Slow Cooker Pudding Cake

I had a busy day on Saturday. I'm talking, leave the house at 8:30 and don't get home until late at night busy. One of my engagements was a BBQ at a friend's house where I volunteered to bring dessert. On Saturday morning it hit me that I wasn't going to be home to make anything....that's where my trusty slow cooker came in! This recipe is out of my Official Crock Pot Cookbook. The only reason I chose it was because I happened to have all the ingredients. It was HUGE hit at the BBQ. People I didn't know where asking me for the recipe. And what could be easier than cake in a crock pot?!

Slow Cooker Pudding Cake
Ingredients:
6 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 Cup Flour
1/8 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1 1/3 Cup sugar
1 Cup (2 sticks) melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 Cup whipping cream
Vanilla ice cream for serving

Directions:
Coat your slow cooker with cooking spray and preheat to LOW.
Blend cocoa, flour, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
Beat eggs with an electric mixer on medium-high until thickened. Graudually add sugar, beat 5 minutes until mixture becomes very thick and pale yellow.
Mix in butter and vanilla. Once incorporated, add the cocoa mixture and blend well. Add cream. and mix until blended.
Pour in crock pot and cover opening with a paper towel to catch the condensation (unless you like soggy cake). Put lid on and cook on LOW for 3 to 4 hours. Serve warm with ice cream.

Brownie Cookies with Chocolate Mousse Frosting

I just made this recipe up because I needed some cookies in a hurry. Yes. Made it up. Just now.

I confess, I am a little proud of myself and will lightly toot my own horn now: toot, toot! These are super fast to make and taste, well, pretty awesome if I do say so myself. And the frosting is really fluffy and delicious!

Okay, without further ado, the moment you've been waiting for! I give you: the recipe. Enjoy them (I certainly did)!

Ingredients

Brownie Cookies

1 pkg Devils Food Cake Mix (preferably with pudding in the mix)

2 eggs

1/4 cup veggie or canola oil

Chocolate Mousse Frosting

1 small package of instant chocolate pudding

1 cup milk (I used skim, but you could use 1% or 2%, I'm sure)

 1 container of Cool-Whip (approx. 1.5 - 2 cups)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix cake mix, eggs and oil together until it has moistened and formed a thick dough.
3. Using a scoop, measure out cookies.
4. Put cookies in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Don't let them over-bake! I pulled them out at 10 minutes.
5. While cookies bake, make frosting.
6. Empty pudding mix into a bowl and add milk. Beat together for 2 minutes until thickened.
7. Gently fold Cool Whip into pudding mixture. Frosting will be light and fluffy.
8. If cookies are rounded when they come out of the oven, use the bottom of a glass to lightly flatten them while they are still warm. Don't use too much pressure or they will harden as they cool.
9. After cookies are baked and cooled, frost each with a dollop of chocolate mousse frosting. Yum!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Okay, I know everyone has a recipe for chocolate chip cookies and I know a lot of people can make them by scratch but this recipe is REALLY good. Don't believe me? Every single time I make these cookies at least one person asks me for the recipe. Seriously! People say, "I've never had such a good chocolate chip cookie!" I got this out of ward cookbook. Beware, it makes a TON! I usually do make the whole recipe and freeze half the dough. Half this recipe yields about 2 dozen cookies, a full recipe 4-5 dozen depending on how big your cookies are.

Ingredients:

1 lb. butter (no substitutes!!!)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups brown sugar

4 tbsp. vanilla

3 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp baking soda

6 cups flour

4 c. chocolate chips

Cream the butter and sugars, add vanilla, eggs and soda. Gradually add flour in and blend well. Fold in chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes.

Candy Bar Fudge

Before you say it, yes, I have noticed a trend in my posts up 'til now: lots of desserts. I promise I will post some more substantial, and healthy, recipes later (I swear we don't just eat candy at our house), but I just had to share this super easy and YUMMY gem. I found the original recipe on a can of Pillsbury frosting, tweaked it a bit, and discovered that making fudge can be really easy... and very delicious!

