Tag Archives: Chocolate

Valentine’s Day Treats!!!

Besides baking Michael’s birthday cake for tomorrow, I decided to bake some sugar cookies for  Valentine’s Day.  I use the following sugar cookie recipe and I just love it.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt (I do not use the salt myself)

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 (or overnight).
  2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). 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.

Use Valentine’s Day theme cookie cutters. I chose to use hearts of different sizes and edges.

The dough is so easy to work with.

Prior to baking you can decorate or leave plain to dip in chocolate after baked.

I do not let them over bake and I love that they are soft and not crunchy.

The recipe makes a good amount of cookies.  Amount will depend on the size of cookie cutters you use but I have three platters full.

These cookies were calling to Ethan who we told had to wait until after dinner.  As you can see from his face and hands, he did not waste any time.

 

 


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My Little Cupcake Pop Mold Review.

Well, I just got done making about 40 cake pops.  The “My Little Cupcake Company” sent me a mold and one to giveaway to a reader of my blog.  They sent everything out so fast and gave me a nice history of the company and business cards and brochure. The mold was invented by a mother of 3.  I love mom-invented products.   The mold itself is very sturdy and easy to use.  It has a hinge on the bottom which is very handy and makes the mold really easy to operate even with sticky hands.  The company will be coming out with at least three more designs in the near future.  If you can’t wait to see if you win the giveaway, you can visit their website at http://www.mylittlecupcakepop.com/ You can purchase the mold direct from there or they are available as well on Amazon.com.

The first step is to take your cooled baked cake and put it into a large bowl and break it up into small pieces.

Then I added my cream cheese frosting and mixed it all together.

Then take the mixture and scoop it out with a cookie scoop and put the balls in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

You will have about 40 balls.  Then take your “My Little Cupcake Pop Mold”

Open the mold and put one of the balls in.

Close the mold and let the excess squeeze out.  Then wipe off the excess and put it into a bowl to re-mold later.

Open the mold and you should have a nicely formed little cupcake.

Repeat with the rest of the cake balls and then put the formed cake balls in the freezer again for at least 30 minutes.

Melt your chocolate, then dip the bottoms of the cake balls into the melted chocolate.

After you dip it in the chocolate, put a pop stick in it and let it dry upside down.  When dry, melt the white chocolate and dip the top in white chocolate and sprinkle with decor of your choice.

Stick the pops into Styrofoam and keep going.

Okay so that is it.   Now for my review.  This was not a lot of work until the end.  The dipping of chocolate is messy and tedious.  There are also some casualties where the ball falls off the stick.  I think that is why some people just make cake balls and not pops.  The mold itself worked well.  It is just a lot of work and for me I do not know that I would do this again.  I mean the end result was okay but nothing that spectacular that I would have to make these again.  Maybe it is me.  Maybe I am not that creative or this just is not my thing.   I do not feel the need to rush and make another batch.  Like I said, someone else may have a knack for it, and I do appreciate that the mold was designed by a mom.  As I said in a previous post she does recommend using a pack of Oreo cookies and a brick of cream cheese.  Maybe that mixture holds better and definitely is less work than making your own cake and frosting.  Maybe sometime soon I will give that a try, who knows?  It depends how fast I forget.   I am giving away one brand new mold.  If you want it and you will give this a try then you need to subscribe to my blog and like my Facebook blog fan page.  In the next day or so I will post a post about the giveaway and it will have the instructions for the contest.   I think I am going to spend a bit of time with my treadmill now.  Have a great Saturday night!!!

I will leave you some pics of the little guys eating them.  Luke had a problem with it falling off the stick but he solved that by just stuffing the whole thing in his mouth.  : )


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Paula Deen’s, Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

I am really not sure if these are a true Paula Deen creation because I see the recipe with a different kind of cake mix without the Paula Deen name.  Anyhow, I made these Chocolate Gooeey Butter Cookies a few weeks ago and my husband loved them and has been begging me to make them again so I did.  They are super easy and from what I have been reading you can use any flavor cake mix.  So far I have only chocolate varieties.  Next time I may try a  golden or butter cake mix and see how they taste.   Anyway here is the super-duper easy recipe.  Feel free to comment with your individual results and if you tried different cake mixes.  Would love to hear your opinions.

Ingredients

  • 1 (8-ounce) brick cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 stick butter, at room temperature
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 (18-ounce) box moist chocolate cake mix
  • Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Beat in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls. Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon sized balls and then roll them in confectioner’s sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and “gooey.” Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

 


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