Reese's Peanut Butter cake

Wow, school is crazy! I am sitting here with a bunch of backed up posts and hope to get a couple more out this week.
This cake was pretty much amazing. It was rich and definitely tasted like peanut butter. Since Reese's Peanut Butter cups are the hubs favorite candy, I made this cake for the hubs on Valentines day and boy did he eat!
I was impressed how easy it was to make this cake and how visually appealing (I thought) it turned out.
I followed the recipe exactly so I am just going to link it back to the original. Enjoy!

Reese's Peanut Butter cake
Source: Annie's Eats

Donut Muffins

I started out the Valentine's Day menu with these delights to tide us over and prepare for a large supper. These were easy and quick but lacked the donut taste I was looking for. They were very good, so don't get me wrong, but I think that because they are baked they lacked that extra goodness.

Donut Muffins

Source Mac&Cheese

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Coating

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup super fine sugar or powdered sugar

Directions

Lightly grease a muffin tin with vegetable spray

Combine sugar and egg until light in color. Add vegetable oil, milk and vanilla to sugar mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour into liquid mixture and stir.

Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool in muffin pan for 10 minutes or so and remove from pan. Dab tops of muffins with butter and roll in sugar.

Peach Crunch Cake

Believe it or not, I can control myself around chocolate. Yes, I think it is one of God's gifts to man but it is also something that I can take a couple bites of a set aside. Now fruit desserts on the other hand, are a major weak spot. One of my all time favorite desserts, besides cheesecake of course, is my Grandma L's apple bars! Amazing! A pan of those little devils never last long. The other day I had a mouth watering craving for a fruit dessert and came across Bakerella's recipe for Peach Crunch cake. I made it, ate it, gave some away and polished off the dish by the weekend. Ouch! Like I said, bars, cookies and cakes can get stale but I planed my day around when I would get to have another piece of this amazing treat. I anticipate myself making this several more times and probably for a couple pot lucks...served warm...oh my goodness, I am struggling not to make this again right now!

Enjoy, I dare to say that you will not regret making this!

Peach Crunch Cake

Source: Bakerella

Ingredients:

24.5 ounce jar of sliced peaches in light syrup (The jar I found was a little bigger and used it all. Still good)

1 yellow cake mix

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) cut into tablespoons or smaller

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place ingredient in a 9x13 and layer ingredients in order as listed above, starting with the peaches.

Cook for 40 minutes

Can serve warm or cold and with or without ice cream. But believe me, warm with ice cream...ahhh...did you hear my stomach growl?

Crock Pot Taco Soup

The hubs has been working out of town during the week and with my crazy school schedule, I have found myself rarely making time for supper or having anything more substantial than cereal. I took this as a time to make something for myself, something that he wouldn't normally eat. The recipe I decided on was Crock Pot Taco Soup and I'm pretty dang glad I did. I was quite happy with the way this turned out and I couldn't have asked for an easier recipe.

Crock Pot Taco Soup

Source: Adapted from AYearOfSlowCooking

Ingredients:

2 cans of kidney beans

2 cans of pinto beans

2 cans of corn

1 large can of diced tomatoes

1 can tomatoes and chile's

1 packet taco seasoning

1 packet ranch dressing mix

1 lb browned ground hamburger

1/4 tsp garlic salt

shredded cheese, sour cream and black olives to garnish

Directions:
1) Brown meat, drain fat and pour into crock pot

2) Sprinkle seasoning packets and garlic salt on top of meat

3) Drain and rinse the beans and add

4) Add the entire contents of the corn and tomato cans

5) Stir, cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5.

Wilton Cake Class, Course 1, Class 2

Three friends and myself recently began the Wilton cake decorating course. After receiving a set of decorating tips for Christmas and not being able to manipulate them, I knew a course would be my best chance for success! Class 1 we learned what supplies we needed, a demonstration of how to frost a cake and a quick preview of some of the things we are going to learn in the following sessions. For Class 2, we got to bring a cake to decorate! I began the night before by attempting to make a rainbow cake. I was SO excited for this cake! However, just like so many other recipes I try, I always manage to fail once before succeeding, hence the picture below.

My rainbow cakes ;(

I believe that I did not cook them long enough because they FELL apart when I tried to remove the pan and place on the wax paper. Up side, (there always has to be an upside, right?) they tasted really good and when I have more time I plan to attempt again. At that point I will list the recipe!

Onto plan B at ten o'clock at night...I made another cake. Just a basic cake mix, Devil's food. When I get a little better at decorating, I plan to make a cake from scratch, but at this point in the semester and in the middle of the week, it just wasn't happening.

