frosting

Valentine’s Day Cake Pops

February 7, 2018

Valentine’s Day is just 1 week away!!

Are you celebrating with someone you love?

Or are you single and ready to mingle?

Or do you fall in between like me and my husband… certainly not single but not really doing anything? Hello… it’s a Wednesday night and we have 2 kids. Too much to juggle.

But, no juggling required when it comes to these cake pops.

Baking a box mix cake is pretty dang easy, so it mixing in the frosting, and then forming the balls. The most complicated part is dipping them into the Candiquick, which is a confectionery coating, or melted chocolate that sets pretty quickly. And, even then, the only hard part about that is the messy drips. That’s a silly complication. Like a #firstworldproblem issue. ha!

While they have cake pop molds for you to bake the cake in, then coat. We decided to get our hands messy and dive right into rolling the cake with the frosting to create the cake balls for the pops.

Autumn loved helping out. She scooped out the cake and rolled the balls, proudly placing them on the tray as she went. We then brought some over to a friend’s party and she told EVERYONE that she made them. So cute.

They are very easy to make- even a 4 year old can make them!

Be sure to enjoy these with someone that you love. Or eat them all. Whatever works for ya. ha!!

Valentine’s Day Cake Pops

Makes 30 Cake Pops

Ingredients

1 Box Cake Mix and required cake mix ingredients
1/2 – 2/3 Can of Red or Pink Frosting
powdered sugar
1 pound of Candiquick or chocolate
30 treat sticks, 4″ long
sprinkles

Process

Bake the cake according to directions in a 9×13 pan. Let cool completely.
Trim away the edges of the cake. Discard (into your mouth!)
Cut the cake into small pieces, put into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, beat until crumbly.
Add HALF the can of frosting to the crumbly cake. Beat again. Add a tiny bit more to get a moist, dough like texture that will form a ball. Do not make it too wet and tacky.
Dust your hands with powdered sugar. Form 30 equally sized balls. Suggestion: Divide the dough in half, then divide each half into 3 equally sized portions. From each portion, create 5 balls.
Insert a lollipop stick into each ball.
Freeze all of the cake pops for at lest 30 minutes.
Melt the Candiquick or chocolate. Pour into a tall cup. Quickly dip each cake pop into the candiquick/chocolate, let excess chocolate drip off. Then set onto a non-stick silicon lined baking sheet. Immediately drop sprinkles on to the coating before it sets.
Store at room temperature.

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Sugar Cookie Bars

June 30, 2015

Oh, what a week!!! Such a good freakin’ week!

Aside from the flat one of our cars has, things are rockin’!! Autumn is better from last week’s horribly, sucky, killer double ear infection. Price had a great time back in NY over the weekend doing Bachelor Party things for one of his friend’s. Autumn and I did some great shopping over the weekend. It’s a short work week with a holiday this upcoming weekend.

We are heading up to Maine for the holiday, and I can’t wait for it! I am so excited for this yearly summertime visit. We’ve never been for a visit at the Fourth of July so it’s going to be fun to experience it on the island. I already bought some snacks and goodies for us to bring up there for our visit. And I have recipes planned too. I might be bringing my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer with me…

Yep, I have no shame. It’s coming with me! I have donuts planned. yes!!!!!

And I wouldn’t mind if I got to make these Sugar Cookie Bars again.

That’s how your celebrate the country’s birthday… stuffing your face with sugar cookie bars.

I’ve blogged them about before, but I had to repost them as I love them so dang much. Making them again was a win for me, and sharing them again (I figure) is a win for you. Totally.

They are a soft, buttery, sugar bomb. Imagine sugar cookies, but softer. They stay soft and chewy, which is the best way for a cookie to be. I seriously don’t understand crisp cookies, which is why I l-o-v-e these so much.

Now I decorated them with red frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles to jazz them up for the 4th, but you can make them all sorts of pretties for any holiday by what sprinkles you use. Duh! (Side note: I need these!!)

What are your 4th of July plans? You better say you are making these!!!!

