Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcakes- AKA seriously the best cupcake EVER!

You may remember my obsession with Sprinkles. Love. Love. Love their cupcakes. Especially the strawberry one. Its light and fluffy. Strawberry-y, but not too much so. Sweet berry goodness. You can imagine my excitement when I came across "The Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcake Recipe" here and "The Sprinkles Strawberry Frosting Recipe" here. Yay! :) I knew it was meant to be when strawberries were on sale for $0.96 a pint at H-E-B the other week.. Score!

Let me tell you, this is a winner! It is very similar to the Sprinkles version, but even if it wasn't, its still light and fluffy and slightly sweet.

 The frosting is where most of the strawberry flavor comes from. You just feel happy and summery while you eat it. Everyone who I gave one of these to loved it too. I went ahead and purreed and froze the rest of my strawberries before they went bad. Now I just need a special occassion to make them for! Anyone having a party? P.S. See, I DO use all my cake stands. :)

P.S.S. I was also happy to use one of my newer kitchen gadgets- the strawbery huller! Handy dandy little stocking stuffer.

Oreo Cookes & Cream Cake

 

My mom got this amazing Oreo cookie pan from Williams Sonoma last year. I don't even remember when- I think sometime over the summer? How sad it that! I can't believe I waited this long to use it. I think what deterred me was that you can't ice the top of the cap since you would cover up the "cookie" part.

It was really yummy though with double the icing in the middle- just like a double stuff Oreo! :) Did I mention how I think this would make a fab ice cream cake too? I think I'll try that next time. This is definitely a crowd-pleaser and perfect for your favorite Oreo lover. Or yourself. I think I may be my favorite Oreo lover- is that allowed? Good. :)

The pans come with a recipe, but I really wanted to make a cookies and cream cake, so I used this one I found on My Recipe Finds Online. I followed it to a T and it was really good. The birhtday boy said this was his favorite cake EVER and said how moist and tasty it was. He also commented on how delicious the frosting was with the crunchy oreos. The oreos do soften up the next day, but I think its better that way myself. I never use cake mixes and I try not to use a lot of oil in my recipes, so I thought that although the cake was very moist, something tasted a little off. Next time I would use a mixture of oil and butter or maybe some unsweetened applesauce to try to cut the oily taste, but it was still very good.You could always use your favorite moist chocolate cake recipe, but you really do need to try this frosting. :)

Easter in the Big Easy - Finally Some Photos

It has taken me long enough, but really what did you expect? It always takes me a while to sit down and upload a bunch of photos! P.S. I just realized we forgot to take any family photos. :(

I took some graduation photos of Jeff in the backyard

Jacki and me

My cuddle bug!

The boys hanging out on the porch.

haha action shot!

:)

I'm not sure if I have enough photos of this guy...

Nope, definitely not.

His first graduation gift!

Mom and J

J and me

Mom and me

<3 <3 <3

Delicious Easter dinner- salad, lobster, filet and baked potato- YUM!

I made my homemade Chocolate Cream Pie again!

Perfection

Adorable and delicious Easter cookies from "The Cookie Lady" in New Orleans

French Toast Souffle for Easter brunch

Drool worthy

Real graduation photo :)

French Toast Souffle

Did you have Easter brunch? If not, I feel bad for you. I really feel bad when I think about all the delicious, moist, fluffy French Toast Souffle I had after Easter church. It was SO good that I haven't stopped thinking of another reason to make one. Unfortunately, I do not have 4+ people to cook for everyday in Austin, but that is also a blessing! ha Since I'm going back to NOLA for lil bro's college graduation in a couple weeks, maybe I'll make it again! No. Definitely making this again. Yay! :)

I adapted this recipe from one I found on AllRecipes.com. My mom always makes a delicious French Toast for special occasions, and her secret is the Pepperidge Farm cinnamon bread.

Can't figure out how to keep this rotated the right way!

We tweaked this recipe to include that bread and in the end it was much easier than making real French Toast. The only catch is that you have to make it the night before, but its super quick. My mom may have even admitted she preferred this one- I'm shocked! She totally trusted me all the way and never even questioned the "soggy" mess that was in the fridge all night... Never...

Does this dress look familiar?

Everyone gobbled this up and it was perfect with a little butter and warm maple syrup on top. We enjoyed ours with the perfect complements- crispy bacon and fresh fruit salad.

 My little Jackson was looking for unwanted bites. Unfortunately for him, there weren't many...

Miss Debbie's No Bake Cookies

These cookies remind me of home. My mom (Miss Debbie) always wanted to make these with me whenever a craving hit. They are perfect since you just cook them up on the stove in a few minutes and then you let them harden on wax paper. I always used to swipe my finger around the warm, gooey edges to make sure they were good. By good I mean not poisonous. :) They never look perfect, but they always taste great- the combo of PB, chocolate and salty oats is very yummy in my tummy.

When my mom came to visit a few months ago, she told me on the way back form the airport that she had a craving! haha surprise surprise! We had to call my roomie to make sure we had "Quick Oats." Check!

The regular kind of oats will not be cooked thoroughly in this recipe and result in very chewy cookies.

One note- make sure you pay close attention to the cooking time- too little and they will not setup, too much and they will be like rocks... They taste best the first day, but they will keep for a day or two- best to give away!

Miss Debbie's No Bake Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen small cookies

• 2 cups sugar
• 3 heaping TBSP cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup salted butter (If you use unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I use creamy)
• 3 cups Quick Oats
• 1 tsp vanilla

First things first, spread some wax (or parchment) paper on your counter. In a large pot, melt sugar, cocoa, butter and milk over medium-high heat. Stir continuously until it comes to a boil.  Pay close attention! 

After it comes to a boil, reduced heat and boil for 1 minute while you keep stirring. Make sure your other ingredients are already measured out and ready to go...

Turn off heat and add peanut butter, oats and vanilla, stirring quickly until thoroughly mixed. 

Place onto wax paper by the spoonful and allow to cool and set slightly before eating.

Wash those sticky fingers and enjoy!

I'm back!

I feel SO bad for leaving you all without any recipes, photos, words, etc. for the past week or so. No excuses, but lets face it, I was unorganized, very busy, tired and lazy. I went out of town too. Here's a sneak peak to what I did over the long Easter weekend. Can you guess where I went? :)

I do have a few recipes/photos to share with you ASAP! I know that you really just cannot wait any longer to hear from me, but I hope to have some more posts later this week. If you really want to chat though or want to share a recipe for me to try, by all means send me an email. You would seriously make my day! :)

P.S. Did I tell you I'm playing kickball on Wednesday nights? Can you believe it? :) Hey, I didn't say I was any good though...

Have a wonderful week!

Bitty Baked Brownies

Salad justifies a brownie, right? Especially a bitty one. Good, because I'm pretty sure we had salad for dinner the night my friend Jessica and I made these little babies...And hey, we had a chocolate craving. What's a girl to do? Thank the Lord, I had all the ingredients on hand to make these. I had been wanting to make "The Baked Brownie" for a while, but it always seemed like too much work when I needed a brownie ASAP.

Since Jessica was over and willing to help, the prep time in half. Done.Now J is not normally a baker, but she was sweet to help me out. We learned how to halve a recipe haha- don't forget you must halve ALL the ingredients! :) We learned a lot too- did I mention that?

As for the brownies, they are so rich and decadent. You can really taste the quality in the chocolate. The directions said to wait until they were cool, but I thought they had a whole other dimension while warm and slightly gooey. With ice cream. :)