Frozen Hot Chocolate

I maybe a tea lover, but the first hot drink I fell madly in love with is Hot Chocolate!  Of course, during the summer that tends to be the last thing you want to drink... until I tried FROZEN Hot Chocolate!

Have you ever had the Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3?  Well if you havn't had the opportunity yet, next time you are in New York City or Las Vegas stop on by and get one!  It's positively amazing! My first time having it, was after I saw the movie Serendipity how cliche right?  I fell in love with that cafe and decided it was a must see on my next New York trip.  Little did I know, that the typical wait, is about 2 hours long.  it was worth it though, we got a big Frozen Hot Chocolate to share, and then ate some food as well.  It's fun food, full of exciting twist that you dont expect... and come prepared for a extra large portion, because this place is not made for dainty eaters! 

A couple weeks ago, I was in Las Vegas to fullfil a major check off my bucket list and see life Celien Dion in Concert at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.  Celien Dion was absolutely amazing live and to end the night of our fun girls trip, we went to Serendipity 3 and got dessert.  On my way out, I picked up this packet there, so that I could make it up at home for another girls night!  If you happen to stop by the store, I suggest picking one of these packages up for a breakdown chocolate moment, but if you dont have one available this is how we make it:

Frozen Hot Chocolate

1 Cup of Hot Chocolate Mix (I love Stephens Dark Chocolate)
1 Cup of Ice
1 Cup of Chocolate Ice Cream (or more if you like)
1/2 Cup of Milk (Whole Milk would make this taste really good, but I use at least 2%)

Garnish:
Whipping Cream
Chocolate shavings or Coco Powder

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until nice and smooth.  You may need to add more milk, just look for the right consistency.  You want it to be thick like a milk shake.  Pour into two cups, add whipping cream and chocolate shavings and enjoy!

Ice Cream Sandwiches

One of the greatest things about Summer is the good ol' Summer BBQ's.  I always get excited for the fresh grilled meats and veggies, summer salads, and of course desert! However, sometimes around July, I find that I start to get tired of the same foods over and over again.  So I thought for our last family and friend BBQ I would try something a little different for desert.  

I decided to make some great homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches.  The first sandwich is White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie with Coconut Pineapple ice cream.  Second, is a Snickerdoodle cookie with a Marion Berry Pie ice cream. Third is a classic Chocolate Chip cookie with Fudge Track ice cream.  Each cookie was a big hit in the end!

White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
10 ounces white chocolate (chips or bars cut in chunks)
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped into chunks

Directions:
Heat oven to 375 F. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt with electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, beat well. Stir together flour, and the baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture,beating until well blended. Stir in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. (Edges are golden brown and center is set.) Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack to cool completely.

I will be honest I have never made a White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie, so I searched the net and found this amazing recipe!

Snickerdoodle Cookies

1 C. Butter (at room temp.)

1 1/2 C. Sugar

2 Eggs (room temp.)

3 C. Flour

2 tsp. Cream of Tarter

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 t. Salt

For rolling the dough in:

4 t. Sugar

2 t. Cinnamon 

(you can also add nutmeg as well about 1/2 tsp.  I like it a lot in the fall!)

Makes 2 dozen.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy.  Add room temperature eggs one at a time beating until dough becomes lighter in color and fluffy. Put all your dry ingredients into a separate bowl and sift together with a fork.  Add a little at a time until dough comes together.  In a separate bowl, add cinnamon and sugar mixture together. Take a spoonful of dough, roll it into a ball, and then roll in the sugar/cinnamon mixture.  Place on cookie sheet.  When finished Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Let sit on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes to rest, and then place on cooling wrack.  

These cookies are amazing the first day, but after that snickerdoodle tend to dry out and become a crunchy cookie instead of a soft one.  If you are looking for a very soft snickerdoodle that will last a couple of days, add 2 tsp of Sour Cream, instead of Cream of Tarter.

