Oreo Truffle Brownie

Happy, happy 2014!
I hope you all created some amazing memories over the holiday!
Now that life has calmed down a bit, I am hoping to give the blog here a face-lift and start cranking out some more recipes to share with you....I have missed you all - xoxo
First up for the New Year, just in time to sabotage your resolutions before Girl Scout Cookies do, is the scrumptious love child of the infamous "Oreo Truffle" and the good-old perfect Brownie.  Seriously...amazeballs!

Oreo Truffle Brownie
Recipe by:  Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Ingredients

For the brownies:
• 1 (12-ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
Oreo Truffle and Topping:
• 26 Oreo or other chocolate-sandwich cookies
• 8 ounces cream cheese, light or regular, softened
• 4 ounces white chocolate or white almond bark

Directions

1. For the brownies, preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate chips. Stir constantly and remove from heat when the chocolate is fully melted. In the same pot, whisk in the sugar and vanilla. Then add eggs, blending fully one at a time. Add the flour and salt and stir until well combined. Pour the batter into a greased 9 X 13-inch pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn the heat down to 325 degrees and bake for 10 more minutes. Remove from the oven and let the brownies cool completely.
2. For the Oreo truffle topping, crush the Oreo cookies and mix with the softened cream cheese until the mixture is well-combined. I find the best method is to lightly crush the Oreo cookies and then mix the cookies with the cream cheese in an electric stand mixer, food processor or with a handheld mixer. Lightly press the Oreo truffle mixture over the cooled brownies.
3. In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt the chocolate or almond bark on low power at 30-second intervals, stirring in between, until melted and smooth. Pour the chocolate into the corner of a ziploc bag. Carefully snip a small piece off the corner and drizzle the chocolate across the brownies. Alternately, you can cut the brownies into squares and then drizzle with the chocolate. Chill the brownies in the refrigerator until the chocolate is set (10-20 minutes). Cut into slices and serve.

Pecan Crack

These.  Are.  AMAZING.  Like seriously, unbelievably amazing.  Oh, did I mention super-simple to make to boot?!  Oh, and did I mention that your house will smell so freaking luscious that your neighbors will be walking zombie-like down the sidewalk towards the smell?!  Oh, and did I mention they are AMAZING?!  OK, enough of that...go and make these immediately.  I will wait until after the holidays for the songs of gratitude to be written in my honor.  I am a giver that way ;)

Pecan Crack

• 1 pound Pecan halves
• 1 Egg White
• 1 TBSP Vanilla
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

Preheat oven to 275 degrees
Beat the egg white and vanilla together until frothy. Stir in one pound of pecan halves into the mixture. Stir to coat.
In another bowl, mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, and  pumpkin pie spice. Pour sugar mixture into moistened pecans. Thoroughly mix so that pecans are well coated with sugar and spice combination.
Spread on large cookie sheet and bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.  Even though it may not look like it is working, the last 10 minutes or so it really starts drying out and getting that amazing candy crunch on the outside.

This recipe has been linked up at:
This Chick Cooks
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home

HEALTHY Peanut Butter Balls

Allergy season is quickly approaching in this neck of the woods.  Last year was our first spring here in the ol' NC, and I had heard that the allergies could be pretty hard to take.  So, we went to the farmers market and got some local honey and had the kiddos eating it right away.  Buying local honey is a great way to introduce your body to the local pollen so your body can start to build immunity against it before it goes full blown yellow gunk all over the place.  The kiddos sailed through allergy season without so much as a sniffle.  Hubs and I on the other hand, were sick as dogs!  Since we had never had allergies before, we didn't think we needed to partake on the local honey.  Boy were we wrong!  So this year, we are taking no chances and went to the farmers market and bought a HUGE container of honey.  We have been sneaking it in everywhere! 
This recipe is a super yummy, HEALTHY way to get a big-ol'-dose-o-honey.  My kiddos (and hubs and I too) absolutely LOVED them!  Even if you don't have to worry about allergies, these are such a great alternative to cookies or pre-packaged snack bars. 

