Smore'olo

Smore'olos are S'mores on steroids.

Instructions are simple enough.

You'll Need:
1 or 2 Graham Crackers
1 Rolo
1 Marshmallow

On a paper towel or a plate, start building your smore'olo.

Graham cracker
Marshmallow
Nuke in microwave for 10 seconds.

Push rolo into the center of the marshmallow and nuke for another 5-10 seconds, depending on how gooey you like it.

Super simple.

Gives you that craving fix in a matter of seconds and no matches or campfire are needed.

Enjoy!

Watermelon Cake with Tips and Tricks

This is the perfect summer cake!  Especially for those with summer birthday's and can you believe a kid picked his out on his own?!  Very impressive.

One of my bestest friends, sent me this link, and it seemed simple enough. 

Although...if I'm being honest...I didn't stick with the original instructions.

There wasn't an ingredient list, and even though I enjoyed their photo's, it didn't give me some of the information I wanted.

That said...I'm here to share their site, and add an ingredient list and my special tips to go along with it to help the constructing process go a little smoother.

So, here we go...

You'll Need:

1 SEEDLESS watermelon

1, 9" pie plate or serving platter

Various fruits (I used black grapes, since my store didn't have any good blueberries, green grapes, strawberries and kiwi)

1 tub of whipped topping (or you can make your own)

papertowels

1 box of your instant jello, your fav flavor (I used orange)

To begin, slice your watermelon - I sliced both ends to create a flat surface, then made a hexagon, but the original site, has an awesome tutorial on how to make yours round!

Once your watermelon is sliced, place it on your serving platter/pie plate.

Blot well with paper towels.

Open your jello box and sprinkle top and sides. (I had the HARDEST time getting the whipped cream to stick to the watermelon w/o using this tip.  This helped a ton!)

Refrigerate.

While it's refrigerating, start washing, peeling your fruit.

Remove watermelon and start icing it with whipped topping.

Refrigerate.

Continue fruit prep - Cutting.

Remove watermelon from refrigerator and start assembling your cake the way you want it.

The major key here is refrigeration!  So keep it cool as long as you can before serving.

Enjoy!

Grinch Munch

Come check out my post on Holiday's Homemade, to see how you can make your own Grinch Munch!

After you make this yumilious snack, you might want to grab a blanket, a tall glass of water, and get comfy.  It's time for Christmas movie night!

xo

Starbucks (Smarbucksty) "Skinny" Pumpkin Spice Latte - Copycat

This recipe is legit.  Skinny or not!

Let me just start by saying, I'm not a coffee drinker, but something about hearing Pumpkin Spice Latte, a million and one times a day, got me thinkin'..."This stuff must be really good", and WOAH baby...it is!

With my new found latte love, a whisk, and some determination, I started mixing around in my kitchen to see if I could mimic these tasty little treats.  Well, I tell you what...I came pretty close, but something about mine still wasn't quite right.  It was still drinkable, but didn't have that rich factor to it, that made the drink, THE DRINK.  Um-Kay...


So I turned to the internet to see what was out there.  Believe it or not, there are TONS of these recipes, but of the ones I tried, this one's the keeper!

By the way, if any of you are wondering, what I was missing? It was Half n' Half & Brown Sugar.  Doh!  Milk does a pretty good job alone, but the half n' half really brings a yumminess factor it!

If you have a pumpkin spice latte addiction too;

You'll Need:
(XL recipe) 
A very tall coffee cup or glass
1c. milk (any %)
2 tsp. of canned pumpkin puree
1 tsp. of brown sugar
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (I prefer just shy of 1/2tsp)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2c. very strong coffee (the stronger the better)
4Tbsp. Half n' Half
2 tsp. white sugar
whipped cream for topping

To get started, you'll begin my making your pumpkin milk.  You'll need a microwaveable measuring cup.  Measure your milk, pumpkin, brown sugar, vanilla, and pumpkin spice, then microwave for 2 minutes.  As RecipeGirl stated in her directions, you'll want to make sure to remove it when the milk is hot & frothy.  Pour your pumpkin milk into a tall cup, then add hot coffee, then cream. Add white sugar, stir, and taste. Add more sugar, if desired. I REALLY loved mine with 3tsp. of white sug!!

Top your homemade latte with whipped cream, and celebrate that you can have Pumpkin Latte's Year Round! *Happy Dance, Happy Dance*

By the way - Another fantastic tip that RecipeGirl provided, is how to make your own pumpkin spice if its not readily available in your area. She says to "mix equal parts of cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg- and measure from there."  Genius, I tell you.  Genius!

