Category: Desserts

Just when it seemed like we’d all binged every show created on the planet during quarantine (doesn’t Tiger King seem like a lifetime ago?), HBOMax debuted the gem that is Selena and Chef. The series, filmed during isolation, features singer/actress Selena Gomez learning to cook via video chat with a different chef each week. Only three episodes have dropped so far (a new one is released each Thursday), but the breakout star has been…Selena’s rainbow knife set. And Candice Kumai, wellness writer and six-time cookbook author.

Kumai’s known for her healthier spins on craveworthy recipes, and her episode with Gomez is no different. In it, she teaches the Rare singer to make Spicy Miso Ramen Soup and Matcha Chocolate Chip Cookies. And she shared the exact ingredients on Instagram, so you can make them at home while watching the episode.

Selena and Chef Recipes: Spicy Miso Ramen Soup

If you don’t make ramen or dabble in Japanese cuisine regularly, you’ll probably have to head to the store to pick up a few of these ingredients. (A lot of it you can actually order through Amazon, like togarashi, mirin and red miso paste.) The recipe itself is pretty straightforward, and Kumai encourages you to eyeball measurements when cooking (not baking): chopping vegetables, sauteing them in sesame oil to soften them, adding in the liquid ingredients, letting it all simmer and seasoning it to your taste. Cooking the noodles is one of the final steps, before you add the soup and toppings.

Selena and Chef Recipes: Matcha Chocolate Chip Cookies

Instead of your typical creaming butter and sugar, like most cookie recipes require, Kumai has Gomez mash and combine her substitute for the fat–bananas and coconut oil–then mix in the sugar. Similar process, same end result. You’re basically whipping air into the butter and sugar, which gives the cookies some structure, puffing ’em up so they don’t fall flat. Leavener–in this case, baking soda–also helps with this. Kumai’s shared the full recipe on her website, which you can check out here.

I don’t know about you, but I know what I’ll be making this weekend.

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It all started, as so many of my over-the-top recipes over the years have, with a ridiculous bout of wordplay: SpongeBread SquarePan. I had started a pop culture cupcake-decorating party for one amid all of this social distancing, taking requests from Instagram followers to create cupcakes that looked like the characters from shows we were all binge-watching. (Or forced to binge-watch, based on our kids’ demands.)

Peppa Pig cupcakes led to Elmo ones, which led to Baby Yoda, then Sailor Moon…and then, one day, I thought about SpongeBob. He didn’t seem right for a circular cupcake at all. And then I noticed three very brown bananas on the kitchen counter. Within seconds, “SpongeBread SquarePan” got into my head.

On their own, this mini chocolate chip banana bread recipe—adapted from IWashYouDry.com‘s dish—is absolutely delightful. It’s a dense cake, thanks to all of the butter and banana, and I admit I go completely overboard with the chocolate chips, but it’s so worth it. You don’t have to go all out, adding Nutella pants and vanilla buttercream, gel frosting and M&M facial features, but if you’re stuck inside with time to kill, why not? Then you can make like SpongeBob, stare into those lil’ banana bread faces and announce “the gang’s all here!”

Note: I use a mini loaf pan, like this, which turns your typical banana bread batter (enough to fill a 9-inch by 5-inch pan) into 10-11 mini loaves when filled 2/3s of the way up.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Mini Loaves

The only thing better than chocolate chip banana bread is mini chocolate chip banana bread. These loaves, adapted from IWashYouDry.com's recipe, are totally craveworthy.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 22 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Ingredients

  

• 3 bananas (medium-sized)
• 1 stick butter melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Using an electric mixer, whip bananas until they're pureed. Add melted butter, sugar, egg and vanilla, beating for about 1 minute, or until combined. Add flour, baking soda and salt, mixing until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
• Spray mini loaf pans with cooking spray (or coat bottom and sides with butter). Fill each pan about 2/3s of the way up with batter. Bake 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean (with just a few crumbs or melted chocolate, not batter). The banana bread doesn't brown like typical recipes, so don't worry if it's a light tan color rather than a dark golden color. The toothpick test is the best way to know if it's done.

