Cupcakes

Capricious and I were up all night baking these amazing orange and cherry cupcakes! They were so good - I highly recommend that cupcake magazine.

Best Sugar Cookies Ever

Our friend made us the best sugar cookies ever - I checked her Pinterest page and she either made these:

or these:

Seriously amazing!

Sea Salt Nutella Fudge

I made this fudge earlier today. I am a little worried about how the texture will turn out because I tried to make a double batch and it was so much that it didn't stir very well and didn't get very smooth or creamy. I will have to wait until it is finished cooling to try it I guess.

I was planning on giving it in tins with a bunch of cookies to neighbors so I really hope it turns out okay.

Butter, for greasing pan

1 (14 oz. ) can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

8 oz. high-quality bittersweet (60% cacao) chocolate chips

1 cup Nutella, room temperature

3 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Sea salt, approximately 1/2 tsp

Grease the bottom and sides of an 8- by 8-inch baking pan with butter. Line the pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overlap on the sides.

In a medium glass or stainless steel bowl, stir together sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, bittersweet chocolate chips, Nutella, and butter.
Form a double-boiler by setting the bowl on a medium pot of gently simmering water. The water level should be low enough that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir until the chocolate chips are melted and the mixture is smooth, 5 to 7 minutes.Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan, spread the top smooth with a spatula, and sprinkle with sea salt. Refrigerate until the fudge is firm, at least 2 hours.
Run a knife under hot water, dry it off, and run it around the edges of the pan to loosen the fudge. Using the overhanging parchment paper, lift the fudge out. Peel off the parchment paper. Cut the fudge into 3/4-inch squares. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil.

Makes approximately 50 3/4-inch squares.

Granola Bar Recipe

Chase made granola bars in his cooking class today (Mommy ate the entire thing).

3 cups quick cooking oats

1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 cu flaked coconut

1 cup sliced almonds

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup dried cranberries (they skipped these)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9 x 13 pan.

Mix ingredients until well blended and press flat into pan.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly brown around the edges. Cool for 5 minutes and cut into squares.

Recipes

Oh Pinterest how I love your recipes!

I found these cookies last night at Little Bitty Bakes and since I LOVE salt caramels I can't wait to make them!

Makes 2 ½ dozen cookies
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Prep Time: 30 minutes

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 package (3.4 oz) butterscotch instant pudding mix
• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 30 soft caramel candies, unwrapped
• 2 tablespoons sea salt

Heat the oven to 375°F. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the egg, vanilla and milk; beat until mixed.

In a medium bowl, combine the baking soda, baking powder, pudding mix, and flour. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until combined.

Shape the cookie dough into one-inch balls. For each cookie, flatten one cookie dough ball in the palm of your hand; place a caramel candy in the center and wrap the cookie dough around the candy. Place cookies onto prepared cookie sheets about 2 inches apart; sprinkle with sea salt.

Bake 10 minutes or until the cookie edges are light golden brown. Sprinkle with additional sea salt immediately, if desired. Allow the cookies to cool 5 minutes before transferring to cooling racks to cool completely.

I also found this recipe at Plain Chicken. I think I am going to make my own savory version tonight to go with dinner. I am thinking a garlic cream cheese spread, cheese, bacon. I want to try the cinnamon roll version but since I am making cookies for dinner tonight I will have to wait for another occasion.

A Healthy Snack

 
One of my coworkers is always carrying around little bags of healthy snacks and she gave me one of the recipes.

Protein Muffins (Super fast to make - the kids could totally help)
- 1/2 Cup of Oatmeal (if you don't like whole oats you can grind them but I went with whole ones and I used regular Oatmeal not the quick stuff)
- 6 Egg Whites (I would consider slightly less egg - mine were pretty eggy)
- Cinnamon
- I doubled the batch and added pumpkin pie spice and I added 3 tablespoons of Splenda (if I do this again I would add way more Splenda)

Mix together, pour into a greased mini muffin pan and bake for 7 - 8 minutes at 350 degrees (or if you double the batch like I did a lot longer until they look solid and muffin-like). I forgot to grease my pan and it was a mistake (hence the mangled look) - I would definitely recommend spray pam or muffin paper baking cups.

I think these would be good with canned pumpkin mixed in or with blueberries or craisins or nuts or banana. I guess my coworker tried peanut butter - that could be good too.

Sparkling Sangria

 
B and I went out to dinner tonight and I had sparkling sangria for the first time - YUM! I googled a few recipes and I want to try one soon - anyone out there have a favorite recipe?



Also if you are in Denver and you like bread pudding Cucina Colore has amazing peach bread pudding soaked in some kind of amazing caramel sauce. I highly recommend it.
 

