Chocolate Spoons

This weekend I made Chocolate Spoons for my friend Dawn, who is also my neighbor.  Her grandson had a birthday party today.

Malted Milk Ball Cupcakes

Today was our Corvette Club's summer picnic and I made cupcakes as my bring a dish to share

Cheesecake Brownies

Two of my favorite desserts combined..... brownies and cheesecake.  

Bill's favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

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This is Bill's favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  Just like with cake, Chocolate is not my favorite, oh I will eat them but I would rather have me a sugar cookie.

Devils Food Cake with Raspberry Filling

I don't usually pick chocolate cake.  I am more of a white cake girl but this Devils Food cake is fabulous with the buttercream icing!

Hershey's Spread Mint Brownies

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For tonight's dessert I made a new brownie combination.  I am gearing up for St Patty's day with these mint brownies.  I just love the green icing peeking out from under the chocolate icing.

Peanut Butter Fudge Truffles

Today was Valentine's Candy making day for my sweeties.  Billy and Cally were both home this weekend so I wanted to make sure I got their candy done so they could take it home with them today.

Chocolate Peanut Pie

Chocolate Peanut Pie was the pie I made for the Church Pie Auction.  The pie filling was really creamy and super rich.  My awesome Hubby was the highest bidder for my pie.

Cally made a Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Pie.  Her recipe was adapted from Monica's recipe on Lick the Bowl Good.  Cally used a graham cracker crust, only made the peanut butter Mousse filling, topping the peanut butter mousse with the Chocolate glaze and a ring of whipping cream around the edge.  For the recipe click here Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Pie

Cally's pie brought highest bid in the pie auction at Church last night.  It looked awesome!

Chocolate Peanut Pie
adapted from Taste of Home

CRUST:
1-1/4 cup chocolate cookie crumbs (20 cookies)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
FILLING:
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped
TOPPING:
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 C powdered sugar

In a small bowl, combine cookie crumbs and sugar; stir in butter. Press onto the bottom and up the sides of a 9-in. pie plate. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

For filling, beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar, butter and vanilla in a large bowl until smooth. Fold in whipped cream. Gently spoon into crust.

For the topping: Beat the whipping cream until soft peaks form then add the powdered sugar and beat until well set.  If desired you can pipe the whipping cream on top of the pie for the flowered look that I have or you can just spread it out over the top of the pie.

Store in refrigerator. Yield: 8-10 servings.

Iced Mocha Frappe

Billy and Cally are both home this weekend.  We all went out to the Filling Station in Troy to eat dinner for Billy's birthday.  When we got home Cally and I made these Paula Deen Iced Mocha Frappes.  I have tried Cally's frappe before from McDonald's and really did not care for it but these are good.  I made the frozen cubes last night so they would be ready when Cally got home today.  All I had was hazelnut coffee so maybe that is giving it a different taste.  The hazelnut coffee with the hot chocolate is sooooo gooooood  !!

Iced Mocha Frappe
Paula Deen

4 C brewed coffee, hot
4 (1 oz) packages hot chocolate mix (3/4 C mix)
4 T sugar
1 C heavy whipping cream
2 t vanilla
whipped cream for serving

In a heat proof bowl or pitcher, add the coffee, hot chocolate mix and sugar.  Stir until well combined.  Pour the mixture into ice cube trays and freeze, covered, for at least 3 hours and up to 1 week.

Put frozen cubes in a blender.  Add the cream and vanilla and puree until smooth.  Divide the frappe into tall glasses and top with whipping cream.

BYU Mint Brownies

Happy St. Patty's Day.... We had another nice spring day in Ohio.  This week the trees have bloomed and boy has my allergies gone crazy.  If you have allergies and live in Ohio you are probably miserable right now.

Bill and Billy worked on the new landscaping today.  They got the grass planted and the flower bed is all done too.  Hopefully soon I will be showing you pictures of grass.

We are going to build a fire pit in the center of this area.  I can not wait for it all to be done so we can build a fire in the evening and just sit out back and relax!

Cally said she was the supervisor today.

Back to these really minty brownies.  This recipe came from the blog, The Girl Who Ate Everything.  The green center icing is mint flavored and then chocolate brownie on the bottom and chocolate icing on the top.  And they were oh so good!

I did make a change in her brownie recipe as I added 1 tsp vanilla and then I also made my own chocolate frosting.  You can make your own frosting or as she said you can use can icing as well.

