Creamy Lemony Crumbly Bars-y?

As I'm typing this my dog is barking like a mad man right outside my window so I can't really concentrate.  Although, this doesn't require lots of concentration, I get distracted easily.  Oh, and I would like to say that I saw a bumblebee buzzing around today. Oh Spring time, how I love thee! You're so close I can almost taste you!! Such wishful thinking! Anywho, these lemon bars are pretttyyyy tasty! Although make sure you put the zest in when it calls for it! For some reason, the lemons I used for this would not zest, and that definitely plays a huge part in the taste of these.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter - slightly softened
1 cup brown sugar - lightly packed
1 cup oats
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Mix butter and brown sugar until well combined.
-Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder.
-Add oats and flour to sugar/butter mixture.  Mix to combine.
-Press half of the oat crumb mixture into the bottom of an 8 x 11 glass pan.
-Mix together the sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, and zest until combined.
-Spread on top of the crumb mixture.
-Distribute the rest of the crumb mixture on top of the milk/lemon mixture, but do not press down.

-Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Healthy Pound Cake...& by healthy, I mean not healthy.

This pound cake recipe is THE BEST.  Courtesy of Great Aunt Helen whom I have no idea who she is.  My best friend Frannie gave me this recipe that her family always uses.  We get a pound cake from them every Christmas, except this past Christmas was a little different.  Ginger the dog ate it.  So they made us a new poundcake along with the recipe just in case.  Thanks Fran! haha

Ingredients:8 oz cream cheese - room temperature
3 sticks of butter - room temperature
3 cups sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
dash of salt
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
6 large eggs

Directions:
-Set oven to 325 degrees
-Grease the pan like it's your job.  Must be greased excessively.
-Mix the cream cheese and butter together on medium until light and fluffy.
-Continue to mix while adding in the sugar, flour, salt, vanilla.
-Add each egg individually, still mixing.
-Bake for 1 1/2 hours!

Add chopped up strawberries and some whipped cream to make a strawberry shortcake :)

Orange Creamsicle Cookies

I made these a couple weeks ago, and never blogged about them.  They are ridiculously delicious.  Tastes like a real creamsicle melting down your hand on the 4th of July.  I made abour 3 dozen of these the other day and by the next day I think there were 9 left.  Highly recommend these bad boys.

 

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter - softened
1/2 cup sugar

1/2 brown sugar - packed
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons orange zest (about 2 oranges)
1 bag of white chocolate chips

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees

-In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt
-In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and creamy.  Beat in egg and vanilla until smooth.  Gradually add in the flour mixture until all is combined.  Stir in the orange zest and white chocolate chips.
-Drop spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Do not flatten the cookies.  Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown edges.  Cookies will be nice and plump.  Cool for a couple minutes on the cookie sheets, then tranfer to a wire wrack to completely cool! Enjoy!

Wishing & Hoping it was Summer....Lemon Mousse.

Like I said in the last blog posting, we have a lot of lemons.  So that's what I did today, made lemon mousse.  It was between the lemon mousse or the lemon crumbly bars, but went with the mousse.  Could I say mousse one more time?  Mousse.  Ok.....so here it is:

Makes 4-6 parfait glasses.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon plain gelatin
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 sugar
3 tablespoons lemon zest
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Pinch of salt
6 large egg yolks

1 1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar

In a small bowl add the water, and then sprinkle the gelatin on top to allow to 'gel'...about 10 minutes.

While that is 'gel-ing', melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Once melted, remove from heat and add the sugar, salt, lemon zest, and lemon juice.  Whisk together and then add the egg yolks.  Place this over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with the whisk.  Let cook until the mixture is thick and can coat the back of a spoon (8-10 minutes). 
*If the mixture begins to bubble, remove from heat for 15 seconds letting steam to escape, then return to heat.

Once it has thickened, whisk in the gelatin.  Let the mixture cool down to room temperature, stirring occasionally.  Once it has cooled, beat the whipping cream and sugar to form stiff peaks.  Add half of the whipped cream into the lemon curd and gently fold in.

Pour mousse between the parfait glasses.  Top with a large dollop of whipped cream!

**It may not have the consistency of mousse right away, so let sit int he refrigerator for some time, add the whipped cream, then you should be good to go!!

The Original Gangster, Mr. Chocolate Chip Cookie.

I needed to bake something today.  We have a bowl full of lemons; like 10 lemons.  So why wouldn't I bake something lemon-y?  Well, I thought and I thought and everything that consisted of lemon juice or zest we didn't have all the ingredients.  Cream of tartar?  No sorry I don't have that.  4 blocks of cream cheese?  No sorry, wasn't willing to die of cream cheese overdose today.  However, I know the ingredients to my chocolate chip cookie recipe will always stand by my side, and we will always have each others backs.  So chocolate chip cookies it is!

Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 bag milk chocolate chips (1 bag will do, but it's just NOT the same)


Directions:
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
-In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
-Beat the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla in a stand mixer on medium, until smoothed and creamy.
-Add each egg one at a time, beating well after each addition.
-Gradually, beat in flour mixture on medium speed.
-Stir in chocolate chips to mixture.

On an ungreased cookie sheets, drop tablespoons full of cookie dough. 
Bake for 9-11 minutes until edges are golden brown.
Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes.
Place on wire rack to completely cool.

Simple as pie!!......or should I say, simple as chocolate chip cookies. ba dum ba!

Fabulous Homemade Snickers!

I decided I wanted to give these a whirl and see how closely they were to the real deal.  Even though we STILL have Christmas candy laying around the house....or in my dad's candy storage hiding spot which is in a cooler, in the basement, on top of like 5 other coolers....in case anyone was wondering.  However, I made these yesterday and they actually turned out pretty spot on.

 
The ingredient amounts are a little strange because I cut each amount in half from the original recipe to make a batch for an 8x8 pan instead of a 9x13.  So here is the recipe I used for the 8x8 pan.

Ingredients & Directions:

Bottom Layer
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/8 cup butterscotch chips
1/8 creamy peanut butter

Melt these three things together in a bowl in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until all is melted.  Spread into a lightly greased 8x8 inch pan.  Place in fridge to cool.

Filling
1/8 cup of butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1/8 cup of evaporated milk
3/4 cup marshmallow cream
1/8 cup of creamy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup salted peanuts - chopped

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  When the butter is melted, add the sugar and milk, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar granules.  Bring to a boil and continue stirring for 3 minutes.  The mixture will start to follow your spoon.  Remove from heat and stir in the marshmallow cream, peanut butter, and vanilla.  Mix this until smooth.  Spread over the first layer, and sprinkle the chopped peanuts on top.  Place back in fridge.

Caramel Layer
1/2 bag of Kraft caramels (half is 25 candies, I ended up having to use 30)
1/8 cup of evaporated milk

Unwrap the caramels and melt them with the cream in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted.  Carefully spread over filling layer.

Top Layer
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/8 cup butterscotch chips
1/8 creamy peanut butter

Melt together in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted.  Spread evenly over caramel layer.  Store in the refrigerator until cool and hardened.  Cut into small bars.  Keep refrigerated (chocolate will start to soften/melt if put in room temperature too long).

Heaven In My Mouth...Brown Sugar Pound Cupcakes w/ Brown Butter Glaze

So, you want to bake something and don't know what?  This was me this morning.  Well, I had my leftover buttermilk from the Pink Velvet Roll and I knew that the Brown Sugar Cupcakes called for buttermilk so I went for it.  It's a fairly easy recipe and it's based off of a recipe by my girl Martha.  She's a doll isn't she?!  Is she still in jail?......just kidding....

My mom insisted I used this plate :)

This made exactly 30 cupcakes when I did this.

Ingredients for Cupcakes:
3 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter - softened
2 1/4 packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs - room temperature
3/4 buttermilk

Ingredients for Brown Butter Glaze:
1 stick unsalted butter
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2-4 tablespoons whole milk

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line cupcake tins with 30 paper liners.
-Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Cream together the butter and sugar with a hand mixer until light and fluffy.  Add each egg one at a time, beating thoroughly after each one.
-Now, put the mixer to low.  Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions; alternating with the buttermilk and ending with dry ingredients.  Divide mixture among the cupcake liners, filling 2/3 of the way full.

-Bake for 25 minutes.

While the cupcakes are baking, make the glaze....
Directions for Glaze:
-Heat butter in a small saucepan over low-medium heat until golden brown, this took me exactly 10 minutes.  With a spoon, scoop out the sediment that is left behind into a small bowl (don't need this).  Carefully pour the brown butter into a bowl.
-Add sugar, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of milk, and stir until smooth.  If the glaze is still thick, add more milk.  I ended up adding 3 tablespoons of milk.

-After the cupcakes are finished, put cupcakes on a wired rack over parchment paper.  Spoon the glaze over tops, and let stand until set & then serve!

***The recipe called for light brown sugar, next time I would use dark brown sugar for more flavor.  Also, instead of vanilla in the glaze I might change it out with 1 teaspoon of maple flavoring.***