Ingredients:

1 (12oz) package of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 (16 oz) can of milk chocolate frosting (NOT the whipped variety)

approx. 4 roughly chopped Snickers bars (or a "bunch" of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, again roughly chopped)

Directions:

1. Line an 8x8 pan with foil, extending the foil over the sides of the pan.

2. Spray foil very lightly with no-stick cooking spray.

3. In a medium sauce pan, melt the chocolate chips over low heat, stirring constantly. Resist the urge turn the heat up; scorched chocolate doesn't suit this recipe well...

4. When chocolate chips are melted, remove from heat and immediately stir in frosting and chopped candy (if you want, reserve a couple of tablespoons of the candy bits to sprinkle on top of the fudge).

5. Working quickly, spread mixture into the foil-lined pa, spreading it evenly.

6. If you reserved some of the candy pieces, sprinkle those on top of the fudge.

7. Allow fudge to set for at least an hour before using the foil to remove it from the pan.

8. Slice fudge into squares and enjoy!

Cookie Dough Stuffed Cupcakes

I found a recipe for these on allrecipes.com, but that recipe used genuine cookie dough for the stuffing of the cupcakes. Since the dough is supposed to remain, well, dough in a cookie dough stuffed cupcake, I decided to make a variation using the Eggless Cookie Dough recipe I posted earlier this week.

These are pretty easy to make, but you have to follow a couple of "rules." First, you need to make little (approx. 1/2") dough balls, using a small scoop or your hands. These MUST be frozen! If they are not frozen when you put them in the cupcake batter, they will bake and come out dry and y.u.c.k.y.!

Secondly, don't over bake these. Don't use a toothpick to test "doneness" of these bitty cakes, since the inside of the cupcake is cookie dough and should remain doughy. Instead, look at the edge of the cupcake to see if it's set. I would recommend baking for 16-18 minutes. If you over bake these, you will get the aforementioned dry, "y.u.c.k.y." center.

Ingredients:
-1 cake mix ( I used chocolate, but I think yellow would also be delicious - I'm sure you could make cake batter from scratch, I was just feeling lazy ^_^)
-Ingredients needed for cake mix prep (usually water, oil, and eggs, in some combination)

-Frozen dough balls from Eggless Cookie Dough recipe (I've found using mini chocolate chips in the dough works best for this recipe), one for each cupcake
-Frosting

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Prepare cake mix per box instructions.
3. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.
4. Scoop/pour about 1 tablespoon batter into each cupcake liner.
5. Place one frozen cookie dough ball into each cupcake liner, on top of the cake batter.
6. Cover each cookie dough ball with approximately one more tablespoon of batter. You may need to use a spoon to make sure cookie dough balls are covered.
7. Bake cupcakes for 16-18 minutes. Remember, don't over bake!
8. Let cupcakes cool. Frost and enjoy!

Monsterly Good Cookies

My mom's neighbor made these babies for our going away party before we moved to California, and I have been in LOVE ever since. With the cookies-not the neighbor, although I am eternally grateful for her for sharing. These are chewy, chocolaty, peanut-buttery, with a hint of warm spice. I made the mistake of sending a bag full with my husband to the Range, and now the Soldiers are requesting them every week. (Support our troops, right?) I don't mind because I just triple the recipe. They freeze really well.

3 eggs
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tea. salt
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tea. vanilla extract
1 12 oz jar of peanut butter
1 stick softened butter
1 cup semi-sweet choc. chips
1/4 cup craisins or raisins*
2 tea. baking soda
1 tea. pumpkin spice
4 1/2 cups of quick oats (if you don't have quick oats you can just blend regular oatmeal in your food processor or blender. I usually use 2 1/2 cups of blended oats and 2 cups of unblended for more texture)
That's right there is NO flour in these

Combine eggs and sugars and mix well. Add salt vanilla, peanut butter, and butter. Mix well. Stir in chocolate, craisins, baking soda and oatmeal. Drop by tablespoon onto greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes @ 350. Don't overbake! Let stand for 3 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.

*I don't usually put either of these in. This recipe is fun because you can experiment with different additives. For example KRAFT makes caramel bites, they are little round caramel balls(which are a good alternative for the caramel candies that you have to unwrap individually) but I threw some of them in my last batch for some caramel goodness. They were yummy. And this week I'm going to use shredded coconut instead. Yay! I can't wait.

