WILW

It's time for my favorite link-up!!!

Here's what I'm loving today:

[one.]

white chicken chili kits.

  If you haven't tried one of these, get yourself to the store right this second and get you one. It's super easy to make, and I add in everything it suggests on the back. Holy smokes, I've been eating it all week and I'm STILL not tired of it.

[two.]

I'm getting into cooking again. 

I've been really bad about eating random stuff, and not cooking a whole lot. BUT, this past week I've been cooking up a storm!! And I even baked some blueberry muffins with my grandmother's amazing recipe. 

 mmmm! mmm! good!

[three.]

IKEA.

I actually did this over a week ago.. but I'm still reliving the amazing experience.

   [four.]

This gorgeous weather.

It's making me want to pull out my spring wardrobe!

So I did a mini fashion show for my mirror last night, trying to mix and match some winter pieces with my spring pieces.. but I'm not so sure this is fashionably acceptable. But I don't know.. I feel like the fashion bloggers always wear things I would NEVER find fashionably acceptable, and they totally rock it.

(Can you tell I've been reading too many fashion blogs lately?)

New Goal: Have an open mind when looking through my closet.

   [five.]

This Blog.

I found it yesterday and have been obsessed ever since.

The girl can make a mean stack [of bracelets].. and I would love to raid her closet.

Now go link up and share what YOU are loving my friends!

Peanut Butter Bars

If you like Reese's, this post is for YOU.
We have a recipe that is a family favorite, a lady at our church makes these Peanut Butter Bars for Holy Week each year and everyone fights over them. They're heavenly! Mal and I were craving them last night.. so we whipped up a batch! ;)

 We didn't take too many pictures during the mixing process, because it looks like any other cookie recipe. But we did take some Photobooth pics of ourselves... we were pumped for baking
 

And before we knew it, we had the finished product.. Delicious!

The Recipe:
Peanut Butter Bars

 3/4 C. Margarine

 3/4 C. brown sugar

 3/4 C. Sugar

 2 eggs

 3/4 C. peanut butter

 1/2 tsp. salt

 3/4 tsp. baking soda

 1/2 tsp. vanilla

 1 1/2 C. flour

 1 1/2 C. oats

 1 C. whipped peanut butter

With electric mixer, cream margarine, brown sugar, sugar, and vanilla. Add peanut butter. Add eggs, 1 at a time. Mix well. Add salt, soda, and flour. Stir in oats. Spread dough onto 10x15" cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 12 to 15 minutes. Cool cookie while you whip 1 cup peanut butter with electric mixer. Spread whipped peanut butter on warm cookie. Cool completely. Frost with Chocolate Frosting. Cut into bars.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING:

3/4 C. margarine

3 T. cocoa

1 tsp. vanilla

3 T. milk

1 box powdered sugar

In large saucepan, melt margarine. Add cocoa and vanilla. Add powdered sugar and milk. Stir until well mixed.

You have to try these this weekend! And they're good warmed a little bit with some ice cream on top too ;) 

Go Big or Go Home.

For Easter we decided to attempt Bakerella's 14 layer cake

It actually wasn't that difficult, just time consuming. It took a good 6 hours, and sadly I didn't really like the taste of it. Daddy and Mallory thought it was good, but me and mama thought it was awful. The layers were really chewy, which I guess they have to be with so many layers, but it was kind of disappointing. HOWEVER, it did Wow people when we sliced into it!

We followed Bakerella's directions and used the recipe she followed just FYI.

So get ready for picture overload, because we documented the entire process!

 

Mallory cut our wax paper circles so the cakes wouldn't stick to the pans

 

 

The stacking process

doesn't it look like pancakes with chocolate syrup?

all 14 layers!

All Iced Up!

The buttercream frosting recipe is delicious,

we all were sneaking some tastes after we finished frosting the cake!

Mallory & Mama

 And since we took the cake to Easter lunch, I didn't manage to get a great shot of the cake, but this at least shows you the inside!

It was definitely an experience, and now we can say we've baked a 14-layer cake.. but next time I might aim lower and try 10-layers.. I want fluffier layers than this cake had!

