Strawberry Nutella Milkshake

It’s hot and all I want to do is eat ice cream. Ok, I won’t eat ice cream for every meal. I know I need a better balanced diet than that. I will mix it up and drink a Strawberry Nutella Milkshake. Strawberries and milk are involved so it can’t be that bad for me:) Hey, don’t judge, after you taste this Strawberry Nutella Milkshake you will want to be sipping away with me. Every day. All day.



I fell in love with the strawberry and Nutella combo when I made Strawberry Nutella Muffins. They are amazing! I knew I couldn’t go wrong by creating a Strawberry Nutella Milkshake. Adding ice cream is always a good idea, especially when it is 100 degrees outside.
There are only four ingredients needed to make this glorious milkshake-milk, strawberries, ice cream, and Nutella. Throw everything in the blender and blend until creamy and smooth. You can serve the milkshake plain with no bells and whistles, but I like to go all out. I and add a big spoonful of Nutella to the bottom of my glass. I pour the Strawberry Nutella shake over the creamy Nutella and top the shake with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. I love sipping up little chunks of Nutella and it is a nice surprise at the end.
Cool down and treat yourself to a Strawberry Nutella Milkshake. Grab a straw and get slurping! Just don’t tell your mom I told you to slurp. Manners schmannners!

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Strawberry Nutella Milkshake

Yield: 1 large shake
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes

A thick and creamy milkshake made with milk, strawberries, vanilla ice cream, and Nutella. Garnish with whipped cream and sprinkles and start sipping!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup strawberries
2 big scoops of vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup Nutella
Whipped cream, sprinkles, and extra Nutella, optional for serving

Directions:

1. Add milk, strawberries, vanilla ice cream, and Nutella to a blender. Blend until smooth.
2. Add a spoonful of Nutella to the bottom of a large glass. Pour the milkshake into the glass. Garnish with whipped cream and sprinkles. Serve immediately.

One of the Best Cakes Ever!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake

Right off the bat, I'm going to let you know that I'm not including any recipes directly in this post.

Wait, don't leave!

There will be links to all of the recipes I used, though. This post is more about the IDEA of this cake. It takes basic parts — straight up yellow cake, my favorite buttercream frosting, chocolate chip cookies and a simple no-bake chocolate chip cookie "dough"— and brings them all together into something larger than the sum of it's parts.

Another confession — I first made this cake in February. I know. A thousand apologies, really. I totally meant to write it up way back then, but I don't even know why I didn't. But a couple of weeks ago, a co-worker specifically requested this cake for his birthday. As he put it, "It was the best cake I've ever had." Granted this kid would eat just about anything you gave him because he's a 24-ish year old guy and 24-ish year old guys will eat just about anything you give them. They're just grateful for the free meal. But I still took it as a huge compliment and happily whipped up another cake. Two cakes, actually (they were small).



And 12 cupcakes.



Because I'm crazy.

The inspiration for this cake came from two very talented bakers and bloggers who both happened to be named Amanda. Over at Fake Ginger, Amanda not only bakes beautiful deserts and breads, she's also a wonderful cook with a large collection of delicious and easy recipes. She's a mom of three little boys, so this woman knows the importance of quick, tasty food!

It was Amanda's Cookie Dough Cupcakes that caught my eye. Beautifully photographed and, hello? Cookie dough cupcakes? Sign me up! Obviously the flavors and the no-bake dough are where I got the general idea. The cake part, though, came from another Amanda.

If you follow baking blogs at ALL, you already know Amanda at i am baker. You do know i am baker, right? Do yourself a favor and just scroll through any of her recipe archives. Your jaw will drop and your stomach will growl. This woman is an amazingly talented baker with a flair for making the most over the top incredible cakes that will blow your mind. I'm not kidding.

It was her Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake that became the inspiration for the assembly of this cake. Go take a look at hers, but promise to come back, OK?



You start with a basic cake.