For the Chocolate Chip cookie recipe, I used the same as the White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut recipe, and instead of adding White Chocolate Chips and nuts, I added Milk Chocolate Chips.  I'm sure everyone out there has an amazing Chocolate Chip recipe that they love to use, so use that one.  I'm still searching for the perfect one... and someday when I find it, I will post it!

Flower Pot Cupcakes

Summer is finally here, and with Summer comes a lot of fun new ideas, along with an apology for taking so long to blog!  I did have some amazing blog post that I was going to post last month, but my computer crashed on me and I lost everything!!!  So now I'm back with some fun ideas, great summer parties, and fabulous fresh recipes.  So stay tuned!

 For Easter my Mother gave me this darling muffin mix.  So I decided to make it the other day and see how they turned out.  I just loved the idea of making a muffin in a darling little pot!

 To make the muffins, place the little flower pots on a baking sheet with tin foil underneath.  You can use any little flower pots you find at a craft store.  Make sure to wash them in a teaspoon of baking soda and a bowl of water, before and after you use them.  When they are dry, spray them with cooking spray to help get the muffins or cupcakes come out.  I used pam, but I would suggest using baking spray with the flour, I think it would work out better!

 Next I followed the recipe exactly, and it ended up flooding the entire pot and turning out horrible! So I decided to use a cake box instead, I followed the recipe on the back but added 1/2 cup of flower more, filled the cupcakes 3/4 of the way full, and baked them as directed.  Then I made a basic butter cream frosting and decorated them like a flower pot.  You will have left over cupcake mix, so I used regular cupcake liners and made little flower cupcakes with my amazing sprinkles that my Mother picked me up in Paris, France.

Next week I will be posting my Under The Sea Birthday Party!

Samoa Budnt Cake

This cake is incredible!  It's moist and delicious, with so many exciting flavors going on that every bite tastes like an explosion of flavors!  It is also, hands down, the biggest pain in the neck to make! (haha) I made this particular cake for my friend Vicki's Birthday.  I told her if she found a cake she wanted, since she's not really a big cake eater, that I would make it for her.  She sent me the link to this cake, and being my typical self, I looked at the ingredients and said no problem and went with it.  Little did I know, that not only does it have a MILLION steps, but it also takes hours to make.  So needless to say, if you do make this cake, make sure you plan accordingly! 

Vicki also took my camera and took most of the pictures, so I have the last half of the cake steps with photos, and I apologize for the lighting... we managed to finish up this cake at midnight after we partied all evening to celebrate her Birthday.

I didn't copy and paste the recipe this time because it has so many steps.  So click here to view the recipe!

Note: she gives great instructions on how to make this cake, but I will say this...  For the frosting you cook a can of sweetened condense milk to make into carmel.  On her blog, she says you have to boil the can in a pot of simmering water for 4 hours, making sure that the can is always covered with water.  This was the part that drove me crazy, so I looked it up on the internet.  Most people tell you to do it for 90 min.  I ended up boiling it for 3 hours, and it started to burn a little on the bottom, so I didn't use the bottom part of the can.  So it's not so bad when its only for 90 minutes, you can do it as you make your two batters.

So first thing that you do for this cake, is you make two batters... a CHOCOLATE batter, and a BROWN SUGAR batter... they are both amazing.  Then you layer it into a budnt cake pan, bake it and it comes out like this... delicious right???  It gets better...

Next, you toast your coconut so it gets slightly brown and becomes toasted goodness... yummy!

After your coconut has cooled, and your can of sweetened condense milk has COMPLETELY cooled, you can start to make the frosting... if you have read the recipe already, then you know this frosting is going to be amazing.  If you havn't then you are in for a treat!  Try some butter, sweetened condense milk, sugar, TOASTED COCONUT and a few more ingredients... mouth watering yet? It should be!

So now that your cake is frosted, you think your done right??? Wrong... now you cover the ENTIRE cake with toasted coconut, its gotta be like the samoa cookie right? I just lightly pressed the coconut into the frosting, and made sure to push it under the bottom of the cake to give in a nice clean line.

