Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

We celebrated Thanksgiving at the home of some good friends this year.  For an appetizer I brought Roasted Cranberry Apple Brie Crostini with a Kahlúa Glaze and we also enjoyed Tex-Mex Deviled Eggs before the big feast.  Both were devoured by the guests in no time!  We also made a Apple Cider Brined turkey to roast and The Hubby made his "famous" Roasted Garlic Mashed Red Potatoes with Rosemary & Parmesan.

In addition, I wanted to bring a dessert - but not a pie, I knew there would be plenty!  While picking up my "Thankful" Shirt from The TomKat Studio Shop in Chandler, AZ, I found these adorable Brown Stripe Candy Cups that also work for baking - they would be perfect for Thanksgiving cupcakes.

To make the cupcakes, I started with a box mix of milk chocolate cake and followed the instructions for the cupcakes.  Next, I found this recipe on My Recipes for the salted caramel frosting. You'll either need to make it just before frosting the cupcakes or if you need to make it ahead of time, store it in the refrigerator and microwave for a few seconds to soften it.  Add the salt after frosting each one (rather than waiting until all are frosted).  The salt will "stick" better just after frosting.

I was pretty excited to pile these high using an open star decorating tip, but on Thanksgiving morning before heading to our friends' home, was unable to locate mine!  It was fine - the round one worked out fine too!

Unfortunately, I wasn't super happy with the quality of my photo - but no judging please!  These cupcakes were quite good - they are perfect for the holiday season!

Salted Caramel Frosting
Recipe from My Recipes

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup butter

1/3 cup heavy cream
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Bring first 2 ingredients to a rolling boil in a 3 1/2-qt. saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly.

Stir in cream, and return to a boil; remove from heat. Pour into bowl of a heavy-duty electric stand mixer. Gradually beat in powdered sugar and vanilla at medium speed, using whisk attachment; beat 7 to 10 minutes or until thickened. Use immediately. Sprinkle frosted cake with sea salt.

Mini Ice Cream Sundaes

Summer is here and that means it’s time to cool off with ice cream!  This is quite possible one of the most favorite desserts for my boys – anything ice cream.  I have a few ice cream recipes on my blog that we have made together, but wanted to share this idea with you for mini ice cream sundaes.

Last fall, I came in 1^st place at our neighborhood wine tasting event and won this awesome set of mini flare dessert dishes made by Libbey®.  There are 12 dishes and 12 tiny spoons – perfect.  I did a search and they seem to be pretty easy to find online or even at a store like Bed, Bath, and Beyond. 

To make this easy on myself at the time of serving these, I prepped them in advance.  You will need some freezer space, yes, I just told you to go clean out your freezer! 

I started by chilling the empty dishes for about an hour.  Then I added a scoop of ice cream to each, back to the freezer for an hour.  Next came some whipped cream (the kind out of a can) and then back into the freezer.  I had a few syrups so drizzled four with dark chocolate, four with strawberry, and four with caramel.  I think you know what the next step is.  Finally, I topped each with a maraschino cherry (I even bought the kind with the stems) and put back in the freezer until it was time to serve them. 

These are perfect for summer treats.  I have served these several times already and plan to mix it up the next time by using sorbets and garnishing with fresh fruit.

What are some of your family’s favorite summertime desserts?  

Last Minute Halloween Treat Ideas - Courtesy of The Bestie

I learned on Monday that The Bestie was making some Halloween treats and offered to share her photos with me to use as Halloween blog content....score!  She is quite possibly one of the busiest women I know.  Employed full time, the mom of a 7 year old and 4 year old twins, active in her community, fully engaged in her moms of multiples club....she never ceases to amaze me!  She is also one of the best moms I know - she'll do just about anything for her children.  Although, she did tell me at one time she wouldn't shave her head for them. 

She is the same mom who makes 3 birthday cakes in one weekend for her children since their birthdays are only 1 day apart.  You can read more about that here.

This week, she volunteered to make treats for various events....work, kids' activities - who knows. She said yes and as always, made it happen.  While we were on the phone together at 8 p.m. Monday night while she was shopping for missing items from her pantry, we talked about ways to streamline this and make it as easy as possible on herself.  She knocked these out in no time and even took pictures along the way.  Thanks, friend!

These cute cupcakes were decorated with simple orange frosting piped on from a pastry bag and she cut a chocolate bar to decorate. 

She also made these Pretzel Witches Fingers.  Using pretzel sticks, green Wilton candy melts, sliced almonds, and a toothpick she made another adorable Halloween treat.

