baking and birthdays

The last week and a half I've been baking everything in sight and I've discovered some amazing new recipes. I mentioned the blog Bakerella before, and I love her, but anyway-for Valentine's day she made cookie sandwiches from a cake mix filled with cream cheese icing... we had a few people over for Mexican (I made flautas... they were amazing) and I tried out these cookies with a boxed white cake mix, and they were such a hit! I even took pictures, but I need to load them onto the computer. If you've had oreo cakesters.. these were the same, but only cost me $2 to make.

Refrigeration in Spain isn't as advanced as what I'm used to back home, and when you mix in the lack of preservatives-food goes bad very quickly at the Schmeers. Unfortunately I can't blame the fridge, but I ruined a pound of strawberries last week but still wanted to use what I could salvage from them (I'm on a new kick to try really hard not to let our food spoil). And I made strawberry scones, they were fabulous! My mom made some great scones this summer and I've been meaning to try to make them, I attempted one night for Greg and I and ended up with a huge mess all over the oven, I'm not sure what went wrong. But these were fantastic, and they kept for 2 days! Goodthingscatered.blogspot.com is where I found the recipe and I'll post it later this week. It was so easy... the trick is in the butter.

And my last accomplishment was homemade brownies, I've tried a few different recipes and they just do not cut it. We brought some Duncan Hines box mixes with us from home, and I don't know what secret ingredient they have in those mixes, but nothing beats the boxed mix. But I've finally found a decent recipe. Tineke and Charles are great friends of ours (they're from Holland) and they have 3 kids. Charles had to fly to Holland this weekend because he just found out his dad is really sick, and Tineke was stuck with hosting a sleepover birthday party for her 10 year old son and 9 of his friends! She asked Greg and I to help out, and of course we said yes, we had no idea how much fun we'd have! She's a planner, so the party was planned out to the minute. And Greg and I had a blast playing games with all the kids and keeping them entertained, and we got a free dinner out of the deal! And Tineke was the holder of the secret awesome brownie recipe, who she got from our American friend Amber.

It's almost too simple.. give it a try!

Brownie Pie

1 c. white sugar

1 c. butter or margarine melted

2/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)

3 eggs

6 tbsp. flour

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix sugar, cocoa powder, and butter in bowl.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg.

Add flour and vanilla extract, again-mix well.

Grease and flour a 9 inch pie plate (this step is surprisingly important!).

Bake for 30 minutes, or until edges pull away from pan and toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool for at least 5 minutes and cut into wedges.

Enjoy!