Individual Oreo Cheesecakes

          Oh Yummm! I recently hosted a Lia Sophia jewelery party, and served theses beautiful and delicious individual, no-bake, cheesecakes! But, unfortunately I won't be able to share the recipe with you... it's a family secret... Just kidding! today is your lucky day because you too can make these beautiful little gems!

No Bake Oreo Cheesecake

45 Oreo Cookies (divided)

2 1/2 Cups Oreo Crumbs

2/3 Cup Butter Melted

1 Pkg. Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Softened

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 Tub Cool Whip, Softened

Crust:

Line a 9"x13" pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Coarsely chop  the oreos,  saving a few as a garnish for later. Set aside. Put oreo crumbs, and melted butter in bowl, and mix well. Add 1/2 of the chopped oreos. Press into the bottom of the pan, and refrigerate while preparing filling. 

Filling :

Beat the cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl, until well blended. Gently stir in cool whip and the other 1/2 of the chopped oreos. Spoon the filling over the crust and refridgerate four hours or until firm. Use the last few whole oreos to garnish, you may break them if you wish, or use them whole.

Note: As you can tell, this recipe is for a 9"x13" pan, to make them individual, just follow the same recipe, only instead put it in FOIL LINED cupcake papers.

Now you just have to invite your girlfriends over and your set! Enjoy!

Mississippi Mud Cake

I'm not really one for pumpkin pie. Usually people say that's crazy, but really, who makes pie out of large round objects? Well this past thanksgiving mom was going to serve pumpkin pie to us and I asked if I could make dessert (wasn't that nice of me?). She is always happy to let me bake, so I made this delicious  Mississippi Mud Cake.

Mississippi Mud Cake

1 Cup Brown Sugar (I use sucanat)
1 3/4 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
2 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
5 Squares of Bakers Unsweetened Chocolate
1 Cup Strong Black Coffee (lukewarm)
3/4 Cup Sour Cream
1/4 Olive Oil

Topping:

2 Cups Miniature Marshmallows
1 Cup Chopped Nuts
Chocolate Sauce

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients for the cake in a large mixing bowl and beat on high for 2 minutes. Pour batter into a greased 9" springform pan. Bake for about 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center. Sprinkle with marshmallows and nuts and bake 5 more minutes. remove from oven and cool a bit. drizzle with chocolate sauce and serve. Can be served warm or at room temperature.

Creamy Dreamy Chocolate Cupcakes

I am so happy! Can you guess why? We got a new computer! The old one was getting so slow it would take ten minutes to upload a picture, and half the time there would be an error, so blogging was almost impossible to do. That's part of the reason I didn't blog all summer. The other reason is that I went to visit my Uncle and Aunt in Ontario! It was the first time I had ever been that far away from home. But anyways, I made some....gasp...cupcakes. The recipe book called them "Chocolate Cheese Cupcakes" but what kind of a name is that? I mean really, it's quite nasty. But don't fret, my best friend and author of  "Jacy's Food Blog" helped me come up with a better name! Try "Creamy Dreamy Chocolate Cupcakes"! That name gets me so excited!

Wow! Did that ever load fast...oops, back to the cupcakes. Yes, although they may look a little funny, you'll change your mind as soon as you take your first bite, perhaps even sooner. 

Creamy Dreamy Chocolate Cupcakes

1 1/2 Cups Flour (I used whole wheat)
1/2 Cup Sugar (I uses Sucanat)
1/4 Cup Cocoa
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 Tsp. Salt
1 Cup Water
5 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Vinegar (I used organic apple cider vinegar with mother)
1 tsp. Vanilla


Chocolate Chip Filling:


1 8-oz Package of Cream Cheese
1/3 Cup of Sugar (again, I used Sucanat)
1 Egg
1 6-oz Package of Chocolate Chips


In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt. in a second bowl, beat together the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Gradually add this to the dry ingredients, beating until smooth. Fill 18 paper lined cupcake tins about half full of batter. Set aside and make filling.  To make the filling  beat the cream cheese, sugar, and eggs together in a small mixing bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips. Now top each cupcake with about a tablespoon of the batter, and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until top springs back when pressed. 