HEALTHY Peanut Butter Balls
Recipe slightly adapted from Mommy's Kitchen

• 1 cup Honey
• 1-½ cup Creamy Peanut Butter or Almond Butter
• 2-½ cups Powdered Dry Milk
• 3 cups Quick Cooking Oatmeal, Uncooked
• 2 TBSP toasted Wheat Germ
• 2 TBSP Ground Flax Seed
• ½ cups Mini Chocolate Chips, Raisins, or both (optional)

Mix all the ingredients together with hand mixer. Form into golf ball sized balls with your hands and freeze on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper until firm. Remove from the freezer and store in a large Ziploc bag in the refrigerator.

This recipe has been linked up at:
Simply Sweet Home
Tidy Mom
Crazy Domestic
Alli n Son

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerio Chewies

I have been posting a lot of main dishes lately.  I can't help it, when it is so stinkin' cold out, all you want to make and talk about is the warm, gooey, and yummy stuff.  Not to mention the whole trying to eat healthy after the holidays thing.  Anyway, as I was looking through my food photos of recipes to post, I saw this little gem I made back in sunnier days.  Now, I am not sure how many of you have had Chocolate Cheerios yet, but can I just say they are FABULOUS?!?!  Dry as a snack, or with milk...they totally ROCK!  And guess what?  When you use them in this recipe, holy chocolate and peanut butter Batman, it is a winner!  This was a fabulous treat for the kiddos and the adults too!

Cheerio Chewies

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 5 cups Cheerios  (I used 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 regular...or maybe 2/3 chocolate and 1/3 regular...whatever, don't judge me.)

In a large sauce pan, combine sugar and corn syrup. Bring to boil over medium heat.
Allow mixture to boil for one minute and remove from heat.
Add peanut butter and vanilla to mixture and mix until smooth.
Add Cheerios and mix until all coated.
Drop mixture by spoonful onto waxed paper and allow to cool.
ENJOY!

Recipe adapted from:  Real Mom Kitchen

This recipe has been linked up at:
Nikki's Nifty Knacks
Frou Frou Decor
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home
Mommy's Kitchen

Cappuccino Chip Cookies and Fudge Puddles. It's a Cookie Two-fer!

I thought since we have a little less than a week left before those pesky resolutions ban us from cookies and sweet treats, I have a sworn and bound duty to share with you TWO spectacular cookies from our Holiday Cookie Palooza! 

First up....Cappuccino Chip Cookies from my friend Kim!  These are fabulous and were a great snack for Santa to keep his energy going to wrap all the gifts he waited until the last minute to buy visit all those houses!  This recipe makes a LOT (like 4-5 dozen) of these coffee-chocolatey bits-o-love, which makes them oh so very nice to share.

Cappuccino Chip Cookies

• 4 sticks of butter, melted
• 1/4 cup instant coffee crystals
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp brandy or rum extract
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten 
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 cups mini chocolate chips
• 5 1/2 cups flour 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Melt butter in a (very) large bowl.  Whisk in the instant coffee and extracts until the coffee is dissolved.
Add sugar, eggs, baking soda and baking powder; mix well.
Stir in chocolate chips.  Add flour in one-cup increments, stirring after each addition. Mix until flour is evenly distributed.
Form walnut-sized balls of dough, roll in sugar if desired.
Place 2" apart and bake for 9 to 11 minutes.

YUM!

Next up, Fudge Puddles, aka Puddles-o-YUM!  I can't remember where I originally saw this recipe, but when the lovely Tina from Mommy's Kitchen blogged these, I double bookmarked them to make.  They are so fabulously rich...perfect with a cold glass of milk!

Fudge Puddles

Cookie Crust recipe:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 /2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a mini-muffin pan.
In a large mixer bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, and both sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla Next, in a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add flour mix to the creamy mixture. Chill in the fridge for at least one hour (or in the freezer for about 15 minutes). Remove from fridge and form into 1" balls.
Add 1 ball to each muffin cup. Bake for about 15 minutes or until very lightly browned. Remove from oven and make an indentation in the center of each ball. I used the handle of my potato masher, cause that's how I roll.  Let them cool in the pan for at least 5 minutes and then move to a cooling rack.
Once all of the cookies are done baking, it's time to make the fudge filling.

