Sunday, April 25, 2010

Marshmallow Fudge Mania!

A while back I was given a great cook book, Hungry Girl-200 Under 200! I was in the mood for chocolate, so I decided to make the Marshmallow Fudge Mania! Each piece is only 66 calories and 0.5 g fat!!



Ingredients...
Fudge Brownies Mix
2 cups pure pumpkin
1/2 cup Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme
2 Tablespoons of Hershey's Lite Syrup




Mix together brownie mix, pumpkin & chocolate...Stir marshmallow creme...
Swirl half of the marshmallow creme on top of half of the brownie mixture & repeat...

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes! Cook cake & refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Then cut into 36 squares. Personally, I thought the squares were a bit small...2 squares = just 132 calories, so that's not too bad ;)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Easter Cake Pops

At work there is an Easter Goodies Bake Sale. Since my turkey pops were such a hit the last time, I decided to do more of Bakerella's Cake Pops!
I did her spring chickens...
Bunnies...
And sheep!...
They raised a lot of money :)

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Valentines Day--Banana Cream Pie

For Valentines Day I made one of Steve's favorites--Banana Cream Pie!
the ingredients...

graham cracker crust:
2 1/2 cups of crushed graham crackers
1/4 cup of melted butter
1/4 cup mushed bananas


1/3 cup sugar

after crushing graham crackers, blend together the remainder of the ingredients in a food processor

bake at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes (until golden brown)

chill the crust

filling:
1 large package vanilla pudding mix (prepare as directed)



4-5 bananas sliced and coated with lemon juice
cool-whip



DELISH!!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Shelley's Birthday Cherry Cobbler

For my good friend Shelley's Birthday I made her request--Cherry Cobbler!
Having never made cherry cobbler before, I was excitedly up to the challenge! I checked through my cookbooks and some online blogs for recipe ideas. I finally came up with a combination of Pioneer Woman's Cobbler Crust and Cooking Light Cookbook's Cherry Filling!
2 pounds of fresh sweet cherries! Yummm!!!
Cleaned up!
Pitted by hand (this was also a learning experience--but I was able to come up with an at home pitter--the tip of my carrot peeler!) I recommend wearing gloves because the cherry juice is messy and will stain your hands.
This is funny---I really wanted a close up picture of some cherries, so I kept trying and trying (as you can see above it was quite blurry). So I finally got Steve to come over & help me with the camera settings...
And look--perfectly shiny cherries!
2 pounds of pitted cherries
Pits!!! After pitting, (and I forgot to take pictures on this step), you combine the cherries with 1¼ cup sugar, 4 tablespoons uncooked quick cooking tapioca, 1 ½ tablespoon lemon juice & 1/8 teaspoon salt...Pour into a pie Pyrex dish & set aside for at least 15 minutes...
Next part--crust! Combine 2 cups Flour, ¼ teaspoons Salt & 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder. Add ¼ cups Shortening & 4 Tablespoons Butter...
Cut the butter & shortening into the flour mixture (you can use a fancy pastry blender, but I just used a fork)
Mix together 1 Egg & ½ cup of milk
Pour into flour mixture...
And stir with a fork until smooth (and not sticky)...
Drop clumps of the dough mixture onto the cherry mixture...
Until it is completely covered with the dough. Brush with milk and sprinkle with 2-3 tablespoons of sugar...
Preheat oven to 425 degrees & bake for 30 minutes (should be golden on top) and you can see the cherry sauce bubbling. We let it sit for 30 minutes or so and it was still a bit runny. You should probably let it sit a bit longer just to be sure!

For an even yummier cobbler, eat with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Warning: Do not eat too much because you will have a belly ache! But it is totally worth it!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Sprinkles Rack!

For Christmas my amazing husband got me this spice-less rack! I knew that I wanted to use it for SPRINKLES!
I still need more of some kinds of sprinkles, but isn't it just the cutest?
I really can't take credit for the idea...Bakerella did this a while back on her blog :)

Friday, November 13, 2009

bakerella's cake pops!

disclaimer: i can not take any credit for the creativity in this project!

bakerella, my favorite website, makes these awesome cake pops! i've been wanting to try to make her cake pops for a while now, so last weekend i had a free sunday, so i decided to give it a shot!
since we are just days away from thanksgiving, i decided to do her turkey pops (here is a picture of her version)...
and her cupcake pops in thanksgiving colors (her version in this picture again)...
of these 2, which do you think would be easier? i definitely thought the turkeys were going to be impossible and that the cupcakes would be super easy. boy was i wrong! the rest of these pictures are my cake pops...
the turkeys you had to act quickly before the chocolate hardened, but they were so easy and turned out so cute!...
kissing turkeys!
but the cupcakes were so hard to get in that perfect shape!
i think they looked more like acorns than cupcakes!

i wrapped them up in little baggies and brought them to our thanksgiving luncheon at work.
i think i will be trying these again soon! they were fun!