I currently have this cooling in my frig. Hopefully I made it correctly. Seemed to be right, but the recipe’s crust didn’t fill my pie plate and I only had enough chocolate to really make the amount asked for, so I made some more with less chocolate. Next time I’ll make twice as much for the crust. It also took half a bottle of extract so that was a lot!

Martha Stewart Living, February 2003

• YieldMakes one 9-inch pie

Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
recipe very slightly adapted from The Cooking Photographer

Ingredients:
1 cup softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 box (7.4 oz) Alpine Spiced Apple Cider Instant Original Drink mix -not sugar free- all 10 packets (I found this in my grocery store near the hot chocolate mixes.)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups all purpose flour
1 bag Kraft Caramels (14 oz)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line cookie sheets with parchment. (You really need the parchment!)
In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.
With your mixer (or an energetic spoon) cream together butter, sugar, salt and all 10 packages of apple cider drink mix powder, until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix well.
Gradually add flour mixture to butter/egg mixture. Mix until just combined.
Refrigerate for about an hour. (If you’re really impatient you don’t have to do this, but it makes it so much easier to work with.)
When you are ready to bake, unwrap your caramels.
Scoop out cookie dough ball about the size of a walnut. (I used a rounded cookie scoop-full. My scoop holds about a Tablespoon.)
Flatten the ball of dough slightly in the palm of your hand. Press the unwrapped caramel into the center of your dough and seal the dough around it, covering it completely. Place on parchment covered cookie sheets 2 inches apart.
Bake 12-14 minutes, or until very lightly browned around the edges. Please don’t over-bake! Once the cookies are done, slide the parchment off of the baking sheet right out onto the counter. Allow cookies to partially cool on the parchment. When cookies are cool enough to be firm but still slightly warm, carefully twist off of parchment and allow to finish cooling upside down (either on the parchment or on a rack.) If you forget about them and they cool too much and stick to your parchment, put them into the freezer for a few minutes and they’ll pop right off.
Yield: about 4 dozen, depending on how large you make your cookies (or how many caramels have been snitched out of your bag before you begin.) Store in an airtight container.

Enjoy these delicious bars made using Betty Crocker® peanut butter cookie mix and bacon sprinkled with chocolate – perfect for a dessert.

PREP TIME
15 Min
TOTAL TIME
1 Hr 35 Min
SERVINGS
16

INGREDIENTS
1 pouch Betty Crocker® peanut butter cookie mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons maple-flavored syrup
1 egg
10 slices bacon, crisply cooked, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (6 oz)

1 Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray 9- or 8-inch square pan with cooking spray.
2 In large bowl, stir together cookie mix, oil, syrup and egg until soft dough forms. Reserve 1/4 cup bacon for garnish. Stir remaining bacon and peanuts into dough. Press evenly in pan.
3 Bake 20 to 25 mintues or until golden brown. Remove from oven; sprinkle with chocolate chips. Return to oven; bake 1 minute. Immediately spread chocolate over bars. Sprinkle reserved 1/4 cup bacon over chocolate. Cool completely, about 1 hour or until chocolate is set.
4 For bars, cut into 4 rows by 4 rows. Store tightly covered in refrigerator.

Leftover steak, cookies, roll, and mac-n-cheese.

Took a picture of this lunch I had in Oneonta a few weeks ago. I never had a chance to post it here until now. I originally posted it to my Yelp page.

It was a really good meal and I was the only one in the place, so it was hot and freshly made. Tempura shrimp, salad, sushi (California Roll), and Teriyaki Chicken. Came with Miso Soup and I got a Mango Bubble Tea.

The one I wanted to buy ’cause it was cute, but not very big:

Saw both of these at Wegman’s.

Baked Taco Salad Shells how-to and etc. can be found HERE.

So, I have been vaguely thinking about what to make for the 4th this year. We have been doing a lot of traveling this summer, so we probably won’t do too much this weekend. My requirements for a 4th of July dessert:

1. Don’t need a lot of special “tools”.

2. Can’t be too much food. There’s only the 3 of us.

3. Needs to be easy to put together so that maybe my 2 1/2 year can help me make it.

4. Nothing with a ton of dye in it. (No blue, red cakes).

So with that, I browsed Google images for some ideas. Here are a bunch that I liked:

Red, White and Blue Patriotic Pops:

Ingredients:
2 cups BLUE Kool-Aid, Powerade or Gatorade
1 cup ffozen whipped topping
1 cup vanilla yogurt
2 cups cran-raspberry juice
12 craft sticks
12 5-ounce disposable cups

Instructions:
1. Divide the blue juice equally among the cups and freeze for 30 to 45 minutes.
2. Mix the whipped topping and yogurt and divide into cups equally.
3. Place a craft stick in the center of each popsicle and freeze again for another 45 minutes.
4. Add the cran-raspberry juice equally and place back in freezer until solid.
5. To remove pops, run outside of cup under warm water.

Red, White and Blue Stars

Cherry Pie Cups

Chocolate Dipped Rice Krispie Popsicles

Here’s the original posting about mini Bundt cakes, and then here’s the link to the Martha Stewart full sized cake.

‎”Laure and Lulu helped shell garden peas, the bright green juice spreading across the prints of their tiny fingers. And they played with pastry, smearing rich butter into the dough and cutting out hearts and stars before helping me to wrap it gently around wild peaches.” *Sigh* That’s the life!

Oh why didn’t I see these sooner? I could have made these for Easter especially for my husband Joe. Cadbury eggs are his favorite. I even bought a tray of the minis for him. Well now I know…

From the blog “My Baking Addiction“: I don’t really have a recipe for you, this is just more of an method on how to execute the idea.

Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes

Here is what you’ll need:

• 24 paper cupcake liners

• Batter for 24 cupcakes. Box mix works fine or simply use your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe, it’s your call.

• 48 Mini Cadbury Creme Eggs (24 frozen) You’ll use the frozen ones inside the cupcake batter. Freezing the eggs keeps them from completely vanishing inside the baked cake.

• 1 batch of buttercream frosting

• yellow dye

• Large Round piping tip or snip the end off of a piping bag.

Method:

• Scoop batter into paper liner ⅔ of the way full. Place one frozen Mini Cadbury Creme Egg into the middle of each cupcake. Use a spatula to spread the batter over the egg.

• Bake according to the recipe you are using. Allow cupcakes to cool completely.

• While your cupcakes are cooking, make your buttercream. My favorite recipe can be found within this Fundamentals Buttercream Frosting Post.

• Remove about 1 cup of buttercream from the mixing bowl and dye it yellow.

• Assemble your piping bag fitted with a large tip and pipe a large circle around the perimeter of the cupcake.

• Fill in the center of the circle with the yellow buttercream and top with a Mini Cadbury Cream Egg.