Chocolate Chip Carmel Bars

Todd and I had our friends Brian and Kelly coming over for dessert and games last Thursday.  We had only decided on the plans the day before, so I was googling as fast as I could Thursday afternoon for a quick and simple dessert to make.  When I stumbled upon this, I knew I had found a gold mine.

Ingredients:

1 box of yellow cake mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup mini milk chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Skor toffee chips

32 caramels
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 stick of butter

Mix together the cake mix, vegetable oil and eggs. Then mix in different chips. In a greased 9x13 pan, press half of the mixture. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. While that is in the oven, melt in a sauce pan the caramels, sweetened condensed milk and butter. When crust is done, pour sauce over the crust. Then sprinkle in chunks the rest of the mixture. Bake for another 22-25 minutes. Let cool before serving.      

Bask in it's caramel chocolate goodness.

Like I wanted, quick and simple.  The four of us put away about two rows of bars so the plan is to bring the rest of the pan to small group tomorrow night.  However, I think I may have put away a whole row by myself since then.  I can wait to get these out of my house!  I can't even pretend a single part of them are good for you.  Also, here is the blog I got them from.  It looks like she has lots of other yummy things too!


Excuse my dessert heavy posts lately, but Emily Staples wanted it, so I'm jumping ahead in my list of things to post.  I do have some dinners coming soon, I promise!

Chocolate Covered Peppermint Cream Candies

Oh, what a very long title.


We were having a bake sale at church this past Sunday and I wanted to help out since it was benefiting our youth summer trips.  It was the perfect excuse to make these candies I saw on "Eatin' on the Cheap" blog.  Thanks Corrie for posting the link to the entire blog on her blog.  Blog, blog, blog!


Peppermint Creams
makes about 9 dozen

1 - 7oz jar of Marshmallow Cream
2/3 c. softened butter
1 t. vanilla extract
3/4 t. peppermint extract
6 cups sifted Confectioners sugar
1/2 cup peppermint candies or candy canes
Dipping Chocolate ( at least a couple of bags, maybe more)


1. Beat cream, butter, and extracts well.
2. Gradually add in sugar until well mixed.
3.  Pulverize candy in a plastic bag with a rolling pin.
4.  Fold candy into cream mixture.
5. Chill for a couple hours.
6.  Roll mixture into balls or shape into molds.  I cut mine into thick squares.  Line them up on a wax paper lined baking sheet.
7. Chill again for a couple hours.
8. Melt chocolate according to package instructions.  Dip candies into chocolate.
9. Place on wax paper lined baking sheets to set.
10.  Drizzle white chocolate over cooled candies.

These were pretty easy to make, just time consuming.  And, don't try to make them in the summer.  The humidity will make it a little difficult for everything to set well.  These may become a special Christmas treat because of weather and availability of candy canes.  Otherwise, people liked them.  They all sold at the bake sale and the leftovers I brought to small group were eaten up pretty quick.  I do love bringing treats to small group.  It's a good ego stroke, which I probably don't need.  Also, click on the link to "Eatin' on the Cheap" to see a good step by step photo log of how to make these.


Well, lots of things to come, so be on the lookout for lots of new recipes.  Also, what do you think of the new look?  Food blogs are so trendy right now, that one of the new templates you can pick from is this food theme.  Also loving the labels I have finally starting putting on everything.  It's a good way for me to remember what I can make when dinner planning and grocery shopping.

Ice Cream and Bon Bons

Todd and I had some new friends Brian and Kelly over tonight for dinner and board games. We had Jamie Oliver burgers and some fries that I will post soon. They didn't turn out great, but I didn't allow them enough time. So we'll have to try again some other time. But, I will tell you about the delicious dessert that Kelly brought. It was so simple, and so wonderful with a cup of coffee.

Ingredients:
Slow churn chocolate ice cream
Frozen bon-bons

Directions:
Scoop up ice cream
Crumble bon-bons over ice cream

I don't think you need a picture to visualize how amazing this was. Be on the look out for the oven fries.

