Lazy S'mores

S'mores are one of my favorite desserts/snacks. When Dairy Queen had the S'mores Galore Parfait, I ate so many of them and it was pretty much the only item I ordered. I was also very sad when they stopped offering it. The mixture of marshmallow, graham cracker, and chocolate just seems so perfect. Somehow it has taken me a very long time to discover a lazy way to make s'mores, but I did it. And rather successfully.

This discovering is a mixture of finding marshmallow fluff (aka marshmallow creme) to be delicious and wanting a non-dairy snack/dessert. I like to use the cinnamon graham crackers and Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips. (This type of chocolate chip only "may contain dairy", so I count this as dairy free!) You can obviously use whatever type of graham cracker and chocolate chip combination you want.

Lazy S'mores
Marshmallow creme
Chocolate chips
Graham crackers

First, take a spoonful of mallow fluff and place it into a small microwave safe dish.

Heat the fluff in the microwave for 15 seconds. It will expand and become very smooth.

Sprinkle on as many chocolate chips as you want. The preference of chocolate to marshmallow ratio varies by person, so there is no wrong quantity here.

Wait 30 seconds or so for the chocolate chips to melt. Then use pieces of graham cracker to scoop of the mallow fluff and melted chocolate. Then, obviously, eat it.

Enjoy!

I felt like putting this on my Pinterest account... so I made this:

If you care to follow me, my Pinterest is here: http://pinterest.com/neniell/

Ice Cream Sandwich Cake

I saw a cake similar to this several years ago. Instead of looking up instructions on how to properly make the cake, I just made it. This is definitely one of the messier cakes that I've made, but it was a lot of fun to make!

The cake consists of two layers of chocolate cake, a layer of vanilla ice cream, and chocolate frosting in the expected locations. The version of the cake that influenced this messy cake was decorated like an Oreo cookie, so I kept that as a decorating guideline. Instead of "Oreo" I wrote "Happy Birthday" since it was for a birthday.

If you plan to make this, here are some tips: Make the cake at the location where the cake will be served; it will melt during a 20 minute car ride in the summer. Try to freeze the ice cream layer in a circle cake pan lined with wax paper so it has the proper shape. Be sure to rearrange the contents of your freezer before assembling any of the cake pieces. You can use any combination of flavors to make this cake; I'm guessing cookies and cream ice cream would be amazing!

Ice Cream Sandwich Cake
Two round cakes
1/2 gallon ice cream
One batch of frosting

Make your frosting.

Soften your ice cream. I'm assuming it isn't necessary to mix up the ice cream in a mixer, but it sure was fun. Such a lovely texture!

Place the bottom layer of the cake on whatever you plan to serve the cake on. Spread a layer of frosting around the sides of the cake. Either cover the entire top of the cake or just enough so the cake doesn't show under the ice cream.

Spread a layer of ice cream on the cake. (Or, if you followed the tip, place the layer of ice cream on the cake.) Place the incomplete cake in the freezer.

Place the top layer of cake on some paper towels. Spread a nice layer of frosting on top. Decorate however you want to decorate it.

Remove the bottom of the cake from the freezer and carefully place the top layer of the cake on top. Spread a layer of frosting around the sides of the top layer of cake.

Keep frozen until you are ready to serve!

Enjoy!

Note: The frosting that I used was the new Wilton Decorator's Frosting with 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder added.


Used to create this cake: Food Network 9-In. Round Cake Pan. I love the Food Network pans from Kohls!

Chocolate Eclair Dessert

It's been a while since I posted a new recipe. I have a few sets of photos related to different recipes that are ready to be written about, but I haven't had the motivation to do so. This blogging thing is apparently something that is slightly difficult to get back into after a long gap.

Fortunately, I made something wonderful this past week. It's a recipe that my grandma used all the time when I was little. It is possibly one of the best desserts ever. It is also incredibly simple to make.

I've had the page marked in the cookbook to make this, but I haven't had a good reason to make it until this past weekend. This dessert is just as delicious as a remember and much easier to make than I expected. I made the chocolate frosting slightly thicker than it should have been and I used cinnamon graham crackers instead of honey. If you can, I recommend using a 9x13 cake pan that doesn't have sloped sides. My pan had sloped sides and that make placing the layers of graham crackers weird (gaps around the edges and such).

