Saturday Sweetness + Random.

I made these cookies a couple weeks ago. Of course I got the recipe from Pinterest. I just can't get enough Pinterest or Foodgawker. A pregnant lady like myself {if you missed that post click here} should not be looking at food on Pinterest or Foodgawker, everything looks so good and makes me super hungry.  That's just like watching the Food Network. I love Diners, Drive-in, &  Dives, everything looks amazingly good.

Ok so back to the cookies. This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. By far the best I have ever tried baking. They are SO soft. You will have a hard time not eating them all.

The pictures really do not do justice. These taste just as good when they are a couple days old. In fact I just made some the other day and we only have a like 4 or 5 left.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened 

3/4 cup brown sugar 

1/4 cup granulated sugar 

1 egg 

2 tsp. vanilla extract 

2 cup all purpose flour 

2 tsp. cornstarch 

1 tsp. baking soda 

1/2 tsp. salt 

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips {I used a bag of the chocolate chunks}

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.

3.  Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.

4.  Drop dough onto a prepared baking sheet {I just used a regular old tablespoon} Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. The tops will not brown, but do NOT cook longer than ten minutes {When it says do not cook longer than 8-10 minutes DO NOT cook any longer. I had to throw out a few because I had to tend to my crazies and they got a little brown....not good}

5.  Let cool, on the sheet, on a wire rack for five minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely

Recipe courtesy of Kelsey @ Apple a Day

Ok time for some Random Notes.

I finally picked up my first couple Christmas presents this last week and a couple more today. Feels good to get a couple things scratched off the list.  We {Ryan and I} usually go shopping on Black Friday and I am sure we will this year too but some of the stores are opening at 10pm on Thanksgiving and Midnight....that is just crazy! I can assure you we will not be out at that time.  

Next Wednesday is Pie Day. It's a tradition my Best Friend's Mother started a few years ago.....Click here for the first post about Pie Day. A bunch of us get together the day before Thanksgiving and bake pies for Thanksgiving. Cynthia and her mom usually bake some extra and drop them off at a Loaves and Fishes. And Joe {Cynthia's BF} will be there again this year....YAY Joe, he will be in charge of the crazies so I can get some baking done.  There will be a post about this years Pie Day for sure;) For last years Pie Day click here.

This is what I am tackling today. I have mail and shit piled everywhere. I sit down for a couple minutes and don't know where to start so I just get up and walk away. I also walk away because Easton's little nosey ass is always trying to climb up and touch everything. In fact as I am typing this he is on the chair with me screwing with the damn printer. But today I have to clear it off. We get so much junk mail, more than half of this crap is going straight to shred box.

Ok off to eat, shower, and clean this desk. 

I want to thank everyone for all the well wishes and kind words about Baby Mink #3.....so very sweet of you all.

Oh and go make those cookies, you won't be disappointed!

Saturday Sweetness.

These are the easiest peanut butter cookies you will ever make, heck they are probably the easiest cookie you will ever make. And they are so good!

 I like to line my baking sheets with parchment paper. It makes for an easy clean up and you don't have to worry about greasing.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 egg

Mix all ingredients together. Form 1" inch balls and arrange on baking sheet. I like to flattened mine out with a fork to make the little criss cross design {or whatever it's called}. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly brown, about 10-12 minutes.
I have had this recipe forever and the recipe says it can make 30 cookies but I can usually only get about 20.
I hope you get a chance to try out this recipe and hope everyone has a great weekend!

Saturday Sweetness.

This recipe I posted last year when I first started this blog and thought I would share it again since it's one of our favorites. My Grandma makes this only once a year around the holidays. On New Years Day her and my Grandma have the family over to celebrate the New Year and EAT. My family loves to eat {Italians....what can I say?!}.

My Grandma makes some salads....pasta, potato, and a bean salad. She has meat and cheese trays to make your own little deli roll sandwiches. My Aunt usually makes the lil smokies in the crockpot and of course we have the usually chips and dip. It's a huge feast and everyone always looks forward to it. We just hang out all day eat and watch college football {Grandma is obsessed with college football}.
A few years ago I made this cake for the first time and now I have the recipe so every once in awhile Ryan puts in a request for it. It's really easy and hecka good!

Better Than Sex Cake

Ingredients:

1 box of german chocolate cake mix

14 oz. can Eagle sweetened condensed milk

14 oz. bag Kraft caramels (these are hard to find. This year I used an 11 oz. bag of melting caramels and they worked just fine. Anywhere between 10-14 oz of caramels should work fine)

3/4 cup butter
1 cup walnuts
12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350

I line the cake pan with parchment paper, make it a little easier to get out. Make cake mix according to directions on box and pour half into cake pan.

Let cake cool.

As cake is cooling make caramel sauce.

Pour caramel sauce over cake. 

 Then add walnuts.

Then add chocolate chips. 

