Box Mix Brownies Made Better - Reese Cup Edition

I've been super into doctored box mix recipes lately, probably because they are quick and easy, and let's face it, I've been a little busier lately. ;)

Brownies are delicious no matter what, in my opinion, but I thought it would be fun to come up with a few "recipes" to make them even more tasty.

Reese Cup Brownies

Ingredients

For the brownies:

1 box brownie mix (plain fudge or dark chocolate)
Ingredients called for on box mix
1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips

For the frosting:

1 box cream cheese, softened (8 oz)
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 TB vanilla

Garnish:

Reese's mini cups

Directions

1. Preheat the oven, prepare a baking pan, and make brownie mix all according to the box mix directions.
2. Before pouring the brownie mix into the pan, add the peanut butter chips and mix thoroughly.

3. Bake the brownies according to the directions on the box mix.  They will be ready when a toothpick inserted about 2 inches from the edge comes out mostly clean.

4. While the brownies are baking, make the frosting by combining all of the ingredients together and mixing until smooth, using a paddle attachment on your mixer.
5. Cool brownies completely.
6. Frost brownies using a piping bag with a large star tip, or frost completely.  The recipe yields enough to frost the entire pan; if you use the piping bag, you will have extra.
7. Garnish with Reese mini-cups, if desired.

 Quick, cute, and super tasty!

Retro Peanut Butter Pie

I found this delicious recipe online when I was searching for "old-fashioned cakes and pies." I'm not sure exactly how "retro" this really is - they say '70's, which could be accurate, though I'm not sure. Either way, retro or not, it is absolutely fantastic and I almost ate the entire thing myself. This is a good recipe if you like peanut butter (it is not overly rich, it has a nice, soft flavor) and want something easy and quick to whip up. Enjoy!

This recipe is from Family Fun Magazine.

1. Beat 1 package cream cheese and a 1/2 cup brown sugar in a bowl until smooth.
2. Add 1 cup creamy peanut butter, 1/2 cup milk, and a tablespoon of vanilla. Mix until smooth and creamy. Add in an 8 0z tub of thawed cool whip, and gently fold in until the mixture is smooth. Don't beat too hard!
3. Scoop the mixture (the mixture should be a mousse-like consistency) into a prepared graham cracker crust. If you want to make your own crust, chop up graham crackers in the food processor until they are fine crumbs and add melted butter until they are moist but not wet. Press into the bottom of a round pie plate. Bake for about ten minutes and then cool.
4. Add chopped up Resse's Peanut Butter Cups around the edge of the pie. I added a bit too many - it looked pretty, but ended up being too much for me to eat and I would usually scrape some off. You might want to go lighter than in my picture.

Refrigerate for a couple of hours until set. Try not to eat too much all at once! :)

Calling all bakers!

There is a plethora of adorable sites that sell the cutest baking supplies ever. Here are some of my favorites. :)

Meri Meri (website link)

Bake It Pretty (website link)

And of course, Etsy (website link)

(seller's link)

(seller's link)

(seller's link)

(seller's link)

and because I love me some Star Trek:

(seller's link)

(seller's link)

Lady Baltimore Cake!

I made a Lady Baltimore-esque cake today in honor of my upcoming visit to Maryland. And because I had the ingredients and some time on my hands. :)

This is not a traditional Lady Baltimore, which has a custard-type filling in between the layers. I personally do not like the filling, mostly because it has almonds in it and I don't like nuts in my cake. This version is also much less time intensive, but still very delicious. The best part is the icing, which is the prettiest frosting ever. It is white, whipped, and just airy and beautiful. It tastes a little like marshmallows. Which is fine by me.

Step One: Make a white cake. I used a box mix but added almond extract. You can make it by scratch. I promise I do make cakes from scratch sometimes!

Step Two: While the cakes are baking, start making the frosting. My recipe is from the Buttercup Bakeshop Cookbook for Lady Baltimore frosting. I call it "Whipped Swiss Meringue" frosting.

• Put three egg white and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla in a bowl. Set aside.
• In a saucepan, heat up 1/2 cup of water, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and a little under 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar.
• Let it boil - a full-on boil! Don't rush it. :)
• As the mixture is starting to boil, begin to whip your egg whites and vanilla with a whisk attachment. Let it get nice and frothy.
• Once the sugar-water mixture is boiling and the egg whites are frothy, slowly pour in the sugar-water.
• Keep whisking! After about 5 minutes, your mixture will look like pillow-y white clouds. Let the frosting get a little stiff and thick. It should hold peaks firmly.

Step Three: Grind up some oatmeal cookies in a food processor or blender until they are fine crumbs.

Step Four: Assemble your cake. Level off one cake. Add a layer of frosting and cookie crumbs. Top with the second cake. Heap on an enormous amount of frosting and cover the tops and sides. It shouldn't be smooth, but rather it should have peaks. Top with cookie crumbs and a maraschino cherry. (Tip: Dry off your cherry before putting it on the cake, or the red juice will run all over the place and ruin your pretty cake. Like it did to mine before. Sigh.)

Step Five: Gaze upon your cake in awe. It is gorgeous!

What else did I do today? I went to the dentist and I need to get a retainer. Mike thought this was rather funny. He said he could picture me wearing my retainer, watching BSG, and working on my laptop. He claims that my evolution into geek-dom is almost complete. :(

I also did laundry. And London found a new bed.