Filling recipe:

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup butterscotch chips
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 14 ounces
• 1 tsp vanilla

In a microwave safe bowl or saucepan, combine all of the ingredients except the nuts/sprinkles. Microwave for 1 minutes. Stir well. If there are still un-melted chips, continue to melt in microwave for 15 second increments until all smooth:
Immediately start filling the cookie cups with the filling. Work quickly to avoid the mixture hardening up on you.  Instead of using a spoon to fill each cup up with, I put the mixture into a Ziploc baggie and snipped the corner off to fill that way.  It went MUCH faster. Let set for an hour or until fudgey center has firmed-up.

YUM 2.0

These recipes has been linked at:
Nikkis Nifty Knacks
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home
Mommy's Kitchen
Eat at Home

Caramel Crack

If Betty Crocker was a drug dealer, this is what she would be slinging.
This little gem is very much like the Apricot/Raspberry Crumb Bars but filled with caramel and chocolate.
Add this one to your holiday platter and have all your friends and neighbors mowing your lawn and bringing you coffee for an entire year!

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks melted butter
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups oatmeal
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3-3/4 bag of chocolate chips, depending how chocolately you like it
• 1 jar (10 ounces-ish) of caramel topping.  I used the Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce from Trader Joe's, but you could use Smucker's or Mrs. Richardson's. 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Grease a 9"x13" baking pan.
Combine the brown sugar, flour, oatmeal, baking soda & salt. Add melted butter and  mix until crumbly.
Press HALF of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and spread the jar of caramel topping on top, followed by the chocolate chips.  Sprinkle the remaining prepared dough mixture over the top.
Place back in oven and bake for an additional 15 -20 minutes, until it's a light golden brown.
Allow to cool and chill completely before cutting them into squares.  Go forth and gorge!

Recipe Source:  I have been making it for a while and do not know where I first saw it

Recipe linked to:
Frou Frou Decor
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home
Mommy's Kitchen

BOO-Bark!

What do all these things have in common? 

Candy Corn

Oreo's

Pretzels

Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds



White Chocolate


What you see here is all the ingredients to make the fantastic Halloween treat known as BOO-Bark!
I am sure I am breaking about 10 food blogging rules right now, but oh well....I am a rebel like that.  Actually, I am frustrated beyond belief with my nemesis....white chocolate.  I just have not been able to get it to melt correctly for me lately.  Tonight, while trying to make some Boo-Bark for you, the stinkin' little sucker wouldn't play nice and melt right....again.  AGHHH!!!! 
It is NOT the recipe, it is me....me, me, me and my apparent lack of focus. SQUIRREL!

I hope you all understand that I am moving and just don't have the time or gumption to try it again.  BUT, I do want you to have the recipe to enjoy.  So, here is the recipe, sans final plated picture. (gasp! I know.)  I do however, present to you the Easter version...Bunny Bark and hopefully the sweet little bunny model will melt your heart and you will eventually be able to forgive me. 

That did it....your heart is all warm and fuzzy now, huh?!  Just a little bunny hug from me to you.   xo

BOO-Bark!

• 14 Oreos
• 1 1/2 cups broken pretzel pieces
• 1 pound white chocolate, almond bark, or white candy disk melts found in the bulk section of some grocery stores.  Just make sure you take it to dinner and perhaps feed some wine so it will cooperate and play nice.
• 1 cup candy corn.
• 1/2 cup Autumn-colored Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds.  I used the Trader Joe's brand.

Cover a large cookie sheet with wax paper. Spread broken cookies, pretzels, and about 3/4 cup of candy corn onto waxed paper. Place the white chocolate in a container and microwave for 1 minute - 1 1/2 minutes. Stir and then microwave for another 30 seconds until melted and smooth. White chocolate melts faster and burns easier than regular chocolate. It also does that funky seize up thing if you microwave for too long too.  Unlike me, you MUST pay attention to wha... SQUIRREL!
Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookie mixture, spreading with a spatula if needed to coat evenly. Sprinkle remaining candy corn and sunflower seeds over the chocolate while it is still wet. Place cookie tray into refrigerator until set and firm. Remove and gently break bark into small pieces. Store in air tight container.


Pictures above (except sweet little bunny) courtsey of:  Nabisco, Brachs, Trader Joe's, Amazon

This recipe is linked up at:
Nikki's Nifty Knacks
Frou Frou Decor
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home
Mommy's Kitchen

Brown Butter Sea Salt Rice Krispy Treats

Don't let this unassuming picture fool you.  These are not the Rice Krispy Treats of your youth.  These are the sexy grown-up version of that classic...and by sexy and grown-up, I mean totally, insanely, ridiculously luscious!  I cannot adequately put into words how much I want you to try these.  Treat yourself with these treats.  Just do it.  Pleeassseeeee!!!!