Wait! No, first you want to make cookies. Use your very favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. My new fave is from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert. You can find the recipe here, but I highly recommend you check out the entire book. It's scrumptious.



Make small and medium size cookies if you're making a full-size layer cake.



NOW let's make the cake.

After learning how easy it is to make cake from scratch, I almost always use the 1-2-3-4 cake** you've seen on here a number of times before. There's a reason I keep using it. I tend to be fickle with a lot of recipes, but not this one. I haven't looked around for a new one because this never lets me down. It's always delicious and I always get compliments on it. It's also sturdier than a box mix, so If you plan on making this cake, I would honestly suggest you make a scratch cake.

**PLEASE NOTE: This cake will require 2- 9" cake pans. The recipe link above is for a 9" and a 6" that are cut in half. This cake just uses 2- 9" cakes that are stacked, not sliced in half. Just level the tops with knife before assembly. My apologies for any confusion! 


(Unfortunately the frosting is the same color as the cake here, so it's nearly impossible to see the thick layer of frosting. Bummer. But this was a semi-failed attempt at a brown sugar frosting, so a white buttercream will show up better.)

Next you'll need a basic buttercream. You can use my go-to Best Ever recipe, or your favorite version.

Then you'll need the cookie "dough". Mix it right after you put the cakes in the oven so that it has a chance to set up a bit in the fridge. Makes it easier to form little balls of dough.

And here's where the magic happens. And where the Chocolate Covered Cherry cake inspiration comes in to play. I love the idea of a surprise center in a cake or cupcake and the idea of having the super thick frosting layer, so Amanda's cake stuck in my head and burst forth when I had the epiphany for this cake. Slather a thick layer of frosting in with a bunch of cookie dough balls. Sort of like cookie dough ice cream, but as the center of a cake.

I took the chilled cookie "dough" and made a bunch of small balls.



Then went to work assembling the cake. I put some frosting in a bowl, then added some dough balls, slapped it on the bottom layer.



Added more frosting, filled the gaps with more dough balls then added the top layer...



Then crumb coated the entire cake.



Popped in in the fridge to set up, then finished frosting it. I added medium size cookies around the base and small cookies along the top edge, sprinkled mini chips on the top and (literally) threw mini chips on the side. (It was a hoot. I was flinging chips all over the place.)



Some would stick, some wouldn't, but I just kept flinging until it was coated to my liking.  For the 6" cakes I made for my co-worker's birthday, I just used medium size cookies, which took up the entire sides, then sprinkled chips on the top.





For the cupcakes, I just cut out a cone of cake, stuffed the hole with the no bake cookie "dough"...

(I totally ate almost all of that pile of cake bits. I'm not going to lie.)

...and piped frosting over the top using the Wilton 1M tip, my go-to tip. (It's only about $2 - you totally need to have one, if you don't already. They make your cupcakes look super purdy.)



Topped with mini chips, the cupcakes are ready to go.

So what do you think? Pretty awesome, right? If you have a few hours to wile away on a weekend, give this cake a shot. Someone will probably tell you it's the best cake they've ever had. For reals.

Easter Carrots (Chocolate Covered Strawberries)

Easter Carrots!!!

Servings: 12
Ingredients:

1 pint strawberry, washed and dried
1 (14 ounce) melting chocolate

Directions:

1 . Wash and dry strawberries leaving top on.
2 . Melt chocoate in a double broiler.
3. Dip strawberries holding top and cover as much as possible.
4.  Dry on wax papaer lined cookie sheet
5.  When almost dry, take piece  of dental floss and run through top to look like carrot -- dry completely.

A very simple and delicious recipe for any time of the year (not just Easter!) Very easy and quite and will satisfy any candy craving you may have. 

Healthy Strawberry Lemon Smoothies!

