butterfinger

Peanut Butter Butterfinger Fudge Bars! (and happy birthday to Samantha)

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Samantha! My fabulous coworker Samantha is celebrating her birthday today. This is Samantha (and me):

GNO!

GNO!

Sadly, Samantha is moving and will no longer work just a few doors down from me in just a few months. SO for her birthday, I wanted to make sure she got something EXTRA special from the kitchen of koskim (does that have a ring to it?). Samantha’s favorite candy is Butterfinger. Which is a great candy to love, if you ask me. As you can tell – I love Butterfinger. I’ve blogged before about baking other Butterfinger goodies, like Butterfinger Bars, cookies with Butterfinger and so on.

Anyway, enter the Peanut Butter Butterfinger Fudge Bars. I found a similar version of them on Shugary Sweets blog and knew I had to make them for Samantha’s big day – with a few minor changes of course.

Here you go. They are delicious. She loved them. As did I. And now you can too!

peanut butter butterfinger fudge bars - i crashed the web
Peanut Butter Butterfinger Fudge Bars

Here’s what you need:

  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 1/4 cup brown sugar (I usually use light brown sugar, but since B had bought me dark brown sugar by accident last week I had to use that. It was fine!)
  • 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbsp milk (I used what I had on hand – unsweetened coconut almond milk. Nobody knew, I swear)
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup peanut butter chips (about 1/2 a regular sized bag)
  • 12oz milk chocolate morsels
  • 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 bag of Butterfingers that you crush! I had a 12.5 size bag of fun size and crushed them all

Here’s what you do:

  1. For the bottom cookie layer: Beat butter and brown sugar in mixing bowl until combined. Add peanut butter. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla. Add in flour and baking soda. Press dough (it will be sticky! you may need to flour your hands first) into a 15x10x1 jelly roll baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven.
  2. For peanut butter layer: Sprinkle cup of peanut butter chips evenly throughout the dough. Place cookies in oven for another minute. Peanut chips should melt. Spread evenly over the cookie dough, forming almost a peanut buttery frosting. Let cool somewhat so peanut butter layer hardens.
  3. For the fudge layer: Heat condensed milk in small saucepan until warm. Add in the milk chocolate and continue to stir until smooth. Pour fudge over hardened peanut butter layer. Top with crushed Butterfingers, pressing them into the fudge lightly. Allow to cool completely and cut into small bars.

Enjoy!

peanut butter butterfinger fudge bars - i crashed the web

Everything In My Pantry Cookies

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 2 Comments

I’ve been wanting to make cookies all week. It’s been too long. But last weekend we traveled, and I was super busy slash sick last weekend, so baking has been on the backburner (is that a pun?). Anyway, this weekend we celebrated Memorial Day with B’s family and I was keeping my fingers crossed that we’d be assigned desserts, so I could make some of my favorite Red, White and Blue Desserts, or even some new truffles that I’ve been dying to make. Long story short, we were assigned appetizers (which made for some cooking adventures – we brought Buffalo Chicken Dip and Garlicky White Bean Dip, recipes coming soon!), so I thought I’d go another weekend without baking. That didn’t happen. Sunday night, after dinner, B took a nap, so I decided to see what I had in the pantry to bake something. Who doesn’t love waking up to the smell of freshly baked cookies?

I found a whole lotta stuff – oats, pretzels, white chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips, Butterfinger bars, M&Ms, Rice Krispies (leftover from the Nutella Rice Krispie Treats) and more – so I decided to bake with all of that. Some people call these Garbage Cookies, others call them Compost Cookies … I’m just calling them Everything In My Pantry Cookies. Because if you find something that sounds like it would be good in a cookie – why not?

everything in my pantry cookies -cookies with white chocolate, chocolate, pretzels, rice krispies and more

Everything In My Pantry Cookies

Here’s what you need:

