I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

cherry

Chocolate Cherry Dessert Hummus

Chocolate Cherry Dessert Hummus is your delicious summer treat for when you’re craving something sweet but still want to maintain that bikini body! Dig in!!

It feels like summer is never going to end here in FL.

I know that everyone is like “OMG! Pumpkin Spice Lattes are HERE!!!!!” But I’m still trying to keep cool because the daily temps are in the 90’s and heat index temps in the 100’s. I love it because summer is my favorite season, but I also can’t wait to have temps back in the 80’s. Maybe in November? ha!

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Fresh Summer Cherry Cobbler

This Fresh Summer Cherry Cobbler is bursting with ripe, sweet cherries and topped with a fluffy, crumbly cobbler topping. Perfect with a scoop of ice cream.

I know I am late to the party when I say this, but I love the show “Suits.”

While I am working, I always have a podcast or show streaming for backgrounds noise. I have powered through so many podcasts from start to current episodes (Young House Love) or shows that way. I primarily use Hulu, but I just recently “discovered” that Amazon has a bunch of great movies and shows on there. Sure, I watched plenty of B movies on there. Like Hallmark Channel style movies, that are so simple and sappy. But, I saw that Suits was available and I decided to give it a try. Now, I’m almost done with season 4 and it’s been just 2 weeks.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cake and a #MadMenBlogParty

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Hey, remember that time I wanted to dye my hair like Joan from Mad Men? And it ending up being a total flop!!!

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Ooph, Christina Hendricks can rock the red hair, me- not so much. I just never could achieve the right kinda of red. Plus, I really don’t have the right coloring for it. I liked this red, but then it would fade so quickly while staining all our white washcloths, towels, and pillowcases. Then I played around with it myself and it got bright red. And then gave up and decided that I wasn’t Joan and had to just live with it. ha!

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The final season of Mad Men is starting this Sunday night and I am not excited about it. No, that’s wrong. I am really excited it is starting back up, but I am not excited that it is the final season. I’m so torn!! I already am dealing with the fact that Cougar Town had its series finale on Tuesday. At least we got to have fun with my Penny can and drink wine!

I love when I get to incorporate food into something, like when I did all my NASCAR related “Sprint Cup Snacks” posts and created recipes based upon where they were racing each week. So when this #MadMenBlogParty popped up I was really excited because it would mean I’d get to whip up something all vintage-y.

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To me a Pineapple Upside Down Cake would be a dessert that Betty Draper would whip up for a dinner party. And then Betty Francis would actually eat. ha!

Typically Pineapple Down Cakes are made in cast iron skillets, but I didn’t have a cast iron skillet large enough for the cake so I just used a 9″ round cake pan. I adjusted the process of melted the butter in the skillet to just melting it and then pouring it in the pan. I think it worked out really well.

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It looked beautiful. I loved the geometry of it. Plus, the red cherries in the center of the pineapple rings where so lovely. A nice pop of color in it.

So enjoy Sunday’s episode and the rest of the season! I know it will be amazing. It will be hard to say good bye to it once it wraps up, but at least it was a great run. Oh man, the fashion, the drinks, the story-lines. And Don Draper. Yum.

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Plus, what’s Mad Men viewing without some drinking so check out this drinking game. Not drinking? No worries, I’m not either now while doing Whole30, so just play with Mad Men bingo!

No matter what, enter this fun giveaway and be sure to check out Tom and Lorenzo’s episode and fashion recaps on Monday morning. I can’t wait!

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In the mean time…

madmenparty

Join us for a #‎MadMenBlogParty‬!

Cocktails

Appetizers

Desserts

MAD MEN BLOG PARTY GIVEAWAY

Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway to win an adorable vintage 4.5 qt Pyrex mixing bowl (valued at $30)! Fancy martini glass! $100 giftcard from Modcloth! YES PLEASE!!!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Makes a 9″ cake

Ingredients

  • 1 1/3 Cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 Cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 Cup vegetable oil
  • 3/4 Cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • Zest of 1 lime
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • 1/4 Cup butter (1/2 stick)
  • 1/2 Cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 20-ounce can pineapple slices 
  • 7 maraschino cherries
  • 1/3 Cup chopped pecans

Process

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
  3. Add the oil and milk to the bowl and beat for 1 minute. Add the vanilla, egg, lime rind, and lime juice, blending just until well combined.
  4. Melt the butter and pour into the bottom of your 9″ round baking pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar around the bottom of the pan.
  5. Arrange the pineapple slices on the brown sugar. Place 1 cherry in the center of each pineapple ring and then sprinkle the pecans on the pineapple slices. Pour the batter evenly over the top and bake for 45 minutes.
  6. Remove from the oven and cool the cake in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn the cake out onto a circular platter.

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Super Simple Mini Cherry Pies

Super Simple Mini Cherry Pies

Okay, okay! So this recipe isn’t really a recipe. But hear me out…

They are just so cute not to share! Plus, I just love simple things that you can throw together from start to finish in like 25-30 minutes.

I picked this summery recipe for this week’s edition of Sprint Cup Snacks because I wanted to take a picture and use these new napkins in it. NO!!! It’s because this weekend’s race is at Michigan International Speedway, and Michigan is known for their cherries. I mean, come on, the National Cherry Festival is held Michigan. Perfect!

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Some helpful tips along the way. Basically don’t do what I did the first time I made these…

  • Do not over fill. They can easily bubble out all over the muffin tin.
  • Do not over bake. They are tiny so they are quick baking therefore don’t go up stairs to do laundry (out of range to hear the buzzer) and then run downstairs frantically when you remember you have something in the oven.
  • Let them cool a lot before you try to take them out of the well greased muffin tin.

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Since this is a basic recipe feel free to change up the fruit or even the design on top. Just remember they are so super cute no matter what since they are teeny tiny 🙂

Super Simple Mini Cherry Pies

Makes 18 mini pies

Ingredients

  • 2-9″ pie crusts
  • 1- 14 ounce can of cherry pie filling
  • 1 egg, plus 2 tablepsoons water
  • sugar
  • Need a 2″ circle cookie cutter and a very small star cookie cutter

Process

  • Preheat your oven to 425. Grease a mini muffin tin.
  • Use a 2″ circle cutter to cut circles out of the pie dough. Place one circle in each opening.
  • Place 2 tablespoons of the filling in each tart shell. (I placed 3 cherries per pie)
  • Cut the stars tops out of the remaining pie dough and top each tart with a star.
  • Make an egg wash by beating one egg with the water. Brush the top of each tart and then sprinkle with a bit of sugar.
  • Bake for 12-15 minutes on the upper rack.

Slightly adapted from Frankly Entertaining