Peach Crumb Bars

 

Pest Control Guys.

Let's talk about them.

They're driving me crazy!!  Ringing my doorbell all day long.  Conversations that go like this:

Me:  "I'm not interested.  I'm not interested.  I'm not interested.  I'm. Not. Interested.

(Usually ends in me pretending to hear my phone ringing in the other room or making up some emergency.)

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against pest control guys.  One summer in college long before I met him, my husband was a pest control guy in Florida.  It's just that I don't NEED pest control and I'm not good at being forceful which apparently you have to be to get rid of pest control guys.

In realization of this, I've decided the best thing I can do is invest in a couple dozen racoons and keep them in one of the unfinished bedrooms in our basement.

What do racoons eat anyway?

Next pest control guy that comes my way will be invited downstairs for a looksie at those pests.

Know anybody that sells 'coons?

Why can't they just take a "No thanks" and a couple of peach bars or something??

Pink Birthday Cake Ice Cream

 

Everyone is probably posting Olympic treats today for the Opening Ceremonies, but my husband & I are celebrating today for a different reason. It's our sixth anniversary!

{I swear it's been longer than that.  Children make you feel so old.}

We like to tell our kids that our anniversary is our family's birthday, and usually I make a treat the night before and let them blow out candles.  (Wanna keep a 2 year old entertained?  Let him blow out candles for fifty-ish minutes or so.)  My husband isn't really into lovey heart shaped treats anyways, so this year for our anniversary I made this birthday cake ice cream that I have been drooling over (and dying to make) for months.  It turned out to be hubby's favorite homemade ice cream yet.

Vanilla bean ice cream (tinted pink) + chunks of vanilla bean cupcake + swirls of frosting + sprinkles= pink birthday heaven

I live with three boys and a male cat so sometimes I have to dye things pink.  My two year old {boy} loves pink so at least I have somebody on my side.

The cupcakes that are mixed into this ice cream need to be made in advance so that you can freeze them and cut them into chunks.  Freezing them keeps the cake from getting soggy and will keep it from crumbling into tiny pieces when you stir it in.

The ice cream also needs to harden overnight after churning. So...  realize that this is at least a 2 day process.  Plan ahead and it's not a big deal.  Almost all of that time is freeze time or cool time.

Worth it? Totally!  This ice cream has the dreamiest texture, and if you use vanilla bean paste in your ice cream it has fantastic flavor as well.

{Confession- I used homemade buttercream for the frosting in this and cut it into chunks and mixed it in after churning.  I hated it!  I ended up wishing I had just used (brace yourself)-  canned frosting.  I swear you will never hear those words out of my mouth again, but in this case it's true. The chunks of buttercream weirded me out. I am rewriting the recipe using canned frosting and swirling it into the ice cream instead of mixing in chunks.  If you can't stomach buying canned frosting, you can still make your own but I recommend swirling it in instead of using chunks. I like canned frosting because it gives that "authentic birthday cake taste" that most people think an ice cream like this should taste like. Yes I realize I just used 'canned frosting' and 'authentic' in the same sentence. Also it doesn't freeze super hard like most buttercreams do, so it is great in ice cream.}

If you want a cake batterish flavor to the ice cream instead of vanilla, just mix in a few Tablespoons of white cake mix with the rest of the ice cream ingredients (before churning). You can also probably cut the vanilla bean paste in half.


"Happy Birthday" to my sweet family, and Happy Anniversary to the best husband a girl could ask for.  Seriously he is the most selfless,  giving,  thinks he's the funniest ever,  person I know. Love you forever honey!

Candy Caribou {Winter Reindeer}

I promise this is the last random-themed treat for awhile.   Promise!

We made these edible caribou (reindeer) for our Arctic unit.  I figured they can totally double as a Christmas treat.  The rough idea for these came from Spoonful, but I changed up some of the candies because circus peanuts are gross because we wanted to personalize ours with faces.  I used the frosted Little Debbie "Nutty Bars" and they were a bit messy, so use non-frosted plain chocolate wafers if you can find them.  These can be adult-intensive but would be a fun Christmas Eve day activity for older children.  (Younger kids can always just glue random cookies and candies together.  That's always a hit.)

