Spring Break, Day 2

Okay, no rain, but still windy and cold, so we had another day of baking. Today, Jessi picked another recipe "Gimme S'more (Please)" from her book, Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook. It was easy and very chocolatey, in other words...a hit.

Ingredients:
1/3 c. butter or margarine
18 graham cracker squares
1/3 c. sugar
1-12 oz. jar fudge ice cream topping
2 c. tiny marshmallows
1 1/2 c. cold milk
1-6 serving size pkg instant chocolate pudding mix
1-8 oz. container frozen whipped dessert topping, thawed
1/4 c. miniature semisweet chocolate pieces

Directions:
1) Put butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Cook on high 30-40
seconds or until melted.
2) Put graham crackers into a plastic bag and seal. Use a rolling pin
to crush graham crackers into fine crumbs. (You should have 1 1/2
cups).
3) Pour crumbs into an 8x8x2 pan. Add the sugar and the melted
butter. Stir with a wooden spoon until mixed. Reserve 1/3 c. crumbs. Spread crumbs evenly in the pan and
press gently. Put the pan into the freezer for 10 minutes.
4) Remove lid from fudge topping. Place jar in microwave oven
and cook on high for 30-45 seconds or until warm enough to pour.
Pour fudge topping all over the chilled cracker crust. Sprinkle 1 c.
of the marshmallows on top of the fudge.
5) Pour milk into a large bowl. Add pudding mix. Beat with an
electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Use a rubber
spatula to gently stir in half of the whipped topping. Pour
pudding on top of the marshmallows. Evenly spread.
6)Srinkle the remaining marshmallows, the reserve crumbs, and
miniature chocolate pieces on top of the pudding. Cover with foil
and put in refrigerator for 1-24 hours before serving.

Jessi did a great job and it was delicious!

Southern Favorite

Fudge Pie is one of my husband's favorite desserts and a must have at every get-together. Tonight, he almost ate the whole pie. I really couldn't blame him, though, it was delicious.

Ingredients:
1-9 in. frozen pie crust
1 c. white sugar
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3 tbs. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 c. butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Whipped Topping
Fresh or Frozen Raspberries

Directions:
1) Prebake crust according to package directions.
2) Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
3) Beat together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, butter or margarine, eggs and vanilla in a medium-size bowl. Spoon into pie shell.
4) Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until set. Allow to cool to room temperature.
5) Serve with whipped topping and garnish with 2 raspberries.

This recipe was adapted from www.allrecipes.com, submitted by Debbie Rowe

Blue Ribbon Winner

This Frozen Apple and Peanut Butter Cloud Pie may be my favorite dessert ever. The recipe comes from the cookbook, Apple Pie Perfect, by Ken Haedrich. When I tasted it, I knew it was a prize winner. I entered it into the county fair and, as you can see, it won first place! It's absolutely delicious. As I said, it was rainy, snowy, and 41 degrees today so it was a perfect day to spend in the kitchen. You will love this recipe!

Ingredients:
1 large graham cracker crust

Apple Layer:
2 tbs. unsalted butter
3 firm-textured cooking apples (such as golden delicious), peeled, cored, and sliced
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tbs. confectioners' sugar

Peanut Butter Cloud Layer:
1 c. heavy whipping cream
1- 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1 c. smooth peanut butter
3/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large egg whites
1/2 c. finely chopped salted dry-roasted peanuts

Directions:
1) Set crust aside.
2) To prepare the apple layer, melt the butter in a large saute pan. Stir in the apples and granulated sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice and confectioners' sugar and cook, stirring, for 1 minute longer. Remove from the heat, scrape the apples onto a plate, and let cool thoroughly.
3) When the apples have cooled, spoon them into the crust. Use a slotted spoon and reserve the remaining juice. Put the pie shell into freezer. After 20 minutes, pour remaining juice into shell.
4) To make the peanut butter cloud layer, use an electric mixer to whip the heavy cream until it holds semi-firm peaks. Cover and refrigerate.
5)Using the mixer, beat the cream cheese and peanut butter together until smooth. Gradually beat in the sugars, then the vanilla. Mixture will be lumpy. Add the whipped cream to the peanut butter mixture, slowly blending them together with the mixer until smooth.
6)Clean and dry the beaters. Using a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the peanut butter mixture with a rubber spatula until evenly blended. Scrape the mixture over the apples and smooth with spoon. Sprinkle the chopped nuts over the pie. Loosely cover with aluminum foil and place in freezer for at least 5 hours, until firm. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes prior to slicing.

For an extra flavor, swirl chocolate sauce over top of pie to serve.

This cookbook has over 100 additionally delicious recipes!

Chef Jessi

This weekend I learned that I didn't know very much about making cookies, especially sugar cookies. Saturday, I told Jessi that we would bake. She loves to cook and bake. She watches the Food Network as much as Jenna watches the Disney Channel. As a matter of fact, they often disagree about which channel to watch. So, she picked Sugar Cookies because she got a cookie decorating kit for Christmas and wanted to use it. (That thing was about as complicated as the sugar cookies were for me). Anyway, I found a recipe in my book that I printed from http://www.recipes.com/, submitted by Jill Saunders. I hoped the name, "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies" said it all. All of the reviews were positive and no one suggested any changes to the recipe so in we dove. I set everything up while Jessi read the ingredients and the directions. We had trouble from the beginning. The recipe calls for 5 cups of flour and I ended up only adding about 2.5 cups because I don't think I could've added much more. The dough had to be refrigerated overnight because it was very soft. After one roll the following day, we had to let the dough set up again in the refrigerator. It seemed to soften very quickly. The dough was also very sticky and we needed to use a lot of flour to keep it from sticking to everything. The cookies tasted great and I may try the 5 cups next time because great sugar cookies are now one of my next challenges! I'm going to post the recipe as written because I have a feeling it was the baker and not the recipe! So...Jessi really did all of the work. She read the directions, rolled out the dough, cut out the cookies, mixed the food coloring and icing, and decorated them.Of course, the cleanup was left to me!


Jessi's work station and the mess!

We finished after about 3 hours on Sunday and had about 4 dozen cookies that did taste great.


Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. butter, softened 5 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. white sugar 2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs 1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
1) In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour. ( I recommend overnight).
2) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3) Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Cake Balls

Last October, I came upon this recipe on AllRecipes.Com, posted by Allison. Since then, I have been waiting for an opportunity to try it. So, today, school was cancelled, kids were home, and it was raining and icing all day so we tried it. Jessi said they were absolutely delicious, but I have to say that next time, I will have to tweak it a little. After they were done, I went back to the website and saw that there were some suggestions that I would try next time. For instance, I couldn't dip the balls into the chocolate because despite how moist they were, they weren't strong enough to stay together. One suggestion from others was to freeze the balls prior to dipping at least one hour. Today, rather than dipping, I spooned the chocolate over the balls. It took a lot more chocolate to do it that way, but was still effective.

Ingredients:

1 18.25 oz. package cake mix

1 16 oz. container prepared frosting

1 3 oz. bar chocolate flavored Almond Bark (Confectioners Coating)

Directions:

Prepare the cake mix according to package directions using any of the recommended pan sizes. When cake is done, crumble while warm into a large bowl and stir in the frosting until well blended.

Using a melon baller or small scoop to form bite size balls of the cake mixture. Place the balls into the freezer for at least one hour.

Melt chocolate coating in a glass bowl in the microwave or in a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth.

Dip the balls in chocolate using a toothpick or fork to hold them. Place them on waxed paper to set.

You can leave as it or dip in sprinkles, coconut, chopped nuts, or drizzle with another flavor of chocolate. Delicious!!