Rolo Cake Mix Bars

I recently took these delicious cake bars to a friend of mine who had just had surgery, they were very simple to make with few ingredients.  I found them on Pinterest and the blog they came from can be found here.  Kids love Rolo candy so this is a great treat to have them help with.  Enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 1 (18.25 oz) yellow, vanilla, or white cake mix (I used Duncan Hines), dry
• 5 oz evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 40 Rolo candies, unwrapped and cut in half

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees  and spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.

With your mixer, beat cake mix, evaporated milk and butter until combined.  Mixture will be thick and sticky.

Divide batter in half and press half of the batter onto the bottom of the 9x13 pan.

Bake until set, approximately 8-9 minutes.

Remove base from oven and place Rolo candies, caramel-side down on top.

Drop remaining batter on top of Rolos in teaspoon sized amounts.

Bake 20-24 minutes longer until top begins to golden.

Cool completely before cutting into them.

Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes

The Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes were a HIT!  

This is a quick and easy recipe you must try.

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 box Chocolate Devils Food Cake Mix

1 pkg York Peppermint Patties

Peppermint Butter cream Icing: 

2 sticks butter

Powdered Sugar

Peppermint Extract

Milk

Directions:

Make cake mix according to instructions on the box.  Fill cupcake liners about half full and then top with a York Peppermint Patty.  Now add remainder of batter on top of the Peppermint Patties. 

Bake according to cake mix instructions.  Remove from oven and let cook completely.

To make butter cream frosting combine softened butter and powdered sugar.  I start with one small box and then blend with hand mixer until it reaches desired consistency.  You can add a little milk to thin the icing if necessary or a little more powdered sugar to thicken it up more.  When you have the icing the way you want add a few drops of Peppermint extract.  Mix icing and taste, adding more extract if you want.  The icing should be minty but not overpowering.  Put icing in a large plastic zip-lock bag and cut off one corner.  Now you can easily pipe the icing onto your cooled cupcakes.  Garnish with crushed peppermint candy or maybe Andes Mints.  I also think I small candy cake placed in the top would be cute.  Make these soon - your holiday guests will surely be amazed and of course the kids (and spouse) will too!

Chocolate Chip Streusel Pumpkin Bread

My family LOVES the flavor of pumpkin!  Yesterday I baked this delicious bread - everyone loved it! 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 15 oz. can of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup applesauce 
• 1/2 cup fat-free vanilla pudding (I used one single serving container)
• 2 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup oats
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 stick butter cut into small pieces
•  Cooking spray  

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, stirring just until moist. Stir in chocolate chips.
• Spoon batter into 2 (8 x 4-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Make streusel topping by combining small chucks of the butter with brown sugar and oats (I do this with my hands) and then sprinkle evenly on top of each loaf.  Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack, and remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Enjoy for a light dessert or maybe even for a breakfast treat! 

                                                                                                                                                  

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Tonight I decided to make some BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS - I had some overly ripe bananas laying on the counter and of course my family loves muffins so I whipped them up after my little man went to bed.  Here's the recipe:

Ingredients: 

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Whisk together your dry ingredients.
2. Mix the egg,vanilla, oil, sour cream and bananas together.
3. Combine the wet and dry until they are almost mixed thoroughly, then add in the chocolate chips. Don’t over mix the batter.
4. Place into your lined or greased unlined muffin tins and bake at 375 until beautifully browned, about 10 minutes for mini’s and 20 for large.

For me this made 24 mini muffins, along with 6 regular muffins...a perfect and yummy addition to breakfast or for dessert.  YUMMY!

Chocolate Pudding Cupcake Cups

With inspiration from a blog post I had seen for little chocolate bowls I decided to give it a try.  Originally the directions were to blow up a balloon and dip the bottom part in chocolate in order to make a bowl of sorts.  We gave this a try but it didn't go so well - three balloons popped after the chocolate was on them and we had melted chocolate flying everywhere!!  What a mess!

In an effort to salvage the chocolate bowls I decided to try something else - so after I melted my chocolate we poured them into cupcake liners, making sure to get the sides really good.  You have to pour the extra chocolate back into your bowl.  They look something like this:

Place the chocolate covered cupcake liners in the refrigerator until set.  Once they are set the liner just pulls away from the chocolate shell...leaving a cute little, edible chocolate liner!  Kids think this is just too cool.  You can then use these cups for ice cream or fruit - but we used them for some homemade (from scratch) chocolate pudding.  You can find the recipe I used for that here: homemade chocolate pudding - I left out the peanut butter since my little one is allergic and it was great as just chocolate.  We finished the creation with whipped cream....they actually turned out looking like a cupcake!  ENJOY!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

These cupcakes are fantastic...my family was very happy I made them today. I found them on a great blog called The Larson Lingo  I only had a bite since I have been watching my sugar intake but I can tell you from that one bite these are a must try...very easy and impressive.  Here's what you need:

1 box devils food cake mix (any brand)

1 package ready to cook chocolate chip cookie dough (I used Nestle break apart)

Frosting of your choice - I made my own vanilla (recipe to follow) but any will do.

Prepare devils food cake per box instructions.  Fill cupcake liners a little more than half full and then add one pieces of the cookie dough to center.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes.  Let cupcakes cool completely.  

Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

1 box powdered sugar

1/ 2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup milk

1 stick of butter at room temperature

Combine frosting ingredients and mix well with mixer.  When frosting is at the desired consistency put in a large ziplock bag and clip off one corner and start frosting away.

Here's what the cupcakes look like in the middle - the cookie dough is cooked but still soft - YUM!