Easy Cream Biscuits

As far as baking homemade bread, nothing gets easier than cream biscuits. They take no time to stir up, there are only 2 ingredients, and you can make them in your muffin pan so you just drop them and they pop up perfect every time. This is my go to for lazy winter breakfast treat. Serve it with good homemade jelly, or butter, or gravy... yum gravy. 

What you need: 

2 cups of Self-Rising Flour

1 cup of heavy cream 

muffin tin

non-stick spray

What you do: 

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. 
2. Mix the flour and cream together just until it combines
3. Drop dollop fulls into a greased muffin tin
4. Bake for 10 minutes
5. Enjoy, greedily with coffee and pepper jelly 

As always, much love, many blessings, and happy Christmas!

No Bake Strawberry Pie

This is my new all time favorite Summertime dessert. It is hard to believe that something this easy and this quick could be so darn tasty. It won third place in my office patriotic bake-off. By all means please use this recipe, pass it off as your own, sell it on the black market, but please make it for you and your family. 

What you need: 
Graham cracker pie shell
Quart of strawberries
3 Tablespoons Strawberry Jello
2 Tablespoons  cornstarch 
1 cup of sugar 
1 cup of hot water

What you do: 
1. Unwrap your pie shell and fill with as many cleaned and cut strawberries as you can fill it with. 
2. In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, off the heat, mix the Jello, cornstarch and sugar together. 
3. Add the hot water. Cook on medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil, stirring the entire time. 
4. When thickened pour over your strawberries. Allow the pie to cool to room temperature. Cover and place in the fridge for 2 hours until the pie is set. 
5. Enjoy with whipped cream, ice cream, or alone standing in front of your fridge eating it with your fingers. 

As always, many blessings, much love, and happy no-baking pie making. 

Toddler Pizza Party

We went over to our family friend's house for their spectacular Toddler Pizza Party... It was a huge hit. The crust was made ahead of time, which we all rolled out on to cornmeal. I have never used cornmeal on pizza dough before, but it was so easy. The kids loved it. Also, our friend hid a ton of vegetables in her tomato sauce including zucchini and carrots... I will ask her for her recipe, but until then here is my recipe for tomato sauce with veggies. 

To make the Veggie Tomato Sauce: 

1 can of 14 oz diced tomatoes
1 small zucchini
1 small yellow squash
1 cup of baby spinach
2 carrots 
salt and pepper
Italian seasoning 

What you do: 

1. Peel and cut the vegetables in to a rough dice. Add everything including the tomatoes to your food processor or blender. Puree until smooth. 

2. Add to a heavy bottomed skillet on medium heat, bring to a boil, and lower to a simmer. Allow to cook until thickened about 10 minutes. Feel free to add salt, pepper, Italian seasoning as you enjoy. 

In case you need a Crust Recipe here is mine: 

1 cup of warm water

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 Tablespoon of yeast (1 package)

4 cups of flour

3 Tablespoons of olive oil 

Pizza Sauce and Toppings 

What you do:

1. Mix the warm water, sugar, and yeast. Let sit and get bubbly to make sure that your yeast is still alive. 


2. Add to your standing mixer fitted with the paddle. Add flour one cup at a time until incorporated.  Add the oil until achieve a dough that pulls away from the sides. Switch your paddle to the dough hook and let the dough be kneaded for 5 minutes. Cover with olive oil and plastic wrap to rest until doubled in size about an hour. 
3. Preheat your oven to 500. If you have a pizza stone let it heat up as well inside the oven. 
4. Divide the dough and roll out to the desired size. This dough will make 3 medium size pizzas or 2 large pizzas. You can also store half in the freezer if you like. 
5. Roll to your desired thickness, my family likes a thin crust. 
6. Allow your toddlers to dress their own pizzas. 
7. Top, and cook in your oven for 10 minutes or until the bottom is cooked and toppings are warmed through and the cheese is melted. 

Enjoy. 

All the best, many blessings, much love, and Happy Pizza Making!

