Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream

Thanks to a cousin of mine I recently discovered Diet Coke with Raspberry from Sonic.  The heavens opened and raspberry diet coke rained down from the sky along with gumdrops and lollipops and Mike-n-Ikes and the streets were paved with Oreos.  (My blood sugar was kinda low so I might be slightly mistaken about this part, but that's basically what happened.)

Really, it was a great drink. 

I prefer not to drink my calories (obvs. so I can partake in chocolate-dipped goodness).  So finding a delicious diet drink is always a treat.

Some of my favorites are, Chick-fil-A's diet lemonade, Sonic's diet  Dr. Pepper with cherry, and Sonic's diet Cherry limeade with raspberry.

I kinda like raspberries.

Speaking of raspberries-


This chocolate raspberry ice cream is like eating frozen fudge.  In no frame of mind can I see how that could ever be a bad thing.

The bad news, is it's not calorie free.

{I know you're shocked.}

The good news is... we had a diet drink today.  ;)  

What's your favorite diet drink?

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Peanut Butter S'more Bars

Nothing says summer like S'mores.

Let's just add a little bit of peanut butter, shall we?   :)

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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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Marshmallow Oreo Bars

Cookies.  Marshmallows.  Butter.

Magic I tell you.

Magic.

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Patriotic Chocolate-dipped Cinnamon Bears

The posts are backing up again so hopefully I will be posting a lot over the next week or so.  I wanted to update those of you that follow on Facebook and saw my post about the fire in Colorado Springs.  My parents are still evacuated but are just fine, and for now their house is unscathed.  The firefighters have done an incredible job of controlling this beast and keeping any more structures from burning down.  Unfortunately about 350 neighbors have lost their homes entirely.  Please please keep these families and the tireless firefighters in your prayers.  If any of you are related to a firefighter please let them know they are APPRECIATED.  They don't get told as much as they should, but they are cherished by many.   It truly takes a hero to don a 70 pound suit in 100 degree weather and fight right next to a wildfire that is blazing an extra 500 plus degrees.  And to do it all through the night.  And the next day.  And the next day.  Talk about hell incarnate.   Bless their hearts!  And bless those of you who have given thoughts and prayers to my family and their city.  It is appreciated more than you know.  Wish I could give each of you a great big hug and a basket of chocolate-dipped treats!




Want to talk about cinnamon bears now?


First I have to caution you- these are infinitely easier if you don't put them on skewers.  If you skewer, it takes a LONG time.  You need to thread very slowly and apply even pressure or your chocolate will crack.  And then, your chocolate will crack anyways.  And you will be annoyed and want to throw things.  So I am totally not recommending it but I admit it can be done.  IMO these are just as cute in a bowl for a snack, so no need really.

Cinnamon bears are a great place to start if you haven't dipped much before.  They are small and easy to work with and you can do a lot fairly quickly.  You can certainly use chocolate or brown melts in place of the white melts for traditional chocolate-dipped cinnamon bears.  Be aware that regular chocolate may not harden completely.  I usually get the best results from using a bar chocolate with a good snap (Ghiradelli or something similar) rather than chocolate chips.  You can of course do jimmies or drizzles in any color you like to make these for other holidays or occasions.

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Chocolate-dipped Caramel Rice Krispy Treats

Sometimes you accidentally create a beautiful thing.  (Cough.  Second Child.  Cough.)

Just kidding.  He was on purpose.

What I mean is, sometimes you make something, but you don't realize just how delicious of an idea it was until you taste it.

These Rice Krispy treats are one of those  experiments.  In Brussels, my mom used to pack a Cha Cha in my lunch pretty much every single day.  {A chocolate-covered caramelly wafer treat. } These Rice Krispy treats taste a LOT like a Cha Cha, which I can not find anywhere here, so they spoke directly to my heart.

These are really sweet so cut them small, but they are chewy and chocolatey and delicious.  A little slice of European heaven.

{Well you know.  Kinda.}

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Patriotic Pop-Rock Rimmed Blowpop Drinks {Kid-friendly}

Drinks that taste like blow-pops.  How could this not be a good idea?  These are made with Sprite, so they are kid-friendly and the extra "pop" makes them fun for the Fourth.  These would be cute for any kids party and in any variety of colors and flavors.  (Omit pop-rocks if you wish.)

For this drink I dyed my Sprite blue and then used a red Blow-pop... dummy idea because after awhile it started to turn my drink purple.  This is probably why I got a C in Art.   I'd recommend looking for blue poprocks (tropical ones can be found at Dollar Tree) and using those for the rims, and then a cherry or watermelon Blowpop to color the drink red. 

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Snickerdoodle Ice Cream

People tell me pretty often that they can't believe how many sweets I make based on how many I put up on this blog. The sad thing that I conveniently forget to mention during these conversations is I really only end up posting about 1 of every 2 treats I make. 

If I'm not impressed by something I won't post it.  Or I'll make it a bunch of times until I get it right.  I don't think it's fair to post recipes for others to copy that disappointed me, you know?

Anyway,  if you remember a really long time ago I posted Snickerdoodles so you could use them for an upcoming recipe.  After testing and reformulating 3 times... here is that recipe.

This ice cream has lots of huge cookie chunks so if you try to pick them out and leave the ice cream for your hubby... he's gonna notice.

Not that I know anyone who does that.

The good news is the ice cream is yummy so you really don't need to pick. 

If you omit the cookie pieces, this is a great cinnamon ice cream to pair with apple pie or peach crisp, or {my favorite} to dollop into a steaming cup of hot cocoa.

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Fourth of July Donut Hole Fruit Skewers

We decorate WAY in advance for holidays around here.  Partly that's because I have no idea how to decorate "normally" (as in, not by theming around a holiday.)  So our house looks really bare if there is no holiday decor up.  I usually pull out the 4th of July decor on June 1st and leave it up until September when I start decorating for Halloween.  (It's okay for you purists to be cringing right now.  Just don't come over to my house, um, ever.) 

I've thought about this a lot, and I think probably this is entirely not my fault and is due to a gaping hole in our education system. Obviously they need a major in college that's like Adulthood 101, where they teach you how to argue with cell phone companies, set up retirement accounts, make curtains out of bedsheets, put together a decent-looking flowerbed and make a PB&J that won't get soggy within two hours. (Annd decorate your house, of course.)

These are the real things one needs to know in life.

Due to the lack of this major at my college I have successfully kept the "For Dummies" book series in business single-handedly for the last five years. But since there's no pictures I haven't really learned much.

I've gotten way off track but the point is that my world pretty much revolves around holidays and I couldn't wait to share this 4th of July breakfast idea with you.  I saw donut hole fruit skewers on Pinterest and thought all the red and blue fruits would be perfect for the 4th of July.   I cut some stars out of strawberries to be extra patriotic.  If you have kids, these are so easy they can even make their own.

 

We went to the zoo this morning, so excuse me while I go shower off elephant smell.

Happy Wednesday!

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