I love to create fun cookies to give and eat. When I saw this recipe for chocolate chip cookies that included M&M’s I had to get a Wilton Nonstick 12-Cavity Whoopie Pie Pan and try them myself.

We love them. The pan creates a cookie that is bigger and thicker than ordinary cookies which makes them the perfect size to eat and give. Often I can’t stop myself at just one cookie but with this pan the cookie is bigger and I feel more satisfied.

For the girls back to school swim parties I made these cookies. At first I was going to made them with all the colors but I decided to do different colors on each cookie. I love how they came out!

Here’s the recipe:

2 sticks butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp pure vanilla (You read that right 2 TBSP. Trust me here.)
3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
12 oz bag chocolate chips
1 bag M&M’s (you’ll have some left over)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In your mixer beat the butter and sugars until well beaten. Beat in eggs and vanilla until well combined. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and mix. Add the chocolate chips. Save the M&M’s for later use.

2. Press dough and into a whoopie pan making sure to not overfill. Push your M&M’s into pressed cookies. Bake for 9 minutes, until edges just start to turn golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes in pan before transferring to a cooling rack.

This recipe makes 26 cookies.

We decided to have a cupcake decorating contest with the cupcakes. We used our imaginations and some chocolate and vanilla frosting and came up with some amazing cupcakes. Since the kids are into watching cooking shows like Chopped and Cupcake wars we also did a presentation where we described our cupcakes. The kids had such a fun time doing this.

Here is Annie with her creations.

And the group with all the cupcakes before we ate.

It was a fun afternoon activity. We all had fun, and the best part was that there weren’t any leftover cupcakes on the counter.

You can catch all the action over here at myculinaryescapades.com.

You can see the fun rainbow cookies the kids and I created today along with many of your favorite recipes from 6browns.

We stopped by the other day to congratulate her and celebrate. We made her some pink and purple ribbon jello with a banner of her name on it. She seemed to enjoy it.

The neighborhood will be so different next year when she moves to Tucson to go to school. I know we all will miss her.

This jello would be perfect for a Easter brunch or just an everday dessert. Add a dollop of whipped cream to the top and you have an even better treat.

Here is the recipe:

4 small packages (3 ounces) of different jello colors
4 packages Knox unflavored gelatin
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Spray a 13X9 in glass pan with no stick cooking spray

First layer: Mix 1 package of any flavor jello with 1 tsp gelatin and 1 cup hot water. Cool and pour into pan; refrigerate until set. It takes each layer 30 minutes to set up in the fridge. While waiting for this to set up make the next layer to cool on the countertop.

Second layer: Mix 2 envelopes gelatin with 1 cup hot water until dissolved. Add condensed milk an additional one cup hot water. Once cooled pour 1 cup of the milk mixture over the set jello and refrigerate until firm. It takes 30 minutes for this layer to set up in the fridge. As soon as you put the white layer in the fridge to chill make the next color jello so that it will have 30 minutes to cool on the counter.

Repeat first and second layer directions ending with a color jello layer.

Once you have the jello complete you need to cover it in plastic wrap and let it set overnight to get nice and ready.

Cut into 1.5 inch squares and enjoy!

Hints to make your jello come out crisp:

*Make sure the jello you are about to pour on the already set up layers is cool. If it is not it will melt some of the jello below and “muddy” your jello creation.

*For the rainbow jello I changed the white amount per layer to 3/4 cup in order to have enough for all layers.

*You can also start with the white layer and do with just one color. Jello is your friend in this dessert and you can pretty much do anything you like. I have made a beautiful white, red, white, blue, white jello for Fourth of July before and it was amazing. The possibilites are endless.

Have Fun!

We started planning her party and found that the only place to buy unicorn party supplies was online. I know this is becoming more the norm, but it pains me greatly that I cannot just run out and get things. So, Madeline and I sat on the couch and pulled up sites on the laptop to order the unicorn party stuff she liked best.

I had a lot of ideas for rainbow foods and decorations so we made some of them.

Rainbow chocolate covered pretzels. These are so easy and the kids loved helping make them. Each Girl chose 2 colors to do and we made 10 of each color. I placed the pretzels in my fiestaware mugs to add to the fun!

They were delicious and all 60 of them were eaten before the party was over. I know one little man who had several just on his own.

Madeline got dressed in her unicorn rainbow outfit made especially for her by Mommy. She helped pick out the fabric for this outfit and I created it.