Then add the other half of cake batter. As you can tell I misjudged the first half that was poured on the bottom and didn't have enough to cover the top.....oh well it tasted just as good.  And bake for another 20 minutes or so.

 Of course we had to have a piece fresh out of the oven so it was nice and gooey.

 Cut into squares after it has cooled.

YUM!!!!

Directions:

Make cake mix according to directions on box.
Line 9x13 pan with parchment paper. It doesn't have to be perfect. Usually one long piece will work, just makes it easier to remove when all done cooking.
Pour half cake batter into pan and bake at 350.
Melt caramel w/milk and butter.
After cake cools pour caramel mixture on top of cake then add the nuts and chocolate chips then pour remaining cake batter on top, bake for about 20 minutes.

Cut into small or large squares to serve.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Vacation for us starts today probably around 4:00 or so when Ryan gets home from work....WHOOOOHOOOO. I love having him home on vacation. He is always so rested and much happier;) plus this time we are getting away and have lots of other stuff planned for the week as well. We will be busy busy all week long but it's all good.

Saturday Sweetness.

I have seen several recipes for Monkey Bread and always wanted to try it. One day I was at the grocery store and saw this recipe on the back of a Pillsbury biscuit package and thought I would give it try. It seemed easy enough and we had all the ingredients already at home.
The night I gave it a try we were having a fairly easy dinner {can't remember what it was but I made the bread as dinner was cooking so it must have been something easy}.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

4 cans(7.5 oz each) Pillsbury refrigerated biscuits

1/2 cup butter or margarine melted

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. GREASE or SPRAY 12-cup bundt cake pan.

2. MIX granulated sugar and Cinnamon in 1 gallon bag. Cut each biscuit into quarters. Shake quarters in bag to coat; place in pan. Mix butter and brown sugar;pour over biscuit pieces

3. BAKE at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Cool  minutes. Turn upside down. SERVE WARM

Don't you just love the 50 year old angel food cake pan?! I used to have a bundt cake pan but it ended up the donation pile a couple years because I just never used {we are limited on cabinet space}. Now just within the last year I have went to go look for it several times forgetting I tossed it. The angel food cake pan is my Grandma's.

And yes folks that is a paper plate, I don't need anymore dirty dishes.

The only part that took awhile was cutting the biscuits into quarters and tossing in the cinnamon and sugar mixture. And this was the night Easton took off his poopy diaper and started playing with it {he was poking a toy screw in it} Anyway so it was bath time right before dinner that night.
It turned out pretty good and even Ryan liked it. We both thought a little icing would have perfect drizzled on the top. So next time I think I am going to make some icing to go with it.

What's your version of Monkey Bread? I would love to try another recipe. 

Saturday Sweetness + Random Notes.

I love when I see super yummy pictures of food, especially sweet food. For example like these pictures.......

Ok....I should have uploaded the picture I took the next day after it was in the freezer for a whole day, it wasn't quite rock solid and kinda fell apart but still hecka good.

This is one of the many reason's I love blogs. I saw this recipe over at {So Wonderful, So Marvelous}.....one of my most favorite blogs. I knew I just had to try it out. For the recipe check out.....Ice Cream Sandwich Cakes Three Ways.

Random Notes

I won my first giveaway from Bubby & Bean. This just made my day! I was so excited this morning when I found out, you'll have to wait a few days to find out more....hehehe.

Ok.....so yesterday morning I am at the gym on the treadmill and my gosh damn phone dies. Ryan and I both have Blackberries {biggest piece of crap phones ever} and for the last month or so they just shut off randomly. They can be fully charged and you won't even be able to complete a 2 minute phone call without it shutting off.  You can try to email, get on the Internet, or try and Facebook it and the stupid thing shuts off. The reason I was so annoyed is because I leave my two boys with my 75 year old Grandmother for an hour while I work out and the whole time I was there I was worrying about them and if she needed me for anything, of course they were fine but what if something happened and she needed me?! She is in good health and can obviously handle them for a short period or I wouldn't leave them with her.

The good news is we can upgrade in one week......WHOOOOHOOOO!!!!! We so can't wait to get rid of those phones, looks like the boys will be getting some new toys;)


Within the next few days Diaper Cake Dazzle will be getting a little makeover. Going to freshen up the shop and give it a new look.....thanks to Sara at Sara Rubendall Design Studio.

AND POTTY TRAINING TOTALLY SUCKS! It's still going and we are still in the training mode. He does good for a few days then everything goes down hill for a day then back to doing good then bad. And going #2.....well that's going to take more work. He was doing good with that also for awhile.....OH THE JOYS OF PARENTHOOD!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Does anyone have any HOT plans?!
I have a diaper cake order to finish up then on Sunday we have a 1st birthday party to attend.......Oh and I am hoping to get out to the driving range to hit some golf balls {practice makes perfect....right?}.