Sugar Cookie Bars

Makes 24/32 bars

Ingredients:

For the cookie bars:

5 Cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 Cup room unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the frosting:

2 sticks of room temperature unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
3-5 tablespoons milk
Food coloring gel
Sprinkles

Process:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a large metal pan (9″x13″) with aluminum foil or parchment paper and grease.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and the eggs, one at a time. Mix until fully incorporated, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the flour mixture a little at a time until just combined.
Using your hands or a greased flat bottomed glass, press the cookie mixture into the baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until light golden brown and when a knife tip is inserted in the center it is clean upon removal. Gently lift out the cookie bars from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
To make the frosting: Cream together the butter until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and salt to the mixture. Slowly add the confectioners’ sugar until the frosting is smooth. Add the gel food coloring until the desired color is reached. Add the milk in 1 tablespoon at a time to create a smooth texture.
Evenly spread the frosting over the cool sugar cookie bars and add sprinkles. Cut into even sized bars.

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Chocolate Mint Chip Sandwich Cookies

December 9, 2014

I’ve put in my time off requests for the holidays (and for our upcoming cruise in January)!! Once it was all signed off (by 4 diferent people) I almost danced around the office.

I am taking Christmas week off for some ME time… lots of PJ wearing, garlic noodle making, You’ve Got Mail watching, with some scrapbooking in the mix. Damn, I really miss scrapbooking. I could have a sob fest about it right now, but I will soilder on and focus on how I get 2 whole days to myself (the others will be with Miss Autumn) to make a mess with pictures, washi tape, stamps, and such. Bliss.

In the 9 days from when I leave work to return from the holidays I’m sure I’ll do some baking as well. Or plan on it and maybe I’ll just scrapbook instead. I dunno. I’m trying to stay quite focused on that so that I can zen out while I watch Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan exchange witty emails back and forth while I work on our 2014 project life.

I am thinking about making these babies again though. They are perfect. Minty. Chocoately. They scream winter to me. And there is plenty of minty frosting smack dab in btween 2 cookies. Aren’t cookie sandwiches the best?

I have a funny story about making these cookies.

It involves a thief (Price) who snagged a cookie while they were cooling before I had put a generious amount of frosting between the paired off cookies. So when I was a nearly done with the sandwiching, I noticed I was off. I searched the counter. I recounted. I looked on the dining table. A cookie was missing. I knew had made 13 pairs. And then I asked…

“Yeah, I took a cookie. Why?”

UGH!!! And that is why you must notify other thieves in your house when making sandwich cookies. ha!

I’m starting to think that all cookies should come in pairs with frosting in between. The world needs more cookie sandwiches. Def.

I brought they babies into work to share so I cut them up. They cut in half pretty easily as the cookies are delightfully soft, and yet dense to hold up to the frosting filling.

If you don’t feel like making sandwiches cookies then at least the cookies since they are so Christmasy good.

What are you doing for the holidays? Any movie marahons? Crafting? Cooking and baking? Traveling? Stuffing your face with cookie sandwiches and spiked nog?

Chocolate Mint Chip Sandwich Cookies

Makes 12-13 Sandwich Cookies

Ingredients

For the Cookies

2 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 Cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 Cup sugar
1 Cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (10-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Dark Chocolate & Mint Morsels

For the frosting

1/2 Cup butter, at room temperature
4 Cups of powered sugar
10-12 drops green food coloring
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1-2 Tablespoons milk

Process

To make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper/ use a silpat.
Wisk the flour, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder in a bowl to combine. Set aside.
Combine the butter and sugars in bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla extract to the sugar mixture and beat until combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix until a dough as formed. Once the dough has combined add in the minty chocolate chips and continue to mix.
Divide the dough in half. From each half, scoop out even sized cookies until you have made 12 or 13 cookies (24 or 26 total).
Bake for 12-14 minutes. Remove cookie sheets from oven when the center of the cookie is still soft to the touch. Let cool and set up for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet prior to removing.
While the cookies are baking, make the sandwich cookie filling by beating the butter until light in color and fluffy in texture. Add the powdered sugar in small amounts and beat until combined. Add the food coloring, and extract. Add a bit of milk until you have reached your desired consistency, which should be thick but spreadable.
Once the cookies have cooled completely, put a big dollop or pipe the frosting on the underside of a cookie. Add another cookie to sandwich it off.

My Chippy Cakey Birthday Pie

January 17, 2014

I am soo sooo sooooo glad it’s Friday. This has been a really long week for me.

