birthday dessert bar

I made a bunch of desserts for my birthday and had people over to help me consume them

but before that, Chad suprised me with one of his signature marshmallow cakes

homemade coffee marshmallow, an almond paste filling, covered in chocolate

sweet potato cake w/maple glaze

mini pistachio cupcakes

coconut almond drops

oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

mini chocolate stout cupcakes made w/Guiness

oatsies - a chewy oat bar dipped in chocolate

cookie-stuffed cookies - mini oreos inside a chocolate chip cookie

s'mores whoopie pies - graham whoopies filled with marshmallow creme and chocolate ganache

coconut macadamia shortbread

samoa cookie pops

pistachio cakeballs

coffee cakepops

peanut butter & jelly pretzel balls

mint oreo truffles

thanks to everyone who helped consume these treats

after stuffing ourselves, we went to the Alibi for a few hours of karaoke

and I ended up getting lei-ed about 15 times

it was a good birthday

samoa cookie pops

samoas are my absolute favorite girl scout cookie, and I wanted to put them into pop form

I used a bag of chewy caramels

and some homemade shortbread cookies

then crumbled up the shortbread into the bowl of melted caramels

using my hand,s I rolled the mixture into balls and inserted the sticks

forming the balls was a little difficult due to the sticky caramel

I dipped the pops in dark chocolate and sprinkled toasted coconut flakes on the top

these turned out great - they might be my favorite pops to date!

valentine's day

chocolate chip cookies are Peter's favorite

so I made him a giant chocolate chip cookie for valentine's day

made an array of sweets including heart-shaped gingerbread cookies from Betty Crocker

with almond flavored frosting

along with some of my favorite sugar cookies from joy of baking

red velvet cakeballs covered in dark cocoa and white melts

pink strawberry flavored marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles

 

 

used some of the leftover melts for dipped pretzel sticks

put together some boxes as valentine's gifts

also made up some mason jars full of treats

pecan tassies

Tim made a wonderful pecan pie for Christmas

so in return I made him some mini pecan pies for his birthday

the recipe came from the gourmet cookie book

used pre-made pie dough and divided it into 24 equal parts

pressed each one to cover the inside of the silicone mini liners

used my TBSP cookie scoop fill each with the pecan pie filling

removed each pecan tassie from the liner after they cooled
brown sugary - walnut - flaky pie crust goodness in a bite-sized morsel

they fit nicely into the treat boxes I had
happy birthday Tim!

bacon maple doughnuts

 

Erin gave me a mini doughnut pan for Christmas

and having just made some chocolate-covered bacon

I figured this was a perfect time to test out the new pan with some bacon maple doughnuts

made a spiced maple batter for the doughnuts

you can pretty much use any type of cake or muffin batter with this pan

because these are baked, they come out with a cake/muffin consistency

for most folks these probably wouldn't satisfy a doughnut craving

but they are still a fun and tasty treat

whisked together a simple maple glaze

dipped the top half of the doughnuts in the glaze

then garnished with pieces of chocolate-covered bacon

did a few with chocolate sprinkles instead of the bacon

these guys don't even compare to a voodoo bacon maple bar

or any other deep fried doughnut w/bacon on it, but they did satisfy my sweet tooth

I would say this doughnut is more similar to a dense cupcake than a doughnut