Instant Pot White Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake

White Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake

Look at this little beauty. Perfect for Valentine's day, Christmas, Saturdays... you know any time. This pepperminty treat is creamy and so good. I make this in the Instant Pot, but also have a recipe for the oven below. I'm planning on stocking our freezer with a few different cheesecakes for a get together in the Spring. Cheesecake freezes so well, and making these smaller 7 inch ones means more variety and flavors. The great thing about it is that you can use any flavor candy you like and switch it up. It's the Girl Scout cookie season, so Thin Mints would be a great crust and crumble in a cheesecake. Oreo crust and cherry cheesecake? Sounds perfect to me! What are your favorite cheesecake flavors and combinations?

Candy Cane Kisses and Simple Sugar Cookie Dough

I know it's a little late in the game to be posting Christmas Cookie recipes but these would be great for Valentine's day also. You could use the Candy Cane Kisses or even the Cherry Kisses. Just don't put peppermint extract in the cookie dough, use almond. I used one dough for these cookies. The marbled pink dough was tinted and  I added Peppermint extract to it before kneading the dough to marble it. For the Candy Cane Kisses, Pixie pressed the candies into the cookies after they came out of the oven. Just remind little ones that are helping that the baking sheets are hot. Pixie helped me with the dough, unwrapping all the Kisses, and pressing the candies into the cookies.

These cookies are so easy to make and there's no thinking ahead since the butter is melted. The dough is versatile. The cookies can be rolled into balls, formed into candy cane shapes, formed into a log for slice and bake. It is a very forgiving dough.

Give Peas A Chance Simple Sugar Cookie Dough

1 cup melted unsalted  butter
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups flour

Optional
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract OR 1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat the butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla together.
Stir in the flour, salt, and baking soda.
Shape the cookies and bake.
Bake 375 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.

IF using candy kisses, press them into the cookies after baking, while they are warm.

To marble you cookies, separate half the dough. Knead a few drops of food coloring into half of the dough. Then knead both doughs together to marble. You can also shape the dough into strips, then twist them into candy canes, wreaths, or pretzel shapes.

Cookies can be rolled in sprinkles, cinnamon sugar,  or pumpkin pie spice and sugar before baking also.

The cookie dough can be frozen in tablespoon size balls or in log form. No need to thaw before baking. Slice and bake, or bake the dough balls from frozen. Add a minute to the baking time.

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Carrot Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Cake

Welcome to the best Carrot Cake post EVER. No really.
Carrot cake. Vanilla bean. Cheesecake. Cake.
Moist carrot cake layers, a layer of creamy vanilla bean cheesecake, smothered in a Cinnamon vanilla bean cream cheese frosting, topped with candied carrot curls. HELLO.
Perfect for any occasion really.
This cake takes some planning to make. There are quite a few steps but the methods themselves are easy. I made two of these carrot cakes, a round and a square. It's a long story, that had to do with not having enough cake pans, and what not. In the end I dropped a layer on the floor and had to toss it, so I had enough extra batter to redeem myself. I guess I just knew I needed that extra batter.

 To find the recipe for the cake and cheesecake follow these links
  Carrot Cake
Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

Frosting and candied carrot curl recipes are at the bottom of this post.

Some notes:

• Just like the Chocolate Mint Cheesecake Cake, this is cake/cheesecake/cake/frosting. I don't put extra frosting between the layers of cake. 
• The candied carrot curls on top were easy to make, and I got a great simple syrup for my tea out of it. The recipe for that is below.
• If you are making this cake and placing the layers in the freezer  in between steps, thaw before serving! It tastes better fully thawed.

GPAC Salted Caramel Sauce

Oh (hurricane) Sandy. Just go away already. We still have power right now. I shouldn't have said that. Oh well. It's cold, wet, and windy. I made it to the post office and the drug store. Now we're hanging out watching The Chronicles of Narnia- The Lion,the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I decided to make a Salted Caramel Sauce for the girls to dip their apples in. It's so good we burnt our tongues eating it, it's cooled down now and is warm, but it's almost all gone. It would be good with graham crackers and on top of ice cream. Drizzled on cupcakes too. I dropped off the jar and apples in the picture to our neighbors quick like, so just bakers twine and a mommy card.

