Category Archives: Sweets

Cookie Mondays: Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Veronica

A MySpace friend posted this recipe on her blog last week and I knew as soon as I read it that I had to use it for the following Cookie Monday.

Recognize anything about the title? You would if you’re half as obsessed with Gooey Butter Cake (my favorite is pumpkin) as I am. This is Paula Deen’s spin-off of her famous cake, turned into a cookie. The cake mix makes it simple and the butter and cream cheese helps to create a very moist, almost brownie-like center. These were another big hit at the office–Den came home with an empty platter and lots of compliments from his co-workers. Another cookie success. :)

CHOCOLATE GOOEY BUTTER COOKIES
Recipe by Paula Deen

Ingredients
1 (8-ounce) brick cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (18-ounce) box moist chocolate cake mix
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Beat in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls. Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon sized balls and then roll them in confectioner’s sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and “gooey.” Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

Makes 2 Dozen

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Posted in Cookies and tagged butter, chocolate, Cookies, gooey, paula deen. Bookmark the permalink.

Cake Pops

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Veronica

**Update 5/12/11: If you are here looking for answers to cake pop questions, please check my Cake Pops FAQ and Troubleshooting Guide before leaving a comment. I also have a recipe for making cake pops or balls with leftover or broken cake here, a recipe for Vegan Dark Chocolate Cake Pops, and a recipe for Cupcake Bites (cake balls that look like little cupcakes–the easier version of cake balls). For my full pops index, click here.**

These pops are essentially cake truffles on a stick and are very simple to prepare: Bake a cake, mush it up with frosting, roll it into balls, insert a stick, and dip it in chocolate! These things really are a hit with kids because they are so fun, but adults seem to enjoy the delicious truffle-like confections equally well.

Want to make some? Here are step-by-step instructions, complete with videos.

Cake Pops
Makes 40-50 pops
Printable Recipe

What you will need:
1 (14.25 oz) box cake mix, any flavor
1 (16 oz) tub frosting, any flavor (you will not need all of it)
or 1/3-3/4 cup homemade frosting (I use my Cream Cheese Wedding Frosting)
1 (24 oz) package of almond bark/candy coating (white or chocolate)
Sprinkles
Lollipop sticks
3″x4″ cello bags
Curling ribbon

Bake the cake mix according to package directions. Once it’s cool, crumble the cake into a large bowl. I prefer to process mine in the food processor to fine crumbs. Place in a large bowl and stir in half of the frosting container or 1/3 cup of your homemade frosting. Mix with your hands until thoroughly combined and thick like a truffle center. Mix in additional frosting if necessary. You just want enough to get the crumbs to stick together when you roll them into balls. Do not add so much that the mixture becomes soft and mushy!

Roll mixture into 1″ balls and place on a cookie sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or overnight. I usually do this step the day before and then dip them the following day. Do not freeze them before dipping or it may cause the chocolate to crack after they are dipped.

Melt chocolate in the microwave per directions on package. Dip the tip of your lollipop stick in a little of the melted candy coating and insert into the flat end of the cake balls. (Bakerella says to insert a little less than halfway, but I go more than halfway b/c I imagine they stay put a little better when dipping.)

The cake balls will have a flat bottom from resting on the cookie sheet. Insert the stick into this end so the top will be round.

Carefully insert the cake ball into the candy coating by holding the lollipop stick and rotating until covered. Once covered, remove and softly tap and rotate until the excess chocolate falls off. Don’t tap too hard or the cake ball will fall off, too. Immediately cover with sprinkles before the chocolate has a chance to set, then insert in a styrofoam block to harden.

You want the chocolate to come over the platform you created when inserting the chocolate-dipped stick, but you don’t have to cover it all the way to the stick.

Tap off the excess chocolate.

Add sprinkles before the chocolate has a chance to set.

I wrap my styrofoam board in plastic wrap to keep it clean so I can reuse it.

See the two hiding in the corner?

I ran out of sticks so I just made these two into cake truffles. To do this, drop one ball at a time into the chocolate and lift out with a fork, tapping off the excess chocolate. Place on wax paper to set.

This video illustrates the dipping process. Forgive my PJ’s–I made these first thing in the morning. OK, it was afternoon. I’m lazy on Saturdays. And every other day. Once the chocolate has set, put a cello bag over the top and tie the neck with some curling string and tie into a bow or curl.

