Peppermint Whipped Cream (For hot cocoa or cupcakes)

Sorry I always have to spout off randomly to you before I ever give you a recipe.  I like to hold them for ransom so I can talk to adults for 3 minutes of my day (Love my 3 year old but he wants to talk about "human bodies" all day and that kind of disgustingifies me.)  PS-  Don't call social services on me.  When I say he wants to talk about human bodies, he wants to talk about the skeletal system and circulatory system and how the small intestine absorbs food, and what the white blood cells fight with.  Sometimes he calls me the names of germs, which personally I don't find that hurtful because I don't even know what they are.  As you can probably guess-  it's nice to have a real chat once in awhile where I can talk about adult things.  Like cake batter snack mix.

So, I have to ask.  Has anybody seen Jack & Jill?  What did you think of it?   I laughed through the whole movie.  Probably because I'm immature.  But then I found out that it only got 1 star on IMDB.  ONE. STAR.  I thought they reserved that kind of rating for movies like 101 Dalmations II or Land Before Time XII.

So I would probably feel better about myself if somebody else could tell me they thought Jack & Jill was hilarious as well.  (If you hated it you don't need to tell me. I don't want to go through life thinking I'm a bad movie judger. You know?)

Anyways, this whipped cream is perfect on the Peppermint Rims I posted a few days ago.  Also, it's freaking delicious.  You can just plop it in a cup of cocoa, or you can stabilize it and use it to pipe on chocolate cupcakes and add some peppermint pieces.  (Also freaking delicious.)  By the way, I didn't stabilize mine, so your cupcakes will definitely be prettier than my cupcakes.  No worries. And if you stabilize it, be sure to double the piping gel because that recipe only makes half as much as this one.

If you are using it to frost cupcakes you may want to add more sugar.  It is  lightly sweetened which is perfect  for cocoa, but it may need a little umph to replace frosting.

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Chocolate-Covered Gingerbread Chex Mix

First of all, you should know that this Chex mix is not covered in chocolate.  It's just supposed to *taste* like a chocolate-covered gingerbread man.  The chocolate part comes in from the M&M candies.  Just wanted to make that clear.

Now that my butt is covered,

I was dying to make something else cute with my gingerbread men marshmallows.  So really this was just an excuse to throw in some of them.  Excuses are ok in our house as long as they're edible.

I had to play around with this a few times to find the right spice blend but I think I finally got it.  If you can't find the marshmallows you could chop up gingerbread men and throw those in.  Or look for the little bite-sized gingerbread men.  You could also totally drizzle this in chocolate if you're feeling completely betrayed by my title.  Just drizzle it while on the wax paper, and wait for it to harden completely.  Then break into pieces.

Since this was 98% for my kids, you can probably imagine why I chose not to drizzle it in chocolate. You can really do whatever you want.  I'm not going to stalk you and find out if you made my recipe wrong. 

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Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Swirl Cookies

 

I'm kinda grumpy today, on account of I have to go to the eye doctor this afternoon.  Last time I went to the eye doctor he told me I couldn't see because my bangs were in my eyes.

Ummm.

Thanks very much.  Could I have my co-pay back now?


(I didn't get my co-pay back.  Also I can't read the E on the chart so it's pretty obvious I have bigger problems than bangs in my eyes.)

Anyways, when I need cheering up a chocolate pb combo will usually do it. I think I'm going to be eating a LOT of these today.

I haven't posted my Butterfinger brownie recipe yet, but these taste almost exactly like them.  The peanut butter gives them the most fabulous crumbly texture.  If you're on a diet you probably shouldn't make these.

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Lemon Lush Pie

This pie and I have some history.  The first time I made it was the first time my dad came to dinner after my husband and I were married. I slathered whipped cream all over the top, popped it in the fridge, and turned around to grab something else.  My foot holding the door open, cause I multi-task like that.

Turned back to the fridge.

Say what.

Are those footprints in my pie?

Curses.

And bathtime for King Kong.

I still make this pie almost every year, either for Thanksgiving or Easter.  If it's good enough for a cat, it's good enough for me.

I’m partying at the Pi Day Pie Party at Crazy for Crust today. Come party with us!

