Heart Shaped Pretzels

We wanted to make pretzels the other day and they managed to become Heart shapes along with other shapes and letters. These pretzels would be perfect for a Valentine's day treat or just to say I love you. This recipe is one my daughter did in school so it is a very doable process to get your kids involved. Keep reading to find out how we made Our Heart Shaped Pretzels.

Ingredients Needed for Pretzels:
1 Package Yeast
4 cups of flour
2 cups warm water
1 egg white
1 TBS. Sugar
1 + TBS Salt
Cookie sheets
Foil

-In a big bowl, mix together, yeast, water, sugar, and salt.

-Stir in flour.

-Knead dough on floured  table until dough is smooth. Add more flour if too sticky.

-Line cookie sheets with foil and spray with oil.

-Shape dough into Hearts or whatever shape you choose.  We did letters too.

-Brush pretzels with egg white and sprinkle with salt

****For Cinnamon Variety,  brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. 

-Bake in oven set at 425 F for 15 minutes or until browned.

-Enjoy!

As you can see we made some of the pretzels into letter shapes and traditional pretzel shapes.

These are really YUMMY!
(We've been nibbling on them all week for breakfast and for treats!)

Super Easy Rocky Road Fudge

Here is another amazingly easy fudge recipe I'm excited to share.  Every year I make this Rocky Road Fudge for friends and family and everyone absolutely loves it! When placed in a fancy treat bag or cute tin it makes it even more extra special.  Your friends and family will think you've spent hours in front of a hot stove when you've only spent under 5 minutes. Really? So give it a try. If you love this recipe, be sure to try our Super Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge recipe here.

Here is the recipe:

Super Easy Rocky Road Fudge

Ingredients:

2 cups semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups miniature marshmallows

1 1/2 coarsely chopped walnuts

1.  Combine milk and chocolate chips in a large microwave bowl and stir.

2.  Cook for 1 minute in microwave.

3.  Add vanilla and cook for 3 minutes.

4.  Now add marshmallows and walnuts and stir.

5.  Press into a greased, foiled lined 13x9 inch baking pan.  Chill until ready.

6.  Cut into squares and serve.

7.  Enjoy!

Super Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

I've made this recipe for years and it is so ridiculously easy to make!  Total preparation and cooking time is probably under 5 minutes.  The long part is waiting for the fudge to harden in the refrigerator. So if you need a quick treat for gifts or a dessert this recipe will do the trick.  Everyone will think you took hours to make this... (everyone thinks I have every  time!)  

Here is the recipe:

Super Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients:

1 oz. unsweetened Chocolate

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

2 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup peanuts

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Combine, chocolate, milk, and peanut butter chips in a microwave dish and stir

2. Cook 1 minute in the microwave or till smooth.

3. Stir in peanuts and vanilla.

4. Cook for 3 minutes in the microwave.

5.  Stir again until smooth and pour into a 8 x 8 pan and chill.

6.  Cut into squares.

7.  Put in fancy containers or bags to create a special gift of the sweet people in your life.

8.  Enjoy!

Making Two Kinds of Slime

As I said in my last post, we've been reminiscing about old projects, experiments, and recipes in my blog books from Blog2print. This time my daughter wanted to make slime again after seeing the post here.  Not only did we make that kind of slime, but we also made a different kind of slime too. Keep reading to find out the 2 types of slime we made.

Recipe #1 Slime:

Mix in one bowl:
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup white glue
few drops of food coloring

Mix in a second bowl:
1 1/3 cups warm water
4 teaspoons Borax
(Borax is found in the laundry section.  ****Borax should not be ingested and can cause skin reactions with some... so use your discretion!)

Pour contents of first bowl into second bowl and let sit for one minute without stirring. Then explore Slime #1!


Recipe #2 Slime:
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup white glue
1/4 cup liquid starch
few drops of food coloring

Pour all glue in mixing bowl and then add water.  Stir water and glue together.  Add food color.  Then lastly add starch. Then have fun with Slime #2.


Making the two kinds of Slime was fun in itself and this time my daughter could actually read the recipe, so making it a great reading activity and science experiment too.

We compared and contrasted the two kinds of Slime as we were playing with them:  Slime #1 was
more rubbery and Slime #2 was smoother and more squooshy.

Then very soon after, both slimes were mixed together....which ended all comparisons. (But it did prove that yellow-green and blue make green!)  Plastic bugs made a great companion for the slime play.

