Amish Caramel Corn

Wow. I can not watch Dancing with the Stars and concentrate on writing this blog. It's too difficult! The shiny costumes...the mediocre dancing...it's all too much.

It took me awhile to figure out what to post this week, but I decided on a sweet recipe for caramel popcorn. I made it and gave it away for Christmas last year, but made it again last week because I had some extra time on my hands (and I was trying to get rid of the ridiculous amount of plain popcorn I had in the cupboards) Seriously, who bought that much plain popcorn?

Anyway, I give out cookies every year for Christmas because I'm cheap thrifty and before it was time to start all the baking my mom told me about this recipe. In my memory she kept going on and on about her Amish friend and her great recipe for caramel popcorn. Which made me ask her repeatedly who she knew that was Amish, and if she ever stayed with them or if they were the ones who made our fireplace. In reality, I'm sure she was rationally telling me about the recipe and how her friend (who was not Amish) gave her this recipe which was called "My Amish Friend's Caramel Corn".

This recipe is a few things. A. It's time consuming. B. It's awesome. C. It's sticky. 4. It'll go fast.

I'm posting the recipe below, but I encourage you to take a look at the link so you can read the comments. I don't think I've ever seen so many 5 star reviews. But maybe it's the Amish girl's friend just trying to make her feel better about her popcorn recipe.

My Amish Friend's Caramel Corn (I just wanted to say Amish once more)
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/my-amish-friends-caramel-corn/detail.aspx

Ingredients:
7 Quarts plain popped corn (I used 3 bags worth)
2 cups dry roasted peanuts (If you enjoy peanuts. I used them and would recommend them for sure)
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup margarine
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Place the popped corn into 2 greased, baking pans. If you're adding peanuts, add them now. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 250. Combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, margarine and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, over medium heat, stirring to blend. Once the mix starts to boil, boil for 5 more minutes stirring constantly.

3. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda and vanilla. It's going to look foamy. Immediately pour over the popcorn and stir to coat all of the popcorn.

4. Bake for one hour total. Every 15 minutes remove the pans and stir up the popcorn to cover all of it. Line a flat surface (in my case, the entire dining room table) with waxed paper. Dump the corn out and separate into smaller pieces. Let it cool, or eat it all when it's warm because it's awesome that way.

I'm not kidding when I say it took up the majority of my dining room table. 

So friends, take this recipe and put it in your Christmas bank. I have yet to hear anything negative about this popcorn. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell my mom's Amish friend. She's sensitive.

Source: Allrecipes.com

URL: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/my-amish-friends-caramel-corn/detail.aspx

No Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie: Part II The Two Towers

My last post was all about what I had deemed the second coming of pie. I hadn't had the chance to make it when I wrote about it, but I was pretty positive that it would be amazing. Now, two weeks or so later, I can officially say it's a pie you HAVE to make. Have to! Like, go now and make this pie! I will wait.

I included the directions in my last post, but I'm reposting here for easiness. That's how much you need to go to the grocery store to get the FOUR ingredients you need for this pie.

Ingredients:

1 (15 or 18 oz) package of chocolate chip cookies

1 cup milk

1 (9 oz) commercial graham cracker crust

1 (8 oz) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1. Dip 8 cookies in milk, and place in a single layer in crust. Top with one third of whipped topping. Dip 8 more cookies in milk, place on top; spread with one third of whipped topping. Repeat layers with 8 more cookies, milk and remaining whipped cream.

I'm pretty sure that the cookies dipped in milk is what makes this
recipe so amazing. 

Keep layering!

2. Crumble 2 cookies and sprinkle over pie.

 

3. Cover and chill for 8 hours before serving.

Pie glamour shot

We enjoyed our pie at the Wallover residence for Labor Day Fondue! It was an excellent accompaniment to fondue and the famous blue t-shirts:

This is where lucky readers get to see pie enthusiasts! 

And the cutest child in America! 

(obviously, bottom right. not the cute one in the bottom left)

So go forth my people, make this pie. Today! Or tomorrow! Or never, your loss.