Her friends started arriving and hanging out. Once the nacho bar was open everyone started digging in.

I almost forgot about the Rainbow jello because it was out in the other fridge. Bill ceremoniously brought it around to everyone already eating and they all loved it. So much that one of the kids said to Bill, “you should put this online.” So for Jax I will put it online.

The games included:

Ring toss onto the unicorn horns.

Pin the horn on the unicorn:

Unicorn races:

The standard prize for every game was a unicorn. Pretty easy to dole out since they are imaginary and Bill and I could make as many as we needed.

My Mother had a horse pan from years back that we decided to make into a unicorn cake for Mimi. This was the first time I had ever used a cake pan like this and I had a lot of anxiety about it. I now understand why I often left the task of making a cake to my parents. My Mother came over Saturday night to help me frost it and after trying a couple of things we got it going. I think it turned out pretty darn cute. Especially surrounded by the cupcakes.

I had seen an idea online where you pre-scoop the ice cream into cupcake liners. Then you freeze it and bring it out for the party. I have to say this worked like a charm! Bill wasn’t struggling to dish out ice cream and there was no mess.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Especially the birthday baby!

Then it was time for Mimi to open up her mountain of birthday gifts. She is blessed with good friends amazing family that adore her.

After the party guests left the cousins all went swimming.

It was a wonderful party. It was a bit warm but all the guests were troopers about it. Just in case you didn’t think the party was rainbowy enough get a load of the fruit tray and veggie tray. My Mother actually soaked the radishes in a bit of blue dye to make the blue part of the rainbow.

People sometimes gawk and ask how I get all this done or why I go to such lengths. Well, because these are my babies and they only get to be babies once. Soon a time will come where they will want me to take them and a couple of friends to a movie and then they will go in their room with their friends and hang out. I will soak up every moment I can with them. If that means I have a lot to do, so be it. My babies are worth every moment. Besides, I really have fun doing it. Bringing joy, magic and happiness to their childhoods makes me happy. Just look at this adorable girl riding her unicorn at her 6th birthday party!

We made spinach and cheese ravioli and fettucini noodles.

Annie fully enjoyed the pasta roller. She was using some unusable dough to practice putting through the machine.

Kimberly was busy for a while mixing the semolina with the flour so that the finished ravioli wouldn’t stick before boiling.

Paulie even got in on the action turning the handle on the pasta machine. He did a great job and turned it at a very even pace.

All of the pasta was simply dressed with butter, garlic and parsley. While the kids were skeptical about the spinach filling they enjoyed it in the pasta. Their favorite was the plain fettucini noodles with butter, parm cheese and garlic. Who can blame them, pasta + butter + parm cheese= yummy goodness!

Kimberly made a party cake with vanilla icing and Mimi made a yellow cake with chocolate icing. Good thing about Easy bake cakes is that they are small. That way when they slice it up for you to have some you only have to choke down a very small piece.

Annie was out at a sleepover at Grammy’s house so she didn’t get to make her cake yet. She will another time.

I had seen some heart shaped dipped pretzels somewhere on the internet before. I had some large pretzels in my pantry and decided I would try to make some. First I tried to cut the middle part out, that cracked the pretzel in no time. Next I used a serrated knife to try to saw the middle out, this broke the pretzel as well. I was getting frustrated and was ready to give up the endeavor until I thought about pliers. I was going to get some from Bill’s tool box and cover them with tin foil but I remembered I had some in my jewelry supply box.

I used the pliers to crush just below where I wanted to break. It worked like a charm. Once I used this method I only broke a couple of pretzels.

We dipped the pretzels in white and semi sweet chocolate and decorated with sprinkles.

Then I gave each child a dollop of dough and told them they could mix in something.

Annie cutting an Andes mint to mix in to her cookie.

Kimberly mixing in butterscotch and white chocolate chips.

Paul mixing in m&m’s.

Madeline mixing in rolos and mini chocolate chips.

The cookies came out super delicious. Madeline made one with kit kats and forgot to cut it up a lot so when it baked it was standing up straight.

The kids had a great time creating and eating their own cookies. If I were to do this again I would definitely chill the dough. When I make cookies normally I don’t because I transfer and get everything cooking quickly that I don’t get spread out cookies. Today the kids handled the dough a lot and the dough was warm causing it to spread a lot. Didn’t change the taste just the look. We used up some Christmas candy in our cookies which was nice.