I found these at Wal-Mart in the cake decorating section near the wedding supplies

Recipe Source: based on Bakerella’s recipe & instructions

*Update 1/19/12: I have disabled comments on this post, since there are over 400 and many of them are the same questions asked and answered over and over again. If you have a question, please refer to the FAQ. Thank you!*

423 Comments

Posted in Cake & Frosting, Candy, Videos and tagged balls, cake, how to, pops, recipe, suckers, truffles, tutorial. Bookmark the permalink.

Cookie Mondays: Millionaire Bars

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Veronica

I made these bars in my new Perfect Brownie pan and now I’m going to make a batch of brownies tonight because it worked so well, I can’t wait to see how perfect it will turn out the product it was intended for!

These bars consist of a buttery, flaky shortbread layer, a creamy caramel layer and a chocolate layer. They are sooo delicious and for the first time since cookie Mondays, Dennis didn’t return home with any leftovers. They remind me a lot of Twix and I’ve seen them turned into homemade Twix bars here, so I might try that next time just for fun!

Millionaire’s Shortbread Bars
Recipe from Joy of Baking

SHORTBREAD:
3/4 cup (1 1/2 stick) (170 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt

CARAMEL FILLING:
1 – 14 ounce can (1 cup) Dulce de Leche or sweetened condensed milk

CHOCOLATE TOPPING:
6 ounces (170 grams) semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Grease with butter (or use a cooking spray) a 9 x 9 inch (23 x 23 cm) pan.

FOR SHORTBREAD: In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour and salt and beat until the dough just comes together. Press onto the bottom of your greased pan and bake for about 20 minutes, or until pale golden in color. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool while you make the filling.

FOR CARAMEL FILLING: If using Dulce de Leche then simply warm the caramel in the microwave or in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. If using sweetened condensed milk, pour the milk into a heatproof bowl and place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Cover and cook, over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 60 to 90 minutes or until the milk has thickened and has turned a caramel color. Remove from heat and beat until smooth. Pour the caramel over the baked shortbread and leave to set.

Note: You can also do this step in a microwave oven. Place the sweetened condensed milk in a large microwaveable bowl and cook on medium power for about 4 minutes, stirring halfway through baking time. Reduce the powder to medium-low and continue to cook for another 8 to 12 minutes, or until the milk has thicken and has turned a light caramel color. Remove from microwave and beat until smooth.

FOR TOPPING: Melt the chocolate and butter either in the microwave oven or in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Pour the melted chocolate evenly over the caramel and leave to set. Cut the shortbread into pieces using a sharp knife.

Store the shortbread in the refrigerator to keep the chocolate nice and firm. (I found this unnecessary–it was hard at room temperature.)

Yield: 16 – 2 inch (5 cm) squares

If you’d like to make this in your Perfect Brownie pan, spray the pan & insert with cooking spray. Press the shortbread into the pan with some waxed paper (it was sticking to my hands and this worked perfect) and then press the insert into place before baking. You don’t need to bake it on top of a cookie sheet–the shortbread won’t leak out. After removing the shortbread (I only had to cook mine about 18 minutes), you can immediately remove the insert. Take a minute to admire the perfection of the shortbread squares.

Spread the warmed dulce de leche over the bars after you remove the insert and let them cool. Then spread on the chocolate layer. Now this is where I went wrong. I let the chocolate layer set up before I tried to put the insert back to re-divide the bars. The insert isn’t sharp enough to cut into that hard chocolate layer, so I had to cut into it with a knife in order to separate the bars. Next time I would spray the insert again with cooking spray and insert it while the chocolate is still warm and then remove it once set. That should work!

10 Comments

Posted in Brownies & Bars and tagged bars, dulce de leche, homemade twix, millionaire bars, millionaire's, shortbread. Bookmark the permalink.

Rich Chocolate and Caramel Cake

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Veronica

My friend, Jaci, in Texas contacted me last week to order a cake for her sister’s birthday. Her sister and I are both in Kansas and she figured since she was unable to make a cake for her herself, she’d get the next best thing.

After she told me that Liz loves chocolate and caramel, I started brainstorming and finally settled on this conconction: two layers of devil’s food cake, filled with caramel buttercream, iced with whipped caramel ganache and decorated with ganache and caramel sauce. With all the chocolate, caramel, cream, and butter involved, this is definitely a special-occasion cake!

