I can’t believe Easter is just around the corner and here in Texas, that means HOT weather is on the way.  We’ve already had some warm days so I’ve been on the prowl for easy, cool desserts.  I’m sure this Strawberry Mousse is something several of you already know about, but I’ll admit, it’s new to me.  I was planning on making chocolate mousse using Philadelphia Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese but couldn’t find it in my small town, so I settled for Philadelphia Strawberry Cream Cheese.  I’m glad I did, it was a big hit here on the ranch!

This is another one of the easiest recipes ever.  I beginning to wonder if I’m smart or lazy ’cause if any recipe requires too much work, I’m outta there!  Anyways, everyone in my house loved it and we had ages of 18 to 5.  Two thumbs up from the Falcon household!  I’m even thinking about taking this is a snack for the kiddos in Truett’s class.  Enjoy y’all!

These are your ingredients….super easy y’all!

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Easter is just around the corner and I’ve been on the prowl for some Easter goodies to make for Truett’s class.  I’ve seen these ‘Easter Carrots‘ before but most of them were filled with candy; reese’s pieces, orange jelly beans, orange m&ms, etc.  Because there is a little girl in Truett’s class that’s allergic to red dye (and yes, orange stuff does have red dye in it), I chose to use Goldfish Crackers.   They’ll need something ‘bready’ to soak up sugar from all that Easter candy anyways!

These Easter carrots are one of the easiest crafts to make and will make your little bunny grin from ear to ear.  Truett helped me by cutting ribbon so let your kiddos help if possible. It just makes the experience that much more fun!  You can find Easter crafts & recipes at Walmart (which is where I bought mine) and be sure to check back soon. I’ll be posting a couple of other easy goodies that anyone can make!

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Since St. Patrick’s Day is coming around quickly, we’ve been making all sorts recipes; everything from pot of gold treats to shamrock pie.  Since the weather is warming up here in Texas, we wanted to cool things down a bit and decided to make this super easy Lime Sherbert Cooler.  It’s the easiest thing to make and kids love it! Truett helped with the scoops, I poured the drink, and we topped off with Reddi-whip!

Enjoy y’all!

P.S. I was told that I spelled Sherbert wrong, that it should be Sherbet. LOL  Well, I decided to google it and we both are right, although I Sherbet is the most common used.  Oh well….

sher·bet  (shûrbt)n.

also sher·bert (-bûrt) A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin.

You may also know this shamrock pie as a grasshopper pie but I like shamrock better. The thought of a ‘grasshopper’ pie just doesn’t sound to appealing you know?  Anyways, some folks use pudding but I chose ice cream!  It’s the easiest recipe ever and looks pretty, leaving your mouth minty fresh!   Nothing like St. Patrick’s Day  to make anyone feel a wee bit Irish eh? Shall we get on with it?

If you’re looking for something for the wee ones, check out these Pot of Gold treats!

Whenever I make desserts, Truett always asks me to make him something special and I really never do.  I thought I’d make him his own St. Patrick’s Day special treat; a Pot of Gold.  Now I realize this looks like a lot of work but it wasn’t bad at all.  And in the end, it made me feel a wee bit good to see Truett get so excited over it.

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

You could easily make these Valentine popcorn bag treats for any occasion but I needed a quick fix for my son’s Valentine’s Day party.   I could make a number of things but since one of the little girls in his class is allergic to red dye, I decided to go with a general treat, placed in a themed bag.  This is super easy, fast, budget friendly, and goes great with all the other fun treats & gifts that me and my Mom bought for Truett’s class.  I have to give a HUGE thank you to my Mom for buying all the fantastic, fun little mailboxes and all the goodies inside!! She really went out of her way to make sure Truett and his friends enjoyed Valentine’s Day.  Thank you Mom, I LOVE YOU!

You simply melt almond bark, drizzle over plain popped popcorn, let them set, and fill the goodie bags!  That’s it!

I used the stripe bags for the boys and hearts for the girls.  I put these bags, their mailboxes with goodies, pencils, and a few other treats inside a twist tie bag (I used great value), then cut pieces of Valentine themes ribbon (that my Mom bought), and tied the bags closed.

TOO STINKIN’ CUTE!

WHAT KIND OF QUICK FIX TREATS DO YOU MAKE FOR VALENTINE’S DAY?

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Well, these Halloween Black Cat Cookies are FAR from perfect but they were definitely a LOT of fun to make!   They are a little time consuming but it’s something that you should plan to spend an entire morning or day doing.  And I recommend that you make a plan, read all the directions first, and lay out all the tips, bags, colors (supplies) you’ll need.  You can all the hot seasonal Wilton items at Walmart and back in the arts & craft section, they have all the Wilton icings and tools.

