because of the Nutella, of course!  It is really good.  If you like PB cookies, you'll like this :)  Don't be shy with the Nutella -- the more, the better!

I also tried these, but the cookie didn't turn out for me, so I switched back to the swirl cookie and then added a dollop of Nutella.  They were good, but a little rich for me! (And that's saying a lot!)

Breakfast Cookie

Then I came across this baby on Pinterest and whipped up a batch.  They were pretty good and naturally sweet so I could eat them for breakfast without guilt!  More of a cake-like texture than cookie.  You will not be able to pass this off as a regular cookie, it's too healthy tasting for that.  Which is why it's a great breakfast cookie!

Chewy Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

The other week I found a hand mixer on sale at BB&B, so I snatched it up with visions of all of the cookies I have been wanting to make but couldn't for lack of one (I made some muffins that required creaming the butter and sugar and got a really good arm workout that day!).  So I tried this recipe, subbing chocolate chips for nuts.  Steve and I both agreed that these cookies were "okay."  Not bad for breakfast, but then, I'd probably prefer the breakfast cookies for a less-guilt alternative, because even though these are pretty low in fat, they do have a lot of sugar.  Not that there's any kind of cookie that I wouldn't eat for breakfast! :)

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip

And then earlier this week, I was wanting to make something sweet (ugh -- I need a job so I don't have to sign up for a marathon to run off all of these cookie calories!)... so I looked up chocolate chip cookie recipes and settled on this one because I love a nice, soft cookie and supposedly using all brown sugar instead of half brown and half white yields a softer cookie (news to me!).  I also read somewhere that cooling the dough before cooking would make a thicker (less flat) cookie, so after whipping these up, I threw the dough in the freezer for about 15 minutes.  Then I formed the balls and cooked as per the recipe.  True statements for both the brown sugar and dough freezing (you can see in the photo that the cookie did not flatten out much).

Um... yum!  These are the best CC cookies I've ever made (not that it's saying a lot when I put it that way, but still!)

And now I think I'll hit the treadmill :)  Hope you enjoyed!