BYU Mint Brownies

adapted from: The Girl Who Ate Everything

1 C butter, softened

1/2 C cocoa

2 Tbsp honey

4 eggs

2 C white sugar

1 3/4 C flour

1/2 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 C chopped walnuts or pecans (I used walnuts)

Melt butter and mix in cocoa.  Allow to cool.  Add honey, eggs, vanilla, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well.  Add nuts.  Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Cool

Mint Icing

5 Tbsp butter

dash salt

3 Tbsp milk

1 Tbsp light corn syrup

2 1/3 C powdered sugar

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

1-2 drops green food coloring

Prepare mint icing: soften butter.  Add salt, corn syrup and powdered sugar.  Beat until smooth and fluffy.  Add mint extract and food coloring.  Mix.  Add milk gradually until the consistency is a little thinner than cake frosting.  Spread on top of the brownies.

Chocolate Icing

2 C powdered sugar

1/3 C milk chocolate chips, melted

1/3 C cocoa powder

6 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate chips.  Mix together powdered sugar, melted chocolate chips, cocoa powder, vanilla and milk until smooth.  Spread on top of mint layer and enjoy!

shared on Gooseberry Patch

Chocolate Bundt cake with White Chocolate Hazel Nut Icing

I have another bundt cake for you.  I have been doing a lot of bundt cakes lately because that has been the easiest for me to make for the soup kitchen.  The cakes I made for the soup kitchen this week I did not ice, instead I made chocolate bundt cakes and sprinkled powdered sugar and cocoa powder over them.  I am going to have to make this cake for them in the near future.  It was so chocolaty and super moist.  I just baked a chocolate cake mix and then made my homemade icing.  In the icing I used melted white chocolate chips and Bailey's Hazel Nut coffee creamer...oh was this icing ever good!!  I loved the taste along with the smooth texture.  It was thicker than a glaze but as you can see it did come down the sides a little when I iced the cake.

Chocolate Bundt cake with White Chocolate Hazel Nut Icing

cake:
1 chocolate cake mix and ingredients to make cake

icing:
1 C powdered sugar
1/3 C white chocolate chips, melted
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp Bailey's Hazel Nut coffee creamer

Mix and bake cake according to package instructions.  Cool Cake.

for icing:

Mix all ingredients together and pour over cake.

Fudge Ripple Cake

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Today was a beautiful day outside.  It was 70 here in Ohio. 

 Bill and the kids worked outside all day.  In the fall we took down a pool and boy is it a mess where the pool sat.  We had a ton of sand that needed cleaned up and moved so we can get the area ready to plant grass seed.

We are landscaping around the deck and also putting in a fire pit.  As you can see from the date on this picture we started this project in the fall.  Bill blocked off the end of the deck where we use to jump in the pool.

This decorative railing piece was one of my birthday presents.  I just love wrought iron!

We are hoping the weather will stay nice but we do live in Ohio so we still can not rule out a snow storm.

I got this cake recipe from the book Ultimate Cake Mix Book.  I love recipe books that use cake mixes and jazz them up for awesome cakes.  For this cake, you make the cake according to package directions but you use some of the batter adding cream cheese and cocoa powder to make a neat dark chocolate filling.  Then top it off with home made chocolate icing.  These cakes sure are good and easy to make.  

Fudge Ripple Cake

Cake:

1 pkg (18.25 oz) yellow cake mix, plus ingredients to prepare mix

1 pkg (3oz) cream cheese

2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

Fudge Glaze recipe:

1 C powdered sugar

1 square  (1oz) semi-sweet chocolate

1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder

3 Tbs milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease and flour a bundt pan, set aside.  Prepare cake mix as package directs.  In a medium bowl combine 1 1/2 C prepared cake batter, cream cheese and cocoa powder until smooth.  Pour half of the yellow cake batter into prepared pan.  Drop spoonfuls of chocolate batter over the yellow batter in the pan.  Top with remaining yellow batter.  Bake for 35 minutes.  Cool completely on a wire rack.  Unmold cake onto a serving plate.  Prepare fudge glaze and pour over cake allowing some to run down the sides.

Fudge Glaze:

Place 1 square of semi-sweet chocolate in small microwavable safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 30 seconds; stir.  Repeat as necessary until chocolate is completely melted, stirring at 10 second intervals; set aside.  In medium bowl combine powdered sugar, unsweetened cocoa.  Stir in milk , vanilla and the melted chocolate.  Stir until smooth.  Drizzle over cake.