Beachy Sand Cups {Digging for Killer Whale Teeth}

We finally finished our Arctic/Antarctic unit that's been keeping us sane busy so far this summer.  This is one of the treats I came up with to tie in with the theme.  I had the kids dig for killer whale teeth that I hid in the "sand" layer of these pudding cups.  They thought this was great messy fun.  (In case you're wondering... Orca's live in the Arctic... thus the Arctic connection.  Yes, I know it gets a bit confusing when it looks all beachy and tropical.)

This is just another version of worm "dirt cups", that layers pudding and crushed cookies.  It can be adapted lots of ways. These carrot patch dirt cups are one of my favorites! You could also hide dinosaur fossils in there, shells, really whatever you want in place of the killer whale teeth.  I made the "teeth" out of airheads, and my starfish out of a Starburst, but Laffy Taffys and pretty much any other flexible candy like this will work and you can mold whatever you want.  If you're going beachy you can add  one of those little drink umbrellas to the sand.  How cute would little cups of this be for a beach birthday party?

Also while we're discussing this.  I desperately need to know what the"mystery" flavor of white Airheads is.  I lose sleep over it at night people.

----------------

This is completely off-topic so feel free to stop reading here if you don't have kids or aren't interested in educational kid type things.  You can just scroll down to the recipe and I won't hold it against you.  I wanted to post some of the things we did for our Arctic unit because I found it so hard to find preschool/kindergarten appropriate activities online!  I thought for sure someone had done this with their kids and couldn't believe the internet was void of almost anything.  I will probably post similar recaps for each of our units this summer if we ever get around to them.  Here are a few of the things we did:

Read a book about Northern Lights and painted our own:

Read a book about polar bears, then made this textured bear out of coconut and glue:

Filled out this polar bear writing sheet after visiting them at the zoo and observing their behavior:

Played an Arctic Animal file folder game where you learn facts about each of the animals, then made this comparison chart: (HILARIOUS what kids will come up with for the "acts" category.  I did not help at all and was laughing my head off about some of the things he said.)

Read a super cute book about where animals go in the winter, colored and put together this page:  (Great comprehension/recall activity because all the information was in the book!)

Read about walruses and made this guy:  (Uhhh yeah so those white things are his tusks.  I had to REALLY resist helping Chase draw his mouth LOWER so the tusks came out in the right place... I struggle with kid art.  But I think the seal with chin-teeth turned out pretty cute too, so the resisting was not totally in vain.)

Read a book about Inuksuks and built our own:

 

Read about the Inuit people and made an igloo out of sugar cubes and frosting.  Garnished with Arctic Toob people & animals:

We also played some iceberg math mat games, did some penguin time-telling and money cards and penguin pattern block sheets.  We did this AWESOME experiment that shows how blubber keeps animals warm. (We chose to put our hands in the cold water first, and then into the blubber glove second.  I think this makes more of an impact.)

One of Chase's favorites was ice fishing math.  I made a little fishing pole with a safety pin on the end and he used it to pick up two number magnets (just flip them magnet-side up so they'll attract the safety pin) and then wrote out the addition problem for the two numbers and solved it.

Since the kids have been sick for going on two weeks now... the unit took a LOT longer than planned, and I'm going to hurry us on to Africa next week.

We also made another Arctic treat that I'll share soon.  (Don't be annoyed... it's totally relevant to Christmas so it's a win-win.  Christmas in July, you know?)

  

 And obviously we wear our tuxedos to do schoolwork in.  

{not.}

Olympic Gold Medal Cookies

As soon as I started thinking about the Olympics back in about April I knew I wanted to make some gold medals.  I also knew I had to use some milk chocolate digestive biscuits for the medal since the games are in London this year.

It is totally weird that I LOVE digestives but I do.   I can't even buy them or they will disappear overnight.  If you don't know what they are, "digestives" are an English cookie that is made from wheat flour.  This may not sound that great but it makes the most wonderful crumbly texture.  And the digestives I love are covered in chocolate on one side. 

{of course.}

To.  Die.  For.  I swear.  You can find them at World Market or other places that sell British imports.

I used McVities brand for this but Cadbury's are actually my favorite (Shhh don't tell anyone who is English.)


Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to make these medals and was totally planning on hand painting some gold luster dust on each cookie.  Then, a few weeks ago my friend Dorothy posted these super cute hand pie medals and used Duff gold cake spray.

DUH!