This caramel sauce is very easy to make. I didn't use a candy thermometer. Just basic ingredients, and maybe 10 minutes and you're done.

Spa Birthday Brunch- Food.

Another Spa Birthday Brunch post, you can see more of these HERE. This post will be all about the food. I kept the food simple, and took shortcuts where I could. I didn't make my own yogurt (but you can find methods I've used by searching "yogurt" in my search bar), I also used frozen pancakes, and whipped cream in a can- which my kids just LOVED. Go figure.

CupKate's Event Designs is where I got the cupcake cups, the little spoons for the Deviled Eggs, Push Pop containers, Stay tuned for an awesome giveaway from her this weekend!

Spa Birthday Brunch- Daisy Stationary/Paper Goods

We didn't have Diva's birthday party this summer. I had promised her a party since she hasn't had one in 4? years. So I let her invite 8 friends over for a birthday brunch. I'm going to do party details in a series of posts. This post is all about stationary and paper product that I used and made.
Kori of Paper and Pigtails designed the Daisy party stationary for me, everything but the invitation- I used leftover stationary from Pixie's birth announcements for those. Kori was so helpful, for one I gave her short notice. Then I had issues with editing and Adobe reader, Kori kept in contact with me through email. Several times a night, trouble shooting and sending me more files. Her prices were good too. You must check out her blog and shop. She's got some free printable on the blog also! Thanks SO much Kori!

Sweet and Spicy Nuts and Bolts

 Candied Jalapenos. Sweet. Spicy. So tasty.

I call these nuts and bolts because the addition of carrots reminds me of of nuts and bolts. These are so good. I ate half a jar in once sitting at dinner this week. I kid you not. It IS sweet, I mean they are candied after all. But there's still a kick. I would love even more of a spicy kick, so maybe habaneros next time in the mix. These are so good. I had them with chicken, but eating them out of the jar plain wouldn't be an issue. Well, maybe if I wasn't trying to polish off a jar at a time. They would be great on burgers, cupcakes, spice up a fruit pizza, with cheese. You must make these, you don't even have to process them to can them. Just make them, and put them in a jar in the fridge.

I've been away because we had a storm and didn't have power. I did get some canning done though, I have a gas stove! Thank goodness, because I had frozen some fruit we had picked for smoothies.

*I've made these again. With less sugar than called for (just half the amount) and I added Cherry peppers and Habaneros - really like 15 of them, they mellowed out in the sugar. I'll try to post a picture soon!

Piglet's Kai-Lan Party

Diva helped me set up.

Piglet is turning SIX. Oh goodness, it seems crazy. She's going to be a first grader next year. Time sure does fly. We had her party early, since she doesn't officially turn 6 until July. We were at Party City and Kai-Lan party goods were 2 for $1. She decided she wanted a Kai-Lan party, I didn't say no. Really, 2 for a $1? Awesome.
 I'm crazy, but we had her party in the middle of a move. So we had a partially empty house, which was awesome, but goodness. It was nuts. I decided not to make cupcakes, we just went out and bought them. To top it off, the night before I was making cupcake toppers and favor box decorations, because the seller I ordered from on Etsy never shipped. (Ugh, I even convo'd her before to make sure she could have items shipped to me on time.) Still, it was so much fun.

We had a water play party. The kids spent most of their time outside, all 20+ of them! We had a water bead table, bubble station, they played on the play set, had water guns, and a Pinata. I had wanted to bring out frozen water balloons with food coloring in them for races. Good thing I didn't bring them out! They stain. Can't wait to make them when it snows for decoration though!

So thankful that my friend Angel Murphy Photography was here to grab my camera and take pictures. So while they say Give Peas A Chance on them, she took most of them. I tried to post only pictures that didn't have so many children's faces in them. They are SOOC, with her using my Nikon for the first time, she's a Cannon girl!

Cookie Dough Truffles

Diva loves cookie dough ice cream. So I made these as a treat for her for Valentine's day. I miss making candy! I'm not a cookie dough eater myself, I just never have been. But these truffles have the same consistency and flavor as a chilled cookie dough. Diva and Pixie loved these, DH liked them, and Piglet and I are not cookie dough fans. Great flavor, I just don't like the consistency. It's the raw dough. But don't let my non raw cookie dough eating nonsense stop you if you love cookie dough. 

