My Kitchen Helpers!

Charlotte

 

she refused to let me put her down so she helped me bake 11 cakes!!! In one day :)

LilyAnne

She's my taste tester :)

Peanut Butter Frosting! YUM!

When I was asking Becky what she wanted for her birthday cake she told me peanut butter frosting. This recipe is delish! It also works well under the fondant, the fondant will not stick.


1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons of milk, or as needed
2 cups confectioners sugar

Place butter and peanut butter in a med. bowl and beat with electric mixer. Gradulally mix in sugar and when it starts to get thick add milk one tablespoon at a time until it is all mixed together and frosting is spreadable. Beat for 3 more minutes until its fluffy. YUM!

Fondant

This is incredibly simple, yet rolls so easily and is so easy to work with!


1 cup of mini marshmallows
2 tbsp water
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

place marshmallows in a microwave safe bowl with water and set for 20 seconds. Pour in sugar, mix together, and knead 5-7 minutes. To color use paste coloring, not food coloring, the liquid will water it down.


Now this recipe doesn't make a lot so to cover various size cakes I would double or triple as needed. Its great though! When I roll it I powder the counter and roller generously otherwise it will stick.

Buttercream Icing

I wanted a quick and easy buttercream icing recipe. This one fits the bill. It is rich and delicious. However it doesn't make a lot so to cover a cake you need at least 1 and a half batches. I am looking for a fluffier version now.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) room temp butter
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners suger
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Using an electric mixer, beat butter on med-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping bowl down as needed.

Reduce the speed of your mixer and add in the sugar gradually as each time becomes mixed together. Once it is all incorporated increase the speed to med-high and add the vanilla, mixing until incorporated. Whip at med-high until light and fluffy, aprox. 5 more minutes. Scrape your bowl as needed.

The buttercream can be stored in refrigerator, let set to room temp before using.

Amazing Chocolate Cake

I seriously could not be happier with this cake recipe. When I first tried a "from scratch" recipe for chocolate cake it looked fine and dandy and held up to the task I gave it but dried out so quickly. This one my friends has at least a 4-5 day shelf life. Perhaps longer, but the cake itself didn't last that long :) We gobbled it up!

Ingreidents are:

• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup butter - softened
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

You'll want to start by preheating your oven to 350* and prepping your pans. I use Baker's Joy spray its grease and flour in one spray can, works great! You can also use your oil spray or shortening to grease your pan and line with parchment paper. However you usually prep your pan is fine.

Stir together the cocoa powder and boiling water, set aside to cool. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Set those aside as well.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Then stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the cocoa mix. Mix only until cobined. Divide evenly between your prepared pans if you're not using just a 9x13 or 12" round cake pan.

Bake 18-22 minutes for 9 inch pans, a bit longer for larger or deeper pans. Use a toothpick to test the cake and when you can poke the center of the cake and the toothpick removes cleanly it is done! Cool on a wire rack. If you remove your cake from the pan to cool you'll want to set your wire rack on wax paper because the top (soft side) of the cake will stick to the rack/counter. It easily comes off the rack when tipped back over and its fully cool so don't worry about that.

When I made my son's monster truck cake (will post that soon) I used both this recipe and a box mix. I used the box mix to make his truck's wheels, it fell apart. Needless to say, what I was getting at is that the guests would rather have eaten this recipe over the box mix. It is so very moist!

Quest for best chocolate chip cookies is over!

So I was sitting around thinking of cookies and what ones to make this holiday and told Becky that I wanted to find a seriously amazing recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Not only do I want them to be great for gifts but I want my kids to grow up and think back "MAN my mom made awesome cookies!" She grabs her computer and types in "Worlds best chocolate chip cookies" and this is what she got! 


Ingredients:
3/4 c. white sugar
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. butter (2 sticks) softened
1 tbsp. vanilla
2 lg eggs, slightly beaten
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3 c. chocolate chips
1 c. nuts if desired


You preheat the oven to 350* in this recipe
I then beat together the butter & sugars until creamy. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla and mix well. I used the mixer for this again.




In a separate bowl mix together your dry ingredients, minus chips and nuts. Then stir in slowly with a spoon. It will get tough. I ended up using my hands and making one large ball of dough. Then add your chips and nuts.


Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes (again I needed to cook them for 15 to make them nice and golden brown) These really are some of the greatest chocolate chip cookies I've tasted. I will be making these again and again!

Chocolate Chip Cookies, the first round

I plan on giving baked goods for Christmas gifts this year so I'm searching high and low for great recipes that everyone will enjoy. I found this one for chocolate chip cookies and because it called for shortening I thought they'd be good and moist. They baked up sort of thin compared to how I thought they would.


Ingredients:
2/3 cup butter flavored shortening
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


So first you preheat your oven to 375* which is different than most chocolate chip recipes at 350*
Then in a large bowl you cream together shortening, butter, and sugars. I used my electric mixer, it helped with the amount of items to cream and it adds air to the batter which is supposed to keep them fluffy.