Enjoy these wonderful cupcakes, but don't forget to share!

Cupcakes

     I know it's been a while, but.... I get tired of saying that, and I'm sure you get tired of reading it too! So never mind that, I'm posting right now and that's all that really matters. So lately I've been busy sewing. I don't really have any finished projects to put up here since the dress I just made looks like a maternity dress, and it's just way to embarrassing to show you. But along with my sewing kick, I have been getting sewing books from the library, one of which is called "Bend the Rules Sewing" by Amy Karol. The name itself describes the way I sew! Here is a little quote from the book that I very much enjoyed, "When you do make a mistake, try to laugh about it, cut yourself some slack, and eat a cupcake." I'm telling you, this book is perfect for me! So, after reading that I just had to make some cupcakes (since I can't seem to sew without making mistakes!)


Here are the cupcakes I made, the recipe is for a cake, but it worked great for making cupcakes.

Sour Milk Chocolate Cake
I know, the name doesn't sound to appealing, but i didn't choose it!

1/2 Cup Cocoa

1/2 Cup Hot Water

1/2 Cup Butter

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1/2 Cup Sour Milk

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

2 Tsp Vanilla

2 Cups Flour

Add hot water to cocoa and cool. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, milk, soda, vanilla, cocoa mixture and lastly flour. Bake at 350 degrees. For a cake bake in a 8x12" pan for 35-40 minutes. For cupcakes bake bake for 12-15 minutes or until done.

Here are a few pictures of the my cupcake making just for fun :)

 Batter in the pans.

 Baked!

 Cooling.

Decorated! Enjoy!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

Hi Everyone! Sorry its been so long. I got locked out of my own blog for some unknown reason, and just finally managed to log in today. But, seeing as that doesn't really matter, here is a beautiful cake that you need to make!

I'm sorry, the pictures aren't very good today, but you at least can sort of get the idea. Here is a side view:

Well sort of a side view I guess. Here's what it looked liked on the inside:

And here is what it looked like on my plate with ice-cream:

Yummm.... Now that your tired out from all the pictures here is the recipe:

Chocolate Cake Recipe

1 Cup Milk
3/4 Cup Cocoa
1 Cup Unsweetened Applesauce
1 Tbsp. Vanilla Extract
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 Cups Sucanat
1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp. Sea Salt
4 Large Egg Whites at room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 9 inch round cake pans (You can also use one 9x13 inch pan if you would like) with olive oil and dust with whole wheat flour.

2. Heat the milk in a medium saucepan until barely simmering. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa until thickened and almost smooth (some clumps will remain). Let stand 2-3 minutes to cool slightly. Whisk in the applesauce and vanilla extract.

3. Mix the flour, 1 1/4 cups of the sucanat, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

4. Beat the egg whites in a medium sized mixing bowl with an electric mixer until thick and foamy. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/4 Cup of sucanat and continue beating until still peaks form when the beaters are lifted.

5. Pour the cocoa mixture over the whole wheat flour (and other dry ingredients). Stir just until blended.

6. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in about a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolatey flour mixture. Gradually fold in remaining egg whites until no white streaks remain.

7. Pour batter into prepared pans (or pan)

8. Bake for 25-30 minutes (this depends on the pan or pans you are using), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

9. Cool completely and then decorate!


For the cake I made I used this recipe using the two pans. When they were done (cooled and out of the pan) I made my own icing, using whipping cream, vanilla pudding mix, and strawberry jell-o mix. The icing was my own concoction so I don't really have a recipe for it, but it's something along these lines.

Pour a about 1 litre of whipping cream in a medium sized bowl, Whip until it gets quite foamy, but still rather runny. Add a bit of vanilla pudding mix and whip just until mixed in. It should be pretty thick. Add a bit of strawberry jell-o mix and finish whipping until rather firm and spreadable. I added the Jell-o mix until it had a nice color and a nice flavor.

