Cookie Sandwiches

Last night my sister and I made these cookie sandwiches. The cookie recipe has cream cheese it it and they were soft and moist-super delish! The filling is a cream cheese Nutella recipe. It was a good frosting, but I've finally realized that whenever I made something with Nutella I like it okay, but I would rather just eat it plain. So I am going to give up on Nutella recipes and just use it as is.
Cream Cheese Cookies

1 C butter
3 oz cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
3 tsp vanilla
2-2 1/2 C flour

Cream together the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Add flour, mix well. Cover and refrigerate until easy to handle, about an hour.
Shape dough into 1 inch balls. If you are using them as a cookie sandwich, flatten them down. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes.

Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cream cheese
1 C Nutella
1 C powdered sugar

No Bake Peanutty Cookies with NesQuik Frosting

Last night I just felt like making a yummy treat. I also wanted to send some to Travis' work to share. So I combines a couple of recipes and came up with these. I LOVED this frosting!

Peanutty Cookies

1/2 C light corn syrup
1/4 C sugar
1/2 C peanut butter (creamy or chunky is fine)
6 C cereal (Corn Flakes or Rich Chex work great)
1/2 C peanuts-optional

1. Stir and heat corn syrup and sugar in a 3 quart saucepan on medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat.
2. Stir in peanut butter. Stir in peanuts if using them until evenly coated.
3. Shape into cookies.

NesQuik Frosting

1/2 stick butter
3 T Nesquik
6 T milk
1/2 box powdered sugar (or as much as you need for desired consistency.)

Bring butter, Nesquik and milk to a boil. Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Glaze

Last night Travis and I had fun making sugar cookies together. We topped them with a strawberry and cream cheese glaze from my Crazy About Cupcakes book. Yum!
Strawberry Cream Cheese Glaze

6 T butter at room temperature
One 8oz package cream cheese at room temperature
4 1/2 C powdered sugar
3/4 C fresh or frozen strawberries, sliced
lemon juice as needed if using fresh berries

1. Beat together the butter, cream cheese and sugar until smooth.
2. Add the strawberries, mix well. If using fresh berries use the lemon juice until spreadable.

White Chocolate Cupcakes

First off, Happy Birthday to my wonderful, adorable, handsome husband! I wanted to make something special that was totally catered to his taste (cause usually I bake the stuff that sounds best to me!). Travis is a huge white chocolate fan and is crazy about fondant. So I put it all together along with some cute pirate decorations and we had a good ol' pirate party!




I found these recipes in my Crazy About Cupcakes book from my sister. I really liked these cupcakes because you melt white chocolate into the batter, but also fold in the white chips so you get extra flavor and texture. The frosting turned out really yummy, but I struggled with the consistency. I wanted to use a cute pipping tip but for some the frosting was too stiff and then I had it too runny. But the flavor and cuteness was still the star of the show. I just bought some pre-made fondant which is always easy and to use.

White Chocolate Cupcakes

2/3 C milk
1 T white vinegar
2/3 butter at room temp.
1 1/3 C sugar
3 large eggs at room temp.
1 1/4 C white chocolate chips
1/3 C water
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 325. Line cupcake pan with paper baking cups.
2. Combine the milk and vinegar in a cup. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, or about 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
4. Combine 1/2 C of the white chocolate chips and the water in a small saucepan. Heat on low heat until melted, stirring constantly.
5. Add the vanilla and the white chocolate/water mixture to the creamed mixture.
6. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt.
7. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating with the milk, beating for 1 minutes after each addition. Fold in the rest of the white chocolate chips.
8. Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1 1/2 C white chocolate chips
4 T butter at room temp.
3 T milk
1 tsp vanilla
4 1/2 C powdered sugar

1. Heat the white chocolate, butter, and milk in a saucepan over medium heat until melted. Remove from heat.
2. Stir in the vanilla. Add the powdered sugar, stirring constantly until combined. Add more milk or sugar to desired consistency.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. And you know me, I was excited for a chance to try out a new recipe! I pulled this one out of a magazine a while back and decided this was a good chance to use it. It is hot outside so ice cream sounds great and I didn't have to worry about trying to travel anywhere with an ice cream dessert! It isn't my typical idea of ice cream cake, I always think of it as having actual cake in it. But it really was delicious!

And, I decided it looked really plain on top, so I used a chocolate ganache recipe for a topping. I got the recipe from my Crazy About Cupcakes book that my sister gave me. I ended up making 1/2 regular chocolate and 1/2 white chocolate.
The crust was my favorite part!

Here is was before taking off the side of the spring form pan...



Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

4 Cups Rice Krispies or Chex cereal
6 oz semisweet chocolate chopped
3/4 C creamy peanut butter (don't use natural)
3 pints ice cream

1. Put cereal in a large bowl.
2. In a small sauce pan, combine the chocolate and peanut butter. Cook over low heat until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes.
3. Add the chocolate mixture to the cereal and mix. Spread cereal in 9 inch spring form pan, pushing it up the sides as well. Freeze until set, about 10 minutes.
4. Soften ice cream and the spread into the chilled crust. Freeze until firm.

Chocolate Ganache
1 C white or dark chocolate
3/4 C whipping cream

1. Place chocolate in a bowl.
2. In a saucepan bring the whipping cream to a boil over high heat.
3. Pour the cream onto the chocolate and stir until melted. Let cool to room temperature.

Obsessed with Cookie Dough

I'm totally obsessed with this new "cookie dough" recipe. It is my most favorite thing ever! I made this this afternoon cause we've got out nephew, Jake, visiting. This time I left out the chocolate chips and nut and just added peanut M&Ms. Last week I made chocolate chip/coconut dough which I didn't blog. But I have found that I like to chill it, then freeze it into 1 inch balls and they are to die for! They are also awesome cause you can pull them right out and munch on them cause they never get too hard and you can have as little (or many) as you like!

Chocolate Macaroon Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut and Cream Cheese Frosting

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

I'll start with the bad...The bad news is that I didn't follow the instructions when the recipe said to spray the cupcake pan and I used liners instead. The consequence was that they stuck HORRIBLY to the paper and much was inedible. Plus I made these for dinner when we had our neighbors over and I was sad and embarrassed to have such a flop. But I suppose that just goes along with the fun of trying new recipes all the time.

The good news is that the parts you could eat were yummy!


Chocolate Macaroon Cupcakes

2 T (1 oz) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 C condensed milk
1/8 tsp salt
2 C shredded coconut
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spay cupcake cups with cooking spray.
2. In a double boiler melt the chocolate with the milk and salt. Stir in the coconut and vanilla.
3. Fill the cups 1/2 full. Bake for 30 minutes and allow to cool.

Toasted Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

4 T softened butter
2 C coconut
1 package softened cream cheese (8 oz)
2 C powdered sugar
2 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

1. Melt 2 T butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in coconut and keep stirring until golden brown, about 8 minutes.
2. In a bowl, cream the other 2 T butter with the cream cheese until creamy. Add in sugar, milk, and vanilla, beating after each addition until smooth. Stir in the toasted coconut.