Then one at a time beat in the eggs

add in the vanilla

You then combine in a separate bowl the flour, baking soda, and salt. I slowly add the flour, usually pour in half, stir it together with a spoon and add the rest. I don't use the mixer for this because mixing too much can cause the cookies to be hard.

Then you add in the chocolate chips and the nuts if you're putting them in. I didn't.



Use spoons to drop them on ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes (I actually needed to do them for 15 for some reason) Cool them on wire racks.




I have to say, I wasn't that impressed with them. They had the chocolate chip flavor and things but for one there wasn't enough chocolate chips in them, and 2ndly they were so thin and wide, they wouldn't bake thick at all. They also were sort of grainy because of all the shortening. In my search for the best cookies, these wouldn't be it! They were fine and eaten right up but not the best.

Alfredo Sauce

So, Becky and I are avid "sweepers". For those who don't know what that is, we spend a lot of time entering giveaways hosted by different bloggers and websites. While doing one of these giveaways I discovered a recipe for Creamy Chicken Penne. Well I left it at home when going to get groceries and decided I'd try making some alfredo. Becky looked it up on her phone (savior :)) and we got the ingredients. I was very excited to try it!


The ingredients were:

• 5 tablespoons sweet butter
• 2  garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper (doesn't matter if you use black)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese

 I followed it exactly and to be honest it didn't make a lot. Probably sauce for 4. I like my pasta's saucy so I would probably double it if cooking for more people. 


It was DELICIOUS!


First you melt the butter, and add in the garlic. 


After that cooked a minute I added in the cream and parmesan cheese. Melt the cheese and simmer for 8-10 minutes until smooth and thick.



When its simmered the 8-10 minutes you can add in the motzerella cheese and melt that and simmer again a few extra minutes until smooth. I also let it set a moment to thicken a bit more.


I had boiled up some broccoli and sauteed some chicken in butter and minced garlic, until browned. I boiled fettuccine noodles and cut up the chicken and put it on my plate of noodles, put on some broccoli and poured on some sauce. It was seriously divine!

Chicken Noodle Soup

So this is just a classic chicken noodle soup recipe. Very easy to make. I altered the recipe to make a LOT because I was going to feed my husband and his hunting buddies, along with my 3 kids, Becky's 3 kids, and the 2 of us! You can easily make this with a pound of chicken and half a bag of noodles. This will also freeze if you make the big batch and freeze in containers or freezer baggies. 

I used 5 lbs of chicken.....

I baked my chicken, bone in, with garlic, salt and pepper for seasoning. It baked for probably an hour and a half and cooled. I then picked the bones and put it all in the pot. It smelled amazing!

I use Swanson broth because its what I grew up on. I've actually never made my own. Looks like something to try in a future blog post! I used 2 boxes of 48oz broth. That gave me enough liquid to boil the chicken, celery, and carrots.

When it was time to add the noodles I realized there wasn't enough liquid so I just added water to compensate. I used the entire bag of medium egg noodles. 

simmer until the noodles are cooked and you're good to go!

If I were to make this for a family of 4 I would use one lb of chicken, maybe a pound and a half if you like it with lots of chicken. I would use probably 6 good sized carrots chopped into bite sizes, and 2 or 3 stalks of celery chopped into bites. The noodles I'd go with half a bag or so.

Turkey "pie" Casserole

We always called  this turkey pie growing up but found that its easier to explain as a  casserole. People hear pie and they think crust. No crust is involved in  this dish.

This is a WONDERFUL way to get rid of leftovers or in this case I  roasted up chicken specifically for the purpose of putting this meal  together.

Ingredients:
Amount of chicken or turkey needed depends on the size of pan you are using.
chopped chicken or turkey bites
can or 2 of cream of chicken soup
squash
stuffing
mashed potatoes
corn or other veggie of choice
cheddar cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400*



Chop up your chicken or turkey and spread along the bottom of your casserole dish




Mix in the can's of cream of chicken soup




layer on your squash




corn


stuffing


mashed potatoes. In this particular photo I used instant garlic flavored  mashed. It added a very nice flavor to it. Usually I use the leftover  potatoes from the meal I prepared before, or regular peeled potatoes


over the top I sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese




Cook until warmed through and the cheese is melted or browned.

Venison Stew

I myself am not a huge fan of venison, however, my husband LOVES it and for his birthday I decided to make him a stew.

We used frozen stew meat and a slow cooker for this recipe.

Ingredients:
2 lbs venison stew meat or tenderloins cut into 1in. bites.
5-6 large carrots
2-3 cups chopped potatoes, about 1in size. Depending on your likeness for potatoes.
package beef stew flavor
package beef gravy flavor
water to cover

Directions:
First I put the frozen meat in the slow cooker. I off-set them so that it would be as even cooking as possible. Using thawed meat would be just fine. You might be able to adjust cooking time in that case to not over cook the meat.




Add water to cover the meat and stir in the 2 flavoring packets.






I then add the potatoes and carrots




I slow cooked on low for 8 hours.


Husband said it was great :)

I forgot to photo but at the very last half hour I add some frozen peas to the stew because he likes it. That is entirely optional!