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Leprechaun Blossom Cookies

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Leprechaun Blossom Cookies

I turned one of my favorite shortbread cookies into a St. Patrick’s Day green cookie. By adding a bit of mint flavor, green food color, and seasonal sprinkles, these simple little cookies become Leprechaun Blossoms!

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  • 1/2 c. butter – room temp.
  • 1/2 c. powdered sugar
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 1/2 t. mint extract
  • 1 1/4 c. flour
  • 1 T. milk
  • green food color

Filling:

  • 1/4 c. heavy cream
  • 1/2 c. chocolate chips
  • green sprinkles

Make it:

  1. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar until combined and fluffy.
  2. Add vanilla, mint, and green color (a few drops to make a nice green color).
  3. On low, mix in flour.  Dough will be very dry and crumbly.
  4. Add milk (may need a bit more) just until dough comes together. Don’t make the dough sticky, just moist enough to roll into balls
  5. Form dough into 1″ balls and chill for 30 minutes
  6. Preheat oven to 350° while dough chills.
  7. Bake for 12 minutes until set and just barely brown
  8. Remove from oven and immediately, using the end of a wooden spoon or teaspoon measuring spoon, press a divot into each cookie.
  9. Move to a cooling rack and completely cool

While cookies are baking prepare ganache filling:

  1. In a microwave safe bowl, bring cream to a simmer in microwave (about 45 seconds)
  2. Remove from microwave and stir in chocolate chips.  keep mixing until combined and glossy.
  3. Allow ganache to cool, but still pourable, as cookies bake and cool
  4. Once cookies are completely cool, fill indents with chocolate.
  5. Top with sprinkles if desired.

You could fill cookies with your favorite buttercream or even some store bought frosting!

Halloween Bucket Cookies

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I stumbled on this recipe in an Instagram story and thought it looked fabulous!  After reading the reviews, I KNEW we had to give it a try.  We certainly had plenty of candy still sitting around from Halloween and it was the perfect opportunity to use it up.  Nolan deemed this a HUGE success and a must do next year, too.  It was PERFECT for little helpers in the kitchen.  Candy wrappers to open, eggs to crack, hand mixer to run, and of course using the cookie scoop to plop down dough.

These are delicious cookies with a slightly crisp snap and the bits of different candies in each bite are AMAZING!  We used a crazy combination of M&Ms, Baby Ruth, Reese’s Take 5 (salty pretzel!! YUM), Classic Reese’s, and Milky Way.  Plus, I chopped up a handful of roasted peanuts when measuring out the 2 cups.

Ingredients:

  • 2 c. PLUS 2 Tbsp. Flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 c. packed light brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 sticks (12 Tbsp.) butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 WHOLE egg
  • 1 egg YOLK
  • 2 c. chopped leftover Halloween candy (Reese’s, M&M, Butterfingers, Snickers, Baby Ruth, Hershey’s, etc.)

Make them:

  1. Preheat the oven to 325° F.
  2. Melt butter and set aside to cool
  3. Chop the 2 cups of candy bars into small pieces (I also added a hand full of chopped peanuts while measuring)
  4. Line cookie sheets parchment paper or use a silicone baking mat
  5. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt
  6. In a separate bowl, combine the light brown sugar, butter, granulated sugar, vanilla, whole egg and egg yolk and blend until smooth
  7. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
  8. Fold in the candy pieces.
  9. Using a large cookie scoop, drop cookies on each prepared baking sheet and bake until slightly golden and puffy, 14 to 17 minutes.
  10. Let cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack.
  11. Makes appx. 30 large cookies

Recipe courtesy of FoodNetwork HERE

Streusel Coffee Cake

Chocolate Lasagna

Never use a Box Again Brownies

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One of my all time favorite sweet treats is a warm fudgy brownie.  Most of us keep a brownie mix or 2 in our pantry to cure those pesky chocolate cravings!  Put that box down and give these AMAZING homemade brownies a try.  They take no more work than a box mix and the flavor & texture from these homemade ones cannot be beat!

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What you need:

2 c. Sugar
1 c. Canola or Vegetable Oil
4 Eggs
1 Tbsp. Vanilla
1 c. Flour
2/3  c. Cocoa Powder
1/2 t. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Salt
1 c. Chopped Nuts (optional)
1 c. Chocolate Chips or Chunks (optional)

Make them:

Beat together oil and eggs well.  Mix in sugar & vanilla.  Sift flour, cocoa, salt & baking powder into wet ingredients.  Add nuts & chips if desired.  Mix JUST until combined.  Do not over mix or you will lose the fudgy consistency once these bake.  This is a thick batter.

Pour batter into a greased 9×13 pan (I prefer a glass dish).  Bake in a preheated 350º oven for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out JUST barely clean – a tiny bit still stuck is OKAY!  Do not over bake!

Top with powdered sugar or your favorite frosting.  Even better, serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup!

Deviled Strawberries

Streusel Coffee Cake

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag

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Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag

Pin It HERE

With record setting heat hitting us the next few days, I thought why not give Ice Cream in a Bag a whirl!  Who doesn’t love rich, creamy, fresh churned ice cream?