Cheers!

Pistachio Fudge

Morning, Sweets!

Today I'm going to share a fudge recipe with you, but not any ol' fudge recipe.  Pistachio Fudge!
This recipe is great for fudge lovers who like creamy fudge.  It melts in your mouth!

I will say that to me, and one other person, we debated while consuming about 5 pieces of fudge each, as to whether or not it resembled a true pistachio taste.  Maybe it was because I didn't have almond extract, so subbed vanilla, but to about 10 other people, they thought this recipe was GREAT!  Some even asked to take some home to pack it in their lunch!! 

So...if you're a fudge lover...let's dive on in...

You'll Need:
1lb of white chocolate chips
8oz of cream cheese, softened
3c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/8 tsp. green food coloring
1/2c. chopped pistachios

To begin, lets go ahead and line our 8" pan with foil.  Make sure the foil hangs over the sides of the pan for easy transfer later on.

Spray the foil/pan with cooking spray, so the foil doesn't stick.

In a medium bowl, melt your white chocolate to the direction on your package.  I microwave 30 seconds at a time, and stir well in between each 30 second interval. Once chocolate is melted.  Sit aside.

After 30 seconds

After 1 minute, 15 seconds. Just keep stiring instead of re-heating.  You'll see it makes a difference.

Set up your mixer, and mix cream cheese until smooth. 

Once smooth, you'll slowly add in your sugar until its well combined. Make sure you scrap the sides of your bowl to incorporate all that sugar :)

Add chocolate, extracts, food coloring, and mix well. With a spoon, fold in your pistachios.

Then spread into your foil ready pan, and chill overnight.
When it comes out.  It should look like this:

To remove the fudge, grab the foil "handles" and transfer onto a cutting board.  I flipped mine upside down, so I would have a flat surface to cut on, then wiped the excess cooking spray off with a paper towel.

With a large, sharp knife, cut the fudge into the desired size pieces.  The original recipe calls for something like 16 pieces.  I was able to cut about 42.  I wanted ours bite size, which with the thickness, still ended up being 2-3 bitters.

So...can you settle our debate?  Was it pistachio enough for you??

Apple Cobbler - Land O' Lakes

Remember ALL those beautiful apples I showed you last week?  Well this is one of the many creations we've made so far, and it is absolutely luscious!

Picture borrowed from Land O' Lakes

To make your own;

You'll Need:
9 cups of peeled and diced apples, 1/4"
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups of flour
1.5 cups of sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2/3 cup of melted butter

To begin, you'll want to preheat your oven to 350, and add your diced apples to a 9x13 baking dish.

In small bowl, combine 3/4c of sugar and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon.  Mix with a spoon and pour over your diced apples evenly.

In a large bowl, combine the rest of your cinnamon (1/4tsp), flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Gently whisk.

Now, the original recipe calls that everything originally be combined together, all together, but for me, I find it's easier to add the eggs in after incorporating the dry and then mix them in.
When you do, your mixture will look like this. A soft yellowy color.  Very pretty.

 

Now you're going to top your apples with the dry mixture, and diced up 2/3c of margarine, and stick it in the microwave for about 1min.  Checking in 30 second intervals.  Once your butter has melted, top the dry mixture, trying to spread as evenly as possible.

Then add to the oven, and bake for 45 minutes.

After 25 min's, you can smell how amazing this is going to taste.  

 Tantalizes the senses, for sure!

All that was missing was a big o' glob of ice cream.  

Everything tastes better a la mode!

We made sure to stock the freezer for Night #2.

OoOooOh yum...

Easy Ice Cream Pretzel Cake

My beautiful friend, Tara, had a super size birthday this year.  She turned the big 4-0!  Her being one of my favorite people to talk too, I couldn't allow her birthday to go unnoticed, so I went in search for a decadent recipe, but I had a few prerequisites.

1st off; It had to have chocolate. She loves chocolate, it's her vice!
Then I thought it'd be cute if we stuck with our Tuesday night theme. Ice cream!

After hardly any searching, I found this recipe.

Are you drooling yet?  You should be! Oh.My.Gosh, it is SO good!

