Overnight Coffee Cake Recipe

adapted from Allrecipes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sour cream

Topping

• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Glaze

• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes. Combine powdered  sugar, vanilla and milk. Drizzle over warm coffee cake.

Enjoy!

Photo by captured by cathy

Copycat McDonald's Shamrock Shake

2 cups vanilla ice cream

1 cup milk

8 drops green food coloring

1/8 teaspoon mint extract ( or amount for desired flavor)

Blend well and enjoy!

Green Candy Shamrocks

Green shamrocks are made by melting green candy coating and placing melted candy  in a candy mold. Once hardened,  pop candies out and garnish your St. Patty's Day treats.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This is brand new and we still might have a few bugs. Please give it a try and then give me feedback. If you can think of a way they might be improved, please let me know!

Below are instructions to walk you through the process. Once you are ready to give it a try go to Printable Recipe Cards.

Getting Started

The first step in creating your recipe cards is to select a size. Cards can either be 6″ by 4″, or 5″ by 3″. Two large cards or three small ones will fit on a single sheet of US letter.

If the lower check box is checked, the same recipe will appear on all cards. If not, a different recipe can be placed on each one.

Once a size is selected, click "Next Step" to move to the recipe entry screen.

Editing your recipe

The tabs at the bottom allow quick editing of any part of the recipe card.

Appearance

Use the appearance tab to select a background and layout for the recipe card.

Recipe Information

Enter the name of the recipe, along with the name of the person that created it.

Ingredients

Enter ingredients for the recipe. The toolbar can be used to insert special characters, such as 1/4 and 1/2 measurements.

Directions

Use the directions tab to enter instructions on how to make the recipe.

Printing your recipe

Once all details of the recipe have been entered, use the "next stage" button to move forward. This will either move to the next recipe, or the print preview screen.

At the print preview, clicking the link to the left will display a full size preview in a new window. If everything looks the way you want, just click the print command to create your new cards!

Now you are ready to give the Free Recipe Card Maker a try!

Enjoy!

If not, stick around and see how we made loads of homemade taffy!

Here's our recipe

Homemade Taffy

2 1/2 cups white sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup light corn syrup

1 1/3 cups water

2 tablespoons butter (plus lots extra to butter hands, we probably used over 1/2 of stick of butter on our hands)

1 teaspoon salt

1 - .21oz (6g) package unsweetened, fruit-flavored drink mix (like Kool-Aid) (we used cherry)****however I used Great Value brand from Wal-mart and those were the measurements on the package and it said it made two quarts of drink. On the Kool-Aid packet that makes two quarts it has different amounts (far less) I would still only use 1 packet since it is still flavoring the same amount of water.

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Butter large jelly roll pan or a cookie sheet with sides really well.

In a medium saucepan, stir together the sugar and cornstarch.  Add corn syrup, water, butter and salt and stir well until butter is melted. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stop stirring. Cook mixture until candy thermometer read 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). This takes some time to get it to 250 degrees. Once it approaches 250 degrees watch very closely because it cooks quickly at the end.  Immediately remove from heat. Carefully stir in vanilla and drink mix. Stir well. We should have stirred ours more-- notice some bits of drink mix (dark spots) on our taffy. Pour mixture onto buttered baking pan. Allow to cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes.

Directions:

Once the taffy has cooled enough to handle, butter hands and begin pulling. (It starts kind of translucent)

Then pull...and pull...butter hands again...pull...

and stretch...pull...more hand buttering...pull...

It will become more opaque and lighten in color depending on the attention span of your workers! This takes about 10-15 minutes of pulling.

Pull into long ropes and cut with buttered scissors.

and cut!

Wrap pieces of taffy in pieces of waxed paper

and give it a good twist on each end.

Finished!

Sweet!!

Susan and Michell write...

Superbowl XLIV Panini Party

If you’ve already had enough chili during the play-offs, change it up with a selection of “no fuss” paninis for your Super Bowl party.  Arrange platters with the ingredients for each panini and let your guests put together their own crispy, grilled sandwiches to watch in front of the game.  They may even be inspired to make their own creations.  Serve them up with salt and pepper kettle chips, fruit salad, or your favorite side soup.

