Toasted Marshmallow Milkshakes

As many of you know, I am a camping girl. I grew up around camping... literally, my parents owned a campground and we lived on the premises. But don't worry we lived in a house, not a 5th wheel :) It was great, I loved all the people and all of the campfires, especially the s'mores! One day I had s'mores cereal for breakfast, regular s'mores for lunch and a s'more pie for dessert... it's OK I was young and had a high metabolism.

I'm sure you get the drift, I like marshmallows, especially when toasted over a campfire. Do you like s'mores? Did you make them camping or just in the microwave? Did you ever go camping? What is your favorite camping story? I have millions of them. RJ on the other hand, has none... :-( poor lad's never been and has no desire to go. In fact the first time he ever had a real campfire s'more was with me, I forced him to sit outside by a campfire and roast a marshmallow. He may or may not admit that to you, but it wonderful.

Moving along I also love milkshakes. This is the time of the year when Shamrock Shakes show up at McDonald's, for those of you who have not had one a Shamrock Shake is basically a minty vanilla shake and it is fabulous. When I moved to Raleigh, RJ and I searched high and low to find a Mickey D's that had one, but no such luck... UNTIL today when I found a location that supposedly has them, I will keep you updated.

So with those details in mind I bring you to the toasted marshmallow milkshake. I originally heard of this concoction on food network but forgot about it. Then I was surfing through some food blogs and someone mentioned on their site. I decided it was my turn to make it. Now you could probably use this recipe with marshmallows toasted over an open fire, but since I live in a town home, the HOA will not let me have a fire pit... *sigh* so I use the broiler.

1     C    Vanilla Bean ice ream
3/4  C    Milk
1/4  C   Light Cream
1/2 tsp  Vanilla extract
5-8        Toasted Marshmallows

On a cookie sheet lined with tin foil, place 5 - 8 regular sized marshmallows. Turn your broiler on to low. Once the oven starts to heat up place your marshmallows in there. Keep your eye on them, they toast up quickly. You will want a little charring, but mostly keep them golden brown. If necessary rotate the cookie tray after browning starts. Remove from broiler and allow them to cool.

In a blender add all other ingredients. Once marshmallows have cooled add 3 or 6 of them to the blender. Blend all the ingredients till they are your desired consistency. If your mixture is too thick add more milk, if it's too thin, add  more ice cream. Pour into a glass and garnish with the left over toasted marshmallows.

These are soo good I think I will make one when I get home :) Enjoy.

Piece

Fluffernutter Bars

If some of you are wondering what a fluffernutter is, well you just haven't lived till you you've had one! HA! Just kidding but they are fabulous. A fluffernutter is a peanut butter marshmallow sandwich, used with fluff, you know that marshmallow in a jar and a peanut butter of your choice ( I choose creamy Jif). This was my sandwich of choice growing up, my mom made them best!

A flufflernutter bar is a peanut butter cookie layered with marshmallows. I literally can't stop eating them, it's a problem...

Here's the deal, I needed to buy marshmallows to make toasted marshmallow milkshakes (different post) and I had half a bag of marshmallows left over... what to do I ask myself? What would you make with marshmallows? I pondered on what flavor I liked with marshmallows and I came up with peanut butter.

Now I'm not a huge fan of peanut butter cookies but I love peanut butter, weird, maybe but it's the truth. Oh and I'm definitely not a fan of chunky peanut butter, I'm too against getting a bad peanut. YIKES!

Anyways these are very very good :)

1 C.        Butter (2 sticks)
1/2  C.    Sugar
1/2  C.    Melted marshmallows
1 C         Brown Sugar
2             Eggs
2  tsp      Vanilla
1 C.        Peanut Butter
2 1/2 C.  Flour
1/2  tsp   Baking Soda
1/2  tsp   Baking Powder
1/2  tsp   Salt

Preheat oven 350*

In a separate bowl sift flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Start beating butter (I melted my butter and it works just fine if you don't have time to soften your butter) Once that is fluffy add sugar and brown sugar. In a microwave melt marshmallows, once out 30 seconds or so add to butter sugar mixture. The marshmallow may be make mixture lumpy, that's fine it will beat out. Add eggs one at a time and then vanilla. Now add the peanut butter. Gradually add in the flour mixture till combined.

