3/4 c. flour

1/2 c. sugar

3 Tbsp. cocoa

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 c. buttermilk

3 Tbsp.  vegetable oil

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c. freshly brewed hot coffee

Glaze or coating of your choice ( I used Mint Chocolate Discs)

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Add buttermilk, vegetable oil, egg and vanilla. Use a mixer to blend until ingredients are smooth.

Add coffee and mix until coffee is well blended.

Fill each little reservoir with exactly 1 tablespoon of batter.

Bake 5 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. (Five minutes was perfect for me)

Remove and place on cookie sheet. Put them in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Prepare your coating per package instructions. Dip your pop sticks into the coating, then insert into your little chilled cakes. Dip your chilled little cakes into coating and let set up.

For decorations, apply them before your frosting sets up. Use sprinkle, nuts, etc.

Absolutely delicious!

Equipment:

***Note:

This recipe is for the cake pop maker. It can easily be made without the little baker. Pour your batter into a cake pan. Bake at 350 F until cake is done. Remove the cake from the pan and let cool just enough so you can handle it.  Crumble up your cake into a large bowl. Using your hands, press the cake crumbs into a small ball shape, about the size of a large walnut. (With the warm cake crumbs I never have problem getting the balls to hold their shape, but if you do, add just enough of a canned frosting to you cake crumbs. Use one that compliments the cake you have made. Mix in the frosting well to combine with your cake crumbs. With your hands shape the warm cake into little balls, pressing them firmly into a ball shape. Place in freezer for 15 minutes to set up and hold their shape,  you aren’t trying to actually freeze the little balls.  Continue on with coating your little cakes.

You can make these using any cake mix or cookie mix. Cook cake mix according to box directions. If you are using a cookie mix, drop the cookie mix by spoonfuls on a cookie sheet and cook according to box or directions, under cooking them by a minute. Crumble the cookies just like you would do with a baked cake.

If you are making these by hand, a cake baller is a great little tool to have:

Fill a dutch oven or other large pot half way full of water and add:

1 pound of carrots, peeled and slice into small discs.
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced into rings
A few medium hot peppers, diced finely ( I just go to my pepper sauce jar, get out a couple of those tiny little peppers and diced them fine. If you have one, a small red pepper will work, or if you have a jar of jalapeno peppers, some of those diced will also work)

Simmer until carrots are the texture you want. I like mine soft, some people like theirs more crunchy. When carrots are the doneness you prefer, pour everything into a strainer. Then using a cup, put them into your jars. (I use the wide mouth Ball canning jars)

Make the brine:

1 cup sugar
1 can tomato soup
½ c. cider vinegar
½ c. canola oil

Bring all to a boil. Reduce heat and gentle simmer until sugar is all dissolved and continue to simmer for about about 3 minutes.

Pour on your vinegar mixture to cover carrots. Seal and let cool. Once cooled placed in the fridge. They will last a month to 6 weeks supposedly….I never have any left after a week!
Fill a dutch oven or other large pot half way full of water and add:
1 pound of carrots, peeled and slice into small discs.
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced into rings
A few medium hot peppers, diced finely ( I just go to my pepper sauce jar, get out a couple of those tiny little peppers and diced them fine. If you have one, a small red pepper will work, or if you have a jar of jalapeno peppers, some of those diced will also work)

Simmer until carrots are the texture you want. I like mine soft, some people like theirs more crunchy. When carrots are the doneness you prefer, pour everything into a strainer. Then using a cup, put them into your jars. (I use the wide mouth Ball canning jars)

Make the brine:

1 cup sugar
1 can tomato soup
½ c. cider vinegar
½ c. canola oil

Bring all to a boil. Reduce heat and gentle simmer until sugar is all dissolved and continue to simmer for about about 3 minutes.

Pour on your vinegar mixture to cover carrots. Seal and let cool. Once cooled placed in the fridge. They will last a month to 6 weeks supposedly….I never have any left after a week!

This is such a terrific soup and new way to serve the traditional Southern Chicken and Dumplings. Today it is cold and rainy here and tonight this soup really hit the spot.

