Happy Holidays

Hey Everyone! I just wanted to take a minute to give you the recipe for my Grandma's Cinnamon Rolls. These are THE BEST.

Happy Holidays!

~Kari

Fudge Striped Shortbread Cookies

One of my husband's favorite cookies are Keebler Fudge Stripes. I decided that I'd make him some super special Fudge Striped cookies for Valentine's Day. You start with a simple shortbread cookie recipe and then add some melted chocolate, not nearly as daunting as I thought they might be.

To make your own Fudge Striped Shortbread at home you will need:

For the Cookies:

2 sticks of softened butter
1/2 cup vanilla sugar (you could also use 1/2 cup regular sugar and add in 1 tsp vanilla flavor instead)
2 cups flour (plus extra for rolling out your cookies/dusting your cookie cutters)

For the Fudge Stripes:

1 cup chopped dark chocolate
2 Tablespoons butter or coconut oil

Start by creaming your butter and sugar together in a bowl. Once the butter is light and fluffy and all the sugar us mixed in, add your flour and mix until incorporated. Pour your dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Make your dough into a disk shape, cover with plastic wrap and allow to chill for about 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees (F). Take your dough out of the refrigerator and roll it out to about 1/4" thick on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin.

Select your cookie cutters (I chose the heart shapes above) and cut out your cookie shapes. Some of my heart shaped cutters are quite large, so I used a smaller cookie cutter to cut out another heart in the center. I will admit, one thing I never liked about fudge stripe cookies is that they have a hole in the middle, I want MORE cookie, not less. If you agree with me, then you can leave all of your cookies without the center cutout.

Place your cookies onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they just start to brown a little around the edges. Once done, take out and place on a cooling rack until completely cool, mix up your chocolate for dipping while you wait.

I melt my chocolate in the microwave, but you can use a double boiler if you like. Just put your chopped up chocolate into a microwave safe bowl and add your butter or coconut oil. Microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring between each. It takes about 1 minute 30 seconds for all of my chocolate to melt (I stir as much as possible each time, if you need another 30 seconds don't feel bad-it happens).

Once you have your cooled cookies, dip the bottoms of each cookie into the chocolate and place them back onto some parchment (I even put mine on a cool baking sheet and then stick them in the refrigerator to help them set up faster). To make the stripes, I put the remaining chocolate into a sandwich bag, snip off a teeny tiny corner of the bag and use it to pipe on the stripes. These don't have to be prefect, because they are delicious either way. If you don';t want to mess with stripes, you can also just dunk the entire cookie in chocolate!

If you want to see some more "in progress" shots of these guys you can check them out on my Instagram. Happy Valentine's Day!

Holiday Treat Roundup

It's no secret that I have a heck of a sweet tooth. What better excuse than the holidays to whip up bunches of sweet treats to share with everyone you know? Below you will find some of my all time favorite recipes for making up cookie plates for the holiday season!.

I replaced half the chocolate chips in these cookies with red and green M&M's for a more festive look.

If chocolate and peanut butter are your style, whip up these quick bars that my sister and I lovingly dubbed "Sugar Shock" bars, due to their super sweet richness!

You can't go wrong with these soft double ginger cookies!

We begged my mom every year to make Mounds Bars for the Christmas cookie tray. Add some colorful sprinkles for an extra fancy touch!

Almost nothing is easier than a batch of these Dark Chocolate Peppermint Truffles. Put them on the cookie tray or give them as gifts!


What are your favorite holiday treats?

Vanilla Sugar

I've been working on tons of projects lately, and feel like I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew. I'm going to use the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday to play a little catch up (as well as do lots of cooking and eating). Here is a recipe for vanilla sugar you can make ahead and use in some of your holiday baking, or give as gifts!

To make your own vanilla sugar at home you will need:

granulated sugar
vanilla beans

I ordered my vanilla beans online from Beanilla. I would recommend them (especially if you want to make up a ton of this for gifts). They have great bulk prices and my beans arrived super fast (the shipping was also free!).


Cut open your vanilla beans lenthwise and scrape out all of the caviar (all the little bits inside the bean) with a small spoon. Add the caviar and the vanilla pods to your sugar and mix together very well. I generally use one vanilla bean for every 1-1.5 cups of sugar. Put your sugar and vanilla bean mixture into an air tight container and store in a cool, dry place (preferably out of direct light as well). Allow 2 weeks for the vanilla to properly flavor your sugar.


Add this to any recipe calling for sugar that you'd like to add a little extra vanilla flavor to. You may add more sugar and vanilla beans as necessary (if you use a vanilla bean in something else, put the pod into your sugar--add more sugar as space allows and stir well).

