Oreo Cupcakes

Madison requested oreo cupcakes as the dessert for the cheerleader pre-game dinner we hosted at our house Friday evening and they were a big hit.  The hidden cookie in the bottom is a nice surprise and I think the mini cookie on top makes them extra cute :)

Oreo Cupcakes

Your favorite chocolate cake recipe (I tried this one and liked it)

1 pkg. Oreo Cookies

Buttercream Frosting

Crushed Oreo Cookies and mini's to garnish.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place liners in your cupcake pan.  Place half of an oreo cookie, with the creme facing up, in each liner.

Fill liners 2/3 full with cake batter and bake for about 20 minutes.

Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.

While my cupcakes were cooling, I pulverized some of the left over cookie halves in my Magic Bullet.

After frosting the cupcakes with buttercream frosting, I sprinkled the crushed cookies on top of each cupcake and garnished them with a mini cookie too for extra cuteness :)

Linking to:
Made By You Monday
Fireflies and Jellybeans
Tatertots and Jello
Whipperberry
Thirty Hand Made Days

Weekending

School started here on Tuesday. 
Our one and only baby is a senior this year.
How did this happen so quickly??????????

Friday evening I hosted dinner for the cheerleaders and coaches at our house before the game.
I served Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta al Forno (I added pepperoni this time), salad, garlic bread and cupcakes.

Cupcake recipes coming soon.

After dinner it was time for some Friday night high school football.  Go Knights!

I love zinnias.
I cut these from my parent's garden so my kitchen and deck would look pretty for the cheer dinner.
I spray painted mason jars with Rust-oleum Ultra Cover. 
Loving the aqua!



Hope you all had a great weekend too :)



Reese Cup Cookies

Reese cups are one of our favorite candy bars around here, so when I decided to bake some more cookies I automatically reached for the Reese Cups I have stashed in the freezer.  I have to hide them way in the back behind the frozen chicken breasts so that I have some when I need them for baking, otherwise they would be gone in a heartbeat in this house! 

Reese Cup Cookies

2 C plus 2 T flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 C coarsely chopped Reese Cups

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Chop your Reese Cups and set aside.  In a bowl combine flour, soda and salt.  Set aside.  In your mixer blend butter and sugars together until combined.  Beat in egg, egg yolk and vanilla.  Add in dry ingredients and beat until just combined.  Fold in Reese Cups.  Using a Pampered Chef ice cream scoop, place batter onto a Silpat lined baking sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes until light golden brown and edges start to harden but center is soft.  Do not overbake

*Congrats to Comment #2, Paula for being the winner of my Fiber One Giveaway.  Paula I have sent you an email to get your mailing info.

Friday Favorites

Thought I would start the weekend off with some randomness and show you some of my favorite things.

Bert's Bees Watermelon Lip Shimmer.

I have about 3 of these in my purse, 2 in my car, 1 on the kitchen counter, 2 in my pool bag, 2 in my

make-up bag and 1 on my desk at work.  Think I'm obsessed?

My pretty aprons = happiness

I should have been a 1950's housewife as much as I love to wear them!

Starbucks Passion Iced Tea

I drink this when I am trying to cut back on my Diet Coke consumption.

Diet Coke usually wins :)

This pink raft is one of my favorite places to be as soon as I get home from work on super hot days

 and on the weekends :)  I'll hate to see this summer come to an end!

Happy Friday and hope you have a fantastic weekend!!

Fiber One Review and Giveaway

Most of you know that I am a HUGE fan of oatmeal for breakfast, so when General Mills sent me a box of their new Fiber One 80 Calorie Honey Squares cereal to review, I did let it sit on my kitchen counter for a week or so.  But during our late July heatwave, I decided a cold breakfast might be a nice change of pace, so I gave it a try. The crunchy wheat and corn squares have a light honey flavor.  Each square is lightly sweetened and every bowl contains 40% of the daily value of fiber, which helps you stay full longer. You gotta love that.




To be honest, I love the fact that the cereal contains so much fiber, but I think the little squares have a weird after taste, maybe it's the artificial sweetener or flavoring - I'm not sure. Maybe it's just me.  I did finish the entire box, but I doubt that I will ever purchase it at the store. 