By the way, I have a ton of sweet recipes coming up. Including but not limited to:
-The easiest creme puffs on earth*
-Icing that looks like you got the cookies from the bakery*
-Black and white cookies like you buy in NY*
-Turtle brownies
-Caramel Popcorn

*Names have been changed to provide emphasis





Source:
Food.com/Southern Living
http://www.food.com/recipe/no-bake-chocolate-chip-cookie-pie-253048
Posted by: Knitaholic

No Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

I've been trying to think of a nice way to say this, but...I've been ignoring you all. It's not you, it's me.

Okay, it's a little you.

But mostly me.

For the past couple months we've been working like crazy people trying to finish our documentary and readying the hundreds of dollars in DVDs and CDs we bought for people to purchase. At the same time, I've been preparing everything (financial aid) to start the next semester, and it's been storming a lot.

That last part doesn't really affect much, but it's rained like 100 inches in the past couple weeks.

Anyway, I've been super busy and wasn't sure what to post until Kevin and I practically bought every book in a Border's going out of business sale this past weekend. Between the two of us we easily bought over $100 in books. I literally walked away with an armload of cookbooks. In particular, this one book is amazing and has a super delicious recipe on just about every page - particularly this one for No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie.

That's right.

I flipped open the book (Simply Chocolate), and that was the page it opened to. One of the few recipes that actually came with a picture, if I didn't walk out of the store with this book I was an idiot. For god sakes, there's only 4 ingredients!

So in honor of my recent absence, and to try and win back your hearts -- I'm posting this amazing recipe which I have yet to try myself but can see absolutely no fault in.

You can see the recipe from that link, or below:

No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
Ingredients:
1 (15 or 18 oz) package of chocolate chip cookies
1 cup milk
1 (9 oz) commercial graham cracker crust
1 (8 oz) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1. Dip 8 cookies in milk, and place in a single layer in crust. Top with one third of whipped topping. Dip 8 more cookies in milk, place on top; spread with one third of whipped topping. Repeat layers with 8 more cookies, milk and remaining whipped cream.

2. Crumble 2 cookies and sprinkle over pie.

3. Cover and chill for 8 hours before serving.


I haven't made it yet, so I have no photos to post and the link I gave you is photoless too. But I imagine if you make it, people will look like this:

I do not know this man, but I think he would like this pie just as much.

I will be making this pie soon, so check back for an updated blog with pics! In the mean time, check out our FINISHED documentary (that has pictures!) at www.christymathewsondayfilm.com
^How's that for some cross promotion?

The Greatest Sugar Cookie Recipe

I have a soft spot for baking sugar cookies because it reminds me of Christmas time, so in the summer months I always decide to bake them. But while I'm busy being all nostalgic, I completely forget that making sugar cookies starts off fun, becomes a pain in the ass, and then ends with me yelling at my sister for wandering off and quitting on me. The memories.

So I had lapsed into my sugar cookie feelings last week, and found myself home alone for a while with an acceptable excuse to bake some goods. I decided to make some sugar cookies, and remembered that I was given one of the greatest recipes for this kind of cookie. The Wilton Roll Out Cookies recipe is one of the best I've ever found because it's easy, you don't have to chill the dough, and they taste like you just picked them up from the bakery.

Now, normally I'm not the biggest fan of Wilton recipes - I've been burned by their icing a few times (literally, of course) - but this one is a keeper.

The best part of this blog post is my clear disregard for the holidays. As you can see above, I have three sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins, decorated for the fourth of July sitting in the most patriotic dish I think I've ever seen. When I brought them out at a tailgating event, I told everyone they were shaped like summer squashes. I don't know anyone who knows what a summer squash looks like.

Here's the link to the official recipe: http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Roll-Out-Cookie-Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (which I've never used, so you can do without it if you'd like)
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In mixing bowl cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla and almond extract.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add to butter mixture one cup at a time, mixing after each addition.

Do not chill dough (you don't have to, that's the best!)

