Tiramisu For Two

The husband has a new-found love for a desert. Every where we go he orders it. This obsession just started a few months ago. We aren’t where or how it started, maybe it’s a pregnancy craving for him! But, he’s been ordering Tiramisu whenever he can! He’s taking a very hard course for his work and had to study all weekend long instead of playing with Kiley, which I know he missed. I decided to make this recipe for him because I knew he’d like it and really enjoy it after studying so hard for so long!  This recipe is great, because he couldn’t eat a whole tiramisu desert by him self.

Funny story, is the recipe suggest to put into a wine glass, which I did, I made 3 of these, one of those being in favorite wine glass ever. Well, I opened the refrigerator door and bam, it fell on the floor, so we were left with only 2 tiramisu left, so I decided to name this recipe tiramisu for two!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup of sugar

8 ounces of mascarpone cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup Marsala wine

1 1/2 cups of Italian roast coffee or a strong dark flavor

1/4 cup dark rum

Lady Fingers, 1 package

2 ounces of dark chocolate

Unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

Directions:

1. Whip the heavy cream until it forms a small peak. I suggest using a stand mixer for this, otherwise you’ll be mixing for a long time! Add the sugar and whip a bit longer until the sugar is mixed throughout the cream. Scoop out a cup of the whip cream mixture and set aside for topping the tiramisu when it’s all done.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the mascarpone cheese and Marsala together until smooth and creamy. Gently fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into mixture, then slowly add rest of whipped cream.
3. Stir espresso and rum together. Dip each ladyfinger into the coffee mixture, very quickly, no more than like 2 seconds or it becomes very soggy. Place two ladyfingers in the bottom of a wine glass. Spoon over some mascarpone cheese, then using a microplane or garlic grater, grate some dark chocolate over the top of the layer. Repeat this two more times. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours.
4. When ready to serve, add some unsweetened cocoa to the top and some of the reserved whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Adapted from Gourmet: Day to Day

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Pumpkin Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

This post is way late, like almost 2 months late! I made this cheesecake for Thanksgiving this year! It was quite yummy!

Ingredients:

For the crust:

1 box of chocolate wafers crushed

2 tablespoons of sugar

6 tablespoons of butter, melted

For the filling:

1 1/2 pounds of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons of cornstarch

1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice

1 cup pumpkin pie mix

4 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1/2 cup milk chocolate baking chips

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Wrap bottom and sides of spring form pan with cooking spray.
2. To make the curst, mix together cookie crumbs, sugar and butter. Press over bottom and partially up side  of spring form pan. Refrigerate while making filling.
3. For the filling, in a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugars, cornstarch and pumpkin pie spice until well combined. Beat in pie mix and eggs. Add vanilla and beat until smooth. Reserve 1/2 cup batter.
4. Microwave chocolate for 30 seconds, stir and microwave another 15 seconds. Stir again and mix into reserved batter, microwave an additional 15 seconds.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Dollop tablespoons of the chocolate mixture  over top of cheesecake, swirl with a small knife or spatula. Place in roasting pan, adding enough hot water to come halfway up side of foil.
6. Bake at 350 for 70 to 80 minutes, until just set. Run a knife along the edge of pan. Cool on rack.  Cover, refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy!

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Pumpkin Cookie Sandwiches

These cookies are yummy! Sugary, sweet and everything else! This reminds me of a cookie you can get at the mall, at the cookie stand.  I never really was into these cookies, until I saw my sister-in-law have one and then I tried one and fell in love. All that yummy icing in the middle, how can you not resist? I mean, they aren’t so hip friendly, but hey’s it’s a special treat! With Halloween approaching I wanted to make a fun Halloween cookie, so I decided to make these Pumpkin Cookie Sandwiches, Kiley loved them! Don’t mind the pumpkin not looking like a pumpkin, my one year old helped me make them!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tub(16 ounces) of refrigerated cookie dough

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened

1 jar(7 ounce) of marshmallow fluff

Orange Icing(very easy to make, orange food coloring and vanilla icing)

Green sprinkles

Directions:

