New Toy!

So this week my days have been spent with this:

I LOVE my new mixer. It was a surprise from Craig a few weeks ago. I came in from class one night to find it sitting on the counter. So at 9:00 that night, I made red velvet cupcakes and butter cream frosting, of course!

Since then I’ve made cake, cookies, meringue and frosting with my new favorite kitchen tool. (I’ve also been running a few extra miles to balance out all these delicious goodies!) Yesterday, I made homemade ice cream in it- SO good!!! I found the recipe on one of my favorite blogs. I highly recommend it!

MOCHA ICE CREAM

Ingredients:

½ cup sweetened condensed mil

1 teaspoon of vanilla

pinch of salt

¼ cup of sour cream

1 ¼ cups of heavy cream

I used FF sour cream, lite syrup, and FF condensed milk & it tasted great. I'm sure it would taste even better with the "REAL" stuff!

Mix 1 heaping teaspoon of instant coffee powder with 1 tablespoon of boiling water.

Mix condensed milk, vanilla, salt and sour cream until well combined. To it add the coffee mixture, along with a generous squirt of chocolate syrup.

Mix your heavy whipping cream on high {it would love a cold bowl and cold whisk too} until stiff peeks form {3 or so minutes}. Whisk some of the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture until incorporated and then gently fold the rest of the whipped cream in. Place in an airtight container and freeze 6 hours before serving!

My kitchen helper who couldn't understand why he couldn't have a taste. . . .

Craig isn’t much of a sweets eater- but these cookies I made last night he loved! I made them to send with my sweet cousin Lane on his flight back to Oklahoma. So easy and pretty good! I turned them into double doozies with some butter cream frosting in the middle. I never realized how easy homemade frosting is, and now I don’t think I’ll ever buy a can again. . . well, unless I’m in a hurry!

Cake Cookies

½ stick of butter

½ block of cream cheese

1 egg

1 tsp of vanilla

1 box cake mix

*Mix the 1^st four ingredients together until blended. Then add the cake mix. Roll in powered sugar and cook at 350 degrees for NO MORE than 15 minutes. My oven takes about 12 minutes. Be sure not to overcook them!!

I made one more batch tonight to take on our camping trip tomorrow. That’s right. Leah is going camping! First time ever! AH! We set up our tent in the FRONT YARD this afternoon to make sure everything was there. I’m sure the neighbors thought we were crazy--- as if they didn’t already think that coming from the house that frequently has deer, ducks, or muddy four wheelers in the drive way!

There will most definitely be a post about the trip- it’s sure to be entertaining.