Notes

Enjoy!

Keyword banana bread, breakfast, chocolate chips, easy baking

It all started when I ran out of vanilla extract. I’ve always been a firm believer that good-quality vanilla’s the secret to a killer chocolate chip cookie. (Well, that and plenty of brown sugar to get that caramel-y flavor.) When I ran out late Friday night, I wasn’t in the mood to load up the baby and head to the store, so I improvised. What could give my cookies that depth of flavor without overwhelming the batch? Spiced rum.

This recipe calls for a full tablespoon of rum, just so there’s a tiny hint of spice to it. The alcohol burns off while cooking, so you don’t have to worry about keeping these cookies out of kids’ reach, too. But you may want to keep them out of grasp for entirely selfish reasons — they’re almost too good to share.

Spiced Rum Chocolate Chip Cookies

Inspired by Joanna Gaines’s chocolate chip cookie recipe — and a lack of vanilla extract — I got to experimenting…and wound up with a total crowd-pleaser. 

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Servings 24

Ingredients

  

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 tbsp spiced rum
• 2 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and brown sugar until it forms a light paste, almost like the texture of a body scrub. Add rum and eggs, mixing until combined.
• In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the sugar-butter mixture, stirring until a thick dough forms. Fold in chocolate chips.
• Place roughly 1-inch balls of dough onto a baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden. Let cool for a few minutes before devouring.

Keyword cookies

This whole experiment started because I bought one too many cake mixes. I know, I know — who does that, and when is it ever a problem?! The thing is, since it’s just Nate and me at home, there isn’t much of a need for an entire vanilla cake. Plus, I’m less of a cake person, and more of a fudgy brownies and cookies person. So, as the box kept taunting me from the back of the pantry each time I’d go in to grab an ingredient, I finally decided to do something about it.

Cake mix cookies are nothing new, but they’re often a little too sweet for my tastes. I’d stumbled upon Betty Crocker‘s Cake Mix Monster Cookies and got excited, because the oats and peanut butter looked like they could offset some of the sweetness. It took some tinkering and riffing — Betty’s recipe calls for more brown sugar than I’d like, and I used Reduced Fat Jif (which isn’t as runny as traditional peanut butter), so I had to increase the water in the recipe to make up for it.

The end result was a pillowy, slightly peanut buttery treat that’s bursting with gooey chocolate chips and tastes like cake batter. Imagine Cold Stone Creamery’s Birthday Cake Remix Cookies, only in cookie form. I’m not joking.

A little underbaked and warm out of the oven, these are extra divine. The sprinkle of flaky sea salt on top is a must, particularly if you want to balance out all that sugar. (Salty-sweet fans, you get me!)

Try it for yourself, and let me know what you think!

Even when I think I’ve found the perfect chocolate chip cookie, I’m always looking for a fresh riff on the recipe. I’ve tried them with oats, molasses, cream cheese, bananas, straight-off-the-back-of-the-chip bag (and I mean every chip bag), all kinds of mix-ins, the 24-hour refrigeration method, even the latest smack-the-pan-before-baking technique. So, when I ran out of butter, I immediately started thinking of alternatives — and realized I had a perfectly good jar of coconut oil on hand. Coconut oil chocolate chip cookies it is!

There are all kinds of purported benefits to cooking with the fat — it can help curb your appetite, build muscle, aid in weight loss, and prevent Alzheimer’s, according to Eat This, Not That — though nutritionally, it’s pretty much a draw with butter. As much as I’d like to believe these are superfood cookies, they’re not — but they are really, ridiculously good. (Yes, they do have a coconut-y taste to them; it’s kind of like eating a Samoa, minus the stringy texture of shredded coconut.)

Air Fryer Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies:

I’ve been on an Air Fryer kick lately, so I decided to test the recipe there first. I’m happy to report you definitely can bake cookies in it, and in half the time it takes to bake them in the oven. Two caveats, though: (1) you can only bake about 3-4 at a time, and (2) If you put parchment paper under them, the edges of the paper will curl up and distort the shape of the cookie, resulting in an ugly-yet-tasty treat. You’ve been warned.

