Creamy Coconut Fruit Dip

This week I've had the MOTHER of all colds.  I can't currently speak, smell, or taste, which is great except for when I want to eat, communicate, or check whether or not I actually washed the clothes in the washer.  My kids told me my birthday cake and cupcakes were super good so I mean, who really needs to be able to taste anyways?

I spent most of yesterday reading Matched, which was great, except there are 3 people in line ahead of me for Crossed and like, not to be rude, but I really need to know what happens and if I can read a whole book in one day, you should be able to too.  Unfortunately, other people apparently have lives?

I bought a flat of strawberries at Costco last week so my kids aren't even starving.

That of course brings us to fruit dip.  This stuff is amazing on bananas.  It tastes like cream pie, and I'm hoping it's an appropriate substitute for children to have for lunch.

This girl ain't winning mommy of the year award today.

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Coconut Cream Cake

Ok.  See?  Freaky pictures.

Pretend to ignore and we can be friends.   It gets better, I promise.


I'm feeling a little bit lost with no holidays to prepare for.  Halloween through Easter has been a whirlwind of baking and trying to cram in everything I want to make and now my baking schedule is completely free until the 4th of July comes around.  It's a nice feeling actually.  I get to wrack my brain for delicious treats to invent instead of plowing through the 3 pages of bookmarked recipes on my computer.

This baby is a cake I make every year around Easter and it is the moistest cake everr.  It is a poke cake, drizzled with cream of coconut and has a fantastic coconut flavor.  It needs to be eaten within 2 days because it is so moist, but you shouldn't have problems getting rid of it.

Just to be clear, Cream of Coconut is that sweet syrupy stuff, often found in a can, over on the mixers aisle  (by the soda).  Look for Margarita mix and it's probably sitting on the shelf next to that.  I have yet to find a store that doesn't carry it, sometimes you just have to poke around a little bit.  Coconut milk, or Coconut Cream (non-sweetened) are NOT the same and will not yield the same results.  The brand I buy is Coco Lopez.  Check the back.   If there are a bazillion-ty calories in 2 Tbsp, and sugar is one of the first ingredients, you've got the right stuff.  Cream of Coconut is a great way to add a strong coconut flavor without adding gritty chunks of coconut to whatever you are baking!

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Ghetto Peach Cobbler

I'm not really sure if I am qualified to call this ghetto peach cobbler, since I've never actually lived in the ghetto and therefore have no real basis for this assertion, but I think I'm gonna stick with the name anyways.

This cobbler is made from yellow cake mix and peaches so it's not exactly Martha Stewart, but we love it.  Part of the attraction is that it comes together in about 5 minutes and we always have the ingredients on hand.  Serve warm with a great big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

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Strawberry Shortbread Bars

How many cats is an appropriate amount to own?  Like twelvish?

One for each month?

Exactly.  I've been telling people this for years.

Just kidding, we only  have one cat, but sometimes when I go to Petsmart I like to pretend I am the mother of all cat lady's.

Like,

"Do you think Snuffliekins would like this Reindeer outfit or this Elf outfit better for family pictures?"

"What about Cuddly-boo-boo?  Should he buy this catnip-scented pillow for Fluffy-baby for Christmas?  Maybe we should call and ask him.  I've got him on speed-dial.  He's probably just watching animal planet."

It would probably be even more convincing if I actually brought in twenty cats on leashes and placed them in the cart and talked to them at intervals and waited for them to yowl back.  Maybe this year I can look into volunteering at the Humane Society in the "cat-walking" assignment and we can make that a reality.

Mostly I feel the need to do things like this because I worked at Gap in college.  I know boring jobs.  I like to think I'm providing the employees with some much needed entertainment for the day, and an amusing story to take home to their significant other at night.  Also it keeps me entertained because I am a five year old.


Know what else five year olds like?

Bars.

