Peanut Butter & Nutella Cake Balls

I stepped out my front door to go get the mail one day and saw this beautiful yellow leaf laying amongst all of the dead brown ones. I love finding beauty like this when I least expect it. Good thing I always have my phone on me. I'm constantly taking pictures of the things that strike my fancy. My husband is the real photographer, but I try to do my own little thang from time to time.

By the way.......total coincidence that my hubby decided to use a yellow leaf in taking these foodie photos for me. Just goes to show you that great creative minds think alike.

In the making.....

From left:

Peanut butter cake ball (chocolate cake + peanut butter)

Nutella cake ball (chocolate cake + Nutella)

Peanut butter & Nutella cake ball (chocolate cake + peanut butter + Nutella)

All coated in milk chocolate and drizzled with peanut butter or sprinkled with glitter sprinkles.

My recipe is simple. Cook your favorite cake (I used a devil's food boxed cake mix), mix in your favorite icing or filling (I used peanut butter and Nutella), roll into balls, freeze, then dip in your favorite chocolate (I used Almond Bark milk chocolate) and finish with your favorite toppings (I used glitter sprinkles and melted peanut butter morsels).

Easy as pie!....................or...........................easy as cake balls!

The "Ava" cupcake

My daughter Ava and I took time out on a rainy morning this past week and made mini cupcakes together. She requested red velvet cake with orange icing. We had a good time together and thankfully her little brother who is only 2 months old slept long enough for us to have some fun.

After we finished with them, we dipped them in red sprinkles and turned them into little lollipops.

Here's a few pics of our morning together....

Ginger Cookies

I'm typically a chocoholic when it comes to cookies, so most of the time I find myself looking for recipes that have some form of chocolate in them. However, recently, I've been dreaming of fall because I am NINE months pregnant and WISHING for cool weather. So, to get me in the spirit, I found this awesome recipe for ginger cookies. Most of the time when you think of ginger cookies, you think of a crisp, hard cookie. But these are just the opposite. They are still thin but oh so chewy. And I'm a big fan of chewy.

I have to admit, these are cookies that are best around Christmas time, but I found a way to bring a little bit of summer into them. I whipped up some lemon cream cheese filling to make them into a sandwich cookie. The lemon really does help to tone down the spices that are in the cookie. (which are ground cinnamon, ground cloves and of course, ground ginger) So, even if you aren't a huge "spice cookie" fan, these can still become a favorite.

Here is the link below to the recipe...

Ginger Cookies

TIP: Before baking them, I read the reviews and most people said to chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling into balls and it really did help. I also did NOT flatten the cookies before baking. I left them rolled into balls and then just popped them into the oven.

Happy baking!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I made these chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for my husband's birthday. His favorite ice cream is chocolate chip cookie dough, so I made these to go along with a big heaping bowl of his favorite ice cream.

The cupcakes are yellow cake filled with a bite of chocolate chip cookie dough inside and topped with chocolate buttercream icing with a Famous Amos cookie. I also made the cupcake liners out of good ol scrapbook paper and colored the designs on them to give them a little personality.

They were incredibly easy to make. One tip I have is to make sure you don't fill the cupcake liners with too much batter because you need to make room for the big cookie dough bite to go in the center. Otherwise, they will have a large "muffin top" like mine turned out. However, it didn't make them any less delicious! I've attached the link below for those of you who would like to try these out. Believe me....you won't regret it!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Homemade Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

This turned out way better than I was expecting. I have been experimenting recently with homemade yeast rolls, so I wasn't so worried about the yeast part as much as I was about how soft the dough would come out. I am NOT a fan of hard rolls or any hard dough of any kind. So, when I saw this recipe had Jello pudding incorporated into it, I knew it had to be a slightly softer dough. And it WAS! YUM! The dough itself has a slight sweetness to it minus the yummy cream cheese icing, so even if you don't want a ton of icing, they are still really good by themselves.

Here I am below adding the butter, cinnamon and brown sugar to the dough.

Here they are on the pan about to rise again one last time before being tossed into the oven. You can see in this photo that the dough is not very tightly wound together. I would say that is one thing I would do different next time is make sure the dough is tightly wound as much as possible. I think that would have helped them not to spread as much in the cooking process. So, now you have a heads up for when you bake them!

The finished product! A soft, sweet dough with a thick cream cheese icing on top. Made for a large appetite! Here is the recipe below if you are brave enough! =0)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 pkg. dry yeast
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 3 1/2 oz. pkg vanilla pudding mix
• 1/2 cup margarine, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 cups flour

Filling:
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon

Preparation:

Mix water, yeast, and sugar together until yeast and sugar are dissolved. Set aside. In a large bowl prepare pudding mix according to package directions. Add margarine, eggs and salt; mix to blend well. Add yeast mixture and blend well. Gradually add flour; transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough until smooth. Place in a greased bowl; cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down dough and let rise again.

Roll out on a floured surface. Take 1 cup soft butter and spread over surface. In a bowl mix 2 cups brown sugar and 4 teaspoons Cinnamon; sprinkle over the top. Roll up tightly. Put a notch every 2 inches. Cut with thread or a sharp knife. Place cinnamon rolls on lightly greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart; lightly press each roll down. Cover and let rise to double again.

Bake at 350° for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden - don't overbake. Frost warm rolls with a cream cheese frosting. Makes about 20 large Cinnabon-like Cinnamon Rolls.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• ½ cup margarine, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk

Mix all ingredients together with a mixer until smooth. Spread over warm cinnamon rolls.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband who is the greatest Daddy to both of my babies. I decided to celebrate this occasion by baking him a cake made with his favorite chocolate. Dove chocolate. This cake is called "Chocolate Lovers' Cake" and when you read the ingredients, you can see why!

The cake itself is made with Dove dark chocolate promises, then covered in a milk chocolate icing, lined in Twix bars and topped with sprinkled cocoa. All different kinds of chocolate for the chocolate lover. The cake itself reminded me of the center of a truffle. The texture of a cheesecake but melts in your mouth when you eat it. Mmmm.

At the bottom of the cake, I made Dove milk chocolate fondue but changed the recipe a little and added a spoon full of peanut butter to it. It helps hold the fondue together a little more (so you can have more chocolate in each dip) and gives it a little salty flavor that just enhances the sweetness of the chocolate a little more.

Now, if you decide to make this cake, just do yourself a favor and don't think of the calories you are consuming. It would just ruin the experience. Just make it for a special occasion and then the calories won't count! ;0)

You can find both of these recipes on Dove chocolate's website.

DOVE CHOCOLATE