This sweet potato casserole is for everyone, even the people who don’t like sweet potato casserole. I’m serious! If you enjoy sweet potato casserole, I’m confident you’ll love this marshmallow-free version.

If you don’t like sweet potato casserole, this recipe will change your mind. I know it will, because it changed mine. I’ve sworn for years that I only like savory sweet potatoes, but I’m officially eating my words. I love this recipe.

This sweet potato casserole features an ultra creamy, pillowy interior with deep sweet potato flavor. The buttery pecan topping is crunchy-tender and lightly sweet, with optional fresh rosemary.

Overall, this dish is entirely irresistible. I hope it’s a big hit at your Thanksgiving table.

The post Pecan Sweet Potato Casserole appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

How about a fruity treat? On a summer evening, there’s not much better than a warm homemade crisp with cold vanilla ice cream. This mixed berry crisp is the perfect use for those wonderful in-season berries. It’s easy to make (far less fussy than a pie) and just as good.

You can make this berry crisp recipe with any combination of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries or raspberries—use all four or just a couple. Or, use it as a template for a single-berry crisp (here’s a more straightforward blueberry crisp recipe). You can’t go wrong.

This mixed berry crisp is the latest addition to my growing collection of crisp recipes on the blog. Like most of the others, this recipe just so happens to be gluten free, easily made vegan, and naturally sweetened. Depending on your standards, this crisp could definitely qualify as healthy.

I love the combination of oats and almond flour in the topping—the result is golden and crisp on top, and tender underneath. The topping keeps well to enjoy leftovers for several days. I like to eat it for breakfast with plain Greek yogurt. Why not?

The post Mixed Berry Crisp (Gluten Free) appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

I’d like to introduce you to my new favorite cookies. This peanut butter oatmeal cookie recipe yields cookies that are tender on the inside, chewy around the middle, and just barely crisp around the edges.

These cookies are loaded with pure peanut butter flavor. They’re sweet, but not cloyingly so. If you’re a fan of my monster cookie recipe, you’ll enjoy these as well. I can vouch that they’ll be a hit with your family, friends, kids and coworkers.

Oats make these cookies more hearty than most. In fact, oats are the only structure this flourless cookie recipe needs. As long as your oats are certified gluten free, these cookies will be, too.

These cookies are easy to make, too. You don’t need to soften your butter first (just melt it). You don’t need to pull out a heavy stand mixer (your hand mixer or some elbow grease will work great). And, you’ll only need one mixing bowl. Winning!

More than any other merit, though, these peanut butter cookies are delicious. They’re cookies and that’s what cookies should be, right?

The post Peanut Butter Oat Cookies appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

For years, I’ve been searching for my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. I want outrageously delicious bakery-style chocolate chip cookies that completely capture my attention upon first bite. I want a chewy middle, barely crisp edges, complex flavor, and rich chocolate chips.

I want all of that in a cookie recipe that’s easy to make. No mixer required. No creaming of softened-but-not-too-soft butter. No chilling the dough for 24 hours. I don’t have the patience for any of that. Sometimes a girl just needs a cookie!

These cookies are among the best homemade chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. My cookie search is over. The crazy part? These cookies are vegan, so they’re free of the usual butter and eggs. I’m honestly shocked.

These amazing cookies are delicious and supremely easy to make. The dough needs a very reasonable 30-minute chill in the refrigerator, and let me tell you, they’re worth the brief wait.

The post Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about these blondies for a long time now. They’re from my friend Sarah Kieffer’s book, The Vanilla Bean Baking Book. She has a similarly titled blog called The Vanilla Bean Blog. These blondies are outrageously tasty.

I feel like I’ve committed a crime in keeping them to myself. I could offer you a bunch of excuses. Like, her book got lost on its way to me last fall; I got a cold and couldn’t get my act together enough to share them in time for Valentine’s Day; I tried to save them for when you might be looking for an indulgent treat to share (Easter!); I came home from a long trip with jet lag and a ruptured eardrum. Cute, right?

