Welcome to the third edition of my #followfriday series highlighting a few up-and-coming food bloggers! This month I tried Kathleen’s edible cookie dough, Sarita’s chocolate Irish cream whoopie pies, Michele’s caramel-stuffed chocolate crinkle cookies and Haley’s banana bread donuts. I seriously loved them all. And recipe-wise they were all fairly simple!
(You can read January’s feature here and February’s feature here.)
Note: I adapted all of the recipes to be gluten free.
Confession: I’ve been eating cookie dough my whole life. My siblings and I always hung around the kitchen whenever my mom made sugar cookies because we knew when she finished we’d get the leftover scraps. I never realized there was anything wrong with this until many years later. My sister was pregnant, and I offered her sugar cookie dough scraps. She happily accepted, but my brother-in-law looked horrified. Obviously I knew there were raw eggs in it, but doesn’t everyone eat cookie dough? Luckily, you CAN eat cookie dough, if you have the right recipe! Kathleen at The Fresh Cooky has a simple version that comes together in no time. I added green sprinkles for St. Patrick’s Day, but her edible cookie dough would be fabulous with chocolate chips, M&Ms or your other favorite mix-in. (She also explains how to heat treat flour, which is something I’d never heard of.)
If you follow me on Instagram then you know I did an unusual flavor combos week with my friend Taryn from @lifeandsprinkles. I looked and looked for an unusual #followfriday recipe but couldn’t find anything that fit the bill. So instead, I baked these chocolate Irish cream whoopie pies from Sarita at Ritzy Mom, and an “unusual” version flavored with fig balsamic vinegar. I liked them both, but Sarita’s original recipe is a winner and doesn’t need any changes. It was also my first time making a Swiss meringue buttercream, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Sarita explains the process perfectly, so if you’re a Swiss meringue novice like me, her recipe is a great place to start!
Apparently this was a month of firsts for me, because I also made crinkle cookies for the first time! But not just any crinkle cookies. These chocolate crinkle cookies from Michele at Studio Baked are stuffed with caramel! They’re rich and flavorful, and in my opinion best enjoyed straight out of the oven. Unfortunately you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) eat an entire batch of cookies when they’re freshly baked, but you can recreate that moment by zapping a cookie in the microwave for 15-20 seconds when you’re ready to eat one. While you can eat them at room temperature, the caramel hardens and becomes chewy instead of gooey. I’ve never been a huge fan of chewy candies that stick to my teeth, so for me gooey is the way to go.
Last but not least, can we talk about these banana bread donuts from Haley at Healthy as HEC?? (She posted the recipe on her Instagram account, but don’t forget to check out her blog, too!) Her recipe proves that healthy and low sugar doesn’t mean no flavor. My husband tried one and then immediately reached for a second. (To be honest, I did, too!) This was her first donut recipe and hopefully not her last. They were also so easy to make. And you could easily customize them. Her recipe calls for both a chocolate and peanut butter drizzle, but you could do one or the other, a different type of drizzle, a glaze or enjoy them plain. This is an easy, guilt-free way to use up ripe bananas.
Have you tried any of these recipes? Or do you have any favorite recipes that I should try? Tell me about them in the comments or tag me @rosesandwhiskers on Instagram if you see one you think I’ll like!
Happy baking! 
