The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

So, my family has an obsession with bacon.  Like seriously, an obsession.  I remember once making chili dogs and my daughter looked at me after I placed them in front of her and asked in all seriousness, "What?  No bacon?", as if that was a normal ingredient like salt or pepper.  Now it has become the running joke, that everything I serve must contain bacon.  Most often, I ignore my crazy husband and daughter but occasionally, I give into their wild demand and throw bacon randomly into something that doesn't usually have it. This recipe came about mostly because my husband was hassling me about making his favorite cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip bacon cookies (I featured them on the blog a while back if you want to go check them out here ) and I didn't feel like going through all the effort of making cookies.  I love rice crispy treats, mostly because they are crazy simple and delicious.  This recipe seriously takes 5 , maybe 10 minutes max ...

A few days ago, this blog hit its 2 year birthday and what better way to celebrate than with a ridiculously indulgent cupcake recipe?!  After all, that is kind of what I am all about.  These cupcakes were actually a special request from my boss at Starbucks.  He found the picture and I hunted down a recipe.  I even brought them in as a treat on my last day! I don't know if any of you are familiar with monster cookies, I know I wasn't...I lived a sheltered childhood apparently!  That's okay though, these cupcakes more than make up for a lifetime without monster cookies, though after seeing some recipes for those I think they may make an appearance at our house very very soon!  These cupcakes are essentially peanut butter chocolate chip cupcakes, which pretty much makes them perfect, then to make it even more amazing, you top them with a "cookie dough" made of peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chips and m&m's!  (I say "cookie...

So, hopefully by now you have all checked out my last blog entry with the best peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies I'd ever had.  Notice the past tense there...they were the best ones I had ever had until I made one little addition!  Any guesses?!  Bacon! (It was my hubby's idea, he claims bacon is the "duct tape of food", it makes everything better...) The basic recipe is the same, the only difference is that I mixed in eight pieces of chopped bacon, cooked until crispy.  Honestly, it sounds weird.  Trust me, I know...I've had pretty much every single one of my coworkers look at me like I was crazy since I first baked these cookies...that is until the tasted them.  I don't think I know a single person that was not converted after trying these little gems!  The crispy bacon adds a more interesting texture and a little bit of salty crunch.  I don't think I will ever go back, chocolate + peanut butter = amazing...chocolate + peanut butte...

I don't know about you all, but I have two things that I do when I am down.  One is clean, which I usually reserve for super serious cases, and two is bake.  After receiving yet more bad news in my quest for my dream job, I felt the urge to create something delicious.  Yummy food always cheers me up, especially if it combines the two best ingredients ever, peanut butter and chocolate!  These cookies are seriously one of my comfort foods.  I think of peanut butter and chocolate as God's gift to the food world...all sweet and salty and creamy and deliciousness!  Nothing makes me feel better than these two together.  Plus I had this delicious new roasted honey nut peanut butter I've been dying to try in a batch of cookies!  So why is this blog post called a "battle" you ask?  Mainly that while I find these cookies perfection in themselves...my hubby thinks that there is one way they could be improved...but we will get to that in part 2! The...