So I sprayed them instead and it was SO easy.  These literally take about 5 minutes to spray and once they are dry you can assemble them in about ten seconds.  Don't you love themed treats that are so easy anybody can do it?

It is more fun to have a party when you aren't totally exhausted from preparing for it.

--------------------------

When my husband came home from work after I made these he asked how I made them gold.

I said,

"Oh I just used spray paint of course.  I"m  pretty sure it's non-toxic."

And then I ate one right in front of him.  And savored every crumble.


And watched his expression.

You should try it sometime.

Olympic Rings Drinks

Sometimes things don't work out as planned.  I had this great idea for Olympic rings drinks that used gummi saver rings to flavor Sprite.  (A lot like these Blowpop Drinks).  When I got home and opened the bag I realized that green and red were the only Olympic rings colors in the bag.   BUMMER!  

So I googled Olympic Rings drinks and found that they actually served such a thing in Beijing several years ago!  All I could find was a picture but it inspired me so I felt like I should post the link with my recipe below.

I ended up using miniature fruit slices to make my rings. You can read on to see the process but it's pretty easy.  If, on the other hand you can find tropical gummisavers or something that come in yellow and blue, feel free to save yourself some time and just use those.

Let the games begin!

{next week that is.}

Peanut Butter Flipz Cookies {Basic PB Cookies}

You know what Flipz are right?  Those chocolate covered pretzels that come in a shiny blue bag.  And claim to have like 8 servings but really only have about 1 1/2.

Does anybody remember when they had a chocolate covered GRAHAM cracker version?  Those ones were really to die for.

Last week the kids and I decided to put Flipz on top of peanut butter cookies, which turned out to be a brilliant idea.  Pop them on while the cookies are hot and they will melt in to the cookie a bit.

The peanut butter cookie recipe we used is my oldest recipe.  I have had for AGES, (seriously since I was like 10) and have adapted it several times.  This is the only recipe we ever make for basic PB cookies and can be done lots of ways-

Add a Flipz chocolate pretzel after baking and drizzle with melted peanut butter chips:

 

Add some M&M's after baking:

 

Roll in sugar and criss-cross with a fork or wire cooling rack:

 

Or add a Hershey's kiss or mini Reese's cup after baking:

 However you make them, they are delicious.  If I ever have a child with a peanut allergy I will probably cry a river (like the Nile river, not some dinky river).  I might have to go on vacations just to eat thai peanut noodles and peanut butter cookies and peanut butter shakes...  Major props to those of you who live with peanut allergies in your family.

Have a great weekend!

Rainbow Sherbet Torte

When we built our house I said all I wanted was a huge kitchen island.  These days I'm thinking I should have asked for two dishwashers. There are only four of us but I swear our dishwasher is always full.

As is the sink.  And the two counters surrounding the sink.  Every time clean dishes come out of the dishwasher, it gets filled right back up with dirty ones.  And there are still dishes waiting to go in on the next round.

Don't tell me I bake too much.  This is not the problem.  It's the darn size of the dishwasher!!

I need to butter my hubby up sometime and mention the fact that I want two dishwashers in the next house.  Just to get him warmed up to the idea, you know.

(I am not the slightest bit joking about this.  If people can have two ovens I should be able to have two dishwashers.)

One good way to butter hubbys up is to give them ice cream torte.  I realize that this is actually a sherbet torte, and that sherbet is... um...  kinda girly.  But it's a good starting point for a two-dishwasher kind of conversation.

Also, it's bright and happy.  Just like my face will be when we build a house with two dishwashers.

----------------------------

I always forget that rainbow sherbet is good.  I mean, I would never go to the ice cream store and order sherbet, but whenever I end up eating it I love it.  This is a fun torte to make for dinner guests in the summer and is easy to throw together.  I have actually made it two ways, both of which are delicious so I'm posting two (very similar) recipes.  The biggest difference is the crust- one uses coconut cookies and slivered almonds and makes a true crust.  The other uses macaroon crumbs, chopped pecans, and whipped cream and makes a thick creamy "frozen topping" type crust.  I have a hard time finding macaroons and usually don't want to make them (lazybutt) so I often make the first recipe, but if you have macaroons the second recipe is killer.

Patriotic Layered drinks

Today our kids are in bed with fevers and flu so I thought this would be a good time to post some of my old recipes before the Olympics next week.  I'm not sure I can watch Tangled or Blue Planet one more time.

