Anyway, as usual, I’m behind in blogging and with no good excuse — today’s recipe was made on Mother’s Day. It’s a Butterfinger Cake that I found at Southern Plate. Super easy to make, and DELICIOUS. I did plenty of breaking my diet the day I made this, and that surely included a gigantic serving of this dessert.

You’ll need: Devil’s Food Cake Mix (plus the eggs/oil/ingredients requested on the box), caramel topping, condensed milk, butterfingers, and Cool Whip

Make the Devil’s Food Cake according to the directions on the box.

In a small bowl, add your jar of caramel topping. I used this 2-cup glass measuring cup because it has a pour spout. That will be important in a minute.

Add the can of sweetened condensed milk.

Give it a good stir until they are mostly combined.

Go back to your still warm devil’s food cake. Take a fork and stab the cake. Really go at it, until it is covered with poke holes.

Pour the caramel mixture over your holey cake.

Pour it all on there, and let it start soaking in. It might take awhile.

In the meantime, crush your butterfinger bars. Obviously, I crushed mine a little earlier in the process because that’s the full can of sweetened condensed milk I’m using in this picture.

Spread most of the crushed Butterfinger over your cake. Then stick it in the fridge for awhile to continue settling and soaking up that delicious caramel sauce.

Before serving, top cake with the container of cool whip and sprinkle with the remaining Butterfinger crumbles.

YUM!

Butterfinger Cake
Source: Southern Plate

1 box devil’s food cake
1 bottle caramel topping
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tub cool whip
Butterfinger bar

Prepare cake according to package directions. Immediately after removing cake from oven, poke several holes all over the top with a fork. Mix sweetened condensed milk and caramel together, pour over hot cake, spread it over the entire cake. Chill well. After cake has chilled completely, spread cool whip over the top and sprinkle crushed Butterfinger bar on top of cool whip.

Before Christmas I had bought a bag of chopped macadamia nuts and a bag of white chips, so I did a quick Google search for White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies, found a recipe labeled “The Best White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie Recipe” and said OK! Good enough for me!

And they were. Quite delicious little cookies, they were a big hit with my family at Christmas and an even bigger hit with my coworkers last week. This recipe came out to nearly three dozen cookies using my cookie scoop so there are plenty to share!

Let’s get started.

You’ll need: Butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, eggs, flour, baking soda, white chocolate chips, and macadamia nuts

In a large bowl, add 1 cup of softened butter

1 cup of sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla

and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Using an electric mixer, beat until creamy.

{{At this point there should be pictures of adding eggs, but I forgot to TAKE those pictures, sorry!}}

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a smaller bowl, add 2 1/2 cups flour

and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

Give it a quick stir to combine and then…

Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture…

… until well blended.

Add the white chocolate chips. The recipe calls for 10oz, but I saw no reason not to add the entire 12 oz bag.

And 1 cup of macadamia nuts. (And did you know there is no ‘e’ anywhere in the word macadamia? Cause I keep trying to put one in there, and my spell check keeps yelling at me!)

Stir those in until they are well distributed.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until set.

Let cool for a couple minutes, and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Then enjoy! And for the sake of your hips, please share with others. They’ll love you for it. (Your hips and your friends!)

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Source: Whipped

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
10 ounces white chocolate (chips or bars cut in chunks)
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped into chunks

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 F. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt with electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, beat well. Stir together flour, and the baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture,beating until well blended. Stir in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. (Edges are golden brown and center is set.) Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack to cool completely.

I found this recipe on the back of the bag of toffee chips. Let’s get started!

You’ll need: Flour, brown sugar, peanut butter, shortening, milk, vanilla, egg, baking soda, salt, and chocolate covered toffee chips

Start with 1/2 cup of shortening. Do yourself a favor and buy the handy little sticks of shortening– MUCH easier for recipes. I didn’t have any, and I was trying to use up this little container of Crisco.