When buying Wilton products, there are always instructions and tips on the back of the product.  Read them twice.

I bought my sugar cookie dough this round because the week has been hectic but you can make your own dough, which I recommend.  I rolled it out and cut out the cats.

Because these were going to be black cats with orange outline, I made my orange icing first.  I outlined each cat, using orange buttercream icing.  I’m not actually even sure if using regular buttercream was the correct icing to use to be honest but that’s what I did.

(Also, I apologize for the HORRIBLE photos. My camera is in my car and my son took it today so I was stuck with a really crappy one!)

Royal icing is fun.  It’s liquid like and falls into place for the most part.  I’ll include the recipe for that below.  Obviously I used Wilton’s Black dye for the icing.   It’s as simple as confectioners sugar, meringue powder, and water.

I dyed it, thinned it, and poured into a bag.  I snipped the end and let it flow out.  This can be messy so be careful.  My biggest tip for you is to start with a little amount in the middle and spread out using a toothpick, otherwise, you chance it spilling over. I know this ’cause I did this.

After that, I let dry and then I ‘decorated’ the cat by putting eyes and mouth.  I used white icing for eyes, tiny amount of the black royal black icing for center of eyes, and the orange buttercream for the mouth.    It ain’t pretty but I think I did alright and I know Truett will think they are super cool!!!

While I had hoped they’d look a little spookier, they’ll do.  They actually look pretty happy. LOL  I placed in a Wilton treat box and completed the Halloween Black Cat Cookies! If you want more Halloween treat ideas, check out some of my other posts.

ROYAL ICING (from Wilton)

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Oh man, making a car themed cake was more of a task than I thought but I have narrowed my issues down to a couple of things that I’ll get to a little later.  Truett turned 5 years old today and all I could think about was when my two oldest were that age…and how grown they are now.  That means time will fly by again and Truett will be a Senior in no time.

Anyhoo, I decided to make Truett a car themed cake.  And that was issue number 1.  I really didn’t plan ahead.  I was like, “ooohh, it will be fun to make Truett some kind of car cake”….the night before his birthday party.  I know, I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants gal huh.  I quickly knew I couldn’t make a real car cake because I didn’t have the pan and I sure ain’t talented enough to carve one out of layers of cake.  I had seen a track done before using a number 5 so I went that route. I found my big Wilton cake pan and used it,  12x18x2 I believe.  I gathered all the supplies and began. You can find most of these supplies at Walmart in their Wilton section!

(You can click on the photos to make them bigger if you like)

SUPPLIES

• Wilton’s Cake Pan, measuring 12 x 18 x 2
• Wilton’s Grass Tip #233 with icing bag
• Wilton’s Ready-Made Fondant and/or make your own (marshmallows and powdered sugar)
• Wilton’s Icing Colors
• Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Decorator Icing (the big bucket did all the grass and iced the whole cake)
• 3 cake mixes
• and I forget to add things here, I’ll list them throughout the post!

First, I used the pan insert to make a ’5′ template since it was the exact size of the pan obviously, then cut it out.  I laid it on the cake to make sure it looked good.  I mixed all three cake mixes just like the directions said and baked the cake.  One cake mix equals about 4-6 cups of batter.  This pan uses 14 cups of batter which is how I got the 3.

I cooled the cake, iced it with the decorator icing, and put it in the fridge overnight.

It was now time to make the fondant for the track.  Oy.  The last two times I was suppposed to attend Wilton events, I had other personal things going on so I missed out on the fondant learning experience.   Since I know my good friend Cat is awesome at making anything, I seeked out her video on how to make marshmallow fondant.

I greased up my bowl, surface, and spatula.  I melted my marshmallows (160z bag) and put in my icing color, which is issue #2 came into effect.  I had no idea how hard it would be to make black colored fondant.  GRRRRRR!  I didn’t want to add too much because I didn’t want a bitter taste.  Had I planned ahead, I could have searched for this and the best way to get it black but since I didn’t, I went with the flow. I added some black, brown, and a tiny bit of royal blue.  The longer it set, the more dark grey (pavement like) color it got.

I kneaded it and rolled it out.  I laid my template on it and cut the 5 out.

To get the 5 on the cake without it tearing, I gently folded it in half, picked it up, and placed it on the cake.

I used the yellow ready-to-use fondant for the road.  I just rolled it out and used a pizza cutter to make the strips, placing them down the road.

