Monday Menu ~ Pumpkin Pecan Bars

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Jackie

The holiday baking season is fast approaching and this weekend I splurged and made a special treat for everyone here at my house. At first I was going to make pumpkin cookies with a cream cheese frosting and then I thought about pumpkin whoopie pies and then I finally decided to combine a couple of our favorite things. Pumpkin and pecans and then to make things even easier Pillsbury was a great help with the recipe on the side of the box!

My husband loves pecan pie so I thought that this would be the perfect treat for him! And he wasn’t disappointed with them and neither was anyone else in my family. This one is a new favorite!

Think of this bar like a delightful combination of pumpkin pie and pecan pie…. the perfect marriage of two perfect holiday desserts.

Pumpkin Pecan Bars

I doubled the recipe so it would fit in a 13×9 pan. You can easily half it to fit in an 8×8 pan.

Crust

2 boxes of Pillsbury Pumpkin Cookie Mix

1 cup butter – melted

Topping

2 eggs

2/3 cup corn syrup – light or dark (I used light)

4 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 13×9 pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Mix the melted butter and cookie mix until it’s incorporated and press into the the pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

While the crust is in the oven mix together the rest of the ingredients. Pour over top of the crust and make sure that it’s even.

Bake for 25 minutes, let cool, cut & enjoy!

Mmmm.... this one is mine!

I promise that you will love these! I know that my kids didn’t take long to finish off the pan in less than 24 hours! What you see below is all that was left Sunday afternoon…. they were gone well before dinner time!

Do you have a favorite cookie or bar that you make around the holidays? If not, are you going to try this one?

Monday Menu ~ Melt Buttery Spread Review & Recipe

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Jackie

Not that long ago I was asked if I would be interested in trying out Melt Buttery Spread and after checking it out and pondering it for a while I finally said yes.

The reason that I was so hesitant was because I am a big fan of butter. I love the rich creamy taste of it and there is nothing that compares. Nothing. I can’t stand margarine…. at all. The taste is horrible and very much similar to vegetable oil. I was concerned that this was going to have the same taste, but when I tried the Melt Spread I was very impressed. Not only did it taste really good but it had that same creaminess that I like about butter. I’d consider it one of the better butter substitutes out there.

My kids loved it and my husband even kind of liked it too!

So what is Melt Buttery Spread? It’s an organic butter alternative that is made from virgin coconut oil, flax seed oil, palm fruit oil, and canola oil with no artificial colors or additives. It is the perfect blend of healthy fats that can be used just the same as regular butter, whether you bake or cook with it or even spread it on your toast it really is one of the more healthy oils that you can use.

We used the Melt on zucchini bread, crescent rolls, bread, in oatmeal, and of course I had to bake with it.

With the fall season upon us I made a wonderful pumpkin crunch cake that if I must say rivals all others. It was amazing!

Pumpkin Crunch Cake

Ingredients
2 cups of Flour
½ tsp. of Salt
1½ tsp. of Baking Soda
1 can (15 or 16oz.) of Pumpkin
2 tsps. of Baking Powder
1 cup of Melt Buttery Spread
4 Large Eggs

Topping
1/2 cup Melt Buttery Spread
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup Oatmeal
1 tsp Cinnamon
Mix everything together in a bowl. I doubled this so the cake would have lots of crunch topping.

This pumpkin cake recipe is intended for either a tube pan, a bundt pan, or a 13″x9″ pan.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease and flour your baking pan.
Combine all of the above ingredients in a large bowl.
Mix together thoroughly until entirely moistened and well-blended.
Pour your cake batter into the prepared pan.
Place the topping on the cake all over the place.
Bake for one hour or until you can insert a toothpick and pull it out clean.
Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Then, remove it from the pan and allow it to cool on a cooling rack for one more hour.

I created the topping because I didn’t have the ingredients to make frosting and wanted something more for it. If you don’t want to use the topping then leave it off and you can frost it with a cream cheese frosting or a simple dusting of powdered sugar. No matter which way you serve this cake it’s delicious! It’s moist, flavorful, and lasts this way on the counter for a few day.

The only issue with the Melt Spread is that I’m having trouble finding it around me and I only have a little bit left.

Have you tried Melt Buttery Spread?

The best fall treat ever ~ pumpkin s’more bars

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Jackie

I am doing something that I don’t normally do…. posting on a Sunday and mid day. I always take the weekends off and make sure that when I do post that it’s ready to go at 6am.

