Cherry Coke Cake

  This cake is so pretty!  My dad proclaimed it the best cake EVER.  I am not sure it’s the best EVER, but everyone loved it so much I decided to blog it for you!   🙂

{click title to print}

Ingredients

FOR THE CAKE:

• 1-½ cup Mini Marshmallows
• 2 cups Flour
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 cup Softened Butter
• 1 cup Of Cherry Coke
• 3 Tablespoons Baking Cocoa
• 2 whole Eggs
• ½ cups Milk, Plus 1 Tsp. Lemon Juice
• ½ teaspoons Real Vanilla

FOR THE FILLING/FROSTING:

• ¾ cups Softened Butter
• 1 cup Confectioners Sugar
• 7 ounces, weight Marshmallow Creme
• 2 Tablespoons Frozen Cherry Juice Concentrate, Thawed
• 21 ounces, weight Can Of Cherry Pie Filling, Divided Use
• 2 cups Fresh Cherries, Pit Removed And Chopped

FOR CAKE:
Spray 2, 9 inch rounds with baking spray and divide marshmallows between both pans.
In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar and baking soda.
On the stove top, combine butter, cola and cocoa, bringing just to a boil. Add into flour mixture and combine.
Add in eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Pour into pans, dividing evenly.
Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes in pans before turning out onto cooling racks. Cool completely.

FOR FROSTING:
Beat butter with powdered sugar until smooth. Add in marshmallow creme and juice concentrate until just blended. Stir in half the can of cherry pie filling.
Place one cake layer on serving plate, shaving cake top to make a flat surface if necessary.  Spread with 1 cup frosting, remaining pie filling {if desired} and 2 cups fresh cherries, pitted and chopped. Carefully press second cake on top. Cover sides and top with remaining cherry frosting. Garnish with additional cherries.

Enjoy!
~T

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Valentine’s Day Desserts

  Valentines Day is tomorrow, so I wanted to share a few Valentine-esque and romantic desserts for you to enjoy with someone you love, or heck, eat them by yourself!!!!   These have been blogged before, so please click on …

Hollywood Makeover: Brownie Edition

  I must have a sweet tooth this week, this is the 4th sweet/bread item I have shared. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean I made and ate them all this week! 🙂 I often am working a month or two ahead, …

Salted Caramel Deep Dish Cookie Pie

Oh my goodness! You know how I LOOOVE Caramel, but have you ever tried SALTED caramel? 

EEEK! Its AmAAAAzing!

  Stephanie from Back for Seconds Blog, is the genius behind this tasty dessert.  I love using my cast iron skillet for baking! 

  You can find more amazing at her site.  You will LOVE her easy recipes and stunning food photographs!

adapted from Back for Seconds Blog

Ingredients

FOR THE PIE:

• 1 cup Softened Butter
• 1-½ cup Brown Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Real Vanilla
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 2-½ cups Flour
• 12 ounces, weight Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 2 cups Caramel Bits
• Sea Salt

FOR THE SAUCE:

• 4 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1-½ teaspoon Real Vanilla
• ½ cups Cream

FOR GARNISH:

• Vanilla Ice Cream
• Coarse Sea Or Kosher Salt

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350*. In your electric mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla, mixing until smooth. Add the salt and soda, and gradually mix in the flour until well incorporated, stirring in chocolate chips last.

Spray 12″ cast iron skillet and press half the cookie dough into the skillet and top with the 1 cup of caramel bits. Top with remaining cookie dough, pressing to edges. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup of caramel bits on the top and press slightly into the dough.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cookie comes out clean.

While you wait, make your Caramel Sauce by combining in a saucepan over medium heat, butter, brown sugar, cream, and vanilla. Cook and stir for about 10 minutes or until the caramel thickens. Let cool about 5 minutes before using.

Serve a pie slice of your cookie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a drizzle of caramel sauce and a sprinkling of coarse salt.

  You all, this dessert is uber rich, and as I mentioned before…..

SO AMAAAZING!

~T

Lemon Custard Pie with Blueberry Sauce

  I was SOOOOO bummed yesterday, to discover my guest post stuck over in Marathon Mom’s pending blog box, with no way for me to publish it.  Which means no one got to read it, until 10:00 last night, when …

S’Mores Pie

  I have made so many S’mores recipes, it’s not even funny.  But I JUST CAN’T HELP MYSELF! 

I am a S’mores loving fool!

 Some of the recipes I have made and posted on this blog are….

No Bake S’Mores Bars
 
I Want S’More Bars

 

Gooey S’mores Cake 

And Fluffy S’mores Cake.

  Not to leave any dessert-type out, I now give you S’Mores Pie, adapted from a recipe on Weekend Potluck from Cookies & Cups!

