Grandma's Banana Pudding

Anytime our family has a get together at my grandmas house, the one recipe that is always requested is: ''Grandma's banana pudding''. Actually, my grandma got this recipe off of Paula Deens show a few years ago, but we like to consider it her recipe! This sweet treat is perfect anytime of the year! Try it out at your next family gathering, you won't be disappointed! 

Ingredients

1   12-ounce container frozen whipped topping thawed, or equal amount sweetened whip
1   14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1   8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 cup milk
1   5-ounce box instant French vanilla pudding
6-8   bananas, sliced
2   bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies

Directions

Line the bottom of a 13x9x2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.
In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using an electric mixer. In different bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together, mix until smooth.  Fold the whip cream into the cream cheese mixture.  Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and mix until well blended.  Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas, cover the remaining cookies.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.
{Recipe courtesy of Paula Deen}

Mud Pie

Last weekend our church had a huge event celebrating the 4th of July. Our friends had asked us to come over for a little cook out before all the festivities began. I decided that I wanted to make a sweet treat for the kiddo's! After contemplating for a couple of days about what I wanted to make, I remembered one of my favorite childhood treats, MUD PIE! I looked up the recipe and was in total disbelief when I saw the ingredients (cream cheese, powdered sugar, whipped cream, yuck!) and decided that I would come up with my own simple & ''healthier'' recipe. Also, I got a little creative and served in inside of a beach pail, and the serving spoon was the beach shovel, so fun!

(4) boxes of instant chocolate pudding
(1) bag of regular worms & (1) bag of sour worms
(1) box of oreos
(1) 12oz whipped cream (frozen food aisle)

Follow instructions on the instant pudding boxes
Fold in whipped cream
Finely crush oreos & set aside (If you have a food processor, use it!)

In your pail layer pudding, crushed oreos, worms, and repeat till your pail is filled to the top!

Easy Fruit Dip

Oh my has it been a hectic few weeks. Sorry for slacking on the posts, but now that I have a computer again, we are back in business! 

Two years ago my boyfriend then, husband now, made this incredible dip for to go along with our platter of fruit we had prepared to eat during one of our movie nights. This dip is simple, delicious and addicting, and only consists of two ingredients, yes I said TWO!

Sour Cream & Brown Sugar

(We actually substitute our SC for Plain Greek Yogurt)

1/4 cup Okios plain Greek yogurt OR Sour Cream

1/4 cup  Brown Sugar

Mix both ingredient together well. Serve with side of fruit. 

ENJOY!!!

Whole Wheat Muffins

This recipe wins a award for the longest recipe name so far. These little treats are my husbands absolute favorite. I really don't care for nuts, so I will substitute them for chocolate chips. You can't go wrong with a little chocolate first thing in the morning.

Pre-heat oven @ 350

Ingredients: 

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter

4 banana's

2 eggs

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup milk

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Spray your mini cupcake pan with cooking spray

Combine in order

Mix till smooth

 

You know you want to sample some of that batter!

pour evenly into cupcake pan, and sprinkle a little sugar over each one.

bake 10-15 minutes

Let them cool for about 10 minutes

gently turn muffins while still in pan, then take back of spoon and pop them out. Place on a cooling rack.

 Love my new anthropologie measuring cups.

Enjoy your scrum-diddly-ump-tious muffins! 

Pumpkin Cake Pops

Might not be the best picture, but they are GREAT!

 Two weeks ago I made Pumpkin Cakes (Previous Post). I had some leftover cake and I was going to use it to make Pumpkin croutons, instead I made Chocolate Covered Pumpkin Cake Pops!!!

I didn't know what I was really getting myself into by making these. I tried to make other cake pops, lets just say, actually I will not say anything at all!!! But let me re-assure you that these Pumpkin Pops are delicious,  even my husband loved them, he isn't much of a sweets eater!

 

CAKE INGREDIENTS:

1/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp Pumpkin Spice

1/4 Tsp Salt

3 Large Eggs

1 Cup Grounded Sugar

2/3 Cup Pure Pumpkin (Libby's)

1 (8oz) Cream Cheese

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla

Chocolate for melting 

(Use what you prefer. I used Chocolate Bark.) 

Lollipop Sticks 

(buy at any local craft store.)

Cup or deep bowl filled with rice or beans 

(To hold your cakepops up!)

Lollipop Plastic Wrappers

Waxpaper

 Directions: 

1.

Pre-Heat your oven to 375 degrees

2.

Grease a 15x10 cake pan, line with wax paper, grease and flour paper.

3.

 In a Medium size mixing bowl, Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, salt and set aside.

4.

Beat Eggs and Sugar in mixer until thick. Then beat in the pumpkin, followed by the flour mixture till well mixed. 

5. 

Pour evenly into your greased pan and bake for 13-15 minutes. (To know it is done, press finger into cake, if it springs back you are good to go!)

6.

Take your cake and let it cool either in the fridge or freezer. I placed my cake in the freezer for about 20 minutes. 

7.

When your cake is chilled then crumble your cake batter into a bowl.

No, that isn't pumpkin, it's funfetti. But that's what it is supposed to look like!

 8.

After your cake is crumbled well. Fold in 8 ounces of Cream Cheese.

 9.

You will then, make small cake balls and put them on a wax paper lined tray. Put them in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes, again, you don't want them completely frozen. In the meantime go ahead and melt your chocolate, of course a little taste test doesn't hurt!

