peanut butter – Ryan Bakes It

A Few Fun Halloween Treat Ideas!

Published on October 25, 2023October 25, 2023 by RJLeave a comment

Believe it or not, we are less than one week away from Halloween! Whether you love the holiday, or hate it, more often than not, kids will be ringing your doorbell looking for candy.

If you have kids of your own, you may even find yourself having to host (or wanting to host, depending on how you feel about it) a Halloween party for their friends. If you’re having trouble deciding on what you should make, here are three awesome ideas. Each one of these will surely bring Halloween cheer to your guests.

Note: For the recipes shown in the photos below, simply click on the photo.

Peanut Butter Spider Cookies

These cute treats are a spin on the classic peanut butter cookie. Easily make them holiday appropriate by adding a miniature Reese’s peanut butter cup on top and some chocolate drizzle for the legs. This recipe from Love in My Oven uses only a handful of ingredients and can be whipped up in no time!

Need to avoid peanuts? Use sugar cookies instead and you a mini Snickers bar instead of the peanut butter cup. It won’t give you the exact effect, but still similar enough to be fun!

A Halloween-ified Kid-Friendly Charcuterie Board

Charcuterie Boards are all the rage right now! Whether it’s meats and cheeses, a butter board, or a dessert board. Why not try this Halloween option for your party? Its super easy to make and you can customize what you put on the board to your guests’ taste. Take inspiration from Two Peas and Their Pod to make life even easier.

Monster Rice Krispy Treats

No kids party is complete without Rice Krispie Treats! Instead of serving the standard one, take this kid-favorite treat into the holiday spirit by turning them into Monsters! With only a few ingredients and about 45 minutes worth of work, you’ll have a unique treat that kids will love! You can even go a step further and make witches as well! That would be super fun. Check out Chelsea’s Messy Apron for more quick and easy Halloween treat ideas!

Well, there you have it! A few quick and easy Halloween treats for your Halloween party. While I did find these with kids in mind, I’m sure many adults will gobble them up just as quickly. It’s okay, we won’t tell anyone if you wanna make these for yourself too!

Happy Halloween readers!

Improving My Magnolia Bakery Chocolate Cake

Published on March 14, 2023March 10, 2026 by RJLeave a comment

Picture it: 2021.

I had been blogging for about six months. I was enjoying it, but I was feeling constrained by my self-imposed limitations. At the time, I was working my way (slowly–ever so slowly) through Ina Garten’s recipes. Then, I had an idea that rekindled by interest in blogging and baking. This idea led to the main focus of the blog for the following 18 months.

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A large, baked chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie. There is flaky sea salt on top. The viewer is looking directly over the cookie. It sits on a red and white silicone mat.

Christmas Gift Cookbook For the Win!

Published on February 25, 2023March 10, 2026 by RJ1 Comment

I can’t believe it’s almost March! I’m a little ashamed to write this post since it’s dealing with some Christmas gifts I received from a very good friend of mine. Who would have thought it would have taken me almost two full months to have an opportunity to bake something with them. One of the very few baking-related gifts I got this year was an excellent cookbook entitled Snackable Bakes by Jessie Sheehan. It was one of New York Times best cookbooks of 2022, and after making a recipe from it, I can see why.

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The Time I Tried to Make Peanut Butter Cookies – MB Recipe 26

Published on April 26, 2022 by RJ2 Comments

With the crazy schedule I’ve been having for the better part of a month, it was a relief that I was finally able to get some time in the kitchen once again. Friday morning, I woke up looking forward to the recipe I was going to be making. It was a recipe that I had my eye on for quite some time. Unfortunately, when it came time to actually make the cookies, I realized a little too late that I had forgotten to add a key ingredient.

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Barefoot Contessa Recipe 52

Published on July 21, 2021March 10, 2026 by RJ1 Comment

This recipe comes from Parties! page 236.

The second baking recipe I made over the weekend comes from the early days of Ina. Her second cookbook, Barefoot Contessa Parties! takes on a menu-based theme. Recipes are organized not by type, but by party theme.

The recipe I chose to make from this book is one of three variations on the same base recipe. Combined, all three would make wonderful treats for friends or family. But the star recipe of the bake on Sunday was the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookies.

There were surprisingly so simple to make. At first I was hesitant because there isn’t a lot of peanut butter in the recipe and it makes a lot of cookies…like over three dozen! At least that’s how many I got out of it. However, upon biting into one, they tasted like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup! I was in heaven!

In the recipe, Ina states that these cookies should bake for 17 minutes. I did that for the first tray of 8 cookies. But when I removed them from the oven, I found them to be too browned and overdone. When tasted, they were much drier and didn’t really have a lot of flavor. They were overdone.

So, I adjusted for the remainder of the batch. I baked them for only 16 minutes and they were perfect! What a difference 60 seconds could make, huh? Who would have thought so much could happen in such a short amount of time?

These cookies are super simple but packed with flavor. Everyone loved them. I think they belong on the Favorites list!