Cornucopia of Creativity: Peanut Butter Cup Brownies {Our Crazy Boys}

November 20, 2012 By

Hi there! I’m Becca from Our Crazy Boys — I blog about rais­ing my two tween boys in the Ari­zona desert, which can be stress­ful at times. My goal is to laugh my way through the stress :)

I love vis­it­ing Mom Endeav­ors dur­ing the Cor­nu­copia of Cre­ativ­ity because I’m always a lit­tle stumped when it comes to Thanks­giv­ing. This year, I turned to Pin­ter­est when plan­ning my menu because — well, don’t we all turn to Pin­ter­est now?!

I saw posts pop­ping up every­where for stuffed brownies.

Brown­ies stuffed with cookie dough.

Brown­ies stuffed with Snick­ers bars.

Brown­ies stuffed with Oreos.

Brown­ies stuffed with Twinkies.

Just kid­ding about that last one. That’s gross.

I thought since we are a peanut but­ter lov­ing fam­ily, we should stuff our brown­ies with… peanut but­ter cups!

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup BrowniesIngre­di­ents:

One box of brownie mix (will make about 36 mini-muffin sized brownies)

Peanut but­ter cups! (we used the small indi­vid­u­ally wrapped ones)

1. Unwrap your peanut but­ter cups. Try not to eat too many, or you’ll be sick of them by the time your brown­ies are done.

2. Slice the peanut but­ter cups in half. They fit bet­ter in the mini-muffin tin that way. Though, I wouldn’t think any less of you if you stuck the entire peanut but­ter cup in there.

3. Grease your muf­fin pan. The rule in my house is that if any stick to the pan, you can eat them and the calo­ries don’t count — so maybe leave a few muf­fin wells ungreased.

4. Pre­pare your brownie mix accord­ing to pack­age directions.

5. Use two spoons to put some brownie mix in the bot­tom of your muf­fin pan — it’s not easy to pour. I used about this much:

6. Stick your half (or full) peanut but­ter cup into the brownie mix:

7. Cover the top with some more brownie mix:

8. Cook the brown­ies at the rec­om­mend tem­per­a­ture, but you’ll only need to cook them for 7–10 min­utes. Use a tooth­pick to judge when they’re ready, but stick your tooth­pick on the outer edge of the brownie — oth­er­wise you’ll end up with melted choco­late on your tooth­pick, which will make you think your brown­ies aren’t done.

9. I rec­om­mend taste test­ing one or four as soon as they come out of the oven (for the safety of your guests, of course), and then stor­ing the brown­ies in a tightly closed con­tainer. These brown­ies tend to get hard quickly.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Leave a Comment

Cornucopia of Creativity: Homemade Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips {See Vanessa Craft}

November 19, 2012 By
Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla chips

Hi Mom Endeav­ors read­ers! I’m Vanessa from See Vanessa Craft, where you can see me craft and do other stuff too! A big thanks to Sara for invit­ing me to be part of her Cor­nu­copia of Cre­ativ­ity series. I’d love for you to stop by my blog and say hello! You can also find me on face­book, twit­ter and pin­ter­est.

Now, on to the tutorial…

My grandma recently sent me some of her award win­ning tor­tillas. There’s just some­thing about grandma’s cook­ing that can’t be beat. I decided to turn a few of her tor­tillas into baked tor­tilla chips, cov­ered in cin­na­mon and sugar of course! Because this is a Thanks­giv­ing themed series, I brought out the cookie cut­ters and shaped my tor­tilla chips into leaves. Make up a big batch as an appe­tizer for Thanks­giv­ing. You could serve these chips with a side of chopped up fruit for a healthy dessert alter­na­tive. Your guests will be totally impressed by your culi­nary skills and lit­tle do they know, it only took you 20 min­utes to do!

Ingre­di­ents (makes approx­i­mately 15 chips)
5 Tor­tillas (home­made or store bought)
2–3 Table­spoons Melted But­ter
Cin­na­mon Sugar
Leaf Cookie Cut­ters
Bast­ing Brush (or a brand new foam brush works)
Cookie Sheet
Parch­ment Paper

Instruc­tions
Step 1: Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees. Use cookie cut­ters to cut tor­tillas into leaf shapes. I was able to get 3 leaf shapes per tor­tilla.

Step 2: Melt but­ter and brush tor­tilla leaves with it (front and back).
Step 3: Sprin­kle the top of the tor­tilla leaves with cin­na­mon sugar.
Step 4: Bake for 10 min­utes or until crispy. Enjoy!

