Pastry Pockets Filled with Stuff

As I mentioned last week, I found this really cool recipe for homemade “Pastry pockets filled with stuff” (Is the word pop tart trademarked? Oh well!) However, due to an unfortunate lack of eggs, I made muffins instead. Well this is a new week, and fortunately I got some groceries!

I came across this recipe on Smitten Kitchen’s blog. I’m not a huge pop tart fan (I only ate them for a brief period in my childhood); however, the pictures made them look divine! After reading through the recipe, it seemed straight forward; though, none of the fillings tickled my fancy. If I weren’t so lazy, I could just go buy jam pop tarts from the grocery store and save myself the trouble. That’s when I got an idea… 

My friends and I love going down to the States to grocery shop; they have a wide selection of food products that we just don’t get up here in the Great White North. One of my friend’s favourite treats to buy is pop tarts. But not just any pop tarts. Oh no! These are chocolate chip cookie dough pop tarts! Raw chocolate chip cookie dough is one of weaknesses, so I decided to try and make my own version. Though, I admit, I made some cinnamon filled ones too – just in case the cookie dough thing didn’t work out.

What's on hand?

Like most people, I can be pretty lazy. Unless I absolutely HAVE to bake something specific, if I don't have the ingredients for a recipe I'll make something else! That's what happened this week.

It started off with me trying to find a recipe that used buttermilk (since we bought a large carton of it) and I found a relatively simple muffin recipe, and I love muffins, so win-win. But I wasn't excited about baking them. So I surfed the web, trying to find something that caught my eye and that's when I saw homemade pop tarts. I'm not a big fan of pop tarts, but I thought it would be something people hadn't seen before. So tonight, I started getting all my ingredients out, thrilled to try out this recipe when I realized... I had no eggs.

I know I don't live far from the grocery store, eggs aren't that expensive, and I'm bound to need eggs in the near future - but I figure future me could deal with that problem! So I decided to just go with Plan A and made muffins! (Now, I do admit, the recipe called for an egg as well, but I was more comfortable replacing the egg in this recipe with just egg whites since it wasn't playing that big of a 'binding' role) Now that I've made them, I'm pretty excited! I love trying to make delicious, healthier muffins since they usually get a bad rap. Now, that's not to say these taste like those muffins! They do have a different texture and aren't nearly as sweet, but the explosion of berry inside is wonderful!

It's worth the allergic reaction

Now Imagine yourself biting into a delicious Reese Peanut Butter Cup, but instead of the crisp chocolate shell there is a soft chocolate, peanut butter-ey cloud? Doesn't that sound dreamy? Well guess what, it can be reality!

 

Before I go on, I must say, I'm elated I don't have a peanut allergy. The first time I had peanut butter, a life long addiction started and for 4 years my breakfast consisted of toast, peanut butter and flax. I loved every minute of it!

I don't know what happened, but recently I've taken a little break from my beloved. My breakfasts have changed and thus my peanut butter consumption has decreased dramatically. As a result we have tons of peanut butter sitting in the cupboard crying out to be loved. Hence the second thing I baked this week - something that required as much peanut butter as possible.

I hope I don’t get fat…

Wow, this is going to be a busy baking week; I’ve decided to bake 3 different treats for various occasions! Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to love every minute of it! I just hope I can restrain myself from tasting at every step - especially the Q&A step before distribution! Otherwise, those new clothes I bought will be going to the back of my closet to taunt me.

I’ll start at the beginning, with the first dessert I baked this week. A friend of mine absolutely loved these cookies I made a couple months ago, and when I told her I started this blog she immediately searched the blog for the recipe. Unfortunately, I hadn’t put it up yet (since I’m only posting recipes as I bake them), so she was disappointed she couldn’t bake the cookies herself. Well, to make it up to her, I baked them this week. So not only will she get the recipe, but some cookies as well!