BakeStravaganza

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I hope you had a nice weekend.  I could be found in the kitchen over the weekend.

Pan of bars and three pans of cookies on marble countertop looking into living room

Making and baking was fun…

Bag of powdered sugar, red bowl of chocolate and sugar, and bag of chocolate chips with pink spatula

…Doing the dishes?  Not so much.  But unavoidable.

filled kitchen sink with red and yellow bowls with spatulas in themEveryone asks about these bowls when I post them.  They are these Zak bowls and they have been used multiple times per week for the past 3 years and I would say I have at least another 30 years left with them.  Extremely well-made.  They show no signs of wear, at all.

What did I make?

This was just some of it.  And I’m not even kidding.  I didn’t intend for it to turn into such a bakestravaganza but it did.  Not that that’s an awful thing or anything.

Pan of bars and three pans of cookies on marble countertop

The chocolate 9 x 13 pan is a pan of Special K Bars (No Bake and with easy vegan modification)

cookies and special k bar pans on marble counter topThey are so gooey, peanut buttery, chocolatey.  Make them.  My grandma will thank you.

And then the cookies.  Well.  Whoops.

Pans of cookiesThe cookie recipe I was developing accidentally made about twice what I thought I was getting into.

Extras?  Just freeze them.  I do it with all my desserts.  If you don’t need a pan of Special K Bars, 3 dozen cookies, Samoas Bars, last week’s Candy Corn Cookie Dough Pretzel Bites, and more…

Just throw it all in the freezer and dole out as needed.  Like around midnight when snack time is calling when company drops by.

What are the cookies?  Well, that’s a secret for now.

I developed them from this recipe for Peanut Butter Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies but you’ll have to sit tight.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies stacked

The raw cookie dough for the new cookies was perhaps the best raw cookie dough I’ve ever eaten.  So, so, good.

Green bowl of cookie dough

Other than cooking and baking, stuffing my face with cookie dough, and doing the dishes, I also managed to spend time with Scott and Skylar.  We went to a pumpkin patch.

Wooden barrel of orange pumpkins

And Skylar jumped around in a Jumpy Castle You know, those blowup things you worry your kid is going to sprain their ankle in it or get some kind of bacterial skin disease from that grimy plastic.  Yeah, those things.

But she loved every jumpy second of it.

And I loved enjoying the 70F sunny weather and the day with my family.

Trees and blue sky

I also enjoyed a few Samoas Bars over the weekend

Samoas Bars with chocolate chips stacked They enjoyed them too which made me happy

Questions:

1. Best thing you ate or did over the weekend?

My list includes everything I mentioned in this post.  Baking, creating, cookie and bar eating, pumpkin patching it, being outside and with my family.

And I got some nice yoga and runs in, too.

2. Do you eat raw cookie dough?

Even though there is a raw egg in the dough I made over the weekend, and I ate a couple spoonfuls anyway.  I grew up eating raw batter, crusts, brownies, and cookie dough.  And I’m still here today.

You could always make raw vegan chocolate chip cookie dough which is made to be eaten raw.  No eggs.

There’s many schools of thought on raw eggs.  Some people think there’s nothing wrong with it and do it often (bodybuilders for example).  Other people would never eat raw eggs because they worry about salmonella.

Some people may eat something with a raw eggs only if they are fresh eggs or if they know exactly where the eggs came from or if they’re pasteurized as in homemade Caesar dressings, mayonnaise, eggnog, homemade ice cream or custards, and in Hollandaise sauces.

To each her own.

Remember Orange Julius when they really did have raw eggs in them?

I will never forget in my seventh grade Home-Ec class (do they still have “home economics” class?  I doubt it) but we made Orange Julius with raw egg.  In a public school in rural Minnesota and no one batted an eye.  Pretty sure that wouldn’t happen today.  Even though those Orange Julius’ tasted awesome.

So even though I don’t make a habit of eating raw dough, every once in awhile you have to taste the batter to make sure it’s okay before you bake it, right?

If you’re just catching up on posts from the weekend, here are mine since Friday:

Last chance for the $100 Visa Giftcard & Pedometer Giveaway

Have a great week!

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Comments

  1. Man, if I would have known you were making all of those goodies I would have been on the first flight to SD!

    1. one recipe is the special k bars that I linked in the post (one of my fave bars ever!)

      and the other is based off the cookies I also linked. Will be getting it updated soon :)

  2. Raw cookie dough is the best, and I am able to eat more of it if egg isn’t involved. I find that it actually tastes better without the egg anyway. I took home ec in sixth grade! I wonder if schools still even care about that anymore.

    1. Thank you for all those pins you did!!!!!!

      And home ec class…blast from the past, right? :)

  3. It was a baking weekend in our house too! I made oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies and date squares. I also took my son to his first hockey game at the local arena and he loved it! I usually freeze cookies as well when I make a lot but have been thinking more and more about just freezing the dough :)

    1. your baking sounds great.

      Freezing the dough…my grandma used to do this and I think with some doughs like pie crust it’s more “okay” than others in terms of the final result. Not sure if cookie dough “holds up” the same, i.e. if the baked cookies will be the same after the dough has been frozen/thawed. Not sure it would make too much difference though. Trial and error and taste-testing is the only way. Tough work :)

  4. Those bars look amazing, as do the cookies…mmm…and I’m jealous of your weekend weather! x

  5. I would love to try the Special K bars and those at last look really good, the best thing I ate this weekend were empanadas <3 I love them, specially when they are fluffy and the cheese inside is still warm and melts on your mouth

  6. Happy Monday! I had a great family-filled weekend. And all my cookie dough is vegan so I definitely eat it!

  7. I absolutely love baking days like this! Especially this time of year. All I want to do is nest and bake and wear flannel pajamas. Everything looks fantastic :)

  8. Best thing over the weekend was carving pumpkins with my family :) It’s a yearly tradition where we all get together and carve. So much fun!

  9. Baking all weekends is amazing, dishes? Not so much at all. You’re baking and I’m thinking about using my slow cooker lol.

  10. Oh my gosh Averie, I’ve been following your blog for some time now and am one of those people who rarely comments, but I have to say, oh my gosh, those cookies are delightful. I’m making a batch to mail to my mom, and I’m positive they’re going to make her day. Heck, the cookie dough made mine :) And I made your caramel apple bars the other week to take to work and they were DEVOURED in no time at all. Thanks for sharing your yummy ideas with us!

    1. Thanks for LMK you made the cookies and the caramel apple bars…and that they were a hit.

      Thanks for reading and for saying hi :)

  11. I love weekends when I can do a lot of baking and cooking. The best part about my weekend was spending time with my mom and going to dimsum brunch together!

  12. Wow– you went baking crazy!!! Looks great.

    I MISS raw cookie dough– didn’t think about that as a pregnancy no-no until I got pregnant, ha!