Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

Some of you may know that I love caramel. like a lot. I recently saw a recipe on Pinterest (imagine that!) for Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies----wa-hat? Okay...so I took the easy route and used Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookies to save some time, but they were AMAZING!

All you do is take the Rolos, stuff them into the Nestlé cookie dough, and bake on a lined baking sheet at 350 degrees for about 10 to 12 minutes. Then eat them all.

It can't be easier or more delicious! Check out the recipe I found here. Here is to a a beautiful week ahead!

Source: keyingredient.com via Megan on Pinterest

Peanut Butter Cups

Peanut Butter +  Chocolate = my favorite.

I was looking around for some holiday recipes to make and stumbled upon this Homemade Peanut Butter Cup recipe over at The Brown Eyed Baker. We used to make those Peanut Butter Balls when I was a kid, and I thought this might be a fun way to change it up.

 

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

adapted from The Brown Eyed Baker

1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup light brown sugar sugar

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

4 cups milk chocolate chips

1/4 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening)

1. Line muffin tins and place parchment paper on a baking sheet. 

 

2. Heat a medium sauce pan to medium-low heat and combine the peanut butter, butter, and brown sugar until everything has melted and begins to bubble lightly.

3. Remove the mixture from heat, and add in the powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time until smooth. Set it aside to cool and move on to the chocolate.

  4. In a glass microwaveable bowl, add 2 cups of the chocolate chips and 1/8 cup of the Crisco. Heat in the microwave at about 10 sec increments, stopping to stir until most of the chocolate has melted. Keep stirring until the mixture is smooth. Spoon out chocolate into each of the muffin cups. Put the muffin tray into the refrigerator for about 30 mins.

 
5.  Put a little confectioners sugar on your hands, and then roll the peanut butter into small balls. These are actually a little too big. Put this pan into the fridge and let the peanut butter balls cool for about 30 mins as well.

6. Remove the peanut butter balls and the muffin pan from the fridge. Flatten out the peanut butter balls a bit and place one into each of the muffin cups.

7. Repeat step 4 to melt the last 2 cups of the chocolate chips (with the Crisco). Then top each muffin cup with the melted chocolate. Return to the fridge for 30 more minutes.

Once the top layer of chocolate cools, you can store them at room temperature. They are amazing!

Tomorrow be looking for 2 posts: Circle Scarves & Peppermint Meringues!

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

The other day I was reading what Kait over at Mrs. DIY & The Tennis Guy has been up to recently. I saw her post about Pumpkin Streusel Muffins with Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Filling and have been dying to try them out ever since. 

I adapted the recipe from the one on her post, mostly because after filling up one muffin pan with batter, I ran out, and had a lot of steusel & cinnamon filling left over (which is fine...I plan on making some more tonight!). I actually like only making about 12 to 18 muffins because I have no self-discipline and if there were 24 in the kitchen...I'd probably eat them all!

Pumpkin Struesel Muffins (makes 12)

1 3/4 c all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1  tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 c sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

1/3 cup water

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Streusel Topping:

3/4 c oats

1/2 tbsp flour

1/6 c brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

3 tbsp cold butter, cut into chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Fill1 muffin pan with muffin liners 

3. Combine the 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon (Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling) in a medium bowl and set aside

4. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a medium bowl, mix together with a whisk

5. In an electric mixer, combine the sugar, oil, water, pumpkin, eggs and vanilla and mix on a low speed for 2 minutes.

6. Continue mixing and slowly add the flour mixture. Mix at medium-low speed for 2 minutes.

 

7. To make the streusel topping, combine the oats, flour, cinnamon nutmeg, brown sugar and cold butter. Use your hands to incorporate all of the ingredients until it is a crumbly mixture. 

8. Pour batter into the cups until they are 1/2 full. 

9. Top each with the brown sugar and cinnamon filling.

10. Fill the muffin cups all the way up and top with the streusel topping. 

 

11. Bake for 15 to 20 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

The Country Church Cookbook

I have been tossing ideas around in my head about making pumpkin cupcakes for about two weeks now. On Wednesday I picked up cream cheese and butter, knowing I would probably need those for the frosting if I did decide to make some. Normally I turn to Google.com to handle most of my culinary questions, but this time I turned to a staple in the kitchen of any Baptist-raised woman I know, the Church Cookbook.

I love the church cookbook. This one is from 1990 and is filled with recipes by ladies with names like Mary Etta, Florence, Elva, Betty Laura, Esther and Eloise. These names and their recipes tell a story of a time nearly forgotten. A time and place in which I am fortunate my parents chose to plant our family, and I am glad to know still exists in the midst of the hustle and bustle of today's busy world. These ladies filled pages and pages with recipes that had been passed down to them from their mothers and to them from their mothers.

I was upset about two things while flipping through the cookbook. Primarily, Nannie didn't publish any recipes in that edition, and I am really not sure why. Secondly, my Mom published a recipe that year for Blackberry Cake, and I can't remember ever eating this amazing dessert!!! 