Grease the bottom of a 6x9 cake pan, you may not have to but I did, I didn't want to risk it. Press half of the cookie mixture into the pan. Now with your marshmallows, cut them into halves or thirds (I did thirds) and put one layer on top of the cookie. With the second half of the cookie mix press on top of the marshmallows. Make sure all of the marshmallows are covered, if you don't they could burn!

Place in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Let it completely cool before cutting into.

You may need to serve in little pieces, it's kind of sweet, but oh so good you may eat the whole pan.

Until next time, Piece!

Tiramisu

Let me tell you, I'm super pumped about this :)

I've only had tiramisu a handful of times, and I definitely wouldn't call it one of my favorites but this was sooo good!MMM...MMM...MMM let me tell you I would like another slice just thinking about it. My inspiration, RJ, obviously. He loves tiramisu so I thought I would be sweet and make it for him. I'm cool like that!...lol

OK, anyways enough about me. Do you like tiramisu? How do you make yours? Do you do make surprise dishes for your lovey's?

For this recipe I had to scope around the worldwide web to figure out what goes in it and I found out some fun info on wikipedia. I'm not sure why college professor's don't let you use that site, it has loads of good information. As it turns out, tiramisu is a relatively new dish, only since the 1970's, maybe '69, wiki isn't always sure. But that was fun to find out.

Oh and another fun fact, maybe... I was told this and please correct me if I'm wrong, but apparently the lighter the blend of coffee the stronger the caffeine. The longer you roast the bean, the more the caffeine is withdrawn from the bean. So all you bold blend drinkers out there, switch to Breakfast blend and feel a pep in your step.

Now to the recipe:

1 pkg  Lady Fingers
1 container marscapone cheese
4 oz  Cream Cheese
1 TBS Cocoa (plus some for dusting)
1 1/2 C  Whipping cream
3 TBS  Sugar
1 tsp   Vanilla
3 C.  Ridiculously strong coffee (or espresso)
3 TBS  Amaretto

Whip the cream, sugar and vanilla till stiff peaks form, you know, so it looks like whipped cream. To help this process, chill the bowl and mixers that you will be whipping in.
Mix together cream cheese, marscapone and cocoa until smooth, no one likes a clump of cheese in their tiramisu. Next gently fold 3/4 of the whipped cream in with the cheese mixture.
Combine brewed coffee and amaretto. Dip lady fingers in the coffee mixture, do not soak them, if you do they WILL fall apart. Layer the bottom of a 9x6 pan. Next layer the whipped cream mixture. Repeat the steps for the lady fingers and layer them on top of the cream. The layer the cream on top of that and lastly top the whole thing with the rest of the whipped cream. Dust with cocoa.

Let the dessert chill and set up for at least an hour.

SOOOO GOOOD :)

Oh update on the camera situation, I still don't have one that uploads pictures. I'm hoping someone from Cannon, reads this post and decides they want me to pimp their product for them! That would be great! But I swear once I get a full functioning camera I will start posting pictures with the blog.
Piece

Boston Creme Pie and Pizza Dough

Have I mentioned to you guys how much I  LOVE baking? It just soothes my soul. Granted, I get a little irked when my baked goods don't turn out the way I want, but I just think of it as a learning step of what not to use/do next time. Oh the possibilities of the millions of things to make, it just warms my heart :)

For Valentines day, RJ took me to a fabulous fancy restaurant in Chapel Hill, called Crossroads. It's inside the Carolina Inn hotel and let me tell you it was so perfect. I got all dolled up, it's the least I could do, since it was Valentines day and RJ was taking me out and he surprised me with a bouquet of yellow Tulips (my most favorite flower). I ordered the Bison short ribs with cheesy polenta, broccoli rab and squash, yummmmmy. I couldn't try RJ's dinner but her cleared his plate before I made it through half of mine, so I imagine it was delicious. 

