I made these peppermint bark  cookies last holiday season after seeing a recipe in Gourmet magazine (original recipe posted here). I  decided to try it again with a secret shortcut. This time of year gets crazy, so I embrace any shortcut in the kitchen, as long as it doesn’t compromise the taste. Thanks to Betty… Betty Crocker that is, these cookies are even simpler and equally as yummy as the original recipe.

Here’s how it all comes together:

The secret shortcut involves using a package of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix. The only other ingredients you use are a stick of butter, an egg, a cup of chocolate chips, and a few candy canes.

The dough comes together quickly with little mess. The trickiest part is smoothing it out in the pan. If you take a handful of dough at a time, flatten in your hands like a pancake and put it in the pan, it works much easier than trying to spread the dough. Don’t skip the parchment paper in the bottom. It allows you to lift it out of the pan and cut it into pieces when it’s done.

Once the dough bakes for about 18 minutes, sprinkle a cup to a cup and a half of chocolate chips on it while it’s still hot and let it sit for three minutes.

After three minutes, the chocolate chips have melted enough making it a cinch to spread on top of the cookie crust.

Immediately, sprinkle with crushed candy canes, and if you like drizzle white chocolate over the top. Put it in the fridge for a half hour or so to set and then cut into pieces.

These cookies can be easily varied. Switch out dark chocolate for semi-sweet, add Reese’s or Oreos instead of candy canes… the sky’s the limit.

I’m hoping to take these to a party tomorrow night with some of my girlfriends. Crossing my fingers the boy feels better, or I’m going to be stuck with two batches of this yumminess! Someone come save me!!

Click here for the printable recipe.

So here is the thing, break-ups are hard, right? Now I’m not referring to the divorce break-up, which is absolute hell (in case you are fortunate enough to not have gone through one). No, I’m talking about the not so happily ever after break-up, in which your heart is completely broken because you were pretty much infatuated with the love of your life, but your true love decided that he or she did not share in your feelings.

Many of you are aware of my love for Kendall Jackson (I’ve professed it all over this blog)… it’s borderline obsession. Well ,yesterday while sitting in Cognitive Coaching training, my adult ADD kicked in and I tuned out for a bit and started reading through my favorite food blogs (I’m a great teacher, but a terrible student.). I was ecstatic when I saw that Nicole of Baking Bites was posting about KJ (that’s my pet name for him). I quickly skimmed the article and saw that she was sharing a KJ recipe to pair with the chardonnay. This was exciting! I had no idea KJ even had a passion for food. I then emailed my girlfriend, Laura, who was actually in the training being a much better student than I was to tell her that I planned on opening a bottle of KJ and making the recipe Nicole had posted. I told Laura she was welcome to join me. Get this, the KJ recipe was for caramel popcorn. This sent me into a state of complete bliss. Only KJ would think to pair chardonnay with caramel popcorn.  Seriously, we were destined to be together.

After the training,  I opened a bottle of KJ Grand Reserve and made the caramel popcorn recipe with Laura. Man, was it good… possibly the best caramel popcorn I’ve ever tasted, and paired with the wine made both taste even better. This was the life I was meant to live.

Fast forward to this morning when I abruptly fell off of Cloud Nine. Once again, I was physically sitting through training, but mentally somewhere in the blogosphere off-task. Brace yourself…this is the part where my heart was broken.  Right there, before my eyes, I saw that KJ had invited a whole group of food bloggers to his winery to enjoy a luxurious weekend of wine testing, wine education, and wine pairings. There, on the screen was pictures to prove it. All of these amazing food bloggers in his presence, but his true love missing? Something was terribly wrong. I think I went through all of the stages of grief in a matter of minutes. You know, denial, anger, a few more, and finally acceptance. Really, is there any other food blogger who writes about KJ as much as I do? Is there any other food blogger who has convinced a whole bunch of readers to start toasting with KJ on a daily basis? I’ve now accepted the fact that my feelings for KJ  are not reciprocal (sad, huh?).  I guess it happens, right? In my heart, KJ is forgiven. I will continue to stock both of my refrigerators with KJ and enjoy my chardonnay daily. One day maybe I’ll be able to spend a weekend at KJ’s place… a girl can dream, right?

 By the way, another brilliant KJ pairing…peanut butter cookies. There will be a peanut butter post in my near future… Reese’s Peanut Butter I think! In the meantime, here’s what I recommend…make this caramel popcorn, pour yourself some KJ, and  go check out Recipe Girl’s recap of her KJ dream weekend. It’s really pretty amazing!! I am jealous!

printable recipe

Kendall Jackson’s Double Gold Caramel Corn
(recipe from Kendall Jackson’s culinary team)
12 cups air popped popcorn (pref. unsalted)
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup brown sugar (pref. golden brown)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 300F. Line a large rimmed sheet pan (10×15 inches) with aluminum foil and lightly grease. A nonstick pan can also be used.
Lightly grease a very large bowl with a very thin coating of cooking spray or vegetable oil. Place popcorn in bowl and set aside.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add corn syrup and brown sugar and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat, without agitating or stirring the pan, for 4 minutes.
Continue cooking for an additional 4-5 minutes, stirring well with a spatula every thirty seconds. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, salt and baking soda.
Pour caramel over popcorn in the large bowl and carefully fold the popcorn with a spatula until it is evenly coated with the caramel.
Pour caramel covered popcorn onto prepared baking sheet and spread into an even layer.
Bake for 15 minutes, stirring or turning the popcorn every 5 minutes.
Place one very large sheet of parchment paper on the countertop and spread cooked caramel corn onto it after it comes out of the oven. Allow it to cool for a couple of minutes, then separate it into small clusters while still very warm.
Allow to cool completely before eating or storing.

