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Super Simple Cake Mix Whoopie Pies

January 31, 2012 by 11 Comments
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Most people follow foodie blogs for delectable, healthy from-scratch recipes with unique ingredients. So in that vein I present my third Super Easy But Somewhat Creative Dessert You Can Make Using A Cake Mix (™). Just because it’s not classy enough for you, doesn’t mean we don’t need easy recipes sometimes.

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I wanted to make super easy whoopie pies but wasn’t really sure of the best way to do it—I knew I’d use premade mixes but didn’t know how you used those to make a whoopee pie. And what is a whoopie pie anyways?! Life’s little mysteries…

Courtney’s Super Easy Whoopie Pies

  • · 1 box Devil’s Food cake mix
  • · ¾ cup water
  • · 3 medium eggs
  • · ½ cup vegetable oil
  • · 1 large can whipped “fluffy white” frosting

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Now just wait for these SUPER COMPLICATED instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Or if you have MY oven, set the thermostat to 300, let it heat up, open oven to view internal thermometer and see it’s actually at 500 degrees. Yes, 200 degrees hotter than it says it is. Perhaps this is why I almost started a fire the first time I baked something in my apartment.

Mix cake mix, eggs, water and oil together until *most* of the powder clumps are dissolved. Drop spoonfuls of batter (I used a tablespoon to scoop) onto a greased cookie sheet. Leave some room as the cake batter spreads and thins as it bakes.

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Bake until a toothpick inserted into the cake “cookies” comes out clean. For me this was right around 15 minutes per batch.

Let cool. I’d advise NOT stacking these if you can avoid it because they stick together, it roughs up the pretty, smooth surface of the cookie and just makes them uglier. See example below. Oops.

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Slather some frosting on the flat side of one cake cookie. Press a similar sized cookie onto frosting to make the easiest whoopie pie you’ll ever make.

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I promise I’ll try my hand at these legit, 25-ingredient whoopie pies someday. But for those of you who are as strapped for time as I am and need something for a coworker’s birthday party, hopefully this will be useful.

Happy Whoopie-ing! And have a wonderful day.

Courtney

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    Crack Bread and Christmas Coffee Giveaway

    December 19, 2011 by 51 Comments
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    (Subtitle: The post where I talk about a really unhealthy desert and then randomly segue into giving away pounds of coffee)

    I realized I should stop calling my blog a quase food blog and just call it a running, life, and baking blog. Because pretty much all of my recipes are desserts. And that’s how it should be.

    Yesterday I posted about Funfetti Cake Cookies and today I’m still on a Pillsbury kick apparently. Normally I go for unprocessed everything but I figured I’d knock these two out of the park together.

    The following recipe is very near and dear to me and came via my beautiful friend Tiffany. It has four ingredients, is awesome to bring to parties, and as Tiffany warned, it may cause “excessive subconscious eating.” You’ve been warned.

    Crack Bread Recipe

    Ingredients:

    • 1 cup brown sugar
    • 1 cup vanilla ice cream
    • ½ cup butter
    • 1 tube Pillsbury biscuits (the original—not the flaky layers or super butter tasting kinds)

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    To make:

    Melt the brown sugar, ice cream, and butter in a saucepan until it becomes uniform in color and consistency.

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    Pour into a baking dish (disposable ones work great if you’re bringing it to a party, like I have been)

    Put the biscuits into the caramel mixture, cut into little triangles.

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    Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown (12-15 minutes).

    Enjoy. Preferably hot and with ice cream.

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    Obviously NOTHING about this is healthy but it takes minutes to make and is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Try it one day when you’re feeling lazy and thank me later. It seriously melts in your mouth. #twss

    In other news… I have a bunch of coffee to give away. Godiva sponsored the Foodbuzz Festival so for a few weeks I’ve had a bunch of coffee sitting around my apartment, but I just don’t drink it. I like the ritual of coffee, but I’d rather have hot chocolate (way better for you, I may add… not) and coffee just isn’t a part of my life because caffeine does not affect me in any tangible way, so I usually just drink tea instead.

