Butterfinger Cake

Lee likes to make a crazy dessert every week or so.  More and more often, it's been a pintrest find.  This one was too, kind of.  Most of the Butterfinger cakes online call for devil's food cake, but he opted for a yellow cake.  It was delicious.

This is definitely one of those things you should make for more than 2 people.  It's rich and gooey and delicious and almost a week since he made it, the two of us are still working on eating through that pan.

I'm usually like my cake, brownies and pizza cut from the middle of the pan. I don't know why, I guess I just like the soft middle of the cake better than the chewier outside crusts.  This cake is a huge exception. Don't get me wrong, the middle's awesome too, but the caramel makes a delicious crust.  Don't tell the family, my baking friends, the corners are the best part of this cake!

Aside from having delicious butterfingers on top (and seriously, if you don't like butterfingers, throw some snickers or M&M's on top, the candy doesn't really matter,) the caramel oozes through this cake without making it messy sticky, just tasty sticky.  It reminds me of those pieces of pancake that get totally drenched with syrup, the cake holds up, but the caramel stands out.

You're going to love this cake.  Make it this weekend!

Strawberry Cake

Another tasty, tasty Pintrest find!  Lee found this Farm Flavor recipe on his page and put it in the running for this week's desert.
We made a few improvements, the big one was using the bundt pan instead of a sheet pan.  We're kind of obsessed with the bundt pan.  I really love how the outside becomes chewier and encapsulates an ever moist cake inside of it.
Since its almost prime strawberry season, this is definately one you want to keep in the mix to use all of those tasty berries popping up all over! And ooohh!! Won't this be great with raspberries, blackberries or ANY berries? We'll have to experiment!
The frosting makes quite a bit.  Probably right way you need if you make a sheet cake, but too much if you use the bundt pan.  I ended up dipping strawberries in the leftovers... yummy!

St. Patrick's Day Cake Mix Cookies

Did you know that you could make cookies out of cake mix?  I had no idea! I was super excited when I came home to find a pile of tasty cookies, just in time for St. Patrick's Day.  Honestly, this was the only thing that we did to mark the occasion! 

These cookies turned out just soft enough and just a bit chewy.  They ate like a cookie and tasted like cake... so tasty! 

I'm really excited to get to do these for the other upcoming holidays... pastels for Easter, red, white and blue for July 4th, the possibilities are endless! 

Slutty Brownies

Starting this week, we'll be going healthy at home and on the blog. But first we're saying goodbye to junk in style with this one!
This is another Pintrest find, those of you on it have seen it for sure.
So this is a chocolate chip cookie bar topped with oreos, topped with brownies.   It's amazing. But with all of those layers of goodness, was there another option?
The inside brownie part will still be a little gooey....This is what makes it slutty I guess.  It will set up a little if put in the fridge.
However, these are really best when they are served warm with a BIG glass of milk.  They're super rich (duh) so a little bit will go a long way.  The next day (or next hour, whatever) throw a bit in the microwave for 30 seconds and they'll be perfect and ready to eat again.

Here's what you need:

Follow the directions on the cookie box.

Press the cookie batter into your parchment lined dish.

Line the Oreo's on top of the cookie dough layer.

Prepare the brownies as per the box.

Pour the brownie mix on top of the cookies and bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 Box of cookie mix

1 Box of brownie mix

2 Eggs

2 Packs of Oreos

Vegetable Oil

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F.
2. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper.
3. Follow the instructions on the cookie mix box.
4. Press the cookie dough into a lined baking tray, until it covers the bottom. 
5. Cover this layer with Oreo's.
6. Mix up your brownie batter.  Pour over your Oreo's.
7. Bake for 50 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. 
9. When it's still warm, use the paper to lift your creation out of the tray and rest it on a chopping board. 

Banana Fosters Pockets

So you send your significant other shopping and tell him to pick up items for dessert.  He forgets, but brings a few other off list items home: Crescent rolls, bananas and chocolate sauce..  What do you make?  You may as well be on an episode of Chopped here!  This recipe will make sure that you're here to fight another day.


When I first bit in, I was transported back to the breakfast table at my parent's house.  No offense to Lee, but my dad makes, hands down, the best banana pancakes in the world.  They're totally amazing and the combination of dough and cooked bananas smothered in sugary sauce took me right back.  Dad never added chocolate syrup to breakfast though, so these treats might edge them out.  I'll have to demand a head to head cookoff one day.
For the chocolate sauce, we used Smucker's Plate Scapers which lets you have really nice pretty lines, good for pictures, but not good when you just want chocolate NOW!

Creme Brulee Lemon Cheesecake Bars

I almost got shunned at work for bringing in these gems Lee made over the weekend.  You see, we're supposed to be being good, I mean, it's January.  But Lee made them, and we wanted lots of people to enjoy them....  

Everyone loved them.   

Cheesecake, lemons, creme brulee... I mean, wow!  

Now, if creme brulee sounds like it would make this super hard, don't worry, this one is more time consuming than anything, but it's worth it!   

The crust is just like a cookie and is just the perfect amount of sugary.  The creamy, lemony inside cheesecake part has just enough tartness to cut through the sugar sweetness and  the caramely brulee'd top is the tasty icing on the top. 

Yum.  I wish we still had some left.

Twinkie Tiramisu- Way Better Than Regular Tiramisu

Sometimes, Lee takes ingredients I really love and does weird stuff with them.  You walk away feeling like the thing you love has been violated by another thing you love and you feel really awkward about your alliances with both. 

I was really ready for that feeling when he told me he was making Twinkie Tiramisu. 

Now I love Twinkies and coffee and vanilla wafers (I could write a whole post on how much I love these), and cream and sugar and cream cheese.  But when you tell me they’re all going to hop in the oven together, I’m going to be worried. 

Lee’s been wanting to make this for a few weeks, but Twinkies were on sale this week, so I couldn't evade this issue any longer. 

So we gathered the ingredients, and he went to work. 

The original recipe called for mascarpone cheese, but let’s be serious. That stuff is pretty expensive to be putting in a dish that highlights Twinkies.  So we subbed in cream cheese.  If you do this, whip the heck out of the cream cheese or you’ll end up with cream cheese hunks in your tiramisu, not awesome. This is a Food Network recipe originally, but Lee's adapted recipe is below.  

Overall, this was pretty good. Tiramisu is a tough sell for me, but this was definitely easier than regular tiramisu and WAY better than most of the tiramisus I’ve had. The creaminess from the cream mixture PLUS the Twinkie cream makes it extra delicious.  

By the way, you can chill it for just a few hours before serving, but this is definitely one of those recipes that gets better the longer the flavors meld together, if you can keep it overnight, do it. 

Twinkie Tiramisu

8 Twinkies

1 cup strong coffee

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/3 cup sugar

16 oz (2 packs) cream cheese, at room temperature

Yellow food coloring

10 vanilla wafers

1. Slice the Twinkies down the middle long ways and squish half of them cream side up in a 7 by 11-inch pan, covering the bottom.
2. Add a layer of about half the coffee
3. Whip the cream to soft peaks then add sugar.
4. Whip the heck out of the cream cheese and fold in the whipped cream.
5. Pour half of the mixture over the Twinkies and spread.
6. Make another layer of Twinkies and add the rest of the coffee.
7. Combine 10 drops of food coloring to the rest of the cream, you want it to be Twinkie colored.
8. Spread the rest of the cream over the top of the Twinkies.
9. Crumble the vanilla wafers and add them to the top. 
10. Cover and refrigerate overnight before serving.

Calories 482   Calories from Fat 301

Total Fat 33.4g

Saturated Fat 20.4g

Trans Fat 0.0g

Cholesterol 116mg

Sodium 419mg

Total Carbohydrates 41.5g

Sugars 28.6g

Protein 6.1g

Caramelious Monkeybread

Lee gets his recipes from all over the place… magazines, websites, old family recipes, and of course, from our friends.  One of our friends, Leena, put on Facebook that she had some awesome and easy Monkeybread, and we wanted in.  Leena shared the surprisingly easy recipe with us.  It was originally published in the December 2009 Southern Living magazine.

It ended up being delicious.  The cinnamon and smooth caramel cut through the rolls and becomes the scrumptious and juicy ball of dough that makes up for every dry and under seasoned cinnamon roll you’ve ever had.  

Check out that caramel dripping down the bread- have a napkin ready!

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

So Pintrest has been an obsession of mine the past few weeks.  I found these ice cream cone cupcakes and just had to have them.   I even had dreams of them.  I thought they were the most ingenious thing ever.  But then I told my mom about them and she totally burst my bubble.  Apparently these were a  delicacy for a certain second grader growing up in 1987.  I had just forgotten.

Nevertheless, I was determined to have these again.

Each week, my staff takes turns bringing treats for staff meeting.  We like to stray from the ordinary every once in a while, bacon cookies were a hit a few weeks ago.  So this week, Lee made these cups of delicousness for us.   Everyone thought they were great, but alas another mother of children of the 80’s remembered them well too!  

Cones filled with cake instead of ice cream!

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

1 box of cake mix (we used funfetti)

2 eggs

1/3 cup of oil

Container of frosting (we used funfetti)

Ice cream cones

Cake goes all the way to the bottom!

1. Mix cake mix, egg and oil. 
2. Pour mixture into ice cream cones.  Fill them up to just below the top of the cone, place ice cream cones in muffin tin so they stay up. 
3. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until done.
4. Frost and enjoy!

 
 
Are there any recipes from your childhood you're revisiting?