Tiger Butter-First SRC post!

I cannot not tell you how much I have been looking forward to this post!!!

If you don’t remember, a while back I believe I mentioned that I am an official member of the Secret Recipe Club now. If you don’t know what it is all about, check them out of that link ^up there or here

Anyways, this is my first time posting with them and I’m super duper pumped! Also, it really helps that I was assigned an awesome blog :D I got to check out Lindsay’s blog, Life and Kitchen.

All you need!!!!

Holy Schmoly this girl has got TONS of amazing recipes! It was sooo hard to pick just one!! I finally decided to make her Tiger Butter recipe in honor of the fact that today is Halloween and this was the most Halloween-y recipe on there. (It’s got orange and black, in case you don’t see my logic..)

Plus, my school’s mascot is the Tiger so I feel a fairly strong connection con los tigres ;) . Why do I always feel the need to say tigers in spanish..? Some things I will just never understand about myself. *Sigh*So if you’ve got a minute, stop by and give Life and Kitchen a holler!

Tiger Butter

(from Life and Kitchen)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate chips, my preference!)
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

  1. Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
  2. Melt the chocolate/dark chocolate chips either in a double boiler or the microwave. I prefer the double boiler, but whatever floats your boat!
  3. Pour melted chocolate/dark chocolate in the prepared 8×8 pan.
  4. Melt white chocolate chips with creamy peanut butter in double broiler or microwave(about 1 minute)
  5. Pour melted peanut butter mixture on top of chocolate/dark chocolate layer.
  6. Using the stick-end of your spoon, swirl the chocolate and peanut butter to make “tiger” stripes!
  7. Pop into the fridge for about an hour and cut into squares when cool. Enjoy :)


Random Fact of the Day: Per-capita Mozzarella cheese consumption has risen five-fold since 1972. Mozzarella is the second most popular cheese, next to cheddar. 

A Mini Layer Cake

I recently saw this cake on Picky Palate and couldn’t have been more ecstatic!

It seriously couldn’t have been better timing. One of my best friend’s birthdays was coming up and I wanted to make her something special but I was having the hardest time deciding what to make.Well Jenny made things easy for me by introducing me to this adorable little cake!I of course added my own flair to it. One of the alterations was actually an accident but I think it made it turn out an even better cake with the change. I accidentally added the melted chocolate chips to the cake batter. No bigger either way! You just have to be sure to bake a little longer.(^ Just so you can see that this is actually a mini cake! It looks so cute next to the vitamin water!)
Another change I made was that I used my fluffy peanut butter frosting recipe for the filling in between the layers. Overall I was pretty happy with how the cake turned out. I know my frosting skills definitely have room for improvement, though! Guess I’m gonna just have to make more cake. Practice makes perfect, right? ;)

Layered Cake for One

(idea from Picky-Palate)

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chip, melted

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spry 12.5 ounce can or large ramekin with non stick cooking spray.

2.  Place flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, baking soda, egg, oil and vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Melt chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals until smooth. Pour into bowl and mix all ingredients until well combined. Mix in melted chocolate chips

3.  Pour batter into prepared can or ramekin and bake for 28-32 minutes or until baked through. Remove and loosen edges with a knife. Let cool for 10 minutes then remove from can or ramekin by flipping over firmly. Let cool completely then cut in half lengthwise.

4. Fill with frosting of your choice, I used my fluffy peanut butter frosting recipe and quartered the ingredients to make a smaller amount. Top with other half of cake.

5. Frost with chocolate frosting. Top with additional desired toppings.

Chocolate Frosting

(from Picky Palate)

1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

  1.  Place chocolate chips in microwave safe bowl and melt in 30 second intervals until smooth.
  2.  Place butter and powdered sugar in small bowl, mixing to combine and add melted chocolate, mixing until combined.

Random Fact of the Day: The odds are 1 out of 4 (25%) that the pork in a pork hot dog originated in Iowa.

An Ode to Gram

Gram was the grandparent that I knew best. She was always there until last Sunday. She is of course still here in spirit, but it will never be the same.

Not to be a downer though, because that is not what I’m going for on here at all. Gram was not the same for the past year and a half. Every visit, there would be another little piece of her that was goneg.   She would forget many things, and we would become just friendly strangers to her. Deep down, I believe she knew she loved us, she just couldn’t remember how she knew us.

There are so many memories I have of Gram, that will never leave my heart. She was a woman who knew how she was gonna do things. She was very straight forward. Reading her recipes is always interesting if you have never made them with her before. She wasn’t a big fan on the whole instructions concept.

Gram was a wonderful cook and baker. Thankfully she has passed down many of her culinary skills to my mother, who I have gotten to learn from. One of my favorite memories of her was that she would always have this red tin that was always full of yummy goodies. Every time we visited her she would hide it in a new spot and it would be a little game for me and my siblings to find it.

