Sundae Cups

Melty ice cream, gooey fudge, and a warm cookie all in a nice little cup. What could be better? These cookie sundae cups are perfectly sized and easy to make. The hardest part is waiting for the cookie to cool off before adding the ice cream and fudge.

These sundae cups can be made with any type of cookie dough, ice cream, and topping combination. It would be best to use a cookie dough that doesn't melt while baking. Some good cookie types are sugar, ginger bread, molasses, and even oatmeal. I made the sundae cups with chocolate chip cookie dough and used a recipe scaled to half a batch.

Warning: Making these for your boyfriend after making him the dinner of his choosing may result in him telling everyone that you are trying to kill him. The reality is that he has no will power and will over eat.

(Chocolate chip) Cookie Sundae Cups

1 stick butter
6 T granulated sugar
6 T brown sugar (packed)
1 egg
1 t vanilla (optional)
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 1/3 C flour
1 C chocolate chips

Cream together the butter and sugars until blended. If the butter is cold, you can either soften it in a microwave at a very low power level or leave it cold and cut it into small pieces. The cold butter will mix better when cut into small pieces, but you may have to mush some pieces between your fingers if they don't mix in.

Add the egg and the vanilla. Mix until blended. Mix in the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. If the dough seems too sticky, feel free to add more flour.

Add the chocolate chips and mix them in.

Clean as many oven safe cups as you need. Once baked, the cookie will be stuck in the cup until removed piece by piece with a spoon. If you need to remove the cookie, you can try coating the inside of the cup with shortening.

Line the inside of the cups with a thin layer of cookie dough. Place the lined cups on a baking sheet and form the remaining cookie dough into balls.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. The baking time will vary, so check on them every few minutes near the end of baking. Remove from oven and let cool. The cups will remain hot for a while, so be careful!

The cookie dough completely filled the cups that I used. After cooling for about 5 minutes, I used a spoon and lightly pressed the cookie to the side of the cup. If you have patience, the cookie will do this on its own as it cools.

Add ice cream and hot fudge. Enjoy!

Notes: I used the 1-cup glass prep bowls from Pampered Chef to make the sundae cups. These are oven safe to 350 degrees.

Cheesy Potatoes

Cheesy Potatoes: potato chunks covered by a creamy cheese sauce and baked until bubbly. This is another common food that was found at most family get-togethers. I can't honestly say that I've tried the potatoes before now; if I eat a potato, I prefer it be raw. I'm just a picky eater. These potatoes are cheesy, gooey, and delicious. Most people love these potatoes and often ask for the recipe (if they don't already have it!). The cheesy potatoes are a great addition to a cook-out or a wonderful side dish for meatloaf. They are simple to make and easy to serve.

This makes a large amount of food, so unless you are planning to feed many people, you should use two casserole dishes (8in x 8in or similar size). One dish will be enough for 4 people, maybe more if you have another side dish. The extra dish of cheesy potatoes can be frozen once they are securely covered with freezer paper. Just be sure to write the contents and date made on it!

Cheesy Potatoes (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
3 cans Cream of Potato Soup
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
32 oz Frozen "Home Fries" Potatoes
8 T butter (1 stick)
8 oz cheddar cheese (shredded)

Coat the inside of the casserole dishes with a a thin covering of olive oil (or cooking spray).

Place the cubed potatoes in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the cream of potato soup and the cream of chicken soup until well blended. Add the soup mixture to the potatoes and mix until well the soup evenly covers the potatoes.

Add half of the cheese to the potato mixture (approximately 1 cup of cheese). Mix until well blended.

Divide the potato mixture between the two casserole dishes.

Evenly cut the butter into thin slices. Evenly distribute the butter slices on top of the potato mixture in the casserole dishes.

Cover the potato mixture with the remaining cheddar cheese.

Bake at 350 for one hour. Allow the cheesy potatoes to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Facts: I'll figure these out when I decide on a decent size per serving!

When making the cheesy potatoes for this post, I only had 2 cans of cream of potato soup. The store didn't have any more and I didn't feel like driving around to find one can of soup. I substituted the missing can of cream of potato soup with a can of cream of chicken soup.
The frozen potatoes can easily be replaced with cubed potatoes if you want to take the time to cube them!
The cheddar cheese can be either mild or sharp, depending on your personal preference.