I like these best the second day because the flavors meld and the crust becomes super moist and almost "pie-like".  These would be yummy with cherry pie filling as well.

They are not cat-friendly however.  So don't give any to cuddly-boo-boo.

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Raspberry Swirl Rolls {& Sweet Roll Tips!}

I used to not be a good sweet roll maker.  Mine always turned out dense and dry.  After lots of trial and error I discovered I was adding WAY too much flour, especially in the rolling out process. My mind-frame of what the dough should look and feel like was totally wrong. I thought if it was sticky at all I hadn't added enough flour.

Lately I've discovered the secret to good sweet rolls is actually adding the least amount of flour possible.  This is what will make your rolls tender and moist.  Your dough should still be very sticky when you put it in a bowl for it's first rise.  After the first rise it loses some of it's stickiness and you can get a better idea of whether you need to add a little more flour or not.

One of the best things you can do to help you use the right amount of flour is use a kitchen scale to measure it.  I've included flour weight below for this recipe like I always do for my cookies.  This really takes a lot of guesswork out of baking sweet rolls.  Especially if you're at a high-altitude.

The other thing I do is use Pam spray instead of flour when rolling out my dough.  Sometimes you will have to add a bit more flour to get your dough to rolling consistency, but rolling the dough on a flour covered surface can really drown your dough in flour unnecessarily.  By spraying your rolling surface and rolling pin with Pam you can keep the dough from sticking, while avoiding adding excess flour.

Finally, make sure you take your rolls out of the oven when they're just barely done.  You don't want raw dough but you really don't want to overbake either or your product will be dry. 

For these raspberry swirl rolls I used raspberries from my garden and the filling was a bit tart.  Taste your berries before beginning and if they're tart add some extra sugar to your filling.   These are best the day they're made.  After that they will begin to dry out like most sweet rolls. These are tender and yummy but I think they would be even better with a cream cheese frosting, so feel free to substitute that for the glaze if you want.  

Happy carbohydrate inhaling!

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White Chocolate Berry Burst Bread

So, I'm wondering, is it normal to have a whole shelf in the pantry that's your shelf??  (Aka- "Children if you eat this I will personally throw all your nerf guns into the wilderness and escort you to the orphanage.")

I walked in to our secondary pantry yesterday and realized I had an entire shelf of hidden food.  Banana Nut Crunch (Dude, children, that stuff is expensive.  No, you cannot have a bowl), Chocolate Peppermint Stick Luna bars, Honey Nut Shredded Wheat.  Gingerbread Oreos.  It's kind of gotten out of control.

Is this normal?

Is this a rite of motherhood or do I have a strange hoarding problem I never realized before?  I really don't want to be on the show hoarders.

On the other hand, when you hoard berries from your garden all summer and hide them away in the freezer, you get to make this bread.  So sometimes hoarding is a good thing, right?


This bread is full of berries and is lightly sweetened.  You can substitute some quick oats to make this healthy enough for breakfast, or you can add extra white chocolate chips to turn this into a sweeter snacking/ dessert bread.

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Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream Pie {Cadbury Chocolate Ice Cream}

Sometimes I feel the need to put things in perspective for my husband.

Like sending him a link to this moisturizer.  And reminding him that some women buy this on a regular basis.  And then talking a lot about how lucky he is to have such a frugal wife who doesn't spend $275 on a small jar of moisturizer.

This conversation almost always happens right before he looks at our RedCard statement.  He always acts suspicious about this coincidence which completely baffles me.

Or sometimes it happens right before I tell him I want to buy $30 moisturizer.

It's kind of like when you're a teen and you call your parents and say "Hey I'm in jail, come pick me up."  And when that has sunk in, you say "Great news!  I'm not in jail.  But I did skip English today."

Perspective is a beautiful thing.

Something that needs no perspective is ice cream pie.

Ice cream.  Pie.   It just works.