Brought to you by:

See Vanessa Craft

Leave a Comment

Cornucopia of Creativity: “I’m thankful for” necklace — Kids Craft {Brie Brie Blooms}

November 18, 2012 By

I’m so happy to be part of the Mom Endeav­ors Cor­nu­copia of Cre­ativ­ity again this year!  I par­tic­i­pated last year and shared my Grate­ful Board.  This year I’m back from my new blog, Brie Brie Blooms.  I’m excited to show you how to make a fun kids craft that will become a keep­sake for you later.

My daugh­ter is almost four years old and was in com­plete awe of the magic Shrinky Dink used for this project.

Sup­plies:

  • Shrinky Dink page
  • Blue, red, and black col­ored pen­cils or per­ma­nent mark­ers (you can­not use crayons or water based mark­ers on the Shrinky Dink page)
  • Printed note­book paper tem­plate (included below)
  • Jump Ring and neck­lace (we used a chain but you could eas­ily put the charm on leather, rib­bon, or cord instead)
  • Scis­sors, hole punch, and needle-nose pli­ers (not shown)
I wrote “I am thank­ful for” on the same paper as my note­book tem­plate.  This is not nec­es­sary but it is surely eas­ier to trace your own hand­writ­ing instead of mak­ing a mis­take try­ing to free­hand it directly onto the Shrinky Dink page.

Start by print­ing the image below on a blank piece of paper.  If you copy and paste it into a word doc­u­ment and want the charm sized exactly like the one in this tuto­r­ial, be sure the drawn note­book page mea­sures three by four inches.

The Shrinky Dink charm will shrink about three times the size of your orig­i­nal image.

Place the Shrinky Dink page rough side up directly over the note­book tem­plate and trace with col­ored pen­cils.  Then use black marker or pen­cil to write on the first line of the drawn paper.  If you have older chil­dren you can skip this step and let them write on the paper themselves.

This is a per­fect time for a fun Thanks­giv­ing dis­cus­sion with your fam­ily.  Then let your chil­dren draw or write the things they are thank­ful for directly onto the Shrinky Dink page.

My daugh­ter drew our fam­ily (her, mommy, daddy, our two cats, and our dog). Cute!

Cut out the drawn image and punch a hole in the top.  Pre­heat your oven to 325 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with a brown paper bag and place your Shrinky Dink page directly on top.

Leave in oven for 3 min­utes and 30 sec­onds.  When you remove the pan from the oven you might notice the edges of the charm are slightly curled upward.  If this hap­pens, use a spat­ula to quickly remove the charm from the pan and place it on a cool sur­face.  Press the charm flat with a potholder.  The charm will cool quickly.

Once cooled, sim­ply add your jump ring and slide onto your necklace.

 

I’m look­ing for­ward to my daugh­ter wear­ing her new neck­lace this week!  These would make great gifts for grand­par­ents too!

Thanks so much for let­ting me stop by to share this kids craft!

1 Comment

Cornucopia of Creativity: Homemade Cookie Butter {Pink Cake Plate}

November 16, 2012 By

Hi Mom Endeav­ors read­ers! I am Laura and I blog over at Pink Cake Plate. I have been here before and I am so excited to be par­tic­i­pat­ing for the sec­ond year in the Cor­nu­copia of Cre­ativ­ity!! Thank you so much for hav­ing me! Today I am going to share a fun recipe/gift idea!!

So there has been a lot of buzz lately about Bis­coff But­ter and Specu­loos But­ter. Mr. Pinkcake­plate is crazy for Trader Joe’s Specu­loos But­ter!! Now, when I first heard about these “but­ters” I had no idea what they were made of, so I turned to “Google” to find out what they are. Ok are you ready for this? It is a peanut but­ter like treat made out of cook­ies!!! Step aside Nutella! I was on the Betty Crocker web site when I came across this recipe for home­made cookie but­ter. I made a few revi­sions and cre­ated a “Pink Cake Plate Cookie But­ter” and it is to die for!! I don’t like a real spicy cookie but­ter, so this one is a bit more on the vanilla side and less spicy!!

Here are a few of the ingre­di­ents. They are all pretty sim­ple and most you have in your pantry already. I found the Wind­mill cook­ies at the $$$ store so this recipe is pretty inex­pen­sive to make!

Place the cook­ies in your food proces­sor and pulse until they are a fine crumb.

Then add your cin­na­mon, salt and brown sugar pulse again. I then added the but­ter, vanilla and molasses and turned on the proces­sor and slowly poured the water in until it was the con­sis­tency I wanted.

That is it! Easy peasy!!