 

 

 

Strawberry Lemon Smoothie

Source: Kim Denney

Ingredients:

1 handful of strawberries, stems cut off

Juice of 1/2 of a lemon

1-2 handfuls of ice (about 3/4 cup)

water (about 3/4 cup)

2 packets of Truvia (all natural sweetener that can be found by the regular white sugar at the store)

Instructions:

Here’s how I do it: I grab a handful of strawberries (as many as I can fit in my little hand). I wash them and then cut off the stems and throw them in the blender (Kim actually uses frozen strawberries). I juice half of a lemon into the blender. I add 2 packets of Truvia. Truvia comes from the Stevia plant and is and calorie free. You could substitute 2 teaspoons of white sugar here but it will have more calories. Then I add water until it almost covers the strawberries. I add 1-2 handfuls of ice. Adjust water and ice to your preferences on thickness and sweetness. Blend well. I double this if making it for my husband too.

Sugar Skull Cookies! Yum

Sugar Skull Cookies

A little while back I discovered royal icing and I can’t tell you how amazing it is. It pipes like a dream, it dries perfectly hard and if you make icing shapes on parchment paper they will dry in several days and last indefinitely. If you pipe different colors together wet they meld together like a stain glass window. So after my discovery of this amazing icing the first thing that popped into my head was of course the beautiful bright sugar skulls.
I don’t have a skull cookie cutter so I just used a round one and trimmed the sides away to make the cookies look like skulls. This is such a  fun cookie to make.
What you will need for decorating

• a box of disposable piping bags
• about 5-7 of the smallest round decorating tips you can find
• Americolor food coloring in all your favorite colors
• a mixer
• 2-4 bags of royal icing mix (from a craft store)
• a separate bowl for each color
• a damp cloth to cover the bowls and prevent the icing from drying out.
• several pans for drying
• a place to allow the icing to dry for a full 24 hours.

Cut Out Cookie Recipe
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
3 1/2ish cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
Almond extract
Vanilla extract
Mix wet together and add dry bake at 350 for 8-12 mins depending on size.
if you really want the shapes to not spread you can freeze the cookies for 5-10 minutes before adding to the oven. freezing made little difference for me but if you do find that any dough is spreading it always helps to freeze it for about 10 mins. When I bake in the winter I just put the cut out cookies out on the rails of my deck to freeze. That’s just one of the many benefits of living in Canada.
Mix a huge batch of white royal icing following the instructions on the bag. I found for me that the icing required much less water than it called for on the bag so be careful with royal icing because you can’t come back from too much water very easily. If you do add too much you can always buy a container of meringue powder and add that and regular icing sugar to thicken it up again. If you do this though you do run the risk of getting icing that cracks and breaks very easily when it dries. Sticking with the store-bought stuff really is best for beginners because it won’t go wrong.
In several different bowls mix about a half a cup of each color. Americolor food colorings  are amazing. I found a craft store that sells them where I live. I’m sure that almost all independent hobby store will carry them. I strongly recommend them. They cost less money than the grocery store kind of food color and are infinitely better. There is no reason not to use them. Take my word for it. They can always be ordered on-line too.
Fill as many different piping bags as colors that you have and let your creative juices flow. I found that you absolutely should have all the colors ready to use at the same time. Having to rinse out and switch tips is really annoying. I suppose that a person could use couplers to avoid too much hassle but so far I haven’t had much luck with them.
I did a quick search online and found so many beautiful examples of patterns and designs and a couple of not quite so beautiful ones which were also really helpful to see what to avoid as well. Unfortunately I didn’t remember to take these photos until after the bake sale so all of the really good ones were gone but the ones that were left were okay too. I did these cookies for the design, but man, they turned out delicious. this is a cookie recipe that I will use for all the cut out cookies I do in the future.

No-Bake Energy Bites- To Die For!

 

Ingredients:

For about 20 bites

• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Cool recipe from Smashed Peas and Carrots

As simple as it gets -

Mix all the ingredients together.

Refrigerate it for a while in order to make the mix firmer and easier to work with.