 

The third and final treat is by far my favorite!  Remember those Waffle Dippers I posted in 2012?  She used the pan and filled with cake batter to make these super cool mummies!  You'll need the pan, it looks like this:

 

 

Next, get a box cake mix, pour the batter into each dipper, and bake.  Let cool, then get ready to decorate!  She used these cute large candy eyeballs from Wilton and used a #47 piping tip to add the bandages - aren't they awesome?  You'll want to make sure you have these on your serving platter before you start piping on the frosting - they aren't really moveable once decorated!

 



 

 

 

 

Have you volunteered to make Halloween treats.....and made it happen even though you really didn't have time to?



Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars

I recently received a spiral bound cookbook filled with recipes from my mom’s side of the family.  One of her cousins spent quite a bit of time collecting the recipes, adding old family photos, and even including the nutritional content of each dish.  I am so happy to have this in my possession now, what a great way to relive memories of food I was served as a child and start to make new memories for my boys. 

I wasn’t surprised to see the recipe for my mom’s Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars, I grew up eating these and they are a tried and true favorite.  I was reminded of them earlier this spring and during a visit in May, my mom brought down a batch from Colorado for my family to share.   

Oh, and on the same page as the recipe, is a photo of my maternal grandparents on their wedding day...August 31, 1940, so it's fitting that I post this to my blog today.  The hubby and I share the date with them, but our wedding was just 17 years ago today :)

After receiving the cookbook, it was easy for me to figure out which recipe I wanted to make first.  I made these in an 8x8 pan, but they could also be made in a 9x11 pan which would result in a thinner bar.  

I certainly hope that you will try this recipe and either come back to this post or visit my Facebook page to let me know what you thought of them!

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars
Can be made in an 8x8” or 9x11” pan

1 cup sugar
½ cup margarine
½ cup super chunk peanut butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 10-oz package of chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate chips)

Grease baking pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, add sugar, margarine, and peanut butter.  Using an electric mixer, stir together combined.  Add egg and vanilla, beating until smooth.  Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt using a spatula.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Turn into prepared pan and spread out until even.  Bake in 350 degree oven 25-35 minutes or until set.  The smaller the pan, the thicker the bar, and the longer it will take to bake.  Cool; cut into squares.  Enjoy with a large glass of cold milk.  

The Hubby's Famous Strawberry Shortcake

We were fortunate enough this year to have my mother-in-law visiting over her birthday, which is the day before my little one’s birthday; there was a lot to celebrate!  It has been a tradition for her, ever since she was little, to have strawberry shortcake on her birthday.  Not wanting to break this, that is exactly what we served as her birthday cake!   

To make it easy, we used a store bought angel food cake.  To make it special, the hubby macerated the strawberries with his “famous” ingredients.  This is really only famous to our immediate family – but everyone always loves the end result!  Macerating the strawberries (or any fruit) is done in a liquid and helps to break them down, soften, and release their juices.  You can use juice, wine, rum, even balsamic vinegar for berries! 

You’ll certainly want to give this recipe a try – it is super easy, delicious, and a perfect dessert for summer. 

 

The Hubby’s Famous Strawberry Shortcake
Makes Strawberries for 1 Angel Food Cake

 1 12 ounce angel food cake
2 cups sliced strawberries
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon nutmeg
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup cranberry juice
¼ cup dry white wine
Whipped cream

In a sealable container, combine strawberries and next 5 ingredients.  Refrigerate and let macerate at least overnight, stirring occasionally.  To serve, slice angel food cake and top with macerated strawberries.  Top with whipped cream.

Grilled Peaches with a Fig Balsamic Vinegar Drizzle

I am a huge fan of grilling fruit, especially in the summertime - you have the grill fired up already, why not throw on some fruit! 

A couple of weeks ago, I served BBQ ribs and I thought grilled peaches would be a perfect side dish.  These can be served "as is", but I happened to have some fig balsamic vinegar from the Queen Creek Olive Mill so added a little drizzle just before serving.  You can usually find fig balsamic vinegars in gourmet food stores if you are interested in going that route. 

You can do a lot with grilled fruit....add a glaze (rum and brown sugar come to mind), sprinkle on some cinnamon, whatever you have in your pantry will do the trick!  Adding grilled fruit to a bowl of vanilla ice cream is also a wonderful summer treat.   Cooking it really brings out the natural sweetness of the fruit. 

Grill some fruit this summer and come back to let me know what you made and how you served it!

