Banana Bread Cake Pops w/Walnuts & Icing

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day! Well typical me, on Feb 13th I got home from work (my husband was gone on the overnight shift) and I realized, hey tomorrow is V-Day and I have nothing. Pretty typical for me, and him. So, since I didn't really cook last weekend I thought I'd make him something yummy out of whatever was left in my house, which was not much. Again, we had bananas and since he loves them, I decided to do something with those. Cleaning out a closet last week I found a cake pop maker I got 2 years ago (apparently I wanted to try this cooking thing before but failed). Except I did use it once and my cakepops looked and tasted like little turds, not something edible by any means (one of my dogs might argue that). So I thought I'd give it another go and make something banana-ish. I actually got this recipe idea from a multiple places but didn't use any specific recipe, I combined ingrediants. I'm pretty proud!

Banana Bread Cake Pops

Makes about 40 balls!

1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2/3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 bananas mashed up

In a bowl mix flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg together. Mix eggs, extract, veggie oil in a separate bowl, and slowly add in solid ingredients until all mixed together with mixer. Then add bananas in, and again keep going until all mixed together. I used a cake pop maker and filled the bottom of each dwelling almost to the top with batter.
I saw the cake pop maker said 4-5 minutes per batch, and it took around 4.5 minutes total. This time, they didn't come out like turds. That was a plus :).

Icing with Walnuts  (and Jimmies on some!) 

I took this basic recipe from food.com titled "Basic Vanilla Frosting"

2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons milk (I had 1% and that was fine)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine all ingredients on medium speed until smooth. I have not mastered icing cake pops so I only spread it on the top half, then dunked the pops in either jimmies or walnuts.

I really went Martha Stewart on this one and even put them in cups with tissue paper to appear like a bouquet. Fancy, huh?

They came out edible, very edible! My husband actually likes them better refrigerated with the icing cold.  I like this baking thing, the cooking, not so much!

Lazy Nor'EastAH Saturday :)

After getting 2+ feet of snow in the past 24 hours, I have NOT ventured out to the grocery store! I decided we should keep these Disney names going for storms (this one was called Nemo...?), so the next one should be Bambi... 
My husband and I spent a good two hours outside this morning shoveling off the deck, borrowing the neighbors snowblower (thank yoouu!), and playing with our dogs in the snow :). 
We have some fantastic neighbors who brought their dog over too, so we had a mini dog park going. Once we came in I decided to make some homemade peppermint hot chocolate with a recipe given to us by a family member. Unfortunately I don't know the measurements of the chocolate & white chocolate chips, as well as the peppermint candy because it was given to us in a cute jar already measured out. However I found something similar online using these numbers:

Peppermint Hot Chocolate
Mix 1/2 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, 1/3 cup smashed peppermints and 1 can of condensed milk in a medium saucepan, on medium heat for 10-12 minutes. Stir frequently and once hot, serve with some mini marshmallows on the top :)

We literally did nothing the rest of the afternoon except nap and eat whatever was laying around our house. I was craving rice krispy treats and got an all around request from my neighbors and husband to "do something peanut buttery with them." So I did, and they came out good! I didn't take a picture because next time I will double the frosting recipe (already doubled below) since it only covered half the rice krispy's, LAME! That was slightly irritating but this should be correct below.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Rice Krispy Treats, with Peanut Butter Frosting:

Idea from Tasty Trials webpage, however I added some things and changed measurements, but still want to give them the main credit!

6 cups crisp rice cereal

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

10 ounces marshmallows (1 bag)

Topping:

2/3 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2.5 tablespoons butter

Mini peanut butter cups to smash up and sprinkle on the top :) 

Use a 13x9 pan (I used glass).

In a large pot, melt the butter and then add in peanut butter, melting until smooth. Add marshmallows and stir constantly until they are completely melted! Mmmmm!

Add cereal and chocolate chips, and immediately stir them until covered with marshmallowy goodness. When completely coated, pour the whole mix into the pan. Make sure to spread evenly and press down to get the treats slightly packed.

