Not to Bake...

This has nothing to do with baking but I had to share.

My mom and I attended a baby shower last weekend and our gift was the Nap Nanny.  Have you seen this? My sister has one and loves it. Apparently, so do a lot of other people.  I am very much wanting one for my next baby.

Anyway, it was a large gift to wrap and we weren't sure how to go about it. My mom had the fabulous idea of using a disposable tablecloth! I just think that is genius. She found a blue one (the baby-to-be is a boy) for a buck at The Dollar Tree. Enough regular wrapping paper to cover it would have cost at least 4 times that.

And how cute would this tablecloth be wrapped around a Father's Day gift of grilling paraphernalia?

I just love this idea and will be using myself in the future!

Best Ever Chocolate Sauce

Note to self:

Do not attempt an ice cream photo shoot on the hottest day of the year so far. In your kitchen. While the oven is slow cooking a chicken.

Sincerely, 

Me

Even though the air is on in my house, this was a tricky shoot. Things were melting and sliding (quickly, at that) and not making for pretty pictures. 

The whipped cream refused to cooperate even a little so I scrapped it. The ice cream itself, a key part in the whole gig, almost didn't make it through. I felt like a director whose actors kept walking off the set.

This, my friends, is the BEST CHOCOLATE SAUCE IN THE WORLD. For real. It will knock your socks off. And it's so super simple. The hardest part is the waiting. (Tom Petty couldn't have been more right about that one.) 

This amazing recipe came from my mom and though she has made this many times in my life, I was reintroduced to it a few weeks ago. It's a dangerous recipe to have in your arsenal when your favorite sweet treat is ice cream. 

Trust me on this: Take a bowl of simple vanilla or chocolate ice cream, top it with a bit of this heavenly delight and the result is pure magic. No other toppings needed. 

Best Ever Chocolate Sauce

2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup cocoa

1 1/4 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

-In a sauce pan, whisk together sugar, cocoa, water and salt. Stirring occasionally, bring to a rolling boil then immediately remove from heat. (This mixture tends to boil over very quickly so stay with it. Once it reaches the rolling boil, get it off the heat to avoid a mess.)

-Allow to cool about an hour or two, then put back on stove top and bring to a rolling boil once more. Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla and then allow it to cool about an hour in order to thicken a bit.  (It will thicken even more once you store it in the refrigerator.) 

I hope you have a relaxing Memorial Day!
Don't forget to remember those who made all our freedoms possible.

Vanilla Bean Gelato

This is a total "Not to Bake" item. And man, is it a good one.

Last night I needed a sweet fix.

I know you guys probably think I indulge in every sweet thing I make, but I really don't. Most of my goods are given away. I COULD eat them all myself, but I choose not to. Plus, when I am so involved in the process of making and photographing these treats, it just doesn't always appeal to me to eat them. I taste test everything, and there ARE some things that have a bit of a Kryptonite effect on me, but for the most part I keep a pretty professional relationship with my creations.

But, last night my lack of sugar caught up with me. And ice cream sounded like the perfect fix.

Ice cream and I CAN in fact have one of those Kryptonite-esque associations, and last night I could have easily OD'd on a half gallon, so I decided to keep it simple. I set my sights on a pint of something or possibly even one of those single serving sizes.  

As I roamed the grocery aisle my attention was diverted to this:

The elegantly simple and modern packaging immediately caught my eye. My hope was that Talenti Gelato would taste as gorgeous as it looked.

Wow, did Talenti deliver and then some! It's smooth, EXTRA creamy and the vanilla flavor is so vibrant without being too much. It is FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC.

Mr. Mac is not a huge sweets fan but we were on the same page with this one. I handed him the pint as I went to check on our daughter who was in her room finding every reason possible to avoid bedtime. 

Baby Mac: "Bite?" (Translated: "Pacifier")

Me: "Yes, here is your pacifier. Please stop throwing it on the floor. Good night." She knows if we hear it drop to the wood floor we will immediately come to her aid and so it has become her favorite game. We  only recently realized that we have been suckers so now we don't jump as soon as we hear it hit the floor.

Baby Mac: "Baby?" (Translated: "blanket") 

Me: "Yes, here is another blanket. That brings the total to 5. I have a feeling you are going to be eaten by all of these blankets through the night and I will be playing 'Where's Waldo' in the morning. Good night."

Baby Mac: "Baby?" (Translated: "baby."  I can decipher between "baby" and "blanket." It's a gift.)

Me: "Okay, we have baby #1, baby #2, Cookie Monster, Bunny (or as she calls him, "Bubby"), baby #3 and Pig. I think you have more than enough company. In fact, we might be breaking some kind of fire codes. Good night."

By the time I got back into the living room, my husband had put a pretty large dent in the gelato and was begging me to take it away before he consumed it all. That, my friends, is the test of a indulgent dessert. If my husband has trouble resisting, it's golden. We just might buy stock in this company.

