Fluffer Nutter Cupcakes

For Mother's Day my hubby made me an awesome breakfast of pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Like most men, my hubby is the master of breakfast....but not so much a dessert kind of guy. I knew that, so on Saturday I decided to make some yummy cupcakes for our Mother's Day dessert. I came across this recipe and I was hooked as soon as I saw the peanut butter/marshmallow fluff combo! I've also been wanting to try the fun chocolate dipped technique since I saw these Hi-Hat Cupcakes made by none other than Martha Stewart. Please don't compare mine to her's because I obviously need to work on my piping skills:)

Now before we get to the recipe, do you see those awesomely beautiful cupcake wrappers? I picked them up at Winn-Dixie {while on a twenty minute quest to find marshmallow fluff which they were sold out of}. They are Reynold's brand cupcake holders that are lined with foil. Do you see how pretty they still after I baked my cupcakes? The usual paper cupcake wrappers fade and get kind of greasy...not these! They stayed pretty! And you can even use them without a cupcake pan because they are lined with foil! They were a little more expensive than the normal paper cup, but so worth it for that pretty wrapper:)

Fluffer Nutter Cupcakes
This recipe is adapted from one I found at parenting.com.
It is from the Betty Crocker's The Big Book of Cupcakes and they are called Peanut Butter Cupcakes.

Cupcakes

• 3 cups AP  flour sifted
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt1cup butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4cup milk

Frosting

• 1 1/2cups butter, softened
• 1 1/2cups creamy peanut butter
• 1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow creme
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Chocolate Coating

• 3 cups chocolate candy melts

Heat oven to 350°F. Place baking cups in 28 regular-size muffin cups. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Beat 1 cup butter and the granulated sugar with electric mixer on medium speed about 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla. On low speed, alternately add flour mixture, about 1/3 of mixture at a time, and milk, about 1/2 at a time, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Beat just until blended. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

Bake 20 to 24 minutes. Cool 5 minutes. Place on cooling racks. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Beat 1 1/2 cups butter and the peanut butter with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat in marshmallow creme. On low speed, gradually add powdered sugar until blended. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla; beat 3 minutes longer.

Add frosting into decorating bag fitted with large round tip {I used a large ziploc bag and it worked okay, but I think a really icing bag would work better}. On top of each cupcake, pipe frosting in circles making cone shape with peak in center. Refrigerate cupcakes at least 45 minutes to harden frosting before dipping in chocolate coating.

Microwave your chocolate candy melts until smooth. Dip frosting on each cupcake into chocolate coating to coat frosting completely, letting excess chocolate drip off. Refrigerate to set coating, about 5 minutes.

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In case you missed it yesterday, I shared a SUPER fun tutorial on how to make Sidewalk Chalk Paint at Positively Splendid as part of the Summer Survival Guide. Head over and check it out!

Last Minute Cinco de Mayo Recipe: Taco Pizza

If you are looking for quick and easy recipe for Cinco de Mayo that you know the kids will love, look no further! Taco Pizza is a perfect way to celebrate, and you may even be able to sneak in a few veggies too:)
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TACO PIZZA
Orginally post 6/29/2010

Brown up a pound of hamburger meat. Add in taco seasonings and cook according to the package. While the taco meat is cooking, roll out a tube of refrigerated pizza dough.
Top the pizza dough with a thin layer of refried beans. I used a whole can and it spread evenly to all the edges of the dough. Top the refried beans with a can of whole kernel corn, drained.
When the taco meat is done cooking. Add an even layer of it over the beans and corn.
Top off the taco pizza with whatever kind of cheese your family loves.

Bake on 400 for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the pizza crust is nice and brown.

Top your taco pizza with lettuce and tomato and serve with a dollop of sour cream. And if you are looking for a fun dessert check out these Sombrero Cookies or this yummy Fried Ice Cream!
Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Cinco de Mayo Treats: Sombrero Cookies

When Henry's teacher asked me to bring Sombrero cookies to help celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I was a little hesitant. This week is not only Teacher Appreciation Week, but Grant's class is learning about Japan {which means I will be making Candy Sushi} and Henry has an award ceremony on Thursday {he got highest GPA in his class for the year!}. I knew I had a busy week ahead of me, but Henry's teacher said she thought the Sombrero Cookies would be really easy to make so I agreed to give them a try:)

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I found the directions on the Family Fun website, bought all the supplies, and then got busy assembling some fun {edible} Sombreros for Henry's class:)

Ingredients:

store bought sugar cookies

a can of white icing

gum drops

nonpareils or sprinkles

Start by putting about half a can of store bought icing into a ziploc bag. Then cut off a tiny piece of one corner to make squeezing the icing onto the cookie easy.