On a floured surface, roll dough out. Dip cookie cutter into flour before each cut.

Bake cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet for 6-7 minutes or until light brown.
*This dough/cookie comes out very white, so keep an eye on them to make sure they're not burning around 5 minutes



You really can't go wrong with this sugar cookie recipe, specifically because they don't have many ingredients and they don't take long to make. Give 'em a shot!

And by the way,

I was dead on about the summer squash. Dead on.

Source: Wilton Roll Out Cookie Recipe

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Roll-Out-Cookie-Recipe

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Pie: Part II Tokyo Drift

This chocolate peanut butter ice cream-heaven-you-could-eat-it-every-day pie might be the best pie you ever make. (this is my best bill mays impression) On terms of ease, this is on par with just about everything else I bake. On terms of taste? This is ridiculously good. Too good. I mean come on, it's a pie! Pies are for Thanksgiving, and dinners with extended family members. But this pie, whoa. This recipe rivals only the chocolate dump cake in terms of how easy it is to make vs. how good it tastes.

Before we get started, I have to make some confessions. I didn't have time to make the crust myself, so I bought a chocolate pie crust. I didn't think that I may have to scale the amount of ice cream back a little, and as a result I got a chocolately stream that ran down my counter, and into my dog's crate. He liked it though, he was so excited he looked like this:

Okay, we were both excited.

If you decide to go the same route, you definitely don't need the full 2 cups of chocolate ice cream. I was following the recipe and everything was going well until it was time to put the second layer of vanilla/peanut butter ice cream in. That was when I had created an overflow of chocolate ice cream and needless to say, there are no photos of that.

I also had a lot of left over vanilla/peanut butter ice cream filling, so you could afford to scale back on that as well. I imagine the left overs would make for a pretty sweet milkshake, but I didn't have the time or the energy to figure out how to create a machine to make a milkshake. Especially after my experience with the homemade double boiler.

So here's the recipe for your family's new favorite pie: 
According to the recipe:
Prep time: 35 minutes
Baking time: 6 minutes
Total time: 41 minutes  (that's some great math, but don't forget you need to freeze it for 6 HOURS)

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups of chocolate cookie crumbs
- 2 tbsp. finely chopped nuts
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 2 cups chocolate ice cream (or a little less if you don't make the crust yourself)
- 4 cups vanilla ice cream (again, less if you're using a store bought crust)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1/4 cup of chopped nuts

Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you're making your own crust, mix the cookie crumbs, the 2 tbsp. of finely chopped nuts and melted butter and mix well. Press into the bottom and up the sides of your 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 350 for 5-6 minutes until set. Then cool. If you're not making your own crust, skip ahead!

This is how I cheated.

- If your crust already came assembled, spread the soft chocolate ice cream in the bottom of the crust. Freeze for 30 minutes.

You can (and I should have) clearly seen here that I had too much
chocolate ice cream, but how is that ever a problem?

- While the chocolate ice cream is getting hard in the freezer, mix the vanilla ice cream and peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended. It's best to have all of the ice cream sitting out to get soft before you begin. When blended, spread over the chocolate ice cream and top with remaining peanuts. Cover and freeze for at least 6 hours. Before you serve, let it sit for about 10 minutes or just 2 if it's 100 degrees outside.

This was the next day. I had to reinforce the pie crust with a Pyrex dish to make sure it wouldn't collapse. This was a solid ice cream pie. I added the swirls on the top to make it look more appetizing. I'm still not positive that worked.

- Pie serves 8-10 or one Kevin.

This is clearly not your mom's apple pie. Or anyone else's for that matter.

There's no apples in it.

This pie can't come with enough recommendations, you just have to try it. I can assure you that it won't disappoint. And if it does, let me know and I'll stop making such strong assurances.

Also, here's a quick shot of my peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate butter cream krispie icing:

But that's a recipe for a different day my friend!



Source: About.com 'Busy Cooks'
http://busycooks.about.com/od/dessertrecipes/r/chocpbicepie.htm
Posted by: Linda Larsen