    However, I know there are a lot of coffee lovers out there so for Christmas, I am giving away the following Godiva products:

    • 12 oz Chocolate Truffle ground coffee
    • 12 oz Hazelnut Crème ground coffee
    • Small bags of French Vanilla, Pumpkin Spice, and Peppermint Mocha coffees
    • Godiva chocolates
    • Godiva apron (I have one of these and use it all the time!

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      To enter, simply leave a comment on this post. Tell me how you can’t function without coffee, or how you like the taste, or an inane utterance that has absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand. Whatever, just leave a comment.

      If you tweet a link to the coffee giveaway and tag me (@CourtPancakes) it’s an extra entry—just leave another comment and tell me you tweeted.

      I’ll leave the Christmas giveaway open til Christmas and then pick a winner via Random.org.

      Thank you in advance for getting these pounds of coffee off my hands. ;) It’s almost Christmas! WOO HOO!

      Courtney

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      There’s Something About Funfetti (Cookies)

      December 18, 2011 by 14 Comments
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      I’ve spent the last few days surrounded by entirely too many cookies. It’s funny, I feel like I have a limitless sweet tooth, but when I get to the point that eating another cookie sounds disgusting, I know I probably passed my limit. Well, it’s been a weekend of holiday parties and more than a few delicious sweets have been showing up.

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      I’ve also been spending my fair share of time in the kitchen in the last week, whipping up a variety of tasty treats that in no way could be considered healthy but hey—can’t desserts be sacred?

      Anyways, I wanted to share a VERY EASY recipe on the blog:

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      Funfetti Cake Cookies

      • 1 box Funfetti cake mix
      • 2 eggs
      • 1/3 cup oil (could do a healthier substitution if you want to, but the liquid is important for mixing)
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        Mix. Roll into balls. Flatten. Bake at 375 until edges are golden brown, around 9 minutes. Frost with buttercream frosting and gold sprinkles (or really any color of sprinkle…)
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      I love funfetti and kind of want my wedding cake to be made from it. I know I can be a food snob at times, but honestly, I would probably choose a Funfetti cake over some delectable, gourmet, ridiculously expensive chocolate cake any day. Call me crazy but there’s something about Funfetti that just grabs me and pulls me in. I’m all for desserts made with unprocessed ingredients and completely from scratch but sometimes happiness really does come from a box.

      This simple recipe can be adopted with most any cake mix, or you can also experiment with add-ins, like my red vevet cookies w/ white chocolate and almond. Yum.

      Funny piece of blog history: my 24th birthday (In Africa), I received a package from my family that SAME DAY (impressive considering it takes about a month to get packages) with a box of funfetti cake mix in it. I made it and ate that for dinner. Ironically that post and its title (regarding eating cake for dinner) is one of my most viewed posts, as apparently there are a lot of people out there googling “Can I eat cake for dinner on my birthday?” and my personal favorite, “How many calories are there in eating all the leftover icing?” Girl after my own heart.

      Hope you all had a great weekend!

      Courtney

      Do you like funfetti? Or any dessert mixes? Or do you stick with the real thing?

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      In the spirit a little early… (and a sweet giveaway)

      November 20, 2011 by 23 Comments
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      Each holiday has its appropriate time period. I get that. Halloween gets October, Thanksgiving gets November, and starting on Black Friday, it’s Christmas everywhere.

      But I’m one of the many committing the overly-excited holiday faux pas. Starting with this.

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      Hey, when you live alone in San Francisco in an apartment the size of a closet and are single, you do what you need to do to make home feel homier. So, I am owning the fact that I have the tree up already. Suck it, haters! : )

      And spent the whole day listening to the Spotify Ultimate Holiday Playlist. Note to anyone considering this: I highly recommend listening to Dominick the Donkey by Lou Monte. It will ruin holiday music for you forever.

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      After my glorious and VERY much needed Lazy Sunday, I had a big choice to make:

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      Special shout-out to Angela for suggesting that baking = cross training. YES!