1. Mix together cocoa powder and cookie dough . Mix till it’s well blended. Shape into an 8 inch log and wrap in saran wrap, refrigerate over night or for 4 hours.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut dough into /2 inch pieces, you should have 14 slices of cookie. Places 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet, bake for 8-0 minutes or until down. Remove to cool.
3. Beat cream cheese with electric mixer until smooth, add marshmallow fluff.  Using a tablespoon place icing onto cookie and make a sandwich.
4. Place vanilla icing and orange food color in  bag and mash together till it’s orange, cut a small corner of the bag and draw a pumpkin on the cookie! Sprinkle some green sprinkles on top of the orange to make the stem.  Keep refrigerated because of cream cheese.

Enjoy!

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Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes

Who doesn’t love a oreo cookie?

Everything about them is amazing, the chocolate cookie and the yummy filling inside. Who doesn’t love cupcakes? I haven’t met many people who don’t. So how about a oreo in a cupcake that is cheesecake? Yes, please! 10 of them! This recipe IS so easy to prepare. Pretty minimal ingredients also.

Ingredients:

42 Oreos, 30 left hole and 12 broken into small pieces(Just about two packages)

2 pounds of cream cheese at room temperature

1 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

4 large eggs, beaten

1 cup sour cream

Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 275 degrees. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Place 1 Oreo in the bottom of each liner, the Oreo acts as the crust.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, mix cream cheese until it is smooth, make sure you scrap down the sides. Add the sugar, vanilla and eggs. Mix in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.
3. Divide the batter evenly among the liners, I put about a tablespoon of batter in each tin and then filled back up almost to the top of the liner. Bake for about 22 minutes, or until the filling is just about set.
4. Transfer cupcakes to a wire tin and cool in a refrigerator for about 4 hours.

Enjoy!

Adapted from Pink Parsley.

 

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Peanut Butter Cookie Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups

I was doing some blog browsing and came across the blog Sing For Your Supper.  The picture she posted of the dessert she made my mouth water! I knew I had to make it ASAP! She had made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups. It’s such a simple easy dessert make and you won’t feel bad after you get done eating it, because it’s just SO yummy!

Ingredients:

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, I used Betty Crocker, you can make your own if you’d like

Chocolate Chips

Vanilla Ice Cream

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two ramekins with non stick cooking spray.
2. Fill a ramekins with as much peanut butter cookie dough as you would like, save the extra to make another night.
3. Bake for 10-12 minutes, I baked only for about 10 minutes because the husband and I both like cookies to be a bit gooey. As soon as they are done baking top with some chocolate chips.
4. Top that with some vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

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Apple Dumplings

Saturday, we had a school field trip to Johnson’s Corner Farm in Medford, NJ. We went apple picking! So I had an abundance of apples. Besides putting them in our lunches this week, I decided to make apple dumplings. There are a million apple dumpling recipes out there and I decided instead of searching for one, I was just going to throw some ingredients together and see how it worked out.  What a great idea, because these were AMAZING! Probably one of the best apple dumplings I’ve had in a while and I’m not just saying that because I made them!

Ingredients:

2 apples, I used Empire, fairly large in size

1/2 cup of sugar

A pinch or so of flour

A few tablespoons of cinnamon

1-2 tablespoons of butter

Your favorite pie dough(I used Pillsbury refrigerated dough)

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Peel, core and slice apples.
3. Place flour, sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon in a bowl.
4. Place sliced apples in the bowl with dry ingredients and make sure they are coated well.
5. I cut the pie dough in half, lay one half of the dough on a baking sheet and place apple mixture on the dough, sprinkle some of the remaining sugar mixture on the top and then close with other half of pie dough.
6. Sprinkle outside of dumpling with cinnamon and rub some butter over the top of the dumplings.
7. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Enjoy!

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Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve been slacking on my blogs, both my food blog and my weight loss/life blog.  The reason being is my job is consuming all of my time! Two weeks ago I got hired to teach kindergarten, so basically I had two days to get lesson plans together and a classroom! That left me with no time to really bake or cook anything. I started to miss it quite terribly so this weekend I finally had a chance to get back into the kitchen and it felt great! Anyways, my husband and I also have a small bicker over when we make cookies, because he likes chocolate chip cookies and I like peanut butter, so we typically make a few of each kind so we are both happy.  This week though our local grocery store had Nestle morsels on sale so I bought a few bags and one of them happened to be chocolate chip and peanut butter chip mixed.  At the time I wasn’t sure what I was going to use them in, maybe waffles or pancakes.