"But why couldn't you eat RJ's food Meghann?" I'm sure you were thinking that... I couldn't try his paella  because it had scallops and mussels in it, and I don't get along well with those bivalves... c'est la vie.

On to what the post is about. For valentines day I made RJ homemade pizza and Boston Creme pie (his favorites). Naturally, the pizzas were heart shaped.

Pizza Dough

3 C.     Flour
1 pkg   Yeast
1TBS  Sugar
1 tsp    Salt
1/2 C   Warm Water
Italian Seasoning

Combine yeast, sugar, salt and water in a bowl, let it to it's thing for about 10 minutes.
Put flour and seasoning in a large mixing bowl and add yeast mixture. Combine by hand. If the dough is too sticky add more flour, if they dough is too crumbly add more water. Once combined place dough ball in a greased bowl. Allow the mixture to rise for 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Preheat oven to 350. Once dough has risen divide it and roll out,  I rolled mine into hearts, you cans roll yours into whatever shape you want. Transfer it to a greased cooking sheet. Now, you can pre-bake your crust, but I didn't and it tasted just fine. Place your toppings of choice (pepperoni, mushrooms, and banana peppers) and bake until the cheese is all bubbly.


Now I had a little trouble with the creme, for the BCP, so I had to buy a box of vanilla pudding to help me out (boo) I was hoping to make everything from scratch but I just couldn't get the custard to set, so annoying. Never you fear though, I will attempt it again...some day... probably soon. Does anyone know how to make a custard that sets without lumping? I tried two different batches, one seemed a bit lumpy and eggy to me and the other one never set up, it was much too runny.

I'll get to that in a different post. This one is long enough!

Until next time... Piece :)

Chocolate Shortbread...

Not my favorite...
I told you I would post about all of my trials and tribulations, well, this was a tribulation. I tend to think I'm my toughest critic and this recipe is no exception. I had this great idea of what I wanted to make and it didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, but it wasn't too bad.

My work decided to have a fundraising bake sale for our two charities, St. Jude's and the SPCA, and I convinced myself to bake something. I definitely wanted to go simple but slightly Valentines-y and definitely chocolate. I had been craving shortbread a few days ago, but then I saw a picture or chocolate dipped sugar cookies and thought that looked delicious, so what's a girl to do...? In my creative thinking I decided to make chocolate shortbread (simples) and dip half of the cookie in white chocolate that I dyed pink(valentines0y). Cute idea right... right!

I found a chocolate shortbread recipe, I have never made shortbread cookies before, but I knew they didn't require a lot of ingredients. The best shortbread cookies I've ever had were made by my best friend in High School, they were fabulous, but she never gave me the recipe. Maybe it was a family secret...?

Anyhow, back to the recipe

1/2 C  Butter
1 tsp   Vanilla
1/2 C  Sugar
1  C    Flour
2 TBS Cocoa

Yup that's all it takes. Turns out though, I had to add 1 1/2 TBS light cream, it just wasn't pulling together for me to make a dough. Once it was all combined I rolled it out, much too thin for what I envisioned I was making. Sliced them up, forked little holes in them and then baked them at 300 for 20 minutes. While cookies are cooking...

Chop up white chocolate (3-6 oz)and melt in microwave. If you (are fancy and )have a double boiler you could probably melt chocolate that way. Once it's out of the microwave about 30 -45 seconds stir until smooth. Add red food coloring until desired color. Frost or dip half of the cookie in melted chocolate. Let cookies set up on wax paper chocolate side up.

Pros: The cookie tasted as I had hoped
Con: Too thin and crispy. I would imagine doubling the recipe and not rolling it out to thin would correct this issue.

I suppose we will see if anyone wants to buy my cookies... I may be crushed if they don't...  not really, it will just mean back to the mixing bowl.

OH, it's Valentines Day today so I will be making my boo a Boston Creme Pie  AND Homemade heart shaped pizzas <3 I'll tell you all about it once it's over.

