Experiment #10: Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte

Occasionally, I go from sitting down for a second to check my email, to a storm of click-click-clicking.
These storms have been known to last for 2+ hours at times. I know, right?
Recently when I put the kiddos to bed, I went on another of these click-storms.
From Facebook to Pinterest to Amazon to Krazy Coupon Lady, I just went surfing around.
Somehow I ended up on a site called Annie's Eats.

I was browsing around and saw this link for a Peanut Butter Torte and my mouth started to water.
The thing is, I don't really like peanut butter like most other people like peanut butter.
I can happily do without it. And really, I am not even a chocolate fan. Once in a while, sure.
And if you put it in front of me, I will eat it all.. But that is just because I have an insane sweet tooth.
At least that is what the dental assistant said when she walked near the room and said "Yikes! Someone really has a sweet tooth!"
BUT I DIGRESS!!

Valentines Day is coming up and while yes, it is really a bloody old holiday (quite literally!), I do so enjoy an excuse to make a sweet dessert. This recipe also happens to have everything my darling husband loves:
Oreos, Peanut Butter, Cream Cheese, Espresso and Chocolate.

So here is my attempt to make this for my husband** (while keeping it a secret, per his request.)

**Please note that since I am making this for my husband and his tastes are his tastes, I used dark chocolate in place of the chocolate that was called for in the recipe.
Also, I don't have a spring form pan (yet.) Mine is en route via Amazon.

I made the crunchy stuff last night before bed..

Today I made the Oreo crust, which is pretty straight forward.
Then I made the whipped cream:

Let me be the one to tell you that making whipped cream by hand is extremely tedious and requires a LOT of elbow grease when you are using a whisk. My Proctor & Silex Hand Mixer took a dive, so I had to rely on my hands and that giant whisk. So after I made the whipped cream, I mixed the whole milk, cream cheese, peanut butter, crunchy stuff and peanuts. 

Then I added 1/4 of the whipped cream to lighten the mousse.

 Once it was well blended, I folded in the remainder of my whipped cream.

Stick it all in the pie pan and smooth it around to as flat as possible (which I totally forgot to do.)

Then I made the ganache

  and poured it onto the mousse.

I sprinkled some chopped peanuts on top and voila!

I have not tasted it, as it is for my husband. Also, Valentine's Day is not until tomorrow!

Once he tastes it and gives me the verdict, I will let you know what he says.
Thanks for reading!

-Mama Dobble

Experiment #9: Coconut Chicken with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

I was looking for something new to try, because I have bored myself to death with pasta lately. I decided to browse the web for inspiration and low and behold! I came across this web site called Budget Bytes.
On this site I found this recipe for Coconut Chicken with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce.

I immediately decided to make this coconut chicken and set out to get the ingredients from the store. I have a 5 year old, a 2 year old and a 10 1/2 month old, so I figured I would leave the chili sauce out. I got what I needed and headed home to get started.

Once I got home, I read the recipe again (for the 5th time) and only then did I decide to read the comments. Some of the comments lamented their leaving the sauce out and urged that the sauce ties it all together. I was immediately annoyed with myself that I did not get the sauce from the store. I decided I would improvise my own!

My sauce, which came out PHENOMENAL, by the way.. Is made with the following:
2 small cans tomato paste
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp salt
6 garlic cloves, minced

Mix all the ingredients together very well and then simmer (low heat) in a small saucepan for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly so as to avoid sweet chili explosions all over your stove.
Let it cool about 10 minutes, then cover your sauce pan and transfer to the fridge to reheat later.

Then I made the coconut chicken, whose recipe is found here.

(I used sweetened coconut flakes, for the record.)

The author of this awesome blog stated that she wished she had pulsed the coconut in her food processor prior to coating the chicken, so I went ahead and did that. It totally made a huge difference, by the way.
One other thing I did differently is I spread the coconut out on a cookie sheet and baked it for about 10 minutes at 400°f (204.4°c), stirring it around 5 minutes into baking it.

Lastly, I also finished the chicken off for about 10 minutes at  350°f (176.6°c)  in the oven at after frying it, so as to make absolutely sure the chicken was cooked.

