Go Kings Go!!

Let’s win game two!!

Sea Salt Ice Cream Cake

Okay, maybe I lied…There isn’t really any cake involved.  It’s technically just graham crackers.  But its shaped like a cake, I guess.

At any rate, this is good.  Like really really good.  But this story begins in Portland, OR.  While visiting the infamous Miss Summer, we took a detour on the way to the airport and had some delicious ice cream at Salt & Straw.  Inspired by their Sea Salt Ice cream with Caramel Ribbons, I came home and hunted around Pinterest for a Sea Salt Ice Cream recipe.  I found this one…I mean three ingredients.  Doesn’t get any easier.

I made the ice cream as directed and let it firm up in the freezer for about an hour and a half.  I lined a loaf pan with plastic wrap while I waited….and waited…

When you can’t wait anymore, throw down a layer of graham crackers–break them as needed to make sure you get full coverage.  Top that with a layer of ice cream (which is still pretty soft at this point) and then squeeze some caramel sauce on top of that.  Sorry, I’m not sure how much.  I just kept going until everything was good and covered.  Then you layer–like a lasagna.

Graham, ice cream, caramel, graham, ice cream, caramel, graham, ice cream.

Put it all back in the freezer to completely harden, probably overnight.  Slice and serve.

These two pieces that I photographed for you are literally the last two.  This “cake” went fast.  Next time I may consider doubling everything!

Rocky Road Treats

Dress up a boxed dessert for an extra special treat!

While raiding our pantry, I found a boxed brownie mix. I wasn’t in the mood for just an average brownie so I dug a little deeper and added some friends to the party!

Who doesn’t love extra chocolate, marshmallows and chopped walnuts?

After mixing the brownies as directed, I added in the extras. Once combined, I poured and baked.

The brownies are done once you do the toothpick test! My brownies took a little longer, about 5 minutes more that the box said.

I didn’t have any vanilla ice cream in the freezer, but these would be amazing a la mode! The marshmallows add a little gooey-ness that makes these treats irresistible!

Birthday Boy

I have a long hallway.  And this is my hallway having a party…

Its amazing what zooming in on some streamers and balloons will do for ya!  This backdrop was super easy and can easily be adjusted to any color scheme or occasion.  And unless you choose to, you know perhaps for blogging purposes, you never have to zoom out and no one ever has to know that this is really just your boring old hallway.  Fill that frame and all you see is a party!

My baby boy turns 1 today.  *Tear* My baby turns 1 today!  I made him this smash cake to celebrate.  Chocolate cake with chocolate filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.  The cake is decorated by piping large dots and then smearing them to one side.  A little tedious but the effect is pretty great.   I don’t know if you can tell, but I think he liked it.  We literally couldn’t get him to crack a smile once the cake came out.  He was all business!

Banana Bread Makeover

Mother’s Day coming up, I thought this would be a great time to test a new version of banana bread before serving Mother’s Day brunch!

I started with my usual banana bread recipe. Usually, I just add the 1/4c chopped walnuts. The special twist this time is adding a 1/4c of milk chocolate chips along side the walnuts. I love chocolate! To make this extra special (as if chocolate wasn’t enough), I topped off the banana bread with a streusel topping before putting it in the oven.

The streusel is as follows:

Mix 1/4c flour and 1/3c brown sugar.
Cut in 2tbsp cold butter with a pastry blender until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

I stopped there and sprinkled it on top of my bread mixture. You could add 1/3c chopped walnuts to the streusel for added crunch.

The crunchy, sweet streusel creates a great layer of contrast to the moist, delicious banana bread. I absolutely love the little pockets of melted chocolate throughout! So tasty and surprisingly, not to sweet! Anyone else try a banana bread makeover? What changes do you make?

Sweet blessings.

330.  I woke up at 5 am and made 330 pastel, silver-dollar pancakes. It sounds worse than it was.  I cheated (as I often do) and bought the Bisquick that only requires you add water and comes in a handy-dandy easy to pour container.  I added water and a little food coloring to no less than 5 containers.

I stacked 5 pancakes for each of the 1st graders at my son’s school and impaled them with a bamboo fork that was decorated with a foam cross.  Check out another variation here.

A team of moms turned the lunch benches into a fabulous Easter party.

My favorite part was hearing the kids’ amazement that they were getting to have pancakes at snack today.  When they are used to the standard cupcakes and cookies, sometimes you need to take it back to breakfast and dress her up a little.

I’m grateful for all those shiny happy faces.

Looks Like Gold To Me

In my last act as class leprechaun I made celebratory treats for my son’s class. Always one to use whatever is on hand, I had a not-quite-full box of yellow cake mix (used for flavoring in the cake batter bark here).  I added 2 eggs and a half cup of vegetable oil and BAM!  Cookie dough.  I dyed the dough green (obvious choice) and rolled them around in a dish of gold and rainbow-colored sanding sugar.  They were baked for 7 mins at 350 degrees.

I love a little shimmer…

Doesn’t this look like I’ve gone all in during the most amazingly delicious game of poker?  Dessert poker anyone?!  I see your cookie and raise you a pie!

Easily distracted…sorry…anyhoo, once the cookies were cooled I cut the tops off Ziplock sandwich bags and individually packaged each cookie, tying the baggies off with handy-dandy Washi tape.

