I love tiramisu. It’s delicious. It just tastes fancy. There’s something about that blend of coffee and cream and everything delicious that makes my mouth water.
But it’s also kind of a pain in the butt to make. All of those layers! Don’t worry, though– you can totally serve the best tiramisu ever, without really serving tiramisu. With this easy tiramisu dip, you’ll give your guests (or yourself!) all of the flavor without any of the work that actual tiramisu requires.
Is anything better than a hot peppermint mocha at your favorite coffeeshop? Well, one thing I think is better is a hot peppermint mocha at home, especially one that takes almost no effort to make.
Note: This is a republication of a post that I shared in March. With the Thanksgiving season upon us, I thought a few of you might want to see it again. Happy Thanksgiving!
Bacon? Check. Cheese? Check. Tons of flavor? Absolutely. See, these are the easiest potatoes I think I’ve ever made, and they’re a hit with everyone. I mean, who doesn’t love cheesy potatoes with bacon?
One of the many recipes that came from the family recipe box, this handwritten recipe with an unknown source simply stated “They’re named for the famous river because they’re LONG on taste and MIGHTY good!” Well, they didn’t disappoint, anyway! Cheesy potatoes get a big punch with this recipe because of the added bacon, the creaminess, and the green onions.
Start with some ingredients you may already have– 8 to 10 cups of potatoes, diced, 1 cup of Mayonnaise (the real deal, not salad dressing), about a teaspoon each of salt and pepper, a 16 ounce block of cheddar, diced (or the equivalent in shredded cheddar), 1/2 a cup of green onions, chopped, and a package of bacon. You can add half a cup of olives if you’d like to, but why ruin perfectly good potatoes? (Unless you’re an olive fan, in which case, you probably don’t see that as ruining them).
Start by slicing your bacon into pieces. Don’t look at me with that shocked face that I get every time someone sees me do this… you can TOTALLY bacon your bits instead of bitting your bacon. This method gets a lot less grease on your hands because there’s no tearing it up post-fry… if you do the cutting first, your bacon will be in perfect bite sized bits when you’re done. I promise. Just trust me– cutting bacon is NOT bacon blasphemy, no matter what anyone tells you.
Put that in a pan and cook it, trying not to eat too much bacon as the smell fills the air. Seriously, bacon is so hard to resist. That’s why there is bacon everything. While the bacon cooks, start peeling and dicing your potatoes, dicing your cheese, and chopping your green onions.
Delicious! Finish getting your other ingredients chopped and ready.
In a 9×13 pan or a 3 quart casserole dish, mix the green onions, cheese, bacon, and potatoes. If you’re adding olives, now is the time to do that, too.
Toss the ingredients with mayonnaise, coating well. Bake for an hour and a half, or until the potatoes are tender, in a 325 degree oven.
Enjoy that bubbly, bacon-y, cheesy potato side dish. You could even add in some hamburger meat or chicken and make it a main dish, if you wanted to.
If you love the combo of cheese and potatoes, you will want to check out the cheesy potatoes in this Hearty Cheeseburger Soup!
Did you originally see this post on Pinterest with this image? Trust us, it’s still the same recipe! DigitalEraMom.com is now MamaPlusOne.com, and has a whole new look. As we update our whole new look, we’re working hard to update our photos, also. Don’t forget to take time to poke around our site and see what else is new– we think you’ll like what you see!
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It’s been a few years since I made my very first homemade chicken pot pie. I had been tackling pie crust using my great-grandmother’s no-fail pie crust recipe, and wanted to branch out from apple and peach. My first few attempts came out pretty similarly to store-bought, but then I noticed a crazy trend. I’d make the chicken pot pie, everyone would rave about it, and then there’d be a smattering of peas, green beans, and lima beans on everyone’s plate at the end… I needed an alternate plan to make sure half of our filling wasn’t going uneaten, which meant asking my family about the produce they preferred… and that’s how my chicken potato pot pie was born!
Do you remember last week when I shared with you secrets from the world of cupcake bakeries? Well, this week I’m back… spilling secrets wasn’t quite enough. How could I share so much about cupcakes and not tell you how to make them?! Now, I’m giving you the best when it comes to cupcake recipes and frosting recipes, because you cannot miss this.