Rich Chocolate and Caramel Cake

1 recipe of your favorite chocolate cake, made into two round layers and cooled (I used a Pillsbury devil’s food cake mix)

Caramel Sauce
1 c sugar
6 T unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 t salt
1/2 c heavy cream

Caramel Buttercream
6 T unsalted butter, softened
1 T dulce de leche, room temperature
1 c powdered sugar
2 T caramel sauce, room temperature

Whipped Caramel Ganache
1 c sugar
1 ½ c heavy cream
1/8 t salt
1 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 lb (4 sticks) butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces, softened

Simple Ganache
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Prepare the Caramel Sauce at least 4 hours in advance: Heat the sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until the sugar has begun to melt and is brown around the edges, about 3 minutes. Using a heat-safe spatula or spoon, pull the melted sugar toward the center until all sugar is melted and caramel is deep amber in color, about 3 minutes more. Continue pulling and stirring until all the sugar is melted. It will be amber in color. Remove from heat and immediately stir in the butter, vanilla and salt. When mixed, whisk in the heavy cream. Pour into a heat-proof bowl and allow to come to room temperature. After removing 2 T for the buttercream, cover and refrigerate the remaining sauce.

Prepare the Caramel Buttercream: Beat the butter, then mix in the dulce de leche until smooth. Beat in the caramel sauce and then the powdered sugar.

Prepare the Whipped Caramel Ganache: Make a dry caramel with the cup of sugar by putting it into a large saucepan and setting it over medium heat. When the bottom starts to melt and the sides turn brown, start pulling the melted sugar toward the center. Continue doing this, constantly pulling & stirring, until all the sugar is melted and it has turned a deep amber color. Remove from heat.

While the sugar is melting, take a minute to bring the cream to boiling and then remove from heat.

Immediately pour the hot cream into the burnt sugar as soon as you remove it from the heat. It will bubble like crazy and scare the heck out of you, but just keep stirring until all the caramel is dissolved into the cream. If some of the caramel seizes up, put the saucepan back on medium heat and stir, stir, stir, until all the caramel is dissolved and you have a thin, smooth mixture.

Let the mixture sit for five minutes.

Meanwhile, measure your chocolate into a metal or glass bowl. Pour the caramel mixture over the chocolate and allow to sit for a minute before stirring. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and the ganache is smooth. Allow to sit until the mixture is room temperature, about fifteen minutes. You can pop it in the fridge to speed the process, stirring every few minutes.

With an electric mixer, beat the softened butter into the caramel ganache on low speed and then increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture is thickened and lighter in color, about 2 minutes.

Prepare the Ganache: Bring the cream just to a boil over medium heat (or in the microwave). Place the chocolate in a glass or metal bowl and pour the hot cream over the top. Allow to sit for a couple minutes and then stir, stir, stir, until the chocolate is completely emulsified and you have a smooth, shiny dark ganache. Allow to cool slightly before using. You’ll want it still slightly runny but not hot.

Assemble the cake: Place one cake layer on a plate and spread the caramel buttercream over the top. Place the second cake layer over that and then smooth the whipped caramel ganache over the top and sides of the cake. Garnish the cake with the ganache and caramel sauce. Serve at room temperature. The butter and chocolate in the whipped ganache get hard when refrigerated, which isn’t as fun to eat as a light & velvety frosting. For a pretty presentation, you could drizzle some caramel sauce over each plate before placing the cake slices on them.

If you wish to write a message with the ganache as I did, you will have to let it set up further, so wait until it’s the consistency of thick buttercream before attempting that. Otherwise, it will just leak out of your pastry bag and you’ll have smears and pools of dark shiny ganache on top and your sentiments will look like a threat rather than the good thoughts you’d intended. :)

You can use the extra whipped caramel ganache to pipe a border around the top and bottom. There will be enough leftover whipped ganache to make 1-2 dozen cupcakes, so do it and take them to work to brighten everyone’s day!

Recipe by Veronica Miller

A word of warning: because of the light, velvety texture of the whipped ganache, it couldn’t support the weight of the ganache and caramel I put around the edges of the cake and the sides slid down to the bottom of the cake eventually. (Luckily Liz got her cake while it was still pretty and everyone enjoyed a piece before this happened). Next time I make this cake, I will pour the ganache over the iced cake and let it ooze down the sides so that the weight is evenly distributed. Then I’d use caramel buttercream (I’d double the recipe so there’s enough for decorating) to write on top. I’d recommend the same to you, unless you plan on serving the cake shortly after applying the ganache.

