Caramel Apple Cider Cookies

Thank You Mother Nature!! I've been begging for sunny days with temperatures in the 60's. The last two days, she has answered my request. Yesterday, however, was spent doing what any gardener must always do on the first sunny day of mid-fall, cleaning out the flower beds. I spent yesterday morning completing the work on the blanket chest I've been refinishing and the afternoon doing the garden work, so I decided today was going to be a "just relax, do a little baking and enjoy the weather" kind of day.

I found the recipe for these cookies, midsummer and saved it for a perfect Autumn day like today. I mean really, does anything scream Autumn more than caramel apples, cider and cookies? Whomever the person was that decided to combine all three into one masterpiece should be awarded a Nobel Prize...GENIUS!

As always, we're going to start by preheating the oven.  Perhaps you can wait a little bit as these do require a little extra prep time but there are times when I feel I could walk to the bakery and back before my oven reaches temperature.  Either way, we're going to need our oven to be 350 degrees!

There's a whole list of ingredients we're going to be getting to here in a moment but I know you can't wait to find out what ingredients make the magic of caramel apple cider. It's not glitter or unicorns or fairy dust!

It's Spiced Cider instant drink mix and Kraft Caramels!!!  BLISS!!!

In a medium bowl, wisk together 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using your electric mixer, cream together 1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks), 1 cup of Sugar and all ten envelopes of the spiced cider drink mix. Once you get it nice and creamy, add 2 eggs (one at a time) and continue to mix until it's nice and fluffy. Now add in 1 tsp of vanilla! Now it's time to slowly add in your flour mixture. I started mixing with a wooden spoon but by the second addition of the dry mixture, I decided it was easier to mix it by hand...literally...I got my hands right in that bowl and mixed it up with my fingers. (After I washed them of course).

The hardest part of this entire recipe comes now! Unwrapping your caramels without eating them!! If you're as lucky as I was Kraft kindly will put 49 caramels in your bag and you'll only need 48 for the cookies since the recipe yields about 4 dozen cookies, that will leave you one for a warmup treat while you're waiting for the cookies to bake.

Next roll about 2 Tbsp of dough into a ball and then lightly flatten it in the palm of your hand. Now lightly press one caramel into the center.

Pull the dough up around the caramel until it's completely covered and then roll it back into a ball and place them onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet (you can use silpat if you have it). You don't want to use just a greased cookie sheet or foil as the caramel can stick to it and you definitely don't want to use wax paper!  Place your uncooked cookies about 3 inches apart so they have room to spread out without sticking together!

Bake them for 12-14 minutes. Just until they begin to crisp around the edges. Be careful not to overcook them as the caramel will burn on the bottom. 

After removing your cookies from the oven, slide the whole sheet of parchment paper off of your baking sheet, right onto the counter. After they have cooled enough to firm up, peel them off the parchment paper and flip them over to let them finish cooling upside down. I moved my upside down cookies to a cooling rack so they wouldn't sweat on my granite countertop. 

Now, I'll be honest, the person who claims this recipe makes 4 dozen cookies must be the same person that declared one small pack of Reese Cups to be two servings. I got 3 dozen medium sized cookies out of the recipe but that was quite alright by me, as it left 12 more unwrapped caramels that needed to be eaten. 

We're lucky enough to have neighbors just as wonky as we are, whom we enjoy very much. They were kind enough to invite us to dinner this evening, so that's one dozen less that will be sitting here tempting me to eat them all. Quite frankly I think he saw my post on Facebook about trying out a new cookie recipe since the invite came across my text messages within minutes! LOL

Be sure you serve your cookies with a nice cup of hot tea, coffee or apple cider because that caramel in the middle does have a tendency to stick to your teeth a bit. But hey isn't that one of the things we love about caramel??  I know for sure that this flavor combination is one of the things I love about Fall! Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 cup softened butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1  7.4 oz. box Alpine Spiced Apple Cider Instant Original Drink Mix (Do NOT buy Sugar Free)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 14 oz. bag Kraft Caramels 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter, sugar, and all ten packs of apple cider mix until fluffy. About three minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, beat until fluffy and add the vanilla to the butter mixture. 

Add flour mixture to creamy mixture in 3 small portions and mix thoroughly.

Roll about 2 tablespoons of dough into a ball (refrigerating the dough for about an hour makes this easier but is not required). Lightly flatten into the palm of your hand, add unwrapped caramel, wrap dough around caramel and return it to a ball shape.

Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet about 3" apart. Bake in 350 degree oven for 12-14 minutes until slightly crispy around the edges.

Slide parchment paper onto counter and allow cookies to cool until they are firm enough to turn them over. Allow cookies to finish cooling upside down on a baking rack.

DIY Sofa Table

For a boy who grew up in the country, I can't picture myself living anywhere but Downtown. I love city life and all the conveniences that come with it. The advantages do come with tradeoffs though. One being space. Don't get me wrong, our home is plenty big at just over 2100 sq ft but the individual spaces in the house tend to be narrow and smaller.  I'm typically not big on furniture placement on a room's perimeter but after several  rearrangements it's just what works the best for us to maximize our space.

