Melting Snowman Cookies

I feel like now that we are at least past Halloween I can start posting some holiday treats.  It just doesn't feel right to do it before then.  



I made these last year and they were an absolute hit, and SO stinkin easy.

What you'll need:


Sugar cookie dough (you can make it, or buy it)
Marshmallows
Sugar cookie frosting (make or buy, I bought mine because this was a school night project)
Decorator icing in different colors, you need black and orange for sure.



So, bake your cookies according to the directions, but make them a little misshapen when you put them on the pan.


After they have cooled, put your frosting on, making it drizzle down the edge a bit like it is snow melting.


Pop your marshmallows on a plate and microwave them for like 2-3 seconds.  You just need to be able to mash them a tiny bit so they don't need long.


Affix them to the top of the cookie, using your icing as glue.


Then, decorate with faces, scarves and hands!

The best spice cake ever.

My husband is a boring cake person.  Typically he requests cherry chip cake (the boxed stuff) with cherry frosting.  Blech.

But, I make it because he likes it.  My guy and his pink cakes.

But, this past year he decided to change it up.  He wanted me to MAKE a cake.  EEECK!!!  I started scouring the internet for recipes.  Chocolate peanut butter cake, butterfinger cake, homemade cherry chip... He vetoed all of them.  Said he wanted a spice cake.


Spice cake?  Okay.  So, started searching for spice cakes.  Do you want a carrot cake?  No.  Spice cake with nuts? No.  


Finally, I found this, and I knew I'd be pushing the envelope because he isn't a fan of toffee or of coffee.  But I just KNEW he'd love it.  I am a sucker for anything with molasses.  A tiny bit does go a long way but it is an ingredient I think everyone should have in their cupboard.    So, I did a trial run and brought it to work, making it exactly as pictured. 


My co-workers raved but I knew it would be a no go for him, he wouldn't like eating the toffee like that.  But the toffee that was put in-between the layers melted and you just got the flavor and it was so decadent!  And, as a bonus, you get to keep your teeth.  BINGO!

And let me tell you, this cake batter.  Oh, the cake batter.  It is so dense, and moist and rich and just... lovely.  


And the frosting?  ACK, more molasses!  Trust me folks, you'll convert.




What you'll need:

Ingredients

For cake:

• 1 1/4 cups butter, at room temperature, plus more for pans
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 1 1/4 cups milk

For frosting:

• 2/3 cup butter, at room temperature
• 4 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 tablespoon milk

For the toffee:

• 1/2 cup butter, cut in chunks, plus more for pan
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder

Directions:

I suggest making the toffee first, so it has time to cool.  You could even make it a few days before.

Butter a 12- by 17-in. rimmed baking sheet (like a cookie sheet with rims, something flexible is best).

Measure out vanilla and set aside.

In a 2- to 3-qt. saucepan over medium-low heat, stir sugar, butter, 1/4 cup water, corn syrup, and espresso powder until butter is melted and you no longer see sugar crystals. Increase heat to high and boil, stirring occasionally, until mixture reaches 300° on a candy thermometer, 4 to 5 minutes. Quickly remove from heat and carefully stir in vanilla (mixture will bubble up). Immediately spread thinly in prepared baking pan and let cool until hard, about 20 minutes.

Flex pan to release toffee. If using for topping cake, finely chop enough to make 1 1/4 cups. Break remaining toffee into small chunks and reserve for garnish. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.


Now the cake:

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and flour three 8-in. round cake pans.

In a large bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Beat in molasses.

In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and cloves. Stir a third of the flour mixture into butter mixture. Stir in half the milk just until blended. Stir in another third of the flour mixture, then remaining milk, followed by remaining flour, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Scrape batter equally into prepared pans and spread level.

Bake cakes until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of a layer comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pans on racks for 10 minutes, then invert cakes onto racks and remove pans. Cool completely before assembling.  I recommend putting them in the freezer so they are easier to cut.

For frosting: In a large bowl, beat butter with a mixer on low speed until light and fluffy. Beat in cream cheese until well incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Beat in powdered sugar, lemon juice, and molasses, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until no lumps remain.

