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Butter Pecan Milkshake: A Favorite Ice Cream Makes a Favorite Milkshake

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Butter Pecan Milkshake

One of my favorite ice cream flavors is Butter Pecan – love it so much, in fact, that I’ve been known to question the sanity and taste of those who don’t like it.More than once.I’ve seen lots of recipes that call for vanilla ice cream and “butter pecan flavoring” – I suppose they’re trying to dodge the bits of pecan that accompany a milkshake made with butter pecan ice cream? If you’re in that camp, feel free to go that route… but, personally, I live for for the bits of pecans.

So good!

The recipe below makes one milkshake (or two small servings).

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Butter Pecan Milkshake: My Favorite Ice Cream Makes a Favorite Milkshake

Yield: 1

Butter Pecan Milkshake

Ingredients

  • 1 Cup Butter Pecan Ice Cream
  • 3/4 Cup Whole Milk
  • 1/4 tsp Vanilla
  • Optional: Whipped Topping

Instructions

  1. Combine the ice cream, milk, and vanilla in a blender and process until smooth.
  2. Top with whipped topping, if desired.


Gearing Up for Summer: Banana Milkshakes!

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Banana Milkshake

 

I’ve always been a huge milkshake fan (truth is, I’m obsessed) but adoring bananas and using them at every conceivable opportunity is new. Let’s say it’s grandbaby new. My grandbaby Maddox is 16 months old and has been in love with bananas for a few months now. Literally, one of the first CLEAR words he ever said was his version of “banana” (which sounds so precious I’m grinning like an idiot just imagining it).

I put them in his smoothies and, now that warm weather is here, I’m experimenting with different banana milkshake recipes. The one below is one of my favorites. The extra pinch of cinnamon really does something for it. Another tip: Use good vanilla ice cream. It honestly makes a difference.

I normally top my milkshakes with whipped cream and even a cherry if I’m feeling a little extra… but this particular milkshake would soon be going into a sippy cup, so it’s kind of “naked!”

The “Number of Servings” given here is 2 – but, I guess, really, it depends on the size of servings! In other words, if you’re making milkshakes for more than one person, keep your ingredients handy, you may need more than you bargained for.

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Banana Milkshakes

Yield: 2

Banana Milkshakes

Ingredients

  • 2 Ripe Bananas
  • 6 Large Scoops Vanilla Ice Cream
  • 3/4 Cup Milk
  • Dash of Cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
  2. Optional: Top with Whipped Cream and a Cherry on Top!

Note: I  haven’t tried this milkshake with any types of milk other than whole milk (yet), so I cannot say with certainty how almond, coconut, or soy milks would work. However, I use them frequently in smoothies and they usually bring a little extra something to the party.


Best Fudgy Brownie Frosting Recipe – You’ll Want to Eat it Straight Out of the Pan

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Brownies Baked in a Pie Plate with Fudgy Brownie Frosting

Brownies, Baked in Pie Plates and Frosted with a Fudgy Frosting

A few weeks ago, a familiar mood hit me… an “I MUST MAKE SOMETHING CHOCOLATE!” mood that has come to define me. I mulled over the usual cast of chocolate characters – chocolate cupcakes, chocolate cake, cookies, brownies, and fudge. Brownies won and I started rounding up the needed ingredients.

I found that I didn’t have any walnuts, but decided to forge right ahead in spite of the absence of a favorite brownie ingredient. I decided (as I always do when my brownies won’t have nuts) that I’d simply make a fudgy chocolate frosting for the brownies and the absence of walnuts wouldn’t even be missed.

I was right.

As I was mentally dreading the all too familiar brownie-baking-battle (trying to get the center SET without the corners becoming so hard they could knock out a mouse), I had an idea. Why not divide the brownie batter in two and bake them in pie plates?

I didn’t know of any mice who needed konking, so I grabbed a couple of glass pie plates, greased them, and proceeded just as I would if I’d been using a square pan.

I seriously doubt I’ll ever bake brownies in a square pan again.

Brownies Baked in a Pie Plate with Fudgy Brownie Frosting

Pie Plates Keep The Crusty Corners Out of the Picture!

The outside, smaller cuts were triangular (a small price to pay for having the outside of brownies that are just as moist and delicious as the center pieces) but the rest were able to be cut into squares – you’d never know they were baked in a pie dish.

I made my favorite Fudgy Brownie Frosting and iced them once they cooled off. They were outstanding.

If you attempt the pie plates method with your favorite brownie recipe (or mix), just be sure to start checking on them before the traditional time limit. They tend to cook a little faster when they’re divided into two separate dishes.

I made a single batch of the Fudgy Brownie Frosting and it was just enough for the two pie plates of deliciousness. If you’re making a large batch of brownies, you might want to double the recipe. This is chocolate deliciousness at it’s finest!

