A Delicious Cake For My 100th Post!

Here it is, my 100th post, a Chocolate Butterscotch Butterfinger Cake or how about CBB Cake to shorten it up a bit! And I must say that this cake is a pretty darn fabulous one! I think there are several different names for this type of cake, like, "better then sex chocolate cake" or "Harrison Ford cake", and I guess this cake gets its name because of how utterly delicious and divine it is! And I mean really, really yummy and so easy to make. It is usually made with toffee bits and caramel topping but I switched it up a bit, and here's how I did it, and feel free to swap in your favorites! All you do is make your favorite chocolate cake or make a chocolate cake mix according to directions, then you poke holes all over the hot cake, and pour a super sweet glaze, which is a combination of sweetened condensed milk and butterscotch ice cream topping, all over the cake while it is still warm so the glaze can soak into the cake. Finally, it gets topped with creamy Cool Whip and topped with lots and lots of crispy crushed up Butterfingers.

Sweet, dense, super moist, gooey, creamy, cool, chocolately, butterscotchy, and crunchy all in this one bite is what makes this cake so AMAZING!

Chocolate Butterscotch Butterfinger Cake:

-1 recipe for HERSHEY'S "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake, found here, or 1 box of your favorite cake mix

-1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

-1 (12-ounce) jar butterscotch topping

-1 (12-ounce) container Cool Whip

-2 regular sized Butterfinger candy bars, crushed

1. Prepare the cake according to directions. Immediately after removing the cake from the oven, poke holes with a wooden skewer or fork liberally all over the cake.

2. In a medium sized bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk and butterscotch topping and then pour it all over the hot cake.

3. Cool cake completely, then spread Cool Whip over the top, then sprinkle with crushed Butterfingers. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Funfetti Christmas Tree Bars

Merry Christmas!

Funfetti Cookie Bars:

Ingredients:

-1 box Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix

-1/3 cup oil

-2 eggs

-1 can Pillsubury Funfetti frosting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13x9-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray. Combine the cake mix, oil, and eggs until well moistened. Spread evenly into prepared pan. Bake about 15 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack and frost with funfetti frosting and decorate as desired. 

*I used cookie cutters to cut out the Christmas trees and then frosted and decorated them! 

Festive Funfetti Cake Batter Bark

I love, love Funfetti Cake and Funfetti Frosting! It is my absolute favorite, and I don't care that they come from a box and a can : ) I also love anything that is cake batter related! Cake batter ice cream is my all time favorite ice cream flavor hands down! So, when I stumbled upon a recipe for cake batter bark on How Sweet It Is, I was very intrigued and tried it immediately with a few adaptations! I used only white chocolate instead of both white and regular chocolate, I used a festive Funfetti Cake mix instead of yellow cake mix and I added cream and Funfetti Frosting to the mix! I must say this bark turned out really, really tasty and super cute and it is absolutely perfect for holiday gift giving. The only thing I will change about it next time is to add more dry cake mix to pump up the cake batter taste, it needed a little bit more of that flavor!

Enjoy!

Festive Funfetti Cake Batter Bark:

-1 (11-ounce) package vanilla/white chocolate chips

-1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

-1 heaping teaspoon Funfetti Cake mix

-1 heaping tablespoon Funfetti frosting

-sprinkles

1. Line a 8x8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray, set aside.

2. In a heatproof bowl, microwave the white chocolate chips and the cream in 30 second intervals until completely melted and smooth, about a minute and a half. Immediately stir in the cake mix and the frosting. Pour into the prepared pan and decorate with sprinkles.

3. Refrigerate until it hardens and then break it up into pieces. Store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

 

Cook's Illustrated Seven-Layer Bars

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you are all enjoying this wonderful holiday season! I have been so busy this month with school and work that I haven't had much time to do any holiday baking or blogging which is so sad. But, finally school is out and I plan to get a ton of holiday treats baked up this week for my family and friends to enjoy. Baking started yesterday with bake-your-brains-out day at my sister's house in Detroit. This year was our third annual year of bake-your-brains-out day and it was such a great time just being surrounded by loved ones, getting in the holiday spirit, baking and munching on yummy treats, and laughter! This year we made no bakes, lemon squares, seven-layer bars, candy cane cookies, sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, pretzal rolo turtles, and homemade chocolate covered cherries. We also decorated gingerbread houses, which is my favorite part! The first 2 years we made our own gingerbread houses, but last year, none of our house stayed up, oh no!.....so this year we cheated and bougt gingerbread houses from the store and they turned out much better!

So, here is a recipe for amazing seven-layer bars from Cook's Illustrated America's Test Kitchen Holiday Cookies 2010. They added a few extra elements to the classic bar cookies which truly knocked these babies up a few levels from the original recipe and they are so scrumptious! They are sweet and buttery, crunchy and creamy, and filled with lots of flavor combinations that marry so well together! In my opinion, these are the perfect treat because they are full of so many different yummy ingredients and they are perfect for holiday gift giving!

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS: This classic bar cookie is loaded with ingredients: chocolate chips, coconut, and nuts piled over a buttery graham cracker crust. The original recipe (published on the back of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk) turned out raw-tasting nuts, a soggy crust, and dry bars. To develop a sturdier, crisper texture, we prebake the crust and add ground toffee bits to it for their buttery salty flavor. To improve the bars' flavor, we toast the sweetened coconut and pecans, which also adds crunch to the filling. We add Rice Krispies cereal to lighten the bars. To toast the coconut and pecans, we place them on seperate baking sheets in a 350-degree oven until they are golden, five minutes for the coconut and eight minutes for the pecans. These bars are very sweet and rich, and can be cut into smaller pieces if desired. (I love how Cook's Illustrated elaborates and tells you why they make things the way they do!)

