baking Archives - Just J.Faye

My Christmas Cookie List

December 13, 2019 by Jenna

Christmas is less than two weeks away! Let’s make and eat and share all the best Christmas cookies!

Last weekend I was home in Minnesota for an early Christmas celebration with my family. It was absolutely perfect with all of my favorite people and a lot of delicious cookies.

After our little celebration my mom and I were reminiscing over all of our favorite cookies over the years. It’s amazing how cookies can bring back such good memories, like baking dozens and dozens and dozens of cookies every year with close family friends or entering the Star Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest. Our conversation inspired me to make a bunch and share them with co-workers and friends over the next few weeks.

Here is what I am thinking so far.

Molasses Creams with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting. These are hands-down my all-time favorite Christmas cookies.
Oreo Truffles. Also lovingly know as “snowman poop”. These are so easy and so dangerously good. I typically used almond bark instead of the white chocolate chips listed on the recipe in the link.
Sugar Cookies. Sugar cookies are classic and you need them for Christmas. If you have a sugar cookie recipe that you love, please send it to me! I’d love to do some roll-out frosted ones, but if I’m running low on time and creativity I may just make these sprinkle sugar cookies with some red and green sprinkles.
Popularity Cookies, AKA Saltine Toffee Bark. I haven’t had these in a while, but it’s time to bring them back. Can you really go wrong with chocolatey, nutty toffee? Nope. My mom always used Club crackers instead of Saltines.
Mint Chocolate Meltaway Cookies. I used to be obsessed with these cookies! Unfortunately, the ones in my head are not the ones I linked to. The cookies I’m imagining have a similar base to that recipe, but with chocolate ganache and an Andes Mint on top. I did a lot of Googling and this is the best I could find. Mom, if you are reading this can you please try to find and send me this recipe?! Thanks in advance 🙂
Snickerdoodles. Similar to sugar cookies: 1) you have to have them and 2) if you have a recipe you love, please send it my way!

Those are my musts, but if I have time, which I won’t, I’d love to also make any of these: linzer cookies, Mexican wedding cookies/Russian tea cakes, coconut macaroons, rugelach, shortbread, raspberry thumbprint cookies, chocolate cranberry ginger bites, etc.

Looking at this list I probably should have start baking weeks ago. Oh well.

What are your favorite, must-have cookies?

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

November 14, 2017 by Jenna

The days are dark and cold. Let’s make brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Actually, it’s not that cold. It was 70 degrees yesterday. Boo. I’ll take cool temps and a light dusting of snow, please.

Warm or cold, it is that time of year. That time to eat everything pumpkin. You know, just before we switch to peppermint and molasses. I’ve been taking full advantage the season – beer, bread, lattes, soup, smoothies, pasta, pancakes, yogurt, bars, and cookies. Obviously, cookies.

These brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are super easy to make. Let me sum it up – brown the butter. Whisk in the sugars and wet ingredients. Fold in the dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips. Chill. Bake. Eat.

It’s truly that simple.

You could make it easier on yourself and just use melted butter instead of brown butter, but don’t. Brown butter is just too good and it’s not that difficult to make. If I can do it, you surely can.

In other news, yesterday marked eight weeks since my heart surgery. EIGHT WEEKS. Honestly, I still haven’t completely wrapped my head around the fact that it happened. But it did. I have the scars to prove it.

My recovery has been going extremely well (except for that time my incision got infected and I had to take antibiotics for four weeks). I have been lucky to have a strong, supportive network and can’t thank people enough for reaching out with kind words and positive vibes.

I have been going to a cardiac rehab class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning for the last 4 weeks. Here I am connected to a heart monitor and do 40 minutes of cardio and a few minutes of strength training and stretching. I have been working my way up to running during the cardio portion and got up to 25 minutes of running yesterday (intervals of 5-minutes jogging with 2-minutes walking). I hate (and am terrible at) running on treadmills, but it feels great to work up a sweat.

Since the cardiac rehab has helped build up my cardiac endurance and confidence Michael and I decided it was finally time to head out on a hike last weekend. I woke up so excited on Saturday you would have thought I was an 8-year-old on Christmas morning! We did Mount Galbraith on Saturday and White Ranch on Sunday for a total of about 9.5 miles for the weekend. I think we were both a little bit nervous, but we took things slow and steady and didn’t run into any issues. I didn’t even feel any waves of lightheadedness like I always had this summer. It was so wonderful to be outside and hiking through the foothills with Michael again! I kind of tear up just thinking about it. Haha.

