Chocolate Wafer Cookies

We had my sister, her boyfriend, and kids over for dinner tonight. I decided to have a ice cream sundae bar for dessert. Basically I bought low fat vanilla frozen yogurt and then put out different topping so everyone could make the sundae of their dreams. I put out marshmallows, chocolate chips, maraschino cherries, cool whip, toasted coconut, pecans, strawberries, bananas. I wanted to have Oreos crushed up, but didn't want an entire package of Oreos in the house. I decided I would make the cookies at home, but then thought I didn't really need the center filling. I found this recipe for chocolate wafer cookies and decided to try it. DELICIOUS! I think I ate almost all of them myself. You could use them like I did- as an ice cream topping. You could also make ice cream sandwiches with these cookies. If you wanted to make the cream filling, you could also make homemade Oreos. You could just enjoy them plain, you could dip them in chocolate, mix in some mint and have mint chocolate cookies, the possibilities are endless.
The original recipe is from Smitten Kitchen

Chocolate Wafer Cookies

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
14 Tbsp unsalted butter, slightly softened
3 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a food processor, combine flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Pulse until mixed thoroughly.

2. Cut butter into 12 pieces and add them to the flour mixture in the food processor. Pulse a few times. With the processor running, add the milk and vanilla extract. Process until the mixture clumps. Transfer to large bowl and knead until evenly blended. NOTE- I found mine appeared powdery and never clumped, I put it in a larger bowl and kneaded it and it came together.

3. Form the dough into a log and wrap in foil. Refrigerate until firm.

4. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare cookie sheet with cooking spray. Cut the dough into 1/4 inch thick coins. Place the cookies on cookie sheet. Bake at 350F approx 6 minutes, rotate the pans and bake another 6-8 minutes.

Grilled Banana Splits

Like most others, we decided to have a family get together for Memorial Day. Of course, since the weather is so warm and sunny here in Florida, we decided to have a barbeque. We had the yummiest burgers, hot dogs, and chicken with all the typical sides- corn on the cob, potato salad, and baked beans. For dessert, I thought why not stick with the grill and make some grilled fruit. I went to my local fruit stand for some inspiration. They keep their spotty bananas in the cooler and mark them WAY down (less than 30 cents per pound). The thing is these bananas are perfect on the inside. The skin is spotty, some of the bananas are mushy, but some are still firm. Well, I bought about 6, and the guy told me to take the whole box for FREE since he was going to toss them! I got about 30 bananas free! SCORE!!! Also, in other words, look for more banana recipes in the near future!

Grilled Banana Splits

10 ripe bananas
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbps ground cinnamon
Ice cream of your choice
Sundae toppings of your choice

1. Preheat grill to medium.
2. Leaving skins on the bananas, cut both tips off and cut lengthwise down the middle (like you would see in a banana split).
3. Mix together brown sugar and cinnamon until well blended. Sprinkle generously over bananas.
4. Put bananas skin side up on the grill. Cook approx 3 minutes and turn skin side down (don't let sugar burn, but it will be melty). Bananas are done when they start to pull away from the skins.
5. Peel bananas and top with ice cream and toppings.

The warmth of the bananas with the cold ice cream...So good!

Ice Cream Sundaes

We had some friends over this weekend for a barbeque. I was very short on time (last minute party) but wanted something yummy and easy for dessert. Our friends were bringing their 2 children so I also wanted something appealing to them. I decided to have ice cream sundaes.
I bought 2 different flavors of ice cream (vanilla and chocolate). In one of those divided chip and dip servers I put all different toppings. It was a hit! Everyone had so much fun putting whatever (and however much) toppings they wanted. Here are the toppings I used.

Maraschino cherries
Chocolate Chips
Crumbled oreo cookies
Sliced Strawberries
Toasted Coconut
Brown Sugar Pecans
Whipped cream
Chocolate syrup

I know there is no cooking involved here (I did make the brown sugar pecans, but didn't love the recipe as no brown sugar stuck to the pecans, so I won't bother you with it here), but since it was so easy and everyone loved it...I thought I would share the idea.