Noir Bars

These look so good!

• FOR THE COOKIE BASE:
• ½ cups Butter, Softened
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 whole Egg
• 1-¾ cup Flour
• ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• ¼ cups Semisweet Baking Chocolate, Melted
• _____
• FOR THE CHEESECAKE FILLING:
• 1 stick Butter, Divided
• ¾ cups Dark Baking Chocolate, Cut Into Chunks
• 16 ounces, weight Cream Cheese
• 1-½ cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• _____
• FOR THE GANACHE:
• ½ cups Heavy Whipping Cream
• 2 cups Semisweet Chocolate Chips
• 2 Tablespoons Instant Coffee Or Espresso

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a medium-sized bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Combine the rest of the cookie base ingredients and stir until well-blended. Spread the cookie dough in the bottom of a greased 13×9″ pan and bake 10-12 minutes or until set. Remove from the oven and cool completely (about 30 minutes).

In the meantime, work on the cheesecake filling. Melt 2 Tablespoons of the butter and 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips in a sauce pan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Set aside. Using an electric mixer, cream the remaining 6 Tablespoons of butter with the cream cheese in a large bowl. Beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla, and then beat in the cooled chocolate mix. Spoon the filling over the cooled cookie base. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, approximately 2 hours.

For the ganache, heat the cream, chocolate, and instant coffee over medium heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Cool until lukewarm and then pour over the filling. Refrigerate uncovered until set, about 2 hours. Store covered in the refrigerator.

New Saint Patty's Day food

Something else I must try.

Irish Cream Cupcakes

• FOR THE CUPCAKES:
• 2-½ cups All-purpose Flour
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• ½ teaspoons Cinnamon
• 1-½ cup Granulated Sugar
• 12 Tablespoons Butter, At Room Temperature
• 2 whole Eggs At Room Temperature
• 2 whole Egg Whites, At Room Temperature
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• ½ cups Irish Cream Liqueur
• _____
• FOR THE BUTTERCREAM:
• 1 cup Butter
• 4 cups Powdered Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons Irish Cream Liqueur

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line muffin tins with 24 cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Add eggs and egg whites one at a time, beating on low between each addition. Add vanilla.

Add flour slowly in 3 additions, alternating with Bailey’s, starting and ending with flour.

Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full and bake 15–17 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, beat butter in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, until completely mixed. Add the Bailey’s and beat until well combined.

Poke holes in the tops of the cupcakes and brush some Bailey’s on each before frosting. Load frosting into a piping bag fit with a large tip and decorate as desired.

If you want to frost all 24 cupcakes with as much frosting as I’ve pictured above, you’ll want to double the frosting recipe

Bailey's Irish Cream! Sinful sounding!

Double Fudge Irish Cream Cookies
These just sound so good. Must go buy some Irish Cream.

• 1 cup Butter, Softened
• 1-½ cup Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 8 Tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream Liqueur
• 2-⅔ cups All-purpose Flour
• ½ cups Cocoa Powder
• 1 teaspoon Instant Coffee Powder
• 1-¼ teaspoon Baking Soda
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 1 cup White Chocolate Chips
• ½ cups Milk Chocolate Chips

Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Add in Bailey’s one tablespoon at a time. Add flour, cocoa powder, instant coffee, baking soda and salt and mix until combined.

Fold in chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough for 4–6 hours.

Roll into balls and set on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350ºF for 8–10 minutes.

Bubbos

Nothing makes my girl happier than playing in water and "bubbos"! I think we have a fish on our hands.

Middle of March Already?

Didn't we just have Christmas? Wow, and I haven't posted anything since February.

I haven't had much to post since we haven't done a lot in the last month. I stick pretty close to home and Jason gets out to Cody everyday, with his new job! A huge answer to prayer! He's a Plant Operations Tech for the Cody hospital and he loves it. Something I never thought I would hear uttered from his lips, but it did happen. He has to take my car everyday since his truck may be on the fritz again. My car doesn't do that great on fuel either, so with the skyrocketing gas prices, it could take a chunk every month just to keep him on the road, since he has to drive a 1/2 hr each way. So good-bye self-employment! Yes, when he works, we make more $, but that's only if he works and work has been pretty much non-existant this year. So even if he took a pay cut, we know that there is still money coming in every 2 weeks and any side work is extra money.

That's our biggest news.

In other Pelly news, we have moved K into a toddler bed. I was not ready for this because it was so nice to put her in her crib, give her some books and she would eventually go to sleep.
Not now.
We have been reading to her on the spare bed, and when she falls asleep, we leave her and sleeps all through the night for the most part. In her toddler bed, she doesn't sleep too long and hen I find her at my side of the bed, "Daddy, daddy," I'm not mommy but daddy or da-yie.
So sleeping has been a struggle at our place. She goes to bed, but can't settle down and then doesn't fall asleep until late. Oh, the joys.

She enjoys playing with "wader" any time of the day. I now get more wet giving her bath, than I have before. Splashing and throwing water is a new game. I even got daring and let her play with water and the new word, "babobos or babos" (bubbles) and water doesn't always stay in the sink. We have to change after this treat. I had a book of paint with water from when I was a kid, years ago, that I had. So she has liked doing that, but the water doesn't last long, because she ends up drinking it out of the little cup or dumping it from her chair on the floor.

Spring has shown her pretty face lately and all the snow around here is pretty much gone. Yesterday was so beautiful after church that we hauled out the slide from our pastor, which we've been sliding on inside, outside and played in the sunshine with a neighbor girl. Echo walked by with her grandpa and told me she was so bored, so I invited her to play with Katelyn outside, which kept both of them occupied all afternoon. Echo is 6, so there is an age difference but that doesn't stop her from playing with Katelyn. I was able to pull out the lawn chair, throw off the socks and shoes and read a couple of pages in between talking to the neighbors we haven't seen all winter. Everyone here is getting cabin fever and it's time for some warmer weather.

So now you're caught up with the goings on around here. Hope you have a great rest of March if I don't write before then.

New Creations

Not new, just new and fun fabrics.

Something girly


This goes along with the cowboy cover I did.


These went to a friend who just had a little girl last week. My Cricut helped out on the card.