      I decided on the perfect compromise: I’d go on a four-mile run that conveniently ended at the supermarket, where I could buy ingredients for cookies. Win-win!

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      I took my new shoes (Mizuno Wave Inspire 8s) out for their first spin today. My Brooks Adrenalines breathed their last breath during my 16-mile run yesterday so I knew I needed something fast. I was praying that these worked out. And it was just four miles, but they did just fine!

      8:35/8:05/7:46/7:38 miles! Yes, they were downhill, but still, I rarely see anything in the 7s so I’m pleased.

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      Then I ended up at the grocery store for cookie ingredients! I recently received coupons from Duncan Hines via the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, so I figured I’d come up with my own holiday-ish recipe using their products as a base. I checked online and tried to adapt the Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies recipe slightly to fit my tastes.

      The ingredients:

        • 1 box Red Velvet cake mix
        • 2 eggs
        • 6T butter, melted and cooled
        • 1t almond extract
        • 1C white chocolate chips
        • 1C powdered sugar
        • 1t cornstarch

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      Note to everyone: baking at my apartment is terrifying. My gas stove tends to smoke for the first ten minutes and the internal temperature is usually about 100 degrees hotter than what the dial is set to. Thank God I have an internal thermometer. But that’s why I’ve started fires…

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      Mixed the butter/eggs/almond extract together and then added to the cake mix box and blended. Once that was more or less smooth, I added a bajillion white chocolate chips.

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      Then, rolled the dough into balls and rolled them in a dish of the powdered sugar mixed with the cornstarch.

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      And you don’t actually need to grease the pan, don’t mind me not reading instructions for the first batch…

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      Put them in the oven for what was supposedly in the neighborhood of 350 for about 12 minutes and viola!

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      Mine didn’t have as cool of a cracked look—most of the powdered sugar seemed to disappear (sad). But numerous taste tests meant these cookies had my approval, I don’t like dry cookies, and these definitely aren’t—moist and flavorful. Yum.

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      I also picked up a can of DH cream cheese frosting and whipped it up with a bunch of powdered sugar to give it a more solid consistency and frosted those puppies up.

      Deeeeelicious and was the perfect “milk and cookies in front of the tree” thing.

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      GIVEAWAY!

      I want to sweeten up your life so I’m going to send two readers three coupons each for DH products of your choosing—that’s a cake mix, a can of frosting AND an extra brownie mix or something once the cake is gone Smile

      To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite holiday dessert is. I’ll pick two winners on Sunday.

      Have a great week everyone!

       

      Courtney

      What’s your favorite holiday dessert? :)

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      Strawberry Balsamic Jam and FOMO

      August 19, 2011 by 18 Comments
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      I took on a new activity last night per the suggestion of my friends Julia and Talia. We decided to make jam.

      Making jam is one of those activities that sounds quaint and fun but as I haven’t cooked a full-on meal it what seems like months, I’m usually content to hand over the $2 for a jar of the sticky strawberry stuff. Not last night.

      TJC Strawberry Balsamic Jam

      Unlike various other activities I’ve attempted in the kitchen (like bagel making), this actually WAS worth the time! The ingredients were really simple too. Apparently jam is easy to make, so we just looked at a bunch of different recipes and made our own from that. We used:

      • 3 pounds organic strawberries
      • Juice of two juicy limes
      • 2 cups of sugar (a lot of recipes call for more but this was fine)
      • 3 capfuls of strawberry balsamic
      • A few grinds of black pepper at the end

      I’ve heard of a lot of jam recipes that include balsamic but we were inspired to add the pepper by this recipe. I admit to being slightly skeptical but it did add, as Julia eloquently worded, a nice “complexity” to the flavor.

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      Step one: cut the stems off and chop the berries.

      Carefully.

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      Then we mixed the berries with the two cups of sugar and put it on the heat. Start off at low heat at first because otherwise the sugar will burn! We also squeezed two limes out. It was probably half a cup of lime juice overall. Some recipes call for lemon or orange—I dug the lime.

