SRC Group B - Gingerbread Cups

As many of my readers know, I'm a hostess for the Secret Recipe Club. If you don't know what the SRC is all about, take a minute to check it out to see what fun you're missing out on!

There are 4 groups to the Secret Recipe Club and when one of the groups end up with an orphaned blog - a blog who didn't have a recipe chosen from and made for the month - the group hostesses try to jump in and help out. I did just that this month. I was happy to be able to lend a hand to Tina in Group B!

The blog that I baked from is named Six Kilos of Pumpkin. It full of great recipes. I especially enjoyed looking through her dessert recipes. I found the perfect recipe for the holidays...Gingerbread Cuffins with Cream Cheese Icing - nope, Cuffins is not a typo. She describes these treats as a mixture between cupcakes and muffins. After baking them, I can totally understand what she is describing. I decided to stray away from the usual cupcake or muffin this time and instead, I baked the batter in 4 oven-safe cups, perfect single serving desserts. Instead of cream cheese frosting, I'm topping ours with whipped cream. Sorry, no pictures of the whipped cream, we will be eating them for dessert later this evening.

How jealous are you that you can't smell the wonderful scents surrounding me in my little apartment?!?

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas! :)

Gingerbread Cups

original recipe @ Six Kilos of Pumpkin 

1 c plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground cloves

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

7 tbsp. butter, softened

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp organic maple agave syrup

1 tsp molasses

Preheat oven to 350C. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients, up to and including the brown sugar. 

Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix for 3 minutes with a hand mixer or until the batter is light and fluffy. 

Spoon the batter into 4 large oven-safe baking cups. Bake for 20 - 23 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the middle of one cup comes out clean.

Serve warm or bring to room temp and top with whipped cream.

Delicious!

Please take a few minutes to visit Six Kilos of Pumpkin to let her know that she is not alone in bloggy land!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Looking to switch things up a bit for the holidays instead of the usual pumpkin pie? Try Paula Deen's recipe for pumpkin cheesecake.

This is one beautiful, creamy cheesecake! It's easy to make, too. I followed her directions, only adding more spices to it.

Pumpkin Cheesecake 
From Paula's Home Cooking/Celebrates cookbook

Crust:
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:
3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon - I used 1 tbsp
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg - I used 1 tsp
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves - I used 1 tsp
2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For crust:

In medium bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

For filling:

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add pumpkin puree, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar and the spices. Add flour and vanilla. Beat together until well combined.

Pour into crust. Spread out evenly and place oven for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours. I made our cheesecake the night before and refrigerated it. Set it on the counter for 15 minutes before cutting it for easier handling.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

I love gingerbread and I love pumpkin muffins. Combine the two and you have a wonderfully moist, delicious treat. Great for breakfast, packing into lunch bags or for dessert topped with a little whipped cream, applesauce or ice cream!

This recipe was posted at FamilyCorner.com by a friend of mine who goes by "cat lover" on the forums. She turned her recipe into a cake. I made muffins from the batter. The only thing that I changed was to add a little more spices to the batter. Either way, it's great!

Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

1 - 16 oz can pumpkin
4 eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup light molasses
1/3 cup water
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Beat at low speed for 30 seconds, stopping to scrape the bowl often. Beat at medium speed 3 minutes, again stopping to scrape the bowl.

Line muffin tins with paper liners. Spoon into paper liners and fill to the top of the cup - I used a large ice cream scoop to fill the cups. Do not level off evenly. The muffins will round out when they are baking.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the middle of a muffin comes out clean - check often so that you do not overbake.

For an extra sweet treat, top with whipped cream, warm apple sauce or ice cream.

Makes 30 muffins.

Linking up to:

Jane Deere Fusion Fridays

A Bowl Full of Lemons

Spiced Apple Crumb Bars

By this time of the year I'm ready for fall. I love the colors, the scents, picking apples and pumpkins, Halloween...every part of it. Still, even after 6 years of living in NC (borderline SC), I still can't get used to the fact that fall pretty much doesn't exist around us. The temps. during daylight are still in the 80s and the lows at night dip down into the 40s and 30s. It's nuts, I tell ya!

To keep from missing out on all of the fun of fall, I've filled my house with leaves (fake of course, I'm not that nuts!), cinnamon and pumpkin candle melts and I'm making time to head back into the kitchen ('bout time, huh?) to start baking some scrumptious desserts! I apologize ahead of time if I get carried away and bombard my blog for a little while with apple and pumpkin desserts. I can't help it, we love them!

