Scandinavian Almond Bars

made these last night for a birthday gathering.

i already handed out the recipes for two of them:

get the ginger snap recipe here.

get the pumpkin choco chip here. Now we're gonna make these yummies.
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. banking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tablespoon almond extract
milk
confectioners sugar
Stir together flour, baking powder & salt. In large bowl beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add egg and extract and beat well. Add flour mixture and beat until well mixed.

Form dough into log, flatten, cook at 350 for 12-14 min. I cut it lengthwise (while hot), then diagonally (1" strips) with a pizza cutter.

Cool-drizzle with icing.
Icing: 1 cup confectioner sugar, 1/4 tsp. or more almond extract and 3-4 or more tsp. milk.

Ginger Snaps

You guys, these really are divine and my roommate nailed it, "It's like Christmas in your mouth..."
So it's only October... but I was aching to make these bad boys for our picnic today & for more Mason Jar give aways. I'll admit, they make me a little homesick because my family makes them every Christmas Eve & they're still the cookies I give to Santy Claus. Here it is:

1 1/2 cups veggie oil
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molassas
4 cups flour
4 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp salt
1 Tab. ginger
2 tsp. cinnamon
sugar for coating
Beat first three ingredients together. Add dry ingredients. Chill for 1 hr. Roll 1 12" balls-roll in sugar...cook 6-8 minutes @ 350.

Tip 1: Take the cookies out of the oven when they're starting to "crack" on top or else they'll be crunchy. No bueno.

Tip 2: When adding the molassas to the recipe, spray the measuring cup first with Pam and then the molassas will slip right instead of STICKING to the measuring cup which is totally annoying.

Enjoy!

so obsessed with....

Halloween cupcakes right now.

Ms. Stolworthy will have so many Halloween cupcakes in her classroom next fall.

cookie monster

Don't worry, Sara & I have still been doing our weekly Mason Jar give away. I've just been bad with updates. These are our projects for the last two weeks:

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 (16 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Add pumpkin, oil, eggs, milk and vanilla; beat on medium speed until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees F for 13-14 minutes or until edges just begin to brown. Cool for 2 minutes; remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

*The cookies are baked in the exact shape you put them on the pan. Since the batter is sticky, Sara & I put a little oil on our fingers & smoothed out the cookies before baking.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

Ingredients:

2/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups dried cranberries
2/3 cup coarsely chopped white chocolate
Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Put oats in the blender & blend until a they are fine. Combine oats, flour, salt, and baking soda; stir into butter mixture one cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in preheated oven, or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks.

Hamburger Cupcakes

These are just funny. Make some yellow cupcakes & chocolate cupcakes first. (Hint: When making the yellow cupcakes, don't put as much batter in the pans so when you cut them in half they look more like buns!)Make "condoments" out of icing (we just used "ketchup" & "cheese"). Dye some cocunut light green for shredded lettuce. And there you have it! Perfect for your kids when they refuse to eat real hamburgers, wink wink!

Berry Crumble

The other night my friends & I were in an experimental mood & it payed off. SO SO good, fast & EASY. A must try.

Ingredients:

15 oz. of frozen mixed berries

2 Tbs. lemon juice
1 1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. flour
1 c. quick oats
2/3 c. butter softened
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
Directions:
1.Sprinkle lemon juice over frozen berries in an 8x8 pan.
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl.
3. Crumble over berries.
4. Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
Serve with Ice Cream.

Rainbow Cake

To make this, I used gel food coloring instead of liquid to make the colors brighter. You can even use neon colors! We ended up buying two boxed cake mixes and seperated the batter into five bowls. Originally we wanted to do all the colors in the rainbow, but the cake was getting a little too tall, so we stuck with five.

Between each cake we used a tiny bit of lemon icing just to get it to stick. We iced the cakes right out of the oven so you wouldn't be able to tell there was icing (and it made the cakes moist).
On top of the cake, we used vanilla icing & made a rainbow out of skittles & marshmallows.

Boy was it sweet! By the time we finished the cake, we were already sugared out from picking at it. Good thing we had boys there to eat it for us. I won't be making this one again until Saint Patricks Day!