Grilled Peaches with a Fig Balsamic Vinegar Drizzle
Serves 4

4 large peaches, washed and cut
Oil (I used olive oil, you could use canola)
Fig balsamic vinegar

Brush each of the cut sides of the peaches with some oil - this will just prevent them from sticking to the grill.  Onto a hot grill, add your peaches cut side down.  Let cook for a few minutes and rotate, until you have nice grill marks.

Drizzle with fig balsamic vinegar.  Serve. 

Christmas Cookies - The Creativity of Our Children

We are hosting our annual holiday party this weekend.  As a first, we decided this year to have a pre-party party at our home this week.  Our to do list was short, we had some good friends who were unable to attend this weekend - so invited a couple of families over to let the kids play, catch up, and have a few cocktails. 

This was a very impromptu gathering - surprisingly, I never know where we will be in the completion of pre-party tasks a couple of days before the party. The hubby is notorious for coming up with large projects to tackle right before our big event.  We had plenty to drink in the house - I put out some cheese, crackers, fruit, veggies, hummus and ranch dressing - it was perfect! 

I then thought it would be fun to have a cookie decorating station for the kids.  I made a bunch of gingerbread cookies in different shapes, purchased a tub of frosting, sprinkles, and some red hots.   We had 6 total children, 4 boys and 2 girls - all under the age of 7.  They had a great time! 

I told them they could decorate the first one and then eat it, but that I needed all of the other ones decorated for our holiday party dessert table!  The adults all looked at me like I was crazy.  This was great motivation for the kids - they were so creative and we were all super proud of them.  As they continued to lick their fingers and then go back to decorating their cookies, the parents still questioned my decision - I stuck with it. 

I was convinced tonight by the hubby that it would not be the best idea to serve these, but what a fun night for our children!  These are now safely packed away in storage containers and ready to hand out to the hard working children this weekend. 

I used to panic about doing something like this - I'm not a fan of cleaning up messes I didn't make.  But - I have lightened up over the years, this didn't stress me out at all.  In fact, I was so impressed by the girl (OK, there were two but one was a 1 year old and she didn't do much but eat her own cookie) who took her extra sprinkles from her paper towel, folded the paper towel in half, and poured over the finished cookies.   I know she has had WAY more cookie decorating experience than I have - but what a resourceful child!  My little one on the other hand had used so many green sprinkles on just one cookie, you could no longer see it!  Once un-earthed, I suggested that he use those sprinkles to decorate future cookies.  Not surprisingly, one of my girlfriends there said that my little one continued to eat those green sprinkles with his fingers but keeping an eye on me the entire time to see if I would catch him.  I love him.

This year, remember the joy of the season.  Look into a child's eyes to see the wonder.  I have finally stopped what I am doing to do just that this year - and it is a look I hope to never forget.

Mini Thanksgiving Pies

I am the first to admit that baking is not my strong suit.  In fact, I never really baked at all until I had children (and had been married for 10 years before I had my first!)  Additionally, I am not a huge fan of sweets so never really self-motivated to bake!  But, now that my boys are getting older and know that desserts are a part of life, I bake - a little bit - more.

This year for Thanksgiving I decided to make mini-pies to please everyone's palette.  Our Thanksgiving table held 3 adults and 2 children, so I certainly didn't feel the need to produce multiple pies on a large scale.

To make the pies, I used this Nonstick Fluted Tart Pan from Williams Sonoma.




Because I'm not such a baker, everything was store bought.  I purchased refrigerated pie crusts (the kind that just rolled out into a circle) and canned fillings.  For our desserts we had cherry, apple, and pumpkin pies.  I followed the directions on the can to make each pie - just in a smaller scale.  I did make the full pumpkin pie filling recipe and had some left over. 

Once the pan was sprayed (I didn't want to take any chances with sticking), I unrolled the pie crust and cut circles about 2 inches larger than the space in the tart pan then fluted the edges. 

Looking at the photos, I should have taken the time to weave the lattice on my apple and cherry pies - but it was close to 10:00 p.m. at this point and I was being super lazy!  Next time, I will definitely take the time to do that - I'm not super happy about how the apple pie looks in these photos!

Overall, I ended up with 6 mini pumpkin pies, 3 cherry pies, and 3 apple pies.  These tiny pies were a huge hit with my family.  Once sliced into wedges, they were the perfect size for my 6 year old and 3 year old to pick up with their hands! 

I'm definitely going to do this again - but making sure to take the time to make them look pretty too!

