Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies

I really did not want to go shopping today so I decided to search for a recipe that would use the ingredients I already had. I searched for a recipe that would use flour and brown sugar and found a recipe for Shortbread cookies. I had to barrow the butter and regular sugar from my neighbor, Raven Canty at Meals $25 or Less.

Ingredients

½ cup butter

1 tablespoon regular sugar

3 tablespoons brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 ¼ cup flour

Pre- heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl mix regular and brown sugar with cinnamon and flour.

Cut the butter into pieces and add to the dry ingredients. Then mix together. It is easier to mix with your hands I didn't even attempt to use a spoon. Also if you don’t use enough butter it is easy to tell because the dough will not stick together.

Pinch of pieces of dough and roll into balls. Each ball should be about an inch in width. Then flatten using a fork or spatula.   

Place on a pan and bake for about 20 minutes.

Then let cool and enjoy.

These cookies are not very rich and are a nice break from the rich desserts I normally make. 

Swirl Shaped Cupcakes

So today I decided to finally use the pans my aunt gave me. One is a pan with 6 stars and the other is a mini bundt pan. I also decided to add color to the cake because it was just vanilla and I like color.

Ingredients

Cake mix

3 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 ¼ cup water

Food coloring

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and spray pans

Mix eggs, oil, water and cake mix together until most of the lumps are gone and the dry ingredients are mixed in. If you want the cake to be white instead of yellow before dyeing use egg whites instead of the whole egg.

Separate batter into two bowls and dye each bowl of batter a different color. I used blue and purple, but my purple looks pink.

Pour one of the bowls of batter into the dish leaving enough room for the other color of batter.

 

Take a toothpick and swirl the toothpick through the batter in a swirling motion like the brownie swirl cake from two post ago.

Remember to add water to any empty parts of the pan so the pan does not burn.

Bake the cakes for 20 minutes.  Then take out and let cool.

I over stuffed the pan and my cakes ended up being a mess and when I took them out of the pan some of them fell apart. I also had to cut the tops off so that the stars and bundts would lay flat.  

 

For the cakes that fell apart I made them into cake balls.

I decorated the cake with icing and added sprinkles for decorations.

Once they are iced and decorated enjoy.

Butterscotch Chip Brownies

So it‘s almost the end of the semester and I trying to use up my baking products. I looked into my cabinet and I still have butterscotch chips and a brownie mix.  I believe these two products will work well together and I could even cut the brownies into shapes, but I don’t have any cookie cutters.

Ingredients

Brownie mix

2 Eggs

½ cup Vegetable oil

¼ cup Water

About 1 ¾ cup Butterscotch chips

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease pan.

Mix water, eggs, oil and brownie together until all dry ingredients are mixed in.  Make sure to start siring slowly so that the mix doesn't fly out of the bowl.

Add in butterscotch chips then pour into 9 by 9 pan.

Bake for 30- minutes

Take out and let cool then enjoy. 

Brownie Swirled Cake

I wanted to make something with the left over cake mix from my last post on Funfetti Fudge.  I decided to swirl the cake mix with a brownie mix.  I like swirling things, whether it is different flavored cake or just different desserts.  

Ingredient

Brownie Mix

1/4 cup of water

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

Cake mix minus 1 cup

1/2 cup of water

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

Powdered sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 by 9 pan.

Mix brownie mix, water, oil and eggs together until all the dry ingredients are mixed in.

Pour into greased pan.

Mix cake mix, water, oil, and eggs until all the dry ingredients are mixed in.

Pour or scoop piled on to brownie mix making sure that you can still see the brownie in some spots

Take a plastic or butter knife and drag through batter in a swirling shape until you get the desired design.

Place in oven and cook for 30 to 40 minutes on middle rack.

Take out and let cool completely then dump out of pan. Be careful when you do this because the cake can crack and fall apart.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy.

The cake is okay if the bottom gets messed up when you take it out of the pan no one will see that part. 

Funfetti Fudge

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine pinned a funfetti recipe on pintrests and asked me if I could make it for my blog. This weekend was really busy, but the recipe was really quick and fun.  It took me about five minutes to make it then it chills for an hour. I had all the ingredients and just enough time to make it.

Ingredients

1 cup funfetti cake mix

1 cup powdered sugar

½ stick of butter

¼ cup milk

sprinkles

In a microwavable bowl mix powdered sugar and cake mix.