If you'd like to make this recipe as well;

You'll Need: 
3 cups crushed pretzels 
6 tablespoons cold butter, cubed 
3/4 cup hot fudge ice cream topping, warmed 
About 20-25 pieces of chocolate-covered miniature pretzels 
1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened 
1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping (I maybe used 3 Tbsp)
Springform Pan



To start, place your ice cream container on the counter.  It will need to soften.

In the meantime, crush your pretzels.  You can easily do this in a food processor, but for those of you who don't have one handy, try this method.  All you need is a zippy bag, a rolling pin, and some arm muscle:

I've found that it works best to work in small batches, but once you're finished, you're pretzels should look something like this:

Sit 1 1/4c of the crushed pretzels in a bowl and sit aside.  The additional pretzels will be used later on. Next, dice up your butter into cubes.  It needs to be very cold, so try to work quickly.

 

Now add the cubed butter to your crushed pretzel bowl, and cut in the butter until crumbly. 

I just used a fork

Once the butter is well combined, transfer your mixture into a springform pan, and press firmly around the pan to make your crust. 

Place your pan in the freezer for at least 30 min's.

During freeze time, place your fudge into a microwave safe dish.  After the 30 min freeze time is up, nuke fudge for about 30 seconds, and spread over the top of the pretzel crust.

Spread all around, and re-freeze - Freeze time is up to you.  I left it in there about 15 min's

While your chocolate is freezing, transfer the entire carton of ice cream to a large bowl.

I did this part in sections to help me combine the two without making a disasterous mess.
I layered it 1 part ice cream, then 1 part crushed pretzels, 1 part ice cream, to remaining pretzels.

I also threw in a small handful of the chocolate covered pretzels since I had some left over.  
After everything is added to the bowl, stir to combine, and place over your chocolate crust.

Looks good already, right?

Then you won't mind when I say that the little one got a spoonful of the mixture...and Momma did too!  Oh-my...I could have ate a whole bowl of this stuff!! *Cheese* :) :) :)

After you've top your crust with the amazing ice cream mixture, cover and place your pan in the freezer overnight. It needs at least 12hrs. 

 By the way, I marked my pretzel bag while my cake froze overnight.    "Do Not Eat"

If your family/friends like to snack, like mine, I highly recommend doing this.  I caught a few friends going for our snack bowl, found these babies, and after reading the note, each one of them had a look of such disappointment. Haha - Oh the torture of it all! ;)


After the 12 hours, remove the cake from the freezer and take out of your springform pan.

 

To remove, just pull the lock in the opposite direction and it will cinch right open.

Transfer to a plate.  I used a regular ol' dinner plate, but hey...schmancey it up if you want!

Now it's time to drizzle on your caramel. I started by moving right to left making a straight line.

Okay...so not totally straight ;)

Now rotate your plate so that you can do the exact same thing again.

You're a quick one!  Yes, I rotated my plate :)

It's almost like you're making a super-sized tic-tac-toe board.

Now it's time to top your cake with some chocolatey embellishments. Notice how there are only 18 preztels and the recipes calls for 25?  That's my gift to you! 7 chocolately treats!  Hey...we all know you were going to sneak anyway! ;)

There you have it.  One Ice Cream Pretzel Cake... 

The birthday girl, and guests bragged about its beauty, multiple people asked for the recipe, and some even went as far to say that they thought it was from a bakery.  That made me smile, but above all...no one could believe how easy it was.  This is a must make!! 

Banana Streusel Bread

This recipe can be made into just regular banana bread, or for a more special occasion, into a Streusel.  Mmm!

Look at that gorgeous swirl!

 

You'll Need:
1/2c. margarine
1c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
3 medium sized banana's (about 1c)

For streusel:
1/4 - 1/2c. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. Flour

In a mixer, mix margarine and sugar.  Add eggs in, one at a time.  Add vanilla and combine.

In a separate bowl add your dry ingredients.  Flour, baking powder, salt, and soda.  Wisk together. In 3rd's, add the dry ingredients to the mixer.  Making sure to mix well each time, then scrap the sides before adding the next batch of dry ingredients. 

Smash your banana's in a bowl.  (I just use a fork.)

Add banana's to your mixer and stir to combine.

 

Pour the finished mix into a greased and lightly floured 8x8 pan.

*For streusel:

In a bowl combine brown sugar and flour.  Mix.

Top your banana bread with the mixture and with a knife swirl it in.  Just like you would coffee cake.

Bake for 30-35 min's.   If you decide to use a loaf pan, simply cook at the same temp for 1 hr.

Enjoy!