My Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our sweet neighbours invited us over for drinks tomorrow afternoon for a little after christmas festivities and my mom asked if I could bake some treats to to bring as a little gift. I haven't made Chocolate Chip Cookies in absolutely forever, and decided to make my favourites.

I have tried and tested more chocolate chip cookie recipes then I can count, and these are my favourite favourite favourite. Personally, I like my cookies as chewy as they can get, and this is the chewiest I have ever had. Enjoy!

   Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups Flour
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 cup Unsalted Butter, melted then cooled
• 1 cup Packed Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup White Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Egg + 1 Yolk
• 3 cups Chocolate Chips 

   Method

1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder into a medium bowl
2. Cream the butter and sugars together in a larger bowl. Add the vanilla, egg and yolk and beat until creamy and light. 
3. Mix in the sifted ingredients slowly, blending until just fully mixed 
4. Fold in chocolate chips
5. Spoon batter into cling film, wrap up, and refrigerate over night 
6. When ready to cook, take out dough and preheat oven to 375(F)
7. Bake 2 Tbsp balls of dough about 8 minutes, or until the edges are slightly browned (they tend to look a little underdone)
8. Try not to eat 10 

Windlesham Pram Race

Boxing Day (December 26th) is a big deal in the UK. Apart from the traditional walk in the park and stop at the pub, this year my family discovered a new tradition. When my parents became empty nesters this year, they moved into a smaller house in Windlesham (a small town about an hour outside of London). Every year they have a "Pram" race boxing day. The pray is essentially any pushed "thing", and teams dress up in themes and decorate their prams along with this theme.

The goal is to race between the 6 pubs that are in the town, while stopping and having a pint at each one. We also saw that each pram had cases of beer to bring along too, because clearly the 7 pints weren't quite enough. Along with getting sloshed, the entire thing is for charity so people are all running around with donation buckets for their separate prams. I've honestly never seen anything so British and fun.

Best Moment: Witnessing an entire team take a a shot of crappy tequila. The faces that followed were absolutely hilarious. We gave them a couple extra pounds for their struggle

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Today I realized I had some super ripe bananas that needed to be dealt with. After saving them from my roommates, I knew there was only one thing that needed to be done! Banana baking! I searched for a recipe that looked good and found this one for these delicious looking muffins from Rainstorms and Love Notes, and awesome blog. I adapted them a little bit, and they turned out great!

I absolutely love muffins because you can convince yourself that they're healthy although they're pretty much just cupcakes.

These one's looked particularly good and exactly what I was in the mood for.

Banana Chocolate Oatmeal Muffins Recipe

Ingredients

• 3-4 Ripe Bananas (depending on size)
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Melted Butter
• 1/4 cup Milk
• 2 Eggs
• 2 cups Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Quick Oats
• 1-2 cup Dark Chocolate Chips

Steps 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Peel bananas and mash them with a fork until they are a liquidy consistency  
3. Add the butter, milk, eggs and sugar into the bananas, and beat until fully combined
4. Next add the flour, baking soda, and salt and beat until combined.
5. Stir in the oats and chocolate
6. Place cupcake paper cups into muffin pan, and spoon batter in
   
   
   
   
   
7. Bake for 20 minutes, and enjoy! 
   
   
   
   
   

San Francisco: Marin Headlands

If you wanna see the Golden Gate, this is the place to do it from. The view is so incredible, and if you have a car around the bay I would highly recommend taking the drive up through the hills to stop by the headlands.

All Peppermint Errrywhere

I'm a sucker for peppermint. I'm serious. I have a problem. In the last week I have made Chocolate Brownie Peppermint Coated Cake Pops, Dark Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles, Peppermint Bark, and Peppermint Ice Cream. My excuse is that its christmas time and "normal" to spend all day making sweets. Whatever the reason, here are the recipes. I'm gonna go watch Elf now :)

Dark Chocolate Mint Crinkle Cookies:

Honestly these are the best cookies I have ever made. Ever. They taste like tiny bites of minty chocolatey heaven.

• 3/4 cup Butter
• 1 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 3/4 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 2 cup All Purpose Flour
• 2 bars Green and Black's Dark Chocolate Mint
• 2ish cup Powdered Sugar

    Method

1. Beat together the butter and sugar
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time
3. Mix in the cocoa powder and flour
4. Chop of the chocolate bars (I had them in all different sizes, although it does make it easier to have smaller pieces when the cookies are baking)
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 (175 Celsius)
6. Try not to eat 10 at a time...seriously these are too good 

Brownie Peppermint Cake Pops

• 1 Chocolate Cake Mix
• 1 Jar of Chocolate Frosting
• 3 Packets of Wilton Candy Melts
• 1 Box of Candy Canes
• Lollipop Sticks

    Method

1. Bake the cake as instructed
2. Once the cake is baked, let cool completely. 
3. Put cake into large bowl and mix in the icing completely (getting the right consistency is kind of a judgement call here, i usually use a little bit more than half of the frosting)
4. Roll the cake icing mixture into compact balls, place on cookie sheet with parchment paper and put into the freezer for about an hour 
5. While the balls are in the freezer, put all the candy canes into a bag and mash them up 
6. After an hour, take out the balls and stick a lollipop stick into each one. 
7. Melt the candy melts according to the package (make sure not to overheat them, will loose the melted consistency), and dip each ball into it. Right after dipping sprinkle the candy canes onto the pops and let dry

Peppermint Bark

• 2 packages Nestle Dark Chocolate Chips (honestly any kind of dark chocolate is fine!)
• 2 packages Nestle White Chocolate Chips 
• Peppermint Extract
• Candy Canes

    Method

1. Line an edged baking pan with parchment paper
2. Melt the dark chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave 
3. Pour into the baking pan and spread out thinly with a spoon so the entire pan is covered
4. Put pan into fridge or freezer
5. Put candy canes into ziplock bags and smash
6. Melt the white chocolate in microwave, once melted add a couple drops of peppermint extract and stir in the smaller crushed candy canes
7. Take dark chocolate out of the fridge, and pour white chocolate candy cane mixture on top. Spread with a spoon
8. Sprinkle larger candy cane parts on top. 

A Californian Christmas

There's pretty much 3 places that I consider "home" nowadays. Along with Seattle and London, I'm in San Francisco a ton (my boyfriend goes to school in the Bay). I spent all last summer working in Berkeley and exploring the Bay Area, and honestly fell more in love with it every single day.

Before coming to London for Christmas I went down to San Fran for a week and did some of my absolute favourite Bay Area things

Ferry Building I'm a sucker when it comes to little speciality shops for cheese, meat, flowers, ect. The ferry building is full of fun little stores to look around (especially if you're a little hungry!). On Sunday's there's also an awesome farmers market. Whenever Ryan and I go into the city we always come here to go to Cowgirl Creamery and get some delicious cheese.

Exploritorium: When I was a camp counselor with Girls on the Go over the summer we went to the Exploritorium 3 times and I kid you not, I fell more and more in love with it with every single visit. IT IS SO MUCH FUN. Maybe its because I'm a total science geek, but everything was so cool and presented in such an intriguing way. Everywhere you look is another amazing exhibit. I would come here 100 more times.

Homemade Cafe, Sacramento Street, Berkeley: Just a little breakfast spot, but so delicious.

Ghiradelli Square: I know I know, not exactly a secret spot, but I'd go pretty much anywhere for a free square of Ghirdaelli. The restaurant/cafe attached is also so good if you're in the mood for an after dinner treat. If you're there during the day, walking down the hill to the park and beach is a must.

Happy Holidays!
Megan