Candy Corn Sugar Cookies

Are you looking for that perfect, last minute Halloween treat to make? I came across these adorable sugar cookies on a fun blog that I follow. Tina over at Mommy’s Kitchen had them as a feature on her site this month.

You can make these cookies using your favorite sugar cookie recipe, or you can just purchase the refrigerated dough from your supermarket. Here is the recipe that I used (and I doubled it):

Ingredients:

3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, sift before measuring

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ sup butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

½ cup sour cream

Preparation:

Into a bowl, sift together the sifted flour, baking soda, and salt. In a mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Beat for 2 minutes. Add sour cream and half of the sifted dry ingredients; beat 1 minute. Stir in remaining dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Divide dough in thirds. Add orange food coloring to one of the portions, and yellow to another.

Line an 8-inch square pan with waxed paper and press yellow dough in the bottom.

Next, press the orange dough on top of the yellow dough.

Then press the plain white dough on top. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Pull the dough out of the baking dish, and cut into ¼ inch thick slices.

Cut the slices into triangles, and place on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes. My cookies came out perfect at 8 minutes.

Happy Halloween!

Here's A Little About Me!

I am crazy about a lot of things. I am especially crazy about my adorable kids and my wonderful husband. Their love, kindness, and smiles are enough to make anyone happy. I am crazy about baking, and filling my home with a yummy aroma that is inviting to anyone. I am crazy about serving others. The joy that I get from doing acts of kindness for others is unbelievable. Most of all, I am crazy about life!

The Easiest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

These pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are quick, easy, and delicious. Since pumpkins seem to be in abundance this time of year, you can either use fresh pumpkin or canned pumpkin. I chose to use canned pumpkin.

3 Simple Ingredients:

1 box Spice Cake Mix

1 Small Can (15 oz.) Pumpkin

1 12 oz. bag of Chocolate Chips

Start by mixing the pumpkin and the cake mix together. You don't need the oil or eggs. Just the dry mix.

Mix it together well, and add the chocolate chips.

Mix well, and scoop onto a greased cookie sheet. I always use a non stick cooking spray.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. Your home will smell inviting, and you will have a delicious treat! I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as my kids do.

Megan's Diamond Shaped Wedding Cake

Tonight was Megan's wedding reception, and I was able to make her cake for her. This three-tiered cake was amazing! The top layer was a white cake with a raspberry filling. The middle layer was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling, and the bottom layer was a carrot cake with a buttercream filling. I did chocolate fondant for the first time ever. And I was extremely surprised at how easy it was to make and work with. I will share the recipe at the bottom of this post. Be sure to click on the top picture to get a better view of the details.

The reception was beautiful! I was really glad to be a part of it.

For the Chocolate Fondant, I mostly followed the Wilton recipe. I changed it by using real chocolate instead of the chocolate candy melts. The texture was perfect.

Wilton Chocolate Fondant

Ingredients:

14 ounces dark cocoa candy melts

1/2 cup light corn syrup

24 ounce package Wilton Fondant

Brown Icing Color (optional)

Black Icing Color (optional)

Makes: About 2 pounds chocolate fondant (this cake took about 10 pounds).

Instructions:

Melt Candy Melts following package directions. Add corn syrup; stir to blend. Turn out mixture onto waxed paper; let stand at room temperature to dry and harden several hours. Wrap well and store at room temperature until ready to continue with recipe.

Knead small portions of candy mixture until soft and pliable. Knead softened mixture into fondant until smooth and evenly colored. If darker color is desired, knead in icing color.

Brown and Blue Wedding Desserts.....It Was Megan's Great Day!

My friend Megan got married today, and I made some goodies for her special day. With brown and blue as the colors, the possibilities were endless. I started with some cupcakes.....white and chocolate. The chocolate cupcakes had a rich chocolate buttercream frosting with grated chocolate on top. The white cupcakes were topped with a buttercream frosting also.

I also made my Mint Brownie Bites. When I made these before, I was able to just buy Dove Chocolate hearts, because it was close to Valentines Day. Well, I learned that chocolate hearts are impossible to find in the fall. I ended up buying a heart candy mold so that I could make my own chocolate hearts. They were delicious!

I made Cake Balls with a Spice Cake and Cream Cheese frosting.

And I made Cheese Cake Balls. I will have to give you detailed instructions on these little delicacies in a later post. But, I can tell you that they melt in your mouth. The cheesecake was covered with Milk Chocolate, and topped with toasted hazelnuts.

What a beautiful Wedding. Thank you Megan and Taylor, for letting me be a part of your special day.