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Cake Batter Birthday Buddies

This idea has been floating around in the back of my brain for awhile now.  Muddy buddies... why not birthday buddies.  I think this would be such a cute party favor for kids- packaged up in a little clear cellophane baggie with a ribbon.

My husband thinks these taste like those pink and white frosted Mother's animal crackers  (and he's kind of right).  Does anyone else remember when they went out of business for awhile a few years back?  I think I lost a few years off my life from that experience.

If you're making this for a whole class, you will want to double the recipe as it doesn't make very much. 

Enjoy!

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Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

You know how in those teen movies from the early 2000's there was always an "ugly, dorky girl" who got a makeover and magically when they took her glasses off and gave her a red dress suddenly she was super hot and dateable?  These cupcakes are like that girl.  They might not look like much, but they are just waiting for Freddie Prinze Jr. to come along and show everyone what is underneath those glasses. Seriously, these are unbelievable (And since I'm a girl, and don't date cupcakes, I can't really help which is totally unfortunate.)

But what I can say, is these are my favorite cupcakes ever.  And I consume a lot of cupcakes.

The cupcake itself isn't all that sweet, and may or may not have passed for a muffin on certain mornings at our house. (Frostingless of course.  What kind of mother do you think I am?)

Just kidding, we eat candy for breakfast all the time.

You should probably bookmark these for next fall.  Or you could just make the frosting to eat with a spoon tonight.  You won't have leftovers.

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Peppermint Hot Chocolate Rims

Can we have a little chat about couponing real quick?  I do not watch couponing shows.  I have heard of them.  I have heard there are people who spend hours a day cutting coupons and who actually *make* money when they go through the check-out line of the grocery store.  To be honest, I am completely befuddled by this.  Sometimes I get ambitious and I look through those coupon pages that come in the newspaper.  I usually end up throwing them away when I realize the coupons either require you to buy twelve sticks of deoderant to get a free one, or save you 25 cents on a package of paper towels.  (Since the big package of paper towels costs like $10 and I spend 25 cents on gum like every time I pass a gumball machine, I find this slightly ridiculous.  Also, being OCD I have panic attacks when I have a million little crumpled coupons overflowing out of all the corners of my purse, so I usually decide it's not worth saving the 25 cents.) 

Anyways.  This was before I discovered Coupon Loving Chicks through Lark's Country Heart (possibly the nicest person in the world and totally the reason I have more than six Facebook friends).  These ladies find coupons for you and post them on their Facebook wall.

Coupon of the day- A 10$ gift card when you spend $50 at Target.  (I'm just gonna assume that I'm not the only one that can't get out of there without spending $50-$100.)  It's basically free money!  Plus then you can justify spending $10 on Lipsmackers or boot socks.  Maybe coupons *are* good for something after all. I am totally converted.

Visit Target's Facebook page, and follow their link to print the coupon; it's only good through Dec 3rd!


Now that we have that out of the way.  I'm going to show you my favorite way to serve hot chocolate, and one of my favorite Christmas "recipes".   Peppermint rimmed mugs.  The great thing about this is it takes about 2 minutes to do. It's INSANELY easy. (Read: Edward Scissorhands can do this.  And he has no hands.)

Also it looks fancy so everyone will think you're kind of a domestic diva.

Plus peppermint hot chocolate is kind of the best.

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Gettin' social

I think when people see you have a blog they think you're all techy and computer genuisy.  Just to clear things up right now, I am not computer savvy.  I do not speak Html (and only recently discovered that that is a language).  I should probably not tell you how many days and tutorials and cartons of ice cream it took for me to figure out how to make my Dipit header.  I have a drawer full of cables that I am afraid to throw away (but I'm pretty sure they do computery things like connect to the TV or the oven or something).


Luckily my husband *is* tech savvy, and gave me a great early Christmas gift today... 

a Facebook button! See it right there on the right?  That's right, Dip It In Chocolate finally has Facebook.  Many thanks to those who commented or emailed that they would like to follow via Facebook.  I always appreciate your feedback and since I kinda have a big head, I'm pretty much flattered.

