Cracker Candy

So I was fumbling through the internet. Mindlessly wondering from site to site looking for nothing in particular when I stumbled across a recipe for cracker candy. Now, I had seen this recipe made before and given out at cookie exchanges. I loved it then and thought, hot damn!! I found the recipe! Plus this one had chocolate added to it. How can you go wrong with chocolate on anything?!?! Well...unfortunately my husband didn't like the chocolate idea and wanted me to make him some with just the basic recipe, so that's what I did. Then I made my version with chocolate, and it was soooo yummy y'all! So here is an easy recipe for cracker candy, crack candy, toffee cracker candy, it has a dozen different names but you'll be calling it one simple thing......"good".

What you're gonna need:

Preheat oven to 350*

2 sticks of butter (not margarine, margarine will not taste the same)

1/4 cup white sugar

saltine crackers 35 to 40 (you can use butter crackers as well)

12 oz bag of semi sweet chocolate chips (optional)

First, you will need to arrange your crackers so that they cover the bottom of a baking sheet. You will want to spray your baking sheet with cooking spray, just so the final product doesn't stick.

Add your two sticks of butter and sugar to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Trust me, stir constantly or you'll have a burnt mess! The mixture will thicken as it cooks.

Once you've got your mixture boiling, remove from the heat and and pour over your crackers. The mixture will not completely cover all of the crackers, so you will have to use a brush or spoon to spread it around.

Now that you have your crackers completely covered, its time to put them in your preheated 350* oven for 5 minutes or until they are just turning a golden brown color. You don't want them to be too brown, so keep an eye on them.

As you can see in my last picture, they got a little brown. Someone, who shall remain nameless....LILY, distracted me. This is where, if you'd like, you can add the chocolate chips (When you take the crackers out of the oven, simply pour the bag of chocolate chips over the crackers. They will melt from the heat and you will be able to spread them.) Once they have cooled you can break them up and enjoy!

                                 
                                                 Chocolate          Hubbies Naked Version
                                                                 (I know! He's weird....but, I love him)

Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin! Everybody loves it...well...maybe not everybody, but most of us. I've been trying out some new recipes that include this yummy fruit. Yes, Pumpkin is a fruit.....I googled it. I usually like to use from scratch ingredients, but this time I cheated. Hey, I'm a mama with two rambunctious kids, I needed something fast. Lily and I made these muffins this morning. They're easy, with only 4 ingredients!

Whatcha need:

Preheat your oven to 350*
Muffin tin (I used one that holds 12)

1 can of pumpkin puree
1 box of yellow cake mix
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

This is the easiest recipe you will ever make. Simply mix all four ingredients in a bowl.

Spray your muffin tins with some cooking spray, so the muffins won't stick. Then just spoon your batter in to the tin. Put the muffins in to your preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

There ya have it! Yummy pumpkin muffins.....and they're Lily approved!

Oven Roasted Peanuts

Sitting around the fire pit, or watching the big game. There's always one thing my family loves to have and that's dry roasted peanuts. Well, a friend at work had her husband bring in a huge bag of dry peanuts to share with everyone in the office. My first thought was to roast them and that's exactly what I did last Saturday morning. The smell of roasting peanuts filled my house and thought I'd share what I did with y'all.

  





What you'll need:

Pre-heat your oven to 350*

Dry Peanuts - about 2 lbs should be a good size batch for munchin. You can get them at your local grocery store, usually in the produce section.

4 Tablespoons of salt (more if you like salty)

Water for soaking

So first, I washed my peanuts really well just to remove any dirt and debri. I then soaked my peanuts in water with about 4 Tablespoons of salt for an hour. I also put a pot on top of the peanuts so that they would stay submerged.

 

 

After the peanuts had soaked for an hour or so (I actually forgot about mine so they soaked a little longer) drain them well and pour them out into a paper towel or rag covered baking sheet to help dry them. I also covered them with another rag and pressed on them to help soak up as much of the excess water as possible.

Once you're satisfied with that you can just pour them off of the rag right in to the baking sheet.  Place them in your pre-heated 350* oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. I tested mine at 30 minutes and they were still a little chewy, that's why I cooked them to 50 minutes.