I bet by now your ready to dig in right... NOPE... still going.  Now you have to make a chocolate ganache by melting a bag of chocolate chips, we did dark because its our favorite and drizzled it over the top...

As you can see by the late hour... you would think FINALLY time to sing Happy Birthday and dig in right??? NO, you have to wait an hour after you frost the entire thing to eat it for the chocolate to set up.  So we went to Red Box, got a movie, and watched a great movie and had cake mid-way through it.  

In the end, it turned out amazing, and had I planned my day better... I wouldn't have finished the cake so late at night.  But I do highly suggest making it some day.  It's worth it!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

Have you seen the new trend on Pinterest lately where they stick a candy bar inside a baked good?  Well I decided to try it out on some cupcakes I was making for a dear friend of mine.  I must admit, they tasted pretty delicious!

So here is the recipe for my Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes...

Chocolate Cupcakes

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Yield: 24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder½ cup plus 1 tablespoon hot water2¼ cups all-purpose flour¾ tsp. baking soda¾ tsp. baking powder½ tsp. salt2 sticks plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature1 2/3 cups sugar3 large eggs, at room temperature1 tbsp. vanilla extract¾ cup sour cream

Directions:Line cupcake pans with paper liners and place peanut butter cup at the bottom of each one.  In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder and hot water and whisk until smooth.  In another medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and whisk to blend.

Combine the butter and sugar in a medium saucepan set over medium heat.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is smooth and the butter is completely melted.  Transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-low speed until the mixture is cool, about 4-5 minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Blend in the vanilla and then the cocoa mixture until smooth.  With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions alternating with the sour cream, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and mixing each addition just until incorporated. Add the batter on top of the peanut butter cup and bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes. 

Peanut Butter Frosting
1 C. Creamy Peanut Butter (I used organic no sugar added)3 C. Powder Sugar2 cubes of unsalted butter (@ room temperature)1 tsp. Vanilla1/2 C. Heavy Cream
In a  mixing bowl add softened butter and peanut butter together and mix until smooth.  Add the vanilla and mix in well.  Next, add in one cup of powder sugar and mix into the frosting until it is well mixed.  Add half of the heavy cream with the rest of the powder sugar and mix together.  Finish with the rest of the heavy cream mixing on high until its nice and fluffy. If the frosting is to thin add some more powder sugar, if its too thick to spread on the cupcake then add a little milk.  
To finish the cupcake, I frosted them with a knife instead of piping them, so that I could have a flat surface to work with.  Then finished it off with a small of piece of a peanut butter cup on it.  

Grand America Birthday Tea

This year was a golden birthday for me... I turned 30!  It feels crazy, honestly I thought I'd be depressed because I was getting old, but in reality I had one of the best birthday I have ever had! I'm excited for what my 30s are to bring... hopefully a husband and kids. Im starting to feel a little silly throwing parties for my friends and I still! 

To start of my 30th Birthday, besides a fabulous family vacation the week before to Orlando Florida, I started the morning off with my little sister, her daughter, (we start them off young), and my Mother for high tea at the Grand America.  If you live in Utah and haven't had the chance to do that yet, I highly suggest it.  I defiantly plan on going back in the fall for there witches high tea!

High Tea at the Grand, starts off with pouring hot water into a wine glass with a tea flower, I think its Jasmine, and then as you enjoy your tea.  You can watch the flower bloom, and of course after you can drink it. I love the flavor of it! You then pick your tea, they have many amazing flavorful teas that are all loose leaf teas, and pick which High Tea Package you want.  We went with the more simpler one. Once you pick your tea, you are welcome to start with fresh strawberries and marscarpone cream.

First Course starts with your scones, jam, and clotted cream, and a different variety of tea sandwiches.

 The last course is the dessert course, with a wide variety of cakes, cookies, tarts, and sugared jellies.

This was our view of the court yard, my dream for my 30th Birthday was to spend it in my favorite place in the world which is London, England but this was close enough!  I could even pretend thats Big Ben right???