Happy Fall Yinz! 

(no disrespect to all of my southern friends and bloggers, but I can't say ya'll because I'm from Pittsburgh and that word just won't come out of my mouth.)  ;)

Spiced Apple Crumb Bars

To make the bar part of the recipe:
1 box white or yellow cake mix
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (can use apple pie spice)
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves, opitonal
6 tbsp. cold butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 old fashioned oats 1 egg + 2 egg whites
1 tbsp. water

Filling:
5 - 6 Granny Smith apples
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (can use apple pie spice)

Extra for Crumb Topping: 
1/8 c. brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350*

Stir together cake mix and spices.

Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the cake mix until it resembles course crumbs.

Stir in oats. Reserve 1 c. of the mixture for the crumb topping on the bars.

Pat the remaining mixture into an ungreased 9 x 13 dish and set aside.

To make the filling: core, peel and thinly slice the Granny Smith apples. Add the apples and butter into a frying pan. Saute over medium heat until the apples are fork tender. Before removing the apples from the stove, stir in the cinnamon and pumpkin pie spices.

Layer the cooked apples over the crumb crust in the pan.

Stir the brown sugar into the reserved crumb mixture and sprinkle it over the top of the apples.

Bake for 28 - 30 minutes, until the edges start to turn light brown.

Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before cutting into bars.

Itty Bitty Cinnamon Rolls

My kids are not breakfast eaters first thing in the morning but I've found that if I make bite-sized versions of some breakfast treats, they will eat them. As a result, these itty bitty cinnamon rolls were born.

I took a short cut and used frozen bread dough so it really didn't take long at all to be able to serve hot, fresh cinnamon rolls instead of another cold breakfast. I'll be honest and tell you that I made these rolls on a weekend morning --I did not get up before the birds on a school day to roll out bread dough. I know that there are plenty of you out there who do get up in the wee morning hours to prepare breakfasts every morning and I commend you for doing so but that's not me. I'm NOT a morning person, no matter how hard I try to be. Had I been making these for a school morning, I would've prepared the rolls ahead of time the night before, stopping right before cutting them into pieces, and then I would've wrapped the long roll up tightly in plastic wrap and stuck it in the refrigerator. Then all that would have to been done the next morning would be to cut and bake the little rolls. Even the glaze could be made ahead of time but it really doesn't take much effort to whip it up while the rolls are baking.

The rolls are best if eaten hot, right out of the oven. I had just a few left over from the batch that I made and even after storing them in a tightly sealed container, they turned sort of rubbery and hard.

So there you have it...a simple yet very satisfying breakfast treat for days when you think that you don't have time to eat anything.

Itty Bitty Cinnamon Rolls

1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 tbsp. cinnamon
1/4 c. butter, room temperature

The directions are pretty simple: 

Thaw frozen bread.

Preheat oven to 350*. Lightly coat a mini muffin pan with non stick cooking spray and set aside.

Roll out bread dough until flat and as close to a rectangle as possible - doesn't have to be perfect.

Spread butter over the entire area of the dough.

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together and then sprinkle all of it over the buttered dough.

Starting on the long end, roll up the log, tucking in the short end edges as you go along.

To cut:

Slice the long log in half. Slice each half in half, giving you four mini logs. You should be able to cut 6-8 mini rolls from each of the 4 mini logs.

Lay each cinnamon roll into a mini muffin hole in the pan.

Bake for approx. 15 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown.

Remove the hot rolls to a cooling rack. Drizzle with glaze (recipe below), if desired. Aren't they just the cutest little things?!?

Glaze for Itty Bitty Cinnamon Rolls

1 c. powdered sugar
2 tbsp. milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla

Stir all ingredients together until smooth. Generously drizzle the glaze over the warm cinnamon rolls.

Cookie Carnival - Raspberry Filled Lemon Cream Cheese Bars

For my second Cookie Carnival submission this month, I choose another cake mix cookie recipe but this time, instead of a round cookie, I made bar cookies - Raspberry Filled Lemon Cream Cheese Bars. The original recipe is from Betty Crocker. Their recipe calls for strawberry preserves but since I already had raspberry preserves in the frig, I opted to use it instead. I loved the pairing of the slightly sweet raspberry preserves with the slightly sour lemon margarita filling.