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 bag marshmallows (10.5 oz)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 6 slightly over flowing cups rice krispy cereal

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick spray, set aside.
In a large bowl, gently toss together sea salt and rice krispy cereal. Set aside.
To brown butter, heat in a pot over medium-low heat. Continue stirring after butter is melted. It will eventually begin to foam, then turn a brown color and smell nutty. Stay with the butter and stir occasionally so it does not burn. The time it takes from browned butter to turn burned butter is under a minute, so watch it carefully. When butter has browned, remove from heat and add marshmallows. Stir quickly so that marshmallows melt into the butter. If need be, you can replace over low heat to assist the melting. Once smooth and thoroughly combined, add vanilla, and stir to incorporate.
Pour butter/marshmallow mixture over top of sea salt/rice krispy mixture. Working quickly, stir to coat and combine evenly. Press mixture into baking dish and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before cutting into squares. Clear your schedule and take a bite....you will be there a while!

Recipe adapted (aka tweaked) from Baking Serendipity who adapted from Smitten Kitchen

This recipe has been linked to:
Nikkis Nifty Knacks
Prairie Story
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home
Frou Frou Decor
Mommy's Kitchen

Weekend fun with a two-fer recipe!

Happy Tuesday!  Whew!  What a weekend!   
My sweet baby girl turned 6 on Friday, and she had her birthday party Saturday. One of the great things about her birthday being in June is we can almost always have a party outside. This year, we had a backyard birthday party...complete with TONS of kids from the neighborhood.  We created a 50 ft. slide and slide going down the hill, and had a large assortment of water toys to play with.
She had a BLAST!
Now moving on to the cake....some times you win, and sometimes you lose.
I spent the Friday night and Saturday morning making and decorating this cake, definite win in my opinion!

The bottom layer was a white cake with a Strawberry Cheesecake Mousse filling.  It was scrumptious!
Now, in my head, I was going to decorate the top with assorted pink cake pops to carry on the polka-dot theme.  Friday night, I baked the cake and prepared the cake balls, stuck a stick in them, and placed them in the freezer.  Now, FOR THE RECORD, the recipe did state to chill them for a couple hours in the fridge or speed it along in the freezer, and I had them in the freezer overnight.  Anyway, Saturday morning, I melted some pink vanilla candy melts (maybe this was my problem, is there a difference between candy melts and candy bark?) and proceeded to try to coat the now frozen cake pops.  UGH!  Disaster!  I am pretty sure I stuck the sticks too far down, because, well, they we pushed all the way down.  So, the annoying little suckers slid down the sticks and I could not get them dipped in the coating.  So, I tried using a spatula to coat them, but since the candy melts were seizing against the FROZEN cake pops, it was a MESS!!!  I got 6 of them that stayed on the stick. 

Now, let me say, they were SCRUMPTIOUS!!!  But if any of you have ventured into the cake ball/cake pop realm....if you have any thoughts on what I did wrong, PLEASE let me know because as ticked off as I was, they were so stinking good, I would definitely try them again!
So, for the two-fer...here is the recipe for the Strawberry Cheesecake Mousse, which works great as a cake filling or as a pie filling (think graham cracker crust) and the cake balls.

Strawberry Cheesecake Mousse Pie

• 1 block cream cheese (8 ounces) at room temperature
• 1 box strawberry jello, divided
• 2/3 cup plus 2 TBSP sugar, divided
• 5 LARGE strawberries
• 4 - 8 ounces Cool Whip, depending on taste and consistency you like

Start by slicing 5 strawberries in a bowl and sprinkle 2 TBSP sugar and 1 tsp strawberry jello powder over top. Stir to coat. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together cream cheese, 1 TBSP strawberry jello, 2/3 cup sugar. Beat until fluffy.
With a fork, mash the five strawberries that were macerating. Pour into cream cheese mixture. Beat with mixer until well combined. Gently fold in Cool Whip.