Beef and Horseradish Panini

Mozzarella and Proiscuitto Panini

Turkey and Brie Panini

BBQ Chicken Panini

Cuban Panini
Don’t fumble dessert! For a Halftime Sweet Fix, we recommend keeping the panini press fired up. Put out a platter of white bread, thinly sliced pound cake, and croissants. Let your guests mix and match the fillings. Here are a few of our favorite combinations:

Nutella and bananas
Apples, cinnamon, and sugar
Brie and dark chocolate
Dark chocolate and strawberries

Note from Cindy - I use an indoor grill like thiswhen making paninis.

You might also be interested in You've Got Supper's  Superbowl Fiesta Menu, with Saints Rajun Cajun Shrimp Quesadillas and Colts Corn Quesadillas. You can even print off the shopping list! It doesn't get easier than that!

If you need some snacks you might try these Superbowl snacks -- Spicy Buffalo Dip and Honey Mustard Glazed Pretzels.

I have tried not to think about it, actually keeping myself quite busy, but thoughts keep coming back. The complete devastation in Haiti is overwhelming. The pictures on the news of the blood flowing down the street made my heart hurt and my stomach ache.  I feel so powerless and have tried to ignore those nagging feelings to do something. So today I am frivolously baking again but today trying to make it worthy.

Soule Mama I think said it best -

"The most important thing, I think, is to do something - in whatever way is right for you! Don't be overwhelmed by the choices, or misled by your seeming 'smallness' - light a candle, sew a blanket, send a dollar...whatever it may be. It matters." --Amanda Soule

Please consider doing something --anything!

To say thank you for your generosity, Steph at the DailyDigi and I have a special gift for you. Send me an email and tell me that you have made a contribution to a charity of your choice (no amount too small) and we will e-mail you a special download for printable heart cupcake toppers, printable cupcake wrappers, printable valentine papers and also digital files that you can manipulate.

Individually we might seem small and powerless, but together we are big! Together we can make a difference! So for every mommy without their baby today, for the babies without mommies, for everyone that lost all that was important to them, for everyone that lived through the terror.... --- lets just try to do something. Together in our little gestures we can show love, share kindness, provide comfort and give hope!

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Cream Filling and Whipped Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Make your favorite chocolate cupcakes or prepare purchased cake mix. Let cupcakes cool.

Creme Filling

1 - 7 oz container marshmallow cream

1/2 cup softened butter

1/3 cup powder sugar

1 tablespoon water

1/4 teaspoon salt

With electric mixer beat ingredients together until fluffy. Add in a few drops of red food coloring if you like pink filling like we do!

Attach a large tip to pastry bag and fill with cream. Insert tip into cupcake and fill until cupcake slightly expands.

Ganache Frosting

12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream (must be heavy cream -- half and half will not work)

Place chocolate chips into a bowl and pour cream over the top. Heat in microwave until chips are soft.  Allow mixture to sit a minute to continue melting the chips. Stir well. Let mixture come to room temperature.  With electric mixer beat until fluffy. Fill pastry bag with large star tip and pipe onto cupcakes.

Enough frosting and filling for 12-15 cupcakes depending on your frosting and filling style.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere! Four out of five people live in poverty.

If you feel you can't contribute financially, consider donating something you have made to Craft Hope to help raise money.

If you are one of the sweet families selling Hot Chocolate for Haiti, maybe whip up some cupcakes with the toppers and wrappers to sell along with your hot chocolate!

It all matters!

we love you...

but,  is time to see you go!

White Chocolate and Peppermint Popcorn

• 16 oz. white chocolate (can use white chocolate baking morsels) or almond bark
• 1 cup finely crushed (like sand) peppermints (about 10-12 candy canes or 40 mints) I crush my peppermints in my food processor. The mints will scratch the plastic.
• 4 quarts popped popcorn (about 1/2 cup  corn kernels) I used this to pop my corn, so it had salt. If you are using air popped corn, throw in a pinch of salt when you sprinkle in the crushed peppermints.

