will return

I have been baking but blogger hasn't been letting me upload pictures.. :)
I will try again today and hopefully it works..

Day 10 - Banana Bread

dh's friends at work were bugging me for Banana bread. So I decided what the heck. For this I used the bread machine but you could just use the oven as everything is mixed in a mixer. :)


Ingredients:
1 tbsp white vinegar + milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 or 3 bananas
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cups walnuts (optional)

add vinegar to measuring cup and fill to 1/4 cup mark with milk. set aside

In mixing bowl (or food processor) add sugar, butter and bananas. Mix until smooth




Add dry ingredients and milk mixture
mix well.

Add to the baking pan. You can layer it with walnuts if you would like.


Set it to bake for one hour at 300 using the bake setting. Let sit in pan for 30 minutes.

Id love to show you a picture of how beautiful this turned out but I cut myself a piece promptly and ate it. sorry about that.. Something about freshly baked banana bread.

Verdict: soooo yummy.. It was moist and very flavourful. I added cinnamon to it but that is up to you.. Oh so good..

Day 9 - Cake pops

Usually when I make cakes I end up having a ton of extra pieces left over. When I worked at the bakery, we would use them to make rum balls or a coffee cake filling. (No Plastico I am not making coffee cake right now) Im not really a fan of rum balls so i looked around in my saved links and found the bakerella site. That gave me the idea to make a Mickey/Minnie mouse head.. So i went to search for ideas and happened to scroll down and she had just posted how to.. lol. it was meant to be. :) you can find the full directions here.
Here is my breakdown of what I did.Ingredients:
1 box any flavour of cake (or left over pieces like i used)
1 can of frosting. any kind.
Chocolate to coat cake in.
Mix the cake so it is crumbly.
Add 3/4 of the icing and mix.

Mix until it is nice and soft.
scoop or roll into balls


put in fridge until firm so that it is easier to dip in chocolate.

While that is chilling, use a round cutter to cut off part of a chocolate melt. These will be the ears.
dip end of lollipop stick into chocolate and insert in cake ball
fill a piping bag with a bit of melted chocolate onto the cut part of the ears. place 2 on each ball.


put back in fridge until you are ready to dip them.
dip in a single motion to totally cover the entire thing. pull up and let the extra chocolate drip off. (you can colour your chocolate black but i decided not to.)

once the extra chocolate is off, put the cake pop into a styrofoam holder to keep them upright.


you can leave them like that or add 2 heart sprinkles to represent a bow. :)

Verdict: These look awesome and are pretty easy to do.. Lilly was very excited. I was thinking that oreo balls would be fantastic for this as well.. yummy. the cake was super moist and it was a nice bitesize treat. Lilly wants to take one to her teacher, so that is where they are going. :) I love when things turn out the way i want. :)

Day 8 - Birthday Cakes

Yesterday was a day full of birthdays.

My aunt Liz turned 36 yesterday. As a treat for her birthday, I invited her to booty camp. I think she enjoyed it and her expressions were priceless.. :) Well worth it. Hopefully she wasn't too sore for her birthday. At her work, they are supposed to bring a treat on their birthday. Liz had seen one of my strawberry and cream cakes that I made for Markus, so she requested that. I didn't take pictures of how I made it, so I apologize, but it is easy enough to do. :)
Yesterday was also my sweet little "niece's" birthday. Whitney turned 1 and lives in Florida. Due to her being so far away, she obviously couldn't order a cake from me but I still wanted to surprise her and her family with one. Her theme is princess which is fitting since above her crib it says "and she lived happily ever after" and the fact that she lives by the princess castle. :) I had a blast making this cake and it was definitely a challenge.. It isn't perfect but i was VERY happy with the outcome and I hope Whitney was too..

Day 7 - Brown Sugar Fudge

I've been looking for a simple fudge recipe and came across this one.. I can assure you that this one is going to someone else.. Im betting it is super sweet and I am just not interested. :) So any takers??? anyone?



Ingredients:
1 can (300 mL) Regular Eagle Brand® sweetened condensed milk
2 cups (500 mL) well-packed brown sugar
½ lb (227 g) butter

Place ingredients in a 2-quart (2.2 L) micro-wave safe mixing bowl, and microwave on HIGH for 10 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Beat with mixer for 5 minutes.

Spread mixture into a parchment paper-lined 8 x 8" (2L) square pan

Chill to set and cut into squares. (or do something fun with cookie cutters. Lilly loved that i made fudge into her name. :) )


Verdict: This was super easy to make. you can't really go wrong with 3 ingredients. I think this would be perfect to put in little baggies as a gift for someone. It is sweet but most fudge is, right? I was going to send all of this to my sister to take to work, when dh yelled downstairs that I couldn't because he loves fudge.. :/ 10 years and I'm just finding this out? And on top of that, brown sugar is by far his favourite.. So I gave a few pieces to my sister and the rest stayed for dh.. I did not enjoy it as it was way too sweet for my liking.

