What I Did This Weekend

On Saturday morning, Logan, Nikki, & I made these pictures. Aren't they awesome? Kind of a poor picture of the pictures, but they are awesome in real life. :)


Then, since my family is inbetween houses, we had them over for dinner Sunday. It was fun to have everyone over, and to have an excuse to make this!



Egg Nog Spice Bundt Cake

1 box spice cake mix
1 (4-serving) box instant vanilla or cheesecake pudding and pie filling mix
1 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup light egg nog
1 egg
3 egg whites
1 1/3 cups toasted chopped pecans
Powdered sugar (I topped it with glaze instead of powdered sugar)

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a nonstick bundt pan with cooking spray. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, yogurt, oil, eggnog, egg, and egg whites in a large bowl. Mix until creamy. Stir in pecans. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 40-45 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar or use the glaze recipe below.

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 cup pecans, chopped & toasted

Stir brown sugar, whipping cream, and butter in saucepan over medium-high heat until smooth. Boil three minutes, stirring often. Stir in pecans. Spoon over warm cake.

So this post is a little late

The week of Halloween, I made these cookies for my Young Women to give to them after my lesson.

Candy Corn Cookies

2/3 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 eggs
2 pouches Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
Wilton's yellow paste food color
Wilton's orange paste food color

Pick one set of extracts for flavoring cookies

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract

or

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Line an 8x4-inch loaf pan with waxed paper, extending paper over sides of pan.

In a stand mixer beat the eggs until mixed. With the mixer on low speed, pour in the butter. *If adding the vanilla & almond extracts do so after adding the butter* Then, stop the mixer & add the sugar cookie mix. Beat until just combined.

Divide the dough into three equal parts. Put 1 section back into the mixer & add 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract, if using. Beat until combined, then set dough aside.

Next, add another section of dough to the mixer with 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract if using & a very small amount of yellow food color paste until desired color. Beat until combined and set aside.

Add the last dough section to the mixer with 1/2 teaspoon orange extract if using and a very small amount of orange food color paste. Mix until combined.

Pat the yellow dough into the wax paper lined pan. Press gently with the back of a dry measuring cup to even out the dough. Next, add the orange dough and repeat. Then spread the plain dough across the top.

Fold the wax paper over the cookie dough and refrigerate overnight, or freeze for 1 1/2 hours, and thaw on the counter for 20 or so minutes until workable.

Once chilled, dump the dough out onto a cutting surface. Pry the dough apart from the pan with a spatula between the wax paper and pan if needed before turning out.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cut dough into 1/4 inch thick slices. Then cut slices into triangles as shown. You'll have some edge pieces left over. These can be kneaded together gently and made into marbled drop cookies or rolled out and cut with a cookie cutter later.

Place cookies on sheets 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 7-8 minutes until very lightly golden on the sides. *To make candy corn shape: working quickly after cookies come out of the oven, take two spatulas & gently move the two sides back into shape* If the cookies harden before you can finish the sheet, stick them back in the oven for two minutes to often.

Cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes. Then, move to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Makes many dozens of little cookies.

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