chocolate chip maple mini cupcakes

With the Christmas festivities coming to an end, 2013 is also closing up. Looking back of what happened during the year, this year had its ups and downs and most probably was one of the most stressful years with the UFE and all. Now that my studies are officially (at least for now) over, everything feels a little different. Given all the holiday festivities, baking is a must, especially with days off which now come a little rare, and so I decided to bake maple mini cupcakes. I rarely decorate my baked goods, but since it's Christmas time, why not?

festive looking mini cupcakes

chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

9/13/13- Updated with recipe- Welcome to the life of a stress baker. Only a few hours away till Day 1 of 3 of this dreadful exam! Clearly, they had to make accountants face some kind of mental trauma before getting those two letters after our names. Anyhow, I decided to make oatmeal cookies to keep myself busy during these hours :)

chocolate chip marshmallow cookies

Aside from all the scary Halloween stuff, this period of time reminds of me candies and chocolate (and everything sweet!). Post midterm deserves some more baking time! :) Especially with work coming up!! This time, I decided to make a different type of chocolate chip cookie.

the cookie that wished it could be s'more

pb oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Now that's a killer long name for a cookie. It's really random how I bake these cookies. A good friend of mine brought us these amaziiiiing store bought peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. After one, I just wanted another. Knowing all the bad stuff in the store bought ones, I decided it would be better to make my own healthy version of it. There's something about pairing peanut butter and chocolate that just mind-blowing! I love pb & jelly, but with chocolate.. It's a whole new level of yumminess if that would exist.

when chocolate goodness meets PB awesomeness

classic chocolate chip cookies

It's amazing that I still don't have a chocolate chip cookie post. This is a staple to my baking and I have been making these cookies for ages. Last night was the perfect opportunity to bake them since there was a surprise gathering for a friend that's leaving for AB. He will be missed! I did not have that many pictures since my dad's camera decided to die on me while I was taking pictures. So the quality of the following pictures isn't as nice as the others. A Canon PowerShot SD600 doesn't take as great pictures as a Nikon D5000! 

Plain advertisement, but no fluffy decorations

I took the liberty of attempting to package it nicely. Unfortunately, yesterday was pretty hectic and I did not have much time to decorate it more neatly (but I did treat myself to the SPA with L. :) The next thing that I'll need to work on is making uniform cookies. Haha, the shape is pretty.. unique! Maybe because I was rushed and did not take as much time to make each of them round. But a good ice cream scooper is at the top of my to-buy list! I love these cookies because their soft and chewy, also my family's favorite. A lot of the chocolate chip cookies end up being hard and brittle, but my favorite ones have to be tender.