Lunch Lady Peanut-Butter Bars

If you are a child of the 80's and 90's I hope you had the chance to eat these during school lunch.  I think they were served on fish stick days.  Nevertheless they are delicious and actually fairly simple to make.  Hooray for pinterest and people who know Lunch Ladies.  This is their recipe.  I doubled it to make 2 jelly roll pans (11x15). This was a great amount to serve a crowd and I hear they freeze well.  Here is my adapted recipe:

3 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter

4 eggs

3 cups quick rolled oats

 

In the mixer, cream together butter, sugars, peanut butter, eggs, and vanilla until fluffy.  Add in salt and baking soda.  Slowly incorporate flour.  Mix in oats.

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease jelly roll pans and dump half of the mixture onto each pan.  Dough is sticky so either spray grease your hand or a piece of wax paper and spread mixture towards edges.  Dough will fill in as it bakes.  Bake for approximately 15 minutes until browned. Allow to cool.

 

 

 

Frosting:

1 cup butter

6-7 cups  powdered sugar

4 Tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Add milk and cocoa and stir constantly over medium heat until it comes to a boil.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Stir in powdered sugar until desired thickness and taste.  Remember that as the butter cools the frosting will naturally thicken.  Spread over cooled bars.

 

Cookie Salad

I have made this twice the spring already.  Cookie salad is easy, delicious, and a fun change from other fruit and side salads. Also it doubles as dessert.  We enjoyed this salad today for a family Easter dinner along with Resurrection Potatoes (What we call Mormon Funeral Potatoes during the Easter season), ham, glazed carrots, Cottage Cheese Jello salad, and awesome cupcakes.

6 oz of vanilla instant pudding (2 small boxes)
2 cups buttermilk
16 oz cool whip
2 lbs strawberries
4 bananas
11 oz can of mandarin oranges
1 package of Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies

Stir together vanilla pudding packets and buttermilk.
Add cool whip.
Chop or slice strawberries, slice bananas, and drain mandarin oranges. 
Stir fruit into vanilla pudding and cool whip mixture. 
Crumble up all of the fudge stripe cookies.  Stir in 3 rows worth of cookies, and top with last row of cookie crumbs.

*For a fun tropical version, use Samoa Girl Scout cookies and replace strawberries with 1-2 cans of pineapple tidbits.  Also double mandarin oranges.

Molten Chocolate Bread Pudding.

I adapted this recipe from the Purple Chocolate Home.  Check out the link where you can find two divine looking sauces to pour over the bread pudding for an even more decadent dessert.

10-12 cups French bread, dried out and chopped into 1 inch pieces.  (I used 1/2 of a round French country loaf from Costco.)
1 quart heavy cream
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup orange juice

additional 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1.  Cut up bread and place in large bowl.
2.  In a separate bowl whisk together cream, sugars, egg, vanilla, and cinnamon.
3.  In a microwave safe bowl stir together chocolate chips and orange juice.  Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until smooth (I melted for a total of 1 minute 30 seconds.
4.  Stir melted chocolate into the cream and sugar mixture. 
5. Pour over bread and toss.  Allow to sit for 30 minutes.
6.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray grease a 9x13 pan.
7.  Pour bread into pan and sprinkle additional brown sugar and chocolate chips on top.
8.  Bake for 45 minutes.  Pudding will be gooey.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Another way to dress up this dessert would be to serve with a berry syrup and/or fresh raspberries.

Better Than Sex Cake

My sister requested Better Than Sex Cake for her birthday and due to poor planning and believing in keeping the Sabbath Day holy by not shopping on Sunday I ended up scavenging to make it all from scratch.  And probably to no ones surprise if you like to cook, it was absolutely better.

The basics:
Chocolate Cake mix (and cooked)
1 can sweetened condensed milk (poke holes in warm cooked cake and poor over)
Caramel topping (drizzle over warmed hole-poked cake, then put in refrigerator to cool)
Whipped topping (spread on top of cooled cake, you can use coolwhip)
Health Bar (crunch bars or use health bits and sprinkle on whipped topping, also drizzle more caramel and refrigerate until served)

What I ended up making:

Chocolate Cake 

 

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup hot water

 

 

Stir together dry ingredients. Incorporate in eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.  Stir in hot water, this will make a very thin mix.  Pour into greased 9x13 pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes until cake bounces back at a touch, or toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes and then poke holes in cake with a wooden spoon handle.  Pour over can of sweetened condensed milk and some of the caramel and refrigerate.