Additionally, while Philips says you can use parchment paper in the AirFryer, it should be just big enough to hold your cookies without covering the whole tray — air needs to circulate around the cookie, so you can’t block it. You should also never cook with parchment paper in the Air Fryer without food on top of it, weighing it down. Otherwise, it can get sucked into the heater and burn up. More on that here, and if you try this, do so at your own risk.

Oven-Baked Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies:

These cookies bake evenly, turning lightly golden with very little spread. I made mine half peanut butter chips, half dark chocolate chips, but you do you.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little woo-woo. Not quite hunting-down-Bigfoot-while-wearing-tin-foil-hats, but more like, I’m into trying new things, no matter how bizarre they might seem. It’s good to be open minded, right? So, when a box of Moon Dust — the very stuff raved about on Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle site, Goop — crossed my desk, I kept it on the shelf for eight months. Then, randomly yesterday (maybe because I was wearing a rose quartz necklace, which is supposed to purify and open my heart, though I bought it just because it was cute, TBH), I decided to open up the stuff.

Moon Dust isn’t quite as mystical as it sounds, though the packaging definitely lives up to the title (as well as the slogan, “cosmic in a cup”). The supplements are basically a blend of ground roots and herbs, formulated to boost a certain area of your life, be it glowing skin (the beauty blend), your quality of sleep (that’s where dream dust comes in) or even your libido (ahem, sex dust). Its claims aren’t reviewed by the FDA, so I’m taking it with a grain of salt, but I decided what the heck.

It’s typically downed as a drink, stirred into 8 ounces of water, coffee, nut milk, or tea, or blended into a smoothie. But the blends are a little too earthy for my palate, so I decided to stir some into banana bread. After all, the “Cosmic Cooklet” that comes with the set suggests turning it into pancakes, chocolate bark, and ice cream, so why not improvise further?

I was going for a chocolate-y banana bread, so I eliminated the Beauty and Spirit Dust from testing, since they primarily contain goji berry. Dream Dust, Power Dust (alchemized to “support success and harmony,” according to the packaging), and Sex Dust complemented the banana bread’s flavor profile better. Use whatever you’re into, though — if we’re going strictly on flavor — the Sex Dust is the one to use. It’s loaded with ground cacao, giving the banana bread a richer color and a slight, dark-chocolatier flavor.

While Sex Dust is meant to “ignite and excite your sexy energy” (that’s exactly what’s written on the package, okay?), people attribute all kinds of benefits to the main ingredients. Its main ingredient, Ho Shou Wu, is often used for treating high cholesterol, kidney problems, insomnia, and dizziness, according to WebMD. The site’s quick to admit more research is needed to substantiate those claims though. (It’s worth noting that Goop distanced itself from the benefits the Brain and Action Dust supposedly gave people after the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council requested backup of that info in 2016. On the flip side, two herbalists told Racked the dusts aren’t just a mishmosh of ingredients that sound impressive; the blends reflect a “deep understanding of Chinese medicine.”)

Sex Dust is primarily a blend of ground Ho Shou Wu, cacao, maca powder, and other extracts, which give it a slightly chocolatey, somewhat mushroom-meets-earthy flavor. When used in banana bread, it balances out the sweetness of the banana (even taming the flavor of underripe bananas), but after serving a batch to a crowd, nobody turned into a randy Austin Powers. Or felt any different whatsoever. That could be because the dose in this recipe is too small, some might argue; or maybe baking the bread reduced its effects. It DID, however, add a little cocoa flavor that played up the dark chocolate chips and coconut oil quite nicely, resulting in a moist, decadent banana bread.

This recipe works just as well without Moon Dust, though people certainly got WAY more excited to try it when the dust factor was involved. You could easily substitute a teaspoon of cocoa powder for a similar chocolate-y flavor, minus the reported, um, benefits. It’s your call.

If you’re up for trying it, you can pick up a box of Moon Dust on Amazon*.

*This post contains affiliate links, which means we receive a small commission for any sales generated through Amazon, which funds future posts.