Then I got the idea to make cookies! So we ended up with some yummy and big peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies!

This recipe makes about 16 large sized cookies.

Ingredients:

2 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup ( 2 sticks) of butter, melted

1 cup of dark brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/2 of a 11 ounce bag of Nestle Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Morsels

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 325  degrees.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In another large bowl or a stand mixer, beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until blended. On low speed beat in the flour mixture until just blended and a dough forms. Stir in the morsels.
4. Using an ice cream scoop, drop dough in a mound onto a baking sheet. Place about 3 inches part and bake for about 15-20 minutes(depending on your oven).

Enjoy!

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Smores Cookies

Are you noticing a theme? First a Smores Ice Cream Cake and now Smores cookies! Both were delicious! I’ve seen numerous food blogs post recipes for Smores Cookies and I’ve always wanted to try them because I LOVE smores.  We always make smores at the cottage when we are sitting around the fire.

I saw this particular recipe on Cookie Madness.  Everyone loved them! I wasn’t sure with the graham crackers in the actual recipe if it would dry the cookies out but it didn’t! They were super moist!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter — softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup (more or less) of marshmallows (not large style)
2 Hershey Bars, broken into pieces

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Blend in egg and vanilla. Add combined flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda and salt. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.
2. Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets about 3 inches apart.
3. Bake in pre-heated oven 375 degrees F for 8 minutes. Remove and quickly press marshmallows and chocolate into cookies. Return to oven and cook until done (about 3 or 4 more minutes).

Enjoy!

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S’mores Ice Cream Cake

This recipe was SO delicious! It was gone in day! It’s so perfect and reminds you of a smore, but an ice cold one! I saw this recipe in LHJ June 2009.  I knew I had to make it right away. I’ve never attempted making an ice cream cake on my own, but I succeeded!  This recipe does take some time to make though since after each step you do have to freeze, so you can’t eat it the same day you make it!  This recipe serves 10.

Ingredients:

2 packages(18) rectangles of graham crackers

2/3 cup of unsalted butter, melted

2-12 ounce jars of chocolate fudge sauce

1 1/2 quarts of chocolate ice cream

2 1/2 cups of mini marsh-mallows

1 quart of vanilla ice cream

Directions:

1. Grind graham crackers into fine crumbs in a food processor. Add melted butter and blend. Press mixture evenly into a 9 inch spring form pan, coating the bottom and 2 inches p the sides. Freeze until solid, about 30 minutes.
2. Spread half of the fudge sauce over the crust, refreeze, for about a half hour. Meanwhile, soften chocolate ice cream and stir in 1 cup marshmallows. Spread mixture over fudge and freeze until firm about a half hour.
3. Spread reaming fudge over ice cream, freeze until firm, about a half hour, then spread softened vanilla ice cream, on top of the cake and freeze solid, it takes about overnight.
4. Place oven rack 6 inches from broiler; heat broiler on high. top cake with remaining marshmallows. Place under broiler 1 to 2 minutes until marshmallows are toasted, then return to freeze. When firm cover with plastic wrap and freeze for about 6 hours or up to 3 days.

Enjoy!

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Pug Cupcakes

For my birthday party this year,  I didn’t want to make my own cake, but I really wanted to make these cupcakes I saw in the book I got from a recent message board exchange I participated in. The book is pretty popular, it’s called Hello Cupcake. This book is amazing! It has so many fun cupcake recipes and cupcake designs to make!

When I first got the book and saw the doggie section, I quickly scanned for a pug, and there was one! I was SO ecstatic! I love my little chunky monkey!

My sister in law and my self made these cupcakes the day of my party! I wish we would of had more time, just because we could of made the detailing a bit better! It was also very humid, the day of making them so as soon as the icing went on it went, droop. Oh well, they still turned out adorable!

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