I came up with a Cadbury chocolate ice cream recipe to use for this pie, but you can always sub a store-bought chocolate ice cream.  If you go with homemade ice cream, keep in mind that you'll need to make it at least 24 hours in advance because the ice cream mixture needs time to chill and develop it's flavor before putting in the ice cream maker.

 

Wanna search for unnecessary products with me and send them to our husbands?

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Pina Colada Cupcakes

Here's the thing.  I keep finding pictures of treats I made this summer and forgot to post, so forgive me for going back into summer mode for a few days.

I made these for Tim's sunday school kids and you can probably guess what their favorite part was.  

Everything is better with an umbrella.

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Blue Bubblegum Ice Cream

Soccer update:  Chase's first game went great.  There was no blood, no tears, no tantrums.  No children lost limbs or threw over the water table in a rage. There was no big reveal at the end where we found out one of the boys was actually a girl pretending to be her twin brother so she could prove girls can play soccer as well as boys and win over Channing Tatum in the process.

He listened to his coach (actually he perched himself on his coaches knee every time the kids all came in to take a knee...) and ran after the ball with all the other kids.

I noticed that he is really non-agressive.  I guess it is pretty confusing to be told to share all the time and not take other people's things and then to be screamed at to "be agressive" and try to steal the ball from other kids.

Talk about mixed messages.

I basically had a panic attack when I walked in to the sports store to buy his equipment.  I played sports as a kid but never soccer, football, or basketball (ie: all the sports my kids will probably want to play.)  I just stood there and stared at the 6 different kinds of cleats wondering which sport they were each for and whether my kid needed bands to keep his shin guards up or whether he was supposed to wear two pairs of socks with his cleats.

Like.  How do people even learn how to use these things?

What did people do before Wiki Answers?

(In case you are wondering, there is an article on eHow entitled "How to Wear Soccer Shoes and Shin Guards".)


I know I've been whining a lot recently about the LONG summer we've had this year, but really, my boys are my little piece of heaven.  They give my life purpose. I love that I can stay home with them even though sometimes I think I'd rather shoot my brains out than listen to the Doc McStuffins theme song one more time.

I really love to make treats that I know will put a huge smile on their face.  In all honestly I developed this ice cream just because I knew they'd freak out when they saw it.  If you like Baskin Robbins pink bubblegum, you will like this.  The great part is there's no bubblegum pieces to pick out so you wont have to save it all in a big wad on your napkin to eat later.

You do that.  Right?

If you want, you can turn this ice cream into Bubblegum ice cream cupcakes.
(Just sub bubblegum ice cream for the black raspberry ice cream.)

Or, if ice cream isn't really your thing, you can always make regular Bubblegum cupcakes instead.

This isn't super sweet considering it is Bubblegum flavored, so feel free to go a little heavy on the sugar if you want.

 Happy Thursday!!

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Tiki Punch Freeze

 

I am apparently the only one whose school district hasn't started back up again.  (And we still have 9 days of summer... WHAT?)

I'm sorry, four months of summer is just too long.

If the Halloween decorations are out my kid should already be back at school.

I'm going finger-lickin' insane without a solid routine or schedule.

Basically the only good thing about it still being summer is finishing up the last of the summer treats.

Tiki punch freeze is a little spin off of the root beer freeze's I posted recently.  I just used a can of Tiki Punch (any sparkling fruit punch will do) in place of the root beer.  It is surprisingly good, and tastes kind of like a sweet sherbet.

It's quite a bit sweeter than the Rootbeer freeze, so smaller glasses may be in order, or you can always add some ice to water it down a tad.

Let's start saying goodbye to summer, shall we?

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Frozen Hot Chocolate

Summer.

I'm over it.

Does that make me a bad person?

Is it sacrilege to say I'm counting down the days to boots and leaves and Fall treats and baking with pumpkin?

Is it weird that I bought Christmas presents yesterday?

