M & M and Chocolate Chippers!

Hola and Happy belated Easter, friends! I have realized that I start to suffer blog withdrawal if I go more than five days or a week without blogging... I crave it! Too bad I don't have more time on my hands. Or, then again, maybe it's a good thing I don't have too much free time. I'd be a blogging fool. ;-) Others may argue that I already am, however...

Anyway, this post will be on the shorter side, as this recipe for "M & M and Chocolate Chippers" is essentially a repeat recipe of an earlier post...just with dark chocolate m & m's added. :) You can find the recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I followed here. It's an original recipe from Mike's mom, Linda (thanks, Linda!). If you happen to remember that chocolate chip cookie post back in December, you may recall that I made a slight error when I added baking powder instead of baking soda. Oopsie! They actually still turned out well, but this time I was much more careful about paying attention to my ingredients!

I made this last batch of cookies around Easter time, so you can see the Easter, pastel colored m & m's that I used - they were dark chocolate too! So these cookies were obviously super healthy with lots of antioxidants. ;-) I added approximately one cup of both chocolate chips and m & m's.

Now, I have to admit that I thought these cookies were reeeeeally good. I don't typically tout my own baking, but they sure were tasty! I have other people to vouch for this though. One coworker ate five cookies in one sitting, and he told me the cookies had an "addictive" quality to them. :) This batch just the right texture and chewiness for cookies, in my opinion. I don't love crispy cookies, and these were not crispy. They were soft and chewy and just plain delicious. The beauty of a basic recipe like that for chocolate chip cookies is that you can add any "filler" ingredients that you want! I often enjoy moving away from the traditional items like chocolate chips, and I might add things like other types of baking chips (e.g., peanut butter, butterscotch, cinnamon - yes, they have cinnamon chips!). Additional ideas include toffee bits, chopped up candy bars (I mean, can you go wrong with bits of Snickers in a cookie? I think not), nuts, dried fruit bits, etc. Be creative! Change it up! What are YOUR favorite cookie "filler" ingredients? I'd love to hear from you!!

Sweet Potato Muffins with Cinnamon Mascarpone Filling

Surprise! It's another sweet potato recipe. I just can't get enough of those darn good sweet potatoes, folks! I saw this recipe for sweet potato muffins on an amazingly yummy blog called Vanilla Sugar. A while back I put this recipe on my "blog to-do" list, and then I recently had the perfect occasion to try it! As you may remember from my last post, my family celebrated an early Easter this past weekend. Well, my sister Melissa gave up desserts for Lent so I needed to accommodate her and make something she could eat! I thought to myself, hmmmm, this recipe is for muffins but they're slightly sweet so they might taste like a dessert....perfect! Melissa can still eat "dessert" with the rest of the fam after our Easter dinner. :)

This recipe was a little different from many that I make because it did involve a few extra steps (although I would not describe it as complicated, per se), and it required one ingredient that I do not use very often (mascarpone cheese). Otherwise, there was nothing to it, I'd say!

You can find the recipe I used from Vanilla Sugar here. One step that took a little longer was the need to roast sweet potatoes ahead of time for the "sweet potato puree." As you can see from the pictures below, I actually removed the skins before roasting the potatoes.

Generally I leave the skins on if I'm just making my typical roasted sweet potatoes or sweet potato fries. Anyway, so removing the skins took a few extra minutes than usual, but no biggie really! I actually baked them with olive oil, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Boy did they smell good when they were roasting!!

Here you can see me making the sweet potato "puree." I simply used a fork and then a whisk to mash the roasted sweet potatoes.  I suppose that I could have also put the cooled potatoes in a food processor too. Next time maybe!

The next few pics entail the making of the actual muffins. I won't "narrate" too much. You can figure out what I did from the pics! Oh, and with the liquid ingredients I did make one change. The recipe calls for buttermilk, but I used light vanilla yogurt instead.

I had fun Easter paper cupcake liners, of course!