C covered the bugs with slime, tore it into tiny pieces, stretched it, and pressed bugs into it to make impressions. Slime makes for such creative and FUN play with endless possibilities.

Hope you are inspired to try out both recipes for Slime. 

 Do you know any other recipes for Slime?

Painted Easter Sugar Cookies

We've been making Easter Cookies this week. We made my Amazing Marvelous Marbled Easter Egg Cookies and now we made these Painted Easter Cookies. The process of making sugar cookies is fun with mixing the dough, rolling out, and cutting the cookies so this is always a hit with kids.  Just add in "painting the cookies" as a last step and you have a winner on your hands. We made painted sugar cookies for Christmas here too.

Materials Needed:

Rolled and cut out sugar cookies on a cookie sheet (Uncooked)

Recipe here for Sugar Cookies
Evaporated Milk (from a can)

Food Coloring

Toothpicks

ice cube tray or small containers

paint brushes that have only been used for food

To make these lovely painted cookies, first make the sugar cookies and have the uncooked cookies placed on a cookie sheet. Prepare the cookie paint by filling an ice cube tray with evaporated milk. Then, add a few drops of food coloring per each ice cube section.  Mix up the food coloring with the evaporated milk with a toothpick. Now, grab your paint brushes and you are ready to paint the cookies.

After the cookies are painted, you can cook them according to the sugar cookie recipe that you choose to follow.  They look gorgeous uncooked!

And they stay beautiful after they have been baked too.  The nice thing about this process is that once the cookies are cooled they are ready to eat.  There is no extra step to make frosting and wait for the cookies to cool!

Happy Cookie Making and Happy Easter!

Sweet Little Heart Cookies

We've made this recipe the past few years from Family Fun Magazine as Santa Hats, but since we forgot to make them for Christmas I told my daughter we could make a heart version of these for a Valentine Heart Cookie. They are basically a Meringue Cookie made with egg whites and sugar. Here is how they turned out:

Ingredients Needed:
2 egg whites, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
Red colored sugar
parchment paper

First heat the oven to 200 degrees F.  Then beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  After that, add the cream of tartar, vanilla extract, and 1/2 sugar. Continue to beat until peaks stiffen.  Then we put the mixture into a gallon size plastic bag and cut a corner off the bag for a makeshift piping bag.

Then on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, pipe the hearts with the bag filled with the egg white mixture.

Next, fill the inside of the heart like this.

Here is C hard at work in the process.

Lastly, sprinkle the colored sugar on the hearts and cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes at 200 degrees F. Cook them until they are hard, but not browned. The recipe advised to turn off the oven and let the cookies sit for an hour before removing. ***We took them right out and they were fine.

My daughter loves these sweet cookies and we already need to make some more!

Fried Pumpkin Seeds

This is a new one for me.  Have you ever fried pumpkin seeds? I've always baked Pumpkin Seeds, but my husband came across a recipe for frying them. They may not be as healthy, but the great thing is that they only take 5 minutes or so.

To fry Pumpkin Seeds,  place the clean Pumpkin Seeds in a about a couple Tablespoons of oil with salt in a frying pan at medium heat.

Then use a spatula to keep moving the seeds around for 5 minutes or until they are somewhat brown.  They are surprisingly delicious! I actually like them better than the baked version.

Of course my favorite part is carving the pumpkins and I had to share some of our pumpkin designs here too:

My design

C's Design

Have a Happy Halloween!

DIY Watercolors

For the longest time I've been wanting to make these DIY Watercolors with my daughter and we finally got around to it and I'm sure glad we did! We got the recipe from one of my favorite blogs: Happy Hooligans....do check this blog out for all kinds of kid friendly ideas.  You can find Happy Hooligan's great tutorial on Homemade Watercolors here.  Keep reading to find out our results of these watercolors and the beautiful paintings we created!

To make these DIY Watercolors you'll need:

4 Tbsp. baking soda

2 tsp white vinegar

1/2 tsp. light corn syrup

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

Food coloring

mini muffin tins or ice cube trays for the paints

First,  mix all all the ingredients together (except for the food coloring) in a big glass measuring cup and pour this mixture into your mini muffin tins or ice cube trays.  I filled them about 1/4 inch full.  Then,  add a few drops of food coloring to each section.  Use a toothpick to mix each individual color.  Wait about  a day for the watercolors to dry.  When using the paint add water just like you would with a watercolor set you would buy in the store.

Here is C having a blast with these watercolors:

One of her GORGEOUS paintings:

Another beauty:

Even Mom had FUN:

Hope you have fun making and painting with these DIY Watercolors!

Starfish Pretzels

We made starfish pretzels after seeing them in my daughter's favorite magazine: The Big Backyard.  If you are a nature lover and want your kids to have a magazine to promote a love of nature then I would suggest getting a subscription. You can view the recipe we followed online here. These pretzels were quite yummy and we put a new twist on it by adding cinnamon and sugar instead of salt on some of them.  This seemed to be the perfect recipe since we are going to the beach soon.

For the pretzels you'll need:

-1 package of active dry yeast

-1 1/2 cups warm water

-3/4 teaspoon regular salt

-1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

-4 cups flour

-1 egg

-2 tablespoons coarsely ground salt

(melted butter and cinnamon/sugar if you want to make some like the one pictured above)

For the dough:

1. Stir the sugar and regular salt in the warm water.  Mix in the yeast and let set for 5 minutes.

2.  Stir in the flour a little at a time until a dough forms. Knead the dough for about 2 minutes.

3.  Roll out the dough into a long snake.  Cut 5 pieces of dough into 2" or 3" pieces. 

Push the pieces together to form a starfish shape.

For cinnamon and sugar pretzels, brush the dough with butter. 

Sprinkle the butter covered pretzels with cinnamon and sugar for sweet tasting pretzels. For salty pretzels, brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with salt. Place in the oven on a foil lined cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

Here are our golden cinnamon and sugar starfish pretzels.

Here are our salty starfish pretzels. 

We really enjoyed these pretzels! We can't wait to go to the beach. Maybe we'll see some real starfish!

Be sure to check out the July issue of The Big Backyard to find out more about starfish and other creatures.

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day! I've enjoyed sharing all our Valentine/Heart ideas the past few weeks!  We've been very busy the past fews day preparing for the big day! Mostly we've been working on making edible treats to share with friends, family, and neighbors.  Yesterday we made these wonderful Chocolate Sugar Cookie Hearts!  They are identical to our  Chocolate Christmas Sugar Cookies except for the shape and color of them! We followed the recipe here at Myrecipes.com !  We also made our Super Easy Chocolate Covered Strawberries from last year! (My absolute FAVORITE for Valentine's Day) Hope you have wonderful Valentine's Day and may it be the beginning of Loving of all those around you!  A simple smile to a stranger might be the best Valentine gift you give!!!

"Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love." -Mother Teresa

"I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile."  -Goldie Hawn

YUMMY!

Super Easy Chocolate Covered Strawberries

What Valentine gifts did you make?

Give a smile today to those around you!

Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins....and the story behind the name!

On this past Friday I celebrated my one year Blogiversary of The Chocolate Muffin Tree and within that post I had pictured some scrumptious looking Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins (did you notice?) Today I'm sharing with you the recipe for these wonderful muffins along with the story behind where  the name "The Chocolate Muffin Tree" came from at the end of this post.  These muffins were really yummy and the extra chocolate added just the right amount of sweetness! Chocolate Muffins are not quite as sweet as chocolate cupcakes so they are a great excuse to eat something maybe a little bit healthier! (or not)

Here is the recipe-----I modified a few things, but they were still good! (it comes from the food network website here):

1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
3/4 cup superfine sugar (I used regular white sugar)
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips)
1 cup milk (I used soy milk)
1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Put flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, and 3/4 cup of chocolate chips into a large bowl.  Pour all liquid ingredients into a bowl.  Mix the dry and wet ingredients together.  Spoon into paper muffin cups. Sprinkle the remaining 1.4 cup chocolate chips on top and make for 20 minutes or until muffins are dark, risen and springy. Enjoy!

What does a Chocolate Muffin Tree look like? According to C this is what she drew when I asked her:

Do you think I should use this for a logo or symbol for my blog?  Let me know your input.  What do you think A Chocolate Muffin Tree looks like?

***

 Where Does the name "The Chocolate Muffin Tree" come from?

Answer:  After  celebrating her 4th birthday with chocolate muffins,  my daughter said to me while at our garden, "We could plant an apple tree and a chocolate muffin tree!  No, I want to grow A Chocolate Muffin Tree!" Six months later I remembered this story when trying to think of a name for my blog and the rest is history!