Another Apple Crisp

It feels as if summer is coming faster than ever... why? Well, the number of bbq's we've been having, the 80+ degree weather, the ice cream trucks, and oh yeah, the number of apples in my house! My mom buys our apples from Costco, the huge premium fuji ones that come in a pack of like 24. That means I have plenty of apples to bake and experiment with.

My little sister is an apple-dessert-eating fiend, so I told her I'd make her something as long as she peeled, cored, and sliced the apples. She agreed and peeled 7 apples for me! It's just as good as having one of those apple cutting/corer/peeler devices (which I need to get my hands on soon). This apple crisp was quite delicious, but a little on the sweet side. I'd recommend toning down the amount of sugar next time. Other than that, how can you go wrong with baked apples? You can find the recipe on allrecipes HERE.

• 4 apples - peeled, cored and sliced
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a 9 inch square baking pan, mix sliced apples with brown sugar. In a large bowl, mix together flour, white sugar, cinnamon and salt. In a small bowl, beat together egg and melted butter. Stir into flour mixture. Spread evenly over apples.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until topping is golden and crisp.

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Oh! and if you haven't heard already.. My fashion blog has finally launched! :) Here's a little snippet from my latest post:

Check it out!: Sisterly Style

Feel free to follow me over there as well, I'll be trying to update that blog at least once every two days with my daily outfits. Thanks for all your support guys!

Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Lately I've been baking for people, so I usually turn to recipes that are tried and true instead of trying new ones and risking the chance that they turn out bad. This one is Martha's Stewart's chocolate chip cookies recipe found at my previous post HERE. The only difference is that I threw in some walnuts this time around and they made it twice as good! Man, I totally sucked at posting for the month of May. You'll have to excuse me for that... :( I promise I'll be better when June rolls around! There are so many occasions coming up in that month that I'll be sure to be busy baking with baby showers, weddings, bbq's, and graduation parties. I'm also in the works of starting a fashion blog with my sister just for kicks, so I've been busy designing/figuring out the layout for a new site. I'll keep you posted once it's up and running!

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup walnut pieces
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips & walnut pieces.
2. Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Chocolate Walnut Fudge

I've definitely tried my share of fudge recipes. One of my best friends is fudge connoisseur and always insists on having fudge. For him, it's always the same thing... plain chocolate fudge- no add ins, no extra flavoring, no toppings. How boring, right? Well, my boyfriend's cousin graduated the other day and I decided to make some fudge to add into his celebration basket that I was giving him. Luckily for me, he's not a picky one so I could add whatever I wanted. In my opinion, fudge isn't fudge without some walnuts.. so that's exactly what I made.

This is my favorite fudge recipe so far out of the 3298209384 fudge recipes that I've tried. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com a while ago with over a thousand reviews, so I knew I had to try it. With the many times that I've made this recipe, I've come to edit it myself and create my perfect fudge. I put the marshmallow creme in the end instead of the beginning and use all semisweet chips instead of a mixture of milk chocolate and semisweet (that's really up to you). The 5 minutes of boiling is the most important part! You must let the ingredients boil for that long, but stir the entire time! Fudge is really easy/fast to make, it's just a bit tedious and tiring because you have to stir so much. The end result is totally worth it, I promise!

• 1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Line an 8x8 inch pan with aluminum foil. Set aside.
2. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, evaporated milk, butter and salt. Bring to a full boil, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
3. Remove from heat and pour in marshmallow creme and semisweet chocolate chips. Stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in nuts and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan. Chill in refrigerator for 2 hours, or until firm.

Chocolate Cappuccino Chip Cookies

The LOST finale was this week and my boyfriend had a couple of his friends over to watch it. I decided to bake something, since everyone can snack on something while watching tv. Ummm speaking of the LOST finale, did anyone else watch it? Too bad we have to wait another full YEAR before it comes back on! What's with the whole Locke situation?! That really threw me off. I'll stop myself there, just in case you guys didn't watch it. No spoilers, here! That's okay though... Dexter comes back on in fall and will hold us over until then. :) For the finale, I made some chocolate cappuccino chip cookies for the boys.

Whoa.. try saying that ten times fast: chocolate cappuccino chip cookies, chocolate cappuccino chip cookies, chocolate cappuccino chip cookies. That's a mouthful. Anyways, I was off roaming the aisle at Cost Plus World Market and found these Guittard Cappuccino Chips and knew I had to get them! I looked on the back for their recipes, but none of them really appealed to me. Then I remembered about Guittard's Polka Dot Cookies I made on the back of their mint chocolate chips bag! Those cookies were good, but the mint chips didn't really do it for me.. so I used that same recipe and replaced them with the cappuccino chips. Perfect! You can tell from the last picture how incredibly fudgy and chewy these cookies were, my favorite. They were chocolatey with a kick of coffee, nothing too overwhelming.

2 cups (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (do not sift)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups (12 oz) Guittard Cappuccino Chips

Preheat oven to 350F

In top of double boiler over low heat, melt semi-sweet chips and butter, stirring constantly until smooth. Set aside to cool. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla until light. Blend in melted chocolate, then dry ingredients. Stir in cappuccino chips and chill for 10-15 minutes or until stiff. Drop by well-round teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8-10 minutes, cookies will be soft in centers but will harden as they cool.

Andes Chocolate Mint Cookies

Is it just me or has time been FLYING lately? We're already in 6th week! Goodness! Where does the time go? I graduate in 37 days!!! I just bought my cap and gown last week and my senioritis has officially kicked in... who am I kidding, I've had a bad case of senioritis ever since freshman year. My schedule has been so busy lately with midterm after midterm, baking & mailing out cookies, making my grad invites (see below), and spring cleaning! I actually got my boyfriend to vacuum and clean the bathroom today, which is probably one of my biggest accomplishments of my life. Haha.

Speaking of my boyfriend, his birthday just passed two days ago and I had the hardest time figuring out what to get him. I couldn't bake him anything because he's dieting (ridiculous, I know.. it's like I'm dating a girl. Shhhh don't tell him I said that) and he already has everything that he wants! I was going to buy him a Gucci wallet but then he wouldn't appreciate it nearly as much as I would since he doesn't know anything about brand names and can care less for them. He actually thinks it's ridiculous, but of course being the girl that I am, I tend to differ. I have this die hard love for Chanel and have made quite the collection in the past couple of years. I long for the Chanel Cerf Tote and the Chanel Medallion Tote, which I think I'll be selling a purse to get soon. Basically... he'll never understand why I pay so much for a purse when I can get a decent working purse for less than ten bucks. Honestly, I have no idea either... all I know is that it makes me so gosh darn happy.

I ended up buying him some RVCA t shirts and shorts, and a button up t shirt. He needs to update his wardrobe and he hates shopping... so it all worked out nicely. I then took him to a restaurant called Buenos Aires Grill for dinner and it was delicious! One of the best salmon and sauteed vegetables plates that I've had (he had the rib eye steak with creamed spinach.. we're big on our meat, can you tell?). I'm getting hungry just talking about it. Moving on...

This is actually one of the cookies I made to mail out this month, along with two others. This is my favorite cookie-- it's hard to eat just one! The cookie is not too sweet or too chocolatey; they're soft and crumbly with the perfect amont of sweetness. I'm an avid fan of mint chocolate, so you should definitely give this recipe a try if you are, too! I've made this recipe before on my blog, found HERE. However, they were posted a million years ago and I didn't post recipes back then. So here it is!

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups AP flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• Andes mints candies, broken in half

1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Over low heat, combine butter, sugar and water. Heat until melted and add chocolate chips until partly melted. Remove from heat and stir. Pour into large mixing bowl. Let stand 10 minutes to cool slightly.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time on high speed. Reduce mixer to low speed and add flour, salt and baking soda. Beat until well-blended.
4. Chill one hour.
5. Roll into balls, place two inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake for 10 minutes.
6. Place an Andes Mint half on top after taking them out from the oven. Allow to melt slightly and spread with a spoon.

I took a lot of time making/decorating my graduation invitations because I'm a grandma like that and love scrapbooking & stationary. It's also way cheaper than buying announcements from the school.. I mean, $40 for 25 cards?! I would've needed 50, spending $80 total just on cards... and they're not even pretty! They're actually pretty bland... so no, thank you. I'd much rather make my own since they're more personalized and unique that way. I just had to share with you how they turned out!

This is how it looked all put together, how it would look when taking it out of the envelope:

take off the band and it slowly opens up...

there's the invitation placed inside!

and voi-la! my invite. :) (don't mind the blur, I took out my personal info)

It's so close I can feel it!