Spooky Cream Cheese Brownies

It is midnight and officially Halloween! I am terribly late with all, or any of my recipes this season but here is a ooey gooey brownie recipe that is sure to make your Halloween even sweeter!

Ingredients:

1 c. sugar
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 c. veggie oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream Cheese Layer:

8 oz. whipped cream cheese
1/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Orange food coloring

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8x8 baking dish with tinfoil and spray with nonstick cooking spray. In a medium size bowl, mix the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder together. Add in the eggs, oil and vanilla until well combined. Reserve 1/2 c. of the brownie batter and spread the remaining batter in the pan.

In another mixing bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla. Stir together until most of the lumps are gone. Add in the food coloring and stir until you reach the color orange that you like. Pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the brownies and spread evenly. Dollop with the remaining brownie batter and swirl with a knife.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the cream cheese mixture is firm. Let cool fully before cutting into bars. Top with pumpkin sprinkles if you need more decoration.

Bloody Blondies

It's that time of year again....my favorite time of year that is. It is now officially sweatshirt, bonfire, pumpkin spice weather! Along with this season comes my favorite holiday of all time which is Halloween! I have been in the process for the last few months moving into a new house (well, a new, used house) which has taken up most of my husband and my time currently. I have over one hundred recipes to update, and over 60 restaurants to review for my other blog Small Town Girl, Foodie World and I am literally backed up since this past May. Yikes! Hopefully I will slowly be able to catch up, but for now, enjoy this spooky and easy to make treat!

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix
1/4 c. veggie oil
1 egg
1/3 c. milk
1/8 tsp. burgundy food coloring gel (or red liquid food coloring)
Spooky sprinkles! (Bloody Bones Sprinkles)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 13 x 9 baking pan with non stick cooking spray. In a large bowl, mix the cake mix, veggie oil, egg and milk together until it is a sticky paste-like substance. Use a butter knife to scoop out about 1/8 of a teaspoon of the burgundy food gel and scrape it into the bowl. gently mix the batter with the gel. I wanted a marbled look, but if you want it fully mixed in, that is also okay. Spread the batter out in an even layer in the pan. Top with a few scattered bloody bone sprinkles (they will melt in the cooking process to give it a shiny random surface). Bake for 25-30 minutes until the edges of the bars are golden brown. While it is still hot, sprinkle a few more bloody bones on top! Wait for the bars to cool before cutting and serving.

Blueberry Lemon Doughnuts

It is finally Spring! (Well, still only 40-50 degrees here in the U.P. but it is sunny, and I have a sunburn, so it still counts.) Time to bust out one of my favorite "flavors" with pretty much any combination, as long as lemon is involved somewhere. These baked doughnuts pack a lemon punch that of course goes perfectly with blueberries. Every time I think lemon and blueberry, it just screams Springtime to me. And they are baked cake-like doughnuts, so you SORT of feel better eating them....

Ingredients:

1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 c. veggie oil
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 c. buttermilk
2 3/4 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. blueberries

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and grease your doughnut pan(s) with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk the melted butter, oil and sugar together. Add in the eggs, vanilla, lemon zest, buttermilk and whisk again until smooth. Add in the dry ingredients and stir until a thick batter forms. Stir in the blueberries. Spoon the batter into the prepared doughnut pan and bake for 7-8 minutes, until the bottom of the doughnuts are a nice golden brown and the top springs back when you lightly press on it. Repeat until you have no more dough left.

Lemon Glaze:

2 c. powdered sugar
2 tsp. lemon zest
7-8 Tbs. fresh lemon juice (2 large lemons)

In a small bowl, combine the lemon glaze ingredients together. Line parchment or wax paper underneath cooling racks and dip each side of the doughnut in the glaze mixture. Place on the rack to cool fully and let the icing dry.

Carrot Cake Cheesecake

I love carrot cake, and I usually hate (for the most part) cheesecake. The combination of the carrot cake and cheesecake works well together because usually you see cream cheese with carrot muffins, cream cheese frosting on carrot cake, so why not cheesecake with carrot cake? This was a big hit at Easter, and if you don't have a large quantity of people that you are serving, it freezes really well. Many recipes that combine a cheesecake with a cake often frost the entire thing. In my opinion, everything is so sweet already that I don't think frosting the whole thing would add anything that would otherwise feel like it was missing. If you needed to decorate it for a birthday or special occasion, however, it would always look nice with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting on just the top of the cake, and a decoration piped out.

Cheesecake Ingredients:

2 blocks (116 oz.) cream cheese
1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. sour cream, lite

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 inch springform pan with baking spray with flour, and set aside. In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and flour together until smooth. Add in the vanilla and sour cream and stir by hand. Set aside.

Carrot Cake Ingredients:

3/4 c. oil (veggie)
1/3 c. brown sugar
2/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
2 large carrots, grated

In an electric mixer, mix together the oil and sugars together until smooth. Add in the eggs and vanilla and stir to incorporate. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients until just combined, and add in the grated carrots.

Spread half of the carrot cake batter in the bottom of the prepared pan. Dollop half of the cheesecake batter on top (do not spread!). Dollop the rest of the carrot cake batter on top of the cheesecake batter. Spread the remaining cheesecake batter on top with a spatula to even the top layer out. Pat down the cheesecake to remove all of the air bubbles.

