Luscious Layer Bars

by penji1

Bar cookie #2!  Sort of like what my mom calls “Magic Cookie Bars” but with a chocolate chip cookie base.

1 (1 pound, 1.5 ounce) pouch Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup milk chocolate chips or semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup flaked coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1  Heat oven to 350.  Spray bottom of 9 x 13″ pan with cooking spray or line pan with foil.

2  Stir cookie mix, butter and egg until soft dough forms.  Press dough into bottom of pan using floured fingers (I just spray my hands with the cooking spray).

3  Bake 15 minutes.  Sprinkle with butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, coconut and walnuts.  Drizzle evenly with condensed milk.

4  Bake 30 – 35 minutes or until light golden brown.  Cool completely and cut into bars.

 

Chocolate Candy Cookie Bars

by penji1

Last night I was in charge of the activity for our Young Women and Young Men at church so I set up a “Chopped” activity for them, sort of like the tv show of the same name on the Food Network.  We divided them into 4 teams and gave each team a bag of ingredients (they all got a Granny Smith apple, a tube of biscuits and a pouch of Strawberry Pop Rocks) and then each team got sent off to a different adult’s home to make something with those ingredients in an hour.  They seemed to have a lot of fun and came up with some great creations – an apple pie, monkey bread, a caramel apple, baked apples, it was awesome to see what they made.  I made them treats, 3 different kinds of bar cookies so here is bar cookie #1.  All 3 recipes came from http://www.bettycrocker.com!

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup candy coated chocolate candies or semisweet chocolate chips (I used peanut M & M’s)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (left these out since I used peanut candies)

1  Heat oven to 375.  Beat brown sugar, sugar, butter and shortening on medium until light and fluffy.  Beat in vanilla and egg until well blended.

2  On low, beat in flour, baking soda and salt until dough forms.  With spoon, stir in candies and nuts.  Spread dough in ungreased 9 x 13″ pan.

3  Bake 15 – 25 minutes or until light golden brown.  Cool completely and cut into bars.

Homemade Potato Chips

by penji1

I’m back!  The movie is finally over and I have until the end of April before I start the next one so I’m hoping to get in lots of cooking and baking and blogging!

Bob and I are on a quest to lose some weight and get in shape (again!) so on January 30 (the day I started on the movie) we began our quest.  This is our 8th week and so far he has lost about 35 pounds and I have lost about 16!  Yahoo!  I have been doing Nutrisystems and Bob has been following his own plan and we are doing pretty good.  We’ve been trying to figure out how to make some of our favorite foods in a more healthy way and one of those is potato chips so here is our version of healthier potato chips.

Pampered Chef came out with this great new product called a “Microwave Chip Maker” which looks like this:

You simply slice the potatoes to desired thickness, we used another PC product called the “Simple Slicer” for that and here it is:

 

So you slice the potatoes, place them in a single layer on each chip maker tray, put the trays on top of each other and place in the microwave for about 8 minutes, salt as desired and TA DA! homemade chips which are really good!  Bob has been experimenting a bit with soaking the chips in cold, salted water before cooking and I’m guessing you could flavor them that way as well such as with vinegar, etc.  They taste surprisingly good and fill that craving for crunchy and salty without a lot of calories!

 

Garlic and Onion Pickled Cucumbers

by penji1

We’ve still been doing the Bountiful Basket almost every week but I just haven’t been posting it mostly because of work but if any of you out there want to see what is in it every week, just let me know and I’ll start posting it again.  We’ve been getting lots of English cucumbers so I’ve been using them in salads but have been looking out for some other ways to use them and I saw this on Facebook on the Bountiful Basket page from a lady named Heather and decided to give it a try.

Take 3 cups water plus 6 tablespoons vinegar (any kind you like) plus 3 tablespoons of salt (Kosher, canning, table, whatever, I used Kosher) and mix until salt dissolves.  Cut up cucumbers in discs or spears.  Put a little onion (I used dried onion), garlic (I used fresh but you could use whatever kind you like) and dried dill in the bottom of a jar, add some cucumbers, add more onion, garlic and dill then more cucumbers then top with more garlic, onion and dill.  Pour brine mixture over the top until all cucumbers are submerged.  Cover and let sit for 2 days in the fridge.  Feel free to add any other spices you would like including red pepper flakes for spicier cukes.  Should last up to 6 months in fridge.

If I remember, I’ll let you know in a couple of days how they taste!