Madeline made a Baby Jesus ornament.
Kimmie made a Christmas tree and Santa hat ornament.
Annie made bell, an ornaments and a Bethlehem star and a red and white star.
Joey and Wyatt were over and they both made Baby Jesus ornaments.
Paul made a pile of dough that we used a cookie cutter and cut a star.

We all had a fun time creating.

Salt Dough
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour

Mix ingredients together and then knead for about 7 minutes. Dye pieces of dough different colors. Have fun making fun designs.

Bake in a 200 degree oven for about 5 hours, or until completely dry. We will use a diluted white glue glaze tomorrow once they are cool to preserve them and make them shine.

Here is Annie helping me spread the chocolate for the peppermint bark.

Because the white chocolate melts the brown chocolate I smear that on. Annie helped with the crushing of the candy canes and making sure they were evenly distributed on the pan.

Here she is “pepperminting” our peppermint bark. (Pepperminting was her term and I thought it was so cute and descriptive.)

There really isn’t a recipe for this. I just used one package of the white almond bark and one of the chocolate. I left three blocks in each package so that we would have some to dip pretzels in. We melted the brown chocolate and spread it on the bottom of a cookie sheet and put it in the fridge to harden up while we melted the white. I spread the white on the chocolate making sure to not spread it too much once the heat of the white had melted the chocolate a little. We broke up one package of candy canes and evenly distributed them on the white chocolate while it was still hot. We chilled it in the fridge again until hard and broke it into bits. Because it is made of the almond bark it doesn’t melt too easily. My kids love it and I am sure yours will too!

They were so delicious and sweet. There are onions, mushrooms and bell peppers on there. I lightly tossed them in olive oil and salt and pepper. I stirred them around a couple of times on the grid while they were cooking.

Sheer perfection. They may not look like pure bliss but they were! YUM. Can’t wait for the next time I can grill some veggies.

Not to worry those are Wilton Food Writers. They made the Girls day!

Now on with the bacon tale. Saturday night Bill and I went to a bacon party. What is a bacon party? It is a party where everyone brings a dish that has bacon in it, kind of like a potluck but much more greasy than anything you have seen there. We thought it would be a fun event so we made bacon wrapped asparagus and headed out.

There were so many dishes made from bacon, including 3 bacon explosions. To say there were many people in bacon comas, Bill included, would be completely correct. It was like an episode of Man vs. Food where you are grossed out but you stay and hang out to see what other thing they can make with bacon.

A list of foods that I can remember are:

bacon explosion — I did not try all three. The 2 bites I had of one of them was enough for me. It is sausage and bacon, no thanks.

bacon wrapped water chestnuts — These are pretty tasty. The crunch and sweetness of the waterchestnut are nice paired with the 1/4 slice of bacon.

bacon wrapped sausage — I didn’t partake in these. I am going to say I skipped them because I love my arteries too much.

bacon toffee — Again I did not partake, only smelled the slice Bill ate. Bill said it was okay but he wouldn’t go back for it again.

spinach salad with bacon and raspberries — It was a wonderful salad though you could only eat so much since the balsamic vinagrette was made with bacon fat rather than olive oil.

bacon fondue — yeah you read that right they had yummy chocolate fondue that you could dip slices of fried bacon into. I only dipped a strawberry into the chocolate. Bill had a slice of bacon and he said it was okay.

bacon chocolate cake — It had a pound of diced bacon and a pound of chocolate in it, also bacon fat was used insted of oil. Can you say rich? I personally didn’t like the little bits of bacon in it. I did enjoy the chocolate icing, which had no bacon in it.

bacon cheese dip — This was a warm dip for ruffles. Aside from being overly salty I did like the combination but could eat very little.

bacon ranch dip — Because at a bacon party do you really want to dunk your chips in regular ranch?!?!?

bacon coffee cake — I didn’t have this but it had crumbles of bacon on it. Bill thought it was tasty.

bacon ice cream — It was maple flavored and good even though I only had one bite. Once I bit into a cold hard chunk of bacon I was over the bacon ice cream. I generally don’t like things in my ice cream so it was not unusual that the texture bothered me.

bacon wrapped dates stuffed with feta and almonds — Those little buggars were good. I ate two of them. Smooth cheese and sweet date with salty bacon. YUM.

green beans with bacon — These were cooked in the same pan as one of the bacon explosions, as you can guess they were more greasy than usual.

bacon mashed potatoes — Typical mashed potatoes with bacon mixed in. Not overly greasy. Pretty much what you would make on a normal night to go with an entree. (Normal if you put bacon in your mashed potatoes, which I don’t.)