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Fudgy Brownie Frosting Recipe

Brownies Baked in a Pie Plate with Fudgy Brownie Frosting

Ingredients

  • 3 Tablespoons Butter (not margarine)
  • 1-1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons Whole Milk
  • 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 2 Tablespoons Cocoa

Instructions

  1. Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Be careful not to let it brown.
  2. Add cocoa to the melted butter and remove the pan from the heat.
  3. Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
  4. Stir until smooth.
  5. Carefully spread over the brownies.
  6. Lick the spoon and don't burn yourself while trying to get every drop from the sides of the pan (been there, done that).

 

 

America’s Favorite Jelly Bean Flavors, By State

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What’s your favorite flavor of jelly bean? Mine are grape, cherry and strawberry – pretty crazy about each, but if I had to pick one, it’d be grape. I was really shocked by the results of the favorite jelly bean flavors around the country (see the interactive map below). Licorice?! Seriously?? That’s undoubtedly my LEAST favorite, and here it is a favorite with a lot of people. In fact, it’s the favorite in my own state (Kentucky).

People, what are you thinking?! Grape’s where it’s at. Or cherry or strawberry…. watermelon or green apple, even.


I’m giving myself a craving for jelly beans now. I’ll leave you with the map and see if I can find some in our Easter candy dish. Some grape ones, that is.

Source: 10+ years online candy sales data from CandyStore.com.

Interactive Map Credit: Candy Store


2017 America’s Favorite Halloween Candy (Interactive State by State Map)

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Can you even believe Halloween is so close?! Blows my mind just how fast time passes. I’m actually pretty bummed about it because I LOVE this time of year (September – January) SO much that I want it to crawl at a snail’s pace. Unfortunately, it runs at a cougar’s pace and is over before you know what hit you.

Halloween (the first “holiday” of the stretch) is just days away and candy is on all our minds! The fun interactive map below will show you each state’s favorite Halloween candy. Simply hover your cursor over your state to see the favorite candy for your area.

Source: CandyStore.com.

If you’re unable to see a large enough version of this map, click through the link above for a much, much larger map.


Latte Pops with Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

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Latte Pops with Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

All cooks have their favorite, “go to” ingredients – many of us actually share a lot of the same faves:

  • butter
  • garlic
  • freshly cracked black pepper
  • Kosher salt
  • cumin
  • cayenne pepper
  • garlic powder
  • vanilla extract
  • EVOO
  • etc.

Then there are those of us who have our own unique favorites that we wouldn’t dream of EVER running low on, let alone out of.

In addition to those above, a few of mine are:

Yes, sweetened condensed milk and yes, it must be Eagle Brand. It’s simply better, period.

I use sweetened condensed milk in so many different ways, a good 3 cans has to be in the pantry at all times. If it got under 2, I’m pretty sure a culinary nervous breakdown wouldn’t be far away.

Three of the ways I use Eagle Brand the most are…

  1. I add a can to cake mix batter – it makes the cake more moist and (as you’d expect) richer. Gluten-free cakes tend to dry out sooner than other cakes and Eagle Brand keeps this from happening. Magic!
  2. I also use Eagle Brand often… make that OFTEN… when making “Coffeehouse” type fraps and lattes. There isn’t any need to add sugar, obviously. Just combine the sweetened condensed milk and coffee (hot or iced) in a blender and you’re set.
  3. Eagle Brand makes the best pies of all time, including my personal favorite Sweet Potato Pie recipe. Trust me, save this one for Autumn. You’ll want it for Thanksgiving as well as the days leading up to it!

This summer I came up with another favorite way to put this particular favorite ingredient to use – Frozen Latte Pops. Again, as is the case with anything you make with Eagle Brand, it couldn’t be simpler.

I pour iced coffee and Eagle Brand into frozen Popsicle molds and freeze them until solid. It doesn’t get any easier than that, right? Sometimes I add a splash of Vanilla Syrup along with the “magic” and coffee, but it isn’t necessary.

These pops taste Heavenly and I get a giddy kick out of the white stripe at the bottom. That white stripe is pure deliciousness.

If you don’t have Popsicle molds, fill an ice cube tray up with the combination and freeze. When solid, crush the yumminess up with a spoon and…. well, you know what to do at this point.

For wonderful Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipes, visit their website.

Latte Pops with Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

Miss Ellie’s Coffee Cakes: Cinnamon Coffee Cake (With or Without Nuts)

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Miss Ellie's Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Next Monday, I’ll publish my review of some of Miss Ellie’s wonderful Coffees on the food blog, but since today is National Coffee Cake Day, I wanted to tell you about her coffee cakes TODAY.

I’ll just say, right upfront that I cannot eat these beautiful cakes (I have to totally avoid gluten/wheat for health reasons)… but I can smell them! One was sent along with my coffee and while my family enjoyed eating it, I at least had the pleasure of admiring it with my eyes and nose.

