Girl's Night Out

My good friend Mellissa just started selling for 31 Gifts so I offered to host a party so I could get some great hostess gifts, and what better excuse for a wine and dessert party!

If you aren't familiar with 31 gifts I highly recommend you check them out, I know have accumulated quite the collection and have 3 or 4 bags in my car at all time. I especially like the bags that double as a cooler to have in the car or when I take Alex to soccer practice.

Lately several of the blogs I follow were discussing desserts in a jar so I decided to give it a try. I made triple chocolate brownies in 4 ounce mason jars and topped them with a buttercream frosting with salted caramel. These were the hit of the party and looked so cute! The 4 ounce jars were the perfect serving size and also very convenient for the girls to take one home for their hubbies. When searching for recipe ideas I came across this site that has 15 different idea for desserts in a jar, I took their idea for the salted caramel brownies and tweaked it just a bit.


I also whipped up some pink champagne cupcakes that turned out pretty but taste wise just couldn't compete with the salted caramel brownies. I also found a beautiful apothecary jar at Michael's that I filled with dark chocolate wafer cookies from Trader Joe's. It was definitely a night full of my favorite things - sugar, chocolate, wine and great friends.

Low Fat Lemon Creme Pie

Wondering what to do with all those beautiful lemons? Well instead of making lemonade, I say make lemon creme pie! Due to my obsession with Pioneer Woman I've had to re-join Weight Watchers to shed a few (10) pounds. This recipe was featured in their Weekly brochure they give you at your weekly meeting. I love a nice lemon pie so I of course ran home and made it right away! For any other Weight Watcher enthusiasts out there - each slice is only 4 points!

The recipe is very simple! Here it is:

6 reduced fat graham crackers
2 tablespoons of butter
11 ounces of non fat sweetened condensed cream
2 eggs
the juice of one lemon
lemon zest of that lemon

That is it! Can you believe it??! And the results are delicious! Here's how to make you own lemon creme pie.

Crush up the graham crackers either in a Cuisinart or by a rolling pin and then mix with the melted 2 tablespoons of butter. Spread it out into your pie pan and set aside.


In a bowl pour the condensed cream and whisk in the two eggs into mixed completely.



Next zest your lemon. When zesting a lemon, stop when you get to the white of the lemon as the white part is bitter. Then roll the lemon gently on your counter to get the juices flowing and juice the lemon into the bowl.



Pour this mixture into the pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.



After the pie cools from the oven, chill it completely in your fridge. I topped mine with some fat free cool whip and strawberries. A great spring or summer treat!!!

It's a sweet, sweet Christmas

This past weekend it was as though the Sugar Plum Fairy visited our house, and left all of her sugar. My mom and I were the amazing baking duo this weekend baking toffee, fudge, cookies and cake. My kitchen is covered in sugar and flour, as am I, but we have so much to show for all our hard work. We made some old favorites as well as some new recipes that turned out quite well if I do say so myself!

Every year it isn't Christmas until the gingerbread cookies are made so that is what we started out with. My cake decorating classes really helped in decorating the gingerbread and sugar cookies this year!

Next we tried out a new recipe by Martha Stewart (if interested in it please click here). They are Peppermint Meringues with a chocolate ganache filling. The secret to getting the striped look is to paint the inside of the piping bag with red food coloring. They turned out great!

We also made Russian tea cake cookies that are another favorite childhood cookies of mine.

I am hosting my Christmas bunko group this week so in my final cake class this week I made a cake for bunko that turned out pretty cute. I was proud of learning how to make simple roses!


As though all of this sugar load wasn't enough, I also decided to make cake pops for the first time. My mom had bought me Bakerella's cake pops recipe book and I just had to try out the Santa hat cake pops, they turned out so cute, especially for my first time trying them!
Besides cleaning and getting to the gym this week post sugar high, I will be working to finish up the last touches to the house for our Christmas party! The holiday season is in full swing...I love it!

Chocolate Decadence

We all deserve a little splurge now and then, and for me my splurges usually involve something with chocolate. I got the idea off of some blogs I follow to make cookie brownies. There are several variations for this treat but I took the easy, not homemade, version yesterday. They still turned out absolutely delicious! These yummy treats are perfect for a summer time picnic or play date because they travel well.

First you want to mix a box of brownie mix (I used Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge) and pour it into a 9x9 or 9x11 baking dish. Then either make chocolate chip cookie dough or buy pre-made cookie dough and drop it into the brownies.

They will take about 40-50 minutes to bake depending on what size pan you use. I recommend some swimming while they bake.

After they finish baking let them cool about 20-30 minutes before cutting into them. Then enjoy with a big glass of milk! We all indulged but then I went for a nice run today!

From scratch, with love

Tonight with a big television event occurring (all you Lost fans out there know what I am talking about....!) I decided to whip up a special dinner and dessert. My son has been begging me to make lasagna so I agreed to make lasagna but then also decided to make an apricot pie, my very favorite.

As I was rolling out the pie dough in my kitchen my mind wandered to all the pies I have seen my mother and grandmother make in my lifetime. My mom's mom has been gone now for eleven years but I cannot make a pie without thinking of her. Whenever I would go visit my grandmother she would have special treats waiting for me that she made from scratch. In an age where we all buy premade or dump a box of mix into a bowl, I really appreciate the love and time my grandmother put into her food.

My grandmother, the original pie master. One of my favorite treats she would make me was 'cozy pie.' It was basically left over pie dough that she rolled out, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and then cut into strips. I would sit in her kitchen eating cozy pie and talk with her while she cooked additional pies or dinner. My mom now carries on the tradition of making cozy pie for my kids and today I made sure to make some too.

Now, I am a bit anal retentive in my kitchen. Ask any of my family or hubby who cook with me. I hate messes and can never go to bed with a dirty kitchen. I get this from my father. However, when you make pie you just have to get messy. Flour is everywhere and pieces of pie dough manage to get all over the counter and floor. Oddly this doesn't bother me at all, it is all too familiar of a scene from my mother and grandmother's kitchen and it is just the way to make pie.

The pie dough ready to be rolled out....

In the pie plate....

Full of yummy apricot filling and ready for the oven after some more pie dough on top.

The cozy pie after baking...

The pie cooling, almost ready to be enjoyed.

I love that my grandma taught my mom to cook, who taught me to cook and at the age of 4 my son is already learning the ropes of the kitchen and my daughter isn't far behind. It has become rare people make anything from scratch and I am going to do my part to not let this die out, at least in my family. As my grandmother used to say, "if you can read, you can cook," so no excuse - go bake something!

My kids (the future bakers) enjoying their cozy pie.