Our new sofa is 44 inches deep, perfect for snuggling back in a corner of the cushions with a good book, movie or football game and nesting the day away.  However, since I hate "end tables" even more than furniture around a room's perimeter, I found myself in a pinch on where to put the lamps for reading and where to set my beverage.  I needed a ledge, just a small one right behind the sofa that was easily reachable when I was all tucked in.  Since we are on a budget with this remodel, I decided I'd just build one myself. Shockingly it was super easy.

I measured the length of my sofa and then reduced that by 2 inches on each end so it would tuck right in behind, then I measured the height from the floor to just shy of the top of the sofa back. Did you know that most of the big box home improvement stores will cut your wood to size for you free of charge? Take advantage of that! I purchased 1x8 finished pine and had the urban lumberjack cut it. One board to the length I needed and then had another piece cut into 3 pieces matching the height I needed (My measurement minus 1" since I was putting an inch thick board on top of them). Measure twice, cut once is the rule but I like measure once have someone else cut it so it's right even better.  Then I found an 8' length of 1x2 and had him cut it into eight pieces the exact width of the top board for support braces. Since lumber is never a true size, a 1x8 is really only about 7 7/8" wide make sure they use your top board to cut your brace pieces.

Forgive my lack of skills in graphics creation but I thought this would be the easiest way to show construction. I screwed the 1x2 pieces to the top and bottom inside of the two end pieces and on both sides top and bottom of the center support. This enabled them to stand. Then with assistance I laid my top board across the three supports (legs if you will), making sure the center support was centered and the end pieces were flush. Shooting 3 screws through the top board into the top of each support making sure to countersink them a bit. Then I went over the entire piece filling wood putty in on top of the scews and filling in any cracks or seams. Remember it's going to be between the sofa and the wall and primarily out of view so you don't have to go for perfection here.  After the wood putty dries, sand the entire piece with some fine sandpaper to smooth all your surface. Choose a stain color or you can paint it if you wish and finish your piece.

Here's a few more photos of mine:

Once you place the piece behind the sofa, you really don't see it from most angles in the room. Here is what mine looks like when you are standing in the middle of the room:

And then a reverse a view from the picture at the top:

While it's certainly not a piece you would find in an expensive furniture store, it's sturdy and does the job it needs to do without being an eyesore. The best part........my total cost of materials was $45 dollars and it took about 30 minutes to build and about 30 minutes to apply the 3 coats of stain. For a very small investment of time and money, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out!

Pumpkin Crunch Dump Cake

Mother Nature has not been giving me the sunny cool crisp days that make Autumn my favorite season. Waking up to yet another gray, cold, wet day, I was beginning to get a bit frustrated with Fall. Then I remembered I still had the joys of layering my clothing and eating the amazing foods of this time of the year.

I had a recipe for a pumpkin crunch dump cake and decided it was exactly what I needed to put a little of the Autumn that I love into my day. This one does require a bit more effort than your typical dump cake but it is so worth it.

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Be sure this is your first step because chances are you're going to be done mixing up your cake before the oven is ready!  

In a large bowl mix 15 ounces of canned pumpkin with a 12oz can of evaporated milk, 4 eggs, 1 and a half cups of sugar, 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice and 1 tsp of salt. You can use your hand mixer or an electric mixer just long enough to combine the ingredients well. Pour the pumpkin mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish.

Now just like all other dump cakes, we're going to add one dry cake mix. For this cake we use a yellow cake mix and sprinkle it all over the top of the pumpkin mixture and then pat it down a bit. Now you have a nice smooth service to sprinkle with some chopped pecans.

Melt 2 sticks of unsalted butter or margarine and drizzle all over the top of your cake.

Wasn't that quick? Hopefully your oven got to 350 degrees in time because you're ready for this sweet creation to be baked. 60-80 minutes or until finished. My oven finished it perfectly in 70 minutes.

Let it cool for at least 30 minutes to finish setting. The result is a bit hard to describe. It's not like a pumpkin pie but it's not really like a cake. It's sort of like the texture of a bread pudding. What's not hard to describe is the flavor, delicious without being overly sweet. It's pure bliss, like Autumn on a plate. You know when you put on your loved ones oversized shirt, or wrap up in your favorite blanket and it's just like being wrapped up in warm arms that say "welcome home"? Well this cake is that good! Think I'm hyping a bit too much? Try it for yourself and you'll see I'm not exaggerating!

Ingredients
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon salt
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup margarine, melted
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Direction

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease one 9x13 inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Mix well, and spread into the prepared pan.
Sprinkle cake mix over the top of the pumpkin mixture, and pat down. Sprinkle chopped pecans evenly over the cake mix, then drizzle with melted margarine.
Bake for 60 to 80 minutes, or until done. Top with whipped topping when ready to serve.