Nutella + Banana + Nilla Wafers... We need a name!

For this simple and simply delicious little bite of Heaven!

As simple as it seems.... As delicious as it looks...

Two Nilla Wafer spread with Nutella. One slice of banana. Sandwich together.

Are you drooling yet?

Eggnog Pound Cake

In looking for goodies to give as teacher gifts I came across this recipe which seemed to scream out to me! It is simple and fabulously delish!

Equipment
stand mixer with paddle attachment (or hand mixer and large bowl)
12-cup Bundt pan or tube pan or two large loaf pans, 6 small loaf pans greased and floured


Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter
3 cups (525 g) granulated sugar
6 eggs
3 cups (339 g) cake flour
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup (240 ml) eggnog

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoon golden rum or rum extract (But you could add more!!)

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 325° F/165° C.
2. Cut butter into chunks and cream. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs one at a time.
3. Stir together flour and nutmeg. Alternate flour and eggnog: one cup flour, 1/2 cup eggnog, one cup flour, the rest of the eggnog, and then the rest of the flour. Keep the mixer going slowly, scraping down the edges as necessary.
4. Stir in  the vanilla and the rum,
5. Pour into prepared pan(s) and place on the cookie sheet in the preheated oven. Bake for 90 minutes.
6. Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. Also good with a scoop of ice cream on the side.

If using mini loaf pans check for doneness after 30 minutes, and then every 5 minutes or so, depending on how high you have filled them and whether you have used them (as I did) in conjunction with a regular sized loaf pan.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

 

  

 

  

 Because Life Needs Sprinkles!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of flour

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp of salt

2 tbs cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups of canola oil

1 cup of buttermilk

1 tsp of vinegar

2 large eggs

2 tbs red food coloring

1 tsp vanilla

Colored Sprinkles optional!

Directions:

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another large bowl, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla.

Using a standing mixer, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined and a smooth batter is formed.

Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners. Pour batter evenly into each liner. (Make about 20 nicely sizes cupcakes) Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Some recipes call for Cream Cheese Frosting and others Buttercream. Here are recipes for both!

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 pound cream cheese, softened

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup), softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand-held electric mixer in a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar, and butter on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high, and mix until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. (Occasionally turn the mixer off, and scrape the down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.)

Reduce the speed of the mixer to low. Add the vanilla, raise the speed to high and mix briefly until fluffy (scrape down the bowl occasionally). Store in the refrigerator until somewhat stiff, before using. May be stored in the refrigerator for 3 days.

Buttercream Frosting

Courtesy Gale Gand

• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 to 2 tbs of whipping cream
  
  
  
  
  In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.
  Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency.

The Peppermint Stars are Brightly Shining!

I love working with shortbread. I love the taste of shortbread. Though these could certainly be made with a sugar cookie recipe. I'll be bundling these stars up with the chocolate shortbread stars to give as a little extra to teachers and faculty at school. (We've pooled our funds with the other parents in the classes and the children will be giving a big gift card, but still I like to give a little something extra with a personal touch.) Some of these will be packaged up with 1/2 pound bags of Starbucks Holiday Blend Coffee.

I used a classic shortbread recipe.

• 3/4 pound butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
  
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 - 2 tbs vanilla
• 2 cups of vanilla *frosting, canned or home made
• Food coloring, your choice
  
• Mini candy canes in individually wrapped (about 6)
  
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. Add flour to the to the butter-and-sugar mixture. . Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. You can either wrap the dough and refrigerate for later use or roll dough and start cutting into desired shapes with the cookie cutter of your choice. Be sure to liberally apply flour to your work surface as well as your rolling pin.

As cookies are cut place them onto your cutting board. When ready bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown. (May require up to 20 minutes)

As the cookies are baking use a rolling pin and carefully smash the miniature candy canes.

When cookies have cooled you can start to decorate. You can use store bought frosting or make your own icing. If you use store bought, color it with food coloring to get the desired shade. Then add about 2 Tbs of water to the container and mix well.

Using a pastry knife or butter knife carefully spread the frosting on to the cookie. Once the cookies have been covered (I usually do this in batches) shake some of the peppermint candy cane crumbs on to the cookie. A little goes a long way for a perfectly and not overwhelmingly pepperminty cookie! Cookies frosted with a canned frosting will need a longer time for the icing to harden, at least overnight.

Recipe Courtesy Cooks.com

ROYAL ICING FOR SUGAR COOKIES

3 egg whites 1 lb. confectioners' sugar 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar 1/2 tsp. almond extract or white vanilla extract Place all ingredients in bowl and beat on medium high for a full 10 minutes. Icing will become thick and glossy but will not increase in volume. Keep covered with damp cloth while using, removing small portions to bowl as needed. Tint if desired. To thin, add a few drops of water. Royal icing hardens with a nice sheen.