Very easy to make, and is great heated over the next day. But if for some reason, you have leftovers, it does freeze great.

Ingredients:

Soup:

3 medium skinless chicken breast

2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1 cup diced onions

1 cup diced celery

1 cup diced carrots

2 cans chicken noodle soup ( will explain how these are used later)

3 cans chicken broth

Salt and Freshly ground pepper

Dumplings:

2 c. self rising flour

1 cup crushed croutons, original flavor

2 Tbsp. unsalted melted butter ( or canola oil)

1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

good pinch of salt

1 1/4 cups milk ( I just used 2% milk since that is what I buy)

In a very large stock pot, place two tablespoons unsalted butter. Begin to melt on medium high heat.

Salt and pepper your chicken breast generously. Add to your melted butter and cook for 4 minutes, turning once during cooking.  Remove from pot and set aside.

Add the celery and onions to your stock pot. Cook until tender. While celery and onions are cooking, peel carrots and place whole carrots in microwave. Cook on high 4 minutes. Check for tenderness….if not semi tender, continue cooking, checking every 2 minutes until they are a firm fork tender. Remove from microwave and dice. Add these to your stock pot.

Take the chicken breast you have set aside and dice your chicken into bite size pieces. Add your diced chicken back to stock pot. Cook until chicken is no longer pink.

Place your two cans of chicken noodle soup in a large bowl. Add two cans of water, mix to combine. Place strainer over your stock post and pour in your soup mixture. You only want the liquid part in your soup. Save the noodles for a later dish or discard them. ( I fed my noodles to my Anatolians, they were so excited to get the noodles as a treat!)

Bring your mixture to a medium boil and add your three cans of chicken stock. Cook 15 minutes.

Time to make your dumplings:

In a medium size bowl add all your ingredients. Stir with a fork to mix thoroughly. Using a teaspoon, (regular dining teaspoon, not measuring spoon) scoop up a heaping teaspoon of your dumpling mixture. With your fingers press the mixture into a ball, not firmly packed, but press together enough for it to hold it’s shape. Drop into your soup mixture.

Simmer on medium low for 15 to 20 minutes until your dumplings are cooked through.

Soup is ready to serve. This is so delicious!

A little tradition of ours is ending each year with a batch of peanut butter cookies. On New Year’s Eve of the first year my hubby and I were married, I asked him what cookie that I had baked during the year was his favorite.  He loves cookies which meant during the year I  had baked a lot of cookies. After giving it  a lot of thought, he said for just a simply all around good cookie, his favorite was the peanut butter cookies. Each year since then on New Year’s Eve, I have baked a big batch of these old fashioned peanut butter cookies, using the exact same recipe each year. You really can’t go wrong with this recipe. They are delicious, easy and always turn out perfect.

Preheat oven 375F

1/2 Crisco

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

1 c. granulated sugar

1 c. brown sugar, semi packed

1 c. smooth peanut butter (if you like, use chunky)

2 eggs, beaten

3 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and Crisco. Add sugars and mix. Add  peanut butter and eggs, mix well. Add flour, baking soda and salt, mix well. Add vanilla, mix.

Shape into marble size balls, not quiet as big as a walnut. Place balls one inch apart on buttered or parchment lined cookie sheet. Using a fork, press cookies down twice, making that cute little mark with fork.

Bake at 375F for 9-10 minutes or until they are lightly golden brown.

***In my large oven, I bake them 10 minutes. In my smaller wall oven, I bake them 9 minutes.

Cool. Store in layers, with a paper towel between each layer.

When adding flour to a recipe, if the flour stays in the shape of the measuring cup used, then you have added too much flour. Remove about 2 tablespoons of flour before continuing on with your recipe.

Never think table salt and Kosher salt are interchangeable in your recipes. 1 tsp. of table salt and 1 tsp. of Kosher salt are not the same thing. If the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt, by substituting 1 teaspoon of table salt, you will end up with a recipe that is more salty than was intended.  The tiny grains of table salt pack together much closer, giving you more salt. On the other hand if your salt is measured by weight, then table salt is interchangeable because you are weighing not measuring your salt. 

