Who doesn't love a surprise of all your favorite baked goods?

I'm hoping Ross loves it... because that was the main portion of my anniversary gift to him (makes sense, since it was cooking that started this whole thing)

Saturday morning for 3 hours my hands worked non-stop to bake 3 of his favorites, all of which I have never made before and was slightly nervous (especially the toffee since that is easily ruined)

However! it all came out well and I really hope he likes it because I enjoyed making all of it

So... first I made everything but the kitchen sink cookies (these were literally bookmarked in my recipe section as "Ross Cookies."

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Everything but the kitchen sink cookies ("Ross Cookies")
original recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp) cold butter, chopped
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 6 Tbsp vanilla sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 cup + 2 Tbsp white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup peanut butter chips
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
• 1 cup macadamia nuts

Instructions

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. grease 2 baking sheets 

In the bowl, beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy with a mixer or fork (this may take a few minutes).

Scrape the sides of the bowl, then add the egg and vanilla extract, mixing until well-blended.

On low speed, add the baking soda, salt, gradually adding the flour as it mixes. Mix until just incorporated.

Stir in the chips and nuts until well-distributed.

Scoop onto baking sheets. Bake, one sheet at a time, until edges are lightly browned, or about 9 minutes.

Let cool... then enjoy!

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2nd recipe while the cookies baked and cooled...

Toffee (Lauren's fake black horse toffee bar)

original recipe

Bars

2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) flour

1 cup (7 ounces) light brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup walnuts

1 cup macadamia

Topping

2/3 cup (just a bit more than 1 1/4 sticks) butter

1/3 cup (2 3/8 ounces) light brown sugar (half white and half dark brown sugar also works) 

1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. If you choose, you can line a 9x13" pan with foil and spray it with Pam, but it's not necessary. (I used an 8x8 because that's all I had)

Combine flour and 1 cup brown sugar in a large bowl. Cut in 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter with a fork or pastry blender until fine crumbs form. A few large crumbs may remain. Press crumbs into the bottom of the pan (either the foiled/sprayed pan, or otherwise an ungreased 9x13 pan). Sprinkle nuts over crust. Since the toffee requires babysitting, get all of this ready before you make the toffee topping.

For toffee: combine 2/3 cup butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil. Continue boiling, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. The whole thing only takes a few minutes, and you don't have to look for a certain temperature or color; just watch the clock. Immediately drizzle toffee over crust and nuts.

Bake 20-22 minutes or until topping is golden and bubbly. Remove from oven and sprinkle immediately with chocolate chips. The instructions say to press them gently into the crust, but I find they stick to the spatula. If you'd like you can gently swirl the chocolate after it's been sitting for a minute or two. You can see in the pictures above that I did a combination - I swirled some of the chocolate, but left some of the chips whole. I'm sure you could also let the chips melt and smooth the chocolate with an offset spatula to make a thin chocolate layer that evenly covers the crust. However, I liked the look of the blobs of chocolate visible against the nuts. Cool completely and cut in squares or triangles.

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3rd recipe was the easiest by far and I made it while the toffee cooked

Homemade Mega Peanut Butter Cups (king sized reese's cups)  

Original recipe

half to a whole bag of chocolate chips 

1 cup of preferred peanut butter

1/4 cup powdered/confectioners sugar

in a double boiler (pot with 1 inch of water brought to a boil then dropped down to low with a glass bowl filled with chocolate in it on top) melt the chocolate. Make sure to stir well, the melted chocolate with help melt the unmelted chocolate. 

line muffin pan with paper cups. pull out the cups and put a spoon of chocolate in it and give a think bottom, and sides to support the peanut butter. once each cup is covered place in freezer to harden (10 minutes roughly).

while the chocolate is freezing mix the peanut butter and sugar

fill the cups with peanut butter

then freeze for 5 minutes before covering with the last of the chocolate

 Freeze cups again another 10 mins for the tops to harden

then enjoy!