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      After we finally (carefully) brought it up to a boil, then it had to continue to cook at a lower temp for… a LONG time. I don’t know, an hour? It definitely is a while. The reason being that this recipe does not use any thickening agents (like cornstarch, or pectin). Julia made jam once with pectin and while it thickens much quicker, it can also take some of the taste away from the fruit, so if you have the time to let the real thing set, do it. I love foods with five ingredients!

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      As it was changing textures, some foam would appear that we’d skim off, or try to. Most of it was constantly dissolving back into the jam. Delicious.

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      Once it was almost done (you could visibly see the jam thickening as we stirred it) we added some balsamic—probably a tablespoon and then some. Not much. Enough to change the color from a bright reddish color to more brown, but it tasted great! We cooked it for about ten more minutes, ground some pepper in and taste-tested. You really could taste the strawberries (primary flavor) with the hints of the lime and balsamic, and the pepper definitely added something.

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      Only sad thing was we had ten jars and this recipe made four tiny ones! It cooked down a LOT from the beginning—if I made the recipe again with friends I’d double it and use a bigger pot so the fruits of my labor would last longer. : )

      I had a really fun time making jam and will DEFINITELY consider making a bunch of these as gifts in the future!

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      I enjoyed several tastes last night and of course had to have peanut butter and jam on an English muffin for breakfast so I could eat some. Just as good as I remembered!

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      Note: this weekend is the Healthy Living Summit and I gotta say, I really wish I was there! I have really enjoyed meeting bloggers in real life and that would have been a great opportunity to meet so many of my favorites. Unfortunately, I really didn’t have the money sitting around. I looked into it when tickets were about to go on sale and I couldn’t find anything below almost $700 for the plane ticket itself. Then add in $100 for the ticket and probably $300 for the weekend… well, who knows how much hotel cost… and basically, there was no way in hell. Sure, looking back on it now, I definitely could have made it work, but it just seemed like too insurmountable. I still really want to go to a blogger conference and hopefully sometime soon.

      I really would love to go to Foodbuzz as it’s in my city (!!!) but I’m not a Featured Publisher—I will work on that. I am really passionate about blogging and food and running and want to continue to meet more people that are into it.

      Speaking of which—if you are a blogger in the bay area—email me! I’ve started trying to get some info gathered for a blogger meetup in SF and I’m really looking forward to that. Smile

      A big part of HLS and Foodbuzz and all of that is FOMO—Fear of Missing Out. I suffer from FOMO big time. Much less than I did in college (“yes I have a midterm tomorrow and a paper due I haven’t started, but, like, omg soooo many people were going out to the bars tonight!”) but I still do. And a big part of that is Zumba. (Whose logo I am allowed to use as a paying ZIN member… for now!)

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      I got certified to be a Zumba instructor towards the beginning of the year. I am not great at many things, but I AM a great dancer, and I am very good at Zumba. Years of dance team and captaining paid off! I was so excited to teach, but then, little did I know, two weeks later I moved to SF and started a full-time demanding job. No Zumba teaching for me. I could sub at some gyms, but my schedule is too unpredictable. It just can’t happen right now.

      I’ve spent over $500 into Zumba, with the course and paying for the 6-month ZIN (instructor network) membership—and I haven’t made a dime. My ZIN membership is about to expire and I need to just cancel it, because I’m literally throwing money away if I don’t. But that makes it certain: I am a Zumba instructor who will never teach Zumba, despite how awesome of a teacher I know I’d be. I’m trying to tell myself that it’s okay… I can ALWAYS take it up again later. I can. It’s fine.

      I just hate the feeling that I’m Missing Out. It’s hard for me to accept that I can’t do everything.

      I can’t.

      But I can do SOME things, and right now I need to learn to make choices. Most of which are reversible. I’m going to work on embracing where I am now and being okay with the fact that I can’t have it all. Somehow, it all works out anyway.

      Have a GREAT weekend everyone and have an amazing time at the HLS if you are there!

      Courtney

      Do you suffer from FOMO? What do you worry about missing out on?