Follow the shortening with 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Beat until well blended

Add one egg. Clearly, I broke mine while adding it to the bowl.

Beat in the egg until just blended

In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

and 3/4 teaspoon salt

Stir with a whisk to combine

Gradually add to peanut butter mixture

Continue until all of the flour mixture has been combined with the peanut butter mixture.

Add the bag of toffee chips. The recipe indicates to use part of the bag, and sprinkle the cookies with the remaining chips, but that’s just more work. So I added them all to the dough and called it good.

Go ahead and stir those in.

Drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet

Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes or until set. Don’t over bake them– they’ll be hard as a rock if you do!

Cool for two minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!

Heath Bits Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup Heath milk chocolate toffee bits, divided

Heat oven to 375.
Beat shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add egg; beat just until blended. Combine flour, baking soda, salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Stir in 1 cup toffee bits; reserve remainder for topping.
Drop by heaping teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet; top each with reserved toffee bits. Bake 7 to 8 minutes or until set. Do not overbake. Cool 2 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Cool completely.

Delurker Day! Basically it just means, if you’ve been reading and not commenting, please “delurk” and leave a comment. Even if you’ve got nothing to say about the recipe, feel free to just say hi.

Moving along!

You may have noticed that I put the “Watergate” salad in quotations in the title. There’s a good reason for that. According to Kraft, this particular jello salad is called Watergate Salad. I’ve even recently seen it referred to as Pistachio Fluff. But in my family, we have a different name for it. One that’s not exactly appetizing and blog friendly… are you ready for it? This is Barf Salad. Yes, like that-thing-you-do-when-you-have-the-flu salad. Yum, right?

The story goes, however many years ago, my cousin Matt laid eyes on this green jello concoction and said “I’m not eating any of that barf salad!” It’s been barf salad ever since, and to this day, he still won’t eat it. I hope you will though, it’s quite tasty! This salad, Watergate, pistachio or barf, has always been one of my favorite things to find on the food table at family get togethers. It’s now my job to make it.

Here’s how.

Pistachio pudding, crushed pineapple, mini marshmallows, pecans, cool whip.

In a medium sized bowl, dump one box of dry pistachio pudding mix.

Add to that one 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple without draining.

I gave it a quick stir at this point. This is also the point at which I realized that a green bowl was probably not the best choice for this particular dish. It happened to be the most appropriately sized bowl that I had though!

Add 1/2 cup chopped pecans. I used pecan chips because I was too lazy to chop pecans. Or because they were out of any other kind of pecans at the store. Or both.

1 cup of mini marshmallows

Finally, 1 1/2 cups cool whip.

Stir until everything is well combined. Make sure you get everything up from the bottom… just when you think you’re done, you’ll pull up a spoonful of pineapple pudding goo and realize you haven’t quite gotten it yet.

And the finished product! Doesn’t it look good? Okay, maybe not in that green bowl…

Okay, that’s a little better. You can probably see why this dish earned its endearing name, but it’s still delicious!

Watergate Salad

1 box Pistachio pudding mix, dry
1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 1/2 cups whipped topping

Combine all ingredients. That’s it!

Well, in any case, I’m posting them now, so that’s got to count for something! I love this cookie. Peanut butter + chocolate = love. Even though I do occasionally make them at other times of year, I tend to think of these as Christmas cookies. I make them almost every year at this time, and that’s when I remember making them with my mom when I was younger. (My job was to unwrap all the kisses before she got the hot cookies out of the oven. I probably ate as many as made it onto cookies.)

Super simple to make, and really good- I don’t know why I don’t make them more often!

You’ll need: Flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, brown sugar, shortening, peanut butter, egg, milk, vanilla, Hershey Kisses.

In a large bowl, add 1 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

2 Tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine until dough forms. Not quite there yet…

There we go. Shape the dough into balls.

Then roll those dough balls in granulated sugar. I find it easiest to pour some sugar onto a small plate.