{These questions are all rhetorical.  Unless you happen to agree with me, I mean.}


Today I was so bummed to find no apple cider at the store and no Halloween M&Ms at Target.  I had to step back a little and re-evaluate my life a little and pull out my calendar book to check which month it was.

I went home and decided to compromise with this recipe. It's frozen so it's obviously summery.  But it's also hot chocolate which is a Fall/Winter treat.  Best of both worlds.  (Sing Hannah Montana here.)

Also, it's delicious.

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Vanilla Bean Cookies n Cream Ice Cream {Best Basic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream}

Do you ever say "This is the best thing I've ever eaten!"  But then think, "I eat lots of yummy things... Realistically this can't be THE best thing I've ever eaten.  What kind of label is that anyways? How could you ever decide?"

I say that a lot, but then I remember that I really do know the best thing I've ever eaten. 

When I had our first son I was induced.  Which means they basically starve you until your baby comes.  Unfortunately he was a long time coming and I only had chance to sneak a sucker in that 20-ish hours or so.  (Seriously... tell a lady to have a baby and not feed her? Dumbest idea ever.)  Without going into details, he was a very difficult & complicated labor, my epidural didn't work, and I'm not entirely certain my doctor was actually an MD.

Fast forward to his arrival. My sweet sister-in-law worked at the hospital where I delivered and gave me a coupon for a free shake at the cafeteria.  My husband cashed it in as soon as they moved me to recovery and I vividly remember this Caramel Oreo shake being The. Best. Thing. I've. Ever. Eaten.  INMYLIIIIFE.

I inhaled it.

And seriously?  I still dream about it. 

There is zero doubt in my mind that I will ever eat anything as satisfying and delicious as that shake.

But making a pretty good copycat is always a good idea.  This vanilla bean ice cream is amazing, and even better if you put a whole bunch of Oreo chunks inside. Putting caramel sauce on top?  Heavenly.  It could turn out to be one of the best things you've ever eaten.  Make it into a shake if you want.

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Rootbeer Float Freeze

Did you know it's national root beer float day? I have a 4 year old who is in love with all things root beer.  Root beer gum, root beer cupcakes, root beer barrels, and you guessed it- root beer floats.  We like to do a blended freeze version that perfectly combines the root beer and ice cream in every slurp.  It's way easier to eat and less messy for kids.

Yes, we did have these for breakfast today.

Happy Root Beer Float day!!

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Rainbow Sherbet Torte

When we built our house I said all I wanted was a huge kitchen island.  These days I'm thinking I should have asked for two dishwashers. There are only four of us but I swear our dishwasher is always full.

As is the sink.  And the two counters surrounding the sink.  Every time clean dishes come out of the dishwasher, it gets filled right back up with dirty ones.  And there are still dishes waiting to go in on the next round.

Don't tell me I bake too much.  This is not the problem.  It's the darn size of the dishwasher!!

I need to butter my hubby up sometime and mention the fact that I want two dishwashers in the next house.  Just to get him warmed up to the idea, you know.

(I am not the slightest bit joking about this.  If people can have two ovens I should be able to have two dishwashers.)

One good way to butter hubbys up is to give them ice cream torte.  I realize that this is actually a sherbet torte, and that sherbet is... um...  kinda girly.  But it's a good starting point for a two-dishwasher kind of conversation.

Also, it's bright and happy.  Just like my face will be when we build a house with two dishwashers.

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I always forget that rainbow sherbet is good.  I mean, I would never go to the ice cream store and order sherbet, but whenever I end up eating it I love it.  This is a fun torte to make for dinner guests in the summer and is easy to throw together.  I have actually made it two ways, both of which are delicious so I'm posting two (very similar) recipes.  The biggest difference is the crust- one uses coconut cookies and slivered almonds and makes a true crust.  The other uses macaroon crumbs, chopped pecans, and whipped cream and makes a thick creamy "frozen topping" type crust.  I have a hard time finding macaroons and usually don't want to make them (lazybutt) so I often make the first recipe, but if you have macaroons the second recipe is killer.