1 teaspoon of table salt equals 1 1/4 teaspoon of Kosher salt.

When measuring salt, Kosher salt and sea salt are interchangeable due to the grains being about equal in size. 

What you need:

2 Granny Smith apples, peeled

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (may need a little more, never hurts to have 3/4 c. on hand)

1/3 c. brown sugar

2 cans crescent rolls

2 stick of butter

1 1/2  c. granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

cinnamon for topping

Preheat oven to 350F.

Take your peeled apples and slice each apple into 8 slices.

Separate your crescent rolls and lay them on a flat surface. On the wide end, sprinkle just a little of your chopped pecans. Place one slice of your apple on top of pecans. Sprinkle on just a little bit of the brown sugar and roll up. Place the roll seam side down into a buttered 9 x 13 baking dish.

Melt your butter, add your sugar and mix. Do not try to mix this thoroughly, just mix it a little, sugar doesn’t need to be completely dissolved. Add your vanilla. Stir again, just a little bit. Your mixture will be a little thick and lumpy, this is OK.

Pour your  hot butter/sugar mixture evenly as possible on top of your crescent rolls. Pour your can of 7 up around the edges of your crescent rolls and in between them. Sprinkle cinnamon over your entire dish, be generous!

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes, until nice and brown.  Serve while hot. Naturally this is even better when served with a big scoop of ice cream.

**I have made this using sliced peaches from a can. Yummy also.

What you will need:

4 large skinless, boneless chicken breast

1 pkg of taco seasoning mix

1 jar of your favorite salsa

1 regular size can of 7-Up

This can be done completely in your crock pot, but I prefer to cook my chicken first and shred it. Just place your chicken in a dutch oven and cook until done. Shred your chicken.

In your crock pot, add your shredded chicken. Pour the can of 7-Up on top of your chicken. Next pour on the jar of salsa. Lastly, sprinkle your package of taco seasoning evenly on top.  Cook in your crock pot for 2 hours on medium setting.

**If you are cooking the entire dish in the crock pot. Add your raw chicken breast, then 7-Up, the salsa, then taco seasoning. Cook 3 hours on high. Remove chicken, shred it and return to your crock pot. Cook an additional 2 hours on medium.

1 1/2 c. butter, soften (3 sticks)
1 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. really good vanilla (Bourbon Tahitian Vanilla for these)
3 c. flour
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. (6 oz) semisweet mini chocolate chips
2/3 c. raspberry preserves
Powdered sugar (use this if you don’t freeze the cookies)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease cookie sheets. With your mixer, beat butter and sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla until light and fluffy. In separate bowl, mix flour, cocoa and salt until combined. Add flour mixture slowly into butter mixture and beat until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

Roll level tablespoonfuls of dough into balls. Place 2-inches a part on cookie sheet. Make deep indentation in center of each ball with thumb.

Fill center with raspberry preserves. Do not overfill.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes until just set. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

If you aren’t going to freeze these you can dust them with powdered sugar or even more cocoa.

Store them between layers of waxed paper in airtight containers.

You may freeze them individually, then stack them with waxed paper in between layers and freeze for up to 1 month.

Makes: 4 1/2 dozen cookies

I baked my in the upper 1/3 of the oven and on parchment paper.

Vanilla
Since these are chocolate cookies, use your best vanilla. I used a really good Bourbon Tahitian Vanilla.

Chocolate Chips:
This dough is just to stiff for me to stir in the chocolate chips, so I add them last to the batter in the mixer. No chips were broken, so I would advise adding them this way.

Baking Time:
I only baked mine 11 minutes, they were perfect.
Since this is a very stiff dough and they are fairly small, the cookies will dry out quickly while baking. I found out years ago that you can so easily over bake them. After 10 minutes check them, they are probably just about done.

from: Sandra Benefield

Bring to a boil 1 cup of granulated sugar and 1 cup of Karo syrup.

Remove from heat and add 1 tsp. vanilla extract and 1 1/2 cups of smooth peanut butter. Mix well.

In a large bowl combine your peanut butter/sugar mixture  with 7 cups of cornflakes. Mix together and spread evenly into a buttered 9 x 13 dish. Let set up and slice.

