Super Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

I've made this recipe for years and it is so ridiculously easy to make!  Total preparation and cooking time is probably under 5 minutes.  The long part is waiting for the fudge to harden in the refrigerator. So if you need a quick treat for gifts or a dessert this recipe will do the trick.  Everyone will think you took hours to make this... (everyone thinks I have every  time!)  

Here is the recipe:

Super Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients:

1 oz. unsweetened Chocolate

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

2 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup peanuts

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Combine, chocolate, milk, and peanut butter chips in a microwave dish and stir

2. Cook 1 minute in the microwave or till smooth.

3. Stir in peanuts and vanilla.

4. Cook for 3 minutes in the microwave.

5.  Stir again until smooth and pour into a 8 x 8 pan and chill.

6.  Cut into squares.

7.  Put in fancy containers or bags to create a special gift of the sweet people in your life.

8.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day! I've enjoyed sharing all our Valentine/Heart ideas the past few weeks!  We've been very busy the past fews day preparing for the big day! Mostly we've been working on making edible treats to share with friends, family, and neighbors.  Yesterday we made these wonderful Chocolate Sugar Cookie Hearts!  They are identical to our  Chocolate Christmas Sugar Cookies except for the shape and color of them! We followed the recipe here at Myrecipes.com !  We also made our Super Easy Chocolate Covered Strawberries from last year! (My absolute FAVORITE for Valentine's Day) Hope you have wonderful Valentine's Day and may it be the beginning of Loving of all those around you!  A simple smile to a stranger might be the best Valentine gift you give!!!

"Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love." -Mother Teresa

"I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile."  -Goldie Hawn

YUMMY!

Super Easy Chocolate Covered Strawberries

What Valentine gifts did you make?

Give a smile today to those around you!

Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins....and the story behind the name!

On this past Friday I celebrated my one year Blogiversary of The Chocolate Muffin Tree and within that post I had pictured some scrumptious looking Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins (did you notice?) Today I'm sharing with you the recipe for these wonderful muffins along with the story behind where  the name "The Chocolate Muffin Tree" came from at the end of this post.  These muffins were really yummy and the extra chocolate added just the right amount of sweetness! Chocolate Muffins are not quite as sweet as chocolate cupcakes so they are a great excuse to eat something maybe a little bit healthier! (or not)

Here is the recipe-----I modified a few things, but they were still good! (it comes from the food network website here):

1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
3/4 cup superfine sugar (I used regular white sugar)
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips)
1 cup milk (I used soy milk)
1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Put flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, and 3/4 cup of chocolate chips into a large bowl.  Pour all liquid ingredients into a bowl.  Mix the dry and wet ingredients together.  Spoon into paper muffin cups. Sprinkle the remaining 1.4 cup chocolate chips on top and make for 20 minutes or until muffins are dark, risen and springy. Enjoy!

What does a Chocolate Muffin Tree look like? According to C this is what she drew when I asked her:

Do you think I should use this for a logo or symbol for my blog?  Let me know your input.  What do you think A Chocolate Muffin Tree looks like?

***

 Where Does the name "The Chocolate Muffin Tree" come from?

Answer:  After  celebrating her 4th birthday with chocolate muffins,  my daughter said to me while at our garden, "We could plant an apple tree and a chocolate muffin tree!  No, I want to grow A Chocolate Muffin Tree!" Six months later I remembered this story when trying to think of a name for my blog and the rest is history!

Chocolate Christmas Sugar Cookies

Everyone always makes the old stand-by for Christmas:  "Sugar Cookies",  and I thought to myself, "I want to make Chocolate ones!"  So, since we are chocoholics here at The Chocolate Muffin Tree, I searched for a recipe (there are not too may of them out there!!) and found a wonderful recipe at Myrecipes.com here for Chocolate Sugar Cookies! Yum! Here are some of our beautiful cookies. Here are some with just sprinkles. They are pictured with are So Easy Peppermint Bark that we made!

The recipe makes a less sweet chocolate cookie, but with added sprinkles or frosting the taste is perfect!

Here are some with frosting and sprinkles.  I made a frosting recipe that is shiny when it dries!! Here is the recipe for the frosting:

1 1/3 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons of Corn Syrup

1 Tablespoon of milk (I added a little more)

few drops of vanilla

food color

Beat with a hand mixer until smooth.

Cassie had a lot FUN making them! Make sure to put the sprinkles on before baking.  If you are making the frosting kind, frost after baked and then put on the sprinkles!!!

More Chocolate recipes are on there way....stay tuned!

Have you ever made Chocolate Sugar Cookies?

What kinds of Chocolate Cookies do you make?

Simply Splendid Cake

We've been reading lots of books lately!! Whenever we go to the library we check out about 20 or more books!  Cassie can actually listen to 20 or more books in one sitting and has been able to have this attention for books the past two years!  We happened to come across a great book: The Red Hen by Rebecca Emberly and Ed Emberly. The story is about Red Hen who finds a recipe for Simply Splendid Cake and she goes about asking all the animals if they will help her make this cake. None of them help so in the end she and the crows end up eating the cake. The great thing about this book is that there is a recipe for Simply Splendid Cake at the end. So we both decided to make this cake today! It wasn't difficult to convince Cassie----she jumped right in!

