Homemade Oreos

These are sooo good!

Homemade Oreos

2 boxes of Devil Food cake mix
1 1/2 cups Crisco
4 eggs

Combined all ingredients together and mix until well blended. Roll dough into little balls ( about the size of a quarter) and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 7-8 minutes. Let cool.

Filling

3 cups powder sugar
4 oz soften cream cheese
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter (melted)

Combine all ingredients and beat well. It’s always fun to use a little food coloring in the filling to make these a festive treat!

After the cookies have cooled, put the filling into the middle of two cookies and squish together until you have a Oreo!!! Repeat and enjoy!

Cream Cheese Frosting

this is a recipe I found on allrecipes.com and we've used many times and love. This is if you want a REALLY cream cheese taste. (I do!) Just use one pkg. of cream cheese for a sweeter frosting.

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

Twice Baked Potatoes

{Image from ThePioneerWoman.com}
Making these to go with dinner tonight. MMMmmm. Find the recipe HERE. We of course did not add the green onion, but I'm wishing we would have added heaps of garlic. You should definitely make them - they're very easy.

Butterfinger Cookies

I found this one on Allrecipes.com because I had some leftover butterfinger candies from Halloween. It is REALLY good! Peanut Butter cookies kicked up a notch!

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5 butter finger candy bars = approx. 15 mini bars, crushed

Combine butter, sugars, egg, pb, and vanilla - mix well. Add flour, soda and salt. Mix in crushed butter fingers. I also added about a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. (I thought about 8 minutes was plenty.)

Enjoy!!

Whey Carmel Corn

Whey Carmel Corn by Jill Conklin

3 air popper batches of popped corn
1 c. butter
2 c. granulated sugar
¾ c. powdered whey
½ c. karo syrup (light corn syrup)
¼ c. water
½ t. baking soda

Put popped corn in a large brown paper bag.

Melt butter in a large glass bowl in microwave. Stir in sugar, whey, karo, and water. Stir well to combine. Microwave on high 4 minutes, stir mixture and cook 1 more minute. Stir again and cook 30 seconds, stir and cook 30 seconds. Add soda and stir well, adding the soda will cause the mixture to foam up.

Pour syrup over popped corn in bag. Stir with a large wooden spoon, spatula, etc. Place bag in microwave and cook for 2 minutes, take bag out and stir; cook 1 minute more.

Remove bag from microwave, tear open, and let cool on counter.

If you want to color the corn or flavor it, add before stirring in the soda.

Make sure you use a large glass bowl. As the syrup cooks, it will bubble up, and if your bowl isn’t large enough, you will have a big mess.

Jill Conklin is in my ward and demoed this at our last Halloween RS Activity. It's more like a candy coating on your popcorn, not really carmel-y, but VERY good!

Dill/Ranch Chex Snack Mix

SNACK MIX - recipe by Jill Conklin

1- 14 oz. box corn chex
2- 12.8 oz. boxes rice chex
1- 10 oz. bag oyster crackers
12 oz. mini pretzels
1- envelope Ranch dressing & seasoning mix**
1 T. garlic powder
3 T. dill weed
¾ C. oil

Dump both types of chex cereal, oyster crackers, and pretzels into a large brown paper bag. Stir well to mix. Sprinkle dressing mix, garlic powder, and dill weed over, and stir well to mix again. Gradually pour oil over all, and once again stir to mix well. Fold bag down, and microwave for 2 minutes, stir, microwave 2 minutes more, stir and microwave one last time for 1 minute. Dump contents of bag out onto counter to cool.

**Make sure that you get the pkg. that says dressing & seasoning, it is the one that just has you add milk, not any mayonnaise.

The sizes of boxes and bags listed above are just an approximation. You can add more or less of anything depending on your taste. I have also added mixed nuts in the past. You just may need to increase or decrease your oil depending on the amount of dry ingredients.

Jill Conklin is in my ward and demoed this recipe at our ward's Halloween RS activity. Very tasty!

German Raw Apple Cake

German Raw Apple Cake - from Holtzinger Fruit

2 1/4 cups flour
2 large eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sour milk (1 tsp vinegar + 1 cup milk)
2 cups peeled & thinly sliced apples

Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, eggs, brown sugar, white sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, shortening and sour milk. Mix until well blended. Fold in apples.
Pour the batter into a greased 12x9 cake pan.
To prepare the topping, combine all ingredients and mix to blend. Sprinkle over the cake batter.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Makes 12 servings.

We got this recipe out of a 2008 Costco cookbook, called In the Kitchen The Costco Way. It has a very coffee cake-like taste and texture. Very good! We'll be making this one more often and adding it to our favorite recipes list.

Bob subbed wheat flour for the white and didn't add the nuts to the topping. We topped with Cool Whip Free.