Brownie Bundt with Coconut Cream Cheese Filling

HAPPY FRIDAY! I hope you've had a good week - but I'm betting you're ready for the weekend. :D

Today's review is this recipe for brownie bundt cake with coconut cream cheese filling from Vanilla Sugar Blog.

I won't make you wait on this. This recipe would need to much tweaking for me to give it anything but a NO, THANK YOU. :( I was SO disappointed! I mean, it's three of my favorite things: brownies, coconut, AND cream cheese! I sprayed and sprayed the bundt pan, but the brownie STILL stuck horribly. The coconut and cream cheese mixture had very little taste, and added nothing but contrast and texture. I hate throwing food out, but I did toss most of this cake - after taking it to a pitch-in (or pot luck, depending on where you're from! :) )

SO. If you tweak it enough and really love it, let me know! Or if you decide to try it and love it, tell me - maybe I just did something wrong. :D

Have a WONDERFUL weekend! BE BLESSED!!!

Samoa Bundt Cake

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

2014. Goodness, this year - I know when I was little, Y2K seemed SO far into the future... :D Here's hoping and praying that 2014 finds us more at peace with each other, with our lives, and with our paths.

ANYWAY. :D

This CAKE. When I saw this cake, I knew I had to try it - it's Samoa Bundt Cake from *betsylife.

Now, then. You'll notice there are three min bundts on this plate. Let me explain something: as a family, we've cut SO far down on our intake of food, we have leftovers from a regular meal. I didn't want my sister and brother-in-law and niece to leave, and us have almost a whole bundt cake left!

So I make the whole cake recipe, but only did six mini bundts - since that's how many mini cakes were in my pan. And I threw away the rest of the batter. Yes, it was a little wasteful, but better than eating all that cake I certainly could kill myself with, and I only threw away the batters.

This is a YES, PLEASE! dessert. The cake batters were easy to put together; the cake, as a whole, is just lots of steps. This isn't a cake you can just throw together, unless you purchase premade dulce-de-leche. And I don't think I've seen it around here! I popped my milk into the crock pot and let it simmer away all day the day before I wanted to make the cake. I also toasted the coconut when I had some other baking to do, so the day I made the mini cakes I just baked them off and let them cool. Christmas Day, my baby sister made the frosting and assembled the cakes for me - I really felt awful, and was trying to ration my energy. :)

The other three cakes are in the freezer, waiting to be needed. A half cake is PLENTY for me for a serving! They're fun, incredibly rich, and do taste just like the Girl Scout cookie - although I'd like a little more caramel consistency in there. :D But I'm not willing to put more sugar into it, so it's great the way it is. :D

OK, I'm outta here. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have a great week! Be BLESSED, dear friend!

Oreo Cookie Pancakes

Good Wednesday Morning! How are you doing today? Have you had a good - oh, MONTH!?!? really?!?! - since I last posted? <sigh> I'm sorry. I DO have a few things from the last month to post, but they're on my laptop, and blogging on it is just - well, I hate it. :)

So! Here I am today, with this recipe for Oreo Cookie Pancakes from Minimalist Baker. And actually, they're VEGAN!

OK, so right off the top: reading the recipe, I KNEW these wouldn't taste like Oreos. I mean, they use coconut in the filling! :D But they still sounded interesting, so I Pinned them. I've been trying to figure out what I was going to blog about this week, so I decided, last night, to make them for my breakfast this morning.

I cut the recipe in half; my parents are doing no-wheat, and I wanted to make life simple for myself and just use unbleached AP flour. So, cutting it in half, I got EXACTLY the number of pancakes you see here. The filling made a little more.

I used Splenda in the pancake batter, and xylitol powdered sugar in the filling - I cut out as many carbs as I could. :) I did use unsweetened coconut flakes, and light coconut milk in both batter and filling.

They were good, especially for being vegan. :D They weren't overly sweet, but they were moist. I think I could have added a little more coconut milk to the filling to make it a bit easier to spread, and I did end up using more coconut milk in the batter to make it easier to work with.

