Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Now let me start out by saying I don't know if these fall under to official definition of a whoopie pie.  I did some serious research and discovered that Wikipedia defines a whoopie pie as "two rounded mound-shaped pieces of chocolate cake, or sometimes pumpkin or gingerbread cake, with a sweet creaming filling." Are these still whoopie pies if they aren't round mound-shaped? You decide.

I used red velvet cake mix and this recipe for the cookies.

Check me out baking in daylight hours:

I just wing-ed it on the cream cheese frosting (cream cheese, butter, vanilla bean, confectioner's sugar).

I rolled them in some Christmas sprinkles to make them even more festive.

Chocolate Truffles

My sister and I have started a tradition of giving all of our aunts an edible Christmas gift.  Last year we put together little tins with chocolate bark, shortbread cookies, candied almonds, and lemon curd.

This year we used Martha Stewart's recipe for chocolate truffles and tripled the recipe.

Here are the little balls getting rolled.

Here are the ridiculously dirty hands that result from rolling the truffles.

For the peanut truffles we also added a bit of peanut butter into the chocolate and cream mix.

We rolled them in 4 different toppings: coconut, peanut, cocoa, and sprinkles.

Some seriously lucky relatives got to eat these and I am quite jealous of them because these babies were crazy good.  If you have about 8 free hours, go ahead and make these (I'm not going to pretend these didn't take me all day).

Chocolate Candy Canes

I saw this idea on one of my many pinterest binges.  This blogger made then with full size candy canes, but I figure no one likes candy canes that much so I made them with mini candy canes.

First I melted the candy in the oven.  I gave them a little extra push together using some toothpicks to help me out when they came out of the oven.

Then I melted come chocolate candy melts in a piping bag and filled in the little hearts.

I must say I think the mini canes just add to the cuteness of it all.

I think they make lovely little gift toppers.

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

When I heard there was a baking contest at my company's holiday party I knew I needed to be a part of it.  I also knew I needed to win (or at least put in a serious effort to win).  After hours and days of scouring the internet for adorable cupcake ideas I settled on the Christmas tree.

For the cupcake itself I made mint chocolate chip brownie cupcakes a la Martha Stewart. I put in an entire bag of mint chocolate chips (these were my own addition).

I also used her butter cream frosting recipe for these cupcakes.

I was hesitant to even share these recipes with you because there is a terrifying amount of butter involved. Do yourself a favor and don't look at the recipes ok? It's better no one knows how terrible these are for you to consume.

I found sugar sheets at Michael's and used it to make the stars.  I made a stencil and then used an exacto knife to cut them out.  Then I dusted the stars with pearl dust (I splurged).

I decorated the trees with some Christmas sprinkles that I like to think look like lights.

How freaking cute are they!? 

And yeaaaaaaaaa I won the baking contest!!!!!!!!!

Spinach Artichoke French Bread Pizza

I think we can all agree that the spinach artichoke flavor combination has taken the nation by storm. Rachel Ray, the secret genius that she is, had the idea to put it atop a loaf of french bread and serve it up as a pizza.  Who am I to reject an idea as sensational as that?

Oh god. I just. Look at it. Just LOOK at it!

You can find the recipe here.  Changes I made: no onions, no friggin nutmeg (try as you might Rachel, I'm just not buying nutmeg and putting it in every single one of my recipes like you do) and no Parmesan cheese.  I used a combination of mozzarella and provolone because we happened to have it.

These babies were seriously filling (probably didn't need to eat the entire thing) and just as delicious as they sound.  I do kinda wish there were leftovers to take to work and make everyone jealous...

Dessert Pizza

I had this dessert ages ago and have been dreaming about it ever since.  Now I still have dreams of making an actual dessert pizza with a pizza crust, but for now this lovely gem will do.

As most things I make, it's super easy peasy.

Step 1: giant sugar cookie

Step 2: cream cheese, sugar, vanilla

Step 3: knock your socks off decorating with tasty fruit

The recipe can be seen here.  I didn't do the whole fruit jelly glaze business because that seems a bit icky and unnecessary to me.

Potato Spinach Tomato Soup

I apologize for being gone for so long. I have had a pretty rough week or so. Shit on top of shit on top of shit. But let's hope I have my load of shit for the time being and focus on the positive! Soup!

This spinach, potato, and tomato soup is a 30 Minute Meal recipe.  I will say that this took a bit more than 30 minutes, but I'll cut Rachel a break and say it's not completely unreasonable to claim this is a 30 minute meal.

The changes I made were minor: vegetable stock instead of chicken, no nutmeg (this chick is crazy about nutmeg, but I never have any in the stock room), added parsley for kicks, and threw all the veggies in at the same time to let them all meld.

Bubbling away! 

Top it all off with some Parmesan cheese (I wonder how often my posts end with that sentence...)

This was a seriously easy and seriously delicious soup. Make it now cause it's freeeezing!