Fabulous Friday: Applesauce Cake

I was asked to make this cake for a friend’s birthday party. Her mom always made it for her and it was her absolute favorite cake ever. I must admit, it is REALLY, REALLY good! It has amazing flavor and is super moist.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 c flour
• 2 c sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• dash of ginger
• 1/2 c butter, softened
• 1/2 c water
• 1 1/2 c applesauce
• 2 eggs
• 1 Frosting Recipe (see below)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lightly grease a 9×13 pan and set aside.
3. In an electric mixer, mix all ingredients EXCEPT the eggs. Beat for 2 minutes.
4. Add in eggs and beat for another 2 minutes.
5. Pour batter in pan and bake in oven for 35-40 minutes (it only took 35 minutes in my oven).
6. Let cool before frosting.

Frosting Recipe

Mix together:

• 1/2 c butter, softened
• 2 TBS cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/2 c powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• add milk, until you’ve reached your desired consistency

 

Happy Pi Day! Plus Snickers Pie

For all of you pie-loving nerds out there, this holiday is just for us 🙂
Today’s date is 3.14 << see?! pi and of course the only way to celebrate pi is by eating PIE. (Any excuse to eat pie, right?)

Well here is one of my favorite pie recipes for you. It’s a little time consuming but well worth the effort!

Snickers Pie (AKA Tin Roof Chocolate Pie)

Ingredients

• 1 prebaked 9-inch (4-cup volume) deep-dish pie shell (or you can split everything into 2 regular pie shells)

CHOCOLATE LAYER

• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
• 1 tablespoon butter

CARAMEL LAYER

• 20 vanilla caramels
• 1 1/3 cups heavy whipping cream, divided
• 1 1/2 cups lightly salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

MARSHMALLOW LAYER

• 1/2 cup milk
• 15 large marshmallows
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Topping (recipe below)

Directions

FOR CHOCOLATE LAYER:
HEAT 1/3 cup morsels and butter in small saucepan over low heat stirring frequently, until morsels are melted. Spread melted chocolate on bottom and up sides of prebaked pie shell. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until set.FOR CARAMEL LAYER:
HEAT caramels and 1/3 cup whipping cream in small saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until caramels are melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in nuts. Spoon over chocolate layer; cover. Refrigerate.

FOR MARSHMALLOW LAYER:
HEAT 1 1/3 cups morsels, milk and marshmallows in medium saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate and marshmallows are melted and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla extract. Cool completely.

BEAT remaining whipping cream until soft peaks form; fold into cooled marshmallow mixture. Carefully spoon over caramel layer (pie will be full). Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

FOR TOPPING:
HEAT 3 caramels, 2 tablespoons whipping cream and 1 tablespoon butter in small saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth; cool slightly. Top each serving with topping, whipped cream and remaining morsels.

This amazing recipe and photo comes from Very Best Baking

Fabulous Friday: Cookie Pie

This recipe is amazing. Seriously I love the sweet of the cookie mixed with the salty of the pretzel crust. It’s perfect. Just make sure you don’t use the crumbs at the bottom of the pretzel bag. That adds way too much salt.

Ingredients 

Pretzel Bottom

• 2 cups crushed pretzels
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted

Cookie Pie

• 1 cup butter, room temp
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 6 Reese’s peanut butter cups, chopped up

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Combine crushed pretzels, 1/2 cup melted butter and 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl. Press mixture firmly into the bottom and up sides of a 10″ deep-dish pie pan. Now if you don’t have a 10″ deep dish pie pan, you can easily put these into 2 more shallow 9″ pans. 
3. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven.
4. While crust is baking make the blondie filling.
5. Cream butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup sugar with your mixer.
6. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.
7. On low speed, add in baking soda, salt and flour.
8. Stir in your chocolate chips and Reese’s.
9. Press mixture on top of baked crust.
10. Place pie back in oven for 30-35 minutes. Remove and cover top with aluminum foil to prevent burning the top and put back into oven for 15 – 20 minutes

The recipe I adapted said you needed to let it cool completely before serving or it will be mushy but I LOVE ooey, gooey, chocolatey cookies so I like it when it’s still warm 🙂

Here is the link to the original recipe. This recipe is a slightly adapted version.

Cookie Dough Truffles

Need a last minute idea for your treat plate? Here are some delicious, eggless cookie dough truffles.

• 1/2 c butter, room temperature
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1/2 c packed brown sugar
• 2 TBS milk
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c mini chocolate chips
• Chocolate candy coating

1. Mix all ingredients besides candy coating.
2. Form into 1 in sized balls and place in fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.
3. Melt chocolate candy in a small bowl (I’ve found that working with small amounts of dipping chocolate at a time is the best)
4. Dip cookie balls in chocolate and place on a buttered or greased pan.
5. Chill and enjoy!!!

 

Fabulous Friday: Candy Cane Sugar Cookies

 

Only 12 days until Christmas and you know what that means…bring on the Christmas cookies!! I have seen these candy cane twist cookies before and I thought they’d be fun to make with my son. Well, every recipe I found called for peppermint extract. You don’t have any of that? Ya. me neither. So I decided to make up this recipe using real candy canes instead. We had bought them for our Christmas tree last year until we realized that that  was a bad idea. We have a toddler and slowly the candy canes kept disappearing! And we would find our son hiding with the evidence. We won’t be putting those on our tree ever again.

My original plan was to use red food coloring but apparently I was all out. Green is still festive, right??

Side note, you can use the twisted dough to make letters too!

Candy Cane Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 1 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoons vanilla
• 2.5 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 candy canes, crushed
• red or green food coloring
• white crystal sugar, optional

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each egg. Add vanilla.
3. Add flour, salt, baking soda and mix until just combined.
4. Remove half the dough and set aside.
5. To the remaining dough, add crushed candy canes and food coloring. Mix well until the color is thoroughly incorporated.
6. Working with small portions at a time, roll out a long snake of the white dough and an equal amount of the colored dough.
7. Lay the dough snakes side by side and then twist them together. Every 4 inches, cut the dough and form it into a candy cane shape on the cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with the sugar if you’d like.
8. Bake cookies at 375 degrees for 5-6 minutes (I promise you don’t need longer!). Let cool on sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
9. Enjoy!!

Makes about 2 doz candy canes