I'm trying to decide about the filling. I processed the coconut flakes for probably 10 minutes, and never DID get a true "butter" from them. It was more of a lumpy paste. But it tasted OK. :D

I think I'll give this a YES, PLEASE!, especially if you're trying to go vegan. If you try them, let me know what you think! :)

Have a wonderful day! BE BLESSED!!!

Pineapple Coconut Bites

It's FRIDAY! :) How was your week? And welcome to MARCH!!! It's so difficult to believe this month is already here - and how much I have to get done before next weekend! AUGH! :D Seriously. SO much to do.

ANYWAY. :D This is a recipe for Pineapple Coconut Bites from Cooking.com.

It's an interesting recipe! The only refined sugar in the whole thing is a few tablespoons of confectioner's sugar in the crust. The rest is honey. I used regular whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour - it's what I had on hand. :D I also halved the recipe, and had enough of everything to make a dozen of these little cookies.

I'm not quite sure what I think of them. I like the IDEA of them, but none of the flavors was strong enough. I think I'd like to find some pineapple extract to put in the center of these. And maybe, instead of saving the crumbs for topping, toast some coconut to use. I did like the METHOD for these - and as you can see, I didn't use mini muffin liners. I sprayed the tin with Baker's Secret - my favorite for baked items!! I think it works better - and used my Pampered Chef tamper to easily form the crumb bottom.

I think I'll put this into "Good Recipes to Have", and maybe play with it sometime when I have time. All the ingredients are things I usually have on-hand, except for the pastry flour.

Does that help you at all? LOL!

OK, I'm outta here - I am now pre-posting for this blog. I'm going to try to get you all the way through the first of April before I leave, so you'll have something all month and won't forget me. :D Keep leaving comments! I'll be on my computer, but not having time to post. :)

Have a WONDERFUL weekend! Try something new! :) BE BLESSED!

Coconut Clouds

Have you missed me?!?! :D I know, I disappeared - but MY GOODNESS, taking care of a little one made me pretty brain-dead. But I'm home, and eager to share with you!

Today's recipe is for Coconut Clouds - another Taste of Home recipe.

This was the first time I decided to try these cookies, for the open house.

It will not be the last. :D They got a definite YES, PLEASE! from many people, including my sister, Debbi. :D (My youngest nephew, N., thought they should make all the good things in the photo I last posted. After all, they had all the ingredients, right? :D How fortuitous that Grandma and Grandpa were coming to visit in a few days! :D )

This is my dad. He and Mom are wonderful to help me with any project I care to beg - er, ASK! - for help with. :D Here he is, frosting the Coconut Clouds for me. :D

I did not change a THING with this cookie. The cookie itself is delightfully cake-y, and very nice alone. However, the coconut frosting and the toasted coconut on top definitely make this cookie something special. It is COMPLETELY coconut-tasting. If you don't like coconut as a flavor all alone, don't make this cookie. If you do, you MUST make it. :D

OK, I'm outta here. Kenn and I are going to spend the rest of the day together; I was gone a LONG time. It will be nice to be with him, then our church family later tonight. And tomorrow is our cookie exchange! I'm trying three all-new recipes, so be on the lookout! :)

Are you ready for Christmas?

Almond Joy Bars

It's FRIDAY! Have you had a great week? Looking forward to the weekend? Trying anything new tonight? :D

Today's recipe is from Just a Pinch recipe club, and for Almond Joy Bars.

I have to say: these are COOKIE bars. They're rich, and the chocolate on top is incredibly thick. The coconut and cookie layer are yummy, but I found the name misleading. I pried the chocolate off my bar, because it was just too overpowering. I did put almonds on mine, but you couldn't taste them because of the chocolate layer.

My dad doesn't like chocolate, so he pried off the chocolate, too. :) Mom LOVED them! :D Kenn liked them, too. But I'm the one who bakes desserts around here.

So, because there's SO much other stuff to try out there, and because these bars were a bit labor-intensive, and because the chocolate was just too much, I'm going to give these a NO, THANK YOU. Tasty, yes. Going back to? No.

Have a WONDERFUL weekend! Try something new! :) And be BLESSED!