Tag Archives: Christmas

Week In Review (4/16-4/20)

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Monday I shared with you the delicious cake I made to celebrate my mom’s birthday!! It was awesome getting to celebrate my mom’s day with this cake.

Tuesday I went with my prom date to go pick out his tux and all the little accessories that go with it. I never knew what cuff links were until this day… always just thought they were little decorative clips that some kids gave to their dad’s for Christmas. And um can I just say this looks like the most awesome thing in the history of ever! Coffee Faucet

Wednesday was the day the White Chocolate Wonderful ice cream came out. Holy Schmoly. Make THIS! Buy an ice cream maker. Buy White Chocolate Wonderful. DO IT DO IT DO IT.


Friday I showed you guys the yummy coconut cake I made for Easter. I’m convinced this baby could turn coconut haters into coconut freaks! I also got my fake baby for my child development class. It’s just like in the movies for when kids have to take care of fake babies for class…that baby is the reason why my week in review post is later than usual…crying baby=no sleep.

Random Fact of the Day: In the 1920′s popcorn was banned from movie theaters because it was too noisy.

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Santa ClausE and a Handy Spice Rub

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I’d like to start this post out by saying that I really do have a tiny bit of like real intelligence in my brain. Like theres real stuff in there besides oxygen and what not… Anyways for some reason I have though for quite a while now that Santa’s last name is “Clause”. Clause, with an E. It just seems right to me, I don’t know why this has been engrained into my brain. It could be the Santa Clause movie that did it to me, I don’t know.

Well, I recently found out that Santa Clause is spelled with no E. Who knew?! Why would they spell it ClausE in the movie?!!?!!? Seriously..

Anyhow, I found this out on a test. At the end of a physics test I was taking about a week ago there was a question that said “make up your own question and answer it correctly for 2 extra credit points!”. So in my mind I was like “Yesss, I’m gonna make this supaaah easy and just not even make it have anything to do with physics!”. The question I came up with was, “what is Santa’s last name”…my answer? “Clause”. ClausE, ClausE, ClausE! Two extra credit points right out the window there.

Oh well…Now I know. If I didn’t learn anything this semester in physics, at least I learned how to properly spell Santa’s last name.

On a totally different note, I made this spice mix! It’s perfect for EVERYTHING! Except things like cookies and stuff, then it might not be so great. But hey, it’s perfect for chicken, ribs, oven baked fries, you name it!! Personally, I’m a big fan of dry rubs so that’s why this is great to have in my house and we are always using tons of seasoning for everything…especially these. Super simple ingredients that just really make a dish something special!

Spice Rub (Mix)

1/2 cup paprika

2 teaspoons onion powder

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 1/2 teaspoons ground red cayenne pepper

1 T. salt

3 teaspoons fresh ground pepper

2 1/2 T. brown sugar

2 1/2 T. white sugar

Mix all listed ingredients together in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Pour into jar or tupperware container and use as needed to season meats and other foods like oven baked fries (<–can you tell I keep hinting to MAKE THESE)

Random Fact of the Day: The average person tells 4 lies a day or 1460 a year; a total of 87,600 by the age of 60. And the most common lie is: I’m fine.

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Layered Ice Cream Cake

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hello. meet this monster of a cake I made.

This is what happens when you ask for an ice cream cake from me

I get super excited. Then I debate on what flavor ice creams I should have in it.

I can’t decide on one.

I can’t decide on two.

I finally settle on three.

Then I end up with a small mountain. A small, beautiful, delicious mountain of yumminess. Personally, it’s my favorite type of mountain.

This cake was made in honor of my brother’s 23rd birthday. He requested an ice cream cake, and usually we just buy a Coldstone Creamery cake. But what fun is there in that? I decided that it was time we have our very own spectacular homemade ice cream cake. I have no regrets!

Layered Ice Cream Cake

2 round cakes, baked

  • I used just a regular boxed cake mix which worked out great, but if you have the time and have a great cake recipe, by all means..make it!

3 quarts of ice cream, softened (I liked using 3 different flavors, but if you would like to be uniform, I’m sure having consistent flavors would be delicious as well)

  • I used this recipe for my vanilla bean layer
  • I used this recipe for my cookies and cream layer (except I used Oreos instead of the Andes cookies)
  • I used this recipe for my mint chocolate chip layer

Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting  (you may see the recipe below)

Chocolate Ganache (recipe below)

Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting

1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 T. unsweetened cocoa

1/2 cup plus 1/2 T. white sugar

1 1/2 t.  vanilla

2 cups heavy cream

  1. In your mixer, using the whisk attachment, whip up the cream cheese, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined. You might need to scrape down the sides of the bowl here and there.
  2. On low speed, add in the cream and mix until stiff peaks form. You will see the frosting thicken up and it will look so yummy! Frost cake as desired.