Decadent Brownie Balls

So I was tinkering. I tend to tinker. I can never leave anything alone. I made some brownies. I used a small circle cookie cutter to cut them so that they would all be the same size and so they would look a little prettier, more festive if you will, than a regular square. And then I rolled one. I've made brownie balls before and they are quite good. But I wanted to do something to this little ball. And I wondered what it would be like dipped in chocolate. Would it be good? Decadent? Too rich? So I turned all the little circles into balls. And then I made a ganche of sorts. I say of sorts because most recipes call for cream and I had none. I had nothing but 1% milk.

I made a double boiler by placing a metal mixing bowl on top of a pot of boiling water. When the bowl got hot and the water started to steam I turned the heat down and added my bad of chocolate chips. I then added some milk, slowly, a little at a time. I would guess a total of 1/4 of a cup and let it temper (warm) on the melted chocolate and beat it in so the chocolate formed something resembling a rich chocolate putting.

Using a skewer I placed the brownie ball in the chocolate and made sure it was well covered and then placed the chocolate covered brownie on to a cutting board that was covered with wax paper. When there was no more room I set the balls in the fridge to chill. (Freezer is good too, but mine was stuffed!) When the chocolate set and then drizzled some white chocolate over the top to cover up the imperfections and create fun patters.

I melted the white chocolate the same way, though I did not add milk and turn it into a ganache. When the white chocolate melted I poured it into a ziplock bag and made the smallest of incisions on the corner so that I could squeeze the chocolate through. When the chocolate cooled I simply placed the bag in the microwave to soften the chocolate.

I made my simple designs and returned the balls into the fridge to harden again.

These brownie balls are not only pretty, fun and festive but they are delicious, completely decadent!

Ingredients:

* Brownies already made and rolled into balls. I think in this case a boxed mix is more suitable than a brownie made from scratch. I tried both and like the brownie made from the mix better in this recipe.

* 1/4 cup of milk

* 1 bag of chocolate chips

* 1 bag of white chocolate chips

* Ziplock bag

* Wax paper or other nonstick surface

Reread for directions!

A Perfectly Preppy Party Animal!

Forgive me if you read both my blogs and saw this post already. But I love this little guy! I made it last year for Alexander's class party. He loved it so much that he asked for his "Dragon" (it's really a gator!) as Birthday cupcakes for his class party tomorrow. (Was supposed to be last week but both boys were taken ill.)

I just love this guy! I got the idea from my Hello Cupcake cookbook. It really is easy and requires only a few basic items that are readily available. I used 2 cans (1 1/2 really) of white frosting that I colored green and 1 box of cake mix. I spread the frosting on each cupcake with a spatula, then piped the scales on afterwards. The teeth and eyes are made of marshmallow. The eye balls are Junior Caramels. The claws and nose are made from Sugar Babies. (Called for Banana Runts and jelly beans but I had a hard time finding the runts and didn't want a box of jelly bellies lying around.) The scales were made by using Andes Mints (because I could not find the square cookies that were suggested) each rectangle cut in half. After Eights would be great and Hershey squares work well too. If you like to bake but don't have a ton of time to dedicate and have kids you ought to pick up a copy of Hello Cupcake!

I made the Slumbering Children and the Spaghetti and Meatballs featured in the book... I even got a comment from one of the book's creators!

Lily Pad Cookies

A few years ago when my oldest was in preschool and studying Claude Monet I thought it would be fun to end the session with some fun lily pad cookies. To make it fun for the kids, because cookies aren't fun enough, I added some plastic frogs. The cookies were adorable and I was asked to make these cookies for each child of mine in the preschool class. This year, I took it another level and added lilies to the actual pads. I was quite happy with how they turned out. And not to disappoint the children, the frogs were added as well. So many of you commented on these cookies and asked for the recipe. They are really quite easy to make and can be made in stages.




Ingredients:

1 package of sugar cookie mix -- butter and egg as the recipe calls for
1 can of frosting
Green food coloring
Decorator sugars, yellow and pink
Plastic frogs -- as many as you need
1 package of fondant -- you won't use the whole thing so seal it tightly so that it can be used again!

I used one package of Betty Crocker cookie mix and I love this mix. It's the only packaged cookie product out there that comes thisclose to home made taste! I followed the directions on the package and then rolled the dough into a log and refrigerated over night.