If vanilla sugar isn't your thing, you can try your hand at making your own vanilla extract instead!

Peanut Butter Dog Treats

I'm making a package of goodies to send to my cousins in celebration of their dog, Tottie's, new found viral internet fame. How could that package be complete without some treats for Tottie herself (and her furry siblings)? This is a quick easy recipe for some dog treats you can make for the pups in your life! There are no preservatives, and you can substitute ingredients based on your dog's dietary needs.

To make these treats at home you will need (makes 30-40 treats):

2 cups whole wheat flour*
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats*
2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup peanut butter

*If your dog is on a grain free diet, you may omit the rolled oats and substitute coconut flour, or a mixture of grain free flours. You could also add carob chips to these if you feel like spoiling your pup (dogs should never, ever eat chocolate).

Start by whisking together your dry ingredients in a bowl to evenly combine them. Next, I put my peanut butter and water together in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for about 1 minute (two 30 second intervals) and stir them together into a melted mixture (this makes stirring the peanut butter into the dough much easier).

Add the wet ingredients into the dry and stir together to form the dough. You may need to add a bit more water if your dough is too dry (I add an extra teaspoon at a time). Once the wet mixture is mostly incorporated, I usually start kneading the dough with my hands to bring it together. You will end up with a dough that is very dense, and resembles a bread dough more than a cookie dough.

Pinch off small pieces of the dough and roll them into balls with your hands. Place onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, about one inch apart and flatten with a fork. Bake at 325 degrees F for about 15 minutes, then turn off the oven and allow to cool inside the oven (this will aid in keeping the treats from gaining moisture while they cool and you will end up with nice crispy crunchy dog treats).

These treats will keep in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 4 weeks. To elongate the shelf life, you can keep a few treats at room temp and put the rest in the freezer (in an air tight container) for up to 6 months- just allow the treats to thaw about 20 minutes before giving them to your dog.

You can change these up in lots of ways, substitute low sodium chicken broth or sugar free applesauce for the water (you could also add a thumbprint and give these to your dog with a little sugar free jam or preserves in the center for a special treat!

Package some up for the furry friends in your neighborhood for Halloween!

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

It's that time of year. You know, the time when if you have a garden yourself, you probably never want to see another zucchini again. Or, if you are lucky, like me, the time when a coworker keeps bringing in zucchini because THEY never want to see any again. Enter blueberry zucchini bread! It's moist and delicious and uses a cup of shredded zucchini per loaf! This bread also freezes well, so feel free to stock up on the spoils of summer and enjoy this year round.

To make my version of Blueberry Zucchini Bread you will need:

2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup oil (if you are watching the fat and calories you can substitute 1 cup of applesauce)
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 bread pans by greasing them and giving them a light coating of flour.

Ina large bowl, mix together all of your wet ingredients, including your zucchini. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (I usually set aside a tablespoon of flour to toss with the blueberries before I add them at the end, it help to keep them all from sinking to the bottom of the bread).

Add your dry ingredients to the wet bowl and gently stir until a batter forms. Add your blueberries and stir until evenly distributed. Pour the batter into your prepared bread pans (batter will come about half way up the pan).

Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the loaves comes out clean. Set on a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes, then remove the bread from the pans and allow to cool completely before wrapping it up.

This recipe also makes great muffins, mine usually take 30 minutes or so to bake. If you like a muffin with an extra crispy top, just sprinkle the tops with a little bit of sugar, or cinnamon sugar before baking. Yum!

What's your favorite zucchini recipe?

Banana Bread

One of my favorite things about Fall and winter is that I can bake up a storm in my kitchen without making my house unbearable to be in. What better way to celebrate this than whip up some super yummy banana bread? This is a super easy recipe and makes a great addition to breakfasts at the holidays or any time of year, and who doesn't appreciate the gift of baked goods?

This recipe yields one large loaf pan of bread, or 2 smaller loaves (I used 2 of the aluminum loaf pans you can buy in 3 packs at the grocery store, they are great for gifting to people because you don't have to worry about asking for them back).

To make this Banana Bread you will need:

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp. milk
2 eggs

I start by pre heating my oven to 350 degrees and mixing all of my wet ingredients together in one bowl, and all my dry ingredients in another bowl. Mixing them both well separately ensures that everything is evenly distributed without over mixing the final batter. For the dry ingredients I often use a whisk for the mixing as I find it does a great job of evenly distributing my dry ingredients quickly, but a spoon will work just fine.

Next, combine the wet and dry ingredients together and mix until everything has come together, try not to overmix, but you don't want dry clumps in your batter either!