But today I am sharing a recipe that I shared in Instagram yesterday. And there was an outcry for the recipe…people falling over to get it…… drooling on their phones and computers when they saw it. Alright, so maybe that’s an exaggeration.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter
1 can of pumpkin puree (150z)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (the small one)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup of Graham cracker crumbs (about 12 squares
45 graham crackers (approximately)
9 cups of mini-marshmallows (entire bag)
2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (add more if you want!)

Instructions

Preheat over to 450F.
In a small saucepan on medium heat, combine the butter, pumpkin mix, milk, cinnamon and bring to a boil.
Remove saucepan from heat and stir in Graham cracker crumbs. Place aside.
Spray a 13×9 baking pan with cooking spray or line with waxed paper.
Line the pan with graham crackers – I had to cut a couple for the last row.
Pour 1/3 of the pumpkin mix over crackers and spread.
Top the pumpkin mix with approximately 2 – 3 cups of marshmallows.
Sprinkle evenly 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips.
Repeat steps 5,6,7, 8 twice giving you 3 layers.
Bake for 4 minutes.
Let it cool and set for 3-4 hours to firm up otherwise it will not cut well into squares. I placed mine in the fridge for a little bit.

Pumpkin S'mores fresh out of the oven

Having the graham crackers in squares really helped with the cutting since I didn’t have to cut through them.

These were a lot better than I had expected them to be. They were rich, airy, and very delicious!

I ate this one!

Because this recipe is so awesome I am going to link up with Kludgy Mom for her Fall Food linky so I can share it with everyone!

Monday Menu ~ Simple Pumpkin Cake

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Jackie

Yes, it’s Monday again…. the weekend is never long enough! But that’s alright because I have a great recipe for you all to try this week.

It’s a really simple, easy, and quick cake to make. What’s even better is that it’s healthy for you!

Curious yet?

Alright, so here are the ingredients.

1 box cake mix – any flavor you want. You can even use a reduced sugar cake mix.

1 15 oz can of pumpkin

2 eggs or 1/2 cup of egg beaters – these are optional. You can make the cake without the eggs and it turns out just fine.

1 tsp (or more if you like) pumpkin pie spice – leave this out if you want

The ingredients

Now it doesn’t get any easier than this….

Preheat over to 350 degrees and spray your 13×9 cake pan or cupcake pan.

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. It will be really thick and this is alright so don’t worry.

The batter

Spread the batter in the pan evenly and bake for 25 – 30 minutes for the 13×9 and about 15 minutes for cupcakes.

For my cake I wanted the pumpkin flavor to really stand out so I used a yellow cake mix and it was pretty good. I think that I would have liked a spice cake better though just because there would have been more of the flavor that I was looking for. The yellow cake gave it a sweeter flavor than I wanted… but it was still good.

We left ours plain…. no frosting at all. But you can add a frosting, glaze, or fresh fruit.

Note: When you use a chocolate cake mix you can’t taste the pumpkin and it has more of a dense brownie taste. You can also use this to make cookies.

Give it try and let me know what you think?

10 reasons I’m glad that it’s fall

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Jackie

This is gonna be short and sweet! And it’s because this is an easy prompt and I just love fall! As a matter of fact I haven’t found a single person that doesn’t! And if you happen to be one of them that dislikes fall share with me the reason you don’t. I’m curious!

This list is in no specific order.

1. Apple cider. Especially if it’s fresh from the orchard. The stuff from the store is alright but it just isn’t the same.

2. Fresh picked apples from the orchard. The smell, the colors, the taste. Mmmm..

3. Things made from those apples. I really love apple pie.

4. Cooler weather. After hot, humid Michigan summers I’m ready for a change.

5. High school football games. I love to go and support my kids school. It’s fun, we see a lot of people we know, and we have an awesome band!

6. Fall colors in Michigan are amazing! Especially if you take a trip up north. It’s beautiful. Trust me.

7. Pumpkin. Another thing I love! Pumpkin is great in oatmeal, mixed in with a cake mix, and so many other things! And pumpkin pie is my favorite. And you know the worst thing happened last year…. there was a pumpkin shortage! Can you believe it?!?! I almost didn’t have pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. I’m stocking up this year.

8. The smell of fall. You can smell it in the crisp air on a sunny day when the leaves have changed colors and are starting to fall to the ground.

9. Raking huge leaf piles for the kids to jump into.

10. Corn mazes. We don’t get to do it often but they’re a ton of fun!

Actually, now that I think about just baking in the fall with apples, cranberries, pumpkin, and all that is great!

What’s your favorite thing about fall?