Eggless Cookie Dough

Let's be honest with ourselves: when we decide to make cookies, a big motivator is getting to eat the cookie dough. Come now, you know it's true.

My dilemma: I try to be sneaky when... er... sneaking some doughy goodness, but sometimes my two-year-old catches me red handed. I don't want to give her any because of the raw eggs, but I feel horrible depriving her of such tasty goodness while I chow down (sneakily, of course).

The compromise: eggless cookie dough. Now mind you, this dough is NOT to be baked. The result of baking this concoction will be the furthest thing from cookies. Let me repeat: this recipe will not yield actual cookies!

What this recipe does produce is cookie dough that is good (and safe) enough to eat! It's great plain, frozen in balls, frozen and mixed into ice cream... and best of all I don't have to feel guilty about sharing with my toddler!


Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp water
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (mini chips are my favorite, but regular sized chips work, too)

Directions:
1. Cream butter, vanilla, sugar, and water together until uniform in texture.
2. Mix flour and salt together in a small, separate bowl.
3. Using a hand or stand mixer, gradually add flour mixture to butter and sugar mixture.
4. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Eat right away or use a small scoop to make little balls of dough to freeze and eat later. Yum!

Scotcheroos

Okay. I have made it no secret: I love desserts. I have a chronic sweet tooth... and even a pound of these babies would leave me wanting more!

This recipe is one I remember my mom* making for church activities, family gatherings, and if we were lucky, just as a special treat. The combination of creamy chocolate, smooth butterscotch, and crispy rice cereal treats with a hint of peanut butter is, to understate it, heaven! This recipe serves about 24 people... if you are feeling generous!

So, get out the fat pants... it's time for scotcheroos!




Ingredients:

6 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup corn syrup (I use Karo brand corn syrup)
1 cup sugar
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
12 oz butterscotch chips

Directions:

1. In a large pot, bring sugar and corn syrup to a slow boil.
2. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, stirring until well combined.
3. Stir Rice Krispies into sugar mixture until well coated.
4. Lightly grease a 9"x11" baking dish with cooking spray.
5. Press cereal mixture into baking dish. Let cereal mixture cool.
6. In a large glass bowl, microwave chocolate and butterscotch chips, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted.
7. Pour chocolate mixture over cooled rice cereal treats.
8. When chocolate is cooled, cut into bars and serve.

*Thanks mom! This will always be one of my favorites!

Homemade Oreos

Our family situation is... unusual. I come from a rather large family of 6 kids. My husband has 10 brothers and sisters, most of whom are married and/or have kids. We both have divorced parents who are remarried bringing the total number of parents to 8. Not to mention our two little darlings and all our sweet nieces and nephews.

Add them all up and you have quite a large family. Don't get me wrong. I love having a large family, but it does make family gatherings a little tricky. I mean, finding room for that many people, let alone feeding and entertaining them, can be a daunting task!

So is it any wonder that when I was asked to make a dessert for Ben's family Christmas party last year, I was a little intimidated? Thank goodness for homemade Oreos! This recipe made more than enough for everyone. Plus, I tinted the frosting red and green with food coloring, making them extra festive!

I highly recommend using a small scoop for measuring out most cookies, but with these ones especially, it is incredibly helpful. If you use a scoop, all of your cookies will end up the same size, making them much easier to match and frost. Plus, it makes them look nice, too!



Cookies:

2 devil's food cake mixes
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil

Frosting:

1 (8 oz.) pkg cream cheese, softened to room temperature
2 Tbsp butter, softened to room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powdered sugar (to desired consistency)


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix together cake mixes, eggs, and oil.
3. Scoop dough onto cookie sheet. If not using a scoop, roll dough into 1" balls.
4. Bake for 6 to 9 minutes.
5. While cookies are baking, prepare frosting. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with electric beaters until combined and slightly fluffy.
6. Add sugar, a small amount at a time, mixing constantly until desired consistency is reached.
7. Cool cookies completely before frosting. Spread a small dollop frosting on the underside of one cooled cookie and top with another cookie (be sure not to use too much frosting or cookies will slide off of each other). A little goes a LONG way!