Pumpkin Better Than Sex Cake

Since it is now October and fall is in full swing, I have the perfect recipe for a cold day when all you want to do is cuddle up in a blanket and... eat. It's so funny to me that right when October hits, all of the sudden I crave pumpkin. I add pumpkin to everything. Most of the time it turns out tasting like baby food, but sometimes I come up with something genius. I cannot take credit for this cake, though. I wish I would have invented it, but the people on Pinterest got there before me.  

So here it is: Pumpkin Better than Sex Cake! It is super easy and absolutely deadly. 

Pumpkin Better Than Sex Cake 

Ingredients: 

1 Box Yellow Cake Mix

1 Small Can Pumpkin Puree

1 - 14 oz. Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 - 8 oz. Tub Cool Whip

1/2 bag Heath Bits

Caramel Sundae Sauce

Obviously, it's super healthy 

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together cake mix and pumpkin puree until a smooth batter forms. I actually added all the ingredients to make the yellow cake mix (1 egg, 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup water), but the original recipe calls just for the cake mix and the pumpkin. Extra ingredients or not, mix the cake mix and pumpkin together until a smooth batter forms. 

2. Pour batter into a well greased 9x13 cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees according to the directions on the cake mix box. 

3. Let cool for about 10 minutes after baking. Using the bottom of a wooden spoon, poke holes all over the top of the cake.

4. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the cake, filling the holes. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

5. Spread the cool whip over the top of the cake. Sprinkle on heath bits and drizzle caramel over the top. 

6. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight for best results. However, you probably won't make it that long.

No-Bake Cake Batter Truffles

Here is the recipe for the most addicting treats on the planet...No-Bake Cake Batter Truffles. They are amazing and super easy to make. Juss and I make these all the time for people and for special occasions and they never go wrong. The only thing we make sure to do is buy some extra white chocolate chips because we always burn the first batch. Melting chocolate is definitely not a strength of ours. 


These treats are fun to get creative with because you can dye them any combination of colors and decorate with icing and sprinkles and they are always cute. We go overboard, as usual, painting sailboats and stick figures of ourselves on them and eventually they turn pretty ugly, but don't be like us they will be beautiful :) 

No-Bake Cake Batter Truffles 

1/ 2 cup unsalted butter {softened}

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup yellow cake mix {dry}

1 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. sprinkles

16 oz. white dipping chocolate {2 bags of choc. chips}

4 Tbsp. yellow cake mix {dry}

**We use funfetti cake mix and don't add sprinkles- it is easier

Instructions:

1. Beat together butter and sugar using an electric mixer until combined. Blend in vanilla. Add cake mix, flour, salt, and vanlla and mix thouroughly. Add Tablespoons of milk or more if needed to make a dough consistency. Mix in sprinkles by hand. Roll dough into one inch balls and place on a parchment or wax paper lined cookie sheet. Chill balls in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to firm up. 

2. While dough balls are chilling, melt almond bark in microwave in 30 second intervals until melted. Stir between intervals.{again we use chocolate chips and because we always burn them we double boil instead of microwave} Once melted, quickly stir in cake mix until incorporated completely. Using a fork, dip truffles into almond bark and shake off excess bark by tapping the bottom of the fork on the side of your bowl. Place truffle back on cookie sheet and top with sprinkles. Repeat with remaining balls until finished. {Note: for smoother looking truffles, don't add cake mix to melted chocolate, just leave by itself}

3. Chill cake batter truffles in the refrigerator until serving. Makes around 24-30 truffles. 

4. Try to at least give a few away :) 

Frozen Pink Lemonade

Frozen Pink Lemonade is the second part of the treats I brought for my soccer party. The party was for two girls on my team (Nano and Hailey). So, my best friend Justine decorated the treats with their names and we put a candle in each pie tin at the party.


Shout out to Aspen and Ashley, two of my roommates my freshman year of college. They would make this pink lemonade dessert ALL the time and, no joke, every time anyone walked past the freezer, we took a bite (or five) out of it. It is so easy to make, and extremely cheap. This was our go-to dessert at 1 in the morning, when our sweet tooth usually set in. All you need is four ingredients: a tub of vanilla ice cream, a can of frozen pink lemonade mix, a little butter, and a box of Nilla Wafers. 


Step 1: Crush about half the box of nilla wafers and mix them will a little butter - until they stick together- and put 1/2 of them in the bottom of a pyrex or pie tin. 
Step 2: Mix the pink lemonade and vanilla ice cream with a hand mixer. 
Step 3: Pour the ice cream/lemonade into the pan on top of the nilla wafers.
Step 4: Pour the remaining nilla wafers on top of the ice cream. 
Step 5: Put in the freezer for about an hour - or if you can't wait that long - it is still delicious to eat right after you are finished making it. 

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Cookies

About a month ago I had a soccer party and was in charge of bringing the treats :) so I made two different recipes. The first one was chocolate chip salted caramel cookies. Recently, when I was in New York, I discovered that adding salt to the top of cookies brings out the flavor! Who knew! So, I found this recipe and thought it looked delicious, and it was! So this is for all of my teammates who asked for the recipe. Sorry the picture isn't great,  I added homemade whipped cream to the top after it was finished (not completely pictured) -my best friend had a little fun decorating it with my name at the beginning :)

Recipe:

Yield: 16 Cookie Bars

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips
10 ounces caramel candy squares, unwrapped
3 tablespoons heavy cream
Sea salt, for sprinkling over caramel and bars

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 2-quart baking pan (which is an 11 X 7 pan-I used a glass Pyrex dish) with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the melted butter and sugars together until combined. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix on low, just until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

4. In a large microwave safe bowl, combine the caramels and heavy cream. Microwave caramels on High until caramels are melted, stirring every 20 seconds. This will take about 2 minutes, depending on your microwave.

5. Divide the cookie dough in half. Press half of the cookie dough into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the spatula. Pour hot caramel over the cookie dough. Sprinkle caramel with sea salt. Drop spoonfuls of cookie dough over the caramel and spread dough with a spatula until the caramel is covered. Sprinkle the bars with additional sea salt.

6.Bake cookie bars for 30 minutes or until the top of the bars are light golden brown and the edges start to pull away from the pan. Cool bars on a wire rack to room temperature. Cut bars into squares and serve.

Four Layer Funfetti Cake

So, I owed a friend a cake for practically saving my life almost a year ago. I felt bad because it had been so long and I kept forgetting to bake him a cake. So, I decided to go all out to make up for my forgetfulness. I baked him a four layer cake. His favorite kind of cake is funfetti, so I just made two cakes out of the box, and baked them in four round pans. Then, I stacked them on top of each other, layering rainbow chip frosting in between each cake. Finally, I made homemade vanilla frosting for the outside and added pink sprinkles to make the cake look pretty. It was a success! I am so happy it turned out! It took me almost 4 hours to bake, but it was totally worth it! Here it is...