Campfire Chocolate Eclairs

If I could choose any doughnut in the whole wide world, any at all, I would choose a chocolate eclair.  I love them. They are pastry perfection in my opinion. And though I rarely indulge in these creamy, gooey, doughnutty delights, I also pretty much never turn them down when an opportunity arises.  Unfortunately, chocolate eclairs just aren't available everywhere you go.  Sure, you can get one at the doughnut shop.  But, do they sell them for dessert at restaurants?  Can you get one at the gas station?  Do you have a recipe for eclairs in your old beat up recipe box?  Not usually, and so we are left with an aching desire to eat more of them.

I have another love, campfires.  I love the way they flicker and dance in the dark.  I love the way that they magnetically draw people to stand or sit around them and chat.  I love roasting things over them.  Marshmallows, hot dogs, cocoa...ahhhhh.

But, until now, my friends, I have never experienced the joy of campfires and chocolate eclairs at the same time.  But, brace yourselves....I found a recipe for CAMPFIRE CHOCOLATE ECLAIRS!  It's a match made in heaven.   Here's what you do:

Gather your supplies.  You'll need:

A campfire
A roasting stick (or aluminum tent poles or green sticks with the bark peeled off)
Vanilla Pudding cups
1 package Pillsbury Quick crescent rolls
A can of ready to spread chocolate frosting
Tinfoil

Wrap the aluminum foil tightly around the end of the roasting stick.  Form dough of crescent roll around foil to make a tubular shape.  The roll dough is shaped like triangles. I started with the big end and then kind of wrapped it around itself until I got to the small end.  Then I squeezed it just a little to make it hold together.

Now, for the roasting.  You must be patient even though it's a little exciting.   Cook slowly over hot coals.  You have to rotate often and make sure that you are not cooking the tip more than the rest.  Even and golden brown is the goal.  If you cook it too fast you will have a doughy center. It will take a few minutes.

Sometimes you have to squeeze the foil a little tighter around the stick in order to prevent it from spinning around on the stick when you rotate it.

OK, once the dough in nice and brown you can remove it from the foil.  I think it is a requirement that you have dirt under your fingernails when you do this.  At least that's what I was going for...camping authenticity.

Spoon it full of vanilla pudding.

Spread chocolate frosting on top and then...oops , I got so excited that I just went ahead and took a big bite before I took the picture.  But it was good...oh so good. 

Then after that I just didn't have time to stop and take pictures before I gobbled them down.  So, you'll have to try it out yourself.  You might want to plan a camping trip for the sole purpose of eating these.  Now, how can I make these in my own kitchen?  Any suggestions?

Go Eat Some Dirt

Yesterday was Earth Day and my little idealist decided to get her friends together and clean up trash at a local park to help save the earth. I don't recall ever doing anything like that when I was a kid.  Anyways, since I have never even thought about saving the earth on earth day I felt compelled to at least make an earth day treat for the girls who want to change the world to eat at their event.  I found this idea on the pioneer woman website a while back and thought it was perfect for a garden party, earth day, or any time.  I mean really, can dessert get any more adorable than this? I think not.

I made some modifications of the recipe that I found online based on:
1.The fact that Target didn't have all the things it called for
2.  I started this project about 90 minutes before our earth day extravaganza ( I always like to plan ahead like that) and there was just no time to go to two stores.

So here it is:
First, gather your supplies.  You need flower pots (I found these in the dollar bins at target), straws, OREO or other chocolate sandwich cookies, icecream, and some fresh cut flowers. (excuse the foil, I was going to use it but didn't)

Wash out the pots before you start.  Let your ice cream soften a little.  Not too much, we don't want soup.  Just let it become slightly easier to work with.

While the ice cream is softening get out your straws and cut them to the height of your pots. Just hold it up next to the container and snip.

Then put your cookies in a large ziploc bag and crush them (or you can use a food processor to crush them)

OK, now hold your straw up in the container and scoop some icecream around it until it is standing up on it's own. Try not to get any any ice cream inside the straw. (note:  online the put cake in the bottom and you could just poke the straw into it.  Probably a good idea but I had no cake and this worked fine)

Once it is in place you can fill up the rest of the container almost to the top.

Then, just sprinkle the crushed OREOS over the top generously to look like some nice dark soil.

Look at that.  You want to plant something in that don't you?

Now, put them back in the freezer and let the icecream firm back up.

I packed the pots in a cooler and when we got to the park we pulled them out.  The girls actually thought they were pots of dirt...I love stuff like that.  I gave them each a flower to plant in the dirt and when they got their pots they smelled the dirt and said "is this OREO cookies?!"  They planted their flowers by sliding the stem into the straw and then they dug in.

And after all that yummy dirt was gone they all wore the flowers in their hair...except the little brother who threw his in the dirt.

So easy, no recipe, no cooking, adorable, and lots of smiling children (with black OREOS stuck in their teeth!)  Try it out, your kids, and you (you know you want to eat that too) will love it.

Secret Decoder Cookies

You know when you see the words SECRET, DECODER, and COOKIE together you already want to try this.  I know you do.  At least I did.  When I saw this online I had to try it out...and give it my own little twist to make it really intriguing for my oldest child too.  It had great lunch box love note potential. It's really quite easy but there are a few tricks that I found out on the way.  Ready, let's make em'

First, gather your supplies. You'll need:

Your favorite sugar cookie recipe

and the ingredients to make them

 (Here's mine, they are super soft and delicious)

A bag of red,clear, hard candies. 

Jolley Ranchers were reccomended and I think they would actually work best. They are more transparent that what I ended up with. But, I couldn't find packages that had ONLY red at my local Wal-Mart.  So, I bought a package of red cinnamon discs instead and I actually quite liked the cinnamon taste.