The result was deliciously golden brown and super crispy coconut chicken whose tenderness cannot be described with words. That is, unless Brian McKnight fell in love with this dish and wrote a song about tender, moist chicken. Seriously, this is the best chicken I have ever tasted.

My number one suggestion would be to NOT skimp out on the coconut milk. It made it heavenly.

I wanted to take a moment now to give author Beth M. a major shout out here for this phenomenal chicken dish that is now my all-time favorite.

Experiment #8: Good Points/Bad Points: One Stepmom's Disciplinary System with Rewards for Everyone.

I am posting a little differently today, in that I am posting about something I came up with on my own, rather than trying something someone else has created.


I have been having issues getting my 5 year old stepson to behave -at all- lately. I was almost at my wits end, and when I was sitting on my couch at 11:00pm after just having to tell him that it is not humanly possible for one 5 year old to need to empty his bladder for the 12th time in 3 hours...


...When inspiration struck.


Points. They can be used sort of like cash, just without the nasty feeling that you are bribing a kid.


Here is the system I came up with. I have broken it down as a sort of instruction manual, and I will also be attaching a picture of the daily chart we use. Feel free to click the picture to enlarge it, and print it for yourself! Keep in mind that you can use the daily chart, or you could add more lines and make a weekly chart. But you want to at LEAST sum everything up once a week, otherwise the lesson becomes quite diluted.




Good/Bad Chart
(5 tier good/bad system.
5 tiers of good prizes.. 5 tiers of bad consequences.)


It takes 32 good points to get one smiley face. One smiley face is what it takes to get the first tier of prize. Two is tier two and so on.


It takes 20 points to get one sad face. That would be a tier one consequence.


I have "good cards" made out of bright colors of construction paper, on which I have written various actions/behaviors, with point values on them between one and 5.

First, there are the Good Cards:

Breakfast (ate without being told to 100 times and without being rude) +2 points.

Lunch +3

Dinner +4

Cleaned up mess after a meal +2

Helpful +1

Good Job!  +1

Instant Compliance (When told to do something.. Did it immediately, without staring at the TV or doing anything else before carrying out the command) +3
Brotherly Love (Did something to help one of your brothers out of an uncomfortable/bad situation ((like if someone almost falls but you catch them)) +2
Truth (If I ask you about something I know you did and you immediately admit it) +2



Then are the Negative Point Cards (on dark construction paper):
(I tried to give higher point values to the areas we have problems with.)


Misc. With Explanation -1
Not Playing Nice -2
Disrespect -2
Ignored Order -2
Arguing -3
Rude -3
Lied -4
Violence -10
Tattle -1
Rude -1


Finally, there are the Cleaning Cards: 
(On bright construction paper. These should be made 2x the size of the good/bad cards. I made 4 cards per sheet of paper, versus the 16 per sheet of paper for the good/bad cards.)


*NOTE** Cleaning Cards should always be optional to the child. DO NOT force them to use the cleaning cards. These are to be used for bonus points, and to encourage them to help out more around the house, while giving the a choice as to what they can do. While I encourage you to frequently remind your child that he or she can gain more points by using cleaning cards, they are not supposed to be a list of things for your child to do every day. Everyone's child is different and can handle different levels of tasks. Feel free to change these cards to reflect what your child can safely do.


Hang Shirts +5 per load
Fold Clothes +5 per load
Clean Top Of Stove +2
Make bed +2
Sweep Kitchen Floor +4
Mop Kitchen Floor +4
Wipe down front of fridge, stove and dishwasher +4
Wipe down the front of all lower kitchen cabinets +4
Load & Start Washer +3
Put all toys away (living room) +2
Round up all clothes from floor and put them away +1
Put all toys away (bedroom) +4
Pick up all trash around the house and throw it away +3
Unload dryer +2
Wipe down fish tank +1
Wipe down patio door +2
Take recyclables out +4
Gather dirty dishes and put in sink +4


At the end of the day, you tally the total points, with them present. Count each good card and tell them why they got that card. Count each bad card and remind them why they got that card. Write down the good points and write down the bad points. Subtract any bad score from their good score. What you have after that is their final score. It is up to you if you want to give them a chance to make up whatever points they need in a last ditch effort to get to the tier they wanted to get to.