Note* This will set up really hard, so it is best to slice it into squares before it gets too hard.

Note* You can also make this into bite size pieces by just dropping big spoonfuls of your mixture onto waxed paper or parchment paper. Let it set up.

If you like nuts and coconut, you might like to try the following version:

Bring to a boil 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 cup Karo syrup, and 1/2 cup of cream. Boil until soft ball stage. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 cup of peanut butter.

Mix together in a large bowl 4 cups of cornflakes, 1 cup of coconut and 1 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts). Pour your sugar/syrup mixture over and mix well to combine.

Drop onto waxed paper or place in buttered 9 x 13 dish.

Preheat oven to 350F

Line baking sheet with parchment paper.  Cover paper with a layer of saltine crackers.

Break up salted pretzels and sprinkle over the cracker layer.

In pot on stove add:

2 sticks butter

1 c. sugar

Pinch salt

Bring to a boil and remove from stove. Pour your butter mixture over top of pretzels.

Bake 7- 10 minutes at 350F.

Remove and sprinkle chocolate chips over top .

Turn oven off, return pan to oven, leave door open, let stay until chocolate melts.

Remove from oven. Use a spatula to smooth out chocolate evenly.

Place in fridge until set.

***Hint: Remove pan from fridge and flip out onto clean surface. Peel  away paper. Then cut or break into pieces.

You may like to substitute peanut butter or butterscotch chips for the chocolate chips. If you like, you can add miniature marshmallows and/or crushed peppermint candy.

2 pkgs. active dry yeast

1/2 c. warm water ( about 110 degrees)

4 c. AP flour

1/4 c. plus 2 Tbsp. sugar

10 Tbsp. butter, melted and cooled

1 egg

1 c. sourdough starter, at room temperature

1/2 c. warm milk (about 110 degrees)

In a small bowl, dissolve your yeast in the warm water. In a large bowl of your mixer add 2 cups flour, sugar, and salt. Mix on very low speed to combine. To this mixture, add 6 tablespoons of the melted butter, the egg, the sourdough starter and the milk.

Using a heavy duty mixer, beat for about 5 minutes or until mixture is well blended and smooth. Gradually beat in the remaining 2 cups of flour. Cover bowl and let rise in a warm place until dough has doubled in size (about 45 minutes).

Grease your muffin tins. (I used one tin that holds 12 muffins and a smaller tin that holds 6 muffing) Take 2 of the remaining tablespoons of melted butter and place it in each individual greased muffin tin. Shake the tin to distribute the butter on the bottom of the cups. Gently stir down your dough. You aren’t mixing, so take it easy handling the dough. With a regular tablespoon from your dinner service, spoon heaping spoonfuls of dough into each muffin cup. Dough is thick, so just heap on as much dough as you can then push it off with your fingers into the cups. Make sure dough covers the bottom of each cup. Cover your tins with plastic wrap.

Let rise in a warm place until they are light and puffy. (about 30 minutes) You are filling the cups 3/4 full and when risen they will be nicely above the tops of the tins.

While muffins are rising, preheat your oven to 425F.

Drizzle the last 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the top of each risen muffin. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until browned. You should check at the end of 12 minutes, mine were done then.

Turn out onto rack immediately and serve them nice and hot. Recipe makes 18 rolls.

You will notice one roll is missing. Hubby walked by as I was getting them from the oven and he took one. This seems to always happen, especially if I am planning on taking a photo. Oh well, it is a sure sign that he knew they were good and couldn’t wait until I served them.

You can make these rolls to be pull-apart rolls. Just grease a 9 x 13-inch baking pan. Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter and add to greased pan. Tilt the pan to coat bottom with melted butter. Drop spoonfuls of dough into pan in a row and fill the pan. Bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes. You can get 15 rolls in the pan using this method.

Note:

For the sourdough starter, any starter you have on hand will do. In this recipe, I used an Alaskan starter, I love it. It is a lively little starter. This particular recipe calls for two packages of yeast, so you really do get a light fluffy roll.

Yummy recipe. I really give it a great big ‘thumbs up’.