The Perfect Snack

My awesome BFF made these snacks for us today. Delicious!

Ice Cream Recipe

 
Our ice cream experiments were interesting. The main lesson that we learned is that if you want a nice texture your ice cream needs fat or some other hard to freeze ingredient (so the version we made with just soy milk turned into a giant hunk of soy ice instead of ice cream).

Our soy ice cream success had:
1 block of silken tofu
1 cup to 1 and 1/4 cups of soy milk
3/4 of a cup of Splenda
Hershey syrup / chocolate powder (if we made this again I would substitute cocoa powder)
We put in hunks of cookie dough for fun

We blended all the ingredients except the cookie dough in a blender and poured it into an ice cream maker. We added the cookie dough hunks at the very end. I thought the final product was slightly tofu tasting but it got better when frozen for awhile (I think dark cocoa powder or fruit flavoring would hide the tofu flavor better). I pondered decreasing the amount of tofu but I think the texture would suffer. More recipes to come as we improve.

We also made coconut pineapple sorbet - the coconut milk I used smelled funny but the sorbet was delicious.

We used:
1 can of coconut milk
1 and 1/4 cups of water
1 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of sweetened coconut (shredded)
Fresh pineapple

I simmered the coconut milk, water and sugar on medium heat for about 5 minutes then I chilled the mixture over night. I added a few tablespoons of pineapple juice and the shredded coconut right before pouring into the ice cream maker. The pineapple juice may have been a mistake because it made the pineapple flavor very strong. When the ice cream was almost done I added fresh shredded pineapple.

We also made some full fat normal ice cream with Oreos in it and some with cherries and chocolate chips. They were amazing too.

I highly recommend getting an ice cream maker. Tons of fun!
 

Homemade Ice Cream

Last night I bought a Cuisinart ice-cream maker!!!  I got one for a coworker for a wedding gift and thought that it would be a fun summer treat for us too. I am going to make my first batches this weekend. We are going to experiment with soy cherry almond or vanilla ice cream and coconut pineapple sorbet. I hope they turn out well!
 

Tasty

Look!  We finally joined the coffee drinking world. Our new Tassimo is easy to use and makes delicious drinks!

Also who doesn't love Rice Krispie Treats?

- 1 bag of marshmallows melted with 3 tablespoons of butter over low heat
- Mix with 6 cups of Rice Krispies
- Press into a pan

Amazing!

Papaya Creme

 


One of the other things I loved at Fogo de Chao was their papaya creme dessert (I actually liked the strawberry one better but same concept). Light and delicious.

Look how easy it is to make! I am guessing it would be great with all sorts of fruit.

1 medium ripe papaya, cut up in chunks
2 -3 scoops of Hagen Daaz vanilla ice cream (tried other brands, Hagen Daaz is the best)
1 tablespoon creme de cassis (optional)

Put cut up papaya chunks and ice cream in blender and blend until smooth and creamy, serve in a dessert glass. Add Creme de Cassis if desired.
 

Fogo de Chao Cheese Bread

 


Last night we went to Fogo de Chao for Valentine's day and had a blast. I LOVE their plantains, cheese bread, and dessert (of course their salad bar and meats are good too).

Anyways, I asked if I could take a few of the cheese bread rolls to go and they said they don't let anything but desserts out the door but the waiter gave me a tip that the recipe is online.

Here are a few recipes I found (I will have to start experimenting) - interestingly enough since they use tapioca flour they are gluten free.

Recipe 1:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups sour tapioca flour (azedo)*
1 cup sweet tapioca flour (doce)
3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
3/4 cup corn oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients and fill mini muffin pans 3/4 of the way fill and bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees until golden brown.

Recipe 2:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups sour tapioca flour (azedo)*
1 cup sweet tapioca flour (doce)
3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
3/4 cup corn oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients and fill lightly greased mini muffin pans 3/4 of the way fill and bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees until golden brown.

Recipe 3:
1 egg*
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup milk
Scant 1 1/2 cups (170 grams) tapioca flour
1/2 cup (packed, about 66 grams) grated cheese, your preference, though we got the best results from Mexican farmer's cheese - queso fresco
1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste)

Mix ingredients in a blender until smooth and fill lightly greased mini muffin pans 3/4 of the way fill and bake for 15 - 20 minutes at 400 degrees until golden brown.

Tofu Pouches

 
My aunt introduced me to tofu pouches (stuffed with sushi rice and mushrooms) and they are the most delicious thing ever! They are pre-made little pouches that you tear open and stuff with goodness. They are perfect for taking to lunch on work days. Go out and try some!


 

Pumpkin Treats and Scarves

 
I made pumpkin cookies last night but man do I want to try this pumpkin dip recipe that Capricious posted about!