Boston Cream Pie

This is quite the dessert kick we are on. Well, tortillas can be a dessert; just put some cinnamon sugar on them. We have another dessert for you, the delicious Boston Cream Pie made for Easter. To be honest, I was not super impressed with myself. The cakes were tough and kind of tasteless, but the custard and glaze were pretty yummy. Anyway, here is the recipe. It's a chocolate cake, custard, golden cake, and chocolate glaze. There is a lot of info, so pay close attention.

Custard
Ingredients:
2 cups milk
1 T sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
3/4 cup sugar
3 T cornstarch
pinch of salt
4 eggs, room temperature
3 T unsalted butter
1 T light rum optional
1 t vanilla extract

Directions:
(Helpful hint: Rinse the saucepan in cool water before use. Don't dry it. This well help to keep the milk from scorching.)
Bring milk, 1 T sugar, and vanilla bean to a simmer in a large, heavy saucepan; stir to dissolve.
Stir together 3/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a small mixing bowl; set aside.
Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light, fluffy, and lemon colored, about 3 minutes. Stir in the sugar-cornstarch mixture.
Remove vanilla pod from milk.
Whisk 1/2 cup hot milk into the egg mixture. Add the egg mixture back to the milk in the saucepan and cook over medium heat until thick, 5-8 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent scorching.
Lightly boil filling 1 minute to eliminate starchy taste from the cornstarch.
Off heat, add butter, rum, and vanilla; transfer to a bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap, pressing wrap on the surface of filling to prevent a skin from forming. Chill.

Golden Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
1 t baking powder
pinch of salt
4 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 t vanilla extract

Directions:
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt three times; set aside.
In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, 8 minutes.
Gently fold sifted flour mixture into eggs in two additions, making sure it gets thoroughly mixed.
Fold in milk, oil, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.
Pour batter into one of the prepared cake pans.
-Grease and flour two 9x2 inch cake pans. You can use sugar instead of flour.
Bake golden cake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick is inserted and taken out clean.
Cool on a rack. Cake will pull away from the sides of pan. Then transfer out of pan.

Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
1/3 cup cake flour
3 T unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 t baking powder
1/8 t baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 eggs, room temperature
6 T sugar
3 T hot brewed coffee
2 T vegetable oil
1/2 t vanilla extract

Directions:
Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt three times.
In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, 8 minutes.
Gently fold sifted flour mixture into eggs in two additions.
Fold in coffee, oil, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.
Pour batter into other cake pan.
Bake chocolate cake 15-18 minutes.

Chocolate Glaze
Ingredients:
4 oz good-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 T light corn syrup

Directions:
Place finely chopped chocolate in a small bowl.
Boil cream and corn syrup.
Pour over chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Pour glaze on top of cake, smoothing it with a spatula.
Drips down the side make it pretty.




Wait until custard and cakes are cooled and then assemble. Make the glaze and pour it over the top. Put it all back in the fridge for about 30 minutes and then enjoy! My golden cake was a little flat, so I just put one layer of custard. You are really supposed to cut the golden cake in half and make it golden, custard, chocolate, custard, golden, glaze. Either way, delicious. Again, I didn't take a photo, so this is the closest one I could find.

Apple Pie

Let me start off by saying, my mom makes the best apple pie with crumbly crust and Todd now makes the best apple pie with a solid crust. I love you both and your sweet apple pie making skills. I refuse to choose one.

Todd made apple pie Monday night for our staff fun day on Tuesday. People loved it, despite the fact we brought half of it home. We thought we were the only people bringing desserts, so we made a lot. And then a lot of others brought desserts, which were equally delicious. We had lemon bars, blondies, chocolate chip cookies, and Todd's pie. It seemed like everyone was on a diet because all desserts had plenty left over. I'm getting off topic. Apple pie! Todd made it with minimal help rolling the dough out and it was oh so good. Thanks Todd and Paula Deen! I forgot to take a picture of it, so here is the one from her website. It has a lattice crust, but we never make that.