Raspberry Filled Lemon Cream Cheese Bars
adapted from Betty Crocker.com

Bar Cookie Base:
1 box lemon cake mix
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c.p finely chopped almonds
1 c. low sugar raspberry preserves

Filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1  egg
1/4 c.bottled margarita mix
1/4 c. lemon juice

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9-inch pan and set aside.

Place cake mix in large bowl. With pastry blender or fork, cut in butter until crumbly. Add almonds; mix well. Reserve 1 cup mixture for topping. Press remaining mixture in bottom of pan.

Stir preserves until smooth; carefully spread over base.

In same bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, salt and egg with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add margarita mix and lemon juice; beat at low speed until blended. Carefully pour filling over base.

Sprinkle reserved base mixture over filling.

Bake 35 - 40 minutes or until edges begin to brown and center is set.

Cool completely, about 1 hour. Cut into bars. Store covered in refrigerator.

My first Cookie Carnival cake mix cookie submission this month was: Chunky Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Mix Cookies! 

Want to join in on the Cookie Carnival fun? It's easy! Click here to find out more info.

Cookie Carnival - Chunky Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Mix Cookies

One of the recipes for September's Cookie Carnival was cake mix cookies - any recipe of your choice as long as it was a new recipe that you were trying. We were allowed to submit 3 cookies recipes of this type.

My family loves cake mix cookies so I knew that this would be any easy choice for me. What I didn't realize until I started searching for new ideas was there there are hundreds of recipes out there for cake mix cookies and not just your ordinary round cookie either...there's bars, biscotti, squares, balls...so many to choose from.

The great thing about cake mix cookies is that you can clean out the leftover bits of this and that from your cupboards by dumping the stuff into your cookie recipe. Sounds like some sort of mad scientist experiment, huh?

I had several boxes of chocolate cake mix in my cupboard so it was a no brainer that my recipe was going to be a chocolate cookie. In the back of the cupboard, I found a bag with about a cup of chocolate chunks and on the same shelf, there was an almost empty jar of peanut butter. Who doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter mixed together?

I started with a basic cake mix cookie recipe...one with water, oil, and eggs but then I made a few adjustments to the recipe. The results were delicious! You could taste just a slight hint of peanut butter through all of the chocolate. My husband is not a peanut butter cookie fan so this was just enough for him. The gooey chocolate chunks were awesome and added to the fun of eating these cookies while they were still warm.

Chunky Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Mix Cookies

1 (18.25 oz) devils food cake mix
1/3 c. water
1 egg
1/2 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. semi sweet chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 350*

Using a large bowl and a wooden spoon, mix together cake mix, water, egg and peanut butter until all ingredients are combined. Stir in chocolate chunks. (I used my hands to mix the chips into the cookie dough.)

Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls. Place the cookies on a lightly greased cookie sheet in 4 rows of 3 cookies, leaving plenty of room for the cookies to spread out. Using a fork, flatten the cookies in a criss-cross pattern.

Bake for 10 -12 minutes. The cookies will still be slightly soft in the middle. Watch carefully and do not overbake.

Cool the cookies on the pan for 1-2 minutes before removing from the cookie sheet.

These cookies will freeze well, too.

Want to bake with us in the Cookie Carnival? Here's what you need to know!

SRC - Toffee Squares

My mission for this moth from the Secret Recipe Club was to choose a recipe from Nicole's blog, The Cookaholic Wife. Let me just start off by saying that I had such a hard time choosing just one recipe to blog about. Nicole and I seem to enjoy the same types of cooking and food. I started browsing through her blog and within a couple of minutes, I'd picked out four recipes to try.

I settled on baking the Toffee Squares. The recipe looked pretty easy, which was great because I needed a quick dessert for that particular evening and the sound of toffee in a cookie made my mouth water. Nicole mentioned that her bars were a little dry so I made note of her suggestion to use a bigger cookie sheet so that the "bar" part of the cookie baked up thin. The cookies sheet that I used measures 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 and it worked perfectly. I used candied pecans instead of plain pecans and then I drizzled caramel ice cream topping over the top of the bars.

I couldn't wait until evening to eat these delicious little bars so I cut a small square to enjoy just for myself. I have to admit that even after all of the changes that I'd made, the first bite was just ok, nothing special - just like Nicole had described hers to be. I wrapped tin foil around the pan and decided that I would see what my family had to say about them later that night.