I've been trying to do the "healthy" thing lately and it has me thinking about unhealthy food all the time *sigh*.

In knitting news, I have been working on this lovely scarf. I am kind of bummed because I messed up one of the cables and it goes the wrong direction and it is making the perfectionist in me crazy. Makes me want to rip out the entire thing and start over but I know that isn't practical....

Can you spot the "bad" cable?



 

Party Decorations

 
Last weekend I threw a sewing birthday part for Capricious. We had a great time!

Here is a recipe for the Sangria we had.

Peach-Riesling Sangria
750-ml bottle dry Riesling (I actually used a sweet orange flavored white wine)
1 1/2 cups white cranberry-peach drink
1/2 cup peach schnapps
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (I used about 6 table spoons of frozen lemonade concentrate)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (I skipped this)
2 1/2-inch-thick lemon slices
2 1/2-inch-thick orange slices (I added extra oranges)
2 peaches, cut into wedges (I went with frozen peaches)
10 fresh raspberries
3 cups ice cubes (I skipped the ice and just refrigerated instead)
I also added about 3/4 of a can of Sprite

Mix first 5 ingredients in large pitcher. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean and stir to blend. Mix in fruit. Cover and chill overnight (I chilled for about 4 hours). Mix in ice and serve.

Here are a few of the decorations!




 

There is Nothing More Delicious...

 
Here is the recipe for my favorite cookies (which I stole from a friend a few years ago)...we call them crack cookies around here because of their addictive qualities...but I'm guessing most people would refer to them as PB Butterscotch cookies...

Ingredients:
1 bag of butterscotch chips
1 - 2 spoonfuls of peanut butter
Cornflakes

In a double boiler mix the bag of butterscotch chips with peanut butter (as much as you would like, I usually use two very large spoonfuls) and stir / melt the chips until smooth. Remove the mixture from heat and pour in Cornflakes and stir (keep adding Cornflakes until there is a nice light coating on the flakes). Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto wax paper and let cool.

Can you tell I like easy recipes?



Here is what yesterday morning looked like at my house...







 

I could eat cookies all winter long...

 
Chase's daycare was closed today so I got to spend a day in stay at home mom land. It was quite the adventure!

We made 3 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies. They were AMAZING! I'm hooked.



1 Box of Spice Cake
1 15 oz can of Pumpkin
1 Cup of Chocolate Chips
(I also added 1/4 cup of flour because we are high altitude)

Mix ingredients together, drop onto cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees. The recipe I used said about 10 minutes but my cookies took more like 14 minutes. I used the toothpick method to check them and they are perfect.

Here are a few cookies that Chase decorated.



I put a little bit of butter cream glaze on mine.

1 tablespoon of butter
Powdered Sugar
Splash of milk

Mix together and drizzle on top.



Chase and I also decided to make Candy Corn bark.

1 bag of milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup of white chocolate chips
Candy corn

Melt the chocolate. Pour the milk chocolate in a pan (I lined mine with parchment paper) and then drizzle the white chocolate on top. Use a toothpick to marble to chocolate. Add Candy Corn on top. We were also going to use pretzels but I forgot to add them. The only thing that didn't work out is that I think the pan I used was a bit too small so the final result was thicker than I wanted.





Tomorrow it's back to work but it was a fun day at home...

 

Tofu Pie?!

This year for the fourth of July I decided to make a dessert. I've been wanting to try to make a tofu based dessert for awhile so I decided this was the perfect opportunity. I know it sounds scary but it actually ended up being really good!





Here is the recipe (the crust didn't turn out well at all and most of the guests thought that a standard graham cracker crust would have been better - a few thought no crust at all but just in cups with fruit would be the way to go):

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tofu Pie

• 1/4 cup butter, melted (I used a butter substitute)
• 10 oz. pretzels
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (60% cacao) (I did 3/4 of a cup of dark chocolate and 1/2 a cup of semi-sweet chocolate)
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter (I only used 3/4 of a cup and the PB taste was VERY strong so I may consider using less next time)
• 12 oz. extra firm light silken tofu
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• chopped pretzels for garnish (I used bananas and berries as a garnish)

Preheat oven to 350. Crush pretzels and sugar in a food processor or blender until mixture becomes very fine crumbs. With a fork, stir in melted butter until crumbs are moistened. Press into bottom and up the sides of a 9" pie plate. Bake 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Microwave dark chocolate chips and peanut butter together in a microwave safe container for 30 seconds. Stir and repeat in 30-second increments until chips are completely melted. Process tofu and maple syrup in a food processor until smooth. Add chocolate-peanut butter mixture. Process again until smooth. Pour into prepared crust. Refrigerate 1 hour. Sprinkle with chopped pretzels if desired.