But in the mean time, Happy Valentines Day!!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

*phew* That is a long title, but I'm not sure how to shorten it, so that's what it will be!

I had a strong aching to bake something yesterday, but my pantry was kind of bare to make something extraordinary, so I went with what I had. You see, I was debating on whether to make molasses cookies or gingerbread cupcakes. Most of the day I was set on making cookies, but then I remembered I had lemon cream cheese frosting left over from some lemon cupcakes I made not too long ago, and decided to make cupcakes instead. I know what you are thinking, but Meghann, you didn't even use lemon cream cheese frosting, I know, I'll explain.

I was doing research one day on something to make with lemon frosting. I had just made lemon cupcakes, (fabulous recipe) and had some left over frosting, so I wanted to use it up, waste not want not. In my research I saw gingerbread bars with lemon frosting. I thought this was an interesting combination, but I could see it complimenting each other, maybe.

Anyways moving on to present day I decided to make gingerbread cupcakes and use up my lemon frosting. I told RJ my great plan and he seemed a little less then thrilled with combo. You see RJ is my taste tester for everything and miraculously he likes them all, what a good boyfriend :) I decided to go ahead with my plan.

A few recipe look ups later and a few adjustments to fit my palate I came up with this recipe.

1 1/4 C.    Flour
1 1/2 tsp  Ground Ginger
1 tsp        Cinnamon
1/4 tsp     Allspice
1/4 tsp    Ground nutmeg
1 tsp       Salt
6 TBS     Butter
1/2  C.    Brown Sugar
1             Egg
1/2  C.   Molasses
1 tsp.     Baking Soda
1/2 C.   Hot water


1/2  C.  Brown  Sugar
4 oz      Cream Cheese
1 tsp.    Cinnamon
2 TBS   Butter
1/2 tsp  Vanilla
3 tsp     Light Cream
2 - 3 C. Powdered Sugar

Preheat oven to 350 and line 12 muffin wells.

In a mixer beat butter, once fluffed add brown sugar until combined. Add egg then molasses. In a separate bowl combine flour, spices and salt. In yet another bowl, dissolve baking soda in hot water. Now alternately add flour and baking soda mixes to butter mixture. Start with the flour mix and end with the flour mix.  Fill lined muffin wells about 1/2 to 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes.

Mean while in a separate bowl beat butter and cream cheese until combined. Next beat in brown sugar and cinnamon. Once combined add vanilla and cream. Gradually add powered sugar till it's the consistency you like. I used probably about 3 cups.

When the cupcakes come out the tops will have a dent in the middle. I imagine the less you fill the wells the less likely you will have a dent. But that's OK because you can just fill the dent with frosting! Yum :)

What I liked about this cupcake: It made my house smell like Christmas! The flavor was Divine.

What I would do differently: Fill the wells a little less and maybe dissolve the brown sugar a little before adding it to the frosting, if that's possible...?

Anyway, that is my best new invention for you. Oh and as it turns out RJ liked the cupcakes... go figure :)

Until next time... Piece :)

Oh once I can I will upload some pictures. YUM!!

Here we go!

I imagine when I say "Here we go" I am saying it in a Mario voice, like on the nintendo game, anyone else? Ok maybe not, oh well. 

Anyway I see this blog as the start of a new beginning. You see, I am a self proclaimed foodie and this blog will be about my trials and tribulations in the kitchen. I hope to upload photos and be just like everyone else that writes about food, but maybe cooler. I want to share my passion with everyone and my food. I wasn't sure about this, but I keep reading visionsofsugarplum's. blog and I just had too, I couldn't stop myself.

I hope you get suckered into reading what I have to say, because mostly I think I'm entertaining. But for now, since I don't have a camera and I don't have my recipe book in front of me, there is not much to say. I imagine you can read about me in the "about me section" to tide you over until I have something important to say.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by, I'm sure you are thrilled already for my next post.

Peace or piece (because it's funny, like a piece of cake...)