Dessert – Bakerlady

Oooey Gooey Sinful Caramel Pie

August 1, 2014 Leave a Comment

This pie indulged my sweet tooth, and my highly closeted rebel nature. You see, this recipe makes dulce de leche out of sweetened condensed milk. And does so by boiling the cans. Yes. Boiling them. If you are looking to add a little danger to your life, this is the way to do it. I’ve been told the cans can explode, spreading thick gooey sticky caramel milk all over your kitchen. I think some cans even explicitly warn you not to boil them due to the risk of explosion. Sounds exciting right? Pretty sure it’s made up danger though. No eruptions for me, and in all the years my grandmother made a thick, milk-based caramel sauce out of canned sweetened condensed milk, I don’t recall it ever happening to her either. I did have a little excitement while baking this pie. Enough to completely derail my day and prove that you really cannot mess up a pie this easy. More on that later.

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Filed Under: Baking, Desserts, Pie Tagged With: Caramel, Dessert, dulce de leche, graham cracker crust, Pie, Rich, Whipped Cream

Happy National Cheesecake Day

July 30, 2014 Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure food holidays were invented by bloggers. Who am I to complain? Happy National Cheesecake Day everyone! Celebrate with this velvety rich New York Cheesecake topped with bright fresh strawberries! Yuuuuuum!

Print Recipe for New York Cheesecake

Filed Under: Baking, Cake, Desserts, Pie Tagged With: Dessert, National Cheesecake Day

Hamburger Cookies

July 10, 2014 4 Comments

I got the idea for these adorable cookies from my friend Rachel. She’s always doing fun things with her girls and is just generally an awesome resource for delightful kiddo entertainment. I gave my kids a simple demo and then let them do the rest. They LOVED making (and eating!) these cookies! Easy, delicious and super cute!

First you’ll need a box of Nilla Wafers, a package of dipped Oreos and two tubes of frosting (one red, one green). You could also use Peppermint Patties, Grasshopper Cookies or (during Girl Scout season) Thin Mints. I really liked the taste of the dipped Oreos though. Besides, not everyone likes mint…but who doesn’t LOVE Oreos?

I gave each kid a frosting tube and put small star tips on the ends. One did three red ketchup swooshes, the other got to do the lettuce green swipes in between the red ones. You can also do yellow for mustard, and/or top with tinted coconut for lettuce instead of the green frosting – but each kid having a tube and assembly line simplicity worked really well for my two munchkins.

Stick the Oreo together between two Nilla wafers with a little dab of frosting on the bottom.

Done.

Adorable hamburger cookies for your next BBQ. The entire plate was devoured. My kids were so proud of their creations!

Print Recipe for Hamburger Cookies

Hamburger Cookies

20 vanilla wafer cookies
10 dipped Oreo cookies
1 (4.25 ounce) Betty Crocker red decorator frosting
1 (4.25 ounce) Betty Crocker green decorator frosting

Directions

For each burger you will need two vanilla wafers as the buns. Place a small dot of frosting on the bottom bun and then place your Oreo cookie on top to look like a hamburger patty.
Make three dots of red frosting on top of the cookie to look like the tomato or ketchup, then three dots of the green frosting to look like lettuce. Finish by placing second vanilla wafer on top as the top burger bun.

Filed Under: Baking, Cookies, Desserts Tagged With: BBQ, Cookies, Dessert, Frosting, Hamburger, Kid Activities

Easy Strawberry Pie

July 2, 2014 1 Comment

I am a strawberry pie novice. I’m not blessed with the nostalgia of eating it as a child. I have no memory of gobbling down a gorgeous slice on a sticky summer evening. I envy those of you who regularly enjoyed traditional strawberry pie from your favorite little diner. On the corner. With kids playing stickball in the street. And a waitress named Flo sporting bright pink lipstick and mostly purple hair. I hear strawberry pie is a pretty big deal in Pittsburgh, and since I have a new friend who hails from there, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This needs to be a “thing” on the West Coast. Like yesterday.