 Once the peanuts have cooled off you can start cracking them open and enjoying, of course I'm not that patient, so I ate some while they were warm. Enjoy y'all!

Country Candy Apples

It's Fall Y'all!! 

My favorite time of the year. Leaves changing color, chilly nights, trips to the pumpkin patch, talking and having fun around a roaring fire pit with my family. Nothing is better than that! My kids and I have a tradition of making the one thing that makes us all think about fall in our house, candy apples. Fresh juicy mountain apples, wrapped in a layer of crunchy, sweet, red candy. One word comes to mind, Scrumptious! Actually make that two words, because when you mix candy apples with a 3 year old, you also get Sticky. My kids love them, they love the process of making them and the time they get to spend helping mama.  So these are our Country (Scrumptious and Sticky) Candy Apples.

My Lily 

Ingredients:
8 - 10 medium size red apples. (I used fresh red mountain apples)
A stick for each apple (or you could use Popsicle sticks, but how boring is that!?!?)
2 Cups White Sugar
1 Cup Light Corn Syrup
1 1/2 Cups Water
Red Food Coloring 

We started by gathering our sticks from out of the woods. Cutting them to 10" to 12" each, the length really depends on how long you want them. My kids had a ball gathering the sticks and watching me trim them to size. Once you have your sticks all trimmed to the length you want, get a good sharp knife and whittle the ends down to a nice sharp point. Please be careful and don't whittle your fingers! After you have everything cut, trimmed and whittled, it's time to wash your sticks to make sure you get all the little nasties off. 

Once you have all of the stuff above finished you are ready to assemble your apples. Just take a stick, take an apple, and insert the stick in the middle of the apple. You don't want your apples falling over, so set them on a flat surface to see how they sit on their own and then insert your stick at the appropriate angle. On some you'll have to put a little pressure, because the sticks are a little big. DON'T BEAT YOUR APPLES to try to get the stick in!!! They'll bruise and who wants to eat a bruised apple.....candy covered or not.

Thanks to my darlin' son for helping out with this part!!

Alrighty!! Now it's time to combine the sugar, light corn syrup and water in a medium saucepan on medium to high heat. Stir the ingredients to make sure they combine and the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. It's gonna take about 30 minutes for the mixture to reach the right temperature. I don't own a candy thermometer. My mama never owned one and my grand mama never owned one either. We've always "eye-balled" everything we cook, which still amazes my hubby to this day. So, I use the water in a cup technique. The idea is to let the candy mixture boil and bubble, so when you drop a bit into a cup of cold water brittle strings and a hard ball form, thus the "Hard Ball or Hard Crack Stage". Again, this will take about 30 minutes or so. It really is easy peasy!

You also are gonna want to get out a baking sheet and line it with waxed paper to transfer your candy dipped apples onto to cool. I also sprayed mine with a little cooking spray to make sure my candy covered apples didn't stick. Trust me, you want to do this NOW! While everything is cooking.

From plain stuff to yummy candy!!

After about 30 minutes start testing your mixture for the "Hard Ball", dip a spoon into the boiling candy (PLEASE be careful! This stuff is like molten lava!) then let the mixture that is stuck to the spoon ooze off into a cup of cold water. A string should form and a ball at the bottom of the cup of water.  Do like I do, feel the ball at the bottom to see if it is hard. If no string forms or the ball isn't hard enough, then it isn't done. Let it continue to cook until you get the string and hard ball. I let mine cook in extra 2 minutes increments, so I wouldn't accidentally burn it, because it can go from awesome to burnt in a short time. Here's a link for those of you I've just confused that may make it easier to understand what I'm talking about.. Cold Water Test.

Once you've reached the hard ball stage, remove your mixture from the heat and add about 12-14 drops of the red food coloring to the hot mixture, more or less if you like, and stir to combine. It depends on how red you want your apples. You can also add a flavoring to the candy at this point if you'd like, but I didn't. I love the taste of the candy without any extra flavoring. But to each his own.