I'm not sure what happened between the time that I wrapped the bars and the time that I cut them to serve to my family but whatever it was, was surely a great thing. Now the cookies had softened a bit and the toppings seemed to have melded together. An awesome transformation. The bars were delicious. The nuts were sweet and gave a nice crunch to the bar part of the cookie and the chocolate and caramel topping just melted in my mouth. I'm not the only one who enjoyed these toffee squares, everyone in the house really liked them. They're addictive little suckers. None of them went to waste.

This recipe would work well for picnics, parties, reunions or school bake sales. I'm sure that they would travel well, too, if you like mailing treats.

My changes to the recipe are in bold below.

Toffee Squares
posted @ The Cookaholic Wife

2 sticks butter, room temp
1 c. packed light brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
2 c. flour
2 c. chocolate chips
1 c. glazed pecans, finely chopped
caramel ice cream topping, drizzled to liking

Preheat the oven to 350*.

Cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Mix in the egg, vanilla and flour. Mix until well combined.

Spread the mixture onto a cookie sheet until thin. (I used a 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 sheet)

Bake for 18 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the chocolate chips over top of the baked cookie bar.

Return to the oven for 3 minutes. Remove and spread the melted chocolate over the cookie.

Sprinkle with the chopped pecans. Drizzle the caramel topping over the entire area.

Cool for 10 minutes. Cut into small squares.

** I recommend leaving the toffee squares in the pan and covering them with tin foil.
Leave covered for at least 3 hrs. before serving. Store leftovers covered with tin foil or
in a sealed container. **

If you would like to join us in the Secret Recipe Club, click here to find out more about it!

Amanda, our club leader, has broken our huge club down into smaller groups to allow for easier viewing of all of the recipes and to allow for more comments to be left on everyone's blogs! Each group will post at different times during the month. We love comments, so please take a moment to let us know what you think of our recipes! :)

Poor Man's Cookies

This cookie recipe has been handed down generation to generation in my family. I can remember my grandmother baking these cookies for all of our family reunions, for Christmas dinner, for Easter dinner and any other time that she was asked to bring a dessert to an event.

With just a handful of basic pantry ingredients, I imagine that the recipes comes from the Depression Era. Baking them takes me back to my younger years and the memories make me smile.

Poor Man's Cookies

1 c. golden raisins
1 1/2 c. water
1 stick of butter
2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
3/4 c. walnuts, finely crushed - I used
glazed pecans because that's what I had
on hand

Add raisins and water to a medium-sized pot. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Add the stick of butter and stir until the butter is melted. Set aside to cool.

Mix together flour, sugar, salt. Stir in crushed nuts.

In a separate bowl, lightly whip the egg and vanilla, using a fork. Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Add the raisins and all of the liquid in the pot. Stir until completely mixed together. Set aside and allow the batter to rest for 5 minutes.

Spray a small baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Pour the cookie batter into the baking sheet. Spread the batter out evenly.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until golden brown. Start checking the cookies after 18 minutes. Mine were done in exactly 20 minutes.

Cool the cookies in the pan. Glaze while still warm to the touch.

Glaze Recipe

2 c. powdered sugar
3 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
4 tbsp. butter, very soft or melted

Beat all ingredients together until smooth.

Linking up to:


Gooseberry Patch Round 'Em Up & Take 'Em To Go!

Honey Bun Cake

I love recipes that can pull double duty as a sweet treat for breakfast or as a simple dessert. This recipe for honey bun cake does just that. It's a simple recipe that kids can help prepare. I found it posted at FamilyCorner.com by dyllpickle00. (Her username makes me smile!).

Huney Bun Cake
posted at FamilyCorner.com by dyllpickle00

For cake:

1 box yellow cake mix
3/4 c. oil
1 c. sour cream

In a lg. bowl, stir together dry cake mix, oil and sour cream. Batter will be thick.

Spread the batter into the bottom of a 9 x 13 cake pan.

Prepare brown sugar topping recipe (below) and swirl over cake batter.

Bake @ 350* for 40 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Prepare glaze recipe (below) and pour on top of cake while hot.

Serve warm.

For brown sugar topping:

1/2 c. brown sugar
4 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 1/2 tsp. evaporated milk

Stir together and swirl over cake.

For glaze:

Stir together 1 c. powdered sugar,  4 tbsp. evaporated milk and 1 tsp. vanilla.

Optional: melt 1/2 -1 cup chocolate chips and swirl over the top of the cake while it is still hot.