Add butter and milk but do NOT stir.

Microwave for 2 minutes then stir quickly until all the dry ingredients is mixed in.

Add sprinkles to make the fudge more colorful

Pour into a greased square or rectangular dish that is about 8 by 8. I used a bigger pan and should have doubled the recipe.  

Chill for an hour in the fridge and enjoy.

If I did this again I would add food coloring because I think the fudge needs more color.

Also you can make funfetti dip with the left over cake mix. 

How to Make Ice Cream Sandwiches

This week I wanted to make something easy because I am kind on a sugar overload form last week. It’s also really nice outside so I would rather spend my day out of the kitchen.  I decided to would show you how to make ice cream sandwiches.

I decided to buy cookies from the bakery because I wanted this to be quick and easy but you can also use my Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies or Cookies my Way.  Just make sure all the cookies are the same size.

All you need are cookies and your favorite ice cream. I decided to use mini chocolate chip cookies and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

The ice cream works better the colder it is. I started using it as soon as I bought it and it was a little melted.

Get out a plate or the container you will store the cookies in and lay out a few cookies bottoms up.

Then take a spoon full of ice cream and spread it onto one cookie.  I only did this to one side but I think it would be better if I did this to both sides.  For lager cookies you are going to need more than a spoon full. 

Make sure the ice cream is about an inch to two inches thick.

Once the ice cream is on the cookie top it with another cookie and place back on the plate. Both cookies in the sandwich should have ice cream on them before be put together.

Once all the sandwiches are together put the plate in a baggy or close the container and put in the freezer to chill. This will help the cookies stick together.

I let them freeze for about 5 hours, but 30 minutes to an hour should be fine.

Take out and enjoy especially on a hot day.

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

So this weekend I had a 80s movie night with my friends and I wanted to make something that we all would like. I decided to make giant dark chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips. I took a Hershey’s recipe and tweaked it.

Ingredients

2 sticks of butter

1 ½ cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups of all purpose flour

2/3 cups of dark cocoa (use regular if don’t want it to be super rich)

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 bag of reese chips (I didn’t have a full bag so I add some regular chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a bowl until it is fluffy.

 

 

I didn’t want to get another bowl dirty so I mixed the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt) in a baggy.

 

Then mix the two mixtures together until all the dry ingredients are mixed in.

Stir in chips then grab a spoon fool and roll into a ball. To make to cookies giant the balls were a little smaller then my palm which makes the balls be about 2 inches across. 

Place balls on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  I’m using my pampered chief stone bar pan.

Once cookies are done cool before moving onto a wire rack or they will break into pieces.

Spring Filled Cupcakes

So my mom got me this cup cake corer and I have been really excited to use it. I decided to fill the cupcakes with pudding because I did not want too much icing. I also have been excited to try Kraft’s new Cool Whip frosting (even thought I don’t like cool whip frosting).  

Ingredients

Cake

1 cake Mix

3 eggs

1 cup of water

5 1/3 tablespoons of butter

Pudding

Instant pudding mix (I used vanilla)

2 cups of milk

1 tub Cool whip icing (I used chocolate)

Food coloring

Sprinkles (optional)

Set out frozen icing about an hour before you use it or stick it on the stove ( if you forgot to take it out) while the oven is on to defrosted it.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pan with liners.

Mix eggs, water, and cake mix in a bowl for about two minutes at a medium speed. I did this by hand because I don’t have a mixer at school. For spring I decided to dye the batter pink.

 Fill cupcake pans a third to half way full and bake for about 19 minutes.

While cupcakes are baking mix pudding mix and milk in a bowl for two minutes with a whisk or a fork. Then dye green or yellow if the green doesn’t work and chill for at least five minutes.

 

Once cupcakes are done baking let them cool completely and use a cupcake corer to take the middle out.  I used the larger corer and pressed about half way down. Sometimes all the cake didn’t come out so I had to just pull it out. Next time I will use the smaller one because I like less filling but you might like more.

 

Take pudding out of the fridge and scoop into a baggy then cut of a corning like you would if you were making icing. Squirt the pudding into the cupcakes.

 

Then scoop icing into a baggy and cut the corner off and ice the cupcake. Make sure you cover the filling completely.

Sprinkle and enjoy but you need to keep the cupcakes in the fridge because of the pudding and icing. 

I made cake balls with the cupcake middles and leftover icing.