So, have you had a flu shot??

Well,  I can say that I have always been proud of the fact that I rarely get sick in the winter; unless I am exposed to strep. This year is the kicker. It got me and grabbed right in the middle of my chest. YUCK. I have felt lousy for the last week. Aches, tired, fever, chills... then no sleep. It has been awful. On Monday I went to the Dr. who was pleased to give me a nice strong antibiotic and the super duper cough medicine of the GODS. Sleep was once again mine and today I am back to ME.

The last week was wasted. Only the bare minimum was accomplished; all because I thought I was immune to the Flu. Ha! no more delusion here..next September when the CDC rolls out the new vaccine guess who will be first in line? Yep! yours truly. I can't afford to have a week where I am down for the count. My house is a wreck. There is enough laundry to fill a dump truck and there are no groceries in my cupboards. Today, I will fix all that is out of Whack in the Derrick's  household. Then I will begin to prepare some great new blogs that will appear in the next weeks to come.

For those cooking enthusiast I will be debuting my first Tasty Kitchen recipe here as well as on Tasty Kitchen;
home made S'mores Cookies. Than these will be closely followed by a supper yum, the Napoleon.(and this one is by request I might add.) Just in time for St. Patrick's day will be my Bailey's Irish Cream Cupcakes. We celebrated my brother and sister's birthday with these last year.  How about Irish Soda bread??? Hope you all are looking forward to following me in March. Let me know what you think of the recipes and the ways I capture them.

Rocky Road Hot Lips for your Sweety

Here is super quick and delish confection for those Valentines you want to treat super special. I call it Rocky Road. It is a perfect combination with sweet, salty and chocolate. Then the textures are soft, chewy and crunchy. How could you go wrong?It has everything and anything you could want to nibble on. Here is the real bonus, it is quick and easy!

Begin by melting your favorite Coverture chocolate; here I am using Guittard Milk & Dark Chocolate combined. Others on the market are; Wilton or other Molding chocolate is a fine substitute. There are various methods for melting chocolate. I use a double boiler method. Place the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (or use an actual double boiler pan!) allow to melt until smooth and pourable.

The next ingredient is the Salty! I like Snyder's Snaps pictured above. I crunch these into pieces by hand.



Sweet and chewy addition comes from a family favorite Swedish Fish. Add these to a large bowl with crumbled pretzels.

Next add generous portions of marshmallows to the fish and pretzels. Mix together being sure that all 3 ingredients are evenly distributed. By now the chocolate should be fully melted. Pour the meted chocolate over the sweet and salty ingredients and fold until completely coated in chocolate. Cove a sheet tray with aluminum foil, smooth it out to insure there are few wrinkles. This makes the bottom nice and smooth when it dries. Pour the contents of the bowl  into the pan and spread evenly over the sheet tray. Allow to "dry" or harden for about 1 hour. Now you can cut like a brownie or as I did with a Lip shaped cookie cutter.
ENJOY! The PERFECT Valentine confection! Ready in about one hour.

Ingredients:

2 pounds Coverture Chocolate

2 cups Pretzels

2 cups Swedish Fish

2  1/2 Cups Mini Marshmallows

Taking my turn at Creating a Cake Pop Truffling thing!!

When I was working at the bakery we used to save the un-frosted cupcakes every night in Ziploc bags. The intention had been to create "cake bites" or Cake Pops out of the left overs, essentially not wasting anything. Well on occasion this happened, but I was never involved. If it did not involve the oven I was not usually asked to help. I was pretty much a mess when it came to frosting or decorating anything! So this is going to stretch my abilities, it will be a growth opportunity. Often when I make multi layer cakes or large cakes I trim a good portion from the top to level the cake then I freeze to make it into something like a trifle. These pops and bites are another good use for cake trimming scraps, especially if you have already made butter cream!

Here are my cake trimmings. Chocolate cake is a favorite in my house and in the neighborhood for that matter. The neighbors are my test subjects and what I a creating they are tasting!

The next ingredient is the creamy stuff that my kids would eat with out cake. Light fluffy vanilla butter cream.

This is sweet cream butter whipped nice and light. 1 T vanilla extract and 2T Half and Half. Whip it some more and add air until the butter is almost white. Now add about 1 pound confectioners sugar in two additions and blend well  after each addition, it may need 1-2T more of the half and half. Now allow to mix until the volume increases slightly.

Break the cake into crumbles and add 1 cup of the butter cream and fold together until it looks like the mixture above. Then roll mixture into 1 inch balls. Place them on a sheet tray covered with foil or parchment paper. (the mixture should make about 40 balls.)

 The Cake balls can be lightly covered and placed in the refrigerator for1-2 hours. Or if you are in a hurry, like I always am, place them in the freezer for 15-20 minutes until firm. Next prepare the chocolate.

Here we have Guittard Coverture Chocolate. This chocolate it used for molding and coating candies. It has a higher percentage of cocoa butter (the fat in chocolate) that allows it to melt easily, adhere and dry at room temperature. It is melted until smooth over simmering water. today I made cake pops so I stuck the ends of the pop sticks in the melted chocolate to help it bind to the cake and butter cream.

Place the chocolate dipped sticks about 3/4 of the way into the cake and then dip in the coveture chocolate.
The pops can be cooled by standing on end; or if you have a piece of Styrofoam around the sticks can be poked into the foam and allowed to dry perfectly round. I chose chocolate and white choco late coating but and of the "colors" used for candy molding can be used to cover you cake and then to decorate. My out come was great. It was simple and came together nicely. My husband was ready for me to go into mass production. The neighbors want more! Hope you enjoy making these as well. It was a nice way to spend a snowy winter day.

List of Ingredients:
1 layer cake or the equivalent in cake scraps
1 small batch of butter cream ( if you are pushed a can of Duncan Hines frosting will work!)1 pound of coverture or candy making chocolate
Lollipop sticks about 4 inches long

Add a Badge to Your Website – Tasty Kitchen

Add a Badge to Your Website – Tasty Kitchen