It’s been quite the journey and now it’s time to focus on increasing my cardio endurance, gaining back muscle tone, and eating brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep time

80 mins

Cook time

13 mins

Total time

1 hour 33 mins

The hardest part about making these brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies is to not eat them all before sharing with friends.

Serves: 2½ dozen

Ingredients

½ cup butter
1 ice cube
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅓ cup pumpkin puree
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
⅓ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon all spice
½ cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Brown the butter. To do this melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk the melted butter until it becomes golden brown in color and has a nutty smell.
Pour browned butter into a large bowl and whisk in an ice cube. It will froth a little.
Once the brown butter has cooled for a minute or two whisk in the sugars, vanilla extract, and pumpkin puree until smooth.
Fold in the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator for an hour (up to 24 hours).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Roll dough into balls and place them on the cookie sheet. Bake for 9-13 minutes.
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and then move them onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Make sure to check out these other pumpkin recipes: pumpkin oreo bars, chocolate pumpkin snack cake, brown butter pumpkin bars & hearty, healthy pumpkin soup.

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Chocolate Zucchini Cake

July 18, 2017 by Jenna

A quick and easy recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake. It’s a moist, chocolaty cake that is studded with fresh zucchini – a delicious summertime dessert!

On Sunday I was going to go hike a 14er, but for a variety of reasons and factors I ended up not doing it. This meant that I had an entire free day to myself. No people to see. No things to do. No commitments. It ended up being quite luxurious.

After some strength training at the gym, a walk to the farmer’s market, and a little reading outside on the patio I decided to dig out The Duesterhoeft Café cookbook and whip up something from my family’s collection of recipes.

Since it’s the time of year when my fridge is stocked with zucchini I landed on the chocolate zucchini cake. Also, chocolate cake on a Sunday (or any other day, really) is never a bad idea. Ever.

The cake comes together very quickly. First, cream together the butter, oil, egg, sugar, and vanilla. Next, stir in the zucchini and finally, mix in the dry ingredients. The batter is a little bit looser compared normal cake batter, due to the moisture from all the zucchini.

Pour the batter into a 9×9 baking dish and sprinkle it with chocolate chips and brown sugar. The chocolate chips and brown sugar melt together in the oven and form a sort of caramely, crispy layer on top.

I hope that doesn’t sound gross/weird. I just don’t know how else to explain it!

The cake has a nice, light crumb and the perfect amount of chocolaty flavor.

Cut a generous slice and top it with a dollop of ice cream. Grab a glass of wine and a good book. Then take everything outside to enjoy.

If that’s not a lovely summer evening, I don’t know what is!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

50 mins

A quick and easy recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake. It's a moist, chocolaty cake that is studded with fresh zucchini - a delicious summertime dessert!

Serves: 16 pieces

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
heaping ¾ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 ¼ cup flour
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
2 ½ tablespoons cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup chocolate chips
¼ cup brown sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Grate zucchini and set aside in a strainer to drain excess water. You will need one cup.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, add the oil, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Beat on high for 2-3 minutes.
Mix in the zucchini.
Add in the buttermilk, baking soda, flour, and cinnamon and mix on low until everything is combined.
Pour batter into an ungreased 9x9 cake pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and brown sugar.
Bake for 35-40 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting.

Notes

Try to drain most of the water from the zucchini. I’ll usually let mine sit in a strainer for a few minutes and then soak up some moisture with a couple paper towels.

If you don’t have buttermilk on hand (do people normally?) replace it with ¼ cup milk (dairy, almond, soy, whatever) mixed with 1 ½ teaspoon lemon juice. Stir it up and let it sit for a minute or two before using.

Adding ¼ cup chopped walnuts on top with the chocolate chips and brown sugar would be a delicious idea.

This recipe can be easily doubled and baked in a 9x13 pan.

My mom likes to store it in the fridge, but it's delicious stored at room temperature as well!