Using your homemade icing bag, squeeze a small bead of icing all the way around the cookie. It doesn't have to be perfect, once it is covered in sprinkles no one will even notice:)

Pour your nonpareils into a shallow dish and then place the iced cookie face down in the plate of nonpareils.

Turn them back over and add a drop of icing in the center of the cookie.

Add a gum drop to the icing then sprinkle on a few extra nonpareils to cover any extra icing.

Once you get your first cookie made and get a feel for it, these are SUPER easy to make assembly line style and the kiddos can even help by sticking on the gum drop!

I hope these Sombrero Cookies help make your Cinco de Mayo a little more fun and a lot sweeter!

Dessert From Heaven

Like most holidays, I was asked to bring some type of dessert for our Easter lunch this year. I really don't mind bring dessert because I LOVE to bake and really don't like to cook...so dessert is right up my alley:) I spent more than a few hours in the kitchen this past weekend whipping up some fun treats for church, making peanut butter cookies, and trying out this new {amazing} recipe for Angel Food Cake.

Heavenly Angel Food Cake

From allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 12 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar

Directions

1. Separate eggs; discard yolks or refrigerate for another use. Measure egg whites, adding or removing whites as needed to equal 1-1/2 cups. Place in a mixing bowl; let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, sift confectioners' sugar and flour together three times; set aside. Add cream of tartar, extracts and salt to egg whites; beat on high speed. Gradually add sugar, beating until sugar is dissolved and stiff peaks form. Fold in flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time. Gently spoon into an ungreased 10-in. tube pan. Cut through batter with a knife to remove air pockets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Immediately invert pan; cool completely before removing cake from pan.

This cake was great on it's own, but it was even better with fresh strawberries and whipped cream on top! YUM! And the best part is that one serving of this cake is only 101 calories!

 

More Easy Easter Treats

We are spending the morning at an Easter egg hunt, but I wanted to share one last quick and easy Easter treat with you!

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I whipped these treats up for Henry's class in literally less than 30 minutes. I started by making a regular batch of Rice Krispy Treats. Then I used my cookie scoop and put a big heaping scoop of the warm Rice Krispy mixture into muffin tins that had been sprayed with cooking spray. I let the mixture cool just a little then I used my finger to make a well in the middle to make it look more like a nest. Then I added in a few colorful jelly beans in the middle to look like eggs. Let the nests harden for about an hour or overnight.

 These are a quick and easy treat that you can throw together in no time! One batch should make about 24 little birds nests so all the kids {big and small} can enjoy them!

I hope you are having a fun Easter filled weekend!

Froot Loop Easter Egg Treats

Making fun treats with my kiddos is one of my favorite things about any holiday. We always make gingerbread men at Christmas and some kind of red, white, & blue dessert for the 4th of July. This year I wanted to make something new for Easter since we don't really have a traditional Easter treat that we always make.  I took an idea that I saw in my Family Fun magazine for Rice Krispy Eggs and changed it around a little to make things more colorful...and frooty!

We started with a big box of Froot Loops and bunch of empty bowls. Henry and Grant got busy sorting the Froot Loops by color, and Eli got busy eating the few Froot Loops that I gave him to sort:) You could also make this without sorting and have fun rainbow Froot Loop Eggs....but the sorting was half the fun for my boys!

I placed the sorted Froot Loops in my small chopper and pulse it a few times just to break the cereal up a little. Don't chop it up too small or it will turn to powder! Repeat this step for each of the colors of cereal and place them into 6 separate medium sized bowls.

Melt down marshmallow and butter like you would for Rice Krispy Treats. After the mixture is completely melted, allow it cool slightly then evenly divide the marshmallow mixture into the 6 bowls of different colored cereals.

Stir the cereal into the marshmallow mixture using a spoon or your hands. Either way you chose to do it is fine, just make sure to keep the cooking spray handy so that the marshmallow doesn't stick to your spoon or your hands.

Once everything is mixed together, hand it over to your kiddos and let them have fun stuffing it into {washed, dried, and sprayed with cooking spray} plastic eggs.

Put the cereal mixture into the two pieces of the eggs and then squish them together to make a solid cereal egg. We let ours cool a little inside the plastic egg so that it would hold it's shape better.

You can serve them up on a cute Easter plate....

...or display them in a basket as the centerpiece of your Easter table!