Doggie Cookies: Carrot & Garlic (Beta Test)

After I created the first recipe for doggie cookies (the peanut butter and banana kind), I researched dog safe foods and created several more recipes. I never got around to testing any of them. I did run through the entire process in my mind for each recipe, which I suppose I can call the alpha testing phase. Yesterday I did a beta test for one of the recipes and... I found out that things don't go so well if you fail to follow directions. Yes, I failed to follow the directions that I created. At some point in the future, this post will be rewritten to include more/better photos and the recipe will possibly be modified (or just updated to include a method to use baby food).

The recipe that I created works fine. It made cookies that my dogs love. Unfortunately, I added far too much water at one point which caused me to add lots and lots of flour and oatmeal. The result was more of a doggie cracker than a doggie cookie. So, if you ever want to make doggie crackers instead of doggie cookies, just do what I did: double the amount of water needed then mix in a flour and oatmeal mixture until you get a dough instead of a sticky blob.

This recipe is for a carrot and garlic flavored dog cookie. Raw carrots are a healthy snack for dogs; vets even recommend them. Lucky doesn't know what to do with a raw carrot if you give him one. He will bite it in half and then leave it in the middle of the floor. Fortunately, he loves these cookies so he can still get some of the health benefits of carrots! For some extra flavor I added garlic which, in moderation, is also good for dogs.

Carrot & Garlic Doggie Cookies
1 C baby carrots
1/2 C Oatmeal
1C flour
1 clove garlic (minced) or 1/4 t garlic powder
2 C Water

Place the water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. While the water is heating up, shred approximately 5 baby carrots to make 1/4 cup of carrot shavings. Set the carrot shavings aside. Place remaining carrots into boiling water and boil for 20 minutes or until soft.

Once the carrots are fully cooked, pour the water into a glass measuring cup and place the carrots in a food processor. Mash the carrots. If you don't have a food processor, this can be done with a fork. Add the garlic to the mashed carrots and mix well.

(At this point I gave up on taking pictures! As you can see, my carrots didn't even mash very well.)

Mix the oatmeal and flour into the mashed carrots. This will create a crumbly mixture. Mix in the carrot shavings until combined. Add the warm carrot water by the tablespoon, mixing well between each addition. If you do this mixing by hand, you will be less likely to add too much water. Add water to the mixture until it reaches a dough-like consistency.

On a well floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Repeat until all the dough is used.

Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before serving to any doggies.


Notes: You can also steam the carrots (this will allow them to retain more nutrients). Alternatively, you can use baby food instead of going through the mashing process. Just be sure to include the carrot shavings.

Oatmeal Cookies

I don't remember ever eating oatmeal cookies as a kid. The name made them sound like an awful idea to me; I could never understand why someone would want to ruin cookies with oatmeal. It wasn't until a few years ago when someone requested I make oatmeal cookies that I realized oatmeal cookies are amazing. The oatmeal seems to melt right into the cookie and doesn't give it some weird texture like I always imagined it would. The cinnamon flavor of the cookie is my favorite part.

The only recipe that I've ever used to make oatmeal cookies is the one that comes on the lid of the Quaker Oats canister. I changed it slightly to suit my tastes better as I like cookies that don't look like a semi-melted mess (which is how it always turned out when I followed the recipe exactly). The original recipe calls for raisins, but I tend to put chocolate chips in instead. Neither are needed and the cookie tastes great with nothing added. You can replace the chocolate chips with nuts, craisins, or anything that would combine well with cinnamon and oatmeal.

Oatmeal Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 C unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
3 C Quaker Oats
1 C raisins (or whatever else you want to add in)

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and beat the mixture until just combined.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Add the oatmeal and stir until well combined.

Add in any raisins or chocolate chips and stir until they seem evenly distributed. I do this part by hand (literally, the mixture is too thick for me to use a wooden spoon and I don't want to over beat the dough).

Roll the mixture into 1 inch balls and place them evenly spaced apart on a cookie sheet. The cookies won't spread very much, but place them at least an inch apart just in case!  Bake the cookies at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes.

Let cool on cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to a wire cooling rack. Cool completely and place the cookies in a tight sealing storage container.

This recipe makes 4 dozen soft oatmeal cookies.