Linking up to:


Goose Berry Patch Cookout Favorites

The Ultimate Fudge Brownie Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Bars

Is that title a mouthful or what?

This cookie certainly stands up to all of the hype that it's receiving all over the Internet. I first saw pictures of this decadent dessert at Betcha Can't Eat Just One. Katie was able to kick it up another notch by adding dulce de leche to her bars. The original recipe comes from Amanda@ Kevin and Amanda. I bow to their creativity. :)

At first I couldn't imagine even biting into something like this but then, I couldn't stop thinking about it. That's me, when something makes you say "Why would you do that?!?" to food, I just have to try it. It's a lot like the time I just had to try a Krispy Kreme hamburger when we took our kids to a baseball game here in town. haha!

This was a family-involved dessert. I mixed up the cookie batter, my son made the brownies and my daughter lined up the Oreos. We had a lot of fun assembling this dessert but even more fun eating it. :) I added the hot fudge into the brownie mix (from Amanda's recipe) plus the caramel (from Katie's recipe). The results were terrific. Even my husband liked this one.

I'm planning on freezing the leftovers to use in a trifle for another time.

The Ultimate Fudge Brownie Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Bars
adapted from Betch Can't Eat Just One & Kevin & Amanda

1 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 lg. eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 c. semi sweet chocolate chips
1 pkg. Oreos - I used store brand
1/2 c. caramel sauce - I used ice cream topping
1 lg. pkg. brownie mix + ingredients on the box
1/4 c. hot fudge

Preheat oven to 350*.

Line a 9 x 13 dish with waxed paper. Spray with non-stick cooking spray and then set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well. Mix in vanilla.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Mix into the wet mixture until just combined.

Spread the cookie dough into the bottom of the 9 x 13 dish that you've lined with waxed paper.

Layer Oreos over the cookie dough.

Pour the caramel sauce over the Oreos.

Mix together brownies according to the directions on the box. Stir in 1/4 c. hot fudge and mix well.

Pour the brownie mixture over the Oreos. Bake for 45 - 55 minutes.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove the cookie bars to a cooling rack and remove the waxed paper from around the edges of the bars.

Allow to finish cooling for at least another 15 minutes. Cut into small pieces for serving.

Store leftovers in a container with a tight-fitting lid. These bars can also be frozen. Thaw on counter.

Secret Recipe Club: Orange Berry Cake

I can't believe that another month has flown by so quickly. It's time for another round up for the Secret Recipe Club. I'm baking from Alessio's blog, Recipe Taster. His blog features beautiful pictures and recipes. Many of his recipes stem from his Sicilian background. Delizioso!

When I saw his recipe for Orange Cake, I knew right away that I wanted to try it because I love the fresh taste of oranges in cakes and pastries. I will admit that some worry and nervousness set in when it came time to convert the recipe from grams to the American equivalents. I don't own a kitchen scale so I knew that I was going to have to rely on any Internet findings to get me through this time. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that there were no exact conversions for this measurements in this recipe. I decided to wing it anyway and I must say, I'm so happy that I did. This was a truly delicious cake. It was very light and moist, showered with a wonderful orange flavoring. The orange zest hits it out of the park. Do not even be tempted to leave it out.

Alessio shows several different ways to decorate the cake on his blog but I choose to use a low sugar real berry jam as a glaze for the top of the cake, along with a sprinkling of orange zest on top.

So simple and pretty! It pairs perfectly with a cup of herbal tea. The recipe will definitely go into my "favorites" pile.

Orange Berry Cake
adapted from the blog: Recipe Taster

7 tbsp. butter, softened
1/2 c. granulated sugar
zest of 3 lg. oranges
1 lg. egg yolk
2 lg. eggs
1 3/4 tbsp. canola oil
1/2 c. 100% real orange juice
1 c. all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
4 heaping tbsp. low sugar real berry jam
zest of 1 orange for decoration

Preheat oven to 350*. Grease and flour a 9 inch or 10 inch spring form pan and set aside.

I would recommend using a stand mixer for this recipe, although it could be mixed with a hand mixer.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the butter and beat until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar to the butter and beat until no longer grainy and the mixture is light and fluffy.

Mix in the orange zest from 3 oranges.

Add egg yolk to the mixture and beat until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until everything is mixed together and looks smooth and creamy.

With the beaters still running, stream in the canola oil. Mix well.

Alternate pouring the flour and the orange juice into the wet mixture in the bowl. Mix well after each addition.