Bake for 70-75 minutes until the edges are golden brown and the middle slightly springs back when you lightly press down. Let cool in the pan before removing the springform edges and serving. 

Saffron Buns

Before my Aunt Jean passed away, she used to make my dad hot cross saffron buns every year for Easter. I attempted a few times to make them but the recipe I had never worked out. This one works amazing, and passed for my dad with flying colors!

Ingredients:

3/4 c. milk
1 tsp. saffron threads
1 tsp. plus 1/4 c. sugar
1/4 ounce pkg. active dry yeast
3 1/2 c. flour (plus 1/2 c. more if necessary)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. salted butter, softened
1/4 c. sour cream, light
2 eggs (plus 1 beaten for glaze)
1 c. currants

Heat the milk, saffron and 1 teaspoon of sugar in a small saucepan until the milk is steamy. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Let cool to 115 degrees.

Sprinkle the yeast over the saffron milk and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. In an electric mixer, whisk the 3 1/2 cups of flour, remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and salt together. Make a well in the center and add the saffron yeast milk, eggs, butter and sour cream.

Mix until well incorporated. Switch to the dough hook and on low speed, start to knead the dough. Add additional flour now if necessary but the mix should still be slightly sticky. Add in the currants. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a large bowl covered with plastic wrap. Let the dough sit in a warm place for 1-2 hours (I turn the oven on warm before hand, and then turn it off when I put the dough in to sit so that the oven stays warm but isn't continually heating).

Once it has doubled in size, for the dough into balls (2-3 inches diameter). Place onto a pan lined with parchment paper 2 inches apart. Cover the dough with plastic wrap ad let rise again for 30 minutes to an hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush the tops and sides of the buns with egg wash. Place in the oven and bake for 10 to 11 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before eating.

Frosting:

Combine 2 cups of powdered sugar with 2-3 tablespoons of milk. I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Place into a Ziploc bag and snip the corner off. Pipe an "x" on top of each bun and let cool fully before stacking or putting into a container.

Pistachio Pudding Cake

This is a very simple cake using a box cake mix and pistachio pudding that everyone in the family is sure to love!

Ingredients:

1 pkg. yellow cake mix
1 pkg. instant pistachio pudding mix
4 eggs
1 c. Sprite
1/2 c. oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium size bowl, mix the above ingredients together.

Mix all of the ingredients until they come together. Do not worry about any clumps in the batter, they will cook out.

Spray a bundt pan with non stick cooking spray and pour the batter into the pan. Smooth out the top in an even layer. Bake for 40-45 minutes until golden brown on the outside. Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes in the pan and then transfer to a cooling rack. Let cool before slicing and serving.

Zucchini Cake

This zucchini cake recipe is so soft and packed with zucchini that you can practically cut it like butter. The cream cheese frosting adds a nice tang to it, and cinnamon is my favorite spice so the additional dusting brings these over the top. Although you need the mixer twice for this recipe, it is a very easy one to make. And even if zucchini isn't in season, you can use frozen shredded zucchini and just squeeze out most of the liquid.

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. applesauce
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (plus extra for top)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 c. shredded zucchini

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13 baking pan with non stick cooking spray and set aside. In an electric mixer, beat the eggs, oil, applesauce, sugars and vanilla together. Add in the dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in the zucchini and stir until everything is well incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread the top in an even layer. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Frosting:

1 (8oz.) pkg. cream cheese, 1/3 less fat
1/4 c. butter (I use salted), softened
3 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

While the cake is cooling slightly, beat together the frosting ingredients in an electric mixer. Spread over the top of the cake and sprinkle with cinnamon.

King Cake Mini Bites

If you love the flavor of King Cakes but don't like working with yeast, like myself, this is the perfect choice. The gooey cheesecake filling and loads of cinnamon and powdered sugar glaze makes these an amazing sweet little bite.

Ingredients:

1/2 pkg (4 oz.) 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
Ground cinnamon
2 (8 oz) cans refrigerated crescent rolls, reduced fat

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon juice together until well mixed. Unroll the crescent roll onto your work surface. Separate the crescent tubes into 8 rectangles. Sprinkle cinnamon on the insides of each crescent rectangle. Spread approximately a tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture down the middle of each rectangle. Bring both sides, lengthwise, of the dough over on top of the cream cheese. Cut each into 8 small pieces and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes.

While the king cakes are cooling, combine the glaze ingredients which include 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons of milk together. When the cakes are cooled, drizzle the tops of each with the glaze and sprinkle with green, gold and purple edible glitter (or sprinkles). Let the glaze cool fully before stacking or packing.

Melt-In-Your-Mouth Chocolate Cookies

If you don't mind semi-homemade recipes, this cookie recipe is my favorite go-to when I have a sweet tooth or need to entertain and don't have the time to make a recipe from scratch.

Ingredients:

1 box Devil's Food cake mix
1/3 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil. In a medium size bowl, mix the cake mix, oil, vanilla and eggs together with a spatula. Spread the sugar out onto a plate or shallow dish. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and into the sugar. Place 1 inch apart on the prepared sheet and bake for 9 minutes. Let cool for 2 minutes on the sheet and then remove to a cooling rack.