Jungle Animal Chocolate-dipped Oreos

Have you seen these new jungle animal Mother's cookies?  I am in LOVE with them!  I squealed in delight when I saw them in the store.  Yes, I am apparently 13 years old.  I squeal when I'm excited.

It's so fun thinking of ways to bake with new products.  I decided to make some chocolate-dipped Oreos and top them with jungle animals. The weird thing is these were REALLY good.  I would make these again just for my husband and I-  no kids needed.

Oreo + Mother's cookie = something magical

I wish they would come out with a red, white, and blue version for Independence day.  How fun would those be?

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Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

These cupcakes have a yummy graham cracker crust, strawberry filling, and thick cream cheese frosting.  Nom Nom Nom... 

Next time I think I'll experiment with throwing some Sara Lee cheesecake bites into the cupcake batter before baking.  DOUBLE cheesecake!!

Hope you all have a lovely Memorial day tomorrow!

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Taffy Skewers

 

I've been meaning to post these for at least a year because I really love things on sticks and I really love things that are cute and easy. Kids go crazy for them and they make darling centerpieces for parties as well.

Pink and brown skewers are my favorite for girl baby showers and blue/white for boy showers.  If I can ever find some Fourth of July taffy, those will be happening soon!

I've gotta say it.  Be careful.  I may or may not have put a skewer sliver right through my finger while making these (as in... in one side... out the other... I almost fainted when I had to pull it out.  It wasn't the size of the entire skewer but it was about 1/3 as thick- which is pretty darn thick to be threaded through your finger, thank you very much!)  

If you have a taffy that's sticking, wrap a clean dishtowel around your hand and use that to jam the taffy down the stick, not your bare hands!  If you use fresh taffy this really shouldn't be a problem. They are usually pretty easy to thread.

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Triple Oreo Pudding Cookies

These gooey cookies have Oreo pudding, Oreo chunks, Hershey's white chocolate Cookies n'cream chunks, and semisweet chocolate chips mixed into the batter.  I am lucky enough to still have my mother close by, alive and well, but if I was visiting her this memorial day I would probably scatter a few of these on her grave.

(She has forbidden me to leave gaudy wreaths or tacky ribbons when she's dead- instead favoring funky lawn decor, chocolate, or things that would be fun for kids to steal.)

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Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (with Coconut)

Brown butter is quite the craze lately and it's easy to see why.  It turns plain butter into a caramelly/toffee tasting substance which is SO yummy to cook with.  These cookies were really delicious but I couldn't help but think how much yummier they would be if they morphed with my new favorite cookie recipe-  Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies

This brown butter cookie is SUCH a great base but I think it could be even better if you added the mix-ins from the cookie above. If you want to do this I wrote the step into the recipe for you, but you'll need 3/4 cup broken pretzels, 3/4 cup peanut butter chips, and 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips.

There is coconut in this recipe but you can't really taste it.  It is more of a texture thing.  You can omit it if you want or replace it with oats.

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Chewy Snickerdoodles

Sometimes you hafta post a recipe just so you can post ANOTHER recipe that uses the first recipe.

(Does that make sense? Keep a look out for a yummy dessert that uses Snickerdoodle pieces in the next week or two.)


I know Snickerdoodles are kind of a *boring* cookie, but my husband says these are the best chewiest ones he's ever tasted.  So I figured you deserved the recipe to these.

Please pronounce them "schhnicker-doodle" when offering them to others.

It's funny.  I promise.

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Toasted Coconut Ice Cream & Almond Joy Ice Cream

This morning I walked in to get my 2 year old from his crib to find he had styled his hair with poop.


True story.
 

An experience like that completely qualifies you to eat ice cream for breakfast.  (And lunch) (And the rest of the day if you want to.)

But first you have to wash your hands A LOT and sanitize your house for three or four hours.

I know you came to a dessert blog to read about this.



Anyway, this is my very favorite homemade ice cream. The toasted coconut is really good, but you can omit it if you want a smooth texture.    (This will make the ice cream less coconutty, but a little bit of coconut extract can help that.)

If you had a *REALLY* bad day- make yourself the almond joy version- (below) and go heavy on the fudge.

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Strawberry Blonde Ice Cream

You know that blonde's are the best, right? :)

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Pina Colada Starfruit Push Pops

As of this week my preschooler is out of school for the summer, so we are celebrating (mourning?) by making popsicles this week.  These are pretty darn good even if they don't have Flinstone's characters printed on the outside.

You can make these with any kind of juice you want.  Hawaii's Own makes lots of tropical juice flavors that would be yummy.  You can also sub coconut milk for the regular milk if you have it, or omit the shredded coconut if you want a smoother pop. 

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Samoa Bark

Many moons ago I was a 'Brownie' and sold Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties door to door.  One year my mom was driving me around the neighborhood to deliver my cookies and we had a big fight.

(I was like 7 and I'm pretty sure I didn't want to deliver cookies to my mean neighbors so I tried to convince her to do it.)

Anyways, I stomped off and ran home.

Except she thought I stomped off to deliver the cookies.

So she waited in the car outside my neighbor's house.  And waited.  And waited.

And then she went up to their doorstep and accused them of kidnapping me.

They had a big doorstep scene. 

You can probably see why Girl Scout cookies bring back good memories for me.  

Sorry Mom!!

While these don't taste exactly like real Samoa's, they are still dang good, and they are super simple and look fancy to boot.  

I used Walker's shortbread because I had some left over from my huge Christmas tin, but they were a bit overwhelming in the buttery dept.  I think Lorna Doone's would have been even better.

(By the way... my shortbread were still sealed and not expired, so it's ok that they were from Christmas, right? :) )

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