Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies

Peppermint is one of my favorite things and pair it with chocolate and I am all over it! I made this Chocolate Peppermint Chip cookies for my little Monkey's Cubbies class. I baked up a half a recipe of these guys and a recipe of these cuties, packaged them up in cute little bags that I stamped with a snowman and sealed with red washi tape and sent them to church with him. I hope the kids like them as much as we do. I can't keep my husband out of them. As I type this I have butter softening for a second batch. I may buy multiple bags of the Peppermint Chips to keep around the house so I can have Christmas in July with the babies.

 I scooped the remainder of the recipe into balls tossed them onto a cookie sheet and stuck them into the freezer just to firm up, then I moved them to a freezer bag so that I could pull them out of Christmas Eve and bake them up for family and possibly leave some for the big man in red, if they last that long, I can make no promises. ;-)

Chocolate Peppermint Chip Cookies
yields approximately 3 dozen if using a small cookie scoop
1 1/4 cups butter softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp peppermint extra
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
 3/4 cup peppermint chips

Place butter and sugar into the bowl for your stand mixer and beat on medium speed around 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Stop and scrap down the sides, add in the eggs and vanilla and beat another minutes longer. In a separate bowl combine flour, soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients and mix on medium until the dough comes together and flour is no longer visible. Stir in the chips. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F and top baking sheet with parchment paper and scoop cookies on keeping 2 inches apart. Bake 8-9 minutes, until edges have set. Allow to cool for around 5 minutes on cookie sheet before moving them to a cooling rack. Allow them to cool completely before putting hem in an airtight container. Cookies will keep for about a week, as long as they are kept in an airtight container.

Mickey Party Part 3: Recipes and other fun

These are some of the recipes we used. I don't have links to all of the yet, but I will get them and update the post as soon as I do. We simplified this year by only having desserts on the menu. All of these recipes are really easy and most can be made in advance. You can freeze cakes and frosting, jello will keep for day before hand and cookie dough can be frozen as well.  

My boys love cupcakes, then again, what kid doesn't?As I mentioned before I wanted to simplify and I knew most of the kids wouldn't be able to tell the difference between cakes made from scratch and boxed mix so my Mother in Law made the cupcakes with a strawberry cake mix and I topped them with this Swiss Meringue Buttercream that I had frozen left from Liam's birthday dinner, I added a teaspoon for strawberry extracts and red food coloring and topped them with red sugar.

Once again, we had jello. We've had it in some form at Caleb's 2nd and 3rd birthday parties also. We used Food Librarian's Finger Jello Recipe (again) except we used Pineapple Jello and Strawberry Jello to make it in our color palette. 

If you know Caleb you know that boy LOVES doughnuts so we made Fudge Doughnuts (recipe to follow in a separate post) and Cherry Lemonade Doughnuts. I made a double batch the the recipe and baked it in a full size doughnut pan for about 8 minutes. I made the glaze thinner as well but that is just my preference. These doughnut are delicious and I high recommend them! 

Caleb asked for an orange cake and I don't have the exact recipe to share since my Mom made it out of a few different recipes but it was a white cake with orange zest and orange extract with orange curd between the layer and a basic buttercream scented with orange zest and orange extract. It would be an easy thing to replicate with your favorite cake recipes and you could use this lemon curd and swap lemon juice and extract for orange.  

My Mom made these cookies. I know they were a cream cheese sugar cookie and they were delicious! But, I don't know what recipe she used on these either but when I find out I'll update and post it. We got the cookie cutter from The Disney Store. 

The punches were a Berry Lemonade and a Pina Colada Punch that was similar to this. The lemonade was a mix (simply because of sheer volume needed) with frozen berries stirred in that flavored it as they thawed.

Well, that is it for the food. This year was pretty simple. Of course most of the fun came in the form of the bouncy house. We love having it and so do the boys. We also love that my in laws do that for the boys as their birthday gift too. We may need to start looking into investing in one since we would be a third of the through paying for one by now. :) I believe the conclusion is that we need a slide next year though and as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree. Although that injured back of mine did not love me after I got out of that thing, it was worth it to play with my boys. 

 It's hardly noticeable but I used my other Ikea end table by the bouncy house as a place to for people to leave their jewelry, glasses, drinks, etc and to store shoes underneath. I also placed another sigh that said Liam's and Caleb's Playhouse. I'll be making blank or generic forms of those signs and posting as PDFs soon. Then I will be done posting about the party, finally. :)

***UPDATE: for more info on the party look here, here and here. 

Family Cookout

Well... Ok the title is a bit misleading. We did cookout on the grill that morning but about an hour before there was a huge downpour so we set up inside but luckily it stopped and we could eat out side and the kids could play in the pool. But it was still a bummer because we had a lovely table planned out and anddddd all of decorations clashed with my Mom's hideous wallpaper. (no that is not an insult to her it came with the house she just hasn't gotten it covered up yet) Thenn I went to print out my neon menus and they printed some wacky colors no where near what I designed but they still worked out. It's all good we still had amazing food and so much fun... Until my Granny had to go to the emergency room at the end but that's another story and no worries she is fine. She just gave us a bit of a scare.