Ingredients
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
Freshly ground nutmeg, to taste
7 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Directions
Paula's Perfect Pie Crust, recipe follows

3 tablespoons butter, diced
Egg wash, for brushing
Sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Mix together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. In another bowl, sprinkle apples with the juice of 1 lemon and toss. Stir in the sugar mixture to evenly coat the apples.

Set aside. Roll out chilled dough into 2 circles and use 1 round to line a 9-inch pie pan. Chill the other round.

Mound the apple and sugar mixture into the pie pan lined with dough. Dot with the cubed butter.

Using a pastry cutter, cut an even number of strips from the remaining rolled out dough. Transfer every other strip to the pie top and weave in the lattice by folding every other strip back onto itself and laying another strip perpendicularly. Fold the strips back across and repeat until completed.

Brush the top of the pie with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Trim the overhanging dough and crimp edges.

Bake pie for 45 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before slicing.

Paula's Perfect Pie Crust:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
3 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cold
12 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup ice water
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and sugar. Add the shortening and break it up with your hands as you start to coat it all up with the flour. Add the cold butter cubes and work it into the flour with your hands or a pastry cutter. Work it quickly, so the butter doesn't get too soft, until the mixture is crumbly, like very coarse cornmeal. Add the ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together forming a dough. Bring the dough together into a ball.

When it comes together stop working it otherwise the dough will get over-worked and tough. Divide the dough in half and flatten it slightly to form a disk shape. Wrap each disk in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. On a floured surface roll each disk out into a 10 to 11-inch circle to make a 9-inch pie.

Yield: 2 (9-inch) pie crusts



Also, enjoy this video of the lovely Paula Deen reminding you not to eat everything she makes all the time. "It's not once a week food, it's once a lifetime food."

Up next (I promise) is the Boston Cream Pie, manly beef stew (if you can really man that up), and flour tortillas. Enjoy!

Seder Meal Food

Well, we have the lamb shanks ready for use for Thursday's Seder Meal. However, we were missing some things so Todd and I were on the hook for making the Charoset and a dessert. Charoset is a mixture to symbolize the mortar used by the Israelites while in captive by the Egyptians. It's very yummy. The only problem we ran into was the use of wine. Since our Passover wine is grape juice, we thought he would be fair to use it in the charoset.

1 apple fine chopped
1/2 cup walnuts fine chopped
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons Passover wine

Mix all ingredients.



It's pretty yummy.

Also, we needed a dessert. So I googled Mediterranean desserts and found koulourakia. It's like a Greek sugar cookie. They take a long time to make, but they turned out very well.

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg yolk, beaten
1 tablespoon water
2 to 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 to 3 teaspoons sesame seeds
Cream butter and shortening in a large mixing bowl; gradually add sugar, beating well at medium speed of electric mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract; beat until blended. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing after each addition. Chill dough 1 to 2 hours.
Divide dough into fourths. Divide each fourth into 16 portions. Roll each portion into a 4-inch rope; fold each rope in half, and twist. Place twists 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Combine egg yolk and water; brush over twists. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and sesame seeds. Bake at 325 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes or until light golden brown. Immediately transfer to wire racks to cool.



So, there's some of our Seder Meal food. It's pretty good. I'm pretty excited to see what our catered dinner from a Mediterranean restaurant tastes like. Thanks Olives!

New Year's Eve Treat

So marrying into a Swedish family has it's advantage: delicious food. Swedish pancakes, lingenberry sauce, meatballs and more. The list continues and I learn more and more. While in Colorado, my mother-in-law Faye and I are going to attempt to make Swedish Rosettes tomorrow for New Year's Eve. They look wonderful and I'm very excited to try them for what I think is the first time. Maybe I've tasted them at some point, being part of the Covenant Church and all. So I will let you know how it goes. Here is a photo for you to envy.