Make small balls, bite size, from the mix. Refrigerate.

Optional – Roll the balls in coconut, make it less sticky and adds a little twist too it.

 

PS-  You can substitute almost anything for any of the ingredients to work around food allergies, special diets, etc.  Soybutter, almond butter, cashew butter, sun butter, etc all works in place of peanut butter.  You can use creamed or liquid honey, or agave nectar or even maltitol syrup in place of the honey.  If you do not like or cannot eat coconut try some type of crushed cereal, wheat germ, whole wheat flour, granola, cocoa powder...the possibilities are really endless.  If you cannot find ground flaxseed you can buy it whole and grind it yourself in a coffee grinder or magic bullet or you can substitute any other dry ingredient in it's place.  Yes, the mini chocolate chips can be regular sized or carob or you can use raisins, cranberries, goji berries, or crushed nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts, whatev) of some kind.  

Miranda's Snickers Cupcakes! Delicious

 

Miranda’s Snickers Cupcakes are delicious devil’s food cupcakes made with boxed cake mix, filled with caramel and frosted with whipped peanut butter buttercream. They have all: rich, moist chocolate cupcakes, yummy caramel filling like the snickers bars, and buttercream on top, drizzled with some more Dulce de Leche and small pieces of chopped Snickers candy bars for decoration.

Apple Cupcakes!

Red food coloring
1/4 c. vanilla frosting
1 mini plain doughnut
1 unfrosted vanilla cupcake
1/4 c. red decorating sugar
1 chocolate caramel, Tootsie Roll
1 spearmint leaf

    Tint the vanilla frosting red with the food coloring. Cut the doughnut in half crosswise to acquire 2 circles (the similar way you'd cut a bagel into two halves). Spread some of the red frosting on summit of the cupcake. Place one doughnut half upon summit of the cupcake, rounded side up and cover with the remaining frosting to make a rounded summit with an indent in the centre. Make the frosting as mild as possible.
    Place the sugar in a little shallow bowl. Gently roll the top of the cupcake in the red sugar to jacket evenly. Smooth the sides by gently pressing with fingertips.
    Cut the Tootsie Roll in half lengthwise and gently roll one stop between your fingers to make it pointed. Curve slightly to make the stem. Cut the spearmint leaf in half crosswise to acquire 2 leaves.
    Insert the Tootsie Roll stem, pointed end into cupcake, in the indentation as the stem. Place a leaf near the stem.

The Skinny Strawberry Cheesecake Smoothie! It is only 1 WeightWatchers point!

How are your Resolutions holding up?

I didnt really make any. I feel like Im constantly goal-making, so. why bother making a immense thing of it once a year? Every Monday is New Years over here!

We do make family goals though three. We attempt to make one goal financial, one spiritual, and one thats fun (like go on a family vacation). 2012 was a big, fat Swank family FAIL on all three counts. So our goals this year were easy to make were just trying again for all the similar goals in 2013 :) Wish us luck apparently these arent easy feats for us!

Weight loss is, of course a DAILY struggle for me. I had really wanted to lose about 15 lbs before Blog Conference season. And instead, I gained 5! So here I am, with about 20 lbs to lose, and less than 6 weeks till my first Conference. Not ideal

Skinny Strawberry Cheesecake Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups frozen strawberries
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 tbsp sugar free fat free instant cheesecake pudding mix
• 1 tsp truvia (or other no calorie sweetener)

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients into a blender. Pulse until smooth and serve. Makes 1 serving.

 Wasn't that easy and delicious. Hope you enjoy!

Balloon Bunch Sprinkle Cupcakes

Inspired by a tiny blurb I saw in a Parenting Magazine article on creative cupcake toppers, I made balloon bunch cupcakes out of tiny dum dum lollipops using my favorite buttercream icing and rainbow nonpareils.