Chocolate Ganache

1 3/4 cups chocolate chips or 9 oz. chocolate, chopped (Of course, the better quality chocolate you use, the better ganache you will have)

1 cup heavy cream

  1. Place chocolate in a medium-large heat proof bowl
  2. In a heavy saucepan on medium-high heat, heat cream until boiling. It will increase in volume and climb up to the top of the pan, be sure to take it off the heat before it over flows. Once if it is boiling, you are good to go and may take it off the stove.
  3. Pour hot heavy cream over chocolate and stir. Keep stirring until completely mixed together and combined. Cool for a couple minutes and pour over cake.

HOW TO ASSEMBLE THE CAKE: It’s really quite simple!

***It is key to not that this cake was made over the course of a few days. If you try to make this in one day, I assure you that you will become extremely angry with yourself and the cake. The poor cake. So be sure to plan ahead when you make this and plan accordingly.

  1. Once you have baked your two round cakes, place them in the fridge or freezer. When cakes are fairly solid, cut them in half to make two thin layers. I found it to be much less messier by freezing them, but it did take a bit of muscles to cut them all the way through.
  2. Take your ice cream out of the freezer if you are using store bought and soften it up either on the counter for about 30 minutes, or in the microwave for about 45 seconds or until spreadable. If you are using homemade ice cream, you may take it right out of your ice cream maker when it is finished being made or if you have made it ahead and it is solid, you would do the same as you would do for the store bought. Once ice cream is soft and spreadable, line a round baking pan that is the same size you used for the cakes with saran wrap and spread the ice cream in nice smooth layer. Pop the cake tin filled with ice cream in the freezer for about 4 hours. Different ice creams tend to take different amounts of time, especially depending on whether you are using store-bought or homemade. Store bought freezers faster.
  3. Repeat step 2 for remaining ice cream flavors.
  4. Once ice cream layers are solid, take one of your cut pieces of a cake and place on the plate you plan on serving your cake with. Next, take one ice cream layer out of the freezer and pop it out of the pan and peel off the saran wrap and place on top of bottom cake layer. Top with next cut layer of cake. Add another layer of ice cream. Then layer of cake, and so on until you end with your final layer of cake. Freeze for about a half hour to have everything set up
  5. Make your whipped cream frosting (recipe above). Frost the cake once it has set up pretty well and is sticking all together pretty well. Pop back in the freeze once frosted for about another 30 minutes. While that is in the freezer, make your ganache.
  6. To make the ganache, follow the recipe above. (heat cream, and pour on top of chocolate-short hand version)
  7. Once ganache is made, take frosted cake out of the freezer and pour ganache over the top, allowing it to come down the sides of the cake. Try to pour the ganache in the center of the cake to ensure even amounts of ganache everywhere. Once again, pop the cake back in the freezer until ganache is solid, about another 30 minutes.
  8. Slice the cake up, serve and enjoy!!! :)

Random Fact of the Day: Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the pets in their wallets

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SRC Post!-Brown Sugar Bars

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Hey all!! I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas or happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever else you have been celebrating lately!

As most of you probably already know, I am in the Secret Recipe Club. If you do not know much about it, I recommend looking here! It’s a super fun way to discover new blogging buddies and get your own blog out there a little bit! I know I really have had a ton of fun with it so far, not only looking at the blogs I have been assigned, but also looking at the amazing list of the rest of the bloggers.

Anyways, the blog that I was assigned for this month was Sarah’s blog, called Fanatical Sharing of Recipes. Just after reading the first sentence in Sarah’s “about” page, I gained a huge amount of respect for her. She is a 23 year old mom to two and an army wife. Wow! I can not even imagine how difficult that must be, but hey at least shes got some pretty darn tasty recipes to deal with the lemons she’s been given in her life.

I finally decided to try her Brown Sugar Chewies. To be honest, I had mixed feelings going into this one. For those of you who have read my blog a little before, you have probably notice I’m more of a chocolate kind of gal.

However, these bars are totally amazing! No chocolate and I love them. I repeat: no chocolate… They kind of remind me of a pecan pie. But in bar form, without a crust. They’re just totally delicious and super easy. Give them a try and stop over by Sarah’s blog and say hi!

Brown Sugar Chewies

(from the wonderful Sarah)

1/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting-if desired

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8 x 8 pan.
  2. Melt butter in a small saucepan, but make sure it is big enough that you will be able to fit the rest of the ingredients in there.
  3. Once butter is melted, turn off the heat and add in the brown sugar and stir until it is smooth. Stir in egg. Mix in vanilla and pecans.
  4. Spread batter into prepared pan. The dough may seem hard to spread or it might not seem like enough to fit the pan, but don’t worry, it should be a fairly thin layer. Bake in preheated oven for 20-23 minutes.
  5. Let bars cool and dust with powdered sugar, if desired.



Have a Happy New Year everyone!!!

Random Fact of the Day:  There are 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 ways to shuffle a deck of cards!

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Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a wonderful day today. Enjoy and appreciate your family no matter how much they may drive you crazy, you know you will always have them and they will always have you. Remember what is important today and enjoy your company, food, and the gift of your life that you have been given!

(from left : My brother-Jack, my mom, my doggy-Harry!!, my sister-Brooke, ME :) , my dad)