Reindeer Cookies

These Reindeer Cookies were one of the hottest pins on Pinterest right before Christmas.  I thought they would be a big hit with the kids at our Christmas dinner.  These little guys were incredibly easy to make, though a bit time consuming.  It would be a really fun afternoon with the littles in your life, though!

I actually wanted mini M&Ms for the little noses, but couldn't find any in the grocery store.  Next year, I'll begin looking a little sooner and try to come up with some, because I think that would be more tasty than a red hot.  ;)

I've also seen this same concept done with white almond bark to create little snowmen, with mini M&Ms for buttons down the front and using Wilton Food Writer Edible Color Markers to draw in eyes and nose.

Ingredients
Nutter Butter Cookies
Chocolate Almond Bark

Wilton Candy Eyeballs

Pretzels

Red Hots

Directions:

According to package directions, melt about 3 blocks of chocolate almond bark.  Completely coat 1 Nutter Butter cookie.  Working quickly before almond bark hardens, place your pretzel for the antlers, and then place your eyes and nose.  Continue this method until your almond bark becomes a little too stiff to coat nicely.  Allow the cookies to harden on wax paper until set and then store in an airtight container.


Note: I used about 6 blocks of chocolate almond bark to coat an entire package of Nutter Butters.  3 blocks of almond bark was a good amount to melt at a time; I found I was just getting to the unworkable point as I got to the end of the first batch of melted bark.

Kentucky Butter Cake

I'm really not sure how so many baked goods and dessert type recipes end up on my blog.  I really do cook real meals, but I think I just don't consider taking photos of those meals because they're so "normal" for me.  Baked goods are actually not my favorite "in the kitchen" creations.  But they do turn out delicious!

Up today is a Kentucky Butter Cake.  I'm not even sure how I stumbled on this recipe online, but it sounded quite amazing and I was intrigued.  I adapted it a bit to cut some of the sugar out (and believe me, it's plenty sweet enough with my cuts).

(cell phone photo after we cut into it)

Ingredients:
Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup real butter
1.5 cups sugar (original recipe: 2 cups)
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Butter Sauce:
3/4 cup sugar (original recipe: 1 cup)
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Cake:
Preheat your oven to 350*.  Grease and flour a bundt pan.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
Cream butter and sugar.  Now, add eggs and mix until blended.  Add buttermilk and vanilla; mix.
Begin adding the flour mixture into the creamed mixture by cupfuls; mix well between additions.
Pour into your prepared bundt pan and bake for 1 hour.

Butter Sauce:
About 10 minutes before your cake is finished baking, begin on the butter sauce.
In a small saucepan on medium heat, mix sugar, water and butter, bringing to a low boil.
Stir until sugar is dissolved and vanilla.
Immediately upon removing the cake from the oven, poke holes in the top of the cake (a small wooden spoon end or a bamboo skewer works great for this because you want to get as far into the cake as possible).
Drizzle butter sauce evenly over cake.

(cooling cake after being drizzled with butter sauce)

Allow cake to cool almost completely before turning the pan upside down over a plate to remove.
You can dust the cake top with powdered sugar for a more finished look.

Raspberry Shortbread Ribbons

'Tis the season for Cookie Swaps! This is a great Cookie Swap recipe because they make up quickly and easily. Depending on the size of your Cookie Swap, baking enough cookies can be a bit daunting. You shape your shortbread into logs, for this one, and then simply slice into ribbons after baking. You could always double the dough and make larger slices if you wanted bigger "ribbons". The recipe promised 5 dozen, I ended up with about 4 dozen. Since I needed 3 dozen, this worked out well -- I could reject some of the not-so-pretty ones. And eat them, of course. ;)

warning: cell phone photo coming up...

Ingredients:

Shortbread Dough:

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raspberry jam

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
 
Directions:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  While this is mixing, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add egg and vanilla to the butter and sugar and mix well.  Gradually add dry ingredients until throughly combined.
 
Seperate dough into fourths.  Form a log from each dough section four inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.  Your logs should be about 10 inches long and 2.5 inches wide.  Create a 1/2 inch valley down the center of each log; try to create a "dam" at the end of each log, otherwise your jam will just run off the edges later on.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
 
Remove logs from oven and fill the valleys with jam.  Bake for another 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.  Cool for two minutes, then slice into 3/4 inch slices.  Transfer ribbons to a wire rack.  Be sure to place a layer of wax paper between the rack and counter to catch the glaze drippings in the next step. 
 
In a small bowl, combine glaze ingredients.  Drizzle glaze over warm cookies.  Cool completely so that glaze will harden.  Also, be sure your cookies are seperated from one another after drizzling, so that the glaze doesn't "glue" them together.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Seriously, nothing says autumn more to me than PUMPKIN.  Pumpkin everything.  Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks. Pumpkin Bread. Pumpkin Pie Dip with Gingersnaps.  Pumpkin Pie. and how about some Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins?  Well, yes, don't mind if I do...