With a serrated knife, carefully slice cake layers in half horizontally. Place first split layer, cut side down, on serving platter (adjust parchment paper so that edges of platter are covered). Spread layer with about 1/2 cup frosting. Sprinkle with about 1/4 cup chopped toffee. Repeat frosting and sprinkling with next 4 split layers. Top with remaining split layer, but don't frost or sprinkle with toffee. Brush away crumbs around sides and base of cake.  You can skip splitting the layers, if you want.  Just put extra frosting and toffee between each layer, no biggie.

Spoon 1 cup frosting into a small bowl and stir in milk until smooth. Spread a thin layer of frosting over top and sides of cake to seal in crumbs. Refrigerate cake until coating is set, about 1 hour. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake.

Rather than topping with the toffee I drizzled some caramel syrup on top, but you can skip that.  I just couldn't leave well enough alone.

Egg Salad Sandwiches

Would you like to know the secret to the perfect egg salad sandwich?   I think I'm sensing a theme with my posts lately, besides my 1970's plates and poor photography that is. 

Anyway, you know how egg salad from the deli is just super fluffy and yummy?  Well, for one, they use extra yolks but the real secret to great egg salad, in my not so humble opinion, is butter.



You'll need:

8 hard boiled eggs, chilled
1 tablespoon mayonaise
1 tablespoon Dijon style mustard
1/4 red onion, minced
1/2 teaspoon of fresh dill
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 teaspoon franks red hot sauce (you didn't think I only had ONE secret ingredient, did you?)

8 slices of bread.

Peel your eggs and separate the yolk from 2 of them, discarding the whites (or eat them).  Mash the two yolks, along with the 6 whole eggs with a fork.  No need to get it fine, chunky is better.

Mix the rest of your ingredients in.  The butter will solidify with the rest of the cold ingredients and give your egg salad the richest most decadent texture.


YUM.  And, might I add, that this is an incredibly inexpensive easy meal to throw together.  Especially if you are like me and always have hard boiled eggs in the fridge.

Boston Baked Beans

Last fathers day my mother-in-law called over to the house and asked my husband what we wanted to bring to the picnic.  He said "Katie will make baked beans".

Um. Hello, I've never MADE baked beans.  I think those take a while to do!  And, this phone call was literally ON Fathers Day. So, I had about two hours to come up with "homemade" baked beans.

I managed to come up with something that everyone raved about, thanks to All Recipes, and some cheating.  Everyone loved the beans so much that I felt it was only right if I actually made them the right way the next time.

So, the second time I made them was for another family get together and even though I baked those damn beans in the oven for 12 hours (after soaking them of course), they were HARD and I made a freaking mess all over my oven because you have to keep adding water and it all spattered and well, not cool.

The third time I made them was this past weekend.  Slow cooker = life saver.  They cooked for 28 HOURS!  But they were very yummy.

Here is a photo of the third batch.  Nice deep reddish brown color, just like they are supposed to look.



At the end of the day though, I kind of liked the cheat beans the best!  But, everyone raved about the last batch I made so here are the recipes for both.

Boston Baked Beans, the right way... sorta.


Ingredients:

• 2 cups navy beans, dry
• 1 pound bacon
• 2 onions, finely diced
• 8 tablespoons molasses
• 4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 cup ketchup
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Directions:
Rinse the navy beans and remove any rocks.  No one wants to eat rocks.

Pour beans in the slow cooker and cover with water.  Let them sit overnight.

In the morning drain the beans.

Take some scissors to your raw bacon and just slice it in small chunks and toss it in the slowcooker raw along with the onions.  You can cook it before hand, but it'll cook in 28 hours, trust me and it saves cleaning dishes.

Mix the molasses, salt, pepper, dry mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar in a bowl and pour over the beans.

Pour in as much water as your slow cooker will hold.

Turn the slow cooker on high for about 5 - 8 hours, then turn it on low for the rest of the time (it'll go overnight).  Cook for 24 to 28 hours, or until your beans are nice and tender.  Check the beans from time to time as you may need to add a bit more water to prevent burning - I did twice.

Boston Baked Beans, the cheaters way.


Six cans (16 ounces each) of canned navy beans, rinsed.
1 pound of cooked bacon, chopped.
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons molasses
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar

Pour your beans in a very large baking dish  Layer your bacon and onions on top.