 

 

Caramel Sauce

 

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup brown sugar


Stir together in pot on medium heat and constantly stir.  Heat until mixture reaches 200 degrees on candy thermometer (bring to boil and boil approximately 2 minutes). 

 

Whipped Topping

 

1 small container whipping cream

1/3 cup powdered sugar

 

Whip cream and powdered sugar with a hand mixer until peaks can form.

 

 

Homemade Toffee

 

(you only need 1/2 of this recipe to top the cake, recipe yields 1 lb toffee)

 



1 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

 

Combine butter, sugar, and salt in heavy saucepan.  Stir continually over medium heat until butter melts, and mixture turns a dark amber color (285 degrees on a candy thermometer).

 

Pour onto cookie sheet covered in Aluminum Foil and sprayed with cooking spray.  Sprinkle chocolate chips over mixture and spread into a thin layer.  Allow toffee to cool and set (30-60 minutes) and then break into small pieces.  Sprinkle on top of cake.  Drizzle more caramel.

 

 

 



Pies!

For Thanksgiving we tried a couple new pies this year (okay more than a couple but I made 2 so those recipes are below):

Cranberry Apple Pie:

1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
4 apples (I used Fugi) peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
2 cups fresh cranberries
zest of 1 orange

Pie crust of choice (2 layers)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a bowl toss apples, cranberries, zest.  In a smaller bowl mix together sugar, flour, and salt.  Toss sugar mixture with apple mixture. 

 

Prepare pie crust, lay into pie pan and prick a few hole in the bottom with a fork.  Dump in apples.  Top with additional pie crust layer.  For fun I used a leaf cookie cutter to make a bunch of pie crust leaves for my top pie crust.

For extra looks I brushed top crust with egg white wash (One egg white beat with a tablespoon of water) and sprinkled with Sugar in the raw (large sugar crystals).

Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 40-50 more minutes.  After 20 minutes at 350 degrees my pie rim was browning so I covered the edges with aluminum foil to prevent burning.  Bake until apples soft when poked with a fork and crust baked and browned.

Mini Peach Pies:

These pies are total cheater pies.  I used Pillsbury premade pie crust and canned peach pie filling.  1 box of crust and 1 large can of filling makes 12 cupcake sized pies.

I rolled the crust out a bit and used a cup mouth to cut the bottom crust.  Then I pressed that crust into the cupcake tin and filled with peach pie filling.  I used a round biscuit cutter for the top crust and used a small heart cookie cutter to cut out the bottom.  for a few top crusts I used four of the cut out hearts to form a little flower on top instead of a round crust.  I layered the top crust on, brush with egg white wash, and sprinkled with sugar in the raw.  Baked at 350 degrees for 30-50 minutes, just watched for browning. These are super good warmed with some vanilla ice cream.

 



Catching Fire.

We had a Victor's feast before going to see the Catching Fire Premier.  It was fun to eat delicious food and visit with friends.  For our feast we had soup in breadbowls, bacon green bean bundles, some amazing brie, a puff pastry apple caramel pie, firey cupcakes, Nightlock berry fruit salad, a veggie rosette pie, and  various other delights.

The bacon wrapped green bean bundles are from our best bites. They were easy and a really good veggie side-dish.