My next project......Megan's Wedding Cake for her reception next week! It will be a lot of fun.

Ashley's Cupcake Decorating Birthday Party

Ashley had an AWESOME birthday party this weekend!

We had a great group of kids, and we kept things simple. We had the kids do some balloon relay races. They also got to take a swing at a pinata.

The big attraction of the party was cupcake decorating. They had so many choices to make! They could take a strawberry, white, or chocolate cupcake.

They could top it off with strawberry, vanilla, or chocolate frosting.

The many toppings were endless. The kids could choose from M&M's, Dots, Candy Corns, Gummy Bears, and Chocolate chips.

And every child likes sprinkles, right?

Here they are making their creations.

And the pictures say it all......

And yes, I even made one!

What a great day! Happy Birthday Ashley!

A What? A Peach Upside Down Cake!

My Dad gave me some peaches the other day off of his tree. I didn't have quite enough to get a canning operation going, so I went on a quest to find a yummy peach dessert recipe. I came across a lot of peach pie recipes, and they all looked great. But when I found this recipe for a Peach Upside Down Cake, I just had to try it. It turned out AMAZING! It was almost like a peach cobbler, and was especially wonderful served warm with a scoop of ice cream.

Start by heating your oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9-inch square or round cake pan, or spray with baking spray. Peel and pit the peaches, slice thinly.

Fruit Mixture:

3 peaches, peeled, thinly sliced, about 2 cups of slices (I think I used 4 or 5 peaches)

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 Tablespoons melted butter

Toss the peaches with the brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Arrange the peach mixture in the prepared baking pan.
Cake:

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, stirred before measuring

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

2/3 cup milk

Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in a bowl. In a large mixing bowl with electric mixer, beat butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla extract, and almond flavoring. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, alternating with the milk, beating just until blended. Spoon the batter over the peach slices.
Gently spread it around to cover the peaches.
Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Invert the hot cake onto a platter or cake plate and let stand for about 5 minutes. Remove the pan and scrape up any fruit slices clinging to the pan and arrnage them over the cake.
Like I said before, it was especially wonderful served warm with a scoop of ice cream.

Dipped Oreo Pops.......Delicious!

I have always enjoyed sitting down with some Oreos and a big glass of milk. I had no idea that the possibilities were endless when it came to making yummy treats with them. I thought I would give these delicacies a try. Dipped Oreo Pops!

They were so incredibly easy to make, and mouth-watering delicious too. These pops work best when you have the double stuffed Oreos. Start by shoving a sucker stick or a popsicle stick in the middle. They hold up pretty well. I learned pretty quick that you can't push it in too far, because the cookie will break. So only go about half way.

Melt your chocolate or candy melts. I used Chocolate Mint candy melts, and melted them quickly in the microwave oven (30 second intervals works best, stirring between each).

Then take those cute little cookies for a swim.

I stick my pops in foam until they harden. You can decorate them anyway you would like. I think they would be really cute for Halloween with pumpkins or spiders on them.

Enjoy!

My dear friend Melissa shared this recipe with me, and of course I had to try it. She also gave me permission to put it on my blog. THANK YOU VERY MUCH MELISSA!

Any of you who know me well, know that my favorite ice cream is cookie mint. So, of course, I instantly took a liking to this recipe. It was really easy to make, and very delicious in the end.

Here are the 3 main ingredients:

A Boxed Brownie Mix, Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, and Andes Mints. There’s no way you could go wrong with these, right?

Grasshopper Brownies

Ingredients

2 boxes of any regular brownie mix (I used 1 family size mix)

6 Tbsp. Flour

About 10 Tbsp. Butter (plus more for pan)

About ½ cup milk

4 eggs

1 package chocolate sandwich cookies

2 bags Andes thin mints

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9” X 13” pan. Cover bottom of pan with parchment paper. Allow a few inches of paper to rise above the long sides of the pan. These will serve as handles to remove the brownies later. Butter the parchment paper.

Make brownies according to package directions with the following exceptions:

- Add 6 Tbsp. Flour to the mix

- Replace oil with melted butter

- Replace water with milk

Chop 1 ½ bags thin mints into coarse chunks. Place sandwich cookies in a large plastic bag and break into pieces with hands and a rolling pin. Stir mints and cookies into brownies by hand- batter will be very thick.

Spoon batter evenly into pan. Bake for 45-55 minutes. Remove pan from oven and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Use parchment paper “handles” to lift brownies from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Cut brownies into preferred serving size and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Looking good, right?

How about now?

Mmmmm.... Delicious! What is amazing about these brownies is that you get a little crunch from the cookies and some gooiness from the melted mints. I will be making these again and again!