My Easter treats ... your everyday ones

Hey Everyone!!!!  So I know it's Tuesday AFTER Easter but I was busy moving stuff around to get our new cable/internet/phone installed. Trying to find ways to cut back and this was one of them.  40 bucks is definitely a help.  I'm going to start with showing you the treats I made for Easter to share with the family.  I know, I mentioned in my last post that my poor sister Christin has been without sweets for 40 days but I do believe I hit her sweet tooth just fine.  And they were ALL something new, yes I say new even if I used the same recipe twice. 

This recipe can be found in the blog named I promised you something sweet ... Boy do I deliver and with few ingredients!  I made these using carrot cake cake mix and added about 2 tablespoons of minced carrots and strawberry cake mix Cool Whip cookies.  They were SO SO yum.  Put them in a lidded container and open the lid and POW!  The smell of strawberry hits you and makes your mouth water.  Spicy, delicious carrot cake in a light, fluffy cookie?  Oh boy!  You REALLY need to try these!  I have a new found love of cake mix when making these cookies.  

Then there was the cream puff recipe Tammy, my BFF, found for me to try.  I did try, just to see how easy or difficult they were.  And they weren't too difficult.  Knowing how easy they were to make, I changed my mind and went searching.  Decided I wanted to do chocolate cream puffs with a banana "mousse" filling.  I had everything I needed to make chocolate cream puffs, now to find a recipe.  So I ended up using one I found at Cooks.com adding 2 Tablespoons of Unsweetened Cocoa Powder and changed the sugar to 1 Tablespoon instead of 1 teaspoon.  The cocoa powder for mine was 1 dark and 1 milk chocolate(s).

I have include pictures of the process.  Hubby, who watched me make them, got a little concerned when I added the eggs and it looked like it was breaking down.  His actual comment was "they look like really thick worms".  Not something you really want to hear about something you're making but I told him not to worry.  Now I will admit.  This was the second batch that I made.  The first one, did not turn out well.  I THOUGHT that I could make them all at once on two separate cookie sheets.  But KNOWING that I have to turn the tray or switch them half way through I DID NOT think about adding extra time to allow the oven to come back up to temperature.  Needles to say, they did not rise well.  Actually they were pretty flat.  *sighs*  So I decided NOT to try that again, so I made them one tray at a time as they made 16 of them.  Yes that WHOLE tray of finished product was made with one batch of dough.  Oh and when I went to buy more banana pudding, the store was out. Grrr!  So I found sugar free cheesecake pudding, used sugar free Cool Whip and viola ... cheesecake "mousse" filling.  So really your sugar content is pretty low on this one.  

Dessert was definitely light enough and yummy enough that you didn't walk away weighed down.  Definitely time to investigate ways to make other flavored cream puffs.  Now that I'm making homemade coffee creamer, which is conveniently cheaper than buying store bought and quite yummy if you do it right.  ;0)  I will definitely make that one of the posts.  I have discovered a few things.  Try the cream puffs though, really!  They are yummy even not filled.  No matter which one you try to make, no matter if you try you make your own flavor, remember that best ingredient to any recipe is you .... Enjoy!!!