Makes about 12 cups.

Cheers to a fabulous Memorial Day weekend!

Here are a few of my favorite all-American treats!

Click on links for recipes:

Star Spangled Jello Shots

Firecracker Rice Krispies

Red, White and Blue Strawberries

Patriotic Cupcakes

Bikini Martini

Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes

Fresh Raspberry Martini

Have a fabulous weekend!

Here’s a quick wrap-up of the boy’s birthday party. In addition to the cake and cupcakes, the boy and I wanted to have some other dessert options for the kids to choose from. We decided to make Angry Bird  brownie pops to tie in with the video-game theme. If you haven’t heard of Angry Birds, it’s a game app that has a huge cult following of kids and adults. When it comes to cake pops vs. brownie pops, brownie pops seem to be the winner at our functions. There are people who absolutely love cake pops, but an equal number of people who don’t like the texture of them. There are also kids who don’t eat cupcakes (which I don’t understand at all), so brownie pops makes a good alternative.

For the angry birds, I fortunately had every color of candy melt on-hand. If you don’t want to buy all of the colors pre-made, you can buy the white candy melts and a package of Wilton candy coloring. Do not use Wilton or Americolor’s regular decorating gels. I’ve gotten away with a drop or two, but too much and the chocolate will seize. We used candy-coated sunflower seeds for the beaks and feathers. The top of the black and red birds were made by dipping a snippet of licorice into the melted candy coating mixture. I didn’t realize until mid-party that the angry birds looked quite happy. These were made the hour before the party (which I don’t recommend). The eyebrows, which they lacked, are needed for that angry expression, but who wants anger at a birthday party anyway, right?

The Pac Man cookies were made for me. I was willing to share them, but the boy didn’t appreciate them as much as the girl who grew up in the 80’s, so I claimed them as my own. One thing you don’t know about me is that I am the Ms. Pac Man, Frogger, and Centipede champion of the 80’s (among my friends, of course ~ no national rankings or titles). I’ve always been a little obsessed with Ms. PacMan. I think it’s the love story between Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man that drew me in. The cookie ghosts were made using a mini tulip cookie cutter. Pac Man and his girlfriend were made by using a small circle cookie cutter and the pointy part of a mini heart cookie cutter to take out a piece for the mouth. The eyes on the ghosts are royal icing eyes that I buy pre-made. They come in a whole variety of sizes, and they’re great to use on pops and sugar cookies.

As if there wasn’t enough junk served at the party, we sent each kid home with a wii-mote sugar cookie favor. I’ve done these before and previously piped all of the details (which takes forever!). This time around I used the edible markers and drew in the details. This was a huge time-saver. I do like the look of the intricate piping better, so I’ll continue to do that for cookie orders.

The boy is a bit obsessed with an app. on his itouch called Cut the Rope. It features a little green candy-lovin’ creature who goes through a series of levels to earn lollipops and other treats. We made the monster out of green fondant and added Twizzlers and lollipops to a clear vase. The kids loved these mini-lollipops, and snacked on the licorice throughout the party.

Finally, there was a pizza-lovin’ creature at the party who hit the jackpot. I have no idea if there was pizza in the box when she discovered it or not. Really, I don’t want to know.  I am told that the Naughty One, like the cupcake-hoarding boy from the party (described a few posts back), enjoyed quite a bit of party food that night. Thankfully, like the cupcake hoarder, she never got sick! The Naughty One, not the boy, is my party-animal!

This year the boy wanted a party. Mind you, this is the boy who hasn’t had a birthday party since kindergarten. He isn’t a huge fan of large celebrations. It remains a genetic mystery how he didn’t inherit the dominant party gene from my side of the family. My niece, who also just celebrated a birthday, clearly inherited the party gene.

Maybe because I was caught off guard that he was asking to have a party, he was somehow able to convince me to let him invite his entire class, all of the boys on the baseball team, and the rest of his best buddies that he hangs out. It was awesome seeing how excited he was for the big event. He checked my Evite account several times a day to see who RSVP’d. Maybe our party-lovin’ ways are wearing off on him!

The boy decided on a video game themed party, so we went big and rented a video game truck. (When I say big, what I mean is that I had to spend my life savings plus his college savings to support this endeavor). And let me tell you… It was completely worth it! Have you seen these game trucks? Sixteen kids sit in front of four flat screen tv’s and get to play their favorite games for two hours. In addition to the games, lights are flashing, and music is blaring. This particular game truck had an open-air stage at the back of the truck for the kids to play Rock Band. This is what heaven looks like in a boy’s world. If you are over eighteen, be warned, it’s like being on the tea cups at Disneyland, you walk out of there with motion sickness wondering how the heck the kids aren’t phased by the sensory overload.

The boy had presents galore to open afterward, but I’d have to say by the look on his face, the best gift was having his parents planning it with him every step of the way. We’ve worked hard to do this and still continue to defy the divorced family stereotypes. It’s not without its challenges. We’re certainly not perfect. Matt’s girlfriend and I had a falling out about a year ago, but in spite of the challenges that come our way, we remain committed to having the best relationship we can for our son.

Here’s a sneak peek at the yummy video-game inspired treats we served. It was a bit of video game & sugar overload… personally, I loved it! This week, I’ll put up a few posts, highlighting a few of the things we made, with a few tips. There were of course, cookie favors to take home (pics. still to come). It was a whirlwind of a birthday weekend, but you only turn ten once in your life, so you gotta go big!