My accidental phallic basket….

So my son (7) brought home his papers from school and in it was a flyer for the school carnival with a request for bakers to send in cookies, cakes, etc. I tried to ignore it – I really did. Its not that I don’t like to help, I do, but I know myself. I go overboard and something thats supposed to be simple ends up driving me crazy. I could just bake cookies and send them in. That’s perfectly acceptable and it would only take me about an hour. But there is something wrong with me…..I absolutely have to make everything harder than it is (stop shaking your head yes Tim).

I got this great idea that I was going to send in  a cookie basket….simple right? It would have been had I not got the idea to add candy. Its not that the melting and molding in itself is difficult, but when you start baking at 7:30pm with a messy kitchen, kids that need to get homework done, showers, bed time, blah blah blah its a recipe for disaster.

I ignored my better judgement and started baking chocolate chip cookies – this cookie recipe is awesome. It uses pudding and the cookies come out cake like and chewy. When the cookies were baking I decided to start the candy….I melted the chocolate wafers, poured it in the molds and let set.

Soon it was time to put the basket(bucket) together. I got a piece of floral foam and put it in the bottom and covered it with pink grass type stuff. I then stuck the candy popsicles into the foam and filled around them with cookies. I made  some candy flowers and placed them throughout. I also added a few brownies – I made them from a mix.

It was done, looked ok and I took a few pictures. My husband came in and told me how good it looked, but I just kept feeling like something wasn’t right. Then it hit me – it looked like penises on a stick! My husband saw it too and when I posted the pic on Facebook this morning so did everyone else. So I took the candy sticks out, rearranged the basket and stuck a bow on it. I’m so glad I noticed it before I sent it in.

This is obviously the before: (lighting was bad)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The after:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this recipe on allrecipes and its one of my favorites:

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 cups butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

METHOD:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.

Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookie Trifle

I had a few choices on what to do this past Saturday – clean the house, paint the kitchen or have a get together with family. Of course I chose to have people over because 1. I love parties(and my family:) & 2. I’m a procrastinator. I really didn’t want to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon painting so I bought some stuff to make mudslides (yum!) and thought about what food I was going to make. At first I decided just to serve drinks, but I have what I call the “hostess gene” and I can’t have people over without feeding them. Its a weird quirk of mine. Anyway, I decided to make a trifle because it looks fun &  I was sure the kids were going to love it.

This is a relatively simple dessert to put together……make it & watch it disappear!

Trifle:

INGREDIENTS:                                                                                                                  

2  Large tubes (32oz each) Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

2 bags chocolate chips

2 packages instant chocolate pudding

make according to package

1 tub Cool Whip

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350. Press one tube of cookie dough into a 9×13 pan. Pour one bag of chocolate chips over the dough. Crumble the other tube of dough over the chocolate chips. Bake for about 40 minutes or until it starts to turn golden brown. Let cool in pan. Make the pudding according to package. Once cookie mixture is cool, its time to put the trifle together. Put one layer of cookie on the bottom of trifle dish, then a layer of pudding and next a layer of cool whip. Repeat until trifle dish is full. Make sure the top layer is cool whip. Top with chocolate chips.

SUGGESTIONS:

This can be made several different ways – You can use a different flavor cookie or pudding. Brownies or cake can be used instead of cookies.  Or if you like, you can make the cookies, pudding and even whipped cream from scratch. This is such a fun dessert to make and serves a large crowd.

I saw the idea for the cookie pie on http://www.mamalovesfood.com/search?updated-max=2011-11-30T15:19:00-08:00&max-results=3 and thought it would be fun to turn into a trifle.