PISTACHIO / MACADAMIA NUT PUDDING COOKIES

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, room temperature

¼ cup brown sugar (I use ½ cup)

¼ cup white sugar

2 (3.4ounce) package instant Pistachio Pudding mix 

2 ¼ cups flour 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla paste

1 or 2 drops green food coloring (optional)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups chopped pistachios or Macadamia nuts

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside. Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in pudding mix until blended. Add the eggs, vanilla and food coloring(optional). Mix well. Add the flour mixture and mix to combine. Stir in pistachios or macadamia nuts and chocolate chips. 

Place golf ball sized dough balls on a cookie sheet .  Bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes (rotating after 7 minutes). Do not over-bake! Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet before moving to a cooking rack. Store in air-tight container (I suggest doing this while they're still a little warm if you like your cookies on the chewy side)

Ingredients

Adding Eggs, Vanilla to the sugar and butter cream

Bowl of Dough

Ready to Bake

Cooling

Ready to Eat

CINNAMON ROLL APPLE CRISP

Ingredients

Crust Ingredients:

2 Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts

6 teaspoons cinnamon

¼ cup sugar

6 tbsp butter, melted

16 inch pizza pan

Crust Directions:

Roll out pie crusts individually on a lightly floured surface. Brush with butter and sprinkle evenly with cinnamon. Roll up the two pie crust rolls tightly and slice into 1/2-inch rounds, like miniature cinnamon rolls.

Press miniature cinnamon rolls, flat side down, evenly into the 16” pizza pan, making sure there are no spaces between the rolls.   Around the edges, push up like you are making a tart.  This will keep the apples on the crust. Set aside.

Ready to Make the Crust

With Cinnamon and Sugar

Half Rolled Up

Rolled with a slice

mini cinnamon roll

pressing it into the pan

Half done

Done

Formed

Apple Ingredients:

6 large apples (I used granny smith and gala)

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

4 Tablespoons Flour

1 teaspoon apple pie spice

2/3 cup sugar

Apple Directions:

Add lemon juice to a large bowl.  Peel and slice apples into little triangles.  Add apples one at a time to the bowl with lemon juice and stir after each apple (or section of apple).  The lemon juice will help keep the apples from turning brown.  Add the flour, apple pie spice and sugar.  Mix well.  Pour the apple mixture onto the cinnamon roll crust.

Ready to prepare the apples

cut up apples

Apples with flour and spices

Apple mixture

Apples on Top of Crust

Topping Ingredients:

1 cup flour

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup butter

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1 teaspoon apple pie spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon vanilla powder (optional)

Topping Directions:

Mix the flour, brown sugar, oats, apple pie spice, cinnamon and vanilla powder together.  Mix well.  Add the butter and mush it together until it resembles coarse wet crumbs.  Pour evenly over the apples.

Flour and Oat mixture

Topping

Topping over Apples

Ready to Bake

Just Out of the Oven

Slice Out

Cooking Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Cut foil into strips and form around the edges of the crust.  (remove strips 10 minutes before the crisp is done.  Bake for 35 – 40 minutes (or until the apples are tender.) Pour the caramel sauce over the crisp immediately after it comes out of the oven.  Cut into pizza slices and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

 

CINNAMON/CHOCOLATE “MAYAN” ICE CREAM, HOMEMADE

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Ingredients:

2 oz. premium baking chocolate, chopped

¼ cup heavy whipping cream

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1 cup sugar (extra fine baking sugar, if you have it)

1 pinch salt

1 cup half and half

1 ¾ cups heavy whipping cream

½ - 1 teaspoons cinnamon, to taste

2 tablespoons chocolate syrup for marbling, optional*

Directions:

In a double boiler or heavy saucepan, melt the chocolate and ¼ cup whipping cream while stirring constantly.  Remove it from heat just before it is completely melted.  Continue stirring.  It will finish melting as you stir.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, sift together the cocoa powder and the sugar.  Add a pinch of salt.  Gradually add the sifted cocoa powder and sugar mixture to 1 cup half and half.  Mix with a whisk or hand mixer until the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Continue mixing and slowly add the heavy whipping cream and the melted chocolate.  Add the cinnamon and mix in, to taste.  Mix with the mixer on low about 5 minutes. Cover and Chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.  Pour into the ice cream freezer and “freeze” according to the manufacturer’s instructions (around 25 – 40 minutes).  Serve as soft serve right out of the machine, or spoon it into a freezer safe container and freeze for about 8 hours. * If you would like a marbled creamier ice cream, add some chocolate syrup and marble it into the ice cream using a knife to swirl it, then freeze in the freezer. (note, the longer it freezes in the freezer, the harder it will get.)

Ingredietns

Chocolate and Whipping Cream

Melted Chocolate Ganache

Sifting Cocoa and Sugar

Sifted Cocoa and Sugar

Adding Sifted Mixture to Half and Half

Cocoa Mixed into Half and Half

Adding Cinnamon

All Mixed

Ready to Chill

Chilled

Churing

More Churning

Almost done churning

ALL Done Churning

No Marbling

Marbled with Chocolate Syrup

Chocolate Syrup

Just out o the Freezer

Yum