bacon wrapped asparagus — Someone else brought this as well, though they cooked them all piled on each other in a 13X9 pan and I broiled mine on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet to catch the grease. I wouldn’t call my dish health food, yet among these other options it definitely was!

bacon topped stuffed jalapenos — YUM! Loved these. Think I ate 3 of them. It is a half jalapeno filled with cream cheese, then a stip of bacon the length of the jalapeno is secured on top with toothpicks. So tasty.

bacon and risotto fried balls — Sorry I don’t know the real name of these. I had a teeny tiny bite of Bill’s and they were very cheesy and rich.

mozzarella balls in olive oil with bacon — Again didn’t try it. While it was olive oil that the mozarella was packed in I couldn’t think of anything with that much grease on it.

bacon brownies — Pretty much a brownie with bacon in the middle. Bill said they were heavy on brownie and light on bacon.

baked beans — These were good. They were pretty much like baked beans you would find at any family picnic.

candied bacon — Neither Bill or myself had this. Looked like sugared bacon.

bacon mints — I didn’t try this. I guess you can buy them. Who knew?

One person created this log cabin out of bacon. The foundation is pound cake and the bacon slices are held on with peanut butter. Definitely a show piece. When we left nobody had started eating it.

I have come to the realization that I am not a bacon lover, not sure I ever thought that before but I know it for sure now. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to pour bacon grease into a cake. I didn’t understand Bill’s obsession with stuffing himself with every bacon item until he felt ill. It was an interesting experience and I would even consider having a bacon party because it really was fun, but I think I would have some veggies out and some dry bread for people to cut the grease with.

She opened the can of beans, smeared them in the bottom of a pan evenly and topped them with shredded cheese. There wasn’t enough cheese already shredded so she had to try her hand at shredding. Given her inattention at times this sounded a little risky but I knew she needed to do it on her own. So we got out the grater and a plate and Annie shredded away. There were some near misses of fingers and knuckles that reminded me exactly how impulsive Annie is.

She placed the flautas on the cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven. She put some sour cream in dishes for people to dip their flautas in and poured salsa into another small dish. We all sat down to eat the dinner Annie had prepared. She was so proud of herself. It was a delicious meal and she had been responsible for it.

Naturally Gluten Free Shepherds Pie

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion diced
8 ounces frozen peas and carrots
3 cups shredded cheese
5 cups prepared mashed potatoes

Brown ground beef and diced onions in a large skillet.

Once meat is brown add carrots and peas until warm.

Pour beef and veggies into the bottom of a 3 quart casserole dish. Top with 2 cups of the cheese. We use cojack because that is the kind of cheese the 6Browns prefer but any cheese will do.

Top with 5 cups of prepared mashed potatoes. I use the Honest Earth All Natural Creamy Mashed ones because if you want quick potatoes that taste good these are your best bet. That and the fact that they carry them at Costco. They are also gluten free with no preservatives. Pretty tasty for instant potato.

Top potato with remaining 1 cup shredded cheese and pop in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. Bake an additional 2 minutes on broil to crisp up the cheese on top. Serve with a salad.

*Note: I used to add corn into the meat mixture, but that was before Bill developed a corn allergy.

I made royal icing using powdered sugar, meringue powder, vanilla, butter flavoring and water. I took small amounts of it and dyed them red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Then I put white icing down on the plate and put dabs of the different colors on it.

After that we got out toothpicks and swirled it around to make a beautiful swirl.

Then we gently dipped the cookie in and pulled it up to reveal the beauty!

Annie and Kimberly also decorated cookies painstakingly with toothpicks.

The cookies all came out perfect.

I also made another batch but I used bread flour. It was not nearly as good. When kneading the dough it was not light and soft. The bread was dense and while it had good flavor it was quite chewy. The recipe calls for all purpose flour not bread flour, but I had this around so I thought I would see what it did. Certainly won’t do that again.

Well, I think I have found one that is tasty and the first time I made it it was not dense, had a good flavor, great crust and the entire loaf was gobbled up by my hungry family. Here is a link to the recipe. The recipe is pretty easy to make. I put the ingredients together the night before, left it out on the counter until the next afternoon, knead it a couple of times, and put it in the oven. The beer in the batter gives it a hint of a sourdough like taste. Trust me it was good. I plan to make another loaf tonight.

I think this is going to be my 3rd recipe to try. mmmm . . . looks so tasty.