Chocolate Eclair Dessert
2 packages French vanilla instant pudding (3ish ounce size)
3 C milk
1 8 oz carton Cool Whip
1 lb box of graham crackers (honey or cinnamon)
2 envelopes pre-melted baking chocolate
1 t vanilla
3 T salted butter, softened
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
3 T milk

First, coat the 9x13 inch pan with a layer of butter.

Make the French vanilla pudding according to directions but only use the 3 cups of milk.

Add the entire carton of Cool Whip.

Fold the Cool Whip into the pudding. You have to fold it or the Cool Whip will lose its nice fluffy consistency.

Place a layer of graham crackers in the pan.

Carefully spread half of the pudding mixture over the layer of graham crackers.

Lay down another layer of graham crackers.

Spread the remaining pudding mixture over the new layer of graham crackers.

Add another layer of graham crackers!

Now make the chocolate frosting. Do this by placing the chocolate, vanilla, milk, and softened butter into a mixing bowl.

Stir it all together. It will seem kind of awful and thick.

Stir in the powdered sugar. This somehow gives it a very nice and smooth consistency. If the frosting seems too thick to spread on the graham crackers, add a little bit more milk. Don't add too much. You don't want it to be runny!

Spread the frosting on top of the layer of graham crackers.

Now for the hard part... You have to let this lovely dessert sit for 12 hours (in the refrigerator!). This allows the moisture of the pudding to soak into the graham crackers and soften them.

Here's a side view of the delicious layers:

Enjoy!

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

I'm still adjusting to the transition from an electric oven to this gas oven. I think the temperature is a bit off... I need to buy an oven thermometer to confirm my guess. The reason that I think the temperature is off is that I slightly burnt the banana bread I made today.

I added chocolate chips to half of the batter (1/2 cup of chocolate chips). Banana bread with chocolate chips is a delicious thing. I advise you try it. It probably tastes better not burnt.

I'll start posting new recipes once I figure out how to not burn things!

Chex Muddy Buddies

Chex muddy buddies are something we used to make a lot. I would always stray from the directions a bit and add a lot more vanilla and powdered sugar than the recipe called for. You can find this recipe on pretty much any box of Chex cereal. I prefer to make it with the rice Chex.

Chex Muddy Buddies

1/4 C butter

1/2 C peanut butter

1 C chocolate chips

1 t vanilla

9 C Chex cereal

1 1/2 to 3 C powdered sugar

Place the Chex cereal into a large enough bowl. I used a 1.5 quart storage bowl (with a lid!). A lid is important.

Place the butter, peanut butter, and chocolate chips into a small sauce pan. Melt them together over medium heat, stirring frequently at first and constantly near the end. Don't burn the chocolate! 

Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla. I usually add double the amount of vanilla, but I rarely measure vanilla. Too much hasn't been a bad thing yet.

Pour this mixture onto the the cereal.

Stir it up a bit. Eventually get frustrated that you are breaking the cereal too much. Place the lid on the container and shake it for a bit. It is nearly impossible to get the cereal evenly coated, so don't worry about it. 

Remove the lid and pour the recommended 1 1/2 C powdered sugar on top of the coated cereal.

Replace the lid and shake for a bit. Flip the container upside-down in an attempt to evenly distribute the powdered sugar. This won't be coated enough. See? You can still see the chocolate coating; it's ridiculous.

Add some more powdered sugar and repeat the shaking process. Now it looks better.

Occasionally shake the container as the coated cereal cools to room temperature. You can eat this immediately after coating and continuously over the next few days. Everyone will be aware that you consumed some of this delicious mess, because spots of powdered sugar will be all over your shirt. 

Chocolate sugar cookies with mint chips

I made these cookies again, but I changed the recipe a bit. I think they are a lot better now! I increased the amount of flour, swapped the butter for shortening, added a bit more salt, and completely neglected to measure the vanilla when I added it. (You can never have too much vanilla.) I will include the new recipe below.

