As we approach the beautiful days of Springtime, we start to see the delicious fresh strawberries and peaches in our grocer’s produce section as well as at the farmer’s markets. If you love them as much as I do, you will soon be digging out the recipes for these special treats. You might want to add the ones in this article to your files! The Peaches Cheesecake is so easy and delicious it will probably become a favorite among your family and friends. The Fresh Strawberry Cake is so easy you can always turn to it when you need an easy dessert. It can be dusted with powdered sugar or you may frost with your favorite vanilla or cream cheese frosting. It just depends on how much ‘sweet’ you want. When dusted with powdered sugar, it is easy to pack in lunches.

PEACHES NO-BAKE CHEESECAKE
2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup sugar, divided
4 pkgs (8-oz each)
Neufchatel cream cheese, softened
1 pkg (4-serving size) peach flavored gelatin mix
2 to 3 (depending on size) fresh peaches, chopped*
1 container (8-oz) whipped topping, thawed

Mix the Graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and 1/4 cup of the sugar well. Press the mixture onto the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch pan. Refrigerate.

In large bowl of electric mixer, beat the Neufchatel cheese and the remaining 3/4 cup of sugar together with mixer until well blended and smooth. Add the peach gelatin in and mix well. Gently stir in the peaches and whipped topping.

Remove crust from refrigerator and spoon the peach mixture over the crust. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours before cutting to serve. Cut into 16 pieces to serve. Refrigerate any leftovers.

*If fresh peaches are not available, use a 15-oz can of peaches that are drained and chopped.

FRESH STRAWBERRY CAKE
1 box (2-layer size white cake mix
1 pkg (3-oz) strawberry gelatin
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, halved
4 eggs
1 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and lightly flour a 9 x 13-inch baking pan; set aside.

Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water, stirring until completely dissolved. In mixer bowl, pour the gelatin mixture over the dry cake mix. Add the eggs, oil, and strawberries; blend until completely moistened and mixed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees until the cake springs back when touched lightly by fingertips.

Frost with your favorite frosting or simply dust with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

For more of Linda’s dessert recipes visit her blog at http://ladybugssweettreats.blogspot.com

For her diabetic dessert recipes visit her at http://diabeticenjoyingfood.blogspot.com

I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you.

Yes, I love them. They taste awfully good. Sure don’t hate them, I just hate that everything went wrong while making them. Sometimes life isn’t so sweet.

Let’s start at the beginning…….

Brownies Take One:

“These sound so good, sweet and delicious. Hey look they aren’t even that hard to make!” *Puts on oven, in goes brownies* Tick, tick, tick, 10 minutes pass. “Hey! Why does it smell like something is burning??” *Runs to oven* “OH NO!!”

Yeah, our oven decided to jump headfirst into it’s death. The knob was set on 325 but in reality the oven was probably on like 500. They burned in, I kid you not, like 15 minutes. Raw inside, black as coal outside.

Brownies Take Two:

*Going back to Jersey* “What’s there to do in New Jersey? Seriously, not so much.” I’ll tell you what happened, another brownie epidemic. Luckily, this one turned out to be much smaller and actually edible. Too many things on my mind, I forgot to add the dry ingredients. Alright, the brownies where only in the oven for 2 minutes, they won’t be as pretty but they sure as hell can be saved.

Final Result:

Pretty damn good. A fudgy brownie with a subtle cream cheese flavor and nice little crunchy toffee pieces on top. I admit, I wish they came out prettier but they still tasted super nice. Fudgy, creamy, and a little crunchy. Well worth the second try, bravo. I’ll even give them a third try!

Cream Cheese Brownies with Toffee Bits

Recipe from Recipe Girl

Ingredients:

FILLING:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, cold
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

BROWNIES:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 cups granulated white sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 Tablespoons whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1-2 packages toffee bits

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour 13×9-inch baking pan.

-FILLING:Beat cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Add egg and flour and beat well. Set aside.

-BROWNIES:In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

-In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter with the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat, transfer to a large bowl, and bring to lukewarm temperature, 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar. Add eggs, milk, & vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Stir in toffee bits as seen fit

-Reserve 1/2 cup of the brownie batter. Spread the rest of the batter evenly in the prepared pan. Drop cream cheese mixture by tablespoonfuls over the batter. Next, drop the reserved brownie batter by teaspoonfuls in between the cream cheese filling. Using a small knife, swirl the two batters together.

-Sprinkle toffee bits over the top (as much as you want, I didn’t even use the bag of toffee for the whole recipe)

-Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs attached. Cool before serving.