My mom’s personal notes on the recipe in the cookbook: “I love zucchini from the garden; raw, sauteed, roasted, baked into breads and muffins, and especially baked into this cake recipe. My mom would make this often in the summer. I like to keep it in the fridge… no reason, I just like it that way. This recipe is in honor of my mother’s good friend Marlys Stockman from Plato.”

More The Duesterhoeft Cafe cookbook recipes: Coconut Coffee Cake, Rhubarb Cake, and Basic Banana Bread.

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Chocolate Pumpkin Snack Cake

October 25, 2016 by Jenna

This Chocolate Pumpkin Snack Cake is exactly what you need right now. It’s chocolatey, pumpkiny, but not too rich or dense or PSLy – the perfect afternoon treat!

It’s still in the 70s and 80s here in Denver, which IMO is far too warm for this time of year. I want to wear sweaters and leggings and boots and to bake all the pumpkin things. I’m going to do all that stuff anyways and just try to will the weather to cooler temperatures. I think it’ll work.

I started out by baking this Chocolate Pumpkin Snack Cake. It’s a light, moist chocolate cake that’s flavored with a little bit of pumpkin and cinnamon. It’s not full on in your face pumpkin spice, but if that’s what you’re looking for feel free to add some ground nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

I’m kind of in love with it and I think you will be too.

Snack cakes in general are kind of amazing. They are super approachable and quick to whip up. You don’t need to drag out your mixer or worry about frosting a 3-tier layer cake. But the lack of hassle does not mean lack of flavor, so it’s all pretty ideal.

This snack cake in particular is full of chocolate and pumpkin and all sorts of deliciousness. Then it’s topped with a chocolate almond butter drizzle, because we can.

To start, you’ll mix together all your dry ingredients. Then you’ll melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate together, whisk in some eggs, and add the sugar, vanilla, brown sugar, pumpkin puree, and milk. Then the wet gets mixed into the dry to make a big ole bowl of batter. If it seems too thick feel free to add an additional tablespoon or two of milk. Bake it up for 25 minutes and try your best to let it cool completely.

Once it’s cool you’ll melt together the chocolate almond butter drizzle ingredients and spoon it over the cake.

Finally, pour yourself a big cup of coffee, sit down, and enjoy a piece (or two) of this delicious Chocolate Pumpkin Snack Cake.

Get after it!

Chocolate Pumpkin Snack Cake

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

40 mins

This chocolate pumpkin snack cake is a light, moist chocolate cake flavored with pumpkin and cinnamon and topped with a chocolate almond butter drizzle. It's a perfect afternoon treat!

Serves: 12 pieces

Ingredients

For the cake:

1 ½ cup all purpose flour
⅓ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup milk (dairy, almond, soy, whatever you have on hand)

For the chocolate almond butter drizzle:

2 tablespoons almond butter
2 tablespoon chocolate chips
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon maple syrup

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Take two pieces of parchment paper and place them perpendicularly in an 8x8” baking pan. Leave some overhang so that the cake can easily be lifted out of the pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate on low heat. You can also do this in the microwave.
Let it cool for a minute or two then whisk in the eggs.
Stir in the vanilla, brown sugar, pumpkin, and milk.
Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes. Set aside to cool.
To make the drizzle, combine all of the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30-second increments until everything is melted. Drizzle over the cooled cake. Then eat and enjoy!

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Ginger-Orange Brownies

March 29, 2016 by Jenna

These ginger-orange brownies are delicious, fudgy brownies with a hint of orange, ginger, and salt.

Ever since moving to Denver I feel that I bake much less than I used to. I think a large part of it is that I used to bake a lot on the weekends; however, now that I have easy access to the mountains and an overwhelming amount of things to see I try to spend the bulk of my weekends out exploring rather than in the kitchen experimenting.

I mean, when you have the chance to go see this and this and this and this can you really blame me!?

But then there are things like this – these ginger-orange brownies.

They make me remember how much I love to bake (and eat) brownies.

Surely, there is plenty of time to both bake and explore.

Ginger and orange and brownies may seem like a strange combination, but it works. Quite well, actually.

Or at least it does in my opinion. Bake them and let me know your thoughts!

Ginger-Orange Brownies

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

These ginger-orange brownies are delicious, fudgy brownies with a hint of orange, ginger, and salt.