Approximate nutrition facts per cookie (plain): 76 calories, 4.25g fat, 8g carbs, 1g protein, 59mg sodium

Adding raisins adds 10 calories and 3 carbs per cookie. Adding chocolate chips adds 24 calories, 1.3g fat, and 3 carbs per cookie.

Easy Easy No Baking

Once a week my grandmother would go to the salon to get her hair done. Almost weekly she would come home with a new recipe to try. This led me to believe that most salons just are a place for older ladies to get together and exchange recipes. I'm sure they talk about family and such things, but the recipe exchange is probably the highlight of that social event. Some of the recipes were amazing and some were not good enough to have a second time. The recipe for Easy Easy No Baking (also known as Special K Bars and Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars) is one of the amazing recipes that she acquired during her time at the salon.

As the name states, this recipe is easy to make and requires no baking. The most difficult part of the recipe is the frosting, which is melted chocolate chips. The bars taste wonderful and I haven't met a person yet who hasn't enjoyed them.

Easy Easy No Baking (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
3 C Special K cereal
3/4 C Plain or Crunchy Peanut Butter
1 t Vanilla
1/2 C Granulated Sugar
1/2 C White Syrup (such as Karo Syrup)

You will need a stove, a small sauce pan, a large mixing bowl, a glass pan (I used a 8x11 pan), and a spoon. I also recommend having a sink full of hot soapy water. Once you are finished with a bowl or pan, place it in the sink and let it soak. This will save you time when washing dishes since some of the ingredients harden.

Pour the cereal into the mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle of the cereal and place the peanut butter in the center. Set this aside.

Mix the sugar and white syrup in the small sauce pan. Heat over medium heat until it just reaches a boil; the sugar mixture will remain cloudy and start to quickly bubble. Once boiling, remove from heat, add the vanilla, and stir a few times. Adding the vanilla will cause the sugar mixture to bubble rapidly (sorry, no picture! I needed to use 2 hands at that point). Pour the sugar mixture over the peanut butter in the mixing bowl. Mix the sugar mixture, peanut butter, and cereal together until well blended. Place the cereal mixture into the glass pan.

You can either press the mixture down right away or let it chill a few minutes before pressing it down. Place the pan in the refrigerator. Use this time to wash the dishes you've accumulated (you need to use the small sauce pan in the next step).

Frosting:
1/2 C chocolate chips
1 C butterscotch chips

Place the chips in a small sauce pan. Heat the chips over LOW HEAT. You must use one of the lowest heat settings or your frosting mixture will most likely burn. The melting process can take up to 10 minutes, so be patient. At first, stir the mixture occasionally. Once the chips start to melt it will be kind of gross looking and a bit difficult to stir. After a few minutes the mixture will become creamier. At this point, you must start mixing constantly or the chocolate mixture will burn to the bottom of the pan. Once the melted chocolate mixture is smooth, remove it from the heat.

Take the cereal mixture out of the refrigerator and frost it with the chocolate mixture. Return the finished creation to the refrigerator until well chilled. This should take an hour or so, depending on the temperature of your refrigerator. You can also place it in the freezer if you are in a hurry.

Once the entire creation is chilled, cut it into bars using a warm sharp knife. Place the bars in a tightly sealing container and keep refrigerated until you are ready to serve them.

Approximate Nutrition Information (for each bar when batch is cut into 20 bars): 183 calories, 10 g fat, 3 protein, 23.5 g carbs, 92 mg sodium

Prepping the Cake

To make a cake level and smooth after frosting, you need to do some prep work to the cake itself. Before baking the cake, you can prep the pan as shown in this post. You can even lift the cake pan up a few inches and drop it straight down a few times to get rid of air bubbles (doesn't always work!). Unfortunately, most baked cakes usually have a bit of a dome on top which needs trimmed off.

After being baked, every cake to be decorated needs to be removed from the pan. After letting the baked cake set in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes, it is ready to be removed. Have a wire cooling rack, butter knife, and paper towels ready. The butter knife is used to loosen the sides of the cake from the pan; this is optional but I find it to be very helpful. Cover the wire cooling rack with paper towels. Quickly flip the cake pan up-side down onto the paper towels. The cake should release right away. If not, return it right-side up and loosen the sides some more with the butter knife and try again. The cake can now cool completely while up-side down on the cooling rack. If the cake is too domed, you may want to flip it right-side up to cool to prevent cracking.

Once the cake is completely cooled, you can trim off the top. If the cake is up-side down, carefully flip it right-side up.

