This is for you Peg! I made my one of my best friends from college two cakes for her surprise birthday party. One frosting was the classic chocolate on a yellow cake (her favorite). The cake was chocolate with cookie dough icing and topped with melted Hershey kisses. Some people freak out at the thought of eating uncooked flour, so you can microwave it in 2, 30 second segments if you want.

I have no pix, but here are the cookie dough frosting ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 4 tbs milk
• 2 tsp vanilla

Directions – cream butter, brown sugar and sugar. Add powdered sugar and beat at medium high 3 minutes. Fold in flour. Add milk and vanilla. Beat to desired consistency. You may nees to add more milk or,flour. You can also throw in mini chocolate chips. I did not because I put melted Hershey kisses on top.

Tomorrow is our final Saturday morning edition of Marty and McGee, so I have prepared one of my greatest hits, in terms of treats – stuffed cookies!. I have opted for chocolate chip brownie cookies stuffed with double stuff oreos. Feel free to use any standard brownie mix (around 18 ounces). You can use any type of chips and any Oreos you want. Or, you can use m&ms or Reese’s pieces instead of chips and a mini,candy bar instead of an Oreo.

Brownie cookie ingredients

• 1 brownie mix (around 18 oz)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• Oreos

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Combine brownie mix, flour, eggs and oil. Fold in chips. Take 1 tbs of dough and place Oreo on top. Place a 2nd tbs of dough on top of oreo. Evenly cover Oreo. Repeat process. I got 15 cookies out of my batch. Stagger on cookie sheets lined with nonstick baking liners. Bake 10 minutes. Cookies may seem a little soft, but you don’t want them to burn.

Let them set on sheet for 10 minutes after you remove them from the oven.

Cool completely and store in covered container.

I made a red velvet cake today and anytime I hear the velvet, I think of that line from the movie “Coming to America.” I love that movie and Eddie Murphy has always been one,of my favorite comedians. I know there are a lot of homemade red velvet recipea out there, but i used a cake mix. I used the usual ingredients, but added some Greek yogurt and pudding mix to make it more dense. I also threw in some mini chocolate chips, because why not? I went with a cream cheese frosting today, but you can do a regular vanilla, or chocolate frosting or even cool whip.

Ingredients

• 1 red velvet cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (I used nonfat)
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 box pudding mix (I used white chocolate)
• 1 bag mini chocolate chips

Direction- preheat oven to 350. combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil, eggs, Greek yogurt and water and blend well. Fold in chips. Place parchment paper in a 10 inch springform pan and spray w baking spray. Spread batter in evenly. Bake 22 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs. Cool completely.

Frosting ingredients

• 8 oz cream cheese (I used lowfat neufactel cheese)
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Directions – cream butter and butter 3 minutes. Gradually in powdered sugar. Spread on cake. Store in covered container.

You can keep in fridge if you want.

This weekend’s treats are something I have shared before – little debbie oatmeal creme pies. I learned something very interesting involving these treats from a co-worker. Marty informed me Nick Saban, the legendary football coach at Alabama, has them,for breakfast! I thought he was kidding when he first told me… But he assured me he was not! I loved the oatmeal pies when I was little (and the brownies too). Now, that I am -ahem – older, I like to make homemade versions of classics. I used the maple brown sugar flavored instant oatmeal packets. You can try any flavor or just use regular instant oatmeal too.

Ingredients –

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 12 pkts instant oatmeal (each packet equals 1/3 cup)
• 2 cups flour
• 4 tbs Milk

Directions

Cream butter, brown sugar, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Blend in flour and oatmeal. Stir in,eggs and milk. Chill dough an hour or so. Preheat oven to 350. Scoop 2 tbs dough and stagger on cookie sheet lined with baking liners.

Bake 12 min. Cool completely.

Filling ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tbs cream
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions – cream butter and powdered sugar. Add cream and vanilla and beat well. Spread between two sandwich cookies.

Store in covered container.

I made these last weekend for my goddaughter Lyndsey and wanted to post the recipe foe her to try. She loves to bake and has quite a talent to do so. Whenever she and her sister, Sara, (my other goddaughter) come visit, we always bake whatever they want. Btw, This recipe has some tiny changes from a previous pb bars post.

Crust ingredients –

• 1 package of Oreos, finely crushed
• 8 tbs butter, melted

Combine and press into bottom on 9×13 pan

Topping – 2 cups chocolate chips, melted

Pour 1/2 of melted chips onto crust

Peanut butter layer ingredients

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
• 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

Combine and press over chocolate layer. Spread remaining chocolate on top. I cut these before,the chocolate sets, to try and keep the chocolate-breaking to a minimum

This weekend, is one of my favorite things all year – our annual get together with college friends and their families. We started doing this right after graduation at Geneseo and have kept it up all these years, which is pretty amazing. The group started with 7 of us, and there are now 20 of us, including spouses and kids. It is amazing how well everyone gets along. I am so fortunate to have all of them,in my life. Here is how we plan – early each spring an email goes out, asking for the best month and dates. Then we narrow it,down and pick a weekend. We alternate between Western NY and Connecticut for our destinations. Of course, eiter place gives me a great excuse to bake. This year, i wanted to bring something for the kids. One boy wanted Hershey bars, the other andes candies (somewhere in heaven, my gramma Lisi is smiling., she always had those at her house). My goddaughter Lyndsey wanted the pb bars with an oreo crust (recipe in a previous post). I learned recently my other goddaughter Sara loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, so she will have mint chocolate chip cookies stuffed with mint Oreos. I could not find mint chips, so I opted to use mini ones. You can use regular chocolate chips or even milk chocolate chips

Oh and I use m&m’s to identify the cookies because I ran out of mint Oreos., the green m&m’s indicate a mint Oreo inside, brown indicates a regular Oreo. Yes, I am well aware I am wpund waaaaaay too tight. But I have a system!