Place sugar coated dough balls onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

While the cookies are in the oven, unwrap your Hershey kisses. (Or you can unwrap them before you get started… but I tend to do them as I go as I don’t want to unwrap more kisses than I end up with cookies.)

When the cookies are done, take them out of the oven…

… and IMMEDIATELY press a Hershey Kiss into the center of each cookie. You’ll have to leave the cookies in a single layer wherever you put them when you take them off the pan until they are completely cool. Until they’re cool, the chocolate on the kisses stays melted (I wanted to say melty, but Firefox says that’s not a word) and you’ll just end up smearing the chocolate around everywhere.

Enjoy!

Peanut Blossom Cookies

1 3/4 cup flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. crisco shortening
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 egg
2 T. milk
1 t. vanilla

Combine until dough forms. Shape into balls and roll in sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes at 375. Top each cookie with a kiss. Press firmly.

Take this recipe here. It is in fact a Christmas cookie recipe, and I am posting it a week before Christmas! But don’t be fooled. I am not that prepared. I am still making my grocery lists for this year’s baking. I made THESE particular Christmas cookies LAST year. Probably on the 23rd because that’s the earliest baking I did last Christmas.

So just in case you’re like me and still planning your Christmas baking for this weekend or next week, I present you: Coconut Fudge Cups! These were really good, but they felt really labor intensive. Could be because I was trying to take pictures at the same time, triple checking the recipe, and anticipating many many more hours of baking ahead of me. The resulting cookies were worth it though as I will (hopefully) be making these again this year. I might even go crazy and make more than one batch!

Then again, I might be so tired from grocery store list making that I don’t make anything at all.

You’ll need: Butter or margarine, cream cheese, flour, powdered sugar, unsweetened baking cocoa, vanilla, sugar, coconut, egg, {chocolate chips, whipping cream, green/red food coloring}- optional for garnish

In a large bowl, place 1/4 cup butter or margarine

Add 3 ounces of cream cheese

Beat together with an electric mixer on medium speed.

Add 3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Stir to combine.

Roll the dough into 24 one inch balls and place into ungreased mini muffin cups.

Press the dough into bottom and up the sides of each cup and set aside.

For the filling, combine 2/3 cup of granulated sugar

2/3 cup of coconut

1/3 cup cocoa

2 Tablespoons of softened butter or margarine

and one egg.

Mix until the filling is spreadable.

Spoon about 2 teaspoons of filing into each cup.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes, or until almost no indentation remains when filling is touched lightly. Cool slightly.

Remove to wire cooling rack. If you’d like, you can be done at this point. Or you can continue on and add the garnish.

Put 1/4 cup of coconut into a small resealable bag, and add a few drops of red or green food coloring.

Shake the bag to distribute the color.

Meanwhile, put 1/4 cup chocolate chips into a small microwavable container.

Add 2 teaspoons of whipping cream. Microwave on high for 30 seconds, and stir until smooth.

Frost the top of the coconut cups with the chocolate, and sprinkle on the red or green coconut.

Enjoy!

Coconut Fudge Cups
Source: ? I made these a year ago and can’t find which holiday baking magazine I took them out of… I want to say Betty Crocker, but could be wrong.

Cookie Ingredients
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 (3 oz.) pkg cream cheese, softened.
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 c. powdered sugar
2 T. unsweetened baking cocoa
1/2 t. vanilla

Coconut Fudge Filling
2/3 c. granulated sugar
2/3 c. flaked coconut
1/3 c. unsweetened baking cocoa
2 T. butter or margarine, softened
1 egg

Garnish, if desired
1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips
2 t. whipping cream
1/2 c. flaked coconut
green and red food coloring

Heat oven to 350. In large bowl, beat butter and cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in remaining cookie ingredients.
Shape dough into 24 1-inch balls. Press 1 ball into bottom and up side of each of 24 ungreased mini muffin cups. Mix filling ingredients until spreadable. Spoon about 2 teaspoons filling into each cup.
Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when filling is touched lightly. Cool slightly; carefully remove muffin cups to cooling rack.
In 1 cup microwaveable cup, microwave chocolate chips and whipping cream on high 30 seconds, stir until smooth. Frost tops of fudge cups with chocolate.
In small resealable plastic bag, toss 1/4 cup coconut with red food color, or green food color. Garnish each fudge cup with red or green coconut.

