I never liked these much growing up…

I have this hilarious memory of sitting next to my brother in our mini van on our way to one of his t-ball games.  My mom turned around when we were almost to the field and said, “Bradley, what are you chewing on?” He simply replied, “carrots”…

Carrots seem to have that impact on people. They get so dried up and tasteless and you just can’t stop chewing. I remember sitting at the table gagging while trying to finish my carrots. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy…Hasn’t anyone else experienced this childhood trauma??

I like carrots now.

And this carrot cake is far from dried up and tasteless. It’s super moist and fairly simple to make.

The recipe is from my magnificent mom (surprise).

Start out by peeling and grating 2 cups of carrots.

Then you are going to combine the sugar, oil and eggs together. (If you like, you may add pineapple. I don’t like chunks in my cake, so I stick to just carrots. If you add pineapple, do so here).

My favorite ingredient in this whoooollleeee cake is the cinnamon. I love love love cinnamon. I chose this Penzeys cinnamon because it is very similar to Mikey.

Strong, sweet and spicy.

MMMmmmmm.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a seperate bowl and then slowly add into the batter.

After that’s incorporated, fold in the carrots.

Tasty batter!

Grease and flour 2 round cake pans and pour in your batter.

You may also use a 9×13 pan or cupcake pans.

While these are baking you should probably make some super delicious cream cheese frosting. (recipe to follow soon)

The air will smell so heavenly while your cake bakes. Your neighbors may decide to introduce themselves after 6 months of  closed blinds and silence…

As you can see, I need to buy some toothpicks so I don’t leave giant pokey-holes in my cake.

Check to make sure they are cooked through and let cool completely before frosting.

I am embarrassed to admit that I put the top cake on upside down…It’s not a huge deal, but makes frosting the sides a bit more like caulking a crack. Yum.

It was tasty. I had to take it to an Easter dinner, otherwise I would have shared a slice with you!

Recipe: 

What’s better than an Oreo?

An hour long massage? A french bulldog puppy? Mikey, a bowl of popcorn and a Mad Men marathon?   Yeah…those things are better. But barely.

When it comes to cookies, a handful of Oreo’s can be hard to beat. It’s Americas favorite cookie after all!

Especially an Oreo that is surrounded by an amazing chocolate chip cookie. A warm and gooey chocolate chip cookie, which equals a warm and gooey Oreo center.

This is such a simple recipe. And I owe the best part to Nabisco.

You can use any cookie dough recipe…but I highly recommend this one.

Easy enough, right? I ate a LOT of this dough…

Take an oreo and smush some cookie dough on it.

Then take more dough and smush it on the other side. Roll it around and completely encase the Oreo within the dough.

They are very large. But they are my new favorite cookie.

HOWEVER. Proper consumption is as follows: If not fresh out of the oven, place in microwave for a few seconds so that the Oreo gets warm, gooey and mushy and the chocolate in the dough melts.

Look at how amazing this is. It’s like an Oreo soaked in milk…but surrounded by gooey cookie dough. So it’s pretty much an Oreo soaked in butter. Yikes.

This makes for a large batch of large cookies. Find some people you love and share these cookies with them. It is dangerous to keep cookies this delicious all to yourself. And my mom taught me that it is really nice to share with your friends.
Recipe

2 Sticks butter, softened

3/4 Cups brown sugar

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 Large eggs

1 Tbsp Vanilla

3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Baking Soda

10 oz bag Chocolate Chips

1 Bag Oreos (Any kind. Next time I’m using Double Stuff or Peanut Butter Oreos)

Preheat oven 350 Degrees.

In a mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add eggs and vanilla until combined.

2.  In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients until just combined and add chocolate chips. Take a scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough.  Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking.  Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes about 2 dozen very large cookies.

Best served with a wide mouth glass of milk!

