That little precious nephew of mine spent the whole weekend with me which turned into an eventful weekend of baking, cooking, and crafting! Here's what I got for you:
For starters, I told you I'd be back with more cake batter recipes and here I give you
CHOCOLATE CAKE BATTER COOKIES! (a major nephew hit) I came across a cake batter cookie recipe over at
Chef in Training that included a special ingredient, pudding. The only problem was it called for vanilla and I only had chocolate fudge on hand. I thought what the heck, might as well give it a try. Me oh my what a good try because now I have chocolate cake batter cookies! Can you say YUM!
CHOCOLATE CAKE BATTER COOKIES
ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks butter
- 3/4 c brown sugar
- 1/4 c sugar
- 1 package chocolate fudge pudding mix (dry)
- 3/4 c yellow cake mix (dry)
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 1/4 c flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- LOTS of sprinkles
instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Mix together flour, baking soda, and salt
- In another bowl cream butter and sugars together. Beat in pudding and cake mix. Add eggs and vanilla, mixing until smooth
- Gradually add in flour mixture
- Mix in LOTS of sprinkles
- Roll into balls onto greased baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes
On to the next,
My nephew may just be the pickiest of picky eaters. In his world there are three food groups: chicken nuggets, chips, and cookies. I'll admit I give into the cookie category a little too much but hey I'm the aunt, I'm allowed to. Anywho, I'm always thinking of what I can make that he is actually going to to eat or how can I make something so he will eat it. This brings me to M&M PANCAKE SHAPES. Simply whip up your favorite pancake mix (thank you aunt jemima complete for only having to add water), add m&ms, throw on the griddle, use cookie cutters to make into fun shapes. Ta-Dah, he loved them!
Dinner Time My sister and niece came over to join us for dinner. My niece is not as picky as my nephew but still pretty picky. Then you got my sister who's a vegetarian. Great, now what could I make that everybody is going to eat? When in doubt, make
mac & cheese. I stumbled across this
homemade mac & cheese recipe from
Chef in Training (such great food over there) that I happened to have all the ingredients minus the broccoli. To go along with it, I whipped up some of my
cheesey garlic biscuits!
HOMEMADE MAC & CHEESE
ingredients
- 14oz box of pasta noodles
- 1 tsp butter
- 1/3 c bread crumbs
- 3 tbsp parmesan cheese, divided
- 2 1/2 c milk
- 1/3 c flour
- 1/2 c chopped onions
- 1 c cheddar cheese
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F. Coat a shallow 2-quart baking dish with cooking spray.
- Cook pasta according to package; drain and return to pot.
- Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; add bread crumbs and cook, until light golden.
- Remove from heat and transfer crumbs to a small bowl; stir in 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese and set aside.
- In same saucepan, whisk together milk and flour until blended; add onion. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, whisking frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened, about 2 minutes.Remove from heat and whisk in cheddar cheese, mustard, salt, pepper and remaining 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese.
- Pour over cooked, drained pasta; toss to mix and coat. Transfer to a baking dish; sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake 20-25 minutes.
CHEESEY GARLIC BISCUITS
ingredients
- 2 c biscuit mix
- 2/3 c milk
- 1/3 c shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/3 c shredded cheddar cheese
- 3 tbsp melted butter
- 1/8 tsp garlic powder
instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 F
- Stir together biscuit mix, milk, & cheeses. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake 8-10 minutes. Melt butter; stir in garlic powder; brush on top of warm biscuits.
Sunday morning, the sun was shinning, the birds were chirping, and I had us some Banana Peanut Butter Muffins in the oven. Mmmmmm...
BANANA PEANUT BUTTER MUFFINS
ingredients
batter:
- 1 1/2 c flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 bananas, mashed
- 3/4 sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/3 melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 2/3 peanut butter
topping:
- 1/3 c brown sugar
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/3 c chopped peanut butter chips
instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F, line 10-12 muffin cups with muffin papers
- Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg, melted butter, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and peanut butter. Stir in flour mixture until all combined; spoon into muffin cups.
- Mix together all topping ingredients until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal; sprinkle over muffins.
- Bake 18-20 minutes
These turned out way yummy I had to share (although I could have kept them all for myself). I packed a few of them up and gave them to my grandma & grandpa. =)
Moving on to the Crafting, First project-- recycled crayons. These are pretty neat to make; my nephew had a fun time breaking up the crayons and was fascinated by how they turned out!
Easy peasy-- break up old crayons, fill them in foil lined muffin tins (I used a mini muffin tray), bake 8 minutes on 275 F. Let them cool, pop them out, & get to coloring again!
Last but not least, my favorite of the weekend & I think my nephew would agree-- SALT DOUGH HAND PRINTS:
materials
- 1 c flour
- 1/2 c salt
- cold water
instructions
- Mix together flour and salt; add enough water to form a consistency like play dough
- Roll into balls and flat out with a rolling pin on greased cookie sheet
- Push that little hand down to form a hand print (I also added their names)
- Bake at 250 F for 2 hours; let them completely cool (I let it cool over night)
- PAINT and let dry!
These measurements gave enough dough for two hand prints with a little extra dough left over. We used the leftovers and made shapes out of them-- train for my nephew, heart for my niece
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Little Hands at Work
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Now that's what I call a weekend! Enjoy =)