The point of that is to give them a summary of their day, so that they can see in one big picture where they need to improve. 


Example: I have said to my DSS: "You have 44 good points. Nice job on that! That is a lot of points! BUT, you have 11 bad points. That means that you only have 33 good points left. That is still a good score, but you could have had a lot more if you had not done [this],[this],[this] and [this] ."


Kids always want more.


If they earn a tier prize and they claim it, DO NOT TAKE THE PRIZE FROM THEM. I don't care if they bomb a freakin' daycare. They earned that prize. No matter how tempting you might find it, you can not take that from them. Do NOT threaten them with taking it away, either. Don't do it. That is against the rules. I'm serious. 


                        Do I need to give you a bad card?


If you do take away their earned prize or you threaten them with taking it away....


YOU. WILL. LOSE. THEIR. TRUST. 
I guaran-darned-tee it. 


You will also lose their interest in the program and they won't take your disciplinary attempts seriously. I learned this from experience.


Now, where was I? Ah, yes! Good points can be carried over for as long as they want to save them.. But bad points get reset to 0 EVERY DAY. They should always be allowed to save their points to buy a bigger prize later, but should not be punished day after day for things they did in the past.


Make tier one a prize they usually get every day (like for DSS, tier one is 30 minutes of video game time.) Then go up.. And tier 5 should be something they really, really want and would work super hard for.


Try to make it equal on good and bad.. So tier one for DSS on the negative side is no video games, as opposed to tier one on the good side being 30 minutes of video games.


The point is to make it pretty easy to get a sad face, and make them work to get a good face. I think that it will teach them to watch what they do.. Watch how they act.. Work hard.. Try harder and work for what they get.



If you want to use my system, go for it. It is free. Hahaha
If anyone has any questions at all, feel free to leave a comment and I will respond ASAP!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist or any form of behavioral therapist. These are not "professional" opinions and this is not a "professional" system. This is a system that I designed for my family, and that works great for us. I am sharing it with the world in the hopes that it can help at least one more frustrated caregiver.

Experiment #7: Cake Pops!

I hate cake. There! I said it!
I have never liked cake. It is big and crumby and not very flavorful. I despise icing the most.
I have tried several types of both and have never found one I liked.

Once I had kids, I realized that cake would be a part of my life, whether I wanted it there or not.
I have been trying to figure out ways to make cake less cringe inducing for myself, so that my kids can enjoy it more and everyone would be hap-hap-happy.

I think I found a solution, with this Pinterest Re-pin, which leads to this site.

Cake Pops. It just sounds delicious, even to me.
I decided to head to the store and get everything I needed to try this out, and here we are post game.

I followed all of the directions as posted on the originating site, with a few mess-ups along the way.
The first batch I made was double chocolate fudge cake with store bought fudge icing.
The second (less perfect and pretty yucky) batch was a homemade coconut raspberry cake with (de-e-e-licious) homemade cream cheese icing.

My husband actually took the DCF cake out of the oven for me, and he did it too early.
That led to this disaster:

I cut around the sunken center and just used the outside of the cake. Mistake number two is when I tried to cut a corner. Instead of crumbling the cake with a brush, as they suggest..

I thought I would save all kinds of time and just pulse it in my food processor. Hah!

I ended up with a super moist and dense pile-o'-cake.

Continuing on, I pushed forward and mixed in half of the can of frosting.

The mixture formed one big ball in the mixing bowl, so I figured I was doing okay.

I lined my cookie sheet with Reynold's Parchment Paper and got my sticks ready.

At the last second, I decided to use up the mini-marshmallows I had left from a few days earlier.

I grabbed one mallow and formed the cake around that, which made a fantastic cake ball. I did this for the remainder of the batch, and it was actually super easy.

And then came the chocolate coating.

I followed all of the directions for tempering my chocolate. Followed them to a T, I did.

I tried to dip one of the cake balls into the chocolate to coat it, and it was way too thick. The coating was so heavy that the cake ball actually started to crumble as I was pulling it out of the bowl.