When cool, start prepping the topping. Melt butter and peanut butter in a pan like above, then slowly start to add in the confectioners sugar on low-med heat. Once all melted and mixed, I spread it across the cooled krispy treats and sprinkled some PB cup's mashed up on top. Cut into squares and done!

Luckily we have a chipotle right down the road (literally 5 minutes away), so that is where our dinner is coming from! No dinner recipe tonight, sorry! I'll be stuffing my face with a nice burrito.

Birthday boy gets some homemade cupcakes!

After a sick day Saturday and a big family dinner Sunday, I totally had a by-weekend for cooking (I'm not complaining....). However, I did get myself off the bench Sunday morning to make my birthday boy husband some cupcakes. Although I didn't do any meal cooking this weekend it wasn't a total wash, I got to try "real" baking. I say "real" because my husband tells people I can bake but I can use boxed cake mix and a can of frosting (fancy huh?). I wanted to cop-out and do this, but I decided to be brave and go with something totally from scratch. I also got to use this frosting thingy I had bought, which looks like the giant syringes I use when I work as a nurse. Trust me, when I'm a nurse holding a syringe this size you want to cover any body orifice and run the other way, but this one's a keeper!
My husband absolutely loves peanut butter, as well as bananas. After a lot of recipe searching I finally found some combination of these two that fit the items I had in my cabinets (I wasn't up for a Sunday morning of screaming kids and pissy moms at the grocery store). I decided on a banana chocolate chip cupcake, with peanut butter cream cheese frosting. I'm not a big fan of either, but I will say the combo actually worked... Annnnnd these were not hard to make, slightly time consuming due to my "special" cooking issues, but that's always expected. Baking is definitely my first choice, however I don't think cakes, cupcakes, and cookies are going to fly for our weekend meals. And yes, I realized AFTER making the frosting (with cream cheese in it), that these can't just sit out on the counter for a few days, because I will give everyone food poisoning from bad dairy. Good last minute catch huh?

Banana chocolate chip cupcakes

Taken directly from Baked Perfection pinterest post. Makes total of 12 cupcakes.

1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar 
1/4 cup milk (whatever type you have at home, *I used 1% and it was fine)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup semi sweet or dark chocolate chips (this is A LOT of chips, if your not into too much chocolate I'd use 1/2 cup)

Preheat over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until combined.  Add the milk and vanilla.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until thoroughly combined.  Slowly beat in the flour mixture, until just combined.  Slowly add in the bananas.  Once all is combined, stir in the chocolate chips by hand.  Divide batter evenly among 12 cupcake cups.  Bake in preheated oven until tops are golden, approximately 17-20 minutes (mine took 20!).  Remove to wire rack and cool completely before frosting. *And really, I had to let the tops get golden, when they started browning I took them out but the middle was not cooked, it was mushy banana grossness and they went back in. The final product was great though!

Peanut butter cream cheese frosting:

Got these ingredients from the Chocolate Peanut Butter Factory pinterest post. Makes enough for a cake, or about 12-14 cupcakes (the recipe said 18 cupcakes, but since I did the soft serve looking frosting there was no way it made it to this many!)

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Reese's)
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 & 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

*Bag of Reese's mini PB Cups to put on the top of the cupcake is optional, I did it! :)

Cream the peanut butter and cream cheese in a bowl with a mixer, scraping sides until frosting is light and fluffy (not stiff and thick!). Gradually add in the sugar until all mixed, then mix in vanilla.

*I didn't know what "cream" meant, I'm still not entirely sure, but after a PB cream cheese nightmarish glue-like ball on my hand mixers, I realized using the cool looking squiggly attachments on my mixer would probably work better. It did (and this made it fluffy!), so if you have those they were fantastic :)

I kept the frosting in the fridge until an hour before we ate the cupcakes (I cooked Sunday and we ate them Monday). I had to let if soften up a little and then stuffed it in the creepy syringe froster and it worked great! For banana and peanut butter lovers, I'd definitely recommend these! Until next weekend...