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Shirley Temples

Did you notice my new look? I got a blog makeover this weekend! I am so not computer savvy or techy so this is big news.  It has been bugging me for awhile and I finally sat down and made some changes.  

(When I say "I"-  I really mean my husband.  I ate snacks and peered over his shoulder and nodded as he explained things to me and pretended to understand.) 

I also finally set up a Pinterest account for Dip It In Chocolate, which I have been meaning to do for awhile.  Click on my light blue Pinterest icon on the top right to follow me, and I'll follow you back.  My boards are pretty empty for today but I'm sure they will fill up soon with lots of things to make your pants tight. ;)

Since I was so busy being computer geniusy this weekend, I didn't have much time to bake, but I did make some delicious drinks.  These are low-calorie since they're made with Sprite Zero.  (About 30 calories plus cherries.)  And by saving all those calories you can eat the delicious cookies I have ready for you tomorrow!

I do try to conserve calories for you in the summer time, you know... ;) 

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Brown Butter Peach Pie Shortbread Bars

I thought your body wasn't supposed to start deteriorating until at least 30.  Apparently my body didn't get that memo.  So far 26 has been the year where I have to start dealing with wrinkles and phantom aches and general crabbiness.  (I wish I was joking, but I'm not.  Well, kinda joking about the crabbiness.)

This week I seem to have pulled a muscle in my back probably from pretending to be too realistic of a Velociraptor, so I have been scooting around the house like a hunchback and groaning a lot and using it as an excuse to not put on makeup or go running.  When a migraine joined my back in it's rebellion, I felt so sorry for myself I decided to make these bars.

I had been waiting months for fresh peaches to make them and they did not disappoint. These are really amazing. Especially warmed up with a big fat scoop of drippy vanilla bean ice cream on top.

Put them on your to-do list before summer is up.

And take "Playing carnivorous dinosaurs" off  of your list.

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Summery Strawberry Coconut Cake

This summer has been... interesting...  being the first real "summer" for us, since Chase just started preschool last year.  I totally underestimated how much I actually got done during the 4 hours he was at preschool each week.  Back when I posted our dino treats I mentioned we had started doing some summer units, to keep him preoccupied, and to keep me from going insane.  We've now moved from dinos to continents and we'll probably do one continent every week or two until school starts in September.

I LOVE doing these units with him and he is in heaven, but so much of my free time now is prepping school stuff instead of baking.  (Seriously... homeschoolers... I have no idea how you do this.)  Luckily I have a ton of posts backed up so hopefully I won't be too absent, and I might even get an Arctic-themed treat posted sometime this week.  I love to bake but I also love to spend time with my kids, especially while they're so young and they still like me.  {kinda.}

Now that it's July and it finally feels like summer, I thought it was time to post this summery cake. 

Strawberry cake.  Coconut cream cheese frosting.  Fresh strawberries.  Coconut. 

It's a little slice of summery heaven. 

This  is so yummy I had to give half of it away so I wouldn't eat it all.  The fresh strawberries really make this cake, so I wrote this up as a 4 layer cake (just by cutting each 9 inch rounds in half across the middle) to make room for more strawberries and frosting. I also wrote up the frosting as 1 1/2 times what I did to make enough for each layer, and give you some extra to frost the cake adequately... *cough*.

Don't freak out when you see how much sugar the frosting calls for,  mmkay?  

It's worth it. I promise.

Happy July!!

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Stars n Stripes Mini Fruit Pizzas

Do you know what's ironic?   

Making patriotic treats for the entire month of June and then not having the slightest clue what to make for the actual 4th of July.

Seriously.

Apple pie? Hand-dipped ice cream cones? Red white and blue cheesecake parfaits? Strawberry ice cream? There's too many choices! 

Maybe we'll just go to Chuck-a-Rama.

(kidding).