You can see more shots on my Instagram feed, 

How about roasted veggie kabobs? Yum!

And I didn't take a good shot but COCONUT RICE y'all!!! 

So goood!

We had several homemade salsas for the chicken, pork tenderloin and sausages.

Pineapple Mango

Creamy Tomatillo

Spicy Red (Restaurant Style Salsa)

and 

Lemon

The "drink bar" had Sweet Tea

with Blackberry Syrup,

Peach Mint Syrup

and

Lemon and Lavendar Syrup

 and

Watermelon Coconut Cooler

For dessert we made S'mores.

We set up a S'mores Bar that had so many options and was a hit with the kids and adults. 

Cookie options were:

Graham Crackers

Chocolate Chip (crispy and soft)

Pecan Sandies

and Butter Cake

Marshmallow options were:

Extra Large Plain

Strawberry

Keylime

Chocolate and Other Goodies options were:

Milk Chocolate

Dark Chocolate

White Chocolate

Mini Candy Bars

Lemon Curd

Toasted Coconut

Strawberries

(We were supposed to have a caramel sauce too but I forgot to get it out, oooppsss. Just pretend its there on the otherside of the lemon curd, okay? Thanks.)

We made a list of suggestions but some of the best ones were one of a kind creations!

My little monkey had Chocolate Chip cookie with milk chocolate, a strawberry marshmallow and fresh strawberries.

This one is chocolate chip cookies (soft batch) a plain marshmallow, a mini 3 Musketeers and toasted coconut.

The one on the right was the same as Caleb's first one but minus the strawberries.

On the left was butter cake, a huge marshmallow, Lemon curd and toasted coconut. No chocolate at all.

It was my favorite!

 My cousin, Keith, created this, it was an open face s'more with butter cake on the bottom, a lime marshmallow, lemon curd and toasted coconut. He may have also added a piece of pork tenderloin to it. Not for everybody but that sounds pretty good to me.

My Momma about to try to stuff all of that in her mouth. Her's was butter cake, plain marshmallow, lemon curd, coconut and strawberries.

I'm pretty sure the cake, lemon curd, coconut, strawberries and lime marshmallows were the surprise favorites among the options. I really think we may have to recreate this idea, sooner than later!

Robot Birthday Party Part 3... The FOOD

The recipes I used for the party are...

Cosmic Cookies via Bakerella. 

I ♥ her so much!!! They were very butterscotchy! I loved them that way though. A few people thought we should cut back on the butterscotch chips next time. But honestly I loved them that way so I will probably leave them just the way they are.

Gear Gumdrops also from Bakerella. 

Told you I love her. These are a lot  of work but very much worth it. The orange were root beer flavored and the blue were bubblegum flavored. I did two recipes and wound up with left overs. Next time I think I will do a fruit flavor and cut down to one recipe. Maybe next time I will remember to put out the treat bags so guest can take them home too.

Gadget Gellies from Food Librarian. 

I used berry blue and orange flavors. I now have a major obsession with gelatin related recipes. I bought the tiny spoons from Bake It Pretty but now they have these spoons that I think I like better. They have everything you need and more! I bought the shot glasses from Oriental Trading.

Mechanical Marshmallows

These are pretty self explanatory. Just put lollipop stick in marshmallows then dip in melted chocolate and shake on the sprinkles let set until chocolate hardens. Easy!

Contraption Cupcakes

(mango lemonade cupcakes)

I'm not going to give you the recipe I used for the cupcakes. It was a new recipe and it was dry and had a weird texture. So I recommend using this cake just add lemon zest and reduce the milk but the amount of lemon juice you add. I would add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and zest of at least 3 lemons.

For the butter cream we still haven't perefected that either. It had an amzing flavor but the textuer was odd. We used...

2-3 cup powered sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 cup fresh mango puree

but next time I think we will strain the puree and maybe cook it down until it has thickened and let it cool. Then add it to a cream cheese frosting. Maybe! Who know what I will do.

Bionic Brownies

1 cup butter
2 cups cugar
1/2 cup cocoa
4 eggs beaten
2/3 cup AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup nut optional

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease 13x9 pan. Melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Add sugar and cocoa; stir to blend. Remove from heat, stir in eggs. Stir together flour, salt and baking soda; stir into chocolate mixture. Stir in vanilla, chocolate and nuts. Bake 30-35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from pan.

Birthday Bot Cake

(chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling)
For the cake we used Hershey's Black Magic Cake. It is our most used chocolate cake.
 For the filling...
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package of chocolate  cream sandwich cookies
Cook flour and milk together in small saucepan until thick and bubbly. Cool. In separate bowl cream shortening and butter. Beat in sugar. Beat in flour mixture and vanilla. Stir in cookies.   
 The filling for this cake can be used to make a wonderful chocolate filling, an amazing mint, coffee, caramel or peanut butter filling. Just omit cookies and add flavoring of choice.