 

Balloon Bunch Sprinkle Cupcakes
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Materials: Cooled cupcakes, icing (store bought or homemade – see recipe below), rainbow nonpareils (round sprinkles) – any color would be fun!, dum dum lollipops, ribbon

I usually love a great homemade cupcake but on this particular day I saved myself a bit of time by using a boxed mix (a delicious lemon raspberry or homemade red velvet would have been very fun for this particular design!). To make things a little interesting, I split my cupcake batter into two different portions, half with a few drops of red food coloring and half as the original vanilla mix.

Plop of vanilla, plop of pink, plop of vanilla plus a toothpick to swirl it up! I recommend filling cupcake liners to just over half way so that you have a nice flat icing surface to work with.

While these guys are in the oven, it’s on to the frosting. I didn’t skimp here, this is my favorite homemade buttercream and it’s buttery delicious! Sweet enough to bring out a great flavor but a version that won’t immediately melt in the sun on you, which is important for buttercream icing + outdoor parties. Though I’m not sure I’d be daring enough to use it on a cake in direct sunlight…

Vanilla Bean Buttercream

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2 cups unsalted butter (room temperature, cut into small pieces), 3 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar, pinch of salt, 1 vanilla bean, scraped, 1 t pure vanilla extract, 1/4 cup milk

a

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until creamy. Slowly add confectioners’ sugar; beat to combine, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Add vanilla bean seeds and vanilla extract, and beat to combine. Slowly add milk and continue beating on medium-low speed until smooth and creamy, about 5 minutes. 

 

Pastry bags are wonderful, but I tend to use a gallon zip lock bag 99% of the time because of easy clean up (just toss that bag out when you’re through!). I simply cut a 1/3 of an inch off the end of the bag and fill it up with buttercream using a spatula.

 

These cupcakes involve two layers of icing, the bottom layer is a disk of buttercream and the top layer will be smooshed into sprinkles so that it is completely covered. To achieve that effect, pipe a single layer onto each cupcake by gently squeezing the ziplock bag to create an even spiral of icing, working from the outside in. You might try practicing on a paper plate if you’re limited on cupcakes.

Moving one circular ring from the outside in, I added a second smaller icing disk for that second layer.hen upside down it goes into the sprinkle bath. You really want to smooth that top layer flat so don’t be afraid to apply a bit of pressure. Of course you could also skip the idea of two layers and just smoosh it all the way around the icing for a fun look!

 

The last step is to add three unwrapped dum dums lollipops in a bunch, tying a ribbon around one before hand.

 

and Viola!

                                       

Santa's Helper Brownies!

 

Arent these Santa Hat Brownies just so cute?  Thanks to Ericas Sweet Tooth for the inspiration.  I was looking for a fun and easy holiday treat and I ran across a recipe on her website. Theyre so good and easy to create, especially since I bought Trader Joes Ready to Bake brownie mix (just pour the ready-made brownie batter in an 8X8 pan and bake for 22-25 minutes). You can use ready-made brownie bites or bake a pan of your favorite brownies. I whipped up some vanilla-mascarpone buttercream to simulate the white trim upon the hats.  Voila!  A festive dessert to profit everyone into the spirit of the holidays.  It really is beginning to see a lot like Christmas around here!

Yields 12-16 brownies

Ingredients:
1 pan of your favorite brownies, cooled and cut into desired size and shape (I used a round cutter)
12-16 small strawberries, cleaned and hulled
vanilla-mascarpone buttercream (recipe below)
Mascarpone Buttercream

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
2-1/2 to 3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Method:
Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butter and mascarpone cheese until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.  Add vanilla extract and salt.  Add 2-1/2 cups of sugar, half a cup at a time and continue beating until smooth.  Add more sugar, if needed to reach desired consistency and sweetness.
To assemble, pipe a ring of vanilla buttercream on top of each brownie.  Cut off the base of a strawberry so it is flat and place it upside down on each brownie, pushing slightly to secure in place.  Top the tip of the strawberry with a dot of buttercream to finish his Santa hat.