Baby Girl Baby Shower Fondant Cake

by penji1

Only one more week of work people and then I’ll be back on the blog!  Can’t wait!  In the meantime, here is a picture of a girly baby shower cake we did on Friday for our friend Shannon at the request of our other friend Sarah (Shannon’s sister).  The cake is brown sugar adapted from the “White Almond Sour Cream” cake recipe (just replaced the white sugar with brown sugar), our favorite basic buttercream icing and dark chocolate Satin Ice fondant.  I had to be to work a little later on Friday so I got up and frosted and covered the cake with fondant and then I headed off to work and Courtney made the giant bow and blocks and dots.  Came out cute!  And Mary, Sarah and Shannon’s mom, said that the cake was a big hit at the party which makes us happy!  🙂

White Chocolate Vanilla Cupcakes

by penji1

Courtney was having friends over tonight for their traditional Sunday night “movie night” and I have been dying to bake so I made these cupcakes for them.  The recipe comes from Wendy Paul’s “101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 Minutes” cookbook which I just love.  Here’s how I decorated them – I took some of our favorite buttercream icing and melted it in the microwave for about 20 – 30 seconds and then stirred it until it was smooth and then dipped the cupcakes in the melted icing, next I sprinkled them with Wilton white sanding sugar or Wilton white decorating sugar or Pampered Chef’s Sweet Honey Vanilla Sprinkles and then topped them with 2 white chocolate chips.  I think they look really cute and really tasty!

1 box white cake mix

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla (I used 2)

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1 cup white chocolate chunks (I just used more chips here)

1  Mix together cake mix, white chocolate chips, vanilla, milk, eggs and oil.  I mixed all ingredients except the chips with my mixer and then when the batter was smooth, I stirred in the chips by hand.  Fill paper liners 3/4 full.

2  Bake at 350 for 15 – 18 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.  Allow to cool completely on wire rack.

3  Frost with frosting of your choice and garnish with white chocolate chunks or chips.

Teddy Bear Baby Boy Baby Shower Fondant Cake

by penji1

I’ve been working long hours on this movie and so haven’t had a chance to bake very much let alone blog about baking but last weekend Courtney made this cake all by herself (I did bake the cake for her – brown sugar) for the sister of a friend and she did such a great job that I wanted to share it with you all!  She had to do it all alone as I was at work and so came up with the design and did it all by herself and I think it is just darling!  The bottom layer is an 8″ round and the top is 6″, both brown sugar using the “White Almond Sour Cream” cake recipe as a starting point and just replacing the white sugar with brown sugar.  She made our favorite basic buttercream icing and used some Wilton fondant for the white as we had some leftover, the blue fondant is Duff’s from Michaels and the brown is the Pettinice chocolate fondant that we like.  She did a great job on the little bear with his bottle and his pacie, she is getting really good at sculpting things out of fondant.  She has another baby shower cake to do next weekend, this one for a little girl which she will also have to do by herself since I will still be working.  And we have some other fun cakes coming up in the next couple of months – Hunger Games, Muppets and Angry Birds so stay tuned!  🙂

York Sensational Brownies

by penji1

Brownies for my friend Julie for her birthday and also for my girls at church.  I changed the recipe up a bit since I didn’t have any York Peppermint Patties, I used Junior Mints instead.  They tasted great but the Jr Mints seemed to just melt and dissolve in the batter whereas when I’ve used the Yorks, they actually retain a peppermint patty layer through the brownie that you can see when you cut them up.

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, melted

3 cups sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

5 eggs

2 cups flour

1 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

24 small (1 1/2″) York Peppermint Patties, unwrapped (I used 2 4 oz boxes of Jr Mints)

Heat oven to 350.  Grease a 9 x 13 x 2″ pan.  With a spoon or a wire whisk, stir butter, sugar and vanilla together.  Add eggs and stir until well blended.  Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and blend well.  Reserve 2 cups batter and set aside.  Spread remaining batter in pan.  Arrange patties in single layer over batter, about 1/2″ apart.  Spread reserved batter over patties.  Bake 50 – 55 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan.

Valentine Truffles

by penji1

The recipe for these truffles is already on the blog under “Easy Oreo Truffles” but I thought I’d blog about them again for Valentine’s Day as a quick and easy treat idea if you’re in need of one.  I made 2 batches of these which ended up being about 86 truffles and it only took me an hour and half to make them from start to finish.  I dipped them in red and pink Wilton candy melts and sprinkled them with different toppings such as crunched up Oreos, chocolate jimmies and Pampered Chef Sweet Mocha Hazelnut Sprinkles.  Then I found these cute boxes at Michaels:

which are supposed to be cupcake boxes but they worked out just right for my truffles.  So if you are in need of a Valentine treat in a hurry, these are cute and, more importantly, delicious!

Panda Bear Cupcakes

by penji1

Happy Birthday Marlene!  These are for you!  Courtney and Courtney’s friend Jaren and I made these cupcakes for our friend Marlene who loves panda bears.  (We made the panda bear graduation cake for her too.)  The idea comes from Karen Tack and Alan Richardson’s cookbook called “Hello, Cupcake!” – love it!  So much fun to make!  The cupcakes are “Vanilla Cupcakes” from the same cookbook and you can find them on the blog under that name.

The blog has been slow lately, I’m still working on that movie and will be until around mid March so the posts will be sporadic at best.  No time for baking, bummer!