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 ¼ c brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs (I used ¼ c Egg Beaters plus 1 organic egg)
  • 1 tbs vanilla extract
  • 1 ½ c flour
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1 ¾ c oats (I had Instant on hand)
  • ½ c butter pretzels, crumbled
  • 1 handful M&Ms
  • ½ c mini semisweet chocolate chips
  • ½ c white chocolate chips
  • ½ c peanut butter chips
  • 5 Fun Size Butterfingers, crushed
  • 2 ½ c Rice Krispies

Here’s what you do:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Mix butter and sugars until creamy. Add vanilla and continue mixing. Then add eggs and beat well.
  3. Combine flour, baking soda and baking powder. Add to creamed mixture and combine well.
  4. Add in oats and pretzels, and then add in whatever you happen to have on hand. I added the m&ms, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, crushed Butterfinger, and then the Rice Krispies last (so they stayed crispy, not mushy).
  5. Keep the batter in the fridge for 1 hour, or 30 min in the freezer to help them from spreading when you bake them. I’m not 100% sure that they’d spread because I didn’t try baking these without this step, but they didn’t spread and I froze them so I’m going with it.
  6. Use a fun cookie scooper to scoop balls of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown, then allow to cool on a rack.
  7. Enjoy!
everything in my pantry cookies -cookies with white chocolate, chocolate, pretzels, oats, rice krispies and more

here’s what I used!

monster cookies, garbage cookies, everything in my pantry cookies -cookies with white chocolate, chocolate, pretzels, oats, rice krispies and more

Enjoy! I promise they taste better than they look.

Monster Cookies for Blue & Green Day

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

April is Donate Life Month and this Friday is Donate Life’s National Blue and Green Day. It’s a day for people to wear blue and green, to show their support and raise awareness for organ, eye and tissue donation. Not only will I be wearing blue and green, but I also decided to bake some blue and green cookies in honor of the day (and maybe bribe/thank some coworkers who show their support).

I had quite a few blue and green themed-recipes in mind – mostly more cookie balls/truffles (I even have green candy shell that I wanted to use) but B kindly suggested that I make “real cookies.” SO, I pulled out this recipe for monster cookies that I had saved a while ago, added blue and green M&Ms and Blue and Green Day Monster Cookies were born! This recipe could easily be modified to show support for your favorite cause, or sports team – just swap out the M&M colors!M&M Butterfinger Monster cookies

Monster Cookies

Here’s what you need:

  • 1/2 cup (or 1 stick) butter
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3/4  cup unpacked brown sugar
  • 3/4  cup peanut butter  (I used smooth JIF)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2/3 cup oats (the kind I used said “Old Fashioned” – not “quick”)
  • 1 cup M&Ms (I used only blue and green ones)
  • 1 cup mini chocolate chips
  • 1 cup chopped Butterfingers

Here’s what you do:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
  3. In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars.
  4. Beat in the peanut butter, vanilla, and egg until smooth. Add in flour mixture and stir until just combined.
  5. Mix in the oats, chips, M&Ms and Butterfingers evenly distributed.
  6. Drop rounded spoonfuls on to greased cookie sheets. I spray mine down with Pam first.
  7. Bake for 10 minutes in the 350-degree oven, until the edges start to brown. Cool on cookie sheets for 2-3 minutes before transferring to wire cooling racks to cool completely.
  8. Enjoy! 
M&M Butterfinger Monster cookies for donate Life Blue and Green Day

Here’s what it all looks like mixed up. Yum!

M&M Butterfinger Monster cookies for donate Life Blue and Green Day

Drop your batter by rounded spoonfuls on a pre-greased cookie sheet

M&M Butterfinger Monster cookies for donate Life Blue and Green Day

Enjoy!

Disclosure: Donate Life Ohio is one of my clients. I was not asked to make blue and green cookies or blog about Blue and Green day. Still, donation is an issue that is important to me and I’m happy to use my blog to remind people the importance of registering as a donor. Currently, nearly 120,000 men, women and children are awaiting organ transplants in the United States. To register as a donor, visit http://donatelife.net/register-now/, or in Ohio click here.