I always loved having sleepovers at her house. It was great, we would have a yummy dinner, of course followed by dessert, then maybe watch a movie or TV, after that I would sleep in one of the bedrooms. This part was always a little iffy, I had the strangest tendency to fall off the bed. Weirdly enough, I would stay asleep after I fell. Gram would then bring me to her room, and I would wake up in the morning to her smell right beside me. If I could bottle up her scent, I totally would. She did not smell like a stinky old person! She had the best smell ever, like a nice soft flowery Dove soap smell. I don’t know how she did it, but I hope I inherit her scent!! ;)

Another favorite memory was when I would go out to lunch with her and my mom. We would often go to Culvers or pick up Wendy’s and have it at her house. Now, I don’t know why these were the two main food choices but they just were. Quite honestly I had no problem with either place’s chicken nuggets or tenders. And they both had delicious ice cream treats to follow. Wendy’s-frosty and Culvers-frozen custard. Gram was always pretty consistent and you knew what to expect. She was someone I loved to visit, and it is going to be so hard to let her go.

Okay, last memory. I promise! For now… anyways this is just kind of a funny one. I remember one day when we went to visit her, she had to practice for her driving test to renew her license. Holy car sickness. I had gone way too many times backwards around a curb with her practicing. There was more backing out of driveways than I had ever thought was possible. And she certainly had the whole parallel parking down. Erm..eventually. I’m not sure if she actually drove that much after she renewed her license, anyways. Thank you for listening and visiting the blog, I hope I didn’t bore you too much with the Gram stories! I just had to let it all out, and I didn’t feel like getting all sappy on here.

I almost forgot!!! The recipe for today is a recipe in honor of Gram.

I’ve made  her coffee cake on here before which is one of my favorites, but I decided to try a new one of hers that I hadn’t made before. These cookies sounded pretty interesting to me. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of them because for some reason oats and chocolate have always seemed like an unlikely combination to me. Boy, was I off!!! These suckers are amazing. Seriously, these have got to be the best looking cookies I’ve ever made. And the taste, well the taste is absolutely insane.These cookies are super delicious, and I cannot wait to make them again! Give them a shot, I promise you won’t regret it.

Cake Cookies

(from the one and only, Gram-miss you so much already)

1 box cake mix (I used Devil’s Food Cake)

6 oz. Chocolate Chips

1/2 cup oatmeal

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Mix all ingredients together in bowl.
  3. Scoop dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes in preheated oven.

(Makes about 46 cookies)

Nutrition Facts: 46 servings, serving size: 1 cookie, calories: 89, Total Fat: 4.6 g.

** What do you think of me adding the nutrition facts? Do you like it or not? I can’t decide whether I should add it with my recipes or not. If I add it should I add anything besides what I’ve got up there? If you ever want to figure out the nutrition facts in one of your recipes it is very easy if you go here.


Random Fact of the Day: 
Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue. I don’t really understand how people figure this out, unless they’ve got some crazy way of talking to birds nowadays.

Fabulous M&M Cookies

I love the word fabulous! Thing is…I never actually say it myself

But I love it when other people say it to me. For example: Your outfit looks so fabulous today! Your cookies taste just fabulous! Or just simply, “You’re fabulous!”

Anyways, these cookies are fabulous. I went into these cookies with mediocre expectations.

I’ve already got an awesome M&M Cookies recipe, why try another?

Because people, Jessica is an evil genius!! Seriously, how could I doubt one of her recipes?

Giant Puffy-ish M&M Cookies

(adapted from How Sweet It Is)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup plus 2 T. whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) of  butter, melted and cooled (I used 11 tablespoon..I don’t know why)

pinch of salt

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup m&m’s (or something else that you love)

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2.  Mix the butter and sugars until they are combined. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and stir until mixed. Gradually add flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix until a dough forms – it will look crumbly at first, but it will come together. Fold in the m&m’s.
  3. Scoop dough with cookie scoop and place on cookie sheet with the flat side down, scoop another scoop of cookie dough and have the round side facing the other scoop’s round side. It should look like the picture I have above.
  4. Bake for 12-15 minutes (large cookies) or 8-12 minutes (small cookies) or until the edges are slightly brown. The centers should be soft and puffy. Do not over bake. Let cool completely on wire rack.Random Fact of the Day: The first Fords had engines made by Dodge.

WAIT! If you wanna keep your legs nice and toasty this Fall, enter for this giveaway!! (They’re fabulous, ;) )

Mademoiselle Mermaid Handmade Giveaway

Finally tried pudding in my cookies!

Seriously, what took me so long to hop on the pudding mix in cookies band wagon???

Quick side note…Do you know how the saying “hopping on the bandwagon” came about? In the olden days there would be a parade with a band playing on a wagon float thing and people would literally hop on it if they liked it! Learned something new, huh?Anyways, if you haven’t tried pudding mix in your cookies…do it! If you have already…then you certainly know what I’m talking about. Make them again..and repeat for like ever! These cookies are almost indescribable. They’ve got that amazing texture with the perfect softness, almost cakey, but then have the perfect chewiness. These babies really can’t be beat!

Vanilla Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

(adapted JustJENN)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 small box (3.4 ounces) Vanilla Pudding

12 ounces chocolate chips

  1. Preheat the oven the 350 degrees F.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar, until combined. Add the eggs and the vanilla.
  3. Mix in the the flour, baking soda, salt and vanilla pudding.
  4. Then stir in the chocolate chips.
  5. Scoop dough onto baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutesRandom Fact of the Day: More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each year from using products that are made for right-handed people.