Our Best Bites Cupcake Frosting

Ingredients:
6 T. Flour
1 cup milk
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:
In a small sauce pan, whisk together the flour and milk. Heat over medium heat and continue to whisk together until the mixture starts to thicken. Once you can tell its thickening, switch and use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the pan and stir while it continues to thicken. Heat it until it has the consistency of pudding. Once thickened, put the mixture into a bowl and chill it in the refrigerator until it has cooled completely. (It helps to stir it every now and then while cooling.)

Once the mixture has cooled, add the butter and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Beat together for a few minutes until the butter and sugar are fluffy. Add the flour/ milk mixture and continue to beat scraping down the sides every now and then. Add the vanilla and continue beating until the mixture comes together and fluffs up. Take a little of the frosting in your fingers to feel if the sugar has dissolved completely. Once the sugar is dissolved and the frosting is fluffy, remove it from the bowl and use it as desired. This frosting can be stored in the refrigerator once mixed for a few weeks.


Time to Make: about 20 minutes (plus the cooling time)
Recipe Origin: Our Best Bites Website

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1 - 15 oz. can pure pumpkin puree
1 + 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
2 cups chocolate chips (or however many you would like)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and pumpkin in a large bowl and blend together. Slowly add in the coconut oil and continue to blend until it is incorporated. In a medium bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, and chocolate chips. Add to the wet ingredients and mix together.

Place muffin liners in muffin tin (or grease your muffin tin) and fill each 3/4 full with batter. Put a few chocolate chips on the top of each muffin, pressing them in slightly.  Bake muffins at 375 degrees for 20-22 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Remove muffins from tin and cool completely. For mini muffins bake for about 10 minutes and then keep checking on them until they are done. These muffins freeze really well.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to Make: about 40 minutes
Recipe Origin: http://lovelylittlekitchen.com/best-ever-pumpkin-muffins/

Rainbow Jello

Ingredients:
1 small box red jello
1 small box orange jello
1 small box yellow jello
1 small box green jello
1 small box blue jello
1 small box purple jello
1 tub cool whip (regular size)

Directions:
Mix the first layer of jello according to the speed set directions on the box. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into your pan or spoon into containers. Place the jello in the refrigerator until it is pretty set. This shouldn't take much longer than 20 minutes or so. Mix the remaining 1/3 of jello with 1 cup or so of cool whip. Pour this over your pan or into your containers. Put mixture back into the refrigerator until this layer sets. Repeat this with all the boxes of jello until you have all the layers dished out.  This should make a 9x13 pan although I haven't tried it like this.

Previously I used 1 large box of each color (plus 1 small box of the color and whip cream layer) and I made 40 individual servings plus a large 11x13 pan full.

Tip: If you are using a container and it is larger on the top than on the bottom, get 2 boxes of jello of the last 2 colors because you will need more of this flavor to get the same even layer.

Time to Make: a little bit of mixing time, a lot of waiting time for the layers to set up. If you have a day to wait around at home and do this that would be great.
Difficulty: Easy
Recipe Origin: internet somewhere

Cookie Glaze Icing

Ingredients:


Directions:
Add powdered sugar to your mixer and mix it a little to break up clumps. (This is only neccessary if your powdered sugar is not already a fine powder.) Add wet ingredients to the mixing bowl and mix over low-medium speed for 10 minutes. This glaze will start to harden if it sits still for a period of time, so it is helpful to continue mixing the glaze while its not in use.

To glaze cookies: Add a cup of the glaze to a seperate bowl and add more powdered sugar. Mix till well blended. This is for outlining cookies. You need this part of the glaze to be a little bit thicker so that it can act as a barrier for the glaze to stop it from running off the cookie. Pipe this mixture around the outline of the cookie.

To fill in the cookie: Pour the rest of the glaze into a piping bag or bottle and fill in the remainder of the cookie. You can use a knife or the tip of the tool you are using to help fill in holes in the cookie. Allow the glaze to set up for a bit. It will set up to be a soft solid. This is not as hard as royal icing, but it will not run once it has set. Decorate it however you want.

Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients:
4 to 4 + 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 Tbsp. butter
1 large egg, beaten
1 + 3/4 cups buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Whisk together the dry ingredients. Using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles course meal. Make a well into the dough, add egg and buttermilk and mix with a wooden spoon until it is too tough to stir. Flour your hands and knead the dough just until it sticks together as a rough ball (a little like shortcake dough). If the dough is too wet to do this, add a little more flour.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and continue to knead just until the flour is moistened. Shaggy is good, the more you knead the dough, the tougher the bread will be. Shape into a round loaf and score and X through the top (just up to the edges). Place loaf on a lightly greased baking sheet or cast-iron skillet and bake at 425 degrees for 35-45 minutes.  The loaf will sound hollow when it is done. Cool slightly a bit on the baking sheet and serve warm with butter and honey.

Difficulty: medium
Time to Make: about an hour (including baking time)
Recipe Origin: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/irish_soda_bread/

Applesauce Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups unsweetened applesauce
4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 + 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla, and applesauce and mix well. Blend in the remaining ingredients. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full with the mix and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from pan. Makes about 24 muffins. Suitable for freezing too.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to Make: about 30 minutes
Recipe Origin: http://www.thekitchenismyplayground.com/2015/10/family-favorite-applesauce-muffins.html