The Veggie tart is from a European magazine I found online, pg 67.  I just used a premade pie crust instead.  Used a peeler to peel the veggies and for a 9 inch pie it took 4 medium zucchini and I believe around 8 carrots.  We peeled all of the veggies first.  then we made the rosettes and swirled them around.  We decided to make some small rosettes too and I liked the effect a lot.  After the veggies are done, I drizzled with Olive Oil, and sprinkled with thyme, pepper, and salt.  Baked at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

The puff pastry apple caramel pie came about by accident.  I was attempting to make apple rosettes from a recipe in the same magazine pg 65 as the veggie tart and it suddenly went a bit Sweeny Todd in the kitchen as I almost chopped off a nail.  So I scrapped that idea and made my own.  I thawed a box of puff pastry according to box instructions.  I made caramel in a can, using the boiling method by Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk.  Basically you boil a whole unopened can of sweetened condensed milk for 2-3 hours.  Every 30 minutes I would check it and pour about 2 cups more water in the pan, as the can needs to remain completely covered during the boiling process.  Allow can to cool and then open.  Inside is sticky-sweet caramel.  I spread the caramel over one rolled out layer of puff pastry (about 2/3 of the can) and then sliced 3 apples and laid out sliced apples over the caramel.  I sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, topped with other puff pastry and sealed the edges, pressing with a fork.  I egg wash brushed the top (beat one egg with some water and brush over top) I cut some slits in the top crust and then sprinkled with some sugar-in-the-raw I had on hand.  I baked it for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Sliced when cooled a bit with a pizza cutter.

For the fiery cupcakes I simply bought premade red-velvet cupcakes and used Wilton's frosting spray colors in yellow and orange to make the frosting look like fire.  To make the mockingjay picks I used my stamp from my last party and just punched them out and taped them to toothpicks.

The brie is a top secret recipe by my friend Toni, if I get it I will post it! :)  And as for the berry salad I just made a traditional cottage cheese fruit jello salad (1 large container cottage cheese, 1 large container coolwhip, 1 box raspberry jello, mixed frozen blueberries and raspberries all mixed together when thawed).

 

We also enjoyed some photo-booth fun.  For the banners I used my Silhouette to cut the title "75th Hunger Games" using the Hunger Games font.  I made the various banners using district logos and pictures I found through tumblr and pinterest.  Props included Katniss' bow and arrows, and various colorful Capitol accessories (the skeleton and turkey hat were pure irony).

For take home goodies I made chocolate peanut-butter and white chocolate peppermint mockingjays.  I found the mold online on ecreater, but it is also carried at various baking shops.  I bought tiny boxes of matches and just printed little labels that say, "Every Revolution Begins With A Spark."  I found these silly bright mustache magnets at target.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Wilton had this adorable Turkey Cupcake Kit so I whipped up some Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.  An easy and fun treat for Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix up all ingredients until smooth, beating for about 2 minutes.  Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

2 (8oz) packages of cream cheese softened
1 stick of butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powered sugar

Soften butter and cream cheese and beat together until smooth.  Add vanilla.  Mix in 2 cups powered sugar.  Add additional cup until desired consistency.

Blueberry Lemon Cobbler

I had a bunch of frozen blueberries and was starting to make cobbler with them when I decided to throw some lemon in there.  Delish!

Basic Cobbler recipe:

1/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cup flour
1 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place butter in a 9x13 pan and place in preheating oven to melt.  Remove from oven when melted.  Meanwhile mix together dry ingredients, and then add wet.  Pour/spread over melted butter.  Drop fruit on top.  Bake for 45-55 minutes until edges are browned.  Serve warm with icecream or whipped cream.

Fruits that are delish...cherries, peaches, peaches and raspberries, blueberries, mixed frozen berries, strawberries.

To make the cobbler crust lemon....

Zest one large lemon into flour mixture.  Use the juice from the large lemon and our into 1 cup (should be about 1/4 cup juice).  Fill the rest of cup with milk to equal 1 cup liquid.  Mix as per instructions above.

Pioneer Strawberry Shortcake

For Pioneer Day I decided to make some simple strawberry shortcake.  It is an easy summer dessert.

Shortcake:

2 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbsp sugar

1 stick butter, chilled

3/4 cup milk

 

Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl.  Cut in the butter by cutting it into Tbsp sized pieces, and use a fork, pastry cutter, a food processer, or your fingers to mix butter with flour until it is a coarse meal.  Add milk and stir until just mixed in, don't over mix.  Form into 6-8 patties and bake on a greased cookie sheet for 10 minutes (until lightly browned) at 425 degrees.  When cooled slice in half.