HAPPY ST. PADDY’S DAY!!

Birthday Bites

My baby is 7.  SEVEN!  Where has the time gone?  He is pretty special–and not just because he’s my first-born.  Although in all fairness I too am the first-born and I think we’re all pretty special.

He is funny, loving, incredibly empathetic, and a great big brother.  We’re lucky to be his parents.  Ugh…tears.

Okay, well the most important part of any birthday is the cake!  Since his birthday fell on a Saturday, I brought treats in to his class on Friday.  Life is more chaotic now so I wanted to make things on easy on myself. I went to Vons and purchased two boxes of Madeleine/Brownie Bites.  Whaaat?!  Yes.  They are half Madeleine and half Brownie, swirled together. Both light and rich and bite-sized, they are the little treat to hit the spot.

I added a personal touch by piping some white frosting on top, a dash of festive sprinkles, and a piece of Cake Batter Bark.  The kids thought they were amazing (one asked that I e-mail his mom the recipe–seriously).  Since I had extra, the teachers and office staff got to have some as well and they too thought they were just right and thanked me for bringing in kid-sized treats.

Riding the wave of Friday’s success, I planned Saturday’s birthday cake with the left over bark pieces in mind.  I made a basic chocolate layered cake with white frosting and added sprinkles and Cake Batter Bark as a decorative edging.

It was fun and cute…and most importantly, tasty!  Also, I love a good dual-purpose anything and the pieces of bark can kind of be used as spacers for slicing the cake.

This particular birthday carried over into Sunday as well when we celebrated with his schoolmates at a local Pump It Up.  I cut myself some slack though and ordered a cake for that celebration.

Now that I have a 7-year-old, I have come to the following conclusions:

1. My days of cool are numbered;
2. His increasing age doesn’t seem to make me feel older.  I don’t quite feel young.  But, I don’t quite feel old [or mature] enough to have a 7-year-old; and
3. Thank God for cake.  No matter what is going on and how stressful life (or party planning) can be, sitting down and having a piece of birthday cake is such a relief.

 

 

 

Sugar Cream Pie

I had a baby, went back to work and dropped out of the human race.  Seriously, side-lined. This was my third child so you’d think I would have been more prepared.  I’ve been absent from my favorite outlet, WhoopieCookie. I apologize for that…to you dear readers and to myself.  Truth is I need an outlet for the creative juices that bubble beneath my legal eagle surface.  Now more than ever!

While I haven’t blogged in…nearing forever, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been baking, crafting, seeking all things interesting and cool.  But putting my thoughts out there is part of the fun.  So here I go, attempting to get back into the swing of things and hopefully stay there…

Tonight was Oscar Night!  Yay!  By the way, with all my free time I’ve seen all of one of the movies that were nominated for anything.  I saw Skyfall last weekend.  LAST WEEKEND!  So, at least I knew the words to Adele’s Oscar-winning song.  Some day I hope to see the other wonderful films nominated…on demand…in my jammies.

Tonight was all about the pies at our house.  My hub made homemade “chicken pot chicken pot chicken pot pie!”  So for dessert I made my own pie.  Clearly he’s a savory kinda guy and I’m bringing the sweet to the table.  I guess opposites do attract.  He loves the savory so much that he often does not love the sweets that I make.  Tonight, however, everyone adored the glints of gold on this sugar cream pie.

Super easy and pretty quick (if you don’t let it cool all the way like us).

Whatcha Need:

1 Refrigerated Pie Crust
2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Cup Sugar
½ Cup All-Purpose Flour
½ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, Cut Into ½ inch Pieces
⅛ Teaspoon Nutmeg

Whatcha Do:

Preheat the oven and a cookie sheet to 425 degrees.  Bring the pie crust to room temperature, per the package instructions.  Place in your dish of preference.  Poke holes in the bottom with a fork and place in the fridge or freezer to cool and harden a bit while you get the filling ready.  Whip heavy whipping cream, sugar, flour, and vanilla.  Pour into the prepared dish and drop the butter pieces all over the top of the filling.  Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Bake the pie for 10 minutes at 425 degrees and then lower to 350 degrees and bake until the crust is golden brown the pie filling is bubbly and only a little jiggly in the center (think Pumpkin Pie consistency).  That was about 50 minutes in my oven.  Let it cool (for as long as you can).  It will continue to set as it cools. Serve at room temperature or cold.

Mine kind of bubbled over and spilled onto the cookie sheet.  Everything still ended up looking and tasting great. This is the first time that I’ve made this pie and it was delish.  I’m already dreaming up an individual version with maybe a [cheater] Nilla wafer crust and a fresh berry on top.  Mmmmm….

A very Cheese-y surprise!

A Birthday Surprise

Cheese had a surprise for Zoey’s birthday last year! He baked cupcakes and decorated a special treat all on his own! If you have a December birthday in your family, maybe your elf could celebrate in their own special way! I wonder what Cheese will come up with this year?

North Pole Cupcakes

At school, we shared Zoey’s birthday with the class and all the kids made their own North Pole inspired cupcake! We supplied the kids with coconut, sprinkles, frosting, a candy cane and a gingerbread man cookie.

Now the kids get a turn!

Spread Christmas Cheer!!