I have seen this recipe all over the internet, but the true shout out goes to the lovely Picky Palate blog.

http://picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

I have once again made a recipe that sounds shady. I hate Kahlua. I don’t know why I am doing this to you.

Mikey does not like chocolate things. He doesn’t care about dessert. I only think about dessert.

However, Mikey absolutely loves this cake.

I promise you will never know there is Kahlua in this cake. That is good or bad depending on who you are. For me it’s good because although I love coffee, I do not love coffee liqueurs.

Like all delicious things in my life, I got this recipe from my wonderful mother.

This may be one of the EASIEST recipes ever! Fool your friends and tell them you made this super difficult/impressive cake. It also has this pretty swirl going through it which makes it look super fancy.

This is all you need:

The only problem with this recipe is that I don’t like Kahlua and I had to buy a giant bottle of it. I figured the liquor store would have those cute little bottles instead. Nope.

Apparently they are ILLEGAL in the city of Chicago! The nice man at Miskas Liquor Store told me I can drive out to the burbs for some little bottles…that’s not happening.

Ok. So first you toast your nuts…

Then you open a box of cake mix and add some eggs and oil. Put half the batter in a bowl and set it aside…

Then add the Kahlua, brown sugar and pecans to the other half….

So check out this giant bottle of Kahlua. That is ALL I needed to use. Can you come over and drink a bunch of this Kahlua? I’ll make you a cake if you do.

Add Half the Kahlua batter to a bundt pan…

Then add the batter you set over there…

Finally cover with the rest of the Kahlua batter and marbleize with a knife.

Yummmmm. This smells like heaven.

This cake is so sweet and so pretty.

Kahlua Cake  

1 Package Golden Butter Cake Mix (yellow)

4 eggs

1 Cup Sour Cream

1 Package Vanilla Instant Pudding

3/4 Cups Oil

1 tsp Vanilla

1 Cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 Cup Kahlua

1 Cup chopped toasted Pecans

Combine cake mix adding 1 egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Add sour cream, pudding, oil and vanilla. Mix well

Divide batter in half. To one half, add brown sugar, Kahlua and pecans. Grease bundt pan.

Pour 1/2 of the pecan mixture, then all of the plain mixture, then remaining half of pecan mixture. Run a knife through mixture to marble.

Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes at 350.

Check after 1 hour.

Cherry White Chocolate Cookies

Let me start by saying, my mother would not be excited about this recipe. She would be especially upset that I chose this as my first recipe post ever.

Ok not really.

But, she does not like almond extract OR maraschino cherry’s. She thinks this cookie falls into the “grandma” category.

I’m alright with being a grandma if it means I get to eat these cookies. I know they sound gross. Please trust me, they are super delicious. When I first tried them I had no idea what was in them. Make them. Make other people try them first, and then tell them what they’re made of.

This recipe is adapted from my wonderful Aunt Mickey 🙂

p.s. My photos are garbage. Hoping the Easter Bunny/Birthday Prince brings me a new camera soon. I promise to improve the quality of this blog asap.

Recipe: Dipped Cherry Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 3/4 cup sugar, divided

• 1 cup cold butter, cubed

• 1/2 cup maraschino cherries, drained, and finely chopped

• 12 ounces white baking chocolate, finely chopped, divided

• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

• 2 teaspoons shortening

• coarse sugar and red glitter/sprinkles

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine the flour and 1/2 cup sugar; cut in butter until crumbly. Knead in cherries, 2/3 cup white chocolate and almond extract until dough forms a ball.

(they are pretty crumbly, requires slight man-handling)

Shape into 3/4-inch balls. Place 2-inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten slightly with a glass dipped in remaining sugar. Bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool.

In a microwave, melt shortening and remaining white chocolate at 70% power for 1 minutes; stir. Microwave in additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Dip half of each cookie into chocolate; allow excess to drip off. Sprinkle with coarse sugar and/or edible glitter. Place on waxed paper until set.

Share with friends/self and ENJOY!!!