Seven-Layer Bars: (Cook's Illustrated, Holiday Cookies 2010)

Makes 24 Bars

-1 cup chocolate-covered toffee bits

-12 whole ghram crackers

-8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

-8 ounces milk chocolate, chopped

-1 cup Rice Krispies

-1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

-1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

-1 cup sweetened flaked coconut, toasted

-2 (14-ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk

-1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Adjust oven rack to middle posistion and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 13 by 9-inch baking pan with foil, allowing excess to hang over pan edges. Grease foil. Process toffee bits in food processor to fine powder. Add ghram crackers and process to fine crumbs. Transfer mixture to bowl and stir in butter. Press mixture firmly into prepared baking pan. Bake until beginning to brown, about 10 minutes.

2. Remove pan from oven, sprinkle crust with milk chocolate, and allow chocolate to soften, about 5 minutes. Using spatula, smooth chocolate into even layer. Layer Rice Krispies, pecans chocolate chips, and coconut in pan in that order, pressing each layer to adhere. Combine condensed milk and vanilla and pour evenly over top. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack, 2 hours. Using foil overhang, lift bars from pan and cut into squares.

Come back tomorrow for Festive Funfetti Cake Batter Bark!

Peanut Butter Fudge

It's that time of year for sweet treats, candy making, and baking and fudge is a popular treat that everyone enjoys! This is a super simple peanut butter fudge recipe, no candy thermometor needed, just a microwave and a wooden spoon! It only takes about 5 minutes to make. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Fudge: (Recipe Courtesy Alton Brown)

Ingredients:

-1 cup butter

-1 cup peanut butter

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-1 pound powdered sugar (about 3 1/2-3 3/4 cups, I used 3 1/2 cups)

Directions:

Microwave butter and peanut butter for 2 minutes on high. Stir and microwave on high for 2 more minutes. Add vanilla and powdered sugar to peanut butter mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until combined. Pour into a greased 8x8-inch pan. Place a piece of wax paper on the surface of the fudge and refrigerate until cool. Cut into 1-inch pieces and store into an airtight container for up to a week.

Poppy Chow

This super yummy and addictive poppy chow which is made with popcorn is reminiscent to puppy chow which is made with chex cereal. Plain popped popcorn gets coated in a mixture of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and peanut butter and then it gets sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar! It is so sweet and chocolatey and it is perfect to have at any holiday gathering or packaging up and giving away to loved ones who will gobble this simple tasty treat right up!

Poppy Chow: (adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)

Ingredients:

-9 cups Air-Popped Popcorn

-1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

-1/2 cup butterscotch chips

-1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

-1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

In microwave or double boiler, melt chocolatechips, butterscotch chips, peanut butter, and butter until melted. Stir in vanilla. Place the popped popcorn in a large bowl and pour the chocolate mixture over all. Stir until evenly coated. Add the powdered sugar and stir until each piece is covered. Spread out on a cookie sheet to set the chocolate. Store in an airtight container.

*Store in an airtight container.

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls......I don't have to much to say about these except that I was having a craving for warm cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven, so I made these and they made me oh so happy!

 

They were everything I wanted for my perfect cinnamon roll craving. Warm and sweet, sticky and oh so ooey-gooey in the most perfect way, so so soft with a slight chew, a center filled with the perfect cinnamon-sugary goodness, perfect for pulling apart, and topped off with a delicious vanilla glaze that drips into the little cracks and mixes with the filling.

These were lick every single finger delicious and maybe even my plate too, or yours, so watch out!

See what I mean? Perfection!

 Cinnamon Rolls: (Recipe courtesy Paula Deen)

Ingredients

Dough:

-1/4-ounce package yeast

-1/2 cup warm water

-1/2 cup scalded milk

-1/4 cup sugar

-1/3 cup butter or shortening

-1 teaspoon salt

-1 egg

-3 1/2-4 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

-1/2 cup melted butter

-3/4 cup sugar

-2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

-3/4 cup raisins, walnuts, or pecans, optional

Glaze:

-4 tablespoons butter

-2 cups powdered sugar

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-3 to 6 tablespoons milk or hot water

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside. In a large bowl mix milk, sugar, melted butter, salt, and egg. Add 2 cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add yeast mixture. Mix in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle. Knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5 to 10 minutes. Place in well-greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in size, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

When doubled in size, punch down dough. Roll out on a floured surface into a 15 by 9-inch rectangle. Spread melted butter all over dough. Mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over buttered dough. Sprinkle with raisins, walnuts, or pecans if desired. Beginning at the 15-inch side, roll up dough and pinch edge together to seal. Cut into 12 to 15 slices.

Coat the bottom of baking pan with butter or non-stick cooking spray and sprinkle with sugar if desired. Place cinnamon roll slices close together in the pan and let rise until dough is doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake for about 30 minutes or until nicely browned.

Meanwhile, mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add milk or water 1 tablespoon at a time until the glaze reaches desired consistency. Spread over slightly cooled rolls.