Moist and delicious. Let the sweet life begin.

Visit http://www.liveasweetlife.com for more recipes.

I’m Tara. I have a love of baking (surprise!) and I can’t wait to share recipes with you. I am 22 -years-old and live with my loving boyfriend, Amir. He is a huge part of my inspiration and you should check out his blogs too! We have a 3-year-old Yorkie, Teagan, who probably licks up way to much cake batter from the floor!

I am a self taught baker that learned from family, friends and the world around me. I am fortunate enough to live in New York City so everyday I have a new inspiration.

I try to pair my desserts with the perfect beverage to compliment the flavor of the dessert. Today’s pairing is Cafe Escapes Mocha Coffee by Green Mountain Coffee (made for Keurig coffee makers) and whole grain chocolate chip refrigerator cookies. These two flavor profiles go together exceptionally well. The Cafe Escapes Mocha Coffee is really more of a hot chocolate with a bit of coffee flavor, unlike most mocha coffees that have a strong coffee flavor with a hint of chocolate. This Mocha Coffee is the perfect match for the nutty and buttery flavor of the whole grain cookies.

I call these tasty treats “refrigerator cookies” because I leave the dough in the refrigerator and just bake as many cookies as I need at a given time. Then I eat the cookies while they are still warm. You can bake them all at once and serve them at room temperature, but the combination of butter and whole grains tend to make a drier cookie once cooled. You can get around this by using an oil that is liquid at room temperature, such as olive oil, but you will be missing out on that great buttery taste. Plus warm cookies are insanely good.

Ingredients for 5 dozen whole grain chocolate chip refrigerator cookies

1 1/4 cup of whole grain wheat flour

1 cup of whole grain oat flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of sea salt

1 cup of butter (2 sticks) at room temperature

1 cup of brown sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of hazelnut extract (the whole grains already provide a nutty background flavor; this will compliment that)

2 large eggs

2 cups of chocolate chips (I like to use dark chocolate chips for this recipe, but any type will do)

Directions

Combine the two whole grain flours, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Whisk well to combine and aerate the ingredients.

Beat the butter with either a stand mixer or a hand mixer. Add the sugar and beat until well creamed. Add the vanilla and hazelnuts extracts along with one of the eggs. Beat well. Add the other egg and beat again. Add half of the flour mixture and beat until it just comes together. Repeat with the other half of the flour mixture. Add the chocolate chips and gently stir to distribute. It is important not to over-mix once the flour is added; this will over-develop the gluten found in wheat flour and result in a tough cookie.

Use wax paper to roll the cookie dough into logs about 1 1/2 inches thick. Place these logs into a resealable plastic bag and place that into the refrigerator. Cut 3/4 inch slices of this cold dough and bake them on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 375 degrees F until they turn lightly golden around the edges; this should take about 9 to 12 minutes. Turn the baking sheet around halfway through the baking process if your oven does not bake evenly throughout. Let the cookies cool for one minute, then serve while still very warm with a cup of freshly brewed Cafe Escapes Mocha Coffee.

Don’t have a Keurig coffee maker yet? Don’t miss out on all the great flavors of coffee, tea and hot cocoa that they offer! Visit Keurig Coffee Maker Reviews to find one today. You will find thousands of reviews and a handy buying guide to help you along the way.

Heather Krasovec, creator of http://keurigcoffeemakerreviewsandsinglecupcoffeemakerreviews.com/, uses her extensive experience in food based industries to help consumers make the best choices when stocking their kitchens.

I love Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice Coffee made for Keurig coffee makers. I played around with different dessert recipes, trying to find the perfect match to compliment its flavors. I went with some obvious choices at first: pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin nut muffins and pumpkin cookies. It was just too much pumpkin to eat a pumpkin dessert along with a pumpkin flavored beverage. I then realized the perfect match would be a pecan pie. Both are cool weather favorites and go together quite well. This gave me the perfect opportunity to tackle something I had thought about for a long time: creating a pecan pie without any corn syrup.

The pecan pie was first printed in a promotional cookbook for a corn syrup company, which is why corn syrup is the traditional sweetener for this pie. Corn syrup is one ingredient I try to never consume. I tried many variations on a pecan pie without corn syrup before settling on this beautifully spiced one I am sharing today. The problem with most of them was they would not properly “set up.” They were either runny or had weird chunks in them. Not the best dessert to go with anything, especially not such a wonderful coffee. I finally realized that I needed more than just the usual two eggs to hold this pie together. I doubled the eggs and finally got the consistency I was looking to have, but the flavor became diluted. Eventually I got it right. This version uses no whole eggs, but 6 egg yolks instead. That adds a richer flavor rather than diluting the flavor. I hope you enjoy the result of all my pecan pie attempts!