Pictures and details on our weekend trip to Yosemite coming soon! :)

Crayons and Cupcakes

This weekend I worked on a couple of cute projects that I thought I would share.

The first project was making rainbow-colored heart crayons as presents for my students for Valentine's Day. I wanted a project that was as close to free as I could get, but that was still really cute, and hopefully functional. I found this project online and thought it looked super easy - and it was! I even got all of the crayons donated from teachers at my school. We used the old, broken crayons that always pile up in our crayon baskets.

First, peel off the labels of old, broken crayons. Using an exacto knife worked really well, but picking it off does the trick, too.

Next, break the crayons in half and mix them together in a heart-shaped muffin or cupcake pan. I got mine at Target for $2.50 each. You can make solid colors, mix two colors, or do rainbow. I ended up liking rainbow the best.

Put the tins in the oven at 275 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until the crayons have completely turned into liquid.

Next, take the trays out of the oven and stick them right into the refrigerator. Only 10 minutes later, you can take the trays out and pop out your new crayons!

Mike and I found that when doing rainbow, it turned out the best to make each crayon about 50% white. That helped the colors stand out more and gave us the crayons we liked the best.

Here are the finished crayons all bagged up and tied with tags that say, "You color our world! Love, Ms. M and Mrs. W" (My amazing aide Alice made the cute tags - isn't she great?!)

The second project of the weekend was to make a giant cupcake-shaped cake. The pan was given to me by my Secret Valentine at our happy hour reveal (thanks CJ!). I happened to have Valentine's Day funfetti cake mix in my cupboard, so I thought I would whip this up for tomorrow at school.

Pretty cute, huh?

What else did I do this weekend besides make crayons and cupcakes? I watched an embarrassing amount of Battlestar Gallactica and finally did the ridiculous pile of laundry that has been sitting in my closet. Yay for weekends! :)

Spaghetti and Meatballs ...

... as a cake. Per Cathy's request, behold the spaghetti and meatballs cake!

Step One: Bake two round chocolate cakes. I used a box mix, but you could totally make a homemade one, too.

Step Two: When cakes are cool, crumble one of the cakes into a bowl. Mash up the crumbs and roll them in your hands until they are spherical. Make three balls, and coat them in some of the leftover crumbs. Set aside.

Step Three: Ice the remaining cake with white icing. Again, I used store bought, but homemade is fine. Try to get it nice and smooth.

Step Four: Put the three chocolate cake balls on top of the cake. These are your meatballs, people. Arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing way. Or, just drop them on top, like I did. :)

Step Five: Mix four - five drops food coloring into another tub of white icing. Put it in a pastry bag with a small circle tip. Squeeze icing out all around the meatballs to make it look like spaghetti.

Step Six: Mix up strawberry jam until it is somewhat smooth. Drop by the spoonful around the meatballs to make it look like sauce.

That's it! Super easy. The whole project took 1 hour, including baking time. Thanks for the idea, Cathy!

(This project came out of Food Network Magazine, with the recipe by Catherine Ruehle)

Thai, meat pies, and cake, oh my!

This weekend was so much fun.

On Friday Mike and I went and saw No Strings Attached. It was a RomCom. It was what you would think it would be like. I will give it props for being more funny than I thought it would be. Most of all, I just liked going to the movies with my honey. :)

(photo source)

Saturday was spent erranding (to Target, where else?) and getting a pedicure with my friends Barbara and Amy. We all have pretty red toes now. My color? Chick Flick Cherry! (I didn't get a pic of us in our pedicure chairs. :( I guess we'll have to go again for a photo op!)

Mike and I had planned on going to Arcadia, one of my favorite restaurants for dinner that night. Mike was kinda sounding like he didn't want to go, and so I suggested we go for ... Thai food! Now that might not sound so exciting, but for me to suggest Thai food is something of a small miracle. I like Thai, but it's not my fave, and given the choice I usually always want something else. This night, I don't know, I had a hankering for some green curry. Knowing this was a once-in-a-million years occurance, Mike jumped on the chance to go. I got to catch up with my fabulous friend Sharon and our friends Shane, Margaret, and Manoj came too. It was impromptu and incredibly fun. I even tried Sharon's papaya salad, which was very spicy, but also quite yummy. We then got delicious gelato afterwards - mmmm, creme brulee flavor!

Me, Margaret, and Sharon; Manoj, Shane, and Mike.

Sunday we went to an Australia Day celebration at Shane and Margaret's house. Meat pies, sausage rolls, ginger beer, and chocolate caramel koala-shaped candy? Total wins. Vegemite? Not so much. But, I am super glad I tried it. Even though it was awful. :( The best of the afternoon? Eating the delicious pavlova Margaret made, petting their adorable dog Zeb, and holding our friends' baby Dorian. Overall a fantastic celebration.

Shane decked out in Australia themed garb; evil Vegemite and fabulous kangaroo-shaped cookies, and dogs Zeb and Roo, appropriately donning Australia flag scarves. :)

The last thing I did this weekend? I made a cakewich, friends!

It is just as glorious as I thought it would be. Who needs real sandwiches when you can have one made out of cake? Okay, regular sandwiches will still make up over 50% of my diet, but this is an awesome addition. Yay for cakes in the shape of sandwiches!

The "bread" is vanilla pound cake, the "peanut butter" is peanut butter frosting, and the jam is just regular jam. Strawberry Smukers, to be exact. Yum!