Hot Chocolate Bar and More
Making It Easy for the Holidays
We Love our Hot Chocolate! Are you into making things festive yet want it to be easy? If you haven’t put together a Hot Chocolate Bar you’ve gotta give it a try! Oops, you’re not into Hot Chocolate … Tea and Coffee work too! Even a Dessert Bar.
Here are some easily purchased items that will help you put together a Hot Chocolate or Coffee-Tea Bar in minutes. I’m sold on Dean & Deluca’s Hot Chocolate on a Stick … How easy is that! And don’t you just love these Pioneer Woman Jumbo Mugs!
Hot Cocoa Goodies
Holiday Mugs
Teas and Chocolate
Tea Mugs Chocolate
French Press & Coffees
Easy Gingerbread and Hot Chocolate Mix
Spice Cake made with applesauce I can understand. Or 
It’s Apple Season! Some of my favorite Apple Recipes for you to try. Make your own applesauce for the baked recipes with this ingredient. So easy. Just peel, core and roughly chop cooking apples. Place into your medium saucepan with a bit of water-just enough water to barely cover the bottom. Simmer until apples are applesauce consistently. Add a pinch of salt if you wish. No sugar needed. Perfect! Enjoy!
Late Summer and Fall is Birthday Season here, one birthday after another. My guys definitely have favorite cake or pie requests. My daughter, not so much. I’m always on the lookout for new recipes that just might satisfy everyone. One birthday celebration and one birthday cake might work for all. They’re aging nicely <smile> and sharing is now a really good thing. Everyone agrees my 
Max and I had such fun making these. If legs are missing, well, it’s Max’s fault. <wink> This knock off (Cupcakes by Anne Byrn, “Spiders”) treat is very cute … But tasty? The Rice Krispies go tame and the semi-sweet chocolate is just a lil too semi-sweet for the kids. I’ve traded out the chow mein noodle legs for pretzels for that salty sweet taste. Changing up the semi-sweet to milk chocolate is certainly an option. But it seems to me this might be better with melted marshmallows to help form the body and melted chocolate chips poured over the top to give the dark spider look. Since I haven’t tried the marshmallow version I’ll stick to the more chocolate version. If nothing else, this is great fun and so Halloween!
Chocolate is still my favorite dessert flavor. I can go days without it. But then thoughts of chocolate begin to circle and are relentless until I meet the craving. My recipe for this rich and moist chocolate pound cake does the trick. One must, the chocolate (for me) must be very very good if not the best. This recipe uses an entire cup of cocoa and it will drive the taste of this cake. You want the best available cocoa. If you haven’t an idea about what’s the best unsweetened cocoa ingredient to use check out Cook’s Illustrated’s ratings 
Here’s what we had for breakfast this morning! What makes this streusel so special? It’s absolutely loaded with blueberries and the blueberries provide the moistness. This is a one bowl quick mix … so, it’s perfect as a company breakfast or coffee.