Now, had I been able to make a true black, I would have done the sides with a black and white checkboard effect but since I couldn’t, I decided to do it all in green grass.  Simple fix yes?  I did this pretty sloppy I reckon but I was ready to be done.  I colored what icing I had left in my bucket with Wilton’s Kelly Green Icing Color.  It darkened over time as well.  I placed it in my bag and used tip #233.

I was able to do 3 sides of the cake with green grass before running out of icing so I just hid the other side!! LOL  And this is the final product!  I placed 5 cars along the road with a candle on each car.  I used Cat’s other tip about melting the bottom of the candle just enough for it to stick to the car.  This was a great tip since it doesn’t hurt the car at all!   We lit the candles and made a wish!!

It’s not perfect but like my facebook friend Kassie said, “anything made with Love is perfect”…….

Thank you Wilton for teaching me all that I do know because while this and I’m sure any cakes I do are a challenge, it’s fun to see the end result and make something for my kids, from my heart.

When trying to figure out what food gifts to give this year, I thought I’d make something I usually don’t, which is homemade fudge.  I’ve heard horror stories when it comes to fudge so I can see how it can be quite intimidating for some, much like pecan pies tend to do but my recipe is pretty simple and what I feel like, is some of the best fudge ever.

My homemade fudge recipe isn’t a family recipe but it may as well be because it came from a jar of Kraft Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme jar.  Just like many food brands, Kraft has been around for years so you can imagine all the recipes from their boxes or jars, have become a family recipe, perhaps even a secret family recipe.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk
• 1 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 7 oz. Kraft Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme jar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I used pecans that my FIL picked and shelled for me instead of walnuts)

DIRECTIONS

Try to have everything ready ahead of time.  It will make things a lot easier.  Chop the nuts and have the marshmallow cream out of the jar and in a bowl. In fact, I recommend you spray your spatula and bowl with Pam Cooking Spray before doing this because that creme is very sticky!  Line a 13″x9″x2″ baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick spray.

In a 3-quart saucepan, bring sugar, butter, and milk to a boil on medium heat, stirring constantly once the mixture begins to bubble. Once the mixture reaches a boil,  you’ll want to remove the mixture from the heat once it reaches 234°F on a candy thermometer.  I just used a digital thermometer that I had but if you don’t have one, just remember it will take about 4 minutes to reach that temperature.

Remove from heat. Very quickly stir in chocolate and marshmallow cream. When those have melted,, stir in the vanilla and then the walnuts.  Pour into your pan lined with foil.  Cool to room temperature before slicing, at least 4 hrs or so.

Makes about 3 pounds of fudge.

You MUST let someone lick the spatula of course! Truett enjoyed this part of the process a great deal. Who wouldn’t right?

Once done, I placed some pieces of fudge in a Christmas bowl and put a whole bunch of fudge in these fun gift boxes from Wilton.  I really really like the gift boxes and bags. It made the whole food gift giving process easy for me and looked fabulous!

I don’t normally like Pecan Pies because they are too sweet but I find that ones not made with additional sugar, are easier for me to eat. My Grandma made fantastic pecan pies. She never burned the edges and the insides were always settled well.

This pecan pie recipe makes 3 pecan pies. I don’t know about you but I always have to make more than one; two for the event and one to keep home or giveaway.

INGREDIENTS

• 16 oz. pecans (Fisher or your own. I used the ones my FIL shelled for me.)
• 2 sticks margarine (Bluebonnet)
• 16 oz. package light brown sugar (I use Great Value from Walmart)
• 1 heaping tablespoon self-rising flour
• 16 oz. bottle light corn syrup (Karo- Great recipes there!)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 6 eggs (Eggland’s Best)
• 3 regular size (not deep dish-if you do use deep dish, will only make 2) frozen pie crusts

DIRECTIONS

Melt margarine in the microwave for about 2 minutes or until melted and set aside. Place brown sugar in a large bowl. Work out any lumps. Add a heaping tablespoon of self-rising flour and stir until the flour disappears into the brown sugar. Add a bottle of light corn syrup. Then add vanilla and stir until thoroughly combined. Add melted margarine. Fold carefully into the mixture. Fold until the margarine is thoroughly worked in and disappears.
In a separate bowl, crack open six eggs and loosely beat the eggs with your spoon. Fold the eggs into the pie mixture until they disappear. Add pecans and stir until completely coated. Pour the mixture evenly into the three pie shells. If you have any left and have extra pie crust, you could pour into a mini pie pan. Make sure there is the same amount in each pie. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 350. Cook pies until they swell and then fall. When they fall, they are done. Remove and cool for about three hours. Store on the counter or in the refrigerator.

Do you have a family pecan pie recipe?