These are (poor) photos of a birthday cake I made last year that illustrate my suggestion about pouring ganache over the top and letting it ooze down the sides.

Thanks to Liz for providing the following photos!

The beautiful birthday girl with her cake. Happy birthday, Liz!

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Posted in Cake & Frosting and tagged cake, caramel, chocolate, rich. Bookmark the permalink.

Cookie Mondays: Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Veronica

As part of my New Year’s Resolution to lose a significant amount of weight by the end of the year, I’ve cut my baking back to just once per week. Not only have I cut down the amount of time I spend baking, but I’m baking for my husband’s co-workers instead of myself and my family. Inspired by my friend, Laura, who sends cookies to work with her husband every Monday, I’ve begun doing the same thing. This keeps me from going through baking withdrawal, and allows me to have a treat once a week before sending the bulk of them out of the house for others to enjoy (thus freeing me from the constant temptation that having them in the kitchen would present).

For “Cookie Monday” this week, I whipped up some absolutely delicious peanut butter sandwich cookies. And then proceeded to eat 13 of them (that’s over 1,000 calories, in case you were wondering) in under five minutes. And then I squirted the leftover peanut butter filling from the pastry bag directly into my mouth. So much for keeping to my calorie limit for the day!

These cookies are too addictive to eat just one…or twelve. Well, they are for me, anyway. They are a Girl Scout’s “Do-Si-Dos” knock-off and while I don’t love the Girl Scout’s version, I could practically live off these cookies if I had no concern for my health or waistline. They are wonderful.

Next week I will work on my self-control and see if I can keep it to just 1 or 2 cookies. Considering how many sweets I was consuming before the new year, however, I have to admit that even 13 cookies in a week is an improvement. So at least I’m moving in the right direction.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Recipe modified from All Recipes

Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup quick cooking oats

Filling
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2 1/2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, sugars, and vanilla. Add egg and beat well.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat until combined, then add the oatmeal and continue beating until incorporated.

Roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and place on prepared baking sheet. Press each mound down with your fingers or a fork, depending on the appearance you’d like, to form 1/4 inch-thick cookies. Bake 5 minutes, or until cookies have just begun to set around the edges. (My cookies were exactly 1 tsp each, so if yours are larger, they will obviously require more baking time.) Remove and allow to cool 3 minutes on the baking sheet before removing them to a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.

To Make Filling: Cream the filling ingredients until well blended. Spread or pipe filling on to half of the cooled cookies, then top with the other half to form sandwiches. Don’t be stingy with the filling like I was at first–there is quite enough for all the cookies. Of course, the benefit of being stingy with it is that you’ll have some left to squirt into your mouth when you have finished. Heaven.

Makes 60 sandwich cookies, if you can keep from eating a single speck of dough, scrape every last speck of it from the bowl to form the cookie balls, and you measure each ball of dough to be exactly 1 teaspoon. I actually managed to do this and then went wild once the beautiful completed cookies were in front of me. Oh yeah, and in case you’re counting your calories, each cookie clocks in at 80 calories. Not too bad if you can keep from eating more than one or two! :)

I used my fingers to press these cookies down, so they weren't quite as flat and made a smaller, chubbier cookie. I had no preference as to which I liked better because they both tasted equally delicious!

My husband modeling the latest cookie fashion in the Miller household.

I had used Dennis for the former picture after taking this one b/c I realized how disgusting my nail polish was. But now I'm posting it anyway b/c I remembered seeing Lindsay Lohan with similar-looking nails. I'm not lazy, I'm just impersonating the stars! OK, fine. I'm just lazy. And apparently I need some lotion, too.

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Posted in Cookies and tagged do-si-dos, girl scouts, oatmeal, peanut butter, sandwich cookies. Bookmark the permalink.

Easy Lemon Cookies

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Veronica

5 reasons why you need to make these cookies ASAP:

5. They’re insanely easy to make.
4.They’re bright and pretty!
3. They have superb texture–firm on the outside, chewy on the inside.
2. They taste like sunshine.
1. You can have two whole cookies for just 102 calories!