In other news, my parents are back in their house after the wildfire and it is completely undamaged and un-looted.  They are feeling very blessed!  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for them and the firefighters. 



Recently I have seen so many variations of fruit pizza on Pinterest and it reminded me I've never posted my fruit pizza recipe. It is a favorite for Valentine's day and summer dessert around here.  The best part is you can make the crust/cookies in advance and it takes all of 10 minutes to put together day-of.  To do something different, I thought I'd make these minis so they are easy for single-serving.  (Plus then you don't ruin the pretty picture by slicing it up.)  Also fruit is healthy so you can eat these for breakfast. The bad news for me is we've already demolished all of ours so we can't eat them tomorrow.  Bummm-er.

Hope everyone has a lovely Fourth of July this year.  Have fun celebrating with family and friends and honoring this wonderful country & those who died to create it.  Don't forget to eat lots of red, white, and blue treats and reenact the American Revolution.

Wait, your family doesn't do that?

Oh.  

Mine either...

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Old-Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry shortcake was always my favorite dessert growing up.  But we never made it with angel food cake or frozen strawberries.  In my fam it was the real deal.  My mom baked these sweet biscuit-like old-fashioned shortcakes, and topped them with sugared strawberries and fresh whipped cream.  The great part is these shortcakes are made from Bisquick and take all of two minutes to whip up and throw in the oven.  The recipe has been tinkered with quite a bit and adapted from Bisquick's original recipe.  It is not at all the same as the one on the box.  These shortcakes are thick and much heavier than angel food cake shortcake so know that before starting so you won't be disappointed.  I so prefer this version and hope you will love it as much as we do.

This is my definition of the perfect breakfast. (Pumpkin pie comes very very close.)

It has fruit and dairy in it so your dietician would probably approve.

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Hawaiian Lava Flows

While my husband and I were engaged I did a semester of school in Hawaii with my good friend Natalie, while he stayed on the mainland to work. We didn't have a car in Hawaii, so the bus had to get us wherever we wanted to go.

(Nothing like riding the bus to make you feel like an adult, let me tell you.)

Natalie and I used to sit on the side of the road by the bus stop and call the bus hotline to find out 'how many more minutes' until the bus would arrive. (That always made me feel pretty adult-like as well.)

Anyway, we'd hop the bus and ride it down to Turtle Bay Resort/Hotel.  And then we would head to the pool.

Errr... by taking the back gate.  And walking very stealthily.  And perhaps wearing swimsuit coverups that matched nearby shrubbery. 

But once we we'd snuck in we'd get to lay out, slap on some Maui Babe tanning lotion and drink in the Hawaii sun.

We'd always get asked for drink orders and I'd wonder which room I should charge it to.

(Just kidding.  But kind of not.)

Turns out if you're white, they assume you're a resort guest.  And they let you lay by the pool.  Every. Day.  And apparently they think you live there because how else do they not notice that you never. go. away.    ??

Probably they thought I was Paris Hilton or something and just live at hotels.



I eavesdropped on so many great conversations at that pool.

Don't pretend you don't do it.

How can you not listen to the details of a six-year-old's birthday party that totaled almost 12,000 dollars?

It's like a train-wreck, you just can't look away. Also, apparently if you're wearing earbuds people think you're not listening.

Who knew?

Anyway, since I was SO moral-minded and just couldn't bring myself to order lots of drinks to other people's rooms, I never got to taste Turtle Bay's Hawaiian Lava flow.

But I so wanted to.

So Turtle Bay resort, here's to you.

Thanks for the great tan for my wedding.  The relaxation. And some priceless gems of wisdom.

("OMGOSH... do not EVER hire her to do your balloons. She brought shiny teal instead of iridescent aqua and she used trashy ribbon! The floats were ALL wrong, I think her sister is transgender and I heard she got her dog from the pound!")


This "Real Housewives" stuff?  It's for real.

 

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