The following morning I sliced the dough into fairly thin slices and placed them on to a cookie sheet. I baked them about 10 minutes at 350 and as soon as they came out of the oven and were still soft and warm I used my finger to indent the cookie to give it that lily pad look. I let the cookies cool and harden,

While the cookies are cooling you'll make the flowers. I cut off pieces of fondant and rolled them out flat, then used a small flower cookie cutter to cut out my flowers. Some of the flowers remained white, some were pink and some were yellow. To color the flowers I used colored sugars. In order to get the sugar to adhere to the fondant I dipped a pastry brush lightly in water and to get the fondant damp. I then pressed the flower in to the sugar and the sugar stuck beautifully. I set the flowers aside. To make the petals curl up I gently pressed my finger into the middle of the cookie and worked the petals ever so gently.

When the cookies had cooled I frosted them. I used a canned frosting (vanilla) and added some green food coloring to it. I didn't use that much of the frosting as the cookies required just one thin layer. When all the cookies were frosted I took a flower which I placed strategically on the cookie. Lastly the frogs were added. I kept the cookies aside and let the frosting harden overnight.

Simply Perfect One Bowl Blueberry Cake

My aunt Dee has the best recipes. A few days ago I was visiting my cousin at her new house in Newport and we were discussing what to do with all the strawberries she had picked with her kids. I suggested the strawberry bread we all love. During the conversation my aunt started talking about her blueberry cake. I had never had it before and it was sounding so good! The following morning my father came home from his daily morning coffee with his brother with a Xeroxed copy of Dee's blueberry cake.

I have been meaning to make it for a couple of days but never got around to it. This morning I noticed that the blueberries were slightly less wrinkled than I am and now would be the perfect opportunity to use them up.

As par for the course these days I was not paying attention -- distracted by the kids as they were arguing over who was going to stir and measure and pour and well, I made a little mistake. I added too much juice! I opted to add some more flour to dry up the mixture a bit. It came out marvelously. Little fingers keep trying to pick at the remains!

This cake is a cross between a cake and a tea bread. Despite the fact that it calls for a generous amount of sugar it is not sickly sweet. We'll be making this recipe again. And again. And again!

Below is the recipe. I have added in red my mistake!

3 Cups unsifted flour (I used un-bleached and had to use 4 cups to compensate for the extra OJ)*

2 Cups of sugar 1 Cup of vegetable or Canola oil

1/4 Cup of Orange Juice (I goofed and added a whole cup!)

4 eggs

2 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla

3 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 pint of blueberries * Save some flour to coat the blueberries (I forgot to do this too!)

Place all ingredients in bowl together and mix well.

Make topping of:
5 Tablespoons sugar and 1 Tablespoons of cinammon
Pour half of the mixture in to a greased and floured (I used Pam) tube pan. (I used a silicone bundt pan because that is what I had.) Sprinkle half of the sugar mixture. Pour in remaining batter and sprinkle remaining sugar mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 75 minutes. (I needed 90 minutes for the additional flour and OJ mess up!)

Let cool, remove from pan, let cool some more and serve!

Blueberry Sparkle Bread

Margot's Red Raspberry Sauce

My friend Margot hosted our most recent book club dinner-get-together. I've never eaten anything I haven't liked at her house and I should post all of her recipes but if I had to choose one it would be this. Normally I wouldn't drool, dance, shout or sing about a fruit sauce poured over ice cream. But I have to tell you that this was To Die For... so without further ado I shall post... and let you know that her recipe is not written and all approximations, so you may want to change a little something to your liking. I thought it was divine the way it was!

In a saucepan over medium heat, Melt 2tsp butter, add 2 tsp brown sugar and melt.

Add 2 cups raspberries, stir
Add ½ cup (give or take) Cointreau (I am sure Grand Marnier would work well too)
Add ½ cup (give or take) Chambord

Margot says she someone Flambée i to burn off the alcohol. She could not get hers to light so she brought it to a boil for a minute then served it over vanilla ice cream. I can't wait to serve this out on my new deck this summer!

Apple Crisp

I love apple crisp and could eat it every day warm, just out of the oven topped off with a scoop of Haagen Dazs Vanilla ice cream. This dish lends itself wonderfully to the cool Winter temperatures, and yet a wonderful way to end a Springtime meal outside on the porch in the twilight.

1/2 Cup all purpose flour

1 Cup old fashioned oats

1 Cup light brown sugar

2 tbs. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 Cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

8 large *Granny Smiths, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4 inch slices

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl, rub in butter until the mixture resembles very coarse crumbs.

Place apples in a large, shallow baking dish, sprinkle with lemon juice and cover with oat mixture. Bake until the top is browned and the apples are tender (about 45 minutes)

Serve warm or at room temperature

If you live in an area where local apples are available for picking in the fall by all means go local. It's better for the environment and you are supporting local economy. My kids and I love to go apple picking. We turn this daytime activity into a dinnertime/cooking activity. Just be sure to use apples that are firm enough to hold up in the oven.

For a little variety add in 1 Cup of fresh cranberries or raisins