 I'm going to make these and cut them up for Cookie dough ice cream, I think frozen I'll really like them. I'll make them like this Carmel Swirl Cinnamon Roll Ice Cream. Maybe a Snicker doodle Cookie dough would be good. Hmmm.

Marshmallow Fondant Toadstools

This is the first time I've made fondant. I don't like fondant. It's just too sweet for me. But I thought it would be the easiest way to decorate this cake for Pixie's Smurfday. I wanted to attempt a toadstool cake but I had so much going on already. My family loved these. To me they taste like marshmallows. The only way I like marshmallows is toasted over a flame.

I saw this method on pinterest from Clockwork Lemon, but you can find it all over. This method says to knead in the coloring but I didn't want to get my hands stained.

Look at Gardener Smurf. Tee hee.

Smurfday Dinner

Dinner table (I blurred out Pixie's name, on the banner across the cupcakes and on the protest signs that the Smurfs are holding.)

I have a TON of pictures from the last two days of Smurf-mania around here. It's been so fun! I made everything- as far as signs, banners, labels, food other than candy.

We were so blessed and surprised when a box of 45 Smurfs arrived at the house from my brother. That's when I decided it would be fun to do this "Smurfday" dinner for Pixie. Just a family dinner.

On Thursday evening we decided, why not invite some children over Saturday for cake and ice cream. Nothing like last minute. So on Friday morning I decided I wanted to do a mini candy buffet. I picked up some Pixi sticks, Nerds, Lemon heads and pretzels. 

I spent very little money and made most everything myself. All banners and labels were made with labels and scrap booking items I already had on hand, or I printed them out. I made the food, and had all the service ware. Except the milk glasses. We're talking birthday on the cheap here, you can spend a lot of money and do some AMAZING tables, I've seen them. But I couldn't do that, even if I could hire someone I wouldn't have. This was too fun, I might have had other elements on the table- maybe. I pulled out all my pedestals, containers and drink dispenser. So much fun.

I'll break the Smurfday posts up. This post is the dinner menu.

Fudge Balls

These are Fudgey Babies as seen HERE. I love this recipe I can't wait to come up with more variations! I added more nuts than called for. They were perfect. Very satisfying for my sweet tooth.  No added sugar, no preservatives, full flavor NOM NOM. I rolled them and put them in the fridge. They could go in the freezer but I just put them in the fridge. If I were making a bigger batch I might freeze them. Make sure your dates don't have added sugars, preservatives, salt. Check your vanilla also- unless it's real it probably has sugar or corn syrup in it.

1 c walnuts (120 grams)- I used 160 grams
1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates (230 grams)
1 tsp vanilla extract- I used 2 teaspoons
3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder, regular or dark - I used 40 grams 4 Tbs

Place everything in  a food processor and process. My mixture wasn't really that wet. But I used my cookie school and once I formed them into balls they held together perfectly. I rolled some of them in cocoa powder... and ate three right away. 

Variations I'm want to try

Cashews, Cherries, Cocoa powder, almond extract

Dark cocoa, walnuts, cinnamon, cayenne, vanilla

Almonds, coconut butter, cocoa, coconut flakes, vanilla

Tropical would be fun- coconut butter or a tiny bit of coconut oil, cocoa, macadamia nuts, dried papaya
Blueberries would be yummy also.

Cinnamon Walnut Baklava

I hope to catch a break and post more pictures and a recipe soon... it's yummy! MIL is here helping stage the house to sell right now...

OK I lied, I am tired and need to get to bed, so no more pictures of this goodness. HOWEVER the recipe can be found here at Martha Stewart Living. MIL helped me make them they are rich and yummy! Below is my adapted version.

Peanut Brittle

Look at that gorgeous Amber color! This brittle is so easy peasy...














Butter a rimmed baking sheet. Stir together sugar, water and salt in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Cook over high heat without stirring until sugar beings to melt and turn golden. Once it does continue to cook and stir occasionally until the mixture turns a golden amber, about 8 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir your peanuts in.



Pour onto your baking sheet and spread out with a well oiled metal spatula. Let cool completely. Break brittle into pieces. Can be stored for up to two weeks in an airtight container.