Spoon the batter into the spring form pan. Tap the pan on the counter top to release the air bubbles in the batter.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. My cake was perfectly baked at 22 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting it onto a cake platter.

Melt 4 heaping tbsp. low sugar real berry jam in the microwave or on the stove top. Using a pastry brush, gently brush the melted jam over the top of the cake.

Sprinkle the zest of 1 orange over top of the jam.

My husband and kids, as well as I, really enjoyed this cake so I can't tell you what to do with any leftovers. I would imagine that the cake tastes the best if eaten the same day it was baked.

Time to gear up for next month's Secret Recipe Club event! Click here from more info. on how you can join in on the fun!

You just can't help but to drool over all of these beauties below. We love comments! Let us know what you think!!

Chocolate Coconut Bars

If you love the combination of coconut and chocolate, you must try Family Circle's latest recipe for Chocolate Coconut Bars. You can find it in the July issue of Family Circle or you can access the recipes on the website by signing up for their free newsletter.

The bars are sort of a cake/brownie combination. Of course, when it comes to spices and extracts, I often add more than what's called for in a recipe because I like a denser flavor. I did this with the icing recipe for these bars. The recipe calls for 1/4 tsp. of coconut extract. This left the icing with barely a hint of coconut flavor. I added 2 more tsp. of coconut extract, plus 1/4 of powdered sugar to soak up the added liquid. This amount was perfect. It's a nice coconut flavor but not overwhelming and paired nicely with the chocolate bars.

I would imagine that you could freeze the bars with no problem - they won't last long enough in our house. I have to add an * here, though. Instead of using a 9 x 13 pan as called for in the recipe, I used a smaller 8 x 10 pan, making the bars a littler thicker. I cut the bars into 15 pieces.

Chocolate Coconut Bars
adapted from Family Circle Magazine - July 2011

Ingredients
1  cup  (2 sticks) butter
4    squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, broken up
1 1/2  c. sugar
1 1/2  c. flour
4   eggs
1/2  tsp  baking soda
1/4  tsp  salt
1/2  tsp  coconut extract
1 c. sweetened flake coconut
1/2  c (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2  c. confectioners' sugar
2 1/4  tsp coconut extract

Heat oven to 350*.

Line a 8 x 10 baking pan with foil. (9 x 13 can be used). Spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Make Bars:

Combine butter and chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave another minute and stir. Microwave for 30 seconds more and stir until smooth.

Stir in sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, salt and coconut extract. Pour into prepared pan; smooth top.

Bake for 30 minutes. Watch carefully and check often so that you do not over bake the bars.

Remove pan and sit on a cooking rack.

Prepare Topping:

Spread coconut on a baking sheet and bake at 350* for 10 minutes or until golden.

In a large bowl, combine butter and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. Beat in coconut extract and 2 tbsp water. Stir in up to 1/4 c. extra powdered sugar to make a thick icing.

Spread over partially cooled bar and top with toasted coconut. Cover with plastic wrap or a tight fitting lid. Refrigerate until completely cooled.

Set the bars on the counter 15 - 30 minutes before serving . Cut into small squares.

Refrigerate any leftovers.

The pièce de résistance, however, was scooping up a bite of the coconut bars along with a bite of creamy, homemade chocolate ice cream. Heavenly! (chocolate ice cream recipe coming soon!)

Cookie Carnival - Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

I grew up eating only one kind of peanut butter cookie - my mother's homemade recipe. She would make them for Christmas and Easter and any other family get-togethers we might have during the year. I remember helping her bake and scooping out the peanut butter - always JIF! I remember how she would take the time to criss cross each cookie with a fork so that the lines were just perfect - and I imagine that she still does the same thing. Mom, if you're reading this, your cookies have definitely left good memories!!  Those cookies were sort of crisp on the outside, yet sort of soft on the inside. A perfect cookie for dunking in milk or coffee. I don't make those cookies here at my house because my dh and kids really don't like plain peanut butter cookies. But I can instantly snap back and remember what they tasted like when she tells me that she just baked a batch of them.

When I found this recipe called Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies and saw that it called for coconut and oats and that it was a soft, chewy cookie, I thought that I might be able to pass this off to my family. I thought that it would be the perfect cookie to try out in the Cookie Carnival. Since it was June, I knew that many kids, including mine, would be out of school so I was hoping that it might pique their interest into getting into the kitchen!