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 3 eggs
• 12 drops green food color
• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp,baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 bag of mini chips
• 1 bag of Oreos

Directions – cream butter and sugar. Add extract and eggs. Blend in green food color (you don’t have to use this if you don’t want to). Fold in dry ingredients. Blend in chips. Chill dough 2 hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take 2 tbs of dough and flatten. Wrap each around an Oreo, and seal. Stagger on cookie sheet lined with nonstick baking liners. Bake 12 to 15 min. Let cool on sheet.

Store in covered container.

Limiting the use of my oven is a wonderful thing this time of year. I have a handful of no bake recipes to choose from. These cake truffles can use any flavor cake mix you want., same goes for the chips you melt for the coating. I used a yellow cake mix and confetti chips.. They’re white chocolate chips with tiny sprinkles in them. And I topped them off with crushed Oreos.

Truffle ingredients

• 1 cup cake mix, any flavor
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter,softened
• 1 tbs vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3-5 tbs Milk

Directions – cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Blend in cake mix and flour. Add 3 tbs Milk. If it is not easy enough to roll into balls, add another tbs or two of milk. When you get the right consistency, roll into balls, using 2 tbs of dough., chill in fridge for an hour.

Coating ingredients

• 1 bag of chips

Directions. – using a microwave proof bowl, microwave in 30 second increments until you can stir smooth., cover truffles with coating. Sprinkle with crushed Oreos or chopped,candy.

Store in fridge in covered container.

This is the time of year I dip into my no bake recipes… Especially considering today it is 92 and humid. No need to turn the oven on! You have probably seen variations of this recipe before. I opted to use an dark chocolate Oreo crust as the base. You can use whatever flavor you want. I chose dark chocolate Oreos because my husband opened that bag and ate 1.. So I needed to do something with the rest.

You can also use Graham crackers, nilla wafers or those wafer cream sandwich cookies in the pb layer.

The only thing that is annoying about these bars is they are hard to cut once the chocolate sets. I cut them before the chocolate set and they were a but of a mess. ☺

Crust Ingredients

• 18 Oreos finely crushed
• 7 tbs butter, melted

Directions – combines and press evenly into bottom of 9×13 pan

Chocolate layer ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups chocolate chip
• 2 tbs vegetable oil

Directions – combine in microproof safe bowl and microwave in 30 second increments until you can stir smooth. Spread half over Oreo layer.

Peanut butter layer ingredients

• 2 cups Graham crackers or nilla wafers, finely crushed
• 2 cups peanut butter
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions – blend peanut butter and butter. Fold in powdered sugar and crushed cookies. Spread over chocolate layer. Top with remaining melted chocolate.

Store in covered container, you can keep these at room temp or in the fridge.

My husband, Rob, texted me the other day that the national,chain where he got his iced coffee had sugar cookies too. They looked good, he thought, but were probably dry. I said yes, probably. I think he was dropping a hint that he would like a sugar cookie. I felt lile Monica in a “Friends” episode..being challenged to make a better cookie than a billion dollar company. So voila, here are a dozen. He can eat one and I take the rest to work.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 11/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions – cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Stir in sour cream. Blend in dry ingredients. Scoop out 3 tbs cookie dough. Roll into balls and flatten 1/4 inch thick. Chill a couple,of hours. Preheat oven to 300. Stagger on cookie sheet, lined with baking liners. Bake 10 to 14 minutes, until lightly golden on bottom. Cool completely.

Frosting ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tbs Milk
• 1 tsp,vanilla

Directions – cream butter and powdered sugar. Add milk and vanilla. You may want to add more powdered sugar to get desires level of consistency.

Store in covered container.

Today is our 16th anniversary, so I asked Rob what dessert he wanted. He said “a hostess cupcake cake.” And the most important part – the squiggle! Now, as you can see, decorating is so not my strong point, but I wanted to do my best. So I bought a wilton’s cake decorating bag set. And each piece will have a squiggle!

1 chocolate cake, baked in 8 inch rpund pans, as directed and completely cooled.

Filling ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup marshmallow fluff
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tbs heavy cream or milk

Directions – cream butter, fluff and powdered sugar. Add enough cream or milk to get the desired consistency.

Frosting ingredients

• 6 tbs butter
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
• 2 tbs corn syrup
• 1 tba vanilla

Directions – melt butter, chips and corn syrup in 30 second increments until you can stir smooth. Chill 15 minutes.

Squiggle ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tbs Milk or cream
• 1 tsp vanilla

Squiggle directions

Blend well. Scoop into decorating bag or a zip lock bag. Cut tip of bag by 1/4 inch.

Assembly directions -Place one layer, top side down, on cake platter.

Spread filling over flat side.

Place other layer, flat side down on top of filling.

Chill 15 minutes. Frost.

Chill 15 minutes. Decorate with the super squiggle!

Store in covered container.