The class was a blast and can't wait for the next one. I do have to miss class 3 though as I will be out of town for an internship, but I plan to have one of my friends show me what they did in class and I will try to post that cake later.

My first decorated cake!

Cheesy Sausage Penne

I have been on this cookbook buying spree. Despite having oodles of recipes saved to my google reader, I keep finding magazines with good looking food. The latest one I picked up was Taste of Home's Casseroles, Slow cookers and soups. Initially paging through, I came across at least five different recipes I wanted to try. The first one I made was this little delight. I was a little hesitant at first because you don't mix in the cream cheese/sour cream combination. However, after you dish up and stir it around a little, yum! Now, I thought this was pretty tasty and when one of my best friend J (shown below)was over, I decided to pawn some off on her, so we had it for supper. She was shocked by how good it was and more impressed by how easy it was! I'm winning them over one at a time....

Cheese Sausage Penne

Source: Taste of Home's Casseroles, Slow Cookers and Soups

Ingredients

1 lb bulk Italian sausage

1 garlic clove, minced

1 jar (26 ounces) spaghetti sauce

1 package (16 ounces) uncooked penne pasta

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

1 cup sour cream

4 green onions, sliced

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

*I used fat free cream cheese and sour cream and it tasted great!

Directions

1) In a large skillet, cook the sausage and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in spaghetti sauce; bring to a boil. Reduce heat' cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

2) cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Meanwhile, in small mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, sour cream and onions.

3) In a greased shallow 3-qt baking dish, layer half of the pasta and sausage mixture. Dollop with half of the cream cheese mixture; sprinkle with half of the cheddar cheese. Repeat layers.

4) Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Miss J and I; one of the greatest friends a girl could have ;)

Chocolate Turtle Cake

Happy Valentines Day!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day full of love and appreciation for their significant other! In our household, we celebrated last night with dinner, a movie and exchanged gifts! The hubs scored HUGE brownie points because he got me a kitchen torch and the cutest apron decked out in pink polka dots, rhinestone buckle and embroidered, "Domestic Diva."

I got him a movie and baked a cake. Wow, that boy is hard to buy for!

This Valentine's Day was our eighth 'love day' together! It does not seem like we have been together that long...yet I can barely remember my life before him. Valentine's Day is always one of my favorite holidays because it brings with the lowest amount of stress. I know some people feel that it is a Hallmark holiday, and to each their own, but I don't think it's a bad idea to have an extra day each year to tell each other how much you love them!
Today we celebrated by me cooking a meal, funny how that has become my idea of a good time. We rented movies and I enjoyed listening to the hubs laughing at them as I was in the kitchen. I made us a full meal of turkey, ice cream potatoes, cream cheese corn and homemade buns. It was my first attempt with a turkey and let's just say, "it was falling off the bones."

For dessert I made, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cake, which I will post in a few days because that is the hubs favorite candy!

Now onto the actual post!

I know that this breaks one of the biggest rules in the cooking world but I LOVE box cake mixes. Maybe it because of my minimal skills, poor attention or limited patience but I have yet to make a cake from scratch that I like as much as a cake mix. Eek! I know, I will probably be banished to some far away cooking island, left with only a spear and my imagination, being forced to create a Wilson-like friend to speak to for the rest of my days. Horrible, I know. In time, I do hope to enjoy made-from-scratch cakes more than I do mixes but until that day I found a nifty little cookbook by Miss Betty herself titled, "Ultimate Cake Mix Cookbook." The entire book is filled with bars, pies, cookies and cakes that have some sort of mix as their base. I think the recipes are amazing and perfect for a quick fix!


Chocolate Turtle Cake
Source: Betty Crocker's, Ultimate Cake Mix Cookbook


Ingredients:
1 package Devils food cake mix
1 1/3 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 bag (14 ounces) caramels
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 cup chopped pecans
1 bag (6 ounce) semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 cup)


Directions:
1) Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of 9x13 in pan.
2) Make cake mix according to box using water, oil and eggs. Pour half the mixture into the pan. Bake 25 minutes.
3) Meanwhile, heat caramels and milk in 1 quart saucepan over medium heat about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until caramels are melted. Pour and spread caramel over warm cake in pan. Sprinkle with pecans and chocolate chips. Spread with remaining batter.
4) Bake 30 minutes. Run knife around side of pan to loosen cake. Cook completely, about 1 hour. Serve with ice cream. Store at room temperature.
5) To reheat, place piece of cake in microwave for 10-20 seconds and serve with ice cream.