On Monday I had a dentist appointment. Not bad but my teeth always hurt for a few days afterwards.

I’ve been sick all week with a cold. Being sick stinks no matter what but with a baby it’s so much worse. I feel extra drained on top of being sick.

My mom’s group that I look forward to every Friday afternoon has been canceled with the sudden announcement of the company closing. I’m glad that our group was at least established since we can at least continue to meet on our own but it was nice to have the space and the leadership from the organization.

And then yesterday Autumn was fitted with a hip brace. She was Frank Breech for most of the pregnancy so this effected the positioning of her hips. Autumn had an ultrasound on her hips a few weeks back and it showed the issue but they wanted to see if time would help fix things, unfortunately it didn’t so she got fitted with a brace. She took it like a champ. I, on the other hand, definitely did not. I totally did more crying about it than her.

It’s not been a fantastic week for me. Nothing earth shattering but just things that added up to a week that has drained me. So pity party of one.

But it’s Friday so it means one day to the weekend. One more day ’till my birthday!

Okay, I don’t love my birthday but I am looking forward to having Price around for it and for the pizza we make to celebrate it. Here’s to a relaxing snowy pizza filled day.

So, for this week’s pie I decided to make something that would be perfect to serve on a birthday. It would need to have cake it in. And yet also be a pie. Well, after searching Pinterest I found this pie that had cookie dough AND cake in it. And of course was topped with frosting. And sprinkles. WIN!!!

This recipe uses all store brought ingredients, but you can easily use everything made from scratch. Just do what works for you. No matter what this will be a fun, yummy, unique pie to serve up.

Such a good combination of sweet indulgent things. Totally acceptable for a birthday!!

Chippy Cakey Birthday Pie

Makes a 9″ pie and approximately 8 cupcake sized mini pies

Ingredients

1 16.5 oz roll of refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough, room temperature
1 16.5 oz box of Devil’s Food cake mix with ingredients to prepare it according to package directions
2 refrigerated pie crusts, brought to room temperature
1 can frosting
Sprinkles

Process

To make the 9″ pie

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9″ pie plate and set upon a rimmed baking sheet.
Roll out 1 sheet of pie dough and line the greased pie plate with it.
Flatten the cookie dough into 1/2″ thick layer to fit the bottom of the pie crust. Set aside the extra dough for the mini pies.
Pour the prepared cake batter on top of the cookie dough layer filling the pie crust about 2/3 full to allow for room for the cake to rise. Set aside the remaining batter for the mini pies.
Using a pie shield or foil, gently cover the edges of the pie to prevent them from browning too quickly.
Bake the pie for 30 minutes then remove from the oven, discard the pie shield/foil, and return to the oven for another 15-25 minutes or until the top is set and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out mostly clean. Begin checking the done-ness of your pie at the 30-minute mark, as different types of cake mix may alter the baking time.
Allow the pie to cool completely before frosting and decorating with sprinkles. Cut into wedges to serve and store leftovers airtight at room temperature, up to a day.

To make the mini pies

Spray 8 cavities of a muffin tin.
Roll out 1 sheet of pie dough. Using the rim of a glass or a cookie cutter, cut out 8 circles. Line the greased cavities with the circles.
Flatten the remaining cookie dough into 1/2″ thick layers to fit the bottom of the pie crust.
Pour the remaining prepared cake batter on top of the cookie dough layer filling the pie crusts about 2/3 full to allow for room for the cake to rise.
Bake for 15 minutes or until the top is set and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out mostly clean. Begin checking the done-ness of your pie at the 11 minute mark, as different types of cake mix may alter the baking time.
Allow the mini pies to cool completely before frosting and decorating with sprinkles.

Sourced from The Domestic Rebel

Sugar Cookie Bars

May 15, 2012

I feel that the blog-osphere blew up this spring since just about everywhere I looked I saw sugar cookie bars. Same goes for pinterest… sugar cookie bars all over the place. Well, I figured I would join in on the fun and make some. Once I made them I kept asking myself why I didn’t make them sooner!!

