JELL-O Gingerbread Pudding Cookies

I bought JELL-O's seasonal Gingerbread pudding flavor and didn't get to use it before Christmas, but I felt like making them today for our last Bronco shindig. I found this recipe and thought it was worth a shot. And it was definitely delicious, not a spicy Gingerbread flavor like normal cookies, just a light holiday flavor.

Check out Inside BruCrew Life's recipe here. and Enjoy!

My favorite cake pops

I love making cake pops. They are just so much fun a taste delicious. Here's a look at the cake pops I've made in the last two weeks.

These snowman cake pops and the red ones were chocolate cake and peppermint frosting cake pops. They look and tasted just like Christmas!

These s;more cake pops are filled with chocolate cake and marshmallow frosting, dipped in chocolate wafers and drizzled with a little graham cracker crumb.

A Sweet Zuchinni Bread Gift

Made this bad boy for my parents yesterday. Thought instead of bringing a piece of bread, I would wrap it all nicely to make it an official gift. See recipe below!

To make the bread:
Mix together 3/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 eggs and 1 stick of butter in large mixing bowl. Add in 1 shredded zucchini, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 2 1/4 cup of flour and 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

Preheat oven to 350. Add your batter into greased bread tin. Bake for 45 minutes. Let cool.

To make frosting:
Mix together 2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbsp of heavy whipping cream, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp of lemon juice. Mix and spread on cooled bread.

Let dry and cover with plastic wrap. I made this gift tag on picmonkey.com and taped it lightly on top of my bread. Then, I just wrapped it in Xmas ribbon.

Enjoy!

Strut your stuff Link Party

Fun Christmas Cookies

I can't tell you how cute these are! We made sugar cookies from Old Time Cooking Recipes and they turned out wonderfully. As a tip, I would take the cookies out before they're supposed to be "done." That way, it will turn out nice and moist for eating the next days.

Didn't have a cookie cutter, so used the top of a small cup. Remember, if it looks small, it will always expand in the oven so whatever size you want, cut them A LOT smaller!

The first decoration we did was just decorating them with gel frosting (shown above) which was actually a lot of fun.

Next, we found these edible stickers at Target and applied them on top of our frosting.

Then we had some cute sprinkles left over.

Snowmen Cake Pops

I can't believe how well these cake pops turned out! I was up Saturday night until 1am decorating them and I have to say making cake pops is my new favorite gift to give. And that's what I did this year. And I think they liked them :).

I used Bakerella's recipe here.  I have been obsessed with her cake pops book.

To make this a gift, I printed out these free gift tags from Fresh Picked Whimsy and attached them to the pop stick. Check out this cute instagram photo a friend took for me :)

link parties:
Six Sisters' Stuff
Cheerios and Lattes
At Home, Take 2

Easy Lemon Glaze Sauce

Remember these Gingerbread Cookies we made right after Thanksgiving? Wellllll... we made them again for the holiday party and they ended up a little less sweet. We couldn't figure out why because it was the same exact recipe. The easy way out could have been to dump a bunch of frosting on it, but I felt like our holiday party already had a lot of frosted things. So I decided to experiment with a lemon glaze. It's easy too because there's only TWO ingredients:

1 cup of powdered sugar
1 juiced lemon

Mix it well and drizzle over your cookies, it adds a nice lemony taste to it (obviously) and sweetens it up a bit.

Candied Bacon Fudge

For tonight's holiday party, I took a leap of faith and made some fudge with candied bacon in it from this recipe. It actually didn't turn out bad at all since i was pretty scared at first. If you do try this recipe, I will note, that you should cover your bacon in MORE brown sugar. The more, the better!

Visit recipe.com for the full recipe. Have you used bacon in baking before? If so, leave your link in the comments, I'd love to check it out!

Mint Oreo Pops

At the holiday party, these Oreo Pops were too pretty to eat. I honestly do not like eating Oreos, but these were pretty delicious.

Ingredients:
Oreos (mint)
White Chocolate Chip Morsels
1 tsp milk

Decoration:
Frosting Pen (frosting that has a small tip and easy to do swirls)
Edible Glitter
Lollipop
Ribbon
Styrofoam

Take Oreos out of the package and stick lollipop in the filling. Squeeze cookie lightly to make sure it stays.

Follow directions to melt your chocolate and add your milk to make chocolate thinner for dipping.

After dipping, lay out your pops to dry on parchment paper.

Once cookies harden, swirl your frosting on the top, sprinkle glitter on top and tap on your plate to get the glitter off.

Tie a ribbon around the pop and stick into Styrofoam. Enjoy! 

Sour Cream Apple Pie

While in New York City this past week, my sister, sister-in-law, nephew and I made some apple pie. Griffin, who is two years old loves to help bake. We called him our “dumper” as he dumped all of the ingredients into our pie filling. 

 

Ingredients

Pillsbury pie crust

2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups chopped apples

Pie topping

1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup oats
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375. Put your pie crust in your pie pan. Mix your pie ingredients in mixing bowl, making sure to add in the chopped apples last. Pour this filling into pan.

For the topping, mix flour, oats, sugar, and salt in bowl. Pour in melted butter and vanilla and stir to combine. Sprinkle mixture over the top of the pie.

Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes.

Chocolate Peppermint Popcorn

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of popcorn kernels
OR 2 large bags of microwave popcorn
2 bags of chocolate melting morsels (Ghirardelli)
7 candy canes

1. Cook your popcorn
2. Ground candy canes in food processor to a fine powder
3. Follow directions for melting your chocolate morsels
4. When chocolate is melted, add the peppermint powder to it
5. Lay popcorn on a baking sheet and pour chocolate over it
6. Let cool until chocolate hardens

Holiday Party 2012 Menu

It's definitely been a fun couple of days getting ready for my sister's holiday party. We've got an assortment of foods, which I'll be sharing with you. Take a sneak peek of our delicious menu and come back later for the recipe marathon to begin!

And of course... a sneak peek of the photos too!

Gingerbread House Kit

During Thanksgiving, we bought a Gingerbread House kit and thought we'd do it as a family project. As the parents quickly got bored after the house was "drying," us kids came back and decorated.

This was the first kit we got that had fondant in it. It was really cool being able to make things come to life and look better than just plain ol frosting.

fudge inspiration

For our company holiday party, I have decided to make some fudge. So I am looking at different recipes to possibly use. They all look delicious!

Ghirardelli Two Toned Fudge

Irish Butter Vanilla Fudge

Candied Bacon Fudge Woah now!

Rolo Fudge Brownies

And Eggnog Fudge

Which fudge should I make for the holiday party? Better yet, do you have any recipes you can share with me and I'll add it to the mix?

White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Made these delicious cookies yesterday afternoon for a football get together. The main course they made was an Indian dish which was super delicious. I'd like to attempt making Indian foods, someday! Anyway, check out these tasty treats.

 

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup melted butter (2 sticks!)
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Peppermint M&M's 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Add flour, salt and baking soda in medium sized dish and set aside.
In large mixing bowl, mix together butter, brown sugar and sugar.
Add in your eggs and vanilla and mix.
Slowly add your flour mixture to the wet mixture.
Then add in our chocolate chips and M&Ms.
Scoop spoonfuls of batter on to your baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. If you want your cookies to be softer, take them out of the oven sooner and let cool.

Enjoy!