Coloring and Dipping

The time has finally come to dip your apples! Very carefully, cause like I said this stuff is molten lava hot, take your apples by the inserted stick and carefully dip them in the candy mixture, making sure to cover the entire apple. Once the apple is covered with the hot gooey candy, set it aside onto the waxed paper lined baking sheet.  Continue, working quickly but carefully (the candy is cooling) until all the apples are covered. Now let your candy covered apples cool on the baking sheet, it won't take long for them to cool and the candy to harden. 

The finished product and a happy 3 year old

Now you may notice that you have a little bit of the hot candy syrup left over in your saucepan. I don't know about y'all but I'm not gonna waste this yummy goodness!! I took a piece of waxed paper sprayed with cooking spray, laid it out on my cutting board and poured the candy onto it. I let it cool and then broke it up, dusted it with powdered sugar and WAH LAH! Sea Glass Candy!! My kids love it!! So see, you have two recipes in one! Just leave out the apples and sticks. Add some flavoring or don't, you can change the food coloring color if you want and add powdered sugar for dusting the broken up candy and now you have Sea Glass for the eating, enjoying and it makes a great gift too!

My teenager eating the hardened candy off of the spoon
and the cooling candy apples and sea glass.

Sea Glass Candy made with left over hot candy syrup and powdered sugar!

Easiest Cinnamon Rolls I've Ever Made - Without Yeast!!

My family loves Cinnamon rolls. Who doesn't??? Warm, sweet, sugary, cinnamony (if that's a word), a great start to your morning with a big ole cup of coffee. My problem is, yeast and I only agree to disagree. Anything I make with yeast always screws up, one way or another. This recipe is the easiest and best recipe for no yeast cinnamon rolls I've ever tried. It's simple, easy and soooo yummy!!

Ingredients:

*DOUGH*

2 Cups Self Rising Flour

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1/2 Cup Melted Butter

2/3 Cup Milk (I used 2%, but you can use whatever you like)

1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

*FILLING*

3 Tablespoons Melted Butter

1/4 Cup White Sugar

1/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar

3 Tablespoons Cinnamon

*GLAZE*

1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (more if needed)

1 Tablespoon Melted Butter (more if needed)

1 Tablespoon Half and Half (more if needed)

For your dough, mix all those ingredients together until it forms a soft ball that isn't sticky. You may need to use a little extra flour to get it to the non-sticky stage. Once you've got your pretty little ball of dough, it's time to roll it out. I sprinkle a tad bit of flour out on my surface I'm gonna be rolling my dough out on. Roll your dough out into a rectangular shape, or as close as you can get to it. I rolled mine out to about a 1/4 of an inch in thickness. 

Once you've got your dough all rolled out, you're ready to mix your filling ingredients together and coat the entire surface of your dough, all the way to the edges. The mixture is going to be a really dark brown, because of the cinnamon. I used a pastry brush and brushed my filling on. Trust me, it's a lot easier with the brush, but it's totally up to you. Just get all that yummy stuff on the dough! 

Next it's time to roll it all up. Roll your yummy cinnamon mixture covered dough into a log. Some of your filling may try to leak out, it's not a total disaster if it does, just try not to lose too much of it. Once you've got it all rolled up, you're ready to cut your log into 1/2" pieces. Place your cinnamon rolls on a lightly greased baking sheet or pan. I used a round cake pan and my rolls were touching each other, but you can separate yours slightly if you want. 

I baked my cinnamon rolls at 400 degrees until they were golden brown, about 10-15 minutes. After they've baked, and have your house smelling like a bakery, driving your family insane with hunger, let them cool for a few minutes then mix your glaze ingredients together. This was a tough one for me, I had to keep adding extra powdered sugar to get the correct consistency, which to me looked a little thicker than Elmer's glue. Once you've got the glaze to the consistency you want, drizzle it over the top of your cinnamon rolls. I let mine set for a few minutes so the glaze could "set up".

These cinnamon rolls were so good! Moist, warm, sweet! Just awesomely good! I'm sure there are many variations, additions and other tricks you can use when making these. I'd love if you'd share any ideas you have!! But you MUST try these!! Soon!!