Well, it worked. My kids helped with baking these cookies and all of us ended up really liking them. I love Smucker's Natural Peanut Butter but I didn't have any on hand so I subbed regular creamy peanut butter. I think that using the regular peanut butter instead of natural added more oil to the mix, thus making them spread more. My cookies turned out to be really thin (and not too pretty) but they tasted great!

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
adapted from Smucker's website

1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup smooth, creamy peanut butter
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups quick rolled oats
1 cup flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350*.

Beat sugar, brown sugar, butter and peanut butter until creamy. Beat in eggs, milk and vanilla. Mix well. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda; stir in rolled oats and coconut. Add to peanut butter mixture and beat on low speed until well blended. Cover and chill 30 minutes.

I used a large ice cream scooper to drop mounds of the cookies onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 15 - 17 minutes or until light brown around edges. Cool 2 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely. If the cookies start to stick to the pan, return the pan to the oven for a minute to soften the cookies again. Remove from the pan immediately using a large, flat spatula.

Join the Cookie Carnival and bake along with me each month!

Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Has there ever come a time when you're not in the mood for a chocolate chip cookie? For me...nope, never! My family prefers soft and chewy chocolate chippers so these cookies from the Goose Berry Patch, aptly named Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, fit the bill for a quick and easy cookie recipe.

I don't own a Kindle (hopefully one day!) but I've been enjoying the free downloads on Amazon through the Kindle for PC. I found this recipe in one of those free downloads called "The Goose Berry Patch Circle of Friends Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes".

The recipe uses instant vanilla pudding to keep the cookies soft and moist. I found the batter to be a little stiff so I added 2 tbsp. of milk at the very end of mixing. This thinned the batter out a bit, making it easier for the cookies to spread out just a bit.

Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
from the Goose Berry Patch Circle of Friends
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cookbook  
Kindle for PC edition

2-1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 c. margarine
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
packed
1 t. vanilla extract
5-1/4 oz. pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix
2 tbsp milk (my addition)

In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, margarine, sugars, vanilla and dry pudding mix; beat until smooth and creamy.

Beat in eggs; stir in chocolate chips.

Stir in milk and mix until creamy.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden. (I baked my cookies for 7 minutes on the middle rack and then moved the tray to the top level in the oven and continued baking for another 1 1/2 minutes.)  Let cool on wire racks.

Makes 2 to 3 dozen.

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Tuesday Time Out

Secret Recipe Club: Easy Oreo Truffles

I have had such a sweet tooth lately. I decided ahead of time, before receiving my secret blog name, that I would search for something sweet to make for this round of the Secret Recipe Club.

I was totally thrilled to receive A Tale of One Foodie's Culinary Adventures as my secret name. Erin's blog is full of sweet treats with beautiful pictures accompanying her recipes. In fact, her pictures of the Easy Oreo Truffles is what drew me in to my recipe of choice to begin with!

With just 3 ingredients, you can't go wrong making these. It does take a little time if you want them to turn out as beautiful as Erin's did. Mine didn't look quite as nice but they are still pretty. One thing is for sure...these little gems are rich and chocolaty and absolutely delicious. I have 4 more recipes from Erin's blog bookmarked for me to add to my menus this summer!

Easy Oreo Truffles
original recipe from Kraft 
my version adapted from A Tale of One Foodie's Culinary Adventures

1 regular-sized pkg of Oreos
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
16 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
toppings: sprinkles, nuts or crushed Oreos

Add entire package of Oreos to a large food processor. Chop until the Oreos turn into coarse crumbs. Reserve 1/3 cup of crumbs for the topping on the truffles.

Add cream cheese to the cookie crumbs. Process until the crumbs and cream cheese are blended together.

Roll the mixture into 1 inch balls and place on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Once the baking sheet if full, stick it into the freezer for 5-8 minutes (or you could stick the tray into the frig for a while longer). This step makes dipping the truffles so much easier. I tried dipping them without freezing them and the balls fell apart in the chocolate.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler on the stove or by melting it in the microwave. Dip each truffle one by one, laying each one back onto the wax paper lined tray. Immediately sprinkle the candies or crushed Oreos on top of the truffles.

Refrigerate the truffles on the tray for at least 1 hour. Store in a tightly sealed container. For maximum flavor, refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

MMM! A prefect choice for those sweet tooth cravings.

I've enjoyed another month in the Secret Recipe Club. If you would like to join us, here's what you need to know.