(Side note: DON'T try to dip your cake ball if it is on the stick. It is really messy and doesn't work.)

I decided to just dip the stick tips in chocolate and spear them into the cake balls to form the cake pop. 

Then, I tried to lightly pour the chocolate "sauce" onto the cake balls, but that was a no-go as well.

I just couldn't work with the chocolate. I gave up. I put the bowl in the fridge and when it cooled to solid; my husband popped the chocolate out in pieces and ate it as a treat.

I left the cake pops as they were, without the chocolate frosting.

The end result is that I absolutely hate cake, but absolutely adore cake pops. That was one of the tastiest sweet treats I have had in a number of years. If you know me, you know how many sweets I eat. So this is saying a lot.

I plan to make these quite a bit in the future. However, I also plan on repeating the mistakes I made the first time. I feel like they really contributed to the perfection that was the cake pop.

Experiment #6: Holiday Nails via "Salon Effects"

Okay, so anyone who knows me personally, knows I bite my nails. I'm not talking about your "I tear the tops off with my teeth" kind, either. I have a horrid habit that oftentimes is painful and makes my nails look pretty gnarly.

Now in the past, I have used acrylic nails to combat this. But they are cha-ching when you have nails like mine and you have to get a full set almost every time. And well since I don't have access to Fort Knox, I usually just deal with my ugly nails.

However, I've recently found a product that makes it.. Shall we say.. MUCH more cost effective to have nice nails. I use the "Real Short" version of the "kiss" brand custom fit. They work better since my nails are rather flat, and I'm so used to having no nail that having anything even remotely long is irritating.

Anyways, while I do like the look of the french nail, because I'm not a guru at them, I often have the white glue seeping out of the edge. You can usually see the air bubbles in the glue underneath, so they aren't quite so pretty. I usually end up painting them, which ends up looking like I let my 6 year old son loose on my fingers with his red (or whatever color) Sharpie.

But I was walking through Fred Meyer yesterday and saw these:

Photo Courtesy of Amazon.com

And well, I fell in LOVE with the Tartan ones, so I decided to try it

I mean, what could be worse than the scribbling I do on my nails already? 

OH, MY HOLY CUTICLES! 

Now I feel all festive! (sorry for the bad photo, I'm feeling lazy and used my built in web cam :) )

Let me just say that they aren't perfect, but they are a whole heck of a lot better than I've ever managed before. Also, these are the "holiday" ones. They also have them in all different patterns, prints and colors of the rainbow, including my favorite color green (as worn in the photo above). I believe I have found my new best friend when it comes to possibly keeping my nails looking nice.  

I will definitely update y'all on how they wear, but suffice to say "So far so good..." And they are super easy to apply.  Just peel, stick on, smooth out - and Voila! 

Click here to get Sally Hansen's Salon Effects Limited Edition "Plaid About You!"

Experiment #5: "Flooding" Cookies

First off, let me introduce myself. I'm Bethany, otherwise known as MummyMcG.  I'll pop in here from time to time to post about my adventures via Pinterest and the internet.  Usually it will be about Photography (Check out My blog!) But I also want to try and do some other things that I'm not quite so capable at....like Baking!

That leads me to my "Second off" (or would that be "Secondly"?) Either way, #2:  I am a horrible baker. Don't get me wrong; I have good recipes (like the one I'm using today). I understand how to bake and I can do it well. The problem lies in my own attention issues. I can't remember that I have something in the oven (hence why Crock Pot cooking is totally for me.) Also, I tend to over cook stuff. I don't plan very well, so I'm always running around like a chicken with my head cut off!

Third off/Thirdly/#3: I'm crafty! While I'm not the best at baking, I love to decorate. It's just that my lack of baking skills tends to limit the amount of decorating I do, so I'm always a little rusty. That being said...

  ...I have seen various pins on Pinterest of the most beautiful cookies, and even a few that taught me how to "flood" cookies. I have been wanting to try this for a while.

