Week Ten: Homemade Apple Crumble Pie

With our bestest friends' engagment party this weekend, I went back to an old favorite that they absolutely love. I bought a cute purple ceramic pie plate and made their favorite pie as a gift. Please see October 3rd's post for the recipe. I love homemade gifts!

Week Nine: Nutella Pocket Cookies

Nutella Pocket Cookies
Yields 4 Dozen Cookies
Courtesy of La Fuji Mama

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 pkg 8oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups Nutella (probably more)

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar until smooth, light, and fluffy.  Add the vanilla extract and ground cinnamon and mix until well combined.  Gradually add the flour to the creamed mixture and mix well.  Divide the dough into four portions; cover and refrigerate until the dough is firm and easy to handle.
Preheat the oven to 350.  Remove one portion of dough from the refrigerator.  On a floured surface, roll out one portion of dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick.  Using a circle cookie cutter (or biscuit cutter) that is approximately 3 inches in diameter, cut circles out of the dough and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Place approximately 1 1/2 teaspoons of Nutella on each circle, slightly off-center, then fold each circle in half so that the edges meet and lightly press the edges to seal.  Repeat this process for each portion of dough.
Bake the cookies for 12 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.  Leave the cookies on the cookie sheet for 2 – 3 minutes before removing them to wire racks to cool.



My new-found love for Nutella led me to the recipe for these cookies. These cookies were a wonderful disaster. The directions listed above are straight from the website. Maybe they will work for you. However, for me, I wanted to rip my hair out. First, I did not have enough sugar and along with no sugar, no desire to go to the store to buy more. The only other sugar I could find was rimming sugar for margaritas that was colored pink and blue. Hence, the green color of the cookies. My sister-in-law swears the greenness makes them even more yummy. Then, after letting them set in the refrigerator, I took them out and tried rolling them out so I could cut them. They stuck like crazy to my rolling pin no matter how much flour I used. I ended up scraping pieces of the dough off the ball and rolling it in my palms and squashing it between them. I then placed the squished circles on the baking sheet and put the dab of Nutella on one side of the dough. When I rolled the Nutella-free half over, I pinched the edges together. They tasted amazing, but they were a lot of frustrating work. Totally worth it. The cinnamon adds the best sultry flavor with the hazelnut and chocolate inside the pocket.

Another great Nutella recipe can be found here:http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/nutella-lava-brownies. They are super easy to make and so gooey straight out of the oven. Again, I ended up using more Nutella than the recipe called for because it is sooooo yummy!!!

Week Eight: Iowa Trip!

This weekend we went to the Iowa game. For the tailgate I made my choco covered doughnuts again. However, this time I colored the almond bark with yellow food coloring and drizzled melted semi-sweet chocolate over the tops. They were a bit hit! I, however, made it to the DL for not taking pictures of them! ARGH!!!

Week Seven: Halloween!

Every year on Halloween, for the past three years, we have a Halloween brunch. We invite our immediate family and watch the Iowa Hawkeyes play. I used to make creative invitations but they have since gone by the way-side because of my busy schedule. However, I do try to make the party as creative and fun as possible for the fam. I make some signature recipes and then supplement them with fun new recipes I find in Halloween recipe books and magazines. I took some pictures of the treats on which we dined.

Candy Corn Jellies

http://jelly-shot-test-kitchen.blogspot.com/

For this recipe and others, click the link above!

Alcoholic and non!

Doughnut Dreams

Original recipe is from and Everyday with Rachel Ray

These are great. I buy Old Fashioned Sour Doughnuts from Jewel, usually two boxes because they go so quickly! You dip each doughnut in melted almond bark and let it dry on either wax paper or foil. I've made these with several diferent decorations. For Halloween this year I made ghosts with mini choco chips and pumpkins by using food coloring to make them orange and cutting mini mallows in half and dipping them in green food coloring. I have also make them into eyeballs by using a red hot and red frosting for eye veins. You can make them into pretty much anything. For my nephew's birthday I used red frosting and made some into baseballs, blue frosting to make others into volleyballs, and dipped the rest in choco almond bark and used white frosting to make footballs. The pictures will follow.

Gluten Free version of Hungry Girl's Ultimate Move Snack Mix

I am OBSESSED with the Hungry Girl website. And it is super easy to make a lot of her recipes gluten-free. Most of the recipes use Fiber One cereal to make breading. I use Chex Mix instead which is already gluten free. The recipe for this sweet mix can be found here: http://www.hungry-girl.com/biteout/show/1991

Swap out Chocolate Cheerios for Chocolate Chex cereal and it is instantly gluten free! This is really sweet and an easy spin on a traditional Chex party mix.

Not that these are recipes, but I found a great alternative use for the silicone baking cups I bought years ago. Each one had a different veggie stacked inside.

I had many other dishes, but by the time I remembered take pictures of the food, most of it was gone!!

Week Six: Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Iced Pumpkin Cookies
Yields 36 cookies
Courtesy of allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cupos white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, baking poweder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.
To make glaze, combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed to achieve drizzling consistency.

In the fall, I am always looking for new pumpkin recipes. I have always made pies before, but this time I wanted to do something else. Since they fit the cookie project mold, they came to fruition. I like recipes in which my cabinets already contain the ingredients and in this case, they did. I chose to dip the cookies in the frosting instead of drizzling so I had to make it a little thicker. These taste like little bites of pumpkin pie. I only baked them for 15 minutes so they are quite soft, but I like them that way. Bake them 2-3 minutes longer and they'll crisp up nicely. Yummy fall recipes!!

Week Five: Peanut Butter Choco Chunk Cookies GF

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Yields 16 servings
(C) Everyday with Rachel Ray

Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chunks

Directions:
Beat the first four ingredients in a mixer. Stir in chocolate. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough 2 inches apart on parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Let cool on pans.

After the deboucle of the apple spice cookies, I broke the rules and went to a familiar favorite. We were off to see my GF mother-in-law and these were super-duper easy to make by the time we had to leave. Plus, I knew they would turn out. These are great. They are super peanut buttery and soft right off the pan as well as a few days later. They stay very well. They are (surprise!) gluten free! But you would never know it.

Fall Recipe: Homemade Apple Pie

Homemade Apple Pie
Yields one nine inch pie

Ingredients:
Crust:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons white sugar
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons milk
few shakes ground cinnamon

Place all ingredients in bowl and mix. Place in 9 inch pie pan. Press into bottom and up sides of pan.

Pie Filling:
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, or a few shakes more
1/8 teaspoon salt
few shakes of nutmeg
enough apples to fill pie crust, cored, peeled and sliced

Mix. Pour into unbaked pie crust.

Crumble topping:
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup butter
few shakes ground cinnamon

Mix into fine crumbs and pour over apples. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.

I have alterede this recipe a bit. I am a huge cinnamon fan so I added it to each piece of the pie (all puns intended). I also am not a huge crust fan. I usually eat all the filling and leave the crust for my hubby, which he does not appreciate. So I added the cinnamon to force myself to eat the crust. I actually poured all the crumbs left of the crust from prior cut pieces into a bowl and ate just those. It is amazing. Since I am not a big top crust person either, I made a cruble topping. It is light and adds just a bit of crunch to the top. Love it. This might be the best apple pie recipe I've ever come up with. The second day it was almost gone. This is what is left the third day. I love me some apple pie...