I would be delighted if you would follow me.  Especially since I only have like 3 followers right now and feel like the kid who nobody will sit by at lunch cause him mom always packs him tuna or curry or something else that stinketh by lunchtime.  I know this might be hard to believe, but it's kinda awkward writing statuses when you know only your mom is reading them.


In other news, hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Anybody got pie left?


I'll be right over.

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Remedies for a Flat Cookie

Cookies and I used to have problems communicating.  I would follow the recipe, and then they would do whatever the heck they wanted.  Then I would scream and cry and slam doors.  Actually I never screamed or cried, but I probably did slam a door or two.  No matter what I did I always got flat cookies.  Sometimes I got PANCAKES.   I did everything I could think of without any result and finally decided I was just a horrible cookie-maker.  I could no longer be Mrs. Clause when I got old.  It was a rough time for me.

Luckily, one day I discovered a trick that changed my life. 

WEIGHING MY FLOUR.

A few of us have been having a conversation about this through comments on the S'more Chocolate Chip Cookies post and I wrote this post mainly because I really felt that I needed to share it with *all* of you.  The jist is that flour weights are SO variable.  How much you are actually using depends a lot on the brand of flour, how you measure it, etc.  Usually this discrepancy may not be a big deal, but when it comes to cookies, even a little bit can throw you off. 

The easy solution is just to weigh the flour. The tricky part is that there are lots of answers for how much 1 cup of All-Purpose flour should actually weigh, (all from reputable sources).  The average seems to be about 4.5 ounces, but  I've found 5 ounces to work perfectly for me so that is what I do.


To demonstrate this whole flour craziness, I conducted a little experiment for you this week.  I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies. My recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of flour, so I measured that out using  my usual method, scooping flour into my measuring cups and leveling them out.  I then weighed my total flour.

 

Can you read that? 10.5 ounces of flour. 

We decided each cup should have 5 ounces.  So I'm missing 2 ounces of flour here.  That doesn't seem like a lot, but lets add in flour until we get to 12.5 and see how much that is.

 

Finally reached the correct amount of flour weight-wise.  And... *drumroll please* ...  I added nearly an extra half CUP of flour.

It's pretty easy to see why I was getting flat cookies if I was only putting in 2 cups of flour where 2 1/2 is called for.

I now measure my flour every time I bake cookies (funnily enough it doesn't seem to affect my cakes and other baked goods so I leave those be), and they all turn out great.   If you are having problems with your cookies I highly recommend doing this.  If this trick still doesn't do it for you, feel free to try some of the other remedies below:

-When a cookie recipe calls for butter, replace half of that with stick shortening (Crisco).  If you want really fluffy cookies you can replace all the butter with shortening, but you will sacrifice some of the flavor.

-Try refrigerating you dough for 20 minutes or so before baking.  Always keep your dough in the refrigerator in between baking sessions  (ie: While one cookie sheet is baking, keep the unscooped dough in the fridge until ready to bake).

-Allow your cookie sheet to cool in between baking sessions.  Once you've removed hot cookies from it, place it in the freezer for a few minutes until room temperature or slightly cool, before using again.

-Check that your baking soda isn't expired.

-Do not melt your butter before using!  This means if you forget to bring it to room temperature, do NOT put it in the microwave to speed the process  (Totally guilty as charged here)


I hope this has helped, and I wish you many a fluffy cookies and the chance to fulfill all your childhood dreams (but being Mrs. Claus when you grow up is already taken, so back off.)

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Fancy Caramel Apples

If you have been annoyed that this picture on my sidebar has no post to it, great news... now it does!  I have been meaning to blog these  For.ev.er.  (Say this in a Sandlot voice)

Mostly I was stalled because I wanted to give you some pictures to go along with this post.  Well, hard to believe, but it's kind of hard to take a picture AND dip a caramel apple at the same time.  So I waited for a day when my hubs was home and could take some pictures while I dipped.

Speaking of the hubs, these apples were inspired by the ones at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  Men- you should know- there is nothing you can't be forgiven for if one of those apples is included in the apology.  Seriously.  

Reese's is my favorite.  Oreo and Butterfinger are fun, but I always go back to Reeses.  This is a great way to use up leftover Halloween candy at your house (and add more sugary sweets to your household). 

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