Pour the batter into greased bread pans, filled about half way each (you can fill them up to as much as 3/4 full, but this bread does rise a very fair amount when baking). Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes for 2 loaves, or 60 minutes for one larger loaf. If you prefer to try this as muffins, I would check them after 20 minutes or so.

Set on a rack to cool and serve warm with or without any toppings you choose. The husband and I ate a whole pan in an afternoon, but we're kinda shameful that way ;)

Enjoy!

Cherry Upside Down Cake

I love Cherry season, and while usually the cherries don't make their way into anything but my mouth, I decided to take extra care to make an actual recipe with some this year. What better than an upside down cake? This is super yummy, and could easily be made in muffin form if slicing cake and slightly messy cleanup isn't your thing.

To make this yummy cake you will need:

1-1½ cups of Bing Cherries, pitted
½ cup brown sugar, packed
2 Tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
½ teaspoon lemon or lime juice

1½ cup All-purpose Flour
¾ cups Sugar
½ teaspoons Salt
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
⅓ cups Vegetable Oil
1 whole Egg
⅓ cups Milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 8"x8" cake pan (a 9" circle would also work great, or you can line muffin tins and make muffins!) I always use softened butter, spray would be fine I'm sure.

I start by pitting my cherries and adding in some lime juice (I don't use any fancy cherry pitter, I savagely take out the pits by hand and look like quite a barbarian by the time I'm finished). Stir this together and set aside.

After your pan has been greased, evenly spread your 1/2 cup of brown sugar over the bottom. Spread on your layer of cherries, then dot with 2 Tablespoons of butter.
Next, make your batter. Combine flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 2 cup measuring cup; add the egg, milk and vanilla. Mix this together and add to the flour mixture. *This makes a very thick batter that bakes up surprisingly light, you've been warned.

Pour the cake batter over your cherries and spread evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a 400 degree oven, then remove to a cooling rack to cool. When ready to remove, slide a knife around the edges of your pan and invert onto a plate. Enjoy all the yummy cherries and sugar seeping into that cakey goodness. MMM.

Friday Food Craft: Cream Cheese Pound Cake

If you are like me, you own a bundt pan for some reason and often find yourself wondering why. It is to make this cake, trust me on that. If you are into pound cake, this is definitely the recipe for you. It is seriously yummy, and since it is a pound cake, has very few ingredients and is pretty easy to make. I got the recipe from Elizabeth's Edible Experience, and only tweaked one little thing(aside from topping mine with Marionberry Syrup)...as you will see later.

To make this delicious pound cake you will need:

One 8oz. package of cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups butter, softened (3 sticks)
6 eggs, at room temp
3 cups flour
2 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar*
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt

*The original recipe calls for 3 cups sugar, if you want to do that, go for it. I ran out of sugar (who, me?), so I used 1/2 cup brown sugar with no adverse side effects as far as I could tell. In fact, the bottom (top when baking) of the cake turned out almost like a little crust of shortbread on the bottom of my cake. It was joyous and I recommend it.

Start off by creaming together your butter and cream cheese. Add in your sugar (I did this while my stand mixer was at a slow speed and I poured it in slowly until it was all incorporated).

Next, add in your eggs one at a time, stirring after each until incorporated. I crack my eggs into a small bowl before adding them to the batter. When you are using this many eggs, you want to make sure one bad one doesn't spoil the whole cake. You also want to avoid any egg shells.

Next, add in your salt and vanilla. Then, slowly add in your flour and mix until it comes together, but do not over mix. Scrape your sides to make sure no lumps remain and pour your dough into a greased and floured bundt pan, spread the top out evenly. I'm sure you could use some other kind of pan if you don't happen to have a bundt pan lying around, but I like that Mad Men feel of doing things all 60's like. Back then, they rocked the bundt cake. I may or may not have tasted some batter at this point, purely for scientific purposes. I almost forgot to bake my cake at that point, I'm a batter fiend...

Heat your oven to 300 degrees, and bake this yummy little guy for 1 hour 40 minutes. Yeah, you read that right, this cake takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to bake, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean (mine actually needed an EXTRA 5 minutes). Your patience will be rewarded.

Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 15-20 minutes, then remove from pan and finish cooling. Eat this plain, with fresh fruit, fruit syrup (like me), or be really decadent and top this bad boy with hot fudge or caramel sauce. Not that I would ever encourage that sort of behavior...


Enjoy!

Friday Food Craft: Cheesecake

I know some of you may be running to hide at the mere mention of cheesecake. It is something that I myself always considered too difficult to tackle. When you see recipes on tv and in books it usually involves spring form pans, water baths and more. Let's face it, I'm not always down for the theatrics. This recipe came from my friend Melissa whom got it right off of a cream cheese box years ago. I can't figure out why they stopped printing this recipe on the box, it's amazing. Better still? There are 4 ingredients in the actual cheesecake portion of this cheesecake. Best? It's probably the creamiest, most delicious cheesecake I have ever had!

So how do you make this amazing cheesecake? For starters you will need:

2 8oz. packages of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 whole eggs

You also need a graham cracker crust. Here's fantastic Holiday news: feel free to go out and buy one pre-made. If that doesn't suit you, you can use the graham cracker crust recipe listed on my Mounds Bars recipe.

Heat your oven to 325 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, or stand mixer, beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well combined. Add in your eggs, one at a time, beating until fully incorporated after each. You should end up with a very smooth creamy "batter".

Pour your batter onto your graham cracker crust and smooth. Bake in 325 degree oven for 40 minutes, until center is ALMOST set (it will continue to bake slightly while cooling, do not worry if it looks a little runny to you, I thought the same but it came out perfect). Place on cooling rack and allow to cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. I refrigerated mine overnight (with visions of cheesecake dancing in my head).

That's it! You will have a perfectly moist and creamy cheesecake with no hassle :)

Serve plain or with fruit topping (you could also get really awesome and make a caramel or chocolate sauce!).

Friday Food Craft: Mounds Bars

Hey all, it's food craft time again! Everyone has their favorite treat on the cookie tray around the holidays, and this is mine. It combines the chocolate and coconut flavors of a Mounds candy bar with a super yummy graham cracker crust, and when I was little I would make sure that I got more than my fair share off the cookie tray, Santa never got to have these. Poor old elf.

When I was little I had always assumed that some great magic must be how they tasted so good, but in reality they are incredibly easy to make, and dare I say it, you'll never want to eat a Mounds candy bar ever again after you've had these, they make a Mounds bar look like a slow ride to grandma's house. I'm going to credit the graham cracker crust for this.

To make some tasty Mounds bars for yourself this holiday season you will need:

For the graham cracker crust:
10 whole graham cracker "sheets" (in every box I've ever had this is, annoyingly, one sleeve plus one cracker sheet from a second sleeve)
1 stick of unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup packed brown sugar

For the coconut filling:
3 cups flaked coconut
1 (14oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

Chocolate topping:
3 cups chocolate chips


Start by mixing your coconut and sweetened condensed milk filling together and leaving it in a bowl. This helps all of the coconut absorb the milk and get a nice even texture. Set aside while preparing the crust.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. To make the graham cracker crust, I always use the tried and true method of putting my graham crackers in a large zip sealed plastic bag and thumping it with a rolling pin to make crumbs. There is something very satisfying about pulverizing graham crackers in the name of delicious baked goods, but if you prefer the food processor approach, be my guest. Once you have your graham crackers reduced to crumbs, add in your brown sugar and stir a little to get an even mixture and then add in your melted butter. Try to get the butter to coat all of the graham cracker and sugar bits so it will hold together in the pan. Once mixed to your liking, dump your crust mixture into a 9"x13" pan and gently pat down. You will bake this layer at 325 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.

Once cooled about 5-10 minutes, add your coconut layer on top and spread evenly over the crust. I generally drop large spoonfuls of the coconut mixture evenly over the crust and then use an offset spatula to smooth them together into each other. The coconut mixture is pretty sticky, so you want to spread gently as to not pull up a bunch of graham cracker crumbs into the coconut and make a big mess.

After your second layer is spread evenly, pop your bars back into the oven for 15 minutes, still at 325 degrees. Your coconut will likely be slightly browned around the edges of the pan, this is a good thing. Those are my favorite bars out of the whole pan! Set bars on a cooling rack and melt your chocolate layer. This can be done in the microwave or on a stove top with the use of a double boiler. I opt for the microwave method most often. Simply put your chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and heat at 30 second intervals, stirring between each interval. Once your chips are almost all melted, I switch to 10 second intervals. Melting my chocolate chips generally takes a total of 1 minute 30 seconds- 1 minute 50 seconds (sometimes I add a few extra chocolate chips so it takes longer). Stir well to make sure there are no lumps, then spread over the coconut layer of your bars.

Allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. I store these in the refrigerator, but you can also freeze them if you are doing a lot of holiday baking all at once, they freeze for storage beautifully. If you feel like adding some fun decorations, you can add your favorite sprinkles on top of the melted chocolate layer, my mom usually did. The best part: these are great at room temperature or straight out of the fridge!

Enjoy!