Happy Thanksgiving from my kitchen to yours!

Halloween Cookie Decorating Station

This year, I volunteered at my older son's classroom Halloween party - and to no one's surprise, I volunteered for the snack station!  There were 5 total stations - snacks, spooky storytime, Halloween bingo, and 2 craft stations.

Everything had to be store bought - so went with a popular choice of "decorate your own Halloween cookie".  The hubby volunteered for the Halloween party in the Kindergarten class last year and was put in charge of snacks - his advice "those kids used a lot of frosting and a lot of sprinkles" - man, he wasn't kidding! 

I had anywhere between 3-5 children at my station for about 15 minutes each.  Just enough time to decorate and eat!  I gave them each a sugar cookie, then they decorated them with orange frosting and added LOTS of Halloween themed sprinkles - I mean LOTS.  They didn't seem to care that all of the sprinkles fell off if they didn't keep their cookie level once it was time to eat them.  Some of them thought it was even funnier when the sprinkles did fall onto their paper towels - then they could just eat them with their fingers!

Fortunately I remembered to bring a big package of baby wipes with me to help them clean up - their hands were covered in mostly orange, black, and purple - and many of the 1st graders left my table with black lips and teeth!

I added a few photos below of cookies being decorated as well as some of the final products - they looked awesome!   My oldest was super proud that his friends all said his mommy had the best station at the party (well of course they thought that....I had the cookies!)

If you are hosting a Halloween party or volunteering at a class party - this is always a great go to idea!

Cherry Almond Frozen Yogurt

My boys and I had a lot of fun this summer making different ice creams, gelatos, and frozen yogurts in our ice cream maker.  They get to take turns choosing what we make each time.  The latest concoction was a suggestion from my little one - Cherry Frozen Yogurt.  While making it, I added the almond extract - but didn't tell them because I wasn't sure if they would shun it because it was different than the original request.  I don't even think they noticed!  We served this last weekend after having dinner with some friends, there were 6 kids here - they all loved it.  One of them even licked the bowl clean!

Cherry Almond Frozen Yogurt
Serves 10-12

24 ounces frozen cherries, roughly chopped
1 cup sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup 1% milk
32 ounces low fat vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon almond extract

Combine the above ingredients.  Place in the refrigerator covered for a few hours or up to overnight.

Follow the instructions on your ice cream maker to freeze.

Basketball Sugar Cookies

My oldest son joined his first team sport this fall and we couldn't be more excited about it and proud of him!  He has always been a swimmer - and is quite good for his age (if I do say so myself!)  He has been asking about basketball for a couple of years now - but has been a little young to play in any leagues.  This summer, he went to a basketball camp and LOVED it! 

He had his first practice and game over the weekend and had a blast.  I made these basketball cookies for him to celebrate the occasion.  I used a package sugar cookie (you could do this or make your own from scratch) and I followed the same royal icing recipe and decorating instructions from the Brown Eyed Baker that I used for my Power Ranger Samurai Cookies.  I need to work on the steadiness of my hand - but I'm fairly new to cookie decorating! 

My son was so excited when he saw these - and my little one of course too!  He got to enjoy his during the actual game!

Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats

Another good and easy idea from the hostess of them all....Martha Stewart.  These No-Bake Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars were a cinch to make!  I even considered having one of them with my cup of coffee for breakfast!  But resisted the temptation.....

I almost went to Sprouts to find a brown rice cereal, but then figured I should just use the Rice Krispies I already had in my pantry for this treat.  For the peanut butter, I used a natural (salt added) creamy peanut butter from Safeway's Open Nature.

You can get to the recipe on Martha's website by clicking the link above or I included it below the photos.

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats
Makes 16 Squares
Recipe Courtesy of Martha Stewart

1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups salted peanut butter
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 cups Rice Krispies

Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with wax paper or baking parchment.  Place the corn syrup and sugars in a large saucepan over medium heat and stir to combine.  Bring to a boil.  Remove from heat.

Stir in the peanut butter and mix well to combine.  Quickly stir in the vanilla and Rice Krispies. . Spread into the lined baking pan. Cool and slice into squares.

Spiked Italian Ices

Another yummy idea from one of my faves, Ms. Martha - Spiked Italian Ices!  They looked so good - I made all three!  They were a perfectly refreshing summer treat.  Now I need to create some sort of Champagne Italian Ice!

Strawberry Daiquiri
Mojito Italian Ices
Margarita Italian Ices

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