With a few kids on board, take advantage of the manual labor and let them beat the heat with a fun cool treat while burning some energy.  I mean, its practically EDUCATIONAL – after all it is a science experiment!!  

Turn a few every day ingredients into ice cream in a flash!  Mix, pour & shake.  That is it! Who doesn’t love something that easy!

The first batch, we did with a baggie in a larger baggie.  It worked great, but we had trouble keeping the bag sealed.  For the second experiment we put the baggie inside a Rubbermaid container and tossed, shook & danced around with the container and found much better success.

Give it a try:

  • 1/2 c. heavy cream
  • 1/2 c. milk
  • 2 T. sugar
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 1 qt. zip-top bag
  • 1 gallon zip-top bag or large Rubbermaid/plastic container
  • 3-4 c. ice
  • 1/3 c. salt (table salt is FINE!)

Now here is where the magic happens:

Wisk together the sugar, vanilla, and milk until sugar is dissolved.  Pour into the quart size bag.  Now seal the baggie up REALLY WELL.  Add the ice and salt to the gallon bag or the plastic container.  Place the quart bag inside the larger bag or container.  Seal it up TIGHT.

NOW, go crazy! Dance, shake, toss that bag/container around.  Keep it moving.  It takes about 5 minutes to firm up with a lot of good motion.  We took it outside and threw it around and everyone gave it a good shake when they caught it.  Make it a dance party or a game of hot potato!  If you shake it longer, it will get more firm.  We ended up going about 10 minutes total and got a very thick and frozen ice cream.

The first try with the double baggie method was not as easy.  The larger bag opened up several times making things wet and messy!  Not a terrible thing, but if you are using 2 baggies, consider this an outside activity!  My opinion is the quart size baggie in a Rubbermaid worked MUCH better!

Remember, if you are outside, it may take longer or you may need to add more ice.  Once the bag is firm and set, take it inside to serve up!  Give the quart bag a quick rinse under COLD water to get the salt residue off. Nip a corner off and serve it up in cups!

This makes about TWO 1/2 cup servings.  Top with sprinkles, chocolate or fruit!  It does melt quickly, and you could toss it into the freezer to firm up after shaking.  It is definitely a SOFT SERVE style, but tastes quite good!

NOTE: If you do not have heavy cream, you could use half & half or whole milk.  It will not have the same rich, smooth consistency but will taste the same and freeze just as fun!

Lemon Meltaway Cookies

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Grab a few ingredients and mix up these melt in your mouth buttery lemon cookies.  By a few I mean ONLY FOUR ingredients – lemon juice and zest count as one item, right?!  These take just a few minutes and taste like you spent hours making a gourmet bakery cookie.

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What you need:  

  • 1 c. butter (2 sticks) – room temperature
  • 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
  • 3 Tbsp. finely grated lemon zest
  • 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 2 c. flour

Make it:

Cookies:

  • Preheat oven to 400°
  • In a large bowl, add butter, 1/2 c. powdered sugar and lemon zest.  Cream together with a hand mixer
  • Add flour and mix until a soft dough forms.  This will be a slightly dry, crumbly dough.
  • Roll into 36 balls and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet
  • Flatten to about 1 1/2″ cookies.  Do not worry about spacing.  The cookies do not flatten or spread when baking
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes until JUST set and barely brown on edges.  Bottoms should remain pale
  • Remove from oven and rest on pan for 2 minutes.
  • Immediately remove from pan and place in a bowl with 1 c. powdered sugar.  Gently toss to coat and put onto a cooling rack.  Do 3 or 4 cookies at a time to avoid breaking them.

Icing:

  • Mix remaining 1 c. powdered sugar and 2 Tbsp. lemon juice to make a glaze.  Add more lemon juice if needed to make a pourable glaze.
  • Drizzle over cooled cookies creating a zig zag pattern to decorate.  Allow to set.

 

Chocolate Chip Blondies

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Chocolate Chip Blondies

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What you need:

  • 6 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 1 c. packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 1 1/4 c. flour
  • 1 t. baking powder
  • 1/4. t. salt
  • 1 c. semi sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 c. additional chips of choice (dark chocolate, white chocolate, peanut butter, butterscotch, etc!)
  • 1/2 c. chopped pecan (optional)

Make them:

  • Preheat oven to 350° F
  • Grease an 8×8 pan
  • Cream butter, sugar & vanilla until fluffy
  • Mix in eggs
  • Add remaining dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Dough is very soft and sticky.
  • Fold in chocolate chips and nuts
  • Spread into baking pan.
  • Bake for 20-25 minutes until browned on top, the bars start to crack on top and pull away from sides of pan.  DO NOT OVER BAKE! You want this to be gooey and soft inside!
  • Serve Warm.

Note for this batch, I used a combination of semi sweet, dark and salted caramel chips.  So perfectly rich and the caramel chips added a yummy extra salty punch to the bars!

More Chocolate Recipes to try:

Brownie Batter Puppy Chow

Chocolate Lasagna

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