Now it's time for the cinnamon mascarpone filling...sooo delish, let me tell you! I had never actually tried mascarpone cheese before on its own, so I took a taste before I made the filling. It's good! I would describe it as a sweet cream cheese (in case you're also not yet familiar with it!). Below are a few pictures of me cutting out the centers of each muffin (to do this, I used a small grapefruit spoon that has serrated edges - worked great!) and then you'll see some pics of me piping in the filling. I did this while at my parents' house, so I had Mike and Melissa to take a few pictures of the process. Thanks, photographers!!

And there you have 'em! Sweet potato muffins with cinnamon mascarpone filling. These are definitely a delicious sweet treat (yet not technically a dessert, which was key for my sista :)) that I think you'd love. Give 'em a shot, and be sure to let me know if you do!

Easy Icebox Cake

Hi friends! I have missed you (and maybe you've missed me too?!)... It's been over a week since I last posted a recipe! Do forgive me, please. :) I have been creating delicious recipes, I promise. I just haven't found the time to blog about them! I thought I'd share with you here a recipe that I've made twice within the last two weeks. It's that good!! This dessert is called "icebox cake," and I found the recipe on a blog I enjoy, Brown Eyed Baker. The actual recipe I modeled mine after can be found here.

At the very minimum, you can make this dish with just three ingredients. How easy! Hence, the title of this post, "Easy Icebox Cake." ;-) The cool thing about this recipe though is that you can very simply jazz it up if you want to, and you can create it with endless flavors. I love a recipe like this one!

Here are the three basic ingredients:

-graham crackers

-2 boxes instant pudding (any flavor or flavors!)

-cool whip (optional)

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it's really four ingredients since you have to use milk to make the instant pudding. Oops! So, four ingredients it is.

As I said earlier, I made this recipe twice in the past couple weeks. The first time I made it was right around St. Patrick's Day, so I chose to use pistachio flavored pudding since it's such a great St. Patty's Day green color! The second occasion for which I made this icebox cake was the early Easter that my family had this past weekend. Our schedules don't allow us to get together on Easter weekend this year, so we celebrated this past weekend at home in NY. I had a pretty busy week last week so I knew I had to make something that wouldn't take much time...

Below are some pictures from my first venture with pistachio pudding, and then you'll see pictures from the Easter dessert creation. I went "all out" and used two different flavored puddings for the Easter one....woah! I know, I'm living on the edge. I'll tell you what those flavors are in a bit when you get to those pics!

Did I mention that this recipe is EASY? All you do is just layer the ingredients and then let the dish sit in the fridge overnight. That is all, folks!

Jake, Mary, and Mike! I brought the pistachio icebox cake to their house when we visited for dinner. :)

Okay, now on to icebox cake #2 (aka early Easter dinner dessert!)... Oh, and by the way, bear with me here. I realize that I am including a lot of pictures with this post, but I just like seeing all the layers and how the whole thing comes together... I'm pretty simple-minded, I know. It doesn't take much to entertain me! Check out the fun ingredients I put into this next one... The possibilities are endless!

Lemon & coconut cream puddings this time - fun combo!

I added bananas on the coconut cream layer - yum! A little extra potassium for this dessert's consumers. ;-)

Time for another graham cracker layer!

And then the lemon pudding layer...

...with blueberries!

Cool whip and fun Easter sprinkles!

Here's a close-up of the sprinkles - can you see the little Easter bunny shapes?

Here you can see the layers, although they're not too "defined." When the dessert sits overnight, the layers seem to meld together a bit...it's quite delicious that way! The graham crackers get a little soft and all the flavors come together nicely.

And finally, here's me! I don't get a chance to have others photograph the "Barbershop" all that often, so my sister was nice enough to take a picture of me with our Easter dessert.

So what other flavors would you include with this dessert? What about a vanilla and chocolate pudding combo? Maybe with some strawberry slices? Mmmm. Oooh, I know...spread some peanut butter on the graham crackers! That'd be really fun to do with chocolate pudding. Tell me your ideas, friends!

Stay tuned 'til next time... I have several other recipes in the line-up! ;-)