I’m just plain guilty. Sarah’s book is full of beautiful baked treats, the kind that you make when the calories are easily justified by the special occasion and you’re looking for that I’m-gonna-die-this-is-so-good response. Sarah is a skilled baker and you just know her recipes are going to be stellar. This one certainly is.

Since you all have come to expect healthier treats on my blog, I couldn’t help but make a couple of tweaks to her recipe by substituting whole wheat flour for the all-purpose, and coconut sugar for the brown sugar. I included her original ingredients in the recipe below as well, in case you’d rather make it as she designed. Either way, these chocolate chip pecan blondies made with a splash of coffee are worth every bite.

The post Coffee Chocolate Chip Blondies appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

My grandmother Virginia makes the best cookies. When my cousins and I were growing up, she always kept homemade cookies stashed in old cookie tins in the freezer (I bet she has some in her freezer now, too). She’d open up a canister and unfold the waxed paper lining, and we’d start grabbing for one after another. I like her cookies straight from the freezer; they have a more satisfying chew that way. I like them at room temp and fresh from the oven, too.

The cookies that stand out most in my memory are her oatmeal, dried cranberry and macadamia nut cookies. Or does she use white chocolate chips, not macadamia nuts? Grandma will tell me. She’s eighty-four, operates a brand new iPhone, and receives my new blog posts by email. She reads your comments, too. :)

She’d tell you that I wanted to do things my way when I was little. Guess I’m still doing it, because I came up with my own oatmeal cookie recipe instead of asking for hers (I’ll get it later, for sure). I wanted oatmeal cookies with a soft, fluffy interior and crisper edges with more concentrated flavor. I wanted these cookies to be even more redeeming than most, but mostly to be the tastiest of oatmeal cookies.

Instead of adding dried cranberries and macadamia nuts (or white chocolate chips), I kept these simple with some cinnamon and nutmeg, which permeate the whole cookie with delicious warming spices. More specifically, I used Frontier Co-op’s Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla extract, which are all organic. Frontier Co-op has generously filled my spice drawer with their products and the more I use them, the more I appreciate them. Take a whiff and you’ll know what I mean; they’re more potent and offer superior flavor than other brands. Plus, you can read where the spices came from on the bottle. I’m glad to be working with them again this winter.

The post Spiced Oatmeal Cookies appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

These gingerbread cookies will make your home smell like Christmas! I made a few simple substitutions to turn classic gingerbread cookies into healthier gingerbread cookies, without sacrificing flavor. They’ve been one of my favorite Christmas cookies since I developed this recipe ten years ago.

This cookie recipe is fun to make, especially with good company. Last weekend, my four-year-old daughter and I turned this dough into homemade gingerbread houses with this cookie cutter set (affiliate link), and we’ll soon make more batches of gingerbread cookies to share with friends.

I’m excited to introduce you to this recipe, too. The dough is remarkably easy to make (no mixer required) and manage (it might as well be Play-Doh!), with no chilling necessary. Turn on your favorite Christmas music and let’s start baking.

The post Healthier Gingerbread Cookies appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Today, I’m sharing a super simple tutorial on how to make your own powdered sugar. Your powdered sugar will be ready in just a few minutes! You’ll just need a reliable blender or food processor.

You may know this sugar as confectioner’s sugar or icing sugar, but I grew up calling it “powdered sugar.” My grandmother makes the best frosting with it.

Powdered sugar has a not-so-great reputation because it’s typically made out of refined sugar, which is then mixed with corn starch to prevent caking. Since we’re making ours fresh, you can skip the corn starch when you make it at home.

Plain white sugar makes the fluffiest homemade powdered sugar. Or, you can use more natural, less refined options such as coconut sugar. Coconut sugar actually contains trace minerals like iron and zinc, which are lacking in regular sugar. Let’s get to it!

The post How to Make Powdered Sugar appeared first on Cookie and Kate.