Wilton sells an amazing tool called the "Cake Leveler", which kind of reminds me of a wire cheese slicer. The Cake Leveler is used to cut the domed top off of cakes. You can also use a large serrated knife, such as a bread knife, to trim off the top.

To trim off the top with the Cake Leveler, you first need to adjust the level of the wire. The top doesn't need to be completely flat; the sides can retain a curve. After the level of the wire is adjusted, slide the wire through the cake using a slight sawing motion. Remove the trimmed off portion and set it aside.

To trim off the top of the cake with a serrated knife, just use a sawing motion through the very top of the cake. Be sure your knife is parallel with the table or your cake will have a slant!

It is common to use cake boards when decorating a cake. They are disposable so you don't have to worry about them being damaged or not returned. An optional step in preparing the cake to be decorated is covering the cake board with aluminum foil or food safe paper or foil. This is easy to do.

Cut a piece of foil slightly larger than the cake board. Place the cake board right-side down on the foil. Starting with the longest sides, fold the foil over the board and securely tape it to the board. Fold the corners of the foil in. Fold the foil over the shorter side of the board and tape it to the board. Flip the covered board right side up and carefully transfer your baked and leveled cake onto the board.

If your cake your cake is being stubborn and won't release after you loosen the sides, place it in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill the pan and try again. Sometimes you will bake a cake that simply does not want to leave the nice and cozy pan or will only release in multiple pieces. With these cakes, you can make amazing things such as cake balls (future post, maybe?) or pudding desserts that include a layer of cake. If your cake ends up being a disaster, don't get frustrated. Just eat some cake and try again

Pond Cake

My dad's birthday was this past week. Being the cake decorator in the family, it generally falls to me to provide a birthday cake for anyone having a birthday. One of my dad's favorite things is his pond which he created. He dug out the hole (mostly with an ATV and plow attachment), acquired plants from various sources, and stocked it with fish (mostly goldfish, but there are a few koi). One of the more prominent features of his pond is the massive amount of frogs and toads living in it. My dad had surgery recently which prevented him from tending to his pond for a few weeks. This provided me with plenty of inspiration for his birthday cake.

I created the frogs using two small heart cakes, the pond is a 13 x 9 one layer cake, and I used very few decorating tools. The hardest part was making the water lily since there are no tutorials online for that type of flower. I may, at some point, write up a tutorial on how I made it. This cake, minus the water lily, should be rather easy for anyone to duplicate.

Things you will need:
box of cake mix (I always use Duncan Hines)
13 x 9 inch pan
heart pan (or heart cupcake foils)
decorator's frosting (tutorial forthcoming)
food coloring (green, blue, black, yellow)
parchment triangles (or strong food storage bags) & tape
bowls & spoons & butter knives
scissors
aluminum foil

The first thing you will need to do is bake the cake and let it cool completely. Be sure to prep your pans before baking (for more on how to do that, click here). After baking, you can let the hearts cool in the pan. The 13 x 9 inch cake, however, should be removed from the pan to cool. After cooling, prep a cake board for the 13x9 inch cake and set it aside (tutorial forthcoming).

Place the two cooled heart cakes on small pieces of foil. From your batch of decorator's frosting, place 1/2 cup of frosting in one bowl and a small amount (a few tablespoons) in another. Color the 1/2 cup of frosting green and the smaller amount of frosting yellow. With a butterknife, frost the top and sides of the heart cakes. Place the yellow frosting and remaining green frosting in a parchment bag with the tip cut off (or in a plastic bag with a corner cut off). Set all of this aside to let the frosting on the hearts harden a little.

Return to your cooled and prepped 13x9 inch cake. Place another half cup of frosting in a bowl and set aside. Color the remaining frosting blue. Frost the entire cake with the blue frosting. Be sure to leave texture in the frosting, you don't want it to be perfectly smooth. Color the 1/2 cup of frosting you set aside a shade of green lighter than the shade you used to color the heart cakes. Place 1/3 of this frosting in a parchment bag with the tip cut off.

To create the lily pads, start by figuring out how many you want and how you want them placed. With the bagged green frosting, draw a V on the cake where you want to place the first lily pad. Connect the top of the V with a large circle. With a butterknife, "paint" in the outlined lily pad with the remaining green frosting. Again, be sure to leave some texture. Repeat until the desired number of lily pads are painted onto the cake.