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Filed Under: Baking, Desserts, Pie Tagged With: baking, Dessert, Pie, Strawberries, Summer

Rustic Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake Tart

June 21, 2014 6 Comments

Summer is officially here! That means soon there will be all kinds of fresh berries available! Yippee! I’m really more of an autumn girl – actually, around the end of May I start looking forward to sweaters, colorful leaves, hearty soups and the smell of new school supplies. It’s a sickness. Add it to the list of things that are completely and totally wrong with me. But, summertime certainly has the corner on berries. And I love berries. My favorite are raspberries. Especially when they are dusted with powdered sugar like perfect little summer snow-capped mountains of juicy goodness.

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Filed Under: Baking, Desserts Tagged With: baking, Cheesecake, Dessert, lemon, Raspberry, Tart

Oatmeal Lemon Creme Bars

February 19, 2013 5 Comments

I love all things lemon. I always have lemony recipes hanging around to try. My plan for this week was to immerse myself in all things yellow happiness fruit baking related. When I went to make two lemon desserts today I found half my lemons had vanished. They were in the fruit basket two days ago and now suddenly they are gone. Then I remembered my husband made honey/brandy/lemon hot water to combat his cold over the weekend. He used my dessert earmarked lemons! The nerve! I was so irate that I was midway thru a strongly worded e-mail to him before I realized what I doing was a huge mistake. Not to mention completely absurd. I mean really, chastising a husband for making himself a remedy instead of just moaning on the couch in a breathy, anguished voice for me to bring him something soothing? That’s just insanity. I decided to appreciate the fact that hubby was feeling better today (and all on his own!) and that I still had enough sunny citrus to make these glorious bars. Crazy lemon loving e-mail deleted. Crisis averted.

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Filed Under: Baking, Cookies, Desserts Tagged With: baking, Bars, Cookies, Cream, Dessert, lemon

Pumpkin Crunch Cake

February 14, 2013 4 Comments

If you are familiar with dump cake, you’ll see the genius of this recipe immediately. My mom used to make dump cake when I was a kid. I’ll have to post that “recipe” sometime soon. It’s essentially canned fruit, topped with dry cake mix and smothered with butter. Not really a cake in the traditional sense, but delicious. I saw this pumpkin version and knew it would be ah-mazing. And it was. This is two delightful desserts combined into one. Pumpkin pie on the bottom and pecan pie on top. Custardy spiced goodness covered with crunchy buttery caramelized nut topping. I’m telling you, it’s far too easy for how gorgeous it turns out.

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Filed Under: Baking, Cake, Desserts Tagged With: baking, Cake, Cake Mix, Custard, Dessert, Dump Cake, Easy, Pecan Pie, Pie, Pumpkin

Michael’s Is Evil and Wilton Is Wonderful

February 13, 2013 3 Comments

I went in for one thing. One. Thing. Some plastic baggies for my kid’s Valentine’s for school. That’s all I needed. But, alas…Michael’s is evil. So terribly, wonderfully EVIL. Out I came with a bag loaded down with rafia ribbon, chocolate melts and candy molds. I’m weak-minded. It’s true. I’m a marketing and merchandising gold mine. I see things that look fun and suddenly think I’m crafty & I buy them. I suppose I should consider myself (and my bank account) lucky that I didn’t find some uber involved super-craft project to throw myself into. One time, I went into Michael’s with my cousin and came out with about $150 worth of blank canvases, paints, brushes and what-not. I was absolutely sure I’d be the next Picasso with all that crap. I remembered very quickly that I haven’t an artistic bone in my body once I started trying to actually use it. This time wasn’t that bad I guess.

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Filed Under: Baking, Cookies, Desserts Tagged With: baking, Cookies, Dessert, Easy, No Bake, OREO, Valentine's Day, Wilton Candy Melts, Wilton Candy Molds

Samoas S’more Rolls

February 12, 2013 2 Comments

It’s Girl Scouts cookie contest time!! I’m cooking with cookies! I feel I have crossed a MAJOR milestone in my life. I had a box of Girl Scouts Samoas in my cupboard for a week and managed not to consume the entire thing. In my opinion, Samoas are the perfect food. Shortbready cookie, caramel, coconut and chocolate. Oh glory.