But, here's the great part for you.......you can enter my giveaway and if you win you can try it yourself and receive an awesome prize pack too! 

The prize pack will include one box of Fiber One 80 Calories Cereal, 1 Sensor pedometer with USB connector to chart walking progress and one neoprene iPod/smartphone holder with armstrap.

To enter leave a comment on this post telling me if your current breakfast keeps you full until lunchtime (mandatory).

For additional entries you can do the follwing, but leave a separate comment for each telling me you did so.  Contest ends Friday, August 19th.  U.S. addresses only please. 

• Like Me and My Pink Mixer on Facebook
• Like Fiber One on Facebook
• Become a Follower of Me and My Pink Mixer (sidebar)
• Follow Me and My Pink Mixer on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway.

Disclosure:  Fiber One 80 Calories Cereal, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills through My Blog Spark.

Contest is now closed.

My New Favorite Snack

This is my new favorite snack.
Raspberries stuffed with dark and white chocolate chips.
I prefer the dark chocolate.
So, so good.
Give it a try :)

Fresh Garden Salsa

I stole some tomatoes from my parents garden when they weren't home.
Shhh....don't tell.
Oh yeah - my mom reads my blog - busted!
Hi mom - hope you don't mind :)

You see....I was in a salsa kind of mood and I already had the jalapeno peppers from my own container garden and I had the onion (from a previous theft - ha ha) and why pay for tomatoes when your own parents have a million of them.  Seriously....they do! 

Anyway, I took my stolen goods and made some awesome salsa. 
It was so easy - give it a try :)

Fresh Garden Salsa

3 tomatoes, peeled and seeded
1/2 cup onion, diced fine
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced
1/3 cup chopped,  fresh cilantro
1 tsp. salt
juice of one lime

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.
Place in the fridge for at least one hour for the flavors to combine.
Serve with multi-grain tortilla chips - yum!

Note - To easily peel tomatoes, place them in boiling water for about 20-30 seconds and then put them in ice water for a few seconds more.  The skin peels right off.
To remove the seeds, cut the tomato in half and give it a little squeeze over the sink. 
Then scoop out the rest with a spoon. 

Weekending

Another busy, but fun weekend here in Virginia.
Here's a recap of some of our fun.

High School football coaches potluck get together Saturday night.
I made cupcakes.
Snickers cupcakes - yum!

Lifeguard duty for Madison.  

Birthday party for my Aunt Margie. 

She'll be 75 on Wednesday.

Happy Birthday Margie!!!!!!

The party was a surprise. 

Here's the birthday girl with most of her brothers and sisters.

Lots of cake.

Sunday evening treat.

Brownie Batter Ice Cream from Kline's Dairy Bar.

Kline's is an icon around here and the frozen custard rocks!

Hope you had a fun weekend too!

Ready or not - here comes Monday :)

Twix Bar Cookies

With all of the cupcakes I've been baking lately, cookies have taken a back seat in my kitchen.
I thought it was about time I changed that and gave cookies the attention they deserve. 
After all they're cute and tasty too.

Twix candy bars are the star of this cookie.  Chocolate and caramel mixed with cookie dough - yum!
I used the fun size bars instead of a full size candy bar.  They were easy to cut into bite size chunks.
I also baked the cookies on a Silpat mat for easy removal.  If you don't have a Silpat, I highly recommend them. 

Hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we did!

Twix Bar Cookies
recipe from Your Home Based Mom

2 C plus 2 T flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 C coarsely chopped Twix Bars

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Chop your Twix bars into 1/4 inch chunks.  Cut each bar in half lengthwise and then chop into 1/4 inch pieces width wise.  In a bowl combine flour, soda and salt.  Set aside.  In your mixer blend butter and sugars together until combined.  Beat in egg, egg yolk and vanilla.  Add in dry ingredients and beat until just combined.  Fold in Twix Bar chunks.  Bake for 13-15 minutes until light golden brown and edges start to harden but center is soft.  Do not overbake.

Linking To:
Fireflies and Jellybeans
Polka Dots on Parade
Paisley Passions
Serenity Now