The coffee cake pictured is the Traditional Cinnamon Coffee Cake (No Nuts) and word around the house is that it tastes even better than it looks or even smells.

Miss Ellie's Cinnamon Coffee Cake and Miss Ellie's Coffee
Given that it smells like Heaven’s own bakery, I can only imagine how wonderful it must taste.

Other Miss Ellie’s Coffee Cakes:

I will tell you much more about Miss Ellie’s coffees in the coffee review Monday morning, but suffice to say this: You absolutely should head over to Miss Ellie’s Website and order a coffee cake today and you absolutely positively should order a bag of coffee to enjoy with it.

Great coffee cake and exceptional coffee… that’s what I call a perfect match.

Miss Ellie's Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Gluten-Free Sandwich Cookie Truffles with Glutino Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies

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Gluten-Free Cookie Truffles with Glutino Chocolate Creme Cookies
Gluten-Free Cookie Truffles with Glutino Chocolate Creme Cookies
Chocolate? Check!

Cookies? Check!

Gluten-free? Check!

Cream Cheese? Check!

Que the song, “… these are a few of my fav-O-rite things…” – is it any wonder I’m obsessed with these cookie truffles?

These truffles call for Glutiono Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies (which are beyond delicious on their own, by the way – they’ll rock your world with a glass of milk). The traditional truffles call for a package of Oreo cookies – but they’re certainly off-limits for those of us who have to avoid wheat/gluten.

Thanks to Glutino we don’t have to miss out on chocolate sandwich cookie truffles. I’ve actually found that, thanks to companies like Glutino, we can pretty much have and enjoy anything our counterparts have. It just takes a little more planning and creativity.

Glutino Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies
Glutino Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies
I normally sprinkle the tops of these truffles with reserved crumbs from the cookies, but these were made last week for Christmas, so colored sugar festivities ensued.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Sandwich Cookies Truffles Recipe

1 pkg. (8 oz.) brick cream cheese, softened
1 pkg Glutino Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies, finely crushed
1 pkg white chocolate chips, melted

  1. Mix softened cream cheese and  cookie crumbs until well blended (if you want to top the truffles with crumbs, reserve some to the side).
  2. Shape the mixture into 1 inch balls and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. This makes them hold up better when it’s time to dunk them in the white chocolate.
  3. Melt the chocolate when it’s almost time for the truffles to come out of the freezer. I melt them either in a double boiler type situation (big bowl over a pan of boiling water) or in VERY short intervals in the microwave. Burning the white chocolate is a miserable, ugly thing – so go slowly… as in 30 seconds at a time.
  4. Dip each ball into the melted chocolate and quickly top with either cookie crumbs, sprinkles, or colored sugar. You could also drizzle melted caramel on top and sprinkle it with a little sea salt – if you’re feeling fancy, you know.
  5. Allow the truffles to hang out in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes to set.

I hear of people storing these truffles in the refrigerator but, in my house, it never comes to that. They’re gone before I could even open said refrigerator.

You can find Glutino Chocolate Vanilla Creme Cookies in just about any grocery store. You can, of course, also find them on Amazon.

Gluten-Free Cookie Truffles with Glutino Chocolate Creme Cookies

Chocolate Desserts to Die For: Beautiful Cookbook with Mouthwatering Recipes and Pictures

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Chocolate Desserts to Die For! Cookbook Recipe
The links in this post are affiliate links, meaning I earn a small amount when you click through and make a purchase. This (of course) costs you nothing extra – it simply allows me to support my cat in the lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to!

As a chocoholic, my cookbook collection includes plenty of cookbooks with one thing in mind – chocolate! A received a new one recently (Chocolate Desserts to Die For!) to review and I’d love to tell you all about it.

Now that Halloween has come and gone, thoughts are turning rapidly to Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m featuring cookbooks (such as this one and Celebrations) on the food blog recently that pull double duty:

  1. They’ll be invaluable to you when you’re cooking your holiday meals.
  2. They make excellent gift ideas for cooks and foodies in your life.

Chocolate Desserts to Die For! actually pulls triple duty as it adds this to its resume: This cookbook is filled with beautiful and delicious gifts you can make for people in your life – after all, gifts don’t get any better than chocolate!

{Review Continued Below the Mini Chocolate Turnover…}

Chocolate Desserts to Die For! Cookbook Recipe

Chocolate Desserts to Die For! (Mini Chocolate Turnovers)

This is not a “Gluten Free” cookbook, obviously, but its recipes are either gluten free in the first place (such as the candies) or can be made gluten free with easy substitutions.