Ingredients for one 9 inch pecan pie

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of dark (grade B) maple syrup

1/2 cup of heavy cream

1 tablespoon of molasses

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter cut into 1/4 inch cubes

1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon of ground clove

1/8 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

6 large egg yolks, beaten

1 1/2 cups of shelled pecans

1 unbaked 9 inch pie crust, either store-bought or homemade

Directions

Put the pie shell into a 9 inch pie pan and chill it in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Heat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Toast the pecans in a skillet over medium heat for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and roughly chop.

Put the sugar, maple syrup, heavy cream and molasses into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Heat over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let cool for 8 minutes. Whisk the salt, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and butter into the sugar and maple syrup mixture until everything is well combined. Slowly whisk in the egg yolks and continue whisking until everything is very well combined.

Evenly distribute the pecans in the chilled pie crust. Add the filling. Place the pie into the center rack of the hot oven and bake until the filling is set; this should take about 1 hour.

Cool the pie on a cooling rack for one hour before moving it to the refrigerator. Refrigerate the pie overnight to ensure the filling is completely set. Bring to room temperature before serving with a freshly brewed cup of Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice Coffee.

Don’t have a Keurig coffee maker to call your own yet? Don’t miss out on all the great flavors they offer, like Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice. Visit Keurig Coffee Maker Reviews to find yours today! You’ll find thousands of reviews and a handy buying guide to help you along the way.

Heather Krasovec, creator of http://keurigcoffeemakerreviewsandsinglecupcoffeemakerreviews.com/, uses her extensive experience in food based industries to help consumers make the best choices when stocking their kitchens.

I think it is important to pair the proper beverage with a dessert when entertaining. I have gone through a lot of trial and error when testing different Keurig coffee makers and the varieties of K Cups Keurig offers. I would let my guests choose their coffee or tea in the beginning, because I thought that would make their experience the most enjoyable. I soon came to realize that without knowing what the dessert tastes like, my guests had no way of knowing which beverage flavor would best compliment its flavors. So I have developed a list of desserts and the preferred paired beverages for them. I would certainly let someone deviate from my suggestion if they wanted to do so, but I think a good host ought to provide tea or coffee that goes well with what is being served.

Today’s pairing is Keurig’s Vanilla Chai Tea and whole grain ginger cookies. Both have a strong spice profile that compliment each other rather than competing. The smooth vanilla flavor in the tea goes very well with the Chai spices. This tea is a great afternoon choice by itself, but it is even better with ginger cookies.

When making a whole grain cookie of any kind, it is very important to not just swap out the white flour for whole grain flour. That will likely result in a dry and tough cookie. You want to blend soft and hard whole grain flours to get a good texture. Solid shortening or butter tend to make a whole grain cookie taste dry once the cookies are cooled. You will want a fat that stays liquid at room temperature since that will provide moistness in the cookie. I love the flavor of butter in ginger cookies, so I use a combination of butter and olive oil. That gives me the perfect ratio of moisture and flavor. The result is a tasty, soft and puffy ginger cookie that goes great with the Keurig Vanilla Chai Tea.

Ingredients for 32 Whole Grain Ginger Cookies

1/4 cup butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup of sugar

1 1/2 cups of dark molasses

1/2 cup of cold water

3 cups of whole grain wheat flour

3 cups of whole grain oat flour

2 teaspoons of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of sea salt

1 teaspoon of ground allspice

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves

2 teaspoons of baking soda

Directions

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream together the butter, olive oil, sugar and molasses using either a hand mixer or stand mixer.

Combine the two flours, salt, baking soda and all the spices and whisk until very well combined. Add the flour mix to the creamed mixture and beat until it just comes together. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough to a 1/2 inch thickness, then cut with a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter. Bake until when they are lightly touched with a finger, no imprint remains; this should take about 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving with freshly brewed Keurig Vanilla Chai Tea.

Don’t have a Keurig coffee maker yet? Don’t miss out on all the great flavors they offer! Visit Keurig Coffee Maker Reviews to read hundreds of Keurig coffee maker reviews to help you find the one that best suits your needs.

Heather Krasovec, creator of http://keurigcoffeemakerreviewsandsinglecupcoffeemakerreviews.com/, uses her extensive experience in food based industries to help consumers make the best choices when stocking their kitchens.