And the label may be the best part:

See those little black vanilla flecks? It's like my taste buds won the lottery.

That is just about everything I want to see in a food label. The list of ingredients doesn't read like a who's who of things I can't pronounce. And the fact that it's gluten free, hormone free, and all those other fun traits, just makes it that much more enjoyable.

So how is gelato different from ice cream? Gelato has less air churned into it resulting in a more dense and rich texture. Gelato is about 15% air where its ice cream counterpart is about 50%.

Another great feature? Gelato has much less fat. Ice cream typically has lots of milk and/or cream and eggs. The fat content is around 16%-26%. Gelato contains no eggs and only a small amount of cream and/or milk (or just water, if it's a sorbet) resulting in a fat content of about 2%-8%.

I purchased this gelato at my local Kroger. It also comes in such flavors as Double Dark Chocolate, Caribbean Coconut, Belgian Milk Chocolate, Roman Raspberry, Seal Salt Caramel (which I will fervently petition my store to carry), Black Cherry and more.

Check out Talenti's website and see what makes them so special and remarkably delicious!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 2 things:

1. Talenti did not pay me to say these things. However, I would not turn them down if they wanted to. And if they felt the need to send some free schwag my way, I would not be insulted. Ahem...

2. Thanks to my friend Amy for helping to edit my posts. She takes time out of her lunch break to read over what I write and tell me what works and what doesn't. She is the Rodgers to my Hammerstein.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookies

Are No-Bake Cookies just a southern thing? I follow A LOT of baking and cooking blogs and I have never heard mention of them. I have seen variations such as corn flake cookies made with corn syrup, but not the straight up, good old fashioned oat variety that uses just butter, sugar and peanut butter. That's not to say they're just a regional thing. If you are not from the south and grew up with these cookies, let me know.  My curiosity is killing me.

My mom made these cookies for my siblings and I growing up. They were a once a week thing in our house and, oh, such a treat.  Sometimes she would make them on a Sunday evening and they really made Mondays a lot easier to face. We often argued over who got to lick the spoon and pan. 

These are my go-to for a sweet fix. I ALWAYS have the ingredients on hand to make them because they are all baking basics. And guess what? You just change a couple of ingredients to make a chocolate version. Mmmm.....chocolate..... 

Let's make No-Bake Cookies!

Melt the butter and add brown sugar and milk. Whisk together and bring to a rolling boil. 

Now this is where things get tricky. If you don't boil the mixture long enough your cookies will never set and you will end up eating them with a spoon. Which really is not much of a problem in my opinion. But, it does make it impossible to store the leftovers. You would have to eat every single cookie right then. Again, not a negative thing in my book. 

This is a rolling boil:

Once you see this, set your timer for 2 minutes. When the timer goes off, remove the pan from heat.

Next add your peanut butter and vanilla. If you don't have one of these, get it now.

Ever try to measure out peanut butter, or some other sticky substance using a measuring cup? It sucks. I can never get all of the ingredient out of the cup with ease. And baking, people, is all about science so if a recipe calls for a cup of something, by golly, you better have a cup and not a bit less. 

This gadget makes life so much easier. Set the cup to the amount you need, pop in the peanut butter (I use a butter knife so I can slide it across the edge of the cup and remove any excess) and press the bottom up to release the ingredients into your bowl or pan. Easy peasy!

And look how hardly any peanut butter is left! Mainly just the bit around the edges because I was messy. And I AM a messy baker. That's why you don't see many action shots. My kitchen gets too embarrassing during the process. If child services were to come into my house in the midst of my baking, there would be raised eyebrows. 

So, stir in your peanut butter and vanilla until they are well incorporated. Next, add your oats and stir well. Drop by the spoonful onto aluminium foil. Or in my case, because I was out of foil, wax paper. 

My mom always used foil and I see why. The warmth of the cookies and the condensation it caused on the bottom of the wax paper made made it stick to my table a bit. Use foil. Much easier. 

I added some chocolate sprinkles for fun. I love sprinkles. They make me happy. I would dip anything I could in chocolate and cover it with sprinkles. It's just the way things should be. But what's better than chocolate AND sprinkles? Why, chocolate sprinkles of course! And as we all know, chocolate and peanut butter are like total BFF's.

And the best part? I don't have to fight anyone for this:

This, folks, is what it's all about.

It's all mine. Come to Mama. And it did. One second after I sat down my camera.

Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies

1 stick butter, melted

1/2 cup milk
2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups oats

1. Add milk and sugar to melted butter. Bring to a rolling boil and continue to boil for 2 minutes.

2. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Once incorporated, stir in oats.    

3. Drop by the spoonful onto a sheet of foil and allow to set. 

Chocolate No-Bake Cookies
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
2 cups white sugar
2 rounded tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups oats


Follow the same directions as the peanut butter cookies, adding in the cocoa during the first step. 

Happy NO baking!