10. 

After 20 minutes, pull your cake balls out. Dip the end of the stick into the chocolate, then GENTLY stick into cake ball (1'') and dip (Don't swirl around, otherwise you will have cake all in your chocolate.) into chocolate. Stick into your designated cup/bowl and continue to repeat steps.

SN: I woke up to breakfast and 7 gorgeous sunflowers last week, my husband said: ''Happy 7 months honey''! So thoughtful :)

11.

Place your Cake Pops in the fridge till chocolate is completely harden. Then put your Cake Pops in plastic lollipop wrappers and enjoy with family and friends!  

(Or just leave in your cup/bowl and serve them as dessert after dinner or a party!)

Happy Baking <3

Pumpkin Cake Recipe

 

Taken last Fall at our favorite park: Woodward!

Fall, I have no patience to wait till Oct 1st to start celebrating these two glorious months! Pumpkin candles are burning, Fall decor is starting to make its appearance and the weather is starting to change, slowly. 

I had the urge to attempt to make a Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese roll, I'm going to be honest, it failed. But when something goes wrong the best thing to do is IMPROVISE! That's exactly what I did :) 

So, I rolled out my cake, stared at it in disappointment as the cake cracked slowly down the middle. But quickly got over it and made them into mini cakes. I was thrilled how well they turned out!! Don't let one thing ruin the dish, be creative and just fix the problem! 

''Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Mini Cakes'' 

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp Pumpkin Spice

1/4 Tsp Salt

3 Large Eggs

1 Cup Grounded Sugar

2/3 Cup Pure Pumpkin (Libby's)

1 (8oz) Cream Cheese

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla

 Directions: 

1.

Pre-Heat your oven to 375 degrees

2.

Grease a 15x10 cake pan, line with wax paper, grease and flour paper.

3.

 In a Medium size mixing bowl, Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, salt and set aside.

4.

Beat Eggs and Sugar in mixer until thick. Then beat in the pumpkin, followed by the flour mixture till well mixed. 

5. 

Pour evenly into your greased pan and bake for 13-15 minutes. (To know it is done, press finger into cake, if it springs back you are good to go!)

6. 

Let cake cool, then flip cake out onto a serving tray, clean counter or cutting board.

7.

Cut your pieces into squares, however big or small you want them? 

Cream Cheese Mixture:

Beat Cream Cheese, Vanilla, Powdered sugar, butter until smooth. 

8.

Place your cream cheese mixture in between layers and refrigerate. 

9.

Before serving, sprinkle a little powdered over the top of the cakes and ENJOY!

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer. - Helen Hunt Jackson

Breakfast Muffins

So I have this new cookbook that was given to me by our dear friends as a wedding gift. It is called: ''The Pioneer Woman Cooks'', By: Ree Drummond. And ladies let me tell you, her book: ''The Pioneer Woman Cooks '' is so hard to put down and the recipes are SIMPLE & DELICIOUS! I highly recommend this book to be apart of your cookbook collection. If you are NOT a cook, she definitely makes cooking so much easier and fun. There are pictures for each recipe that are very descriptive so you don't get lost and there is always a story with each of the recipes, which makes it personable! (Great gift as well!)

Saturday night I was going through my baking pantry trying to decide what I could make for our Sunday brunch? My eyes went straight to the SUGAR and CINNAMON. Those two ingredients made me look back to my childhood when my parents would make me toast with Cinnamon Sugar, oh so tasty!

As I was contemplating what to make with those two ingredients I decided to pull out my new cookbook. As I was flipping through it I came across the French Breakfast Puffs and I was like.. SCORE! Found the perfect recipe and they looked delicious! 

Puff Ingredients

3 Cups All-Purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder 

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup of sugar

2/3 cup of shortening

2 eggs

1 cup of moo

 

Coating

2 sticks of butter

1 1/2 cups of sugar

3 tsp of cinnamon and I put like a ton in there

 

1.
Preheat the oven @ 350 degrees and lightly grease your muffin pan (butter or shortening. make sure you get around the rims too.)

2. 

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nut meg and set aside.

3.

In a mixing bowl (Your KitchenAid, if you have one) cream together the sugar and shortening.

4.

Add the eggs and mix again.

5.

Alternate mixing 1/3 of flour mixture and 1/3 of the milk to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.

By that time my kitchen counter looked like this:

Back to the recipe!

6.

Fill the muffin cups two-thirds full. 

7.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden. Remove the muffins from the pan and set aside.

When I got to this point I went ahead and pulled out a baking sheet and placed parchment paper on it. Then I carefully took the muffins out of the pan and placed them on there to cool for about 5 minutes.

 8.

To make the coating, melt the butter in a bowl or glass pan (I used two meatloaf pans) and then in the other bowl or glass pan mix your cinnamon and sugar together.

9.

You can either dip your muffins into the butter or do what I did, and that was use a pastry brush or what I call the ''Kitchen paint brush'' and coat the the muffins thoroughly.

10.

Then you coat your muffin in the Cinnamon and Sugar and don't be afraid to go back and coat it again and again :) (You can also can use Truvia as a substitute.)

11.

Make a cup of coffee, sit back and relax and enjoy your muffin!

12.

Thought you were finished? So did I until I walked back into the kitchen and saw all this mess in the sink. Thank you Jesus for a dishwasher and my little ''Sweeper'' Wisco, who cleans up all the little droppings on the floor!

The End.