This would make great host­ess gifts! Here is the com­plete recipe:

Pink Cake Plate Cookie Butter

2 pack­ages Wind­mill cook­ies (found at the $$$ Store)
2 table­spoons packed light brown sugar
3 tea­spoons ground cin­na­mon
2 tea­spoons vanilla or 1 tea­spoon Vanilla But­ter Bak­ery Emul­sion
1 table­spoon molasses
2 table­spoons melted but­ter
1/2 t salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup water

In large food proces­sor, process cook­ies into fine crumbs. Turn off proces­sor. Add brown sugar, cin­na­mon, and vanilla; process until blended. Con­tinue to process while adding molasses and but­ter through spout.
With proces­sor run­ning, add just enough water so mix­ture becomes a creamy con­sis­tency (you might not use all the water). Add more water as needed until you reach desired tex­ture (it should be about the same as peanut but­ter).
Pour cookie but­ter into air­tight con­tainer. Store in refrigerator.

This makes about 1 1/4 Cups of yummy cookie butter!!!

Enjoy!!

Leave a Comment

Cornucopia of Creativity: Thanksgiving Family Art Project {All for the Boys}

November 15, 2012 By

Hi every­one! I’m Alli­son from All for the Boys! We blog about any­thing and every­thing that will keep my boys’ atten­tion for more than a few minutes.

I’m so glad that Mom Endeav­ors is giv­ing some atten­tion to Thanks­giv­ing because I love this hol­i­day! We like to do Thanks­giv­ing crafts that remind us to be thank­ful even if it’s for small or silly things (every­thing with 8 and 10 year old boys tends to be silly) so we started a Thanks­giv­ing fam­ily art project.

You can use any type of poster board or paper. It can be framed, done on chalk­board, or hung on the fridge. This super sim­ple fam­ily art project gets every­one involved and reminds you to be thank­ful for lit­tle things through­out your day!

We used mat­board and scrap­book­ing stick­ers for our foundation.

Then each day we draw or write one or more things we are thank­ful for. It turned into a sort of com­mu­nity art projects because some friends and even a babysit­ter added a thing or two.

You can have each per­son use a dif­fer­ent color so it’s easy to see whose draw­ing it is, or just grab what­ever you can find nearby (like we did).

It’s a fun, easy, fam­ily project that reminds us of the lit­tle (and big) things we are thank­ful for.

Happy Thanks­giv­ing!

1 Comment

Cornucopia of Creativity: Pumpkin Fluff Dessert Dip {Madigan Made}

November 14, 2012 By

Hi Mom Endeav­ors read­ers! My name is Shan­non and I blog over at Madi­gan Made.

Some peo­ple have called me the Clark Kent of craft blog­ging. By day, I work as a phar­ma­cist and by night I cre­ate sim­ple crafts, décor and much more. I love shar­ing easy and cre­ative ideas with my read­ers… includ­ing sim­ple recipes.

I love fall! Thanks­giv­ing is one of my favorite hol­i­days. Today I wanted to share with you one of our family’s favorite desserts for this time of year… pump­kin fluff! This dip would be a nice, light option to include on your dessert table this Thanks­giv­ing. And it goes great with apples, mak­ing it a great fall fruit dip, too!

Sim­ple Pump­kin Fluff

Adapted from this recipe on All­recipes.

Ingre­di­ents:

  • 8 oz. con­tainer frozen whipped topping
  • 1/2 of a can (15 oz.) of  pureed pumpkin
  • 1 tsp. pump­kin pie spice
  • 1 small pack­age (3 oz.) of instant vanilla pudding
  • Gin­ger­snap cook­ies (or gra­ham crackers)
  • Apples, sliced

Direc­tions:

Using an elec­tric blender, blend the first four ingre­di­ents in a large mix­ing bowl.

Then just refrig­er­ate the dip until you are ready to serve. Share the dip with cook­ies and/or apples.

The pump­kin fla­vor in this dessert is light and mel­low. Even if you are not crazy about pump­kin pie… I bet you’ll still enjoy this dip either way.  I love that you can eat it with a cookie or fruit. OR you could just eat with a spoon! (I am soo guilty of that one!)

If you like easy ideas like this recipe, please join me at Madi­gan Made!madigan made: simple diy ideasI’m a big believer that cre­ativ­ity can be THAT sim­ple… let me show you! You can find me over at my blog, Madi­gan Made, and fol­low me on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google+ or Pin­ter­est, too.

Thanks so much, Sara, for invit­ing me to share today!

2 Comments

Copyright info:

I’d love for you to share about ideas from Mom Endeav­ors (and I espe­cially love it when you take the time to let me know you’ve fea­tured me!!)! If you wish to share any posts or pho­tographs from this site on your blog or web­site, you may use one pic­ture with a link to the orig­i­nal post. Please do not repost/duplicate the whole post/tutorial or dis­trib­ute printed con­tent with­out writ­ten per­mis­sion from the orig­i­nal author.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Cre­ative Com­mons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.