Last week, I told you that most of the time, the secret to cupcake shops making a ton of different kinds of cupcakes easily is that they only really make 2-3 flavors of cupcakes and vary the frosting recipe on each one to make awesome varieties for their store. The best starting place is to have one really solid chocolate cake recipe, and a really solid vanilla recipe. To me, there’s really only one option when it comes to a great chocolate cake or vanilla cake recipe, and that’s what’s called a “White Almond Sour Cream Cake.” If you love wedding cake, this is the cupcake recipe to go with.
If you make it according to the directions I’ve listed, and use an ice cream scoop to measure it out, you’ll get roughly 40 cupcakes, and trust me, they’ll be so good your friends and family will be begging for more.
I have to say, I’m a Kansas City girl at heart. So if there’s one thing that gets my heart beating a little bit faster, it’s good quality barbecue. You see, barbecue is such a part of my city that our soccer team even has a chant that revolves around barbecue. It’s a staple here in KC. You know what else is a staple? Louisburg Apple Cider. Ask anyone who knows what they’re talking about, and they’ll say that, when it comes time for cooler weather, you can’t beat hot apple cider doughnuts and a cup of warm Louisburg apple cider. I had to combine the best of both worlds and create a delicious applewood-style slow cooked pulled pork. And what does that need? Apple Cider Barbecue Sauce.
Not too long ago, a rule was made that my brother had to pitch in with dinner sometimes. Now, my brother is a pretty good cook, but like all of us, he likes easy, and a lot of times, he sticks to the tried-and-true. So much so that we quickly realized that any nights where it was Jeffrey’s turn to cook, we either got waffles, or we got hobo packs. I started watching him making the hobo packs (as we affectionately call them, but apparently foil packet meal or foil packet dinner also works), and realized why he loved making them so much. They were easy. They were delicious. And most of all, they were versatile. With a family full of picky people, versatile is important.
Summer… it’s the perfect time for campfires, grilling, and all things… well, summery. Growing up, we had these great summer dinners that were easy, no-mess, and delicious. The best part, of course, being that they were no-mess. Who really likes cleaning up after dinner when they could be enjoying an evening swim or lounging outside by a fire pit? I love foil dinners. They’re so versatile, whether you’re making them in the oven or on the grill, or even on that campfire. But I needed a new foil packet dinner to add into my repertoire, particularly one that had a few of my favorite things… like chicken, bacon, and mushrooms.
Pizza Lunchables were arguably the coolest Lunchable when I was growing up. Anytime we’d have a field trip and I got to pick out a Lunchable, I always went straight for the pepperoni pizza variety. I mean, what wasn’t to love about that crust, and being able to top your own yummy pizza on a field trip? It was just so fun as a kid!
So when I was thinking of great options for lunches this summer, I knew pizza Lunchables would rank really high on my list… but then I really knew that I wanted to put a little more effort into a homemade meal. I just knew that there was no way I had the energy to make lunch and dinner every day from scratch. So, I started toying around with pizza crusts that could be made in advance and then frozen or refrigerated until I needed it.
After trial and error, I finally ended up with a pizza crust that tasted just as good pre-cooked and frozen/refrigerated as it did when it was made into a pizza right away.
Springtime. Seriously, is there anything better?
Today, I was telling a friend how a song I can’t get enough of right now (Gone Gone Gone by Phillip Phillips if you’re curious) makes me feel like it’s 75 degrees out, and like I’m driving with the windows down, hair blowing in my face, sipping an iced coffee and wearing sandals. Even though it’s still officially long-sleeves and heater on weather, I feel spring when I hear that song.
You know what else gives me that feeling? Lemon cake pops. Oh my gosh. It doesn’t matter what diet plan I’m following, Lemon Cake Pops from Starbucks are one thing I just can’t say no to. Which means every time I head to Target or my local grocery store, I end up buying a Lemon Cake Pop. See, the thing about lemon is, it truly gives me that “Windows-down, Radio-up” feeling that I love.
But I knew there had to be a way to capture that feeling at home, so I wouldn’t have to drive up to Starbucks to get one. I mean, I’m lazy, and 15 minutes is a long drive. Plus, there had to be a way to make them cheaper!