Two cookie cutters of the same shape that fit inside one another (or you could use jars, or cups, or whatever you have that will make a nice ring shape after you use both cutters...you'll see below)

Rolling Pin

Hammer

Large Ziploc Bag

My Secret Decoder Messages

 (CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE SECRET MESSAGES)

First, unwrap all of your hard candies and put them in a large ziploc bag.  Seal the bag and place it on a heave cutting board.

Now, if you are feeling really brave or really generous or really illogical, give your child a hammer and tell him that he gets to break those candies to smitherines.

Try to read his facial cues to see if he is going to be dangerous...does he look like he will be dangerous?

 Now would be a good time to go over safe hammering rules and the importance of retaining all fingers and eyes during the process...or maybe you could do the hammering.  But, he will think it's so fun.

You can use the rolling pin to crush the pieces some more.

Now once those candies are all crushed you have what my son affectionately calls "DECODERANT".  Sounds like deodorant but it's so much more delicous.  And, it will soon be the "DECODER" part of the cookie.

Make your sugar cookie dough and roll it out to about 1/4".

Now get out your two cookie cutters.  Or, in my case, a jar and a measuring cup.

All that matters is that the two circles fit nicely inside each other to make a ring shape.

Cut our your ring shapes

and place them on a COOKIE SHEET THAT HAS BEEN COVERED WITH TINFOIL AND GREASED.  Do not skip the greasing.  See this pan. 

 It's not greased.  It didn't go well. Hard candy can be very sticky.  Which bring us to the next step.  Spoon the decoderant into your little sugar cookie rings. 

But don't put too much in.  If you fill the rings to the top you will end up with a very thick decoder window that is hard to see through.  See, it's tasty but it's a wall, not a window.

Take it easy on the DECODERANT...just enough that it will melt and create a very thin window.
Now put it in the oven at 350 degrees for 9-10 minutes and watch it transform into this:

LET THEM COOL COMPLETELY!

And now you're ready to decode.  The concept is that the message in written is light blue but surrounded by lots of print that is in red, orange and pink which makes it hard to read the message.  The decoder is placed over the message and kind of drowns out all the "noise" so you only see the message written in light blue.  Like this:

I sent the "coded" messages to school with my daughter today along with two decoder cookies.  She came home saying that everyone at her lunch table thought it was so cool and that they all took turns using the decoder and reading the messages. To which I responded "You passed your cookie around the table and everyone touched it and then you ate it?"  To which she responded with a huge grin and said "Yeah, they LOVED IT!" And I felt grossed out and pleased at the same time.

So, mission accomplished.  A lunchbox love note that made everyone happy and satisfied their sweet tooth too.

P.S.-A note on storing these cookies.  The decoder windows do not like heat or humidity.  They became sticky and foggy when I sealed them all in a plastic bag together and put them on top of my fridge. So, if you aren't going to use them immediately I would at least reccomend that you:

1-Don't store in an air tight container that will hold in all the moisture.  Maybe it's just the humidity here but it left them way too moist.  You want that red window to stay dry.

2-Don't stack them on top of each other

3-Keep them cool

But, all the cookies were gone quickly so you may not have to worry about that at all.

And here's some decoder messages just for fun.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PDF PRINTABLE VERSION.

And, here's a blank one if you want to make your own.  Use light blue lettering.  (My lettering was just a light blue outline and white filling)  I did this in PICASA so you can play with it a little until the lettering looks transparent enough that you can't read it well without the decoder.

 

Crazy Faced Caramel Apples

I was searching the internet the other day for a fun dessert I could make with the kids and I found this idea for caramel apple faces.  The site that I found it on actually did this as a Halloween treat and called them monsters.  But, I thought faces would be just as fitting for any old day of the year so we decided to try them out after dinner last night.  Here's what you need:

• Apples
• A bag of caramels (mine came with the sticks and instructions for making caramel apples on the bag)
• Various face making supplies. (We used chow mein noodles, jumbo marshmallows, coconut, Tic Tacs, chocolate chips, Ritz crackers, etc.)
• Wax paper
• Rolls of unused toilet paper (I suppose you could call this optional but it was very useful...you'll see)

Okay, here we go. Put the sticks in your apples.

Melt your caramels according the bag's instructions.

(I just used the microwave)

Now dip and roll and coat those apples in the caramel. (sometimes you have to spoon a little over to get the whole thing covered)

Now you have a caramel apple.  And you have a problem.  It's so sticky that it will even stick to waxed paper.  Plus, you want your apples on top (so you can hold it like a lollipop) So, if you just set the apple down you will end up with a gooey glob at the bottom.  (Which won't look pretty when you pry it off the wax paper and turn it right side up) Hmmmm.

So, here was my solution. Hold the apple for just a moment while it sets up...just for a minute.  Now, get a roll of toilet paper....any ply will do :) Cover it with wax paper. (Next time I would grease the wax paper where the apple with touch it too to avoid having it stick later on) Poke a little hole in the middle and put the caramel apple in. Now you can decorate with ease.

Get out your decorating supplies. (Oops, I took this picture earlier but you get the idea.)

And go to town!  It was really fun deciding how to make the faces.  There were no rules about how it had to look.

Wait, this picture just reminded me that you should probably have your four year old wash the dirt out from under his fingernails before starting the project.

This one was a "WILD THING"...or so I was told.

Now, everyone compliment each other's work and then stare at the face you just made.

And the daddy apple can give the mommy apple a little kiss just for good measure.

And now you eat! (it was easier to eat them sliced up but if your teeth can take it just eat em' off the stick)

Fun. cheap.  It was dessert and a family activity all in one.  The kids gave it a ten on the rating scale.  Try it out.