Serves: 12 brownies

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar
zest from one orange
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup butter
6 oz bittersweet chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
3 eggs
3 ounces high quality dark chocolate, chopped (I used a Lindt Intense Orange chocolate bar)
Sea salt (optional)

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Take two pieces of parchment paper and place them perpendicularly in an 8x8” baking pan. Leave some overhang so that the brownies can easily be lifted out of the pan. Grease with butter or oil.
Add the sugar and orange zest to a bowl. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers until fully combined. Set aside.
Combine the cocoa powder, flour, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
Melt the butter and bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler (a saucepan over a larger saucepan of boiling water) or in the microwave (heat for 30 seconds then stir, continuing this pattern until everything is melted). Let this cool slightly.
Whisk in the vanilla extract, espresso powder, and orange-zested sugar, then whisk in the eggs one at a time.
Stir in the dry ingredients, then fold in the chopped chocolate.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and top with a generous amount of sea salt.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Do not overbake! Brownies can be slightly underdone and gooey (<-- the best!).

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Healthy Chocolate Chip Almond Coconut Bars

January 26, 2016 by Jenna

I’m really into these healthy chocolate chip almond coconut bars right now.

They are basically all of my favorite flavors combined into one delicious treat: chocolate, almonds, coconut. Then there’s the fact that these are healthy, so I love them even more. I’ve been eating them morning, noon, and night and I don’t feel bad about it at all.

There is no butter, flour, eggs, oil, or refined sugar in this recipe. They are gluten-free and vegan (if you use vegan chocolate chips). The surprise ingredient is chickpeas. I get that it sounds weird. It’s like that time I told you to put cannellini beans in your blondies. But hey! That worked and so does this.

Trust me.

In these healthy chocolate chip almond coconut bars we have the obvious ingredients: chocolate chips, roasted chopped almonds, and unsweetened coconut flakes. However, those are just the mix-ins. The base of the bars are built with chickpeas, almond butter, almond meal, and coconut sugar with a little vanilla extract, salt, and baking powder. The batter comes together in a food processor within minutes.

It’s ridiculously simple.

This was my first time using coconut sugar. I’ve read about it quite a bit, so when I saw it on sale at the grocery store I decided to finally buy some and try it out. Coconut sugar is basically boiled and dehydrated sap from coconut palm and has a caramel-y flavor like brown sugar. It is similar to granulated sugar, but offers a lower glycemic index, less fructose, more vitamins and minerals, and some prebiotics. I wouldn’t say it’s good for you, but is a worthy refined-sugar replacement, like honey.

With that said, if you don’t feel like splurging (because it is a tad more expensive) on coconut sugar, you can replace it with honey in this recipe.

Don’t worry, these healthy chocolate chip almond coconut bars don’t taste like chickpeas. And if they did, would that be so bad? Chickpeas are delicious! The chickpeas, however, do give these bars an almost butter-y texture. They are soft, not too sweet, and have hints of chocolate, almond, and coconut. I added a sprinkle of sea salt over the top for a nice contrasting flavor.

These are great for those moments you need a sweet treat and don’t want to feel guilty about it. I recommend baking up a batch and storing them in the freezer, so that you are prepared for when your sweet teeth wants control.

Try them out and let me know what you think!

Healthy Chocolate Chip Almond Coconut Bars

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

30 mins

These healthy chocolate chip almond coconut bars are made with a secret ingredient - chickpeas! They are a delicious, guilt-free treat to help satisfy your sweet tooth.

Serves: 12 bars

Ingredients

15 oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
⅓ cup creamy almond butter
¼ cup almond meal
¼ cup coconut sugar*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup roasted almonds, roughly chopped
½ cup dark chocolate chips (vegan, if needed)
½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8 baking pan and line with parchment paper
Add the base ingredients (chickpeas -> baking powder) into the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the chopped almonds, dark chocolate chips, and coconut flakes and pulse a few times until everything is combined.
Spread the mixture into the prepared pan, sprinkle with chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and sea salt, then bake for 25 minutes.
Let cool completely before slicing. These will last a few days in the refrigerator and a few months in the freezer.

Notes

*The coconut sugar can be replaced with brown sugar or honey.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Almond Coconut Bars

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