Banana Mousse Parfaits

This week we made Banana Mousse Parfaits from Baked Elements. It’s an interesting twist on banana pudding, using whipped cram instead of pudding or mousse. On the plus side it makes for a very easy, no bake, summer time dessert. On the negative side, the the ‘mousse’ itself seemed a little bland. It mostly tasted like milk to me, with a bit of banana. I wish I had doubled the amount of banana, and possibly sugar, as well. For the parfait layers I crushed up some vanilla wafers, mixed them with a tablespoon of melted butter, a tablespoon of brown sugar, some pecans and  dash of cinnamon and baked the whole thing for about 15 minutes at 325. It made a really tasty crumble, and was a really great addition to these parfaits. The pecans especially.

My husband loved this. I would make it again, since it was just so easy to make and, and I think it really lends itself to variation. Elements suggested brownies and chocolate sauce, which sounds amazing. I’m also thinking banana and strawberry, or crumbled oatmeal cookies and butterscotch…mmmm.

Cream Cheese Chocolate Snacking Cookies

Cream Cheese Chocolate Snacking Cookies were this week’s challenge from Baked Elements. Thankfully, they were no challenge at all. A simple chocolate drop cookie, but with the addition 4 ounces of cream cheese, cocoa powder, and some melted chocolate.  This is definitely a recipe to use high quality chocolate though, it really makes a difference.

They were a breeze to throw together and bake. However I was slightly disappointed with the results. The batter seemed to be slightly moister than my go to chocolate chip cookie recipe, which I didn’t think was a problem.  At 12 minutes I took them out of the oven, and while the cookies looked done, I discovered after cooling a bit that some of them were a bit under baked. Some of the cookies were the perfect texture, and slid right off the cookie sheet. But a few were so soggy that they didn’t hold their shape at all. I don’t think I’ve ever had a batch of cookies cook so unevenly before. Maybe I let too much heat escape when I rotated my pans halfway through. 

Other than the slightly gooey texture (and really, many people might consider that an asset) these were ok.  I am crazy about chocolate chip cookies, and I measure every recipe against Dorie’s from Baking: From My Home to Yours. I have yet to find a better recipe than the one in that book. In this case, I’m not sure that the cream cheese really added anything noticeable or beneficial. While I did enjoy these I didn’t find them terribly enticing. These reminded me of an old chocolate chip cookie recipe my mom used to make, that called for adding a packet of Jello chocolate pudding mix. Except I like the Jello version better.

I was so impressed with everyone’s Mississippi Mud pies last week that I went out and bought all of the ingredients that I need to make one myself. I can’t wait to try it.

Have a good week everyone!