We had all the ingredients on hand which made it easy to do on the spur of the moment! Here is Cassie helping to make the cake batter. My daughter was such a great helper---too bad Red Hen did not have her as a friend to help bake her cake! The recipe in the book has a colorful picture/word recipe to follow which my daughter loved.

The recipe was simple and sweet and the cake tasted wonderful.

The ingredients for Simply Splendid Cake are:

1 cup of sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup milk

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in 350 oven

using a 9 inch pan

We had to wait for the cake to cook and cool. Then we were ready to frost it.  I used the recipe on the back of Hershey's Cocoa for the chocolate frosting. Red Hen could not get her friends to ice the cake either. Cassie was ready and willing because this girl loves frosting!!!

I finished spreading the chocolate frosting and then we were ready to decorate and no one would help Red Hen with that either.  Poor Red Hen!!

We used the recipe for frosting from the Shamrock Cupcakes that we made. Cassie loved helping to mix the colors into the frosting. We wanted it to be "Splendid" so it couldn't just be plain chocolate!

I didn't have any fancy frosting bags so we just used plastic bags with the corner cut off and that worked really well! Cassie loved to decorate and Eat the frosting!

My daughter really got into this and could have kept doing it for a long time!! We were on our way to a Simply Splendid Cake!!

Uh Oh who is eating the frosting??? (I didn't see that---did you???)

I added some fun curvy lines and polka dots on the side and Cassie continued to decorate and decorate....

We decided to add a few sprinkles and jelly beans to make the cake more "Splendid" and I added a few pink flowers with my old frosting press from my Grandmother.  Cassie wanted to add candles too, but I didn't take a picture of that part.  It may look like a mess to some, but we both thought it looked beautiful and we were very excited to eat it after dinner! It was Simply Splendid!!!!

Another book we have that has a recipe to go along with it is : Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle. We've made pancakes a million times.

I love these books with recipes. What fun--- and a great activity to do with a book!

Do you know of any other picture books with recipes???

Please share.... 

This post is linked to:

READ.EXPLORE.LEARN.
A Great stART!

FOR THE KIDS FRIDAY

FUN FOR KIDS FRIDAY
KIDS GET CRAFTY
WE PLAY
CRAFT SCHOOLING SUNDAY
NO TIME FOR FLASHCARDS
PRESCHOOL CORNER
MADE BY LITTLE HANDS MONDAY
SHOW AND TELL
SHARING MONDAYS
THE PLAY ACADEMY
MONKEYING AROUND

Shamrock Shaped Cupcakes

I had seen this recipe from Family Fun magazine from 2007 and never made them until now! Here is how the shamrock shaped cupcakes turned out:

First of all, you need to make some cupcake batter.  I just used a  chocolate cake mix, but I did use homemade frosting. Use cupcake liners to put in your muffin tin and only fill them halfway with batter. To get the shamrock shape, you need to form foil balls about 2/3 inch in diameter and tuck three of them around the edge of the muffin liners.  I think I made the foil balls a little too small.

Then bake them according to the package or recipe directions, but for a few minutes less because you are using less batter.  I think I filled the batter too high, but they seemed to work out.

Now, you need to let let them cool before frosting them.  My daughter had no interest in making the cupcake batter, but came around for making the frosting!!  For kids, this is the best part!!!

I love making homemade frosting because it tastes so much better.  Don't you agree?  

For the frosting we used:

!/3 cup of softened butter

3 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp. os vanilla

2 Tbsp. of milk

1 tsp. green food coloring 

I used an electric hand mixer to beat all the ingredients together.  Cassie just waited around for the frosting covered beaters at this point! I spread the cupcakes with the green frosting and added vein lines for the shamrock leaves with a toothpick.  Lastly, we used gummy sour apple ring candy cut in half for the stems because I couldn't find any green licorice!

Here is Cassie putting on the stems. She loved this part!

Finished Shamrock Shaped Cupcakes!  We shared them with friends today and they were delicious! I think they turned out pretty cool! 

HAPPY ST.  PATRICK'S DAY!
Now,  I think I have had enough green and pots of gold for a while!

This post is linked up to:

NO TIME FOR FLASHCARDS, SHOW AND TELL, TOT TUESDAYS,
MAGIC ONIONS, PRESCHOOL CORNER, MADE BY YOU MONDAYS,
ST. PATRICK'S DAY LINKING CARNIVAL, LOVEFEAST TABLE,
LUCK OF THE IRISH PARTY,

Super Easy Chocolate Covered Strawberries!!

I just made some wonderful chocolate covered strawberries!  They are a gift for Valentine's day for my husband and daughter.  They are so easy to make!

You need one lb. of strawberries!

1 1/2 cups of semisweet- chocolate chips

1/4 cup of white-chocolate chips

Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave.  Stir the chips at 20 second intervals. It took about 3 minutes.

Dip the strawberries in the chocolate. Shake off any extra chocolate and place on a wax paper lined tray.

Put in the fridge for 5 minutes.  Melt the white chocolate chips and stir at 20 second intervals.  This took about 1 minute.  Drizzle the white chocolate with a fork over the strawberries. Now you will have the most amazing looking dessert or Valentine's gift!

Don't these look scrumptious??? Yummy!