I’m going to start with these Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies. Seriously, make these right now. They. Are. Awesome. I’ve actually made them twice now. I made them for my family when we got together for dinner on Sunday afternoon, and we practically licked the pan clean. So I had to make them again in order to take to work. These brownies are easy to make, and insanely delicious. Just about everyone took a bite, and then said, “Oh my god…” I found these at Smitten Kitchen

Let’s make them.

Ingredients: Flour, sugar, unsweetened chocolate, unsalted butter, salt, cream cheese, vanilla extract, eggs.

Chop up 3 ounces of unsweetened chocolate. I chose to melt mine over the stove on low heat.

Add 1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into small pieces.

Stir frequently over low heat, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and combined.

I moved my chocolate/butter mixture into a separate large bowl.

Add one cup of sugar.

Two large eggs.

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Stir to combine.

At this point, please pretend like there is a picture of me adding in 2/3 cup of flour and stirring until it’s combined. Please and thank you. I do not know where this picture disappeared to.

Grease an 8X8 inch pan.

Spread the brownie batter in the pan.

Now it’s time to make the cheesecake batter. Put 8 ounces of very softened cream cheese into a separate bowl.

Add 1/3 cup of sugar.

1 egg yolk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all the cheesecake ingredients. The directions actually say to whisk it together, but I don’t think that’s actually physically possible, so I got out the handmixer.

Drop cheesecake batter onto the brownie batter

Swirl cheesecake into the brownie batter.

Bake at 350 degrees until set, about 35 minutes. And just try and let them cool a little bit before you cut into them and enjoy! This recipe is definitely in my file to make over, and over, and over again.

Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies
Gourmet, 2007 via Smitten Kitchen

Brownie batter
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Cheesecake batter
8 ounces cream cheese, well softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Heat butter and chocolate in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, whisking occasionally, just until melted. Remove from heat and whisk in sugar, eggs, vanilla, and a pinch of salt until well combined. Whisk in flour until just combined and spread in baking pan.

Whisk together cheesecake batter ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Dollop over brownie batter, then swirl in with a knife or spatula.

Bake brownies: Bake until edges are slightly puffed and center is just set, about 35 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

They got pretty good reviews from everyone who tried them. My nephew seemed mostly interested in picking the “CANDY!” off the top, and then he was ready to put them back in the container. And pick a new one to pick the candy off of.

Here’s what you’ll need to make them for yourself:

Butter, sugar, vanilla extract, 4 eggs, flour, cocoa, salt, mini peanut butter cups, mini Reeses Pieces

First I chopped up my 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter cups and set those aside. And just so you know, the whole purpose of this picture is to show you the first of my new kitchen toys– my new knife.

Next you’ll need one cup of melted butter in a large bowl. This is the second of my new kitchen toys– a set of mixing bowls, the purchase of which I blame entirely on The Pioneer Woman

Add 3 cups of white sugar.

And one tablespoon of vanilla extract.

Then mix it all together.

Next, beat in your four eggs, one at a time.

Mix well after each egg, until it’s all thoroughly blended together.

In a separate bowl, add 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder.

Also add 1 teaspoon of salt.

Mix them all together. By the way, this is my idea of sifting ingredients together. Not only am I lazy, but I don’t own a sifter anyways. So this works for me.

Next you’re going to add your pseudo-sifted flour mixture to the rest of your ingredients. Stir it in gradually… this is probably about halfway through the flour mixture.

Keep going until all of your flour mixture has been added, and blended into the batter.

Add the 1 1/2 cups of chopped peanut butter cups we set aside in step one.