{click title to print}

Ingredients

• 1 stick Softened Butter
• ½ cups White Sugar
• 1 cup Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 whole Egg
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 7 ounces, weight Container Of Marshmallow Creme
• 8 whole {1.55 Oz} Hershey’s Chocolate Bars
• 1 cup Marshmallows
• ¼ cups Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 350° and spray a 9″ pie pan with baking spray.
Beat butter and sugar together until combined, then add egg and vanilla.
Stir in flour, graham cracker crumbs and baking powder. Divide the dough in half. Press half the dough in the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pie pan.
Evenly spread the Marshmallow Creme over the bottom crust
Separate chocolate squares and place on top of the Marshmallow Creme.
paper. Place 1 cup of full sized marshmallows on top.
Using remaining crust, pat sections of dough on top of and around all the marshmallows. {they will still show through and that is GREAT!}
Sprinkle with 1/4 cup chocolate chips, then bake 20 minutes until lightly browned.
Cool COMPLETELY before cutting, or you will have a gooey mess that looks nothing like a piece of pie.

Not that I would know……

   Okay, okay, maybe I DO know. 

Either way, enjoy your gooey treat!

~T

Post 2: Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

GUESS WHAT!? I forgot to tell you something exciting in the last post. {yes, there is 2 today}

Tomorrow is Destiny’s LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!  YAY! 

  I am so ready to have all my little people home with me all day long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

I know, I know, not everyone agrees that having kids home from school is worthy of that many excitement marks, and that’s ok.  You just happen to be on my blog today, so you just get to hear my opinions right now!

  I love summer break, and I so look forward to playing outside until dark, going places all as a family and making really great memories while we are at it.

  On to the food….

  This recipe use a simple Brownie mix and comes together pretty quickly considering you are dealing with little individual bite sized desserts!  I needed to make some cookies for the Kids School Play last month, What’s Up Zak? {the story of Zacchaeus} and this was something I easily had all the ingredients for in my pantry.

 Think little bites of chocolate peanut buttery goodness….

And bonus, they look like you went to a lot more work than you did! 🙂

Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

{click title for easy printable}

Ingredients

• 1 box Of Your Favorite Brownie Mix Plus Ingredients Listed On Box
• 1 cup Peanut Butter Chips
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips
• ½ cups Creamy Peanut Butter

Preparation Instructions

Prepare brownie mix as instructed on box. Spray mini muffin pans well, and drop 1/2-1 tsp. in each muffin tin. Bake at 350* for 13-15 minutes. When Brownies are out of the oven, press an indention in each muffin tin with a tart shaper, or the back of a spoon.
Place peanut butter in a small microwave safe bowl and heat for about 30 seconds. Spoon 1/2 tsp. of warm peanut butter in each indention. Allow to cool a bit, then sprinkle each cup with both chocolate and peanut butter chips.
Cool then remove from pan, by running a thin, sharp knife around each cup and carefully removing.

Enjoy!

~T

Strawberry White Chocolate Lasagna

Layers of strawberries nested between creamy puddings make for a GORGEOUS “Lasagna” type dessert.

This recipe was inspired by one I saw go across facebook called Chocolate Lasagna by Center Cut Cook.

You know how I feel about Chocolate, so I decided I could do a similar dessert using various puddings and strawberries to do something similar, but with more depth.

I mentioned this recipe on my 10 on 10 post, and several of you asked if I was going to share it.  It was given 2 thumbs up by everyone that tasted it, so here it is for you to try!

Now, you should know, that I was NOT in 100% agreement that this was a 2 thumbs up dessert, so you will have to give me your review. I felt like the pudding mixtures needed to be thicker and less pudding like.

Anyhow, I have made some changes to my original chicken scratch notes and hope it will remedy this pudding-y problem.  I haven’t made this recipe again {with the changes this time} but my friend, Mary, made it this way and she said it was great!

{click for easy printable}

Ingredients

• 15 ounces, weight Package Of Oreos
• 6 Tablespoons Butter, Melted
• 1-½ package (12 Ounces Total) Of Cream Cheese, Softened
• 1-½ cup Powdered Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Cold Milk
• 12 ounces, weight Cool Whip, Divided Use
• 1 package {3.9 Oz} Chocolate Mousse Pudding Mix
• 1 package {3.9 Oz} White Chocolate Pudding Mix
• 2 cups Cold Milk, Divided
• 1 pint Fresh Strawberries, Hulled And Sliced
• 2 cups Combo Of White Chocolate And Dark Chocolate Chips {I am going to chop mine up finely next time}

Preparation Instructions

1. Begin by crushing your Oreos, by using a Ziplock and mallet or your food processor. You want them nice and fine. Dump into a large bowl.
2. Melt 6 T butter on the stove and stir into crumbs. Press firmly onto the bottom of a 9×13 Pryex dish. Refrigerate while continuing to prep recipe.
3. Mix cream cheeses until light and fluffy, add in 2 T. milk and 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar. Remove 1/3 of your mixture to a separate bowl, you will use this later.
4. With your remaining cream cheese, stir in 1 1/4 cup of your cool whip. Spread this mixture onto your Oreo crust. Layer half of your sliced strawberries over the top.
5. In a bowl, make your chocolate mousse by whipping with 1 cup of cold milk. Spread this layer onto the Strawberries and smooth to cover to the edges.
6. Sprinkle chocolate mousse layer with 1 cup of chocolate and white chocolate chips. {Finely Chopped}
7. Now mix up your white chocolate pudding, using 1 cup of cold milk. Stir in your reserved cream cheese mixture and spread over chocolate mousse carefully.
8. Layer more strawberries on top of the white chocolate layer.
9. Top with remaining cool whip, the rest of your chocolate and white chocolate chips and one large strawberry on top for pretty!
10. Refrigerate for 4 hours and serve cold.