Some of the Recipes Include:

  • Not My Momma’s Rice Pudding with Cranberry Compote (would make a GORGEOUS Christmas dessert!)
  • Chocolate Cranberry Oat Cookies (again, perfect for Christmas)
  • Bev’s Hot Fudge Sauce
  • Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting
  • Chocolate Chocolate Chipotle Fudge Milkshake
  • Strawberry Saute’
  • Warm Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake (when I make it, I substitute the chocolate cake with a gluten free cake mix.. can you say easy?!)
  • The Kid in All Adults Marshmallow Truffles
  • Triple-Decker Chocolate Cookies
  • Fudgy Goes Latin Bars
  • And many, many, many more chocolate recipes.

Take a closer look at Chocolate Desserts to Die For! by clicking the link.

Chocolate Desserts to Die For! Cookbook Recipe

Melt Organic Buttery Spreads – Delicious on Just About Everything

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Grilled Corn on the Cob with Melt Organic Buttery Spread
The recipe below is an out of this world grilled corn on the cob that’ll rock your very world. You’ll see Melt Organic Buttery Spread in the ingredients – it’s just one of the Melt spreads that are now on the market. I’ll tell you more about them immediately below the recipe.

But first things first!

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Grilled Corn on the Cob with Melt

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Rich & Creamy MELT, room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 lime, zested and juiced
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 1 dash hot sauce
  • 6 ears corn, silks removed, husks left on and tied
  • ¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves
  • Butcher’s twine, as needed

Instructions

  1. Blend Rich & Creamy MELT, honey, lime zest and juice, crushed garlic and hot sauce in a food processor; season to taste with salt and pepper if needed.
  2. Heat the grill to medium high.
  3. Peel the outer husks away from the corn without removing them.
  4. Remove the silk from inside the husk and then fold the husks back around the corn, tying the top with butcher’s twine.
  5. Soak ears of corn in cold water for 10 minutes.
  6. Place the corn on preheated grill.
  7. Close the lid and cook the corn 15 to 20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes.
  8. Remove the corn from grill, cool slightly and peel off husks.
  9. Spread generously with MELT mixture and sprinkle with cilantro.
  10. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Chocolate Melt

I know I’m switching lanes at an accelerated speed here, but… come on… it’s chocolate! One of the Melt Organic Buttery Spreads is the beauty you see above and below, Chocolate Melt.

Chocolate Melt
Just look at that chocolate gorgeousness!! Yes, as a matter of fact, it does taste even better than it looks. It tastes like you’d expect chocolate butter to taste – somewhat reminiscent of the beginnings of a Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. Heavenly.

On the container of the Chocolate Melt is a recipe for brownies. Naturally, I made them. Unfortunately, the picture below doesn’t do them justice. They were the most moist brownies I’ve ever made and were insanely good with ice cream.

Brownies with Chocolate Melt
 

From Melt Organic’s Website:

MELT® Organic is a line of luscious, all-natural butter improvements for butter lovers seeking an alternative with beneficial ingredients. Its flagship product line, MELT Organic Buttery Spreads, is made from the Perfect Blend™ of fruit- and plant-based oils: virgin coconut, flaxseed, hi-oleic sunflower, palm fruit and canola. Two new products that leverage the company’s tradition of innovation were launched in January 2016 – MELT Organic Buttery Sticks, with a simpler formulation of our VCO blend optimized for baking and cooking, and Probiotic MELT Organic Buttery Spread which delivers active cultures more effectively than yogurt. All MELT products are sustainably sourced and are certified organic, kosher pareve and Non-GMO Project Verified and made with fair trade, organic virgin coconut oil and Rainforest Alliance and Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil Production (RSPO) certified organic palm fruit oil. They are also trans fat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free. Each of our naturally sweetened MELT spreads (Honey and Chocolate) contain just 1 gram of sugar per serving. None of our products contain hydrogenated oils or artificial ingredients of any kind and they never will.

Other Melts are the traditional (pictured below) and a Honey Melt, which is fantastic, too. I’ve eaten each variety on just about anything and everything and, since having the samples sent to me by Melt (in exchange for telling you about them), I have bought EACH flavor several times.

Try not to judge me or my obsession with all things buttery. Read More…

Melt Buttery Spread

Given that another obsession of mine is sweet potatoes, this beautiful vegetable was actually the first way I used the regular Melt AND the Honey Melt – each are uncommmonly delicious with white potatoes and sweet potatoes. They’re also perfect on cornbread, toast, rolls, carrots, asparagus, corn, pancakes (so is the Chocolate Melt!) and oatmeal.

Find Melt Buttery Spreads in your favorite supermarket, then try them all. I find mine in my local Meijer Supermarket. Whole Foods Markets also carry them. You’re going to be as hooked on them as I am.

See More:
Find more Melt Recipes by visiting their official website. Because they are awesome people, they even have a page for gluten free Melt Recipes – something I appreciate greatly!