 

Strawberries and cream:

 

1 pint strawberries, sliced

3-4 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

 

Sprinkle sugar over strawberries, and stir with vanilla.  Allow to sit for awhile before eating.  Strawberries will get nice and juicy.

 

Heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

 

Whip cream and powdered sugar until it is at whipped cream consistency.

 

 

Apple Pie Burritos

We mixed up some recipes and ideas we had heard of and went for it with this dessert. Our main inspiration was the cheesecake burrito by Dishing with Leslie. We were making fajitas so we wanted a dessert along the same lines...

Tortillas, warmed up
melted butter for skillet
cinnamon-sugar to roll burritos in

Apple filling:
5 apples, peeled and sliced
1/2 stick butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp sugar

Cheesecake Filling:
16 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix up Apple filling in a small pot on the stove over low-medium heat for 10+ minutes.

Stir up Cheesecake filling.
Heat up tortillas to make them easier to roll.
Spread a layer of cheesecake filling on tortilla, and then spread apples on top.  Roll into a burrito with ends tucked in.

Heat up skillet and grease with melted butter.  Place 2-3 burritos and "grill" on each side. Coat in cinnamon-sugar mix after toasted.

Ding Dong Cake.

My roommate Melissa loves Ding-dongs so when I saw this recipe on Pinterest I knew I had to make it for her birthday.  I adjusted the cream filling a bit to make it sweeter and changed the frosting to an easy chocolate ganache because ganache is just delightful.

This filling can be used for any of those Hostess treats (ie. Cupcakes, Suzy Q's, Twinkies, ding dongs, cake rolls, etc).  Warning:  Nothing about this filling/cake is good for you. You have been warned. Also read all the way through before making to see some options.

"Hostess" cream filling

1 cup milk

4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup butter, softened 
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup powdered sugar  (as needed)

 

Stir together milk and flour on medium heat in a heavy bottom saucepan until thick.  Set aside to cool.  Beat in a mixing bowl, butter and shortening for 4 minutes.  Add sugar and vanilla and beat an additional 4 minutes.  Beat in milk/flour mixture for another 4 minutes.  Taste, and if you desire a bit more sweetness add powdered sugar.

 

I made a devils food cake in 2 round pans. Layered the cream on top of one cake and topped with the other.  For the ganache heat up 1 cup heavy whipping cream in a sauce pan with 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips.  Stir until smooth and set aside to cool. 

 

 

What I should/could have done:  Left the layered cake on a cooling rack over a rimmed baking sheet and poured cooled ganache over entire cooled cake and let set, to make a smooth coating.

 

What I did:  Cooled the ganache in the refrigerator until thickened and  then frosted the cake.  This still tastes awesome and looks cool but doesn't look like a ding-dong with a smooth coating due to the cream oozing out the side and mixing with the ganache.  It still tasted awesome though.

 

 

 

United Cakes of America: Georgia

Georgia's Coca-Cola Cake
(apprently Coke was first born in Atlanta!)


2 cups flour
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup mini marshmallows (+extra for decoration on cake)
1 cup Coca-cola
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs

Chocolate frosting of choice.

Beat butter and sugar for 3-5 minutes until fluffy.  Beat in eggs, 1 at a time until incorporated.  In one separate bowl mix coca-cola and milk, in another mix flour, cocoa, salt, mini marshmallows.  Alternating wet and dry ingredients into butter mixture until all incorporated together. Pour into 2 greased 9in round plans or a 9x13 pan (DO NOT use as cupcakes, doesn't work well at all due to marshmallows being so sticky).  Bake at 335 degrees for 25-35 minutes until cake springs back when touched.  Cool for 20 minutes and frost with desired chocolate frosting.  Top with more marshmallows.

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

My first stop during the United Cakes of America tour is the St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake that is representing Missouri.

I chose this cake first because it was my friend Sarah's birthday and she is from St. Louis.  She loved it and I did too, although it is very rich.

I had to tweak a bit due to missing some ingredients and while the book says this recipe is for 1 12 inch cake round or 18 cup cakes I had it overflowing a 9x13 pan, thus also had to adjust the cooking time.

Here is my adapted version.  The book is awesome and I suggest you check it out.