Cake Balls

I tried my hand at cake balls Thursday,

and it didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped.

I've seen all you fabulous bloggers make these GORGEOUS cake balls, and I wanted to give them a shot. Well, mine looked TERRIBLE. I don't know what I was doing wrong but they didn't dip into the chocolate and come out looking bakery perfect. They didn't dip easily at all, and I was over it at 5:15 when I trashed my first batch of chocolate and left to study chemistry. 

About 10:30 when I finished studying I had Ally go with me BACK to Walmart to get more chocolate for the dreaded cake balls that were waiting for me in the freezer. I'm talking a cookie sheet, and 2 round pans of like 60 cake balls! I was up until 1:00am finishing those darn things! A Big thanks to my sweet roommates, Ally & Emily, for helping me out, otherwise I would have lost my sanity.

So here's the results:

I did a chocolate fudge cake box recipe with fudge frosting, dipped them in white chocolate, and sprinkled the tops with Pink Williams-Sonoma Sanding Sugar from my amazing Pink Swap Partner Melissa!

These are the ones that didn't make the cut:

I made them for all of my friends from my dorm hall last year and I wrapped them up in a cute Valentines Bucket I got at Walmart on clearance for 25 cents!!  

I love a great deal! ;)

I used Paula Deen's cake ball recipe I found via google. 

Is there a better one out there?

or do y'all have any tips for the whole dipping process?

Because I really want to master these things!

Hot Chocolate AND cupcakes?! heaven.

Today Mal and I got our BAKE on!

Her friends all decided to do something small for each other.. and so Mallory found these delicious Hot Chocolate with Hershey Kiss Center Cupcakes from Picky Palate.

(click on picky palate to go to the recipe!)

We hit up Target and Walmart to get some cute coffee mugs, hot chocolate mix, nail polishes, and the ingredients to make the cupcakes.

She's going to give each of her friends a few cupcakes and then the mugs with some fun nail polish colors. They're going to LOVE it!

We got back from the store and set to work!

The batter was delicious!! I snuck some pics of Mal when she was test-tasting it!

While the cupcakes were in the oven we took some pics:

me, mama, & mallory

me and mal

And before we knew it, they were done!

I wish there was a way to send each of you a cupcake, because you really have to taste these!

They weren't hard to make.. so if you need a holiday dessert check out the recipe and try them for yourself!

While we were baking them I sent a tweet @pickypalate

(aka my blogging IDOL) and a few minutes later she replied to me.

Can I just tell you.. I am STILL on Cloud 9.

I'm dying to meet her. That tweet MADE my DAY!

It's the little things in life.. :)

Hope everyone's having a wonderful Wednesday before Christmas!!

Oreo Truffle Surprise Cookies

Last night the roomies and I made these Oreo Truffle Surprise Cookies from Picky-Palate.

If you want the recipe check it out here. I found the recipe in the morning and showed it to Ally who was having a terrible day and she said, "We must make these!!! How about today!?" So we hit up Walmart and got all of our ingredients and made these delicious cookies at 9:00 last night.

We've decided that Walmart should pay us for advertising Great Value products. I mean, we live off great value brand since we're broke college students!

As we were mixing ingredients and reading the instructions we ran into a snag. We don't have a food processor in the apartment. Because really.. how often do you use one of those?! The oreos had to be ground finely for the truffles and so Ally got out wax paper and the meat tenderizer/mallet and started banging away at those oreos. (pictured below)

Not 5 minutes later we hear banging coming from the apartment below us. Apparently crushing our oreos was too loud for them, even though we put up with far worse noise 24 hours a day from the folks above us. So then considerate Ally tried to crush them softly without making much noise and I'm not sure it did much good.. but the truffles ended up working out just fine!

Hiding the truffles in the cookies!

As soon as these cookies popped out of the oven we were ready to taste, they smelled delicious. The bites with the oreo truffle were the best.. It made our horrific week a little sweeter. :)

Now I'm off to spend the day studying for a massive chem test tomorrow. Pray for me, because I need all the prayers I can get on this one!