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar*
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients (for this recipe, we're going to include the sugar in the "dry" category) and set aside.  Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl and add butter; mix until blended.  Slowly add the dry ingredients, mixing well between each addition.  Stir in chocolate chunks.  Line about 16 muffin tins with liners and spoon batter into muffin tins.  Bake for about 20 minutes (my oven bakes hot, though, so you may need a couple more minutes).

*as usual, I cut back on the sugar for this recipe.  I kinda got sidetracked and didn't cut as much as I intended, but I know I did not get a full measuring cupful in... maybe a little more than 3/4 cup?  These were definitely sweet enough, though, and could probably stand to be cut a tiny bit more if desired.

"That Strawberry Dessert"

There's this strawberry dessert that usually gets pulled out in the summer months around our house.  I don't really have a true name for it.  We've always just referred to it as "that strawberry dessert".  It's a super easy dessert that can be made quickly and with few ingredients.  It's very light and cool, so it makes a great summer dessert for potlucks and such.  I recently made it for a friend that had just gotten home from the hospital and thought, as I was making it, that it's a rather festive dessert for Christmas as well!  It's a really pretty red and white dessert and looks classy in a clear glass dish.  So I thought I'd share it here.  :)

Ingredients
1 Angel Food cake
1 three ounce package strawberry gelatin
1 1/4 cup water
1 small tub Cool Whip
10 ounces frozen strawberries, thawed*

Directions
Bring the water to a boil and add gelatin; stir until all is dissolved well.  Stir in the thawed strawberries and mix well.  Set the gelatin in the fridge about 10 or 20 minutes to slightly begin to set up.  Meanwhile, tear the Angel Food cake into bite size chunks.  Pull out your slightly set up gelatin and strawberries and gently fold in the Cool Whip.  Do not stir this too much, Cool Whip has a tendency to completely fall apart if it gets manhandled too much.  It's finicky stuff.  Pour this mixture over the Angel Food pieces -- you may want to do this in a separate bowl and make sure the pieces get a little more evenly coated, plus this lets your pretty clear bowl stay clean.  ;)

*I've been buying the 16 ounce frozen strawberries because I've been unable to find 10 ounces.  Personally, I don't feel like there are "too many" strawberries vs the other ingredients.

Pillow Cookies

So about a month ago, I was on Bakerella's blog and saw her post on Pillow Cookies. Well, the pictures alone will make you drool. Bakerella is not only an amazing baking creator, she is also pretty great with a camera. I'm jealous. Of both skills. Anyway, these Pillow Cookies have tormented my dreams for weeks... well, if I remembered my dreams they would. They tormented my daydreams at least. This afternoon I decided they needed to be made, once and for all. The recipe below is mostly Bakerella's, find the original here. I did tweak a few spots, which I've noted. By the way, this cookie dough recipe may be my new favorite chocolate chip cookie. It uses only brown sugar, has more vanilla and also an extra egg yolk in it. It turned out really well!

makes 10 large cookies
Ingredients:
1 package brownie mix

for cookies:
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 oz. bag miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Bake up the brownies according to the package directions.  I added about 3 palmfuls or so of finely chopped walnuts -- we like nuts in our brownies, but I didn't want them to be too chunky for this creation so I chopped them much finer than usual.  I also underbaked the brownies a bit, about 4 minutes short of the box time -- again kinda our preference, but my theory was also that they will bake a bit inside the cookie.  Let the brownies cool and then cut 10 one inch squares and set aside. Do with the remaining what you will.  ;)  By the way, did you know the best and easiest way to slice brownies is with a plastic knife?  True story!  Brownies stick to the metal knife, but not to the plastic knife.

While the brownies are cooling, begin the cookie dough.

In a mixer, beat butter until creamy.  Add brown sugar and beat until smooth.  Add eggs, yolk, and vanilla and beat until smooth.  In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt with a fork.  Gradually add flour to butter mixture and mix until well combined.  Stir in the mini chips.  so, I didn't have mini chips.  All I had were the normal size.  I had the bright idea of trying to pound them a bit with the flat side of a meat tenderizer while they were in a baggy to break them up.  Not one of my finer ideas, since the bag busted and I lost a few chips to the floor!  ha, but in the end, the regular size chips worked okay.  I do think the mini chips would make a neater looking cookie.  but, back to the recipe... Let dough chill, covered, in the fridge for at least one hour -- it will be easier to work chilled. Just resist the urge to visit the fridge and nibble on it. It's hard and I may have failed that part.

Once the dough comes out of the fridge, you'll have to work fairly quickly as the dough will soften up on you and becomes harder (stickier) to work with.  Of course a lot of this may have something to do with the amazing July heat and humidity here.  ;)  Using a measuring cup, scoop out 1/2 cup of dough onto a cookie sheet (I used my baking stone).  You'll get about 6 scoops on one regular sized cookie pan.  Make a small indentation in the middle of each scoop and place one of your 1 inch brownie squares in.  Cover the brownie with the cookie dough, at this point I gently picked up the dough and formed a rough ball around the brownie -- don't handle the dough too much, though.  You'll want to put the dough back in the fridge until you're ready for the second batch.  After all 6 cookies are finished, pop them in the oven (you should get 4 more cookies in the second batch, for a total of 10 from this recipe).  Bakerella suggests 18 minutes at 350.  I kept the 350, but went for 14 minutes.  Again, total preference to have a gooier cookie.  :)  And that our oven bakes just a tad hotter.  After removing the baking stone from the oven, I let the cookies rest about 2 minutes before transferring them to wax paper.  And then be prepared to be amazed with chocolaty, brownie, cookie goodness.  :)  Mine didn't turn out nearly as pretty in the middle as Bakerella's did.  I guess when you want a gooey cookie, you give up perfect photo opportunities.  ;)

Jones Family "Secret" Rice Krispy Treats

On my summer trip to Omaha one afternoon, we were sitting on the couch and my cousin begins describing this amazing thing her grandma has always done with rice krispy treats.  I realize she's describing my grandma's rice krispy treats.  ;)  Well, they are sisters afterall.  Turns out, we've both grown up eating these treats... So, it seemed only right that we make them this week.  I present the Jones Family "Secret" Rice Crispy Treats:

Ingredients:
1 cup light Karo syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)
6 cups Rice Krispies
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips 

Directions:
Bring the Karo syrup and sugar to a slight boil in large sauce pan (too much boiling makes them stiff and hard to eat).  Remove from heat and add peanut butter and mix well.  Add Rice Krispies and mix well.  Spread in 9x13 (we just did two 8x8).  Melt semi-sweet chips and butterscotch chips in the microwave and spread over the bars. Refrigerate (or freeze if you're impatient) until cool. Once they are "set" they can be stored room temp.  Or if you're like our grandmas, you can freeze and pull them out when family comes over or for holidays.  ;)

Sopapilla Cheesecake

This one comes from Beth Moore's blog.  I've had the awesome opportunity to attend one of Beth's Bible studies at Houston First Baptist when she did Here and Now, There and Then, a lecture series on Revelation.  My friend Abby and I went the entire 10 week series in the fall semester of 2009.  If you get the chance to do this study now that it's officially published -- do it!  It was so incredibly interesting and what fun it was to be there live while it was recorded for Lifeway!  Anyway, I'm totally offtrack now... Back to the recipe -- I stumbled on this recipe on her blog after having it at a church potluck and searching for the recipe.  This is so easy to throw together and sinfully yummy.  :)  I've also successfully halved the recipe and baked it in an 8x8 pan.

Ingredients:
2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese
2 (8 oz) packages refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup cinnamon sugar (combine about 1/2 cup sugar with 1 TBS cinnamon)

Directions:
In a 9×13 baking pan, unroll one package of refrigerated crescent rolls and line the bottom of the pan; flattening and pressing the seams as you go.  Mix together the cream cheese, sugar, and extract and spread over the crescent rolls.  Unroll the other can of crescent rolls and place on top of cream cheese mixture.  Pour one stick of melted butter over the top and sprinkle with about 1/2 cup of the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Milnot Cheesecake

My grandma used to make this all the time, it's easily one of our family favorites... I really don't see it very often outside of our family, in fact. It makes me wonder if it's more of a Midwest recipe?  but, I digress. Cold beaters and chilled Milnot are very crucial to the recipe. don't try to skip that step! I recommend putting the beaters in the freezer for a few minutes and the Milnot in the fridge for a couple hours before making the cheesecake.  Of course, the name derives from the brand of sweetened condensed milk.  It's difficult to find Milnot around here, so I use other brands, but the name has certianly stuck!  This is not a traditional cheesecake in shape, texture, or flavor but it is definitely easy and very good!

Ingredients:
3 ounces lemon Jell-O gelatin
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup boiling water
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
13 ounces Milnot Sweetened Condensed Milk, chilled
8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions:
Dissolve Jell-O in water; cool. Cream sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese. Add Jell-O and mix well. Whip Milnot with cold beaters until fluffy and fold into Jell-O mixture. Add butter to graham cracker crumbs and pack into a 9x13 pan. Add filling to crust and sprinkle with more graham cracker crumbs. Keep refrigerated.