Return to the frog cakes. Add some yellow lines down the back and across the front of the frog and green blobs for eyes using the bagged frosting. Carefully placed the frog cakes onto the lily pads. For more detail, you can use a few tablespoons of the green frosting and color it black. Place the black frosting in another parchment bag and use it to draw lines on the back of the frog and dots for the eyes. You can also make little frog feet with the green frosting!

Plain Waffles

While I was growing up, my family ate a late lunch every Sunday after church at my grandparent's house. One of my favorite Sunday meals was waffles. Being able to eat something so delicious for a late lunch was amazing, especially since it was so obviously a breakfast food! I would sit at the table waiting with such anticipation for the first waffles to be done. Then I would, by some magical ability, eat up to 8 waffles.

The waffles my grandma made were always soft and fluffy. In my opinion, no other waffle recipe makes waffles that taste nearly as good. I recently found the original recipe that she used. It is from a GE "Grill and Waffle Baker" instruction manual and recipe booklet. There is no date anywhere in the booklet, but it is rather old!

Plain Waffles (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 egg whites
2 egg yolks
1 2/3 C milk
1/4 C vegetable oil
2 C flour
1 T sugar
1/2 t salt
3 t baking powder

Place egg whites into a mixing bowl and beat at high speed until stiff. Set aside.

Mix egg yolks, milk, and oil in a mixing bowl until combined. Stir flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together. Add this mixture to the egg yolk mixture and mix together until well blended. This can be done with a mixer or by hand.

Fold egg whites into the batter. The batter will be a bit lumpy.

Preheat waffle maker. If your waffle maker has a temperature setting, set it at a medium temperature. Add waffle batter to preheated waffle maker, spreading the batter evenly over the grids. The amount of batter you use will vary depending on the size of your waffle maker, so use your best judgment!

Remove cooked waffle from waffle maker. Add butter, powder sugar, syrup, chocolate chips, or anything you like! I prefer butter and powder sugar.

I have a waffle maker that makes 4 waffles at a time and this recipe makes 4 batches of waffles, or 16 waffles.

Approximate nutrition facts per waffle: 110 calories, 4..6g fat, 13.5g carbs, 225mg sodium, 3g protein.

Doggie Sundaes

I was going to post a new recipe for Doggie Cookies, but I couldn't resist making a Doggie Sundae instead. My inspiration for this idea comes from Lucky looking at me with very sad eyes, as if he is starving to death, whenever I eat ice cream. I can't share my ice cream with him because most adult dogs are lactose intolerant. Since summer is nearly here and the days are getting warmer, Lucky needs a nice treat to cool off with so I came up with Doggie Sundaes.

Doggie Sundae Cups:

muffin pan (use a large muffin pan for big dogs!)

your dog's favorite doggie cookie recipe

Make the dough for the doggie cookies according to the recipe. I used the peanut butter & banana recipe since it is Lucky's favorite kind. Roll out the cookie dough on a well floured surface. Find something to use as a cookie cutter that is larger than the cupcake cups in the pan like a cookie cutter or a plastic storage container. Cut out circles for as many sundae cups as you want to make. Use the rest of the dough to make doggie cookies!

Place the circles in the cupcake cups, pressing them to the sides of the pan. Bake according to the recipe directions.

After baking, the sundae cups can cool completely in the pan or on a wire cookie rack.

Once the sundae cups are completely cooled, it is time to make the frozen treat to go inside. I made a crushed ice substance to go inside because Lucky loves to eat snow during the winter. You can also use the Frosty Paws brand of dog safe ice cream.

Peanut Butter Snow

4 ice cubes

1 t peanut butter

Place the ice cubes in your food processor and chop them for 30 seconds or until the ice is completely chopped. Scrape the ice away from the walls of the processor container and add the peanut butter. Run the processor for 15 seconds to mix in the peanut butter. You may need to scrape the container and run the processor a few times to get it well mixed. Alternatively, you can mix in the peanut butter with a spoon.

Fill the sundae cup with the ice mixture.

Lucky didn't want to be photographed while eating, so he picked up the sundae and ran out of the room to eat it. There was nothing left of the sundae cup when he was finished.

Note: It is not a good idea to give a large amount of ice to your dog at once; a quick drop in internal temperature can cause health issues.