What, you need more reasons? What are you waiting for?!

I like to really douse the cookies with powdered sugar so they take on the "crinkle" look.

Easy Lemon Cookies

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 (18.25 oz) package lemon cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
grated zest from 1 lemon
powdered sugar for decoration

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon juice & lemon zest until well blended. Refrigerate at least 15 minutes, and up to overnight to make the dough easier to handle. Roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and then drop into a small bowl of powdered sugar. Roll around until lightly or heavily covered, depending on how much you want. Once sugared, place on an ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 6-9 minutes in the preheated oven. The bottoms will be light brown, and the insides chewy.

Makes 60 cookies
Per cookie: 51 calories, 2 g fat, 7.8 g carbohydrate

This recipe is linked with GirliChef for BSI: Lemons!

14 Comments

Posted in Cookies, Lighter Fare and tagged cake mix, Cookies, diet-friendly, easy, lemon, low calorie, summer, sunshine. Bookmark the permalink.

Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Veronica

I absolutely do not have time to be posting this, but I absolutely can not wait another year to do it so I’m squeezing it in for your benefit (don’t you feel special?), and also to participate in the Christmas recipe roundup for All Through The Year Cheer.

Every winter, these Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips make an appearance on the baking aisle by the chocolate chips. Until last year, I ignored them because I’d never seen a recipe that used them and I’m not a huge mint enthusiast except when it comes to Girl Scout Thin Mints. After last Christmas, however, they were deeply discounted and, being unable to resist a bargain, I decided to buy a few bags and come up with some recipes for them.

*Note: despite the name, the baking chips are not crunchy like peppermint candy, but more like the consistency of white chocolate chips with tiny little pieces of peppermint candy in them…thus the “crunch” in the name.

Lucky for me, the first recipe I tried ending up tasting just like my cherished Thin Mints, except very soft and buttery with a homemade taste. The red flecks peeking through the dark chocolate gives them a festive appearance, and peppermint is probably the flavor most associated with Christmas, and it’s even better when paired with chocolate!

If you see the chips on sale after Christmas, stock up on them so you can make these cookies throughout the year. (I actually used year-old chips on this batch of cookies and they tasted perfect, so you can even stock up a year in advance in preparation for next Christmas!) They may have a festive look, but the taste is classic and can be enjoyed in any season.

Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies
If you can not find dark cocoa powder, regular may be substituted.

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt
1 (12-oz) bag Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugars together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, a few minut

es. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add the vanilla and mix well. Sift in the flour, cocoa, baking soda & salt and mix just until combined. Mix in the mint & chocolate chips last.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 6 minutes (10-12 for larger cookies), or until just starting to set around the edges. Remove from oven and let cool on the baking sheet (sitting atop a cooling rack) for sev

eral minutes before removing to the cooling rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Once cool, store the cookies in an airtight container. If you’re making them in advance, they freeze well for months on end. My method for freezing cookies is putting them in rows inside a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and sticking them in the freezer until needed.

*You can use regular chocolate chips if you will be making larger cookies with a tablespoon like those pictured first. I usually make them small, the size of thin mints, like in the pictures below.

Recipe & photos by Veronica Miller

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Posted in Cookies and tagged chip, chocolate, Cookies, peppermint. Bookmark the permalink.

Soft Caramels

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Veronica

Something has come over me. For the past two days, I haven’t been able to sleep until two in the morning and during the day, I’ve been so tired that it literally feels like my eyes are going to fall out of their sockets.

The reason? Caramels. Cararmels have turned me into a zombie woman. They’ve completely taken over my life and I can get no rest!

Two days ago I got the brilliant idea to finally give homemade caramels a go. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple they were to prepare. They weren’t, however, easy to remove from the pan, and so I stayed up until two in the morning scraping each square from the pan and wrapping them in waxed paper. And eating every other one.

I have to say, store-bought caramels can’t hold a candle to homemade. Homemade is soft, gooey, buttery, caramelly deliciousness. They are so delicious that I couldn’t resist making another batch the following day. After all, I made the first batch for gifts and now I needed more for an upcoming Christmas party. (Not for myself…of course not.) And besides, I needed to figure out a way to keep the caramels from sticking to the pan and what better way than trial and error?

So I made a second batch, lining the pan with waxed paper and spraying it with oil. And I stayed up until two in the morning the second day in a row, scraping each piece off the waxed paper, then dipping them in chocolate (because party caramels should be pretty and irresistable).