Valentine Chocolate Pretzel Bites

Here is what you need:

1 bag of the square bite sized pretzels I've heard them called waffle pattern
1 bag of Hershey's Hugs
1 bag of Valentine's M&Ms
Cute little baggies 

Here is what you:

1. Unwrap a bag of Hershey Hugs (preferably with a friend and wine) My mother always said a burden shared is half a burden thus the friend.
2. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees F
3. Using a rimmed baking sheet also called a jelly roll pan. I lined it with parchment paper just to be safe, although I am not sure you really need it.  Lay out as many pretzel bites as you can without them overlapping.
4. Top each pretzel with the Hershey Hug.
5. Place in the oven for 4 minutes.
6. Working quickly, press one M&M down into the chocolate.
7. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes to chill.
8. Wrap up in cute little baggies, give to friends and family... 

Hooray for pop-able, Valentines treats!

Happy Valentine's Day! As always, many blessings, much love, and Happy Baking!

Freddy's Valentine Cookies

This was the first year I made Valentine's for Freddy's class. Last year he was only 9 months old and most of his buddies weren't eating solid foods. This year however, we had a bunch of sugar craving toddlers, so cookies were indeed in order. We gave out little baggies, with heart sugar cookies, chocolate chip, and organic lollipops. I tied the whole thing together with a cut out heart and a little smiley face out of construction paper. 

To make the sugar cookies: 
5 cups of flour
5 cups of sugar
2 sticks of butter
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon of baking soda
2 Tablespoons of cream cheese
Food Coloring 
Food Color Markers to draw the faces

Method:

1. Mix all of the ingredients in your standing mixer, it is a lot to do by hand.
2. Once mixed together separate into two discs, and wrap in cling plastic wrap and let the dough chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day, or in the freezer up to a month.
3. When ready, roll out the dough, use flour on a board and rolling pin to get the dough to about 1/4 inch thick.
4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
5. Cut with your favorite heart shaped cookie cutters and place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
4. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges are just slightly golden. Let cool and use markers to draw your faces.

To make the Chocolate Chip Cookies with the Heart Chocolate Center

½ cup of sugar bowl sugar
½ cup of brown sugar
1 stick of butter softened overnight
1 egg
1 teaspoon Vanilla
½ teaspoon bakind soda
1 and ¼ cup of all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon of sea salt
1 cup of best quality chocolate chips Ghirardelli is my favorite

24 Dove Hearts

Here is what you do: 

1. Preheat your oven to 325 F.

2. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl (except for the chocolate chips), wooden spoon is fine. 

3.  Place teaspoon dollops on parchment lined sheet pan. 

4. Bake for 18 minutes. ]

5. Place an unwrapped Dove heart in the center of the cookies while they are still warm. Enjoy

There you have it my friends, easy, classic, but delicious cookies. 

Here is a picture of the finished product... 

Happy Valentines'! As always, much love, many blessings, happy baking!

Oreo Truffles

This is less of a recipe and more of a concoction  but it is a lovely and delicious concoction  I needed something bite-size I could bring to a Super Bowl Party. My son loves Oreo's and who doesn't love chocolate... so here you go.

What you need:
1 package of Oreo's
1 8 oz package of cream cheese softened at room temperature
Melted chocolate

What you do:

1. In an food processor chop up the Oreo's. Add the cream cheese and cream together until it is one mashed up deliciousness. 
2. Form balls with a small ice cream scoop. Freeze on a large sheet pan and once frozen (about an hour) roll in the melted chocolate and allow to harden. If you would like to decorate feel free to add sprinkles or drizzle a different color of chocolate. 
3. You can eat them straight away, or you can store in the refrigerator for a week or in the freezer for two months. 

Enjoy with milk and football. 

25 Days of Cookies: Day 2 Leslie Cookies aka Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies

So my best friend Leslie, loves these cookies. Her mom calls them Leslie cookies, and whatever Mama Bear calls them, so do I.

I'm blogging these not because they are my recipe, I'm sure the credit goes to a large corporation. But because they are Leslie's favorite, and I need the recipe to be Google searchable under her name :). Thus... Leslie cookies.

What you need:

1 box of chocolate cake mix
1 egg
1 stick (1/2 a cup) of softened butter
2 Tablespoons of water
powdered sugar to roll the dough balls in

What we did:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
2. Mix all the ingredients, and spoon into your hands to roll into balls
3. Rolls the balls in powdered sugar and place on to parchment paper covered baking sheets
3. Bake for 10 minutes and Voila Leslie Cookies.

You can store them in an air tight container for a couple of days. They are the only cookies that Freddy likes better than Oreos.

Do as we did, and enjoy with wine while decorating the tree listening to the White Christmas Musical.

Happy Christmas! As always, many blessings, much love, and Happy Baking!