Bottom layer:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 sticks butter (12 Tbsp), softened
2 cups white sugar ( I used the superfine as suggested and it gave the cake a nice texture)
3 eggs

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowel. Whisk together milks and vanilla in a separate bowl.

In a large bowl cream together butter and sugar, for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, until incorporated.  Alternate mixing in flour mixture and milk mixture until all ingredients incorporated together.

Grease a 9x13 pan and pour bottom layer in place.  Preheat oven to 335 degrees.

Top layer:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1 oz butter, 1 oz unsweetened chocolate-melted together

Beat the cream cheese until smooth.  Add eggs, vanilla, milk, and powdered sugar and mix together.  Add melted chocolate mixture (okay is final mixture is lumpy) and pour over bottom layer in 9x13 pan. Bake for 45 minutes until browned edges.  Allow to cool 20 minutes for chocolate "gooey" layer to set.

Apple Cinnamon Bread.

This recipe was adapted from Apple Bread on allrecipes.com

3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs
1/2 cup veg. oil
1/2 cup applesauce (I used cinnamon applesauce because that is what I had on hand)

3 cups apples, peeled, and cut into small cubes (I used pink lady apples because that is what I had on hand)
1 cup cinnamon chips (optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees and spray grease 2 bread loaf pans.
2.  In a small bowl blend eggs, oil, and applesauce.
3.  In a large bowel stir together dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
4.  Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well.
5.  Add apples and cinnamon chips.
6.  Seperate into 2 loaf pans and bake for 60 minutes (glass pan took 60 mins. Metal took 65 minutes, just keep an eye on it).

Quick Caramel Popcorn

2 qts popped popcorn (1/4 cup unpopped)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup karo syrup
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda

1.  Pop popcorn and pour into a large brown paper bag.
2.  Place butter, brown sugar, karo, and salt in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave 2-3 minutes, stop when bubbly.
3.  Pour over popcorn in bag, roll top of bag down and microwave for 1 minute and 20 seconds. 
4.  Remove from microwave and shake bag well.
5.  Pour onto wax paper or a wax-paper lined baking sheet to cool.

Sprinkle with salt and mixed with cashews if desired.  You could also drizzle it with melted chocolate for variation.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

August 8th was leave a Zucchini on your neighbors porch day, so tis the season to make treats a bit healthier by sneaking Zucchini into them.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake:

2 cups finely shredded Zucchini (2 small or 1 large zucchini)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate ganache

1.  Mix applesauce, sugar, and vanilla.
2.  In a separate bowl mix flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. put through sifter as pouring into sugar mixture. 
3.  Stir together until well incorporated. 
4.  Add Zucchini, folding in until well incorporated.
5.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan.  Spread mixture evenly in pan and bake for 25 minutes.
6.  Cool and make ganache.
7.  Pour over cake and serve.

Chocolate Ganache:

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 oz heavy cream

Melt chocolate and cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over low heat, stirring continually until chocolate is fully melted and mixed with the cream. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Cast Iron Peach and Raspberry Cobbler

I love cooking with my Cast Iron skillet, but don't do it nearly enough. I also love using  fruit in season when it is cheap and super tasty.  When I saw this recipe on the Lazy Homesteader I decided to give it a go.  It was great, here is my variation:

Peaches, Raspberries

6 Tbsp butter
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup buttermilk

Peel and slice 2-3 large peaches, wash raspberries (I used about 2 cups of sliced peaches and 1/2 cup raspberries, but this is open for options depending on the type of fruit and how much you like in your cobbler).

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Slice up 6 Tbsp butter and place in bottom of the pan. Set in preheating oven to melt.

Sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Create a well in the center and pour in milks.  Stir until mixed all together. 

Remove hot skillet from oven when butter has melted and pour batter on top of melted butter.  Spread around slightly to fill to edges but this isn't percise and it's okay if butter come up a bit over the top of batter (as the Lazy Homesteader mentions, this is a LAZY cobbler, which means easy and not precise).

Place fruit evenly on top of batter.  Return to oven and bake for 1 hour.  Serve warm with vanilla icecream.