Mix the rest of the ingredients in a pot on the stove until the sugar dissolves.  Pour over the beans

Bake in the oven at 350 four about 45 minutes, or until everything is heated through.

Apple Chips

I am always trying to think of good snack ideas for my kids, things to give them for lunch or easy and portable breakfast ideas.  Thanks to my husband by kids also love chips.  So, that brought me to apple chips and I figured they couldn't be too hard to make, right?

So, a quick google search and I landed on this recipe.  It stood out to me because of the sugar water soak.  Any other recipe I read about just seemed like the chips would kinda be leathery, like dried fruit and not all that  sweet.  I'm not usually a fan of added sugar but I also want to make something that they will EAT and something that the baby can (physically) eat and fruit leather isn't going to be easy for him.

In true me fashion I used what I had on hand, which happened to be granny smith apples.  I figured they have a nice bite to them, bake well and the sugar soak should counter their tartness, I was right.  

I simply sliced the apples however I could manage, as thin as I could manage, but a mandoline would work much, much better and they would be prettier.

First make a batch of sugar water for the soak dissolving 1 1/2 cups of sugar into 2 cups of water on the stove top. 

Then, slice 2-4 apples paper thin and squeeze lemon juice on them as you go to prevent browning and drop them into your sugar water.  

Soak your apple slices in the sugar water overnight.

The next day pat them all dry and then lay them out on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake in your oven at 200 degrees for an hour to an hour and a half.  The apples will be CRUNCHY like chips and oh so wonderful.  I also sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar on half of my batch and that was equally as yummy. 

Pumpkin pie bites

I love the internet and all the crafty people on it.  These pumpkin pie desserts are not only delicious, they are so incredibly easy! 



Crappy photos by Katie - couldn't find my camera, so you got a cell phone picture.  Still, don't you want a bite?

I halved the recipe, because we had no need for 32 of them.

So, what you'll need.

1 can of refrigerated crescent rolls.
1/4 block of cream cheese
1/2 cup of canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice (okay, i didn't half that one)
1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar.

Mix the last 4 ingredients together, beating with a mixer until nice and fluffy. 

Unroll your crescent rolls onto a cookie sheet, put about 1 tablespoon of the pumpkin mixture inside and roll up. 

Mix 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice in a bowl and roll each stuffed crescent in the sugar mix.  Bake at 375 for 18 minutes, give or take.

Easy Banana Bread

I am big on making things from scratch.  It saves money, I know what goes into it and nothing tastes better than homemade.  But, as the title of this blog points out, I'm also pressed for time and sometimes dragging all of the ingredients out (if I even have them) and then cleaning it all up is a PITA.  Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a box of banana bread?  There are no bananas in many of them.  Krusteaz does have some in its ingredient list, but they are pretty far down on the list.  As a general rule though I like Krusteaz brand products and looking at the label on the Banana Nut muffin mix it's pretty good.  Sure, it has enriched flour but... I'd be using that anyway.  It also has wheat and barley flour as well as ground flax seed and that's a plus.

So, back to making it...




YUM.

What you'll need.

1 box of Krusteaz Banana Nut muffin mix.
3 eggs
1/4 cup of vegetable oil (you could probably skip this depending on if you used more banana or wanted to sub applesauce, I like the richness it adds though)
4 (around 16 ounces mashed if you want to measure) very ripe bananas mashed up.
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts (optional add, but I like a little more)

Directions:
Mix it all together in a bowl (adding the walnuts at the very end).  Bake according to the box directions.

Voila.  Banana bread, with real bananas.  The awesome thing about boxed mixes like this is that they are very forgiving, and that's saying a lot when it comes to baking.    You could alter this recipe a lot to suit your tastes.  Less banana, butter instead of oil, applesauce instead of oil, no nuts, use 1 tablespoon flax seed and 3 tablespoons water to replace an egg...    It's a lot like these pumpkin muffins using cake mix.

And by the way - if you ever find yourself with very overripe bananas but don't have the time to bake at that very moment, just toss them in a zip-loc bag in the freezer.  When you are ready to make the bread let them sit on the counter for a few hours and you'll be ready to mash them up.

Happy Baking!