Seriously, if you’re looking for an exact duplicate, these are spot on. In fact, they may actually be even better than the real deal. So what is a lemon cake pop? Well, according to the Big Bucks themselves, it’s a vanilla white cake with lemon buttercream, dipped in white chocolate and topped with sugar sprinkles. So, to make a good duplicate, mine should be the same basic type of pop.
For the white cake base, I went with a Betty Crocker White Cake Mix, and the supplies listed on the back of the box. While yes, you could go totally homemade with a white cake, boxed cake is perfect for this recipe. It’s moist, it’s quick to prepare, and it just streamlines the process.
For the lemon buttercream, I decided to tweak things and make my favorite lemon cream cheese buttercream recipe, which uses cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and lemon and vanilla extracts.
To give the pops that signature yellow color white chocolate, instead of tinting a white chocolate, I decided to use these beautiful yellow Wilton Candy Melts! They’re the perfect color for these lemon cake pops, and they don’t require having the white chocolate and a gel color on hand.
Finish with pretty sugar sprinkles (I picked these up for $1 at Target) and you’ll be all set. If you’re making them into actual pops, you’ll want to make sure you have cake pop sticks on hand. If you’re like me and prefer to make balls, you might consider some pretty mini cupcake liners or truffle wrappers. Mine are from Wilton, and oh-so-cute!
Start by making your white cake according to package directions (or from scratch if that’s how you roll). For Betty Crocker mixes, that means 3 egg whites, 1 1/4 C water, and 1/3 C oil with the mix, baked at 350 for 29-34 minutes.
One way that white cakes get their signature white appearance is the lack of egg yolk in the batter. Yolks will tinge it slightly yellow, so pretty much all white cake mixes will use more eggs, but only the whites of each.
Once you’ve baked your cake, let it cool completely. If it’s even a little warm, the frosting will melt when mixed with it and give you mush. So patience is a virtue!
In the meantime, start your lemon cream cheese buttercream. You’ll want 1 block of room-temperature cream cheese (8 oz), 2 sticks of butter (1 cup), 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla, and 2 teaspoons of lemon extract. While lemon is a personal taste and you might like yours slightly more or less lemony, I’ve found that, side-by-side, 2 teaspoons tastes most comparable to the real deal when the pops are fully finished. Remember, you won’t want the lemon to overpower the vanilla of the white cake, but you will also want to make sure that the white cake doesn’t overpower the lemon. A delicate balance, for sure!
Cream this together until it’s nice and fluffy, very well whipped.
Slowly beat in 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, whipping it with a mixer until it’s perfectly creamy. This is about the look you’re going for.
When the cake is fully cooled, crumble it to bits. I mean just destroy it. Then, add in a couple of spoonfuls of the frosting. Stir and smush until it’s fully combined, then continue squishing until it combines into a thick dough, adding slightly more frosting if needed.
{Side note: You will have some leftover frosting, which you can use with additional baked cakes for more cake pops, eat it as-is, or top some cupcakes or a cake with it. Personally, I like layering crumbling graham cracker crumbs in the bottom, then cake and frosting in mini cordial glasses and serving them with a mini tasting fork for a “cake shot.” It’s a great way to use a variety of leftover frosting!)
When the dough is ready, chill it for about 15-30 minutes before rolling it into balls, then once you’ve rolled all of the dough into quarter-sized balls, go ahead and pop those in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
Melt your yellow Wilton Candy Melts. I like to use a double boiler, but you can absolutely melt the candy melts in the microwave if you’d prefer.
Dip your chilled cake balls in the melted white chocolate, coating it, then removing it. If you’re making cake pops, your technique will be slightly different from mine using a fork. Place the dipped balls on parchment or waxed paper, then sprinkle with the sprinkles before the chocolate hardens.
Don’t worry, though– if the chocolate does harden, you can use drip some more chocolate on the cake ball and sprinkle after.
For a fun party display, you can put a block of foam in the base of a watering can (I got mine for $3 at Target’s One Spot), cover it in Easter grass or shredded paper, and either stick your cake pops directly into the foam, or stack your cake balls carefully. Wouldn’t that look fun as a dessert buffet centerpiece or as a delicious gift?
In the comments below, tell me, what makes you have that springtime feeling, even when it’s not spring yet?