Delicious and so pretty!

~T

Marshmallow Brownies

   Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a great weekend! 🙂 We did even though poor Avery got Pink Eye Thursday, so she missed school Friday. She says, “Mommy, I like pink.  But I DO NOT like Pink Eyes….”  We played some cards and hung out on the couch together.  {I will teach you this fun new game in a post coming up in May….}

  Saturday we played outside in the beautiful weather, FINALLY warm and sunshine!   I painted some doors Dale hinged together for me to use for a very heavy, non moving photo prop.  We also painted a rusty old cake stand with silver sparkles for Cake Smash Photo shoots.

So excited to have this new color option for photo shoots! 🙂  I had really great helpers to get the job done in no time….Destiny helped too, but for some reason I didn’t snap her photo! 😦

We also grew our family by 10 chickens and 2 ducks over the weekend.  That brings us to a grand total of 40 hens, 2 roosters and 4 ducks!  Welcome to the Funny Farm! 🙂 I will be glad when these girls start laying, because right now, we can hardly keep enough eggs on hand for the people that want to buy them!!!!!

  So on to the food, Marshmallow Brownies. MMMM!  Now, it needs to be said, that I am not much of a Chocolate fan…. 

WAIT! Before you leave this site forever, let me explain!  

I don’t like Hershey’s Bars, plain brownies, plain chocolate anything, actually.  Cover Caramel in Chocolate, make Chocolate gooey, creamy or Toffee filled, and I AM IN!

  These chewy, soft, AMAZING Brownies made me go weak in the knees!  Homemade Brownie bottom, chewy marshmallow middle and a melt in your mouth Cocoa Buttercream Frosting.

  This recipe comes from Six Sisters Stuff, and its called Mom’s FAMOUS Brownies.  I think there is a reason these Brownies made their Mom famous. HOLY COW!

Adapted from 6 Sisters Stuff

{click title for easy printable}

BROWNIE BOTTOM

• 1 cup Soft Butter
• 2 cups Sugar
• ⅓ cups Cocoa
• 4 whole Eggs
• 1-½ cup Flour
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla
• 6 cups Mini Marshmallows

COCOA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

• ½ cups Softened Margarine
• ¼ cups Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 3 Tablespoons Cocoa
• 2 cups (up To 3 Cups) Powdered Sugar

Beat butter with 2 cups sugar and cocoa. Add 4 eggs, one at a time. Add flour, salt and vanilla.

Spread batter in a large 10 x 15 greased cookie sheet. Bake 25 minutes at 350*. Remove from oven and cover entire top with 1 package of miniature marshmallows. Return to oven for 3 minutes, until soft and puffy. Cool.

Make frosting by blending all ingredients together, adding in more powdered sugar and milk until desired consistency.

Spread over cooled marshmallows. Cut and ENJOY!

Thanks to Six Sisters Stuff for a FANTASTIC recipe!!!!!!!

~T

Butter Pecan Turtle Bars

We are sure enjoying our Florida company!  Here is a teeny sneak peek of who I am so distracted by this week:

  What, you can’t see their little sweet faces?

You mean you don’t like my Birds Eye View of the twins?!?!?!  🙂  

  Tell you what, you let me go have fun with them now, and I PROMISE to share pics next week of their stay with us.  

  On to the food:  these Butter Pecan Turtle Bars are as amazing and RICH as they sound.  Easy to make, too!

{click title for easy printable}

Ingredients

• FOR THE CRUST:
• * * * * * *
• 2 cups Flour
• 1 cup Brown Sugar, Packed
• ½ cups Butter, Softened
• 1 cup Pecan Pieces
• FOR THE CARAMEL LAYER:
• * * * * * *
• ⅔ cups Butter
• ½ cups Brown Sugar, Packed
• 1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips

Mix flour, sugar and butter until combined. Pat into a 9×13 pan evenly. Sprinkle with 1 cup pecan pieces. DO NOT BAKE. Set aside.
In a 1 qt. saucepan, combine butter and sugar, stirring until combined. When entire surface boils, time 30-60 seconds, stirring constantly. Pour over unbaked pecan crust.
Bake at 350* for 18-22 minutes, or until caramel is bubbly all over, and crust is slightly browned.
Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over the caramel layer, spread carefully as they melt. Allow to cool before cutting and serving.

Happy Baking!

~T