Gimme Energy…Gimme Sweets!

Ready or NOT, here we go into another school year!  This means early morning alarms, chauffeuring kids to and fro, and (the dreaded) homework! Thinking of this has us longing for the easy, breezy days of summer. We’re gonna need plenty of energy to make it through these first few weeks! The best way to battle this head on is with a fully leaded espresso. And even better when it’s smothered with chocolate and caramel! Salted Caramel Espresso Brownies will sure help us weather the storm we’re about to endure! 

Ingredients

• 1 box of dark chocolate brownies, plus ingredients on the back of the box
• 1 large sea salt caramel chocolate bar
• 1 Starbucks Via

Directions 

Make the brownie batter according to the directions on the back of the box. Stir Vis into the batter. Pour half if the batter into a prepared pan. Break the candy into pieces and lay in top of the batter. Pour the remaining brownie batter on top of the caramel pieces. Bake for 25 min. (We recommend undertaking!) Eat when cool and get stuff done! 

Golden Birthday Sweets

We have yet another family celebration this weekend. An eight year old birthday party. And this year isn’t just any old birthday–it’s a golden birthday.!!! Tina’s son will eight on the eighth and that’s cause for an extra special celebration. Of course, there will be birthday cake, but we thought it would be fun to gather a bunch of “golden” treats to create a Golden Birthday Snack Mix. Some might even use these as ice cream toppings. Rolos, vanilla cupcake Goldfish, Golden Graham’s, and mini Golden Oreos. Golden yumminess! Perfect for any old day but especially for a golden 8th birthday. 

A Sweet Break

What a week! With a staycation, vacation, anniversary, and birthday this past week, our families have had lots of celebrations and loads of sugar. We’ve decided to take a little bit of a break from our normal Saturday sweet cheat treat day and bake up something a little bit healthier. Peanut Power Cookies have just enough sweetness in them to trick our sweet tooth but still get our healthy eating back on track. And this comes in perfect timing since we have another birthday to celebrate next weekend. A week’s break will do us good. Happy Saturday! 😃 

Power Peanut Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup ground flaxseed

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup raisins 

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup agave

1/4 cup natural peanut butter 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients.

In another bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Drop the dough into 12 even mounds on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes, until the cookies are just set in the center.

Enjoy!

*recipe inspired by Fantastic Food

A Love For Sweets

Don’t you love it when the people you love know exactly what you love and turn around and give you these lovely things? That has happened to us a lot recently. I guess we’ve made it perfectly clear that we LOVE chocolate. This weekend we’ve decided to use a few of these delicious gifts to create a unique treat. We’re taking a box of chocolate fudge brownies and a box of caramel turtle brownies and layering bits of an enormous milk chocolate bar in between. Thanks loved ones! We’ll be share to leave enough to share! 

16 Ways to My Sweetie’s Heart

Happy sweet 16th Anniversary to my hubby and me! He’s one lucky guy! Ha!Ha! Seriously time goes by so fast, especially when you’re busy having fun (and raising kids)! We’re not much for extravagant gift giving around here, but we gotta celebrate! So what better way than 16 differently topped brownies! Love never tasted so yummy! 

16 Differently Topped Brownies

1. Caramel Sea Salt
2. Hazelnut Grenache
3. Toasted Marshmallow
4. Rice Krispie Treat
5. Hugs & Kisses
6. Candy Bar
7. Peanut Butter
8. Almond Joy
9. Dark Chocolate Toffee
10. Chocolate Chip Cookie Pieces
11. Trail Mix
12. M&M
13. Potato Chip
14. Salted Pretzel
15. Coffee Bean
16. Sugar Dusted

Sweets For A Cause

Two things we’ve never shied away are helping and baking. When these two collide you better believe we are all in. So when our church requested cookies for a wonderful cause we signed up without a second thought. Hopefully our White  Chocolate M&M Oreo Cookies will be just what they are wishing for! Full hearts and full tummies! White Chocolate M&M Oreo Cookies

Sister Sweetly’s favorite cookie dough
*sub white chocolate M&Ms and crushed Oreos for the chocolate chips, Heath, and  plain M&Ms 

Applepreciate Sweetly

If you have kids you know how important the educators are that touch their lives each day. Our kids are very lucky to go to schools with amazing teachers who truly care about their students! What better way to thank them for their endless support than with A+ Brownies! We”ll be scoring major brownies points for sure! Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 

A+ Brownies

Ingredients:

• 1 box of dark chocolate brownies, plus ingredients on the back of the box
• waffle pretzels
• chocolate chips 
• M&M Minis – Red and Green

Directions:

1.  Bake brownies according to the directions on the back of the box.
2. Allow brownies to cool for 10 minutes.
3. Plaxe 7-8 Pretzel on a microwave plate lined with parchment. Cover the pretzels with chocolate chips. Heat in a microwave oven for approximately 45-50 seconds. The exact timing will take a bit of trial and error. You want the candy melts to be melted enough to press the M&M into, but not so melted that the chips melt lose their shape. 
4. Once the chocolate chips are softened, place six red Mini M&M’s on the melted chocolate.  Finally, add two green Mini M&M’s at the top of the apple to represent the apple stem/leaves.
5. Put the apple pretzels on top of the brownies and press to make them stick.
6. Give to you child’s outstanding teachers!