July, 2015 | Just About Baked

The Best Vegan, Gluten-Free PB Cookies

July 30, 2015
Mir
C is for COOKIE!, Gluten-Free Goodness, Healthier Indulgences
20 Comments

I’ve got to post something kind of healthy. It’s been candy bars and cola all week long. Consider this recipe equally delicious, but a little less crazy than black cherry cola cake and Baby Ruth brookies.

Of course, it’s a peanut butter recipe. I have a rule when it comes to gluten-free baking: chocolate or peanut butter (or both) has to make an appearance. I don’t know about you, but I still haven’t mastered the GF yellow cake. It’s on my baking bucket list, but as yet, no progress. I’ll keep working on it.

Chocolate and peanut butter are both strong flavors, and they work well with my favorite of all gluten-free flours: oat flour. It has to be certified GF, by the way. Just remember that. I wouldn’t put oat flour in more delicately-flavored desserts, but in peanut butter cookies? Fo sho. For an added bonus, these puppies just happen to be vegan. Eat that, all y’all!

Baby Ruth Brookies

Some kids get neglected. That’s a tragedy I don’t want to talk about. But something I can handle discussing? Candy bars that get neglected.

When I was a kid, my dad would pick us up after school and on simpler days, we’d go straight home. But sometimes there were errands to run, so we had to go out and about. While I hated errands, it usually meant I got to pick out an after school candy bar. For years, that candy bar was Baby Ruth. Those chocolate-covered peanut and caramel bars have a great deal of nostalgia for me.

Which kind of got me to thinking. I rarely bake with Baby Ruth bars, and that’s a crying shame. So today, I’ve remedied that neglect. They’re getting their very own brookie!

Black Cherry Cola Cake

This has been on my baking bucket list for a while.

It’s fun to cook with cola. Did you know that cola makes a fantastic marinade for a hunk of beef? And it also makes a great cake ingredient. It just took me a while to get to trying the whole thing out, since we don’t keep soda in our house. More on that in a moment.

Instead of using straight-up cola for this cake, I used black cherry soda. Dr. Brown’s, to be specific. If you’ve never tried Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda, you are definitely missing out. Their cream soda is pretty amazing, too. But that’s neither here nor there. This cake, though? This cake is amazing. And the icing on top ain’t half bad, either!

PB & J Bars

I’ve never gotten over a simple PB & J. I mean, how can you top that?

With a bar, actually. That’s how you top the best sandwich ever. This bar is soft and chewy and topped with strawberry jelly. Oh, and peanut butter chips. Can you imagine what would have happened if your mother had put peanut butter chips in your sandwich when you were a kid? That’s known as “bad parenting.” But it works really well in a dessert bar!

Too well, actually. These guys got banished to the freezer so I wouldn’t slam back the entire batch in one day. It makes me wonder why I didn’t name my blog after all things peanut butter. If you must know, I like to rename my blog in my head. But I still really like Just About Baked.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Chips Apple Slab Pie

As it turns out, you can make pretty much anything with cookie chips. Who knew? I mean, I knew they were addictive, but versatility is also a huge plus.

Apple pie has always been a little bit of a seasonal question mark for me. It comes out at Thanksgiving, so that would suggest that it’s an autumnal food. But then it also comes out for summer potlucks, and that makes it…summer food? Instead of remaining confused, I’ve decided that apple pie is American, delicious, and year-round.

Slab pie is even better. That’s when you bake pie into a square or rectangular pan instead of a pie plate. Nothing is more satisfying than a lovely rectangular slab of apple pie. That is, of course, unless you up the ante. This apple slab pie is covered in Hannah Max oatmeal raisin cookie chips crumble, and it’s impossible to stop eating.

Pink Lemonade Snowballs

Have we talked much about my favorite cookie? Probably not, especially in the summertime. Who bakes snowball cookies in the summer?

Well, I do. This pink lemonade version has taken my favorite winter cookie and morphed it right into summer where it belongs. It’s pink and cute and ridiculously tasty. Those are all fantastic reasons to eat a cookie!

Another reason to eat a pink lemonade cookie? Lemon is a summer flavor. In fact, as you’re reading this, I’m at the beach with my buddy getting some girl time. And you can bet your patootie that we’ll be getting some fresh-squeezed lemonade on the boardwalk!

Brownie Sacher Torte

July 16, 2015
Mir
Bars n' Brownies, Cakes, Let Them Eat Cake
18 Comments

Sometimes time can be the best healer.

A year ago, I tried making the famous Sacher torte for my mother’s birthday. It’s a dense chocolate cake with apricot filling that hails from Vienna. I did tons of research and worked much harder than usual to get the cake just right.

Epic fail, everyone. The glaze was clumpy and the cake was just way too dry. It was so not worth all that time and effort. Luckily, time passed and I decided I wanted to try again, but this time I did it on my terms. That means the cake became a brownie and the glaze was a much simpler version of the process that did me in a year ago.

S’Moreo Cheesecake Bars

July 14, 2015
Mir
Bars n' Brownies, Cupcakes and Cheesecakes
32 Comments

Well, it only took a month to get here.

Seriously, I bought these s’more-flavored Oreos a month ago. And I was all excited about making something with them with the vague intention of having it be s’moreo cupcakes. Life got in the way, and it didn’t happen. The cookies just sat in my cabinet until a few days ago, when fate intervened.

I was trying to make cheesecake bars and realized after I began (hate it when this happens) that I was out of both graham cracker crumbs and graham crackers. But instead of giving up, which is not what a baker does, I remembered the s’moreos. And suddenly, these cheesecake bars crystallized in my head and came to life!

Snickers Peanut Blondies

Why, oh why did this take me so long?

Last week I was driving around and suddenly it occurred to me that I just don’t bake with Snickers very much. And why? No good reason! Seriously, folks. What is wrong with me?

So to make up for this gross error in judgment, here’s a whopper. It’s a peanut butter blondie filled with Snickers and peanuts. It doesn’t get any better than this for you lovers of all things chewy, caramel, peanut, and chocolate. And it’s all made in just one bowl, no mixer involved!

The Best (Gluten-Free) Chocolate Birthday Cake

Summer is birthday season in my house. Birthdays pop up one after the other, and with them, a parade of cakes. As the resident cake baker, that makes me pretty busy.

I’m all about easy baking, but there’s no way to cheat a layer cake. Steps have to be followed. Still, making it as easy as possible is ideal, and this chocolate cake is three things: incredible, simple, and gluten-free.

If you’re a doubter, you need to try this. I served this cake at my daughter’s birthday party to a group of people who either openly or covertly believe that gluten-free baking is crap. This cake proved them all wrong.