I love that they are colorful just like the real eggs we dye every year, and my boys love that they got to help make such a fun and yummy treat!

This week I'm linking up with my sweet friend Amanda and her fun Weekend Bloggy Reading linky! If you have some down time this weekend go check out all the fun!

Dirt Cups

Last week, one of Grant's teacher asked if I would mind bringing Dirt Cups for the kids in his class. I said sure....no problem. The only problem was that I really hadn't ever made Dirt Cups before and I didn't have a recipe! Luckily my lovely blog/twitter friend Angie came to the rescue after I sent out a distress tweet asking for a recipe! She sweetly emailed me a copy of a recipe out of a church cookbook from her childhood! I used her recipe as a base, changed up a few things, and made it times 1 1/2 so that I would have plenty for the almost 30 kiddos in Grant's class!

:Dirt Cups:

2 packages of Oreos

3 8oz. packages of cream cheese

3 cups of powdered sugar

1 large box of instant chocolate pudding

3 cups of milk

12 oz of Cool Whip

gummie worms

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I started by putting one package of Oreos at a time in my food processor and letting them whirl!

 You want the cookie crumbs to be the texture of real dirt, and that only takes a few seconds in a food processor!

 In my lovely {but oh so old} KitchenAid mixer I added the 3 blocks of cream cheese and the 3 cups of powdered sugar. I slowly incorporated the two so that powdered sugar didn't fly all over my kitchen, then I set it on medium speed and let it go until it was well blended and a little fluffy.

 While that mixture was working, I added my pudding mix and 3 cups of milk into a bowl and whisked them together well to get out any lumps.

 Then I added in my Cool Whip and slowly whisked it in until the mixture was smooth.

 Next I added my pudding/Cool Whip mixture slowly into the cream cheese/powdered sugar mixture. Beat on low until all ingredients are well mixed making sure to scrap the sides of the bowl....the cream cheese mixture likes to hang out on the side of the bowl and not mix in so work it a little!

 The last thing I added to the mixture was about a third of the cookie crumbs from earlier. I didn't really measure, just dumped in enough to give the mixture a little fun texture!

The next part is one of the most important: quality control. Before you serve up this yummy mixture, you really should lick the beater to make sure that it taste just right....or at least that they way we roll at our house:)

 Scoop up the mixture into small clear cups and top the cups with the remaining cookie crumbs and a gummie worm!

 I think the kiddos in Grant's class are learning about insects this week, but this would also be a great snack for Earth Day next week too! It was seriously so yummy that we may be making it again next Friday:)



Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope you all have a great {GREEN} St. Patty's Day!

Here are a few pictures of Eli showing off some of our fun festivities:)

 Find the St. Patty's Day tie tutorial over at Mandy's place Sugar Bee Crafts!

And you can find the tutorial to make these SUPER cute Shamrock Marsmallow Pops over at Poca Cosa. She used heart shaped marshmallows which I couldn't find in the middle of March, but I think they still turned out SUPER cute with the regular marshamallows!

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If you need any other last minute ideas to celebrate St. Patty's Day check out my

Rainbow Waffles

Rainbow Cupcakes

Rainbow Pudding

Leprechaun Jello

Lucky Shoe Charms

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY!

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Leprechaun Jello

I was flipping through an old copy of Kraft's Food & Family Magazine a few days ago and I came across this recipe for Jello Magic Mousse. It brought back vivid memory of eating this yummy dessert at my grandmother's house when I was little. I can remember wondering how in the world my grandmother made the yummy layer dessert! Well now I know how thanks to Kraft:)

When I came across this recipe I also thought it would be really fun to make with green Jello for St. Patrick's Day! So yesterday my boys and I made Leprechaun Jello!

{I have to be honest and tell you that I made this completely for my boys and didn't intend to even taste it...mainly because green jello makes me think of not so great hospital food. Well, I tasted it while I was getting ready to take the final picture, and it was so good! It tastes a lot like a creamy Key Lime pie, and nothing like the gross cubes of Jello that they serve at hospitals!}

You will need 3 cups of boiling water, 1 big box of Lime Jello, 1 16 oz. tub of Cool Whip

Mix the Lime Jello powder with the boiling water for 2 minutes or until completely dissolved.

Add the Cool Whip to the bowl.

Stir until all the Cool Whip melts into the warm Jello mixture.

Carefully pour the Jello into glass containers. This makes approximately 10 servings 1/2 cup each.

Refrigerate the mixture for about 8 hours until set. Top with a little Cool Whip and a gold coin.