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      Postcards from America: New Hampshire/The Family Table

      August 8, 2011 by 14 Comments
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      Few traditions are as culturally transcendent as sharing a meal with family. There are a lot of books out there about how to eat and what to eat and the right way to eat, but they all agree on one thing: the profound importance of sharing a meal amongst friends or family. Breaking bread together strengthens relationships, fosters conversation and promotes good will and bonding. It’s no coincidence that a lot of our biggest get togethers are focused around eating. Humans have been doing the same thing for a LONG time, way before late November meant a chemical-laden overgrown turkey and gelatinous cranberry sauce. It’s more important than that.

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      On the second stop of my Postcards from America tour (first stop was Portland), we come to the woods of New Hampshire, where I spent the last weekend with 35+ of my family members and relatives.

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      We were a bit off the grid—outhouse and no electricity where we were staying, no cell reception—which was better because it was just family, far fewer distractions. And despite recent tragedies, health issues, emotional troubles, and more, the family was able to come together with joy to celebrate one of my aunt’s 50th birthdays.

      Trekking out from CA to join the New Englanders left me feeling slightly foreign—especially when trying to go for a six-mile run with my mom and having to deal with these things you call “humidity” and “deer flies.” I went out intending to run 12 and after 3 I thought I might pass out from having sweat out all my water and then some!

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      My artistic, zany, and creative family members guarantee that each weekend gathering is filled with everything from sweet music to fireworks to gorgeous decorations, and of course… games. Apples to Apples, bananagrams…

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      And then there was the food.

      Cooking for DOZENS of people with different dietary preferences—everything from NO VEGETABLES to vegetarian to gluten free—is difficult, but it was done in stride.

      In addition to being a celebration of life, the weekend was a communal feast.

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      One of my cousins is a chef at a restaurant and whipped up several delicious salads in what seemed like just a moment.

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      Beet salad…

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      Green bean salad…

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      Some sort of soybean/cranberry/cream cheese combo…

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      One of the dishes that was far from the prettiest but definitely one of the most unique was my aunt Steph’s tomato cobbler. She clipped the recipe from some magazine, unfortunately I’m not sure which, but I am going to post the variation here. Essentially it was a mix of tomatoes, asiago cheese, and dough—soggy pizza perhaps, but something about it was delicious and I’m glad to come away from this weekend with not only happy memories of my loved ones but also a new dish to try.

      New Hampshire Tomato Cobbler Recipe

      FOR THE FILLING

      • ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
      • 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
      • 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
      • 3 pounds cherry tomatoes
      • 3T all-purpose flour
      • ¾ t crushed red-pepper flakes
      • Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

      FOR THE BISCUIT TOPPING

      • · 2 cups all-purpose flour
      • · 2 t baking powder
      • · Coarse salt
      • · 1 stick cold unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces
      • · 1 cup Asiago cheese (the original called for gruyere I believe, but she used asiago and it was awesome)
      • · 1 ½ cups heavy cream, plus more for brushing
        DIRECTIONS

      1. Make the filling: heat oil in a large high-sided skillet over medium heat. Cook onions, stirring occasionally until caramelized—about 25 minutes. Add garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Let cool.

      2. Toss onion mixture, tomatoes, flour, and red pepper flakes with 1 ½ t salt and some pepper.

      3. Preheat oven to 275. Make the biscuit topping: whisk together flour, baking powder, and 1 t salt in a bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or rub in with your fingers until small clumps form. Stir in cheese, then add cream, stirring with a fork to combine until dough forms (dough will be slightly sticky).

      4. Spread tomato mixture into a greased baking dish. Drop spoonfuls of the flour mixture on top of the tomatoes, spreading it evenly with a knife but leaving some gaps to let steam out.

      5. Put in oven, bake until tops are browned and biscuit mixture is cooked through, 45-60 minutes.

      6. Once removed from oven, brush with butter and sprinkle sea salt and chopped fresh basil on top for garnish.

      I had a great time getting back to nature and back in touch with family members. Connecting over a conversation, a piece of cake, a cup of coffee. And I’ll carry that with me back on the road.

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      What kind of “food traditions” does your family have?

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