Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Cake Pops

My husband’s grandmother was having her 90th birthday and we were traveling to PA to celebrate with the entire family. I always like to try and make something to bring to my in-laws house because I don’t like to go anywhere empty handed. I made some bread and cookies, but I wanted to make something special that I had never made before. I decided to make cake pops. Wow, I did not know what I was getting myself into.


I don’t know if it was from the stress of trying to get everything packed and ready for travel (I love my husband but he gets VERY stressed when we have to travel), but making the cake pops was a very long process.


I feel like I might have cheated a little because I bought cake mix and premade frosting but I just did not have the time to bake a cake and make frosting.


The first thing I did was to bake the cake. Once the cake cooled I used my hands to break it up into smaller pieces. Once I had the cake in the desired pieces I mixed in an entire container of frosting until it looked like the picture below.

I placed the cake pops on a baking sheet with parchment paper and then placed them in the fridge. I wanted to make sure that the balls were cool before I tried to insert the lollypop stick in them.


Once the cake pops are completely cool dip the lollypop stick in melted chocolate and stick in the base of the cake pop. I then make sure that the sticks were completely dry until I dipped the cake pop into the melted chocolate.


Once the sticks were totally dry I dipped the cake pops in the melted chocolate. Be careful not to press down too hard or the pops will break. Tap off any excess chocolate that could be on the pops. While the chocolate is still wet make sure that you dip it into the sprinkles. Once you have the desired look for your cake pops I stick them in a piece of styrofoam. Once the cake pops have dried they are ready to eat. They were so cute and delish but like I said they def. took a long time to create. If you are short on time I would say this is not the recipe for you.


The cake after I broke it up into tiny pieces.

This is the cake mixture after I added the frosting.


The cake pops before I placed them in the fridge to make sure they were cold.

Cake pops after I took them out of the fridge.
The cake pops when they were drying .

The finished product. HOW CUTE!!!! They were so good just wish they did not take so much time.














Monday, April 25, 2011

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

It was a very cold and gross weekend. It just rained all day on Saturday. For me personality I love rainy days. It just makes me want to stay in bed all day and cuddle with my hubby and watch horrible scary movies. Saturday morning we went out and ran our errands so that we would have the whole afternoon to relax in bed.

Whenever it is rainy outside I always crave grilled cheese, I don’t like tomato soup but my husband does. So of course he requested tomato soup when I said I was going to make some grilled cheese. I thought maybe if I made it myself I might start liking it. I went on the internet and found a recipe on Martha Stewart.

Well….I was wrong, still not a fan of tomato soup but I think I found something the hubby really likes so that always makes me happy.

Below is the recipe for the soup. I also wanted to jazz up the grilled cheese a little so I cut it into fourths and put it on skewers. HAHA I don’t know how jazzy that is but I think that my husband approaches the effort. Or at least I hope that he does.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
24 ounces canned whole plum tomatoes
3 cups homemade or low-sodium store-bought chicken stock
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring, until onions have softened, about 15 minutes.
Add tomatoes, chicken stock, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook until tomatoes, onions, and garlic are soft, 10 to 20 minutes.
Working in batches, transfer soup to the jar of a blender and puree until smooth. Return to saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until soup is heated through. If soup seems too thick, stir in some extra stock to thin. Serve



The soup and the grilled cheese. Oooo it looks tasty.


Top view of the soup and sandwhich. Cant wait until the next day when it rains.



Friday, April 15, 2011

Chocolate Chip Stuffed Oreo Cookies

I have been getting board with the same old cookies that I have been seeing on the internet. So I decided to flex my cookie making muscles this weekend and make some chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Oreos. I know what you are thinking how you are going to stuff an Oreo into a chocolate cookie. It definitely took me some time and trial and error to figure out the best way to do this. But I think they turned out great and so did my husband so that is what is important to me. They were pretty easy to make. I first made a chocolate chip cookie dough recipe just taking the one off the chocolate chip bag. Once I finished the dough I placed it in the refrigerator so that it would be cold. You are going to be handling the dough with your hands so you want to make sure that it is cold. Once the dough is cold, take an Oreo cookie and place one tablespoon of dough on top and one tablespoon on the bottom, so the Oreo is sandwiched between the dough. Work the dough so the entire cookie is covered. Once all the cookies are complete place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper and place them in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. These are awesome cookies and are great hot out of the oven. They are a crowd pleaser and will have your family asking for them by name.



Picture of the dough before I put it in the fridge.




This is how it will look when you "sandwhich" the Oreo cookie in the chocolate chip cookie.


This is what the cookie will look like once the dought covers the entire cookie. It looks so delish!!


What the cookies look like once they come right out of the oven. They look so delish and brown and good. This is the cookie once it is cut in half. Look at how great that looks. It just makes my mouth water when i see it. YUM YUM YUM!!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Streusel

So if you are like me you love Girl Scout cookies, and I mean LOVE. This year my husband and I bought 10 boxes and there are just two of us. So in an attempt to try and do something different with the cookies I decided to make some Girl Scout streusel. The recipe is currently not like your normal streusel recipes but a hybrid. It was quite easy to make, all you will need is some puff pastry, egg, sugar , powered sugar and water.







Make sure that you defrost the puff pastry and roll it out. You may need some extra flour to make sure it does not stick to the rolling pin. Once the puff pastry is rolled out you will need to cut it into squares. I used this awesome ravioli/pastry press from my father-in-law. It was a big cut out which allowed me to place a whole thin mint in the center. Of course feel free to use whatever cookies you would like but those are my husband’s favorite.

I used a fork to press down both sides of the puff pastry. Once the puff pastry was crimped I used egg wash to make sure they crisped up a little, and added some sugar on the top. Once the pastry was done I took it out of the oven and let them cool. Then I added a little icing (just a little powdered sugar and water). My husband loved them. I have to admit they were not my favorite, I think next time I am going to mix together thin mints and cream cheese and maybe make them into a croissant. All well that ends well he loved them and that is all that I care about.

A picture of the puff pastry after I rolled it out and used the pastry press.


Placing the cookies on the puff pastry.



These two pictures above are what the cookies will look like once you have placed the puff pastry on the top and the bottom.


The pastry with egg wash (egg and water) and some sugar on the top.


What the cookies look like when they come right out of the oven. Still too hot for the icing


The two pictures above are the finished cookie with the icing on top. Like I said these were very tasty not my favorite but I plan to jazz them up a little.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Snickerdoodle Popcorn


My husband loves snickerdoodle cookies. I have been very busy and have not had the time to make cookies as often as I usually do. So last night when I got home from work at a reasonable time I decided I wanted to cook for my husband. Something that I LOVE to do and that relaxes me. So last night I whipped up a quick risotto, haha , and made some sickerdoodle popcorn.


It is a great salty sweet snack that I could eat bowls and bowls of. It is very simple to make. I make a pot of popcorn. While the popcorn is still hot I pour approx 3 tablespoons of butter on it. This will allow the cinnamon and sugar (the same topping as snickerdooles) to stick. Once the butter is poured over the popcorn you can now pour the sugar and cinnamon on top, shake the popcorn to ensure the coating gets on all the different pieces of popcorn. I then pour the popcorn on a baking sheet with parchment paper and melt some white chocolate chips in the microwave. Once the chips are melted I pour it over the popcorn. I then really quickly add salt. The warm chocolate helps the salt to stick on the popcorn. It is so good my husband said that he likes it better then the caramel popcorn I have made before. The popcorn in the pot before it start to pop.


It was hard to take pictures because the popcorn is white and the choclate is also white. Let me know what you think