Cake Balls - Cake Pops via Bakerella

• 1 box cake mix, cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake.  I used Devil's Food cake mix.
• 1 can frosting (16 oz.).  I used cream cheese frosting.
• 1 package chocolate bark, regular or white chocolate.  I used candy melts....maybe that is what I did wrong
• wax paper

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.  Again perhaps this is what I did wrong?
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)

Bunny Bark

Here is a quick and fun Easter themed treat to make with the kiddos, you know just in case you had some time to spare this week! This recipe is totally flexible to make for all the holidays but since Easter kinda snuck up on me this year, I thought this would serve as my kids craft and special fun treat all in one! This recipe is a spin off of Recipe Girl's Halloween inspired Candy Corn Bark. But, you all know me..I tweaked, I blinged, and I came up with this! We made one batch using mini Robin Eggs and one batch using jelly beans and no one has yet picked a favorite.
So, perk up those ears and fluff that tail and whip up some of these quick yummies...just remember, bunny mask is entirely optional when munching!

Ingredients:

• 14 Golden Oreo Cookies, broken into small-ish pieces. You could use regular or the spring one's too.
• 1 1/2 cups broken pretzel pieces
• 1 pound white chocolate, almond bark, or white candy disk melts found in the bulk section of some grocery stores
• 1 cup your choice of candy. As I said, I used Robin Eggs in one batch and Jelly Beans in another. Other options would be Easter Candy Corn, Pastel M&M's, etc.
• pastel sprinkles

Cover a large cookie sheet with wax paper. Spread broken cookies, pretzels, and about 3/4 cup of candy of choice onto the waxed paper. Place the white chocolate in a container and microwave for 1 minute - 1 1/2 minutes. Stir and then microwave for another 30 seconds until melted and smooth. White chocolate melts faster and burns easier than regular chocolate. It also does that funky seize up thing if you microwave for too long too.
Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookie mixture, spreading with a spatula if needed to coat evenly. Sprinkle remaining candy and colored sprinkles over the chocolate while it is still wet. Place cookie tray into refrigerator until set and firm. Remove and gently break bark into small pieces. Store in air tight container.
In case you were so blinded by the cuteness of the above bunny picture, here is how my bark turned out minus the bunny! Special loves to my sweet kiddo for being my model, I will pay for your therapy if it scars you too much - xoxo



This recipe has been linked up at:
Mommy's Kitchen
Tidy Mom
Simply Sweet Home

Blinged-Out Valentine Rolo Turtles

Mommy's Kitchen had a recipe on near the holidays called Rolo Turtles. I had never heard of them, but seeing we bought a TON of pecans from the Farmer's Market, I thought I would look at it. The basic concept is to put a Rolo on top of a pretzel and bake them for a few minutes, then top with a toasted pecan. Well, seeing that I am a tweaker and all, I blinged them out for the holidays, and did it again for Valentine's Day. The kiddos can make the majority of this, I was just there take them out of the oven, put the pecans on (warm oozy carmel and chocolate and all), and drizzle the melted white chocolate. Even my 3 year old liked counting out the pretzels and putting the Rolo's on top. Total bonus, these are CRAZY good!

Ingredients:

• Pretzels. I use the square waffle ones
• Rolo's - unwrapped, duh
• Pecan halves - toasted or any other choice of nut. Cashews or Macadamia nuts would be AWESOME in this too! If there are nut allergies OR you simply don't like nuts, you can substitute Valentine colored m&m's or even Cupid Corn (pink and red candy corn)
• White chocolate chips
• Decorative sugar or choice of sprinkley sparkly goodies

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Toast your pecans. Cover a cookie sheet with foil (easier clean up) and place pretzels individually to form one layer only. Place one Rolo candy on top of each pretzel. Bake at 250 degrees for 4minutes or until the candies are softened and glossy. Immediately remove from the oven and quickly place a toasted pecan half on top of each Rolo and push down to squish the chocolate into the pretzel and flatten. THEN, melt some white chocolate chips in the microwave for 30 seconds - 1 minute with a teaspoon of shortening or a splash of milk. Stir every 30 seconds to make sure it is smooth and melted. Pour white chocolate into a small baggie, snip the corner off with scissors and drizzle over the turtles. While the white chocolate is still metly, sprinkle some decorator sugar or sprinkles. Cool for 20 minutes, then place uncovered in refrigerator for about 20 minutes to set.