I made a batch for the general contractors working on the project that is keeping me so busy at work. I’m busy but they are slammed working on the project. They have to take turns working on Saturdays supervising the work that is underway as well as the normal M-F 10hr days. Which is exactly why I brought these babies in to them one Saturday morning. I then heard the following Monday how they were flying off the carrier that I carried them in on. Thankfully everyone really enjoyed them 🙂

I used the sugar cookie bar recipe from Kita’s blog Pass The Sushi. I made some adjustments because I didn’t have a lemon so I didn’t use the lemon zest that original recipe called for and I think that the bars didn’t hurt from it. Once I had it all laid out I realized that I didn’t have that large of a baking sheet for the cookie bars. I used a 9×13 lined pan and just adjusted the length of baking. The hardest part is knowing then they are done as they are still very soft in the middle. Once I tested the cookies with a small knife and it was clean upon removal I took them out to cool. I suggest that you wait for them to cool for a few hours or over night, which will help them set up in the center and prevent the frosting from melting when put on the bars. I had some melting as I was rushing because I was making them at 6am to delivery around 8.30… learn from my foolish goofs!

Sugar Cookie Bars

-Serves 32-

Ingredients:

For the cookie bars:

5 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks of room temperature unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting:

2 sticks of room temperature unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
3-5 tablespoons milk
Food coloring gel
Sprinkles

Process:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a large metal pan (9″x13″) with aluminum foil or parchment paper and grease.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and the eggs one at a time. Mix until fully incorporated, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the flour mixture a little at a time until just combined.
Using your hands or a greased flat bottomed glass, press the cookie mixture into the baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until light golden brown and when a knife tip is inserted in the center it is clean upon removal. Gently lift out the cookie bars from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
To make the frosting: Cream together the butter until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and salt to the mixture. Slowly add the confectioners’ sugar until the frosting is smooth. Add the gel food coloring until the desired color is reached. Add the milk in 1 tablespoon at a time to create a smooth texture.
Evenly spread the frosting over the cool sugar cookie bars and add sprinkles. Cut into even sized bars.

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

Chipotle Chocolate Cupcakes

September 3, 2009

I saw the Spicy Chipotle Chocolate Cake from What We’re Eating and have wanted to do it for awhile. I love Mexican hot chocolate so I thought they that I would enjoy this too. Our friend Essa is going back to Egypt to sort some Visa issues out so decided to make these his ‘pot luck good luck send off’.

It was fun to bring them to the pot luck dinner because I was able to have quite a few reviews of it. Everyone liked them but they liked the cake and frosting seperately. The cake gave you a hint of chili about the 3rd bite in, a slow mellow burn. They could not taste any nutella in the frosting, just cream cheese. But people like the frosting since they were eating it out of the mixing bowl (frosting them there made transporting them a bit easier!). I will try it again with a plain chocolate buttercream frosting so the cream cheese does not battle with the chipotle. Such a good cake, I know I’ll make it again.Amanda had a great idea with the chili/chocolate combination. So good!

I made changes to the recipe to work for cupcakes and my convection oven. (You may refer to the original recipe here)

Chipotle Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes

2 sticks butter, unsalted
10 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
5 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp chipotle chili powder

For Frosting
16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
6 oz nutella
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/3 cup milk, plus extra as needed

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 24 cups in cupcake pans with wrappers. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl, sift together the salt, flour, baking powder & chipotle chili powder. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl/stand mixer, combine the eggs and sugars. Beat until the sugars have completely dissolved into the eggs and the mixture begins to thicken- 3-5 minutes.

While the egg/sugar mixture is mixing, melt the butter in a double boiler. Once the butter has melted, add the chocolate chips. Stir until all chocolate has melted. Do not burn chocolate. Remove from heat.

Once the egg and butter mixture has thicken fold in the dry ingredients. Add the vanilla extract and chocolate-butter mixture into the batter. Fold to incorporate. Batter will be thin

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake lines. Bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (If it comes out with any gooey batter, let the cake bake longer, as needed.) Remove the cupcakes from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Cool for at least 2 hours before frosting, store frosted cupcakes in a cool place/refrigerator. Once cooled, the cupcakes may be covered and stored at room temperature for a day before frosting.

Making the Frosting:

Using a larger bowl and electric beater or standmixer beat the the cream cheese and nutella into until light and fluffy. Sift in the cocoa powder and powdered sugar. Add the milk then then gently beat to incorporate. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes!