These are just the perfect chocolate cookie when you are wanting to sit by the fire, curl up with your favorite book and have something chocolate to go with that latte or cup of hot tea. These are just amazing and it will satisfy even the finikiest chocoholic out there……….sorry, have to go and have another cookie!

Yield – 2 dz.

1 bag (11.5 oz) Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips

6 tbles  unsalted butter

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/2 teas baking powder

1 bak (12) oz ghirardelli Semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup (4 oz) walnuts or pecans

In double boiler over hot water, melt the bittersweet chocolate chips and butter. In garge bowl, withelectric mixer, beat eggs and sugar until thick, stir in chocolate mixture. In small bowl, stir together flour and baking powder, stir into chocolate mixture. Gently mix insemi-sweet chocolate chips and nuts.

Using a sheet of plastic wrap, form dough into two logs, each 2 in indiameter and about 8 in long. As dough will be very soft, use plastic wrap tohold dough in log shape. Wrap tightly. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until firm. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Unwrap dough working with one log at a time (leaving the 2nd one in fridge while working with the first). With sharp knife, cut into 3/4 in slices. Place slices 1 1/2 in apart on greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 14 min or until shiny crust forms on top but interior is still soft. Cool on baking sheet.

Mix a Duncan Hines Pineapple cake mix according to directions on the back of the box. Bake in a greased and floured jelly roll pan for about 15 to 18 minutes. Test for doneness after about 15 mins. While still warm (not hot) pour frosting over the top.

Frosting: Mix 1 stick of softened butter with a 8 oz bar of softened cream cheese. Beat until well blended and gradually add a 1 lb box of powdered sugar. Add 2 teas vanilla extract. Add enough whipping cream or half & half to make the frosting easy to spread over warm cake.

These are scrumptious and have had some requests from friends who had them over here for lunch on Tues. You can actually use any flavored Duncan Hines Cake mix. I like to use this recipe with either the Strawberry, Lemon or Chocolate Fudge. If you use this with the Chocolate Fudge, I add about 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips to the cream cheese mixture before dolloping it onto the cake mix. See below:

Make the cake mix according to the directions, except I use milk instead of water. I also add about 1/4 cup extra sugar to the mix before beating. Place about 1/2 cup cake mix into prepared muffin tins (either spraying with Pam or lining with paper cupcake holders). Add about 1 teas of the cream cheese mixture (which follows). on top of the raw dough before baking. Bake according to directions. Cool and frost with either Cream Cheese Frosting or buttercream frosting. I like to use the cream cheese if I am using Red Velvet or Lemon, but the buttercream with the strawberry flavor.

Cream cheese filing:

1 8 oz softened cream cheese

1/3 cup sugar

1 teas vanilla extract

1 large egg

Beat all ingredients until well blended. Drop a teas full of this filling onto each cupcake before baking. Bake according to directions or until the cupcake appears done when it springs bake when making an indention with your finger. Cool and frost.

* I also change and use almond extract sometimes instead of the vanilla if I am doing this with the chocolate cake mix and then add the chocolate chips and then chocolate buttercream frosting instead of the cream cheese.

Buttercream Frosting

1 softened stick of butter (no substitutions)

1 box of powdered sugar

1/3 cup of milk (I use whipping cream or half and half)

1 teas vanilla or almond extract.

Mix until well blended. Sometimes it might require a little more milk or a little less. Do not all the liquid all at once, but as needed to make it spreading consistency.

3 cups flour

1 teas baking soda

1 teas salt

1 teas cinnamon

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

2 cups frozen sliced strawberries, thawed

1  cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter 2 9-in loaf pans. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and add the oil, strawberries and pecans. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add liquid mixture, stirring thoroughly but not overmixing. Pour into pans and bake 45 min to 1 hr. Place pans on wife rack and let cool 10 to 15 min. Remove bread and let cool on wire racks. Do not slice until thoroughly cooled. Makes 2 laves, about 16 slices per loaf.

* I make a frosting from a box of powdered sugar, 1 stick of butter, some of the juice drainned off the strawberries (about 1/4 cup)  and enough half & half to make it spreading consistency. Add 1 teas vanilla and beat well.  Pour over each loaf when cool.

1 11.5 oz package milk chocolate morsels

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup softened butter

2 eggs

1 teas vanilla

3/4 cup flour

1/4 teas baking powder

1 6 oz package of dried cherries or Ocean Spray cherry flavored cranberries

Preheat oven to 350. Delicately melt 3/4 cup of the chocolate over low heat until smooth. Stir in brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla. Add flour and baking powder, mixing until completely combined. Carefully stir in the dried cherries and the remaining morsels.

Drop by spoonful onto a greased and floured cookie sheet. Bake 12-17 minutes, until firm to the touch. Cool on cookie sheet for two minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

This recipe is adapted from Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.*

Am making this and putting two of the cookies together with a cherry flavored frosting inbetween making it a sandwich cookie.

I just make my favorite buttercream frosting (which is under desserts) and add pink coloring and cherry extract.

Before you even read this recipe, I want to warn you……..it has something in it that will make all you “uh…..how do I say this nicely?………Health conscious fans out there…actually weep!” That ingredient is………Crisco…yep that right, a pure cup of pure Crisco. Now you can quit reading any further, or you can read on and actually make the whoopie pies and digest some of the best little cookies this side of the Mississippi. Your choice. But if you go to the grave a year earlier by eatting these, you will go down a much happier person having had a whoopie pie. There, I’ve said it. Actually I received this recipe from a friend back in the 70’s and my neice Kerri wrote it down in my little spiral cookbook which I have had since I married in 73. It is the cookbook I cherish, as it has fingerprints in it from all three children, spilled cokes on pages, cocoa on certain pages, markings from little darlings that thumbed through it while sitting on the counter watching me cook. I wouldn’t take anything for it..It has so many memories of my childrens’ growing up years. These whoopie pies are perfect for boxing up in a shoebox and mailing to kids away at school or military. Trust me, the Crisco just makes them easier to digest.

2 cups sugar

1 cup crisco

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

2 teas vanilla

4 cups flour

1 cup cocoa

2 teas salt

2 teas baking soda dissolved in 1 cup hot water

Mix crisco, sugar and eggs together. Add rest of ingredients and blend well. Drop by table onto cookie sheet unto greased cookie sheet and bake for about 13 min at 400 degrees.

Put 2 cookies together with the filling:

Beat 2 egg whites until stiff; add 4 tables flour, 2 teas vanilla and then add 2 cups powdered sugar. Add 4 tables milk, 1 cup crisco and then 2 more cups powdered sugar. Beat all ingredients very well. Put 2 tables filling over bottom of one cooke and top with another cookie making a sandwich out two cookies.

I found this recipe last year in one of Paula Deen’s magazines. I made it several times for different functions at the house, and everyone has agreed they are truly the best vanilla cupcakes they had ever eaten. I thought I would share with you because they are just so moist and so flavorful and just beautiful with vanilla frosting (no, you cannot frost them with canned frosting, as I will SEND the Frosting Police after you if you do). You can make the frosting. It is so easy and if you are single, just make this for someone special and you won’t be single long.

Sugar Cupcakes

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup melted butter

1/2 cup all vegetable shortening, melted

1/2 cup whole buttermilk

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teas baking powder

1/2 tes baking soda

1/4 teas salt

1 tables almond extract

1 tables vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Line 16 muffin tins with paper liners. In a large bown, combine sugar, eggs and egg yolks; beat at medium high speed with mixer until fluffy. Gradually add melted butter and melted shortening, beating at low speed until combined. Gradually add buttermilk, beating until combined.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to sugar mixture beating just until combined. Add extracts beating until combined. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin cups. Bake for about 16 to 18 min or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 5 min before removing. Frost with Sugar Cupcake Frosting, which I have listed below.

Sugar cupcake Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup softened butter

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teas vanilla extract.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth. Add vanilla and beat until combined. Frost cooled cupcakes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

1 Duncan Hines Devils Food cake mix

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Add all ingredients together except the chocolate chips. After mixing for 2 minutes, stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into a bundt pan which you have sprayed with Pam and then rolled about 1/8 cup sugar around in the pan. This will give the outside of the cake a glittery appearance. Bake according to directions on box.

When cooled frost with the following:

2/3 cup peanut butter, 1 cup powdered sugar, 4 tables softened butter. Add about 1/4 cup milk, or as needed to make frosting spreadable. I usually heat this in the microwave for about 15 seconds and then just pour over the cooled cake. Then after this has set for about 30 minutes. Pour a glaze over the top of the peanut butter. The glaze is:

1 cup sugar, 5 tables butter, 1/3 cup milk (I use evaporated milk for a creamier taste). Bring this to a boil, stirring constantly and then boil for 1 minute, still stirring. Remove from heat and add 6 oz of chocolate chips and stir until they are all melted. Drizzle this over the peanut butter frosting. You will not need all of this, so save it in a container for another time. It keeps in the fridge for 7 to 9 days. All you would need to do is take out of the fridge for a few hours and maybe add a little milk to make it creamy to use. (Be sure to seal very well though) Just took this cake to a luncheon today and the ladies loved it. It is so moist and so good.

OK, this is a little different from the normal cake. I began to think that maybe the layers should have cherry in them also, so here is what I did. I made a regular Duncan Hines Devils Food cake mix according to the directions, making two 9″ layers. Then I made two more 9″ layers of the chocolate cherry cake which is this:

1 Duncan Hines Devils Food cake mix

2 eggs

1 teas almond extract

1 can of cherry pie filling.

Mix the ingredients by hand. Divide the batter which will be thick between the two 9″ layer pans which you have sprayed with Pam. Bake for about 25 min or until done in center. Put one of these cherry layers on a cake plate. Boil 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup milk and 5 tables butter, stirring constantly until it comes to a boil. Boil one minute, still stirring. Remove from heat and add 6 oz of semi sweet chocolate chips and stir until melted. Pour over the bottom layer cake which is on the plate. Then place one of the plain chocolate layers on top. Pour more of the frosting over this layer. Layer the other cherry chocolate layer on top of this. Frost this layer, using the rest of the frosting.

When completely cool, whip cream using 2 cups of whipping cream and 1 cup of powdered sugar. Frost top and sides of cake. Pour 1/2 can of cherry pie filling in the middle of the whipping cream, not allowing it to flow over the sides. Refrigerate until needed, covered. This is just delicious if made the day before…….