These drinks were all over pinterest and we couldn't resist trying them for the Fourth.  I was not at all convinced they would taste good  and was pleasantly surprised.  I think my red and white layers combined pretty well although I didn't really care for the blue.  I didn't really like the Polar Blast Hawaiian Punch as it is though, so that was probably my problem.

In case you haven't done these, the secret is to fill your cup up completely with ice and then pour the drink right on top of the ice as slowly as possible.  Sometimes it's good to wait for a minute and let the drink settle before continuing to pour more. 

You absolutely must layer these drinks in the right order.  Check the label on the back of the drink and look at the sugar content.  The highest amount of sugar is the drink that should go on the bottom.  The lowest will go on top.  (No sugar/calorie free is fine for the top.)  My white layer and blue layer were only about 7 grams different in sugar and they ran in to eachother a bit, so if you want really defined layers, choose sugar contents that are pretty drastic.

I have a Halloween version of these floating in the back of mine brain so hopefully it will make an appearance come October. 

Firework Sugar Cookies {Pipeable Sugar Cookie Frosting}

These aren't the cookies I said I was going to post for you today.  But while it's still July I thought I'd better hurry and post the ones we made for the Fourth.  I used my basic sugar cookie and frosting recipe and just piped designs on. This frosting is thicker than royal icing (it's basically buttercream) and tastes wayyy better, but also dries hard enough to gently stack the cookies after 12 hours or so.  This cookie/icing recipe is great for any holiday or themed cookie. You will probably see it a lot around here.  Someday I plan to experiment with using lemon or almond extract in place of the vanilla in the frosting.

In other news, Target should totally have a childcare station like Ikea to leave your kids at while you shop.  I would basically live there.  More than I do already I mean.

That's probably why they don't do it.

Can you imagine all those moms??

(I say this is a good idea but then I have visions of mean bully kids throwing cherry slurpees and super salty popcorn all over my poor innocent kids and the Target dog, Bullseye attacking their pants because they accidentally left some string cheese and meat stick in their pockets.  So probably I'd just keep them with me anyways and bring an absurd amount of snacks to keep them in the cart.)

Shirley Temples

Did you notice my new look? I got a blog makeover this weekend! I am so not computer savvy or techy so this is big news.  It has been bugging me for awhile and I finally sat down and made some changes.  

(When I say "I"-  I really mean my husband.  I ate snacks and peered over his shoulder and nodded as he explained things to me and pretended to understand.) 

I also finally set up a Pinterest account for Dip It In Chocolate, which I have been meaning to do for awhile.  Click on my light blue Pinterest icon on the top right to follow me, and I'll follow you back.  My boards are pretty empty for today but I'm sure they will fill up soon with lots of things to make your pants tight. ;)

Since I was so busy being computer geniusy this weekend, I didn't have much time to bake, but I did make some delicious drinks.  These are low-calorie since they're made with Sprite Zero.  (About 30 calories plus cherries.)  And by saving all those calories you can eat the delicious cookies I have ready for you tomorrow!

I do try to conserve calories for you in the summer time, you know... ;) 

Brown Butter Peach Pie Shortbread Bars

I thought your body wasn't supposed to start deteriorating until at least 30.  Apparently my body didn't get that memo.  So far 26 has been the year where I have to start dealing with wrinkles and phantom aches and general crabbiness.  (I wish I was joking, but I'm not.  Well, kinda joking about the crabbiness.)

This week I seem to have pulled a muscle in my back probably from pretending to be too realistic of a Velociraptor, so I have been scooting around the house like a hunchback and groaning a lot and using it as an excuse to not put on makeup or go running.  When a migraine joined my back in it's rebellion, I felt so sorry for myself I decided to make these bars.

I had been waiting months for fresh peaches to make them and they did not disappoint. These are really amazing. Especially warmed up with a big fat scoop of drippy vanilla bean ice cream on top.

Put them on your to-do list before summer is up.

And take "Playing carnivorous dinosaurs" off  of your list.

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?

Peanut Butter S'more Bars

Nothing says summer like S'mores.

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

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!!

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...

Marshmallow Oreo Bars

Cookies.  Marshmallows.  Butter.

Magic I tell you.

Magic.