I'm sorry if the recipe isn't very clear, I really should have written it down while I was making it, but in all truth, I wasn't sure if it was even going to work out.

Now, I finished up the cake by icing the top of the bottom cake, adding sliced strawberries, then staking the other cake on top. I then iced the whole cake and had fun putting strawberries on. For the strawberry in the middle I dipped it in chocolate, for the chocolate drizzled strawberries I piped melted chocolate on them. As for the flowers on the sides, I piped them onto waxed paper, froze them for about half an hour and then carefully peeled them off and put them wherever I wanted. I have never piped chocolate before, this was just kind of an experiment, but all I did was melt chocolate, but it in a plastic bag, cut off the corned, and then piped. Now the plastic bag ripped a few times, do I would recommend using a piping bag if you have one. I just don't think the plastic stands up to the heat very well. Here is a website that tells you more in depth on how to pipe chocolate if your interested. And here my friends is the chocolate I piped:

This cake may look intimidating, but trust me, it's easier than it looks and it's a whole heap of fun!

Monster Cookies

Here in beautiful Whitecourt, Alberta, it is finally warming up. I am finally able to wear shorts and they other day I even brought my younger brothers to the park.. In my opinion this calls for a celebration! How about we head out for a walk in the beautiful sunshine and when we get back, we can reward ourselves with some delicious monster cookies.

Monster Cookies

6 Eggs
2 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla
1/2 Tbsp. Corn Syrup
4 Tsp. Baking Soda
1 Cup Butter
3 Cups Peanut Butter
9 Cups Oatmeal
1/2 lb Chocolate Chips (I just add until I think looks good.I don't measure)
1/2 lb Smarties (The same goes for the Smarties, I don't measure, I just add)

Mix in order given. Bake at 350 Degrees for 12 minutes (The time depends on how big you make them. I did mine for 8 minutes) Make sure you do not over bake. Not that these do not contain flour.

Clean Eating Cheesecake

Happy Easter everybody! I hope you all had a fantastic day!

For supper this evening we ended with this super delicious clean eating cheesecake. It was so good, that I thought I'd share it with you :)

Clean Eating Cheesecake

Crust

1 1/4 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs

 2-3 tsp 100% Apple Juice (I just added the juice until the crumbs stuck together enough for my liking. Also I used a 100% Mixed Fruit Juice, and it worked fine, you can't taste it anyways.)

Filling

1 lb Cream Cheese (400g)

1/2 Cup Plain Yogurt (I used Vanilla that's all we had)

1/2 Cup Sucanat (I used 1/4 Cup because of the yogurt)

2 Large Egg Whites

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

1/8 Tsp Sea Salt

Directions

1)Crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch pie pan or spring form pan with olive oil. In a small bowl mix the graham cracker crumbs with juice until crumbly. Place mixture in prepared pan, gently pressing onto the bottom and partly up the sides of the pan.

2)Filling: Place all filling ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Gently pour filling into the crumb lined pan. Spread evenly.

3)Bake for 20 minutes or until center sets. It's ready when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Chill several hours or overnight.

4)Garnish. This is the fun part. Basically whatever you put on it decides the flavor. The one I made is chocolate, peanut butter, and banana. The original recipe, which you can find here, uses strawberries.

The cheese cake is not very tall, in fact it is rather short, so don't be alarmed. As I just stated in step #4 my cheesecake was chocolate, peanut butter, and banana. I sliced bananas over top right before serving, and drizzled melted chocolate and peanut butter sauce over top. Here is the recipe I used for the peanut butter sauce if you are interested.

Peanut Butter Sauce Royal

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1/3 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup Liquid Honey

1 Tbsp. Butter

1/3 Cup Smooth or Crunchy Peanut Butter

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, milk, honey and butter. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat: add peanut butter and beat with beater until smooth. Cool before serving. Yields  one cup of sauce. Great for topping ice-cream.