Butterscotch Pudding

This dessert happens to be one of my husband's favorite things in the world. I have never been a fan of pudding, with the exception of banana pudding, but he loves it so much that I like to make it for him occasionally. 

I just realized I took the picture without the milk and cream the recipe requires, so just pretend they are there!

The recipe doesn't call for the molasses, but does call for dark brown sugar and all I had on hand was light brown sugar. So I added a tablespoon of the molasses to the light brown sugar to make it dark brown sugar.

Brown sugar, cornstarch, salt, milk and cream are cooked together until it starts to cook.

When it thickens, it comes off the heat and one cup of the hot pudding is added to the egg yolks, and after that is combined it goes back in the pan, and back on the heat for just another minute or two.

It is removed from the heat at that point and the butter and vanilla are added.

I like to pour my pudding through the sieve so that if there are any lumps they are removed. And my pudding usually has a small lump or two, so this makes sure I have a smoother consistency.

Pudding is then poured into bowls and refrigerated. I cover the dishes with plastic wrap touching the surface to keep a thick skin from forming. 

Topped with some fresh whipped cream and I have a very happy husband!

Butterscotch Pudding

3 egg yolks, whipped together

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

2 1/4 cups of milk

3/4 cup of heavy cream

3 tablespoons of butter, cut into pieces

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine brown sugar, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan. Add milk and cream; stir well. Cook on med heat, whisking continually until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat. Combine 1 cup of hot pudding to the egg yolks, stir well and then return to the pot. Return to the heat and cook for another 2 minutes, whisking the entire time. Remove for the heat and add the butter and vanilla. Stir to incorporate into the pudding. Pour into bowl or serving dishes and let chill.

Canning Jar Cookies

I love to bake, and I love to play around with decorating cookies. They always taste great, but I am not that great at the decorating part! But practice makes perfect, right? That was my thinking anyway, so I decided to make a batch of sugar cookies and some icing and practice a little. No pressure either, these were just going to be staying homes so it didn't matter if they looked perfect or not.

I started with all of the standard baking ingredients.

Mixed them all together

Dough was divided, then wrapped in plastic wrap to chill for at least an hour. I have tried to rush this part in the past and that never works for me, so make sure it stays in the fridge for at least an hour or you might just have a mess on your hands. 

Another tip that helps me is to divide each of those halves into thirds and keep the dough that I am not using in the fridge, that way it doesn't start to get too warm. That makes sure that all the dough stays cold and it is much easier to work with.

Here is one of my favorite tips for making sugar cookies. Recipes will say to roll out the dough on a floured surface. For these cookies, I will sprinkle SUGAR on my mat. I think it is easier to lift the cookies and they keep all that sweetness that a sugar cookie should have.

I have been participating in some swaps with one of the canning pages I follow on Facebook. The latest swap I joined was for cookie cutters. Since it is a canning page swap, I got the idea in my head that I wanted to make cookies that looked like a canning jar. When I went shopping for the cookie cutters to send, I couldn't find anything that looked like a canning jar. The store I was shopping in has an amazing selection, but no canning jar shapes. I decided to try using a baby bottle to see if I could get the shape I was trying to make.

After cutting out each bottle, I took a butter knife and lopped off the nipple of each bottle.

My final product: 

After I loaded the picture, I noticed that the icing was noticeably wet! I need to keep working on my decorating because they aren't as neat as I would like them to be, but I was able to make a mason jar!

Cupcake Fun

We are huge fans of The Walking Dead here at my house and last night was the midseason premier so I decided to have a little fun with some cupcakes. My goal originally was to color some of the icing red, but I had not one drop of any kind of red coloring. Instead of frosting is some mashed raspberries, which tasted so good!

I love to bake, but with just the two of us, I ended up throwing out the last of something or we ate too much of it. I have been making smaller portions, like individual pies from this post or using my freezer. After baking cupcakes, and letting them cool completely, I will put them on a plate and stick them in the freezer until they are firm, then place them in freezer bags, then I can pull out just enough for dessert for the two and maybe an extra to pack in lunch the next day. This way, we can still enjoy dessert a couple of times a week.

I bought the knives at Halloween. I'll let you know a little secret.....I have a HUGE collection of sprinkles, candy decorations, and other things to decorate cakes of cookies. I have them for every single  holiday and in just about every shape and color that you can imagine. I just can't pass them up when I see them. When the stores first put out their holiday decorations, the first thing I look at is the baking section to see if they have sprinkles that I don't have yet. I store all of my spices in tins on the side of the fridge and a lot of my decorations end up on there too. Here is a peek, I love seeing all the different colors! I love to play around when I am decorating cookies or cupcakes.

A Happy Girl

I just had to share these pictures of Samantha. Tomorrow is her Mom's birthday so we were cooking her a birthday dinner tonight. I took Jenna shopping and she picked out the gifts and Samantha and I cooked dinner and dessert. We had chicken pockets, rice with veggies and a salad and creme brulee for dessert. This is Samantha with my torch caramelizing sugar for the first time. She was giddy with excitement that she was going to get to use the torch by herself, and I think you can see that in her face. She loves to cook so she was my little sous-chef tonight. She has gotten pretty good at slicing veggies, separating eggs and now caramelizing sugar! This was a more complicated dessert than we normally make but it was a lot of fun!