Now, I've always wondered how bakers got such a perfect coating on the cookie. Honestly, once I learned how, it was like "Duh!" But in practice, it's a bit harder that it looks

This is my very 1st try with Royal Icing and Flooding cookies....

I will say this before I start: I got a bunch of my supplies at Hobby Lobby.
This was the first time I'd ever been there and WOW.
Makes me wish I had a room devoted to crafting/sewing/baking because I'd be in there all the time!
Also, I probably spent about $25 on supplies simply because I haven't done this before, or because it has been so long everything was lost/thrown out so I didn't have anything.

So on with the adventure!

First you start with a cookie.
You can use any recipe. I used this one, I substituted orange peel instead of Lemon though and I about tripled the amount of it, as well as doubled the vanilla.

For Icing, I used Alton Browns recipe and doubled the vanilla again (I looove me some vanilla.) If you want pure white frosting, don't do this as it causes it to have an off white appearance. But I liked the kind of antique look it gave so I was cool with it.

Now for my piping bags, I used a heavy duty Ziploc bag. They were  a buck, whereas the piping bags were like 6! Then I used couplers. I got a set of 4 for $1.99 - So I could use the same tip, because I didn't want to buy 3 of the same tip. (For now.)

So for step one: Pipe an outline around your cookie 

Also, I used a #1 tip (the smallest they have.) They recommend using a #3, but I didn't want to. I also made my cookies too thin as a result of Bad Baker Syndrome, so I didn't want to over-frost the top)

For this part you want thick frosting, like what you get from a tub of store bought frosting.











Step two: Take nearly liquid icing, place in a squeeze bottle. (it was $1.99 at the grocery store)  and fill inside the lines.  I put a bit in the center, then worked outwards, pushing the icing to the outline.

Ta Da!  From here, you are free to add the designs you want on top. I was inspired by this 



I love plaid and Tartans, so I loved this idea!
I changed it up a bit, as you will see.

 I did mine in stages because well, I only had one tip, and washing it in between colors was a pain. My red was always a bit more liquid than the green, so my red lines spread and were a little wider than the green ones.

From there, It was just line after line of icing...

Once I got all the lines done and I was finished, I brushed them with "pearl powder" in white to give them a little extra sparkle. 

So while I'm not perfect, I got better by the end of my day of decorating.

A few tips for those that have never attempted this: Make sure your sink is empty! you WILL need it. Also, make sure to take some breaks! I didn't really, and my hand and back were worse for it.  Lastly, don't beat yourself up if they don't look perfect, the way it does in your head. Ultimately they will still taste fantastic, and that's really the point anyway!

In the end, it was fun. NOT a kid friendly activity. At least for young ones. My 6 year old wouldn't have been able to handle this. But it's time consuming and probably not how I'll make my cookies all the time. But for special occasions, and in the case of these suckers (gifts for teachers etc.), it's a nice touch.

Read more of Mummy McG's blog "Adventures In Photography" here!

Experiment #4: DIY T-Shirt Folder

I love The Big Bang Theory. A lot. Anyone who watches it knows that Sheldon Cooper uses the Laundry Folding Board for his awesome T-Shirts. I decided on a whim to create one of my own, just so I could see what all the fuss was about. After some Google searching, I came across this video, which gave detailed instructions on how to make your own T-Shirt Folding Board out of cardboard or poster board.

I opted for cardboard, as I had several random boxes lying around. It is the holiday season, after all.
(I'd advise you to go with poster board. It is probably easier to cut and less of a mess.)

Here is my result:

Keep in mind that I made this simply to test it out - Not at all concerned about the aesthetics of the thing.

I have to say that I have never folded a straighter shirt. It took a few tries, but soon I was folding better than most retail clothing salespersons.

I decided to make one in a baby size to see if it would lessen the dread of folding all of my children's clothing:

It was awesome.

I can't say I would realistically use either one of them (I have a lot of hangers!) but I can see that it could be pretty darned useful to anyone who wants neat and tidy, folded clothes in a hurry.

Also, the adult size one folds up to about the size of a diary. Maybe a little larger.

You could make one (with a lot more precision and care than mine) and maybe glue some fabric to the outside for looks and BAM! Super cheap Christmas gift.