Day 6 - Chocolate Caramel Shortbread

I was asked the other day if I am going out and buying all these ingredients or if I am using stuff in my cupboards.. The answer is both. I'm trying to use up my cupboard since I have THREE cupboards stuffed full of baking stuff. So I would like to use it up instead of buying new stuff.. :)
So if you are here looking for a healthy treat, than keep on looking. Today's treat is NOT healthy, not even a little bit. :) While looking online for recipes on eaglebrand.ca, I came across this recipe and as soon as my sister Kelly (HI Kelly and her friends at work who are looking at this instead of working) insisted that I make this and give it to her..



Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) butter, softened, divided1/2 cup (125 mL) sifted icing sugar
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) all purpose flour
1 can (300 mL) Regular or Low Fat Eagle Brand® sweetened condensed milk
3 tbsp (45 mL) corn syrup
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract
3 squares (85 g) semi-sweet chocolate, melted


Beat 1 cup (250 mL) butter, sugar and salt until fluffy.

Add flour; mix well.

With floured fingers, press evenly into greased 9" (23 cm) square pan. ( I used a 9 inch cheesecake pan)


Bake in preheated 350°F (180°C) oven 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly.

In 2-quart (2 L) glass measure with handle, in microwave oven, melt remaining 1/2 cup (125 mL) butter on High (100%) 1 minute. Stir in Eagle Brand and corn syrup. Microwave on High (100 %) 6 to 8 minutes, stirring after each minute or until mixture turns a light caramel colour. Stir in vanilla
Spread over warm shortbread.


Drizzle with chocolate.


Chill until firm. Cut into bars. Store covered at room temperature.
Verdict: This was super easy to make. A few extra steps but i think it was definintely worth it. The cookie was nice and light and the caramel was sweet. I would make this again to take to a get together.. Definitely only need a small piece.. Yum! Did I mention how yummy this is? lol Go make it, now.. :)

Day 5 - Chocolate Elegance

Again from the Kraft website, I knew this would be yummy. Since I had leftover cool whip I decided to make another cool whip dessert. This one was sure to please everyone and was super easy to prepare. I know everything I've made has cream cheese but that is because I have 36 blocks of it in my freezer so I'm trying to use those up.. ;) I promise non cream cheese recipes this week. :D
Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 pkg. (250 g each) Philadelphia Brick Cream Cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2-1/2 cups thawed Cool Whip Whipped Topping, divided
• 6 squares Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate, divided
• 1 pkg. (4-serving size) Jell-O Chocolate Instant Pudding
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

BEAT cream cheese and sugar with mixer until blended.
Stir in 1-1/2 cups Cool Whip.
spread 2 cups onto bottom of 8x4-inch loaf pan lined with plastic wrap. (this will leave very little in the bowl.. that is ok)
Melt 3 chocolate squares. Add to remaining cream cheese mixture along with pudding mix and milk. Beat until blended.
Spread over layer in pan. Refrigerate 4 hours.
microwave remaining chocolate and Cool Whip in microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1 min.; stir until blended. Cool slightly.
Invert dessert onto platter. Remove pan and plastic wrap. Spread dessert with glaze. Add Almonds. :) Refrigerate until glaze is firm.

Verdict: Although this tasted wonderful and had the perfect balance of chocolate in it, I was a tad disappointed. The chocolate didn't set like i think it should have. It seemed too runny which made it difficult to cut into and serve.. It was more the consistency of pudding which makes sense.. Either way I may try this another time and perhaps change it up a little bit to see if it works.

Day 4 - Chocolate Peanut Butter Ribbon

As I was searching for different recipes to try, I came across this one on the Kraft website.. I knew I needed to make it soon as you can't go wrong with Peanut Butter and Chocolate.. :D I loved how simple and light it looked.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Oreo Baking Crumbs, divided
• 2 Tbsp. non-hydrogenated margarine, melted
• 1 pkg. (250 g) Philadelphia Brick Cream Cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup Kraft Peanut Butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1-1/2 cups thawed Cool Whip Whipped Topping
• 2 squares Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate, melted, cooled

BEAT cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar and vanilla with mixer until well blended.
MIX crumbs and margarine. Reserve 1 Tbsp. crumbs for topping; press remaining onto bottom of foil-lined 9x5-inch loaf pan.
whisk in Cool Whip


Remove 1/2 cup; place in small bowl. Stir in melted chocolate until well blended; set aside.
Spoon half the remaining cream cheese mixture over crust


Add chocolate filling.

Add remaining cream cheese mixture.

Now you can leave it like this and freeze it right away or you can add a design on it to make it look a little nicer.. I decided to add one to mine.



FREEZE 4 hours or until firm. Invert dessert onto plate. Remove foil; invert dessert, crumb-side down, onto serving platter. Sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.



Cut in small strips and serve. You do not need a big piece.


Verdict: I originally thought this was going to be a light dessert. It is light but very rich. I would definitely make this again and serve it to guests... or keep it for myself. It was super easy to make and full of yummy peanut butter and chocolate flavour. I can already think of many different ways to decorate this and/or serve it. Dh and his friend said it was a definite hit. :)