Stir those into the batter. Then you can pour the batter into a lightly greased 9×13 baking dish. Unless you’re like me, and you have a new toy.

Then you’re going to lightly coat your new Bite Sized Brownie Pan with some cooking spray and use a cookie scoop to portion out the batter. Sprinkle the tops with mini Reeses Pieces. I didn’t get any pictures of this step… probably because my hands were messy and I was still wondering if they were going to turn out at all.

But I baked them at 350 for about 35 minutes, and they turned out wonderfully!

Little perfectly portioned brownie bites that were delicious! Even if the pan is decidedly difficult and time consuming to wash.

Fair warning– there may be plenty of brownie recipes coming up in the future. I’ve been looking them up and bookmarking recipes left and right, so you might see quite a few. At least until the novelty of my bite sized pans wears off!

Da Bombe Brownies Peanut Butter Style
1 cup butter, melted
3 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups chopped mini peanut butter cups
1/2 cup mini Reeses pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×13 baking dish.

Combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each, until thoroughly blended.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the rest of the batter until blended. Stir in the chopped peanut butter cups. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with mini Reeses pieces

Bake in preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove, and cool pan on wire rack before cutting.

I don’t really have much more to say about this recipe, just that if you like pineapple and cherries, you’re bound to really like this one!

You’ll need softened cream cheese, crushed pineapple, cherry pie filling, pecans, cool whip.

Start by putting your 8oz. of softened cream cheese in a large bowl.

Add in your 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, undrained.

Beat the cream cheese and pineapple together until they are well combined.

Open your 20 oz. can of cherry pie filling, and dump that in the bowl.

Add 1/2 cup of chopped pecans.

Stir in the cherries and the pecans until it’s pretty well mixed together.

Empty the whole 8 oz. container of cool whip into the bowl…

And stir it in completely!

It doesn’t look like much, but it sure was tasty. Not to mention really easy to make. I imagine it would be easily customizable with different fruit, too. Sorry for the less than appealing picture… I tried to get a good one with natural sunlight, but I just ended up with a blurry picture and Cherry Fluff smeared on the window.

Cherry Fluff

1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple, undrained
1 can (21 oz.) cherry pie filling
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 carton (8 oz) Cool Whip, thawed

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and pineapple. Stir in the cherry pie filling, and the pecans. Fold in the whipped topping. Refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.

You’ll need: 2 8oz. packages of cream cheese, 1 12 oz. jar of maraschino cherries, mini chocolate chips, 2 eggs, sugar, and a chocolate pie crust.

First, drain your jar of cherries, reserving 2 teaspoons of the juice.

Quarter the cherries, and set aside.

In a separate bowl, put the two packages of softened cream cheese.

Pour in 1/2 cup of sugar.

Add two teaspoons of the cherry juice you reserved in the first step. I may or may not have sneaked a teeny bit extra.

Go ahead and beat those three ingredients together.

Next, add two eggs

and beat them in until just combined.

Add in your quartered cherries

and 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips.

Stir them in.

Then you need a chocolate pie crust. I suppose you could make your own, but why? (Oooh, did you hear that? It’s the sound of the foodie community screeching to a halt.)

Pour the cheesecake mixture into the chocolate crust. It will be very full!

Finally, bake it at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until the center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack.

And I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of a slice of the cheesecake. I must have been too busy shoving it in my face. If you can, make it a day ahead of time, so the cheesecake has enough time to rest. This was REALLY good, but since I only made a few hours in advance, I think it could have been much better. But it was my very first cheesecake that didn’t come out of a box stamped Jello, so live and learn!

Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake
Simple and Delicious magazine

1 jar (12 oz) maraschino cherries
2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1 chocolate cookie crust (9 inches)

Drain maraschino cherries, reserving 2 teaspoons juice. Cut cherries into quarters, set aside. In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, and reserved cherry juice. Add eggs; beat until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips and reserved cherries.
Pour into crust, crust will be full. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack.