Today I wanted to share a fantastic cookie recipe with you. One that I created, or should I say, heavily modified myself.
For those readers outside of Canada, let me start off by clarifying what Smarties are to us Canadians.
Smarties are candy coated chocolate pieces, sort of like M&M’s but sweeter and yummier in my opinion. For me, Smarties are NOT those little powered tablets you get at Halloween. Here in Canada we call those Rockets by the way….
You see, I have these memories of my mom and grandma making Smartie cookies for me when I was a child. They weren’t made often, but I have thought about them often since then and I finally decided that I am going to make some myself.
Of course, I went to my mom for the recipe but she didn’t remember. She gave me a cookbook with a cream cheese cookie recipe she was pretty sure she used and added smarties to. I looked up the recipe but to my disappointment the recipe uses a box of cake mix, and honestly that just grosses me out. I know cookies aren’t healthy with the large amounts of butter and sugar in them but, at least I know they are made from scratch and I can pronounce every ingredient in them.
So I went searching for a cream cheese cookie recipe I could make from scratch. I needed a cookie that wasn’t too sweet, as smarties are very sweet and just throwing them into a standard chocolate chip cookie dough would be too rich.
Fortunately my searching and experimenting paid off and now I can share the recipe with you!
These cookies are soft, firm and are even better the next day. This is a recipe you will make over and over again.
Smartie Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 & 1/2 cups Smarties or M&M’s
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease or line baking pans.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Beat butter, cream cheese, sugar, and brown sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.
Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until almost combined. Add Smarties or M&M’s, stirring until dough is thoroughly mixed.
Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto prepared pans. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned. (These cookies will not brown or spread like classic chocolate chip cookies.)
Cool cookies completely on pan or wire racks. Yum!
 Happy Easter! Around our house Easter means chocolate, egg hunts, decorations and family time. I would have to say I enjoy Easter decorations the most out of any holiday. I don’t know why but I find the color, eggs and animals just so darn cute! Plus all that chocolate in the house isn’t such a terrible thing either.
Last year I decided to make Easter cake pops; it’s candy, chocolate and a cute Easter decoration in one! Yes, sign me up! Bakerella had some super cute cake pops with an Easter theme which inspired me to make own, but in the shapes of Easter eggs instead. I used sprinkles and sanding sugar because I try to avoid decorations that do not enhance the flavor or texture of the pop. I see cake pops sometimes that look fantastic but are made of candies that I don’t think would go well with a bite of cake.
Cake pops are very easy to make, I learned how from HERE. Plus, not only are they super cute, but they are delicious and kids love them.
I love dragons, don’t most people? So when I saw this pattern for purchase I couldn’t resist. I have sculpted a few dragons before but I had never sewn one.
I loved this pattern because compared to bear making, it was so easy ! I could sew the whole thing with my machine and it came together very quickly. Plus, he’s made out of fleece, my favorite fabric to sew with.
If you like him, buy the pattern and try to make one. I love the feeling of being able to cuddle something I made, although the kids seem to cuddle him a lot more than I do.
I think maybe I will create a smaller, baby dragon using my own pattern. I will make sure to share when I do!
Christmas, such a fun busy time of the year. Part of the Christmas spirit for me, is letting myself truly enjoy the holidays. I don’t make a lot of gifts, I don’t bake too many cookies or cook anything very complicated. I want to be able to enjoy Christmas, watch movies with my kids, go sledding, listen to music and dance with my children. I don’t want to be so busy during Christmas that I am unable to enjoy those little things. Plus, I think my children are going to have better memories of me spending time with them, then they would have of the perfect homemade gift, or a perfect turkey dinner. They don’t care about these things anyway.
Now that the holidays are over and things are starting to settle down and I am happy to be back in blog land.
I did manage to make a few homemade gifts this year, but I made sure they were fast and easy to make. Have a child in school now means I had to think of gifts for the teacher, her bus monitor ( the amazing older boy that zips up her jacket and gets her on the right bus after school) and gifts for her bus drivers.
Luckily I came across a pin on Pinterest for making the most adorable snowmen out of chocolate bars. I loved this idea as I had everything I needed on hand besides the chocolate bars. I loved making these and my daughter was very proud of them, and couldn’t wait to hand them out and let everyone know her mommy made them!
Yes I made these for Christmas, but since they are snowmen they can be given out all winter long.
I found the original idea here
Sometimes I am in awe of an artist, not just for their artist talent but for their creativity! These Sewn Paintings by ESTHER JANSSEN are amazing and until you take a closer look you would have no idea that these were sewn bits of fabric.
Just a quick post today because I absolutely HAD to share this recipe! My family is still new to quinoa so I have been trying recipes with familiar flavors and this one was fantastic! It tasted a whole lot like broccoli cheese soup, only it’s quinoa and pretty healthy. I would love to say the whole family loved it, although my picky daughter wouldn’t even look at it, but hey 3 out of 4 isn’t bad anyway.
I made a few changes to the original recipe, I think it just adds that much more flavor and appeal.
via Closet Cooking: Cheesy Broccoli Quinoa.
Ingredients
- 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth or chicken stock
- half a small onion chopped
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 cups broccoli, chopped
- 1 cup cheddar, shredded
- 2 tbps for grated Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Saute onions for a couple of minutes until just softened. Add chopped garlic and cook for 1 mintue.
- Bring the quinoa, broth and broccoli to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat and simmer covered until the broth has been absorbed and the quinoa is tender,about 13-17 minutes.
- Mix in the cheese, let it melt and season with salt and pepper.
Have you guys seen those Ugly Dolls? They are so ugly they are cute, and they are hard not to fall in love with.
A while back I made my own ugly doll for a child’s birthday. My family was defiantly not happy that I gave him away!
The design wasn’t hard, I just sketched out what I wanted him to look like and since there aren’t any gussets or darts, construction was pretty simple.
I have another one in the works now but for some reason he just doesn’t want to be finished yet!
I also made some bean bags and covered a coffee tin with some fabric to create a bean bag toss type game. I heard from the boys mom that he loved the bean bag toy and it gets a lot of use. I don’t blame him, soft and squishy fleece bean bags even appeal to adults and are great to play with as stress relievers. Again, these were not difficult at all and totally worth it.
You will see that I had to make two sets of bean bags, one as the gift and one for my own children who insisted on having their own.
Who doesn’t love a cute and practical zipper pouch? I am positive that most households have a least one somewhere. Most of the ones I have seem too thin and it’s often hard to find what you want inside.
So that’s why when I found this awesome tutorial for ones that had a wide opening here on this BLOG Noodlehead, I couldn’t resist making one myself. I had never actually sewn a zipper before ( artist bears don’t have zippers…haha) but this tutorial, with it’s numerous step-by-step photos was the perfect way for me to learn.
Aren’t they cute? They are the perfect use for a fat quarter of fabric and they hold a lot of stuff! I used fairly stiff interfacing to prevent them flopping over and they were pretty easy to make.
Go ahead, check out the tutorial and make one!
It’s pretty hard for me to resist a well bound, dare I say pretty notebook. I don’t have many but the ones I do have are always cherished and put to good use. My favorite one is used to jot down my creative ideas, projects I want to start, sketches of stuffies I plan to make, etc. The others sit on my bookshelf waiting to be used, their spines so colorful amongst all the other books.
So naturally, when I saw a project to create miniature books in this great craft resource Micro Crafts I just had to try my hand at binding my own notebook. Once you get the hang of it, these are rather easy to make and can be adapted to any size you wish. Ooh, the possibilities are already swarming around in my head!
While these are not difficult to make, it did take some time to learn how to sew the pages to bind them. I would suggest getting the book mentioned above if you want to try your hand at making them; the diagrams were very helpful for me.
Here are my supplies…nothing fancy and I even used Dollar Store scrapbook paper.
Here are the books signatures…all ready to be sewn together.
Inside it looks like a proper book! Isn’t it adorable?
There are 96 tiny pages in this book and these are perfect to give as gifts. Of course I gave my grandmother 2 of them, knowing that she also cannot resist a cute notebook. I guess that means I am going have to make more, they are very addicting and a great way to use up scraps of paper.
Let me start off by saying I have really struggled with this post. I want to share my recipes and projects with you, but these cookies are soo good; I have considered keeping this recipe to myself. Seriously folks, these cookies are really that good!
My husband and I call them Cookins because they are part cookie, part muffin. They are incredibly soft, moist and flavorful. I have yet to find a single person who doesn’t like them, or someone who can stop at a couple. Bring these cookies to a party and watch them disappear.
This is my recipe that I have adapted and hopefully perfected from some random Taste of Home cookbook, and after some serious thought I would love to share it with you. Just please, make a double batch. You’ll thank me later.
Cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs until combined.
After the eggs are combined into the sugar and butter mixture, add the bananas. I just add mine to the bowl and mash them with a fork like this. Big chunky pieces of banana are just fine.
Add the vanilla
 Add the dry ingredients, and gently mix.
Add the chocolate chips, or in my case here I added a mixture of milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate mini chips, peanut butter chips and white chocolate chips. I had them all, so why not?
Mix until well combined.
Then drop onto a parchment covered baking sheet. I always use my trusty, small ice cream scoop.
Bake until golden on the bottom, cool on wire racks and then enjoy.
Recipe
Cookins; soft banana chocolate chip cookies
Ingredients
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup mashed banana
1.2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking power
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 cup of chocolate chips
Directions
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy in a large bowl. Beat in egg, banana and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into the creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks then dive in!
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About Me Hello, I am Heather and this is the stuff I make........read more about me HERE.....
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