And they were. Irresistable. I ate every other one. Again.

Obviously I also encountered a problem with photography as well. I absolutely could not stop shooting photos of these beautiful things. After shooting picture after picture, I eventually ran to the garage and got out Christmas decorations (I’ve been too busy making caramels to decorate with them yet) to use for props. All told, I took well over 100 pictures of them. I’m not even kidding. Then it took me almost an hour to narrow down the ones I wanted to keep to the myriad I’m posting here.

And now it’s nearly one in the morning, and what am I doing? Staying up so I can tell everyone about these fabulous things. Like I said, they’ve taken over my life. And I suppose I’ve happily relinquished control!

As for the problem with the caramel sticking to the pan, I now know you have to very generous with the butter. I should have consulted my friend, Teri, before I made the caramels, since I knew she makes them every year at this time. Ah well, now I have an excuse to make another batch. You know, just to see if it works.

Soft Caramels

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 pound brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk

Put all the ingredients in a large saucepan (my 3-quart was the perfect size–don’t go any smaller) and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and continue to boil, stirring constantly, for ten minutes. Set the timer as soon as it begins to bubble and take the pan off as soon as it goes off. Pour caramel into a buttered 9×13 pan and let cool completely before cutting & wrapping in squares of waxed paper.

Tips for success

*If you have a candy thermometer, it wouldn’t hurt to attach it to the pan to make sure the caramel is at 245 degrees F when you remove it from the heat. My first batch was actually at 240 when I removed it and it still turned out fine, but my second batch reached 245 in nine minutes so I removed it early and it was the same texture as the first batch.

*You can stir in a teaspoon of vanilla after you remove the pan from the heat. I did this the second time but didn’t notice an improvement in flavor. It seemed just as good without the vanilla, so I didn’t include it in the ingredient list.

*When you pour the caramel into the buttered pan, there will be some that clings to the bottom and sides. Don’t scrape this out on top of the pan of caramel like I did on my first batch. Have a small buttered bowl on hand and scrape it into that. This caramel will be harder than the other caramel, because it remained in contact with the heat longer. If you scrape it out, you will have a hard piece among the soft and when you try to cut it, the softer caramel will squish out and it won’t be pretty and perfect. This caramel is totally edible, just a little more chewy, so you can snack on it while rolling your evenly-textured caramels into waxed paper.

*On both batches, I put salted, roasted peanuts on half of the pan. The salty/sweet combo is yummy and kind of reminds me of a PayDay. And when you dip the pieces in chocolate, it’s kind of like a Snickers. Except it’s way better than either because it’s homemade! If you want to add nuts to the whole batch, you can stir them in after removing the pan from the heat. If you only want half the batch with nuts or want two or more types of nuts, dump the caramel into the pan and then sprinkle the nuts over the top. The first batch I tried putting the nuts on half of the bottom and pouring the caramel over, but the nuts got all pushed around and then tons of air bubbles kept rising up and I had to keep popping them so that the surface didn’t look all funkalicious.

*If you’d like to dip the caramels in chocolate, you can either melt chocolate almond bark, an equal amount of chocolate chips with almond bark (this makes the color darker & it tastes better while still setting up nicely) or you can melt chocolate with some shaved paraffin wax. (This makes the chocolate shiny & makes it set up really nicely. You can find it on the baking aisle.) I melted 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I think milk chocolate would be even better!) with 1/8 of a block of finely shaved paraffin in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until everything was melted and smooth and shiny. Dip the caramels with a fork, tap off the excess and slide them onto a sheet of waxed paper to set. I ground a bit of sea salt over the plain caramels while the chocolate was still wet because I like salted caramels and it did have a nice flavor. For a prettier presentation, I would use flaky sea salt (also on the baking aisle).

*I encourage you to dip at least half the caramels in chocolate. I didn’t think caramel could get any better after I made it from scratch. And then I dipped it. And dipped some more!

63 Comments

Posted in Candy, My Favorites and tagged candy, caramels, christmas, easy, food gifts, holidays, soft. Bookmark the permalink.

LAURA DON’T READ THIS BLOG!

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Veronica

When my friend, Laura, an Oreo-cookie fanatic, saw my picture of these Oreo truffles, she told me, “Please, please don’t give me the recipe. They’d be my new Rolo crack.”