Anyhow, I knew within those pages I would find a recipe that would inspire me to create the perfect pumpkin cupcakes. Bernice published a recipe that year for Pumpkin Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting. I kept the cookbook open to that page for about 3 days this week mulling over how to adjust the recipe for my cupcake needs.  After my Friday Gym Date with Forrest, I came home on a mission. Those cupcakes were in the oven before our dinner was. I told Forrest it was because the pizza dough needed to sit at room temperature for 20 minutes (which is true...really)!

Pumpkin Cupcakes

"Where's Forrest?": extra points if you can find him in this picture!

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup flour
1 tsp Pumpkin Spice
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin (save the rest and make my Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Pancakes)
1 tsp baking soda

(Notice the really cramped cooking space--that's it really--in our apartment kitchen and the amazing yellow mixer my parents gave me--thanks for always supporting my cooking habit!)

This is how we do it...
First, mix the sugar and eggs

it is actually spinning in this picture

Add the oil and mix at medium until it is fully incorporated. Scoop in the pumpkin and mix at a lower speed until the batter for the cupcakes is well blended.

Place cupcake shells into a cupcake or muffin pan and pour the batter in until the shells are about 2/3 full. Bake at 350 for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the cupcakes turn a light golden brown. (You can always test to be sure they are ready by sticking a toothpick into the center-most cupcake--if it comes out clean you are good to go!)

Remove and let them cool while you make the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

1 package of cream cheese (8 oz) at room temp for about 5 mins

2 tsp vanilla

1 stick of butter, softened

1 lb confectioners sugar

Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter for about 2 minutes (You may have to scrape the mixture down off of the whisk a few times in the process). 

Add the vanilla and confectioners sugar and blend at a medium-high speed until the frosting is smooth. 

While all of this was going on in the kitchen, I finally managed to get dinner ready so I took a break and stuck the frosting in the fridge while Forrest and I enjoyed homemade pizza. Look for that recipe on the next installment of TJ Special this week!

So finally, while we were watching Bad Teacher, I sat in the dining room which is literally in our living room, smoothing that amazing frosting over these super moist cupcakes. Forrest and I enjoyed one each for dessert and they are amazing!

This makes 18 cupcakes.

Candy Corn Fun

I like following the Kitchen Magpie's blog to see what all she is cooking up each week. The other day I saw her photo for this recipe and I wanted to try it without actually reading the recipe. I like to figure things out for myself, so I picked up some ingredients at the store and tried mixing this together while some of our friends were heading over to hang out. I was so embarrassed with the final product  because things went awry. The butterscotch got clumpy really quickly, and we ended up with a strange bar of butterscotch-candycorn-stuff. I was disappointed because aside from figuring things out on my own, I also like to get things right...the first time. 


I knew it was my fault for heating the butterscotch too quickly, so this week I picked up the supplies again, determined to get it right.  Here is how it turned out:

Candy Corn Haystacks

 Ingredients
1 bag of butterscotch morsels
2/3 cup of chow mien noodles
1/2 cup of peanuts
1/2 cup of candy corn

Directions:
1) Place the butterscotch morsels in a glass bowl and microwave them at 15 to 30 sec increments
2) Stir after each heating spell
3) Keep stirring even if all of the morsels have not melted because once some of them start to melt, eventually all of them will

The butterscotch should look creamy like this

 3) Once the butterscotch is smooth, add in the other ingredients.

all of the ingredients in the bowl

4) Stir them all up together so that the butterscotch covers all of the ingredients

5) Using two spoons, scoop out chunks of the mixture onto wax paper

6) Then stick two candy corns on the top to make them look pretty 
7) Let them cool for about 15 minutes and then serve them up! 

Do you have any other cool ideas for candy corn?

Pumpkin Dump Cake

On a recent visit to my parents house I was perusing their pantry for something to make for dessert. I saw a cake mix and thought it might be fun to make a dump cake. I made one with canned cherries and pineapple, and we all really enjoyed it. It was like a mixed up pineapple upside down cake. On my drive home I started thinking about how to make a version with fall flavors. I have made muffins with canned pumpkin, but I wasn't sure how to make a pumpkin dump cake. I was actually browsing on Pinterest and someone had pinned a picture from this blog which lead me to a great Pumpkin Dump Cake Recipe.

Here is the recipe, but find a printable card at www.cookiesandcups.com.

Ingredients:
1 can of evaporated milk
1 can of pumpkin
3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp pumpkin spice
1 yellow cake mix
2 Heath bars, cracked up
4 graham crackers, cracked up
1 cup of melted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium bowl mix the evaporated milk, pumpkin, brown sugar and eggs.

How is this so good?

Pour this mixture into a greased 9 x 13 baking pan

bottom layer

Next pour the box of yellow cake mix evenly over the pumpkin mixture.

 

Top with the Heath bar and graham cracker bits, and pour the butter over the crumbles. Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes or until the top layer starts to brown.

 

Enjoy with a big scoop of vanilla icing!