Did you know that teaching is a very time consuming occupation? I have to write out lecture notes, create exams, and then, the most time consuming part, grade the exams and homeworks. And quizzes! So much grading. So much.

And that is why I haven't been updating too often. I haven't even really had time to bake lately. Until this past weekend, that is. I baked these delicious cookies again and both of the posted recipes of banana bread. I will let you know which version of banana bread is better, if I can figure that out.

Chocolate sugar cookies with mint chips (updated!)
1 C sugar
1/2 C shortening
1.5ish t vanilla
1 egg
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 to 1t salt
1 1/4 C flour
1 C Andes Creme De Menthe baking chips
Some sugar for pressing

The method follows the same as before (can be found here). It still only makes about 3 dozen cookies, which is probably plenty for most people.

S'mores Cookie Bars

The internet has a lot of recipes and I have a small subset of these recipes bookmarked to make at some point in the future. For this post I wanted something simple to make that was also very unhealthy, so I looked through my bookmarked recipes. I rediscovered this one for S'mores cookie bars.

These are delicious. They're slightly too sweet for me, but that's okay. I will make these again at some point, but I'll use a good dark chocolate instead of the Hershey's milk chocolate. Dark chocolate just has a better flavor (in my opinion!).

This recipe comes from Une Gamine dans la Cuisine, which is one of the few food blogs I currently follow. She got this recipe from Baking Bites who got the recipe from...? I'm not sure. This recipe seems to be everywhere on the internet, so there is no saying where it originated. There are many slight variations as well. Here is mine.

S'mores Cookie Bars (Printer friendly PDF version)

1/2 C butter, unsalted, softened

1/4 C brown sugar, packed

1/2 C white sugar

1 egg

2 t vanilla

1 1/3 C flour

3/4 C graham cracker crumbs (or 7 full sheets, smashed to crumbs)

1 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

4 or 5 chocolate bars

1 1/2 C to 2 C marshmallow fluff

Stir together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Note: If you don't have graham cracker crumbs, take the sheets of graham crackers and place them in a large sealable plastic bag. Wrap a dish towel around the bag and use a rolling pin to crush the graham crackers into crumbs. Be sure to occasionally shake up the bag to help crush the crackers evenly!

Cream together the sugars and butter until fluffy.

Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Slowly stir in the flour mixture and mix until combined. The dough will be kind of dry looking.

Press half of the dough into the bottom of a well greased 8x8 inch pan. I used a 9x9 inch pan and it worked out okay.

Layer the chocolate bars on top of the cookie dough. Leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch of dough around the edges.

Spread the chocolate bars with marshmallow fluff. To make the marshmallow easier to spread, heat up the jar in a bowl of hot water while preparing the recipe up to this point. Stir the fluff before spreading.

Using the rest of the cookie dough, make a layer on top of the marshmallow fluff. I did this by pressing the dough into flat pieces with my hands and placing it on top. Press the dough down along the edges of the pan to make a seal.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until the top starts to brown.

Let cool for 15 minutes before slicing. Or slice right away if you are impatient. It would most likely be delicious with some ice cream!

Enjoy! 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are called "Cowboy Cookies" in the one little cookbook I have. I have absolutely no idea why they have that name, but they are delicious. These are an extra good version of chocolate chip cookies that just happen to have oatmeal in them. The cookies are nice and soft and chocolatey. I do suggest you make these. I will be making them again!

The dough seemed a bit too sticky after I mixed everything together, so I added a few tablespoons of extra flour to fix that problem. Whenever I have sticky chocolate chip cookie dough, the cookies end up as flat and melted blobs. You can add some extra flour at the beginning or wait and see how the dough turns out if you follow the recipe.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

2 C sifted flour

1/2 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 C white sugar

1 C brown sugar (packed)

1 C shortening

2 eggs

2 C rolled oats (not the instant kind!)

1 t vanilla

12 oz chocolate chips

Sifte together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Cream together the shortening and sugars.

Beat in the eggs until fluffy.

Stir in the flour mixture.

Add the rolled oats, vanilla, and chocolate chips. Mix until nicely distributed.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Let cool for a minute on the cookie sheet before removing to cooling racks.

Enjoy!