I know I’m not alone. Samoas make up about 20% of the total cookie sales by those sweet little sugar hocking scouts. These babies are second only to Thin Mints, which I contemplated using for this contest, but knew I could only stretch my willpower so far. My task for this contest was to create something incredible using Girl Scout cookies. And The Girl Scouts of Western Washington GAVE me 5 boxes to play with. My life is so grand! My very first thought was that Samoas could only be made more perfect by one thing. Marshmallow. With that plan in mind, this is what I came up with. Samoas S’more Rolls.

These three ingredient rolls are absolute heaven and the most time-consuming part is waiting for the oil to heat up.

It’s a simple chop, fill, roll and fry. But the result is just amazing.

I consumed the first two rolls fresh out of the fryer, burning my fingers getting the molten chocolate and caramel into my mouth. Where, I also toasted my tongue just a little. The smell was overpowering – I could not resist long enough to allow them to cool. The filling was divine. Melty mallow goodness wrapping around sweet caramel and rich chocolate with a hint of buttery coconut. All of that gorgeous deliciousness wrapped in a crispy roll. Oh gracious these are good.

I cooked up a few more batches, fed some to my kids and then ran the rest over to my neighbors because once there was caramel and chocolate dipping sauce on the plate, these were not long for the world at my house. Little envelopes of perfection. Mmmmmm.

Girl Scout Cookies go on sale to the public March 1-17! There is an awesome cookie locator, as well as an app, that tells you exactly where girls are selling cookies in your neighborhood! Head over to the Girl Scouts of WW facebook page and give them some love! As soon as cookies go on sale, get yourself a box of Samoas and whip up some of these rolls. Your taste buds will sing thanks to me but the rest of you may hate me for giving you the idea!

You can vote for the finalists from February 19 – March 1 by clicking HERE. I hope you’ll see these Samoas S’more Rolls on the list!

Samoas S’more Rolls
a Bakerlady original

1 box Girl Scouts Samoas Cookies (you may have a couple left for eating)
12 egg roll wrappers
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

In a deep pot, heat oil to 380 degrees F. (I used my frydaddy)

Cut Samoas into 1/4-inch chunks. Take an egg roll wrapper, and brush edges with a little water, and lay on a work surface, water side up, with a point facing you, not a straight edge. Place about 1 chopped cookie 1 or 2 inches from the edge, and top with 4 mini marshmallows.

Fold the corner closest you up and just over the filling, press lightly, then fold in the sides, making a little pull or tuck to keep the roll right. Then roll away from you and press to seal tightly. (Take care not to tear the egg roll wrapper. This can cause roll to leak while cooking. If tear occurs, pinch dough together until it reseals or discard wrap and use a new one.) Repeat until all egg rolls are formed.

Fry egg rolls 2 at a time, turning almost immediately, cooking on all sides to just golden brown, about 1-2 minutes. (Make sure not to overcook filling. If you see marshmallows start to ooze out before both sides are golden, filling will be overcooked and egg roll will appear hollow inside) Remove to a paper towel-lined plate and repeat until all cooked. Make sure to check your oil temperature between additions.

Filed Under: Baking, Cookies, Cooking, Desserts Tagged With: Cooking, Dessert, Frying, girl scout cookies, Girl Scouts Cookie Contest, Samoas

Rainbow Happiness Six Layer Cake

October 8, 2012 28 Comments

We had the mother of all rainbow birthdays this weekend for my sweet six-year-old Madison. My house looked like a unicorn threw up all over. It was epic fun. A hyperactivity inducing, spectrum spectacular. Brightly colored craziness. We had a blast. The pièce de résistance of the party was a stunning six layer rainbow cake. It was truly a sight to behold. It requires a bit of time, but is totally worth it for an awe inspired gasp from your guests when you cut it open.