Rolo Turtles (aka “Rolo crack” among certain circles) is so delicious that it is absolutely irresistable and has caused weight gain in those who were foolish enough to make it, including Laura herself (the one who gave us the big idea in the first place)!

Hence the blog title. Yes, I’m well aware that it will most likely not deter her, but I can’t be held responsible–I did my best. After all, I couldn’t deprive my other friends of this recipe for her benefit. (Sorry, Laura!)
Now, onto the truffles!

The middles of these truffles are black, soft, and taste just like an Oreo cookie. If you have a food processor, they’re a snap to prepare. In fact, they’re the easiest truffles I’ve ever dipped in chocolate, because I didn’t have to refrigerate them first (they don’t melt when dipped in warm chocolate), which means the chocolate cooled much slower and I didn’t have to keep zapping it in the microwave. None of the filling melted off into the chocolate when I dunked them, and the chocolate slid off the truffles effortlessly, making a perfect, smooth, thin coating. I really deplore dipping truffles and usually just roll them in cocoa, but if I must dip, I would love it if the job were this easy every time.

Whip up a batch and take them to your next party or package them up as a gift–I guarantee they’ll be a hit!

Oreo Truffles

1 package (1 lb. 2 oz) Oreo cookies
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
6 squares chocolate almond bark
1 square white almond bark (optional)

*It is OK to eat several of the cookies before you crush them. If you use the whole package, you will be left with over a cup of extra crushed cookies once you’re done making the truffles.

Put the cookies in the bowl of your food processor and process until very finely crushed. Measure out 3 cups of the crumbs and put them in a mixing bowl. Set the remaining crumbs aside for later. Add the cream cheese and mush it all up with your hands until it is a soft dough and is uniform in texture.

Form the mixture into balls, rolling until smooth, and place on a plate. Set a long piece of wax paper on a work surface, such as your counter.

Melt the chocolate almond bark according to package directions and dip each truffle in the chocolate with a fork. Tap the excess chocolate off and use a second fork to push the coated truffle onto the waxed paper. Sprinkle cookie crumbs onto the chocolate while it is still wet. Continue until all the truffles are coated, leaving half uncovered if you wish.

If you choose, you can melt the white almond bark and, using a fork or pastry bag, drizzle it over the truffles without crumbs on top.

Mine were OK at room temp for several days, but to be safe, I’d recommend storing them in the fridge if you aren’t going to serve them within 24 hours.

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Triple Chocolate Caramel Corn

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Veronica

In the middle of packing Dennis up to go on a business trip this last Saturday, I realized I’d forgotten a friend’s birthday and had to come up with something quick to give her when I saw her at church the next day.

This is what I made, and between me and Dennis shoving handfuls in our mouths while it cooled, she’s darn lucky she got any of it!

Triple Chocolate Caramel Corn

Slightly Adapted from Red’s Ultimate Chocolate Caramel Popcorn

½ cup popcorn kernels, popped (I use an air popper)
1 (12-oz) container salted mixed nuts
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup (3 oz) dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup (3 oz) milk chocolate chips
½ cup (3 oz) white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Divide the popcorn between two very large bowls and pour half the mixed nuts over each bowl of popcorn.

Stirring constantly, bring butter, brown sugar, salt & corn syrup to a boil over medium heat. As soon as it starts to bubble around the edges, set the timer for five minutes and continue stirring while it boils. After five minutes, remove from heat and stir in baking soda. Mixture will get foamy.

Pour half over each bowl of popcorn and stir it all up, working quickly before the caramel starts to harden. If you have someone to stir the second bowl, that helps but is not necessary. Stir well to get the popcorn and nuts evenly coated.

Place in large roaster pan and stir again, then and bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

While it is baking, cover two cookie sheets with waxed paper. Once the popcorn is done, remove from oven, give it another stir, and spread in an even layer over the cookie sheets.

Melt the chocolates in three separate bowls by microwaving for 30 seconds, stirring, and continuing in intervals until it is smooth. Be careful not to overheat the chocolate or it will seize and be ruined. Drizzle each variety of chocolate evenly over the popcorn with a spoon or by pouring it in a thin stream from the bowl.

Place the cookie sheets in the fridge and Allow the chocolate to set before breaking into pieces and packaging in airtight container(s).