Slowly melt white chocolate or almond bark in the microwave or on stove-top with double boiler. Stir often to keep chocolate from burning.  Stir  1/2 cup crushed peppermints into the white chocolate.  Place popped corn into a large bowl.  Pour melted white chocolate and peppermint mixture over the popcorn. Gently stir to coat popcorn while sprinkling remaining crushed peppermints over the popcorn.

Pour out onto parchment paper and allow coating to harden.

oh yummy peppermint popcorn!

You can even drizzle with chocolate like Our Best Bites!

If you don't like popcorn you might give Peppermint Bark a try.  Miniature candy canes make great heart suckers and cupcake toppers ---perfect for Valentine's Day! Learn more here.

Marie at Makes and Takes also has a round-up of ideas for left over candy canes.

All we needed was 1 -3 oz box of flavored gelatin and 2 - 1/4 oz  packages of unflavored gelatin, water and candy molds. (we used two candy molds)

Place 1/3 cup water in a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the Jello and  unflavored gelatin over the water. Let sit 5 - 10 minutes. (If you like chewier gummi candy add in another packet of unflavored gelatin.)

Place sauce pan over medium heat and stir until gelatin is dissolved, about 2-5 minutes. When mixture is liquid and all gelatin has dissolved, remove from heat.  Let cool a minute and then pour into a container that is easy to pour from.  I use a small ceramic creamer pitcher.

Fill molds. If you save the inside of the advent calendar for  projects like do, it works perfect! The sheet of star molds worked a bit better than the bears because they are a bit deeper. However, I must say we were just needing an activity so our standards were pretty low--- we thought they all turned out great!

Allow to cool completely, about 20 minutes. They may be placed in a refrigerator for about 10 minutes if the kids are eager.

Once cool, the backs can be lightly dusted with corn starch, if desired.

Peel the gummi candy out of the molds. Don't be shy, you won't hurt them when peeling them from the molds. No need to oil the molds!

Enjoy!

Make homemade stickers with the unused unflavored gelatin packets.

Notes: My son felt the blue ones weren't flavorful enough. Next time we will try 2 boxes Jello, 3 packages of unflavored gelatin and 1/2 cup water.

In Texas there is a wonderful restaurant, La Madeleine,  that serves the most delicious Tomato Basil Soup. La Madeleine would not reveal the recipe for it's soup, however  the recipe was out there.   Apparently the company allowed it to be published in a charity cookbook early  on, before it became a favorite of everyone. Then one day the recipe appeared in a press kit for La Madeleine's 15th birthday. This recipe was published in the Dallas Morning News and my sweet aunt forwarded it to me.  This recipe isn't quite as chunky or as rich as La Madeleine's but it is still soooo good.

La Madeleine Tomato-Basil Soup

Ingredients

4 cups tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped, or 4 cups canned whole tomatoes, crushed
4 cups tomato juice
12 - 14 washed fresh basil leaves, plus additional for garnish, chopped
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sweet, unsalted butter, softened
Salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
Crusty bread (optional)

Directions

Combine tomatoes and juice in saucepan. Simmer for 30 minutes over
medium-low heat. Cool slightly, then place in a blender or food
processor. Add basil and process to puree; this will have to be done in
batches.

Return mixture to saucepan. Add cream and butter. Stir over low heat
until butter and cream are incorporated. Stir in salt and pepper before
serving. Garnish with more fresh basil and serve with fresh, crusty
bread. Makes 8 servings.

Per serving: Cal 237  Fat 22g  Fiber 1g  Chol. 67 mg  Sodium 165 mg  Carbs 10g  Calcium 45g

Recipe by: La Madeleine French Bakery & Cafe, Dallas TX

Notes: When I don't have fresh basil I use 1 Tablespoon dried. When making this soup for my family for a quick meal I often use half and half in place of the the heavy cream and cut back on the butter.  It is still yummy, but the real thing is divine!