Cinnamon Lovers Unite!!

Check it out! I was feeling kinda guilty because I made this oreo delight (coming soon, to a blog near you!) that Mom couldn't eat. Dad loved it and forbade me to ever make the stuff again, so I took on an endeavor to find an easily convertible recipe into a delish sugar-free concoction! And I found just the thing. Pay attention now. CINNAMON ROLL CAKE! Yes, such a thing does exist, and now it exists in a sugar-free form! I also have it on good authority that a lady from arkansas (I think) is going to put it in with her recipes for her weight watchers group. So although I only converted it, and I did it out of love, the recipe is going global (haha, I wish)!! For those who don't care about the sugar content, I'll post that recipe first, then add mine with the alterations So let's take this journey, yo! And have a little fun in the process. :D

CAKE:
3 C flour
1/4 t salt
1 C sugar
4 t baking powder
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 1/2 C milk
1/2 C butter, melted

CINNAMON FILLING:
1 C butter, softened
1 C brown sugar
2 T flour
1 T cinnamon

GLAZE:
2 C powdered sugar
5 T milk
1 t vanilla

1. Into your stand mixer, or large mixing bowl put 3 C flour, 1/4 t salt, 1 C sugar, 4 t baking powder, 2 eggs and 2 t vanilla. Pour the 1 1/2 C milk over the other ingredients and mix well.
2. While the mixer is still running slowly add the 1/2 C melted butter. Mix just until combined.
3. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and spread the batter out evenly in the pan.
4. To make the cinnamon filling use a small bowl and a wooden spoon to combine 1 C softened butter, 1 C brown sugar, 2 T flour and 1 T cinnamon.
5. Drop the cinnamon filling by spoonfulls onto the cake batter.
6. Take a butter knife and drag it through both the cinnamon and cake batter layers, making a pretty marble effect.
7. Bake this baby at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. In a small mixing bowl whisk together 2 C powdered sugar, 5 T milk and 1 t vanilla. Pour the glaze over the warm cinnamon cake. Serve warm, or at room temperature.

Here's My Modified Recipe:
Cake:
3 C Flour
1/4t salt
3/4 C Splenda
4 t baking powder
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 1/2 C milk
1/2 c butter, melted

Cinnamon Filling:
1 C butter, softned
1/2 C Splenda brown sugar
2 T flour
2 T Cinnamon

Glaze:
2 C powdered sugar
1 T Cinnamon
3-5 T milk
1 t vanilla

1. To make the cinnamon filling use a small bowl and a wooden spoon to combine 1 C softened butter, 1/2 C brown sugar, 2 T flour and 2T cinnamon. SET ASIDE.
2. Into your stand mixer, or large mixing bowl put 3 C flour, 1/4 t salt, 3/4 C sugar, 4 t baking powder, 2 eggs and 2 t vanilla. Pour the 1 1/2 C milk over the other ingredients and mix well.
3. While the mixer is still running slowly add the 1/2 C melted butter. Mix just until combined.
4. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and spread the batter out evenly in the pan.
5. Drop the cinnamon filling by spoonfulls onto the cake batter.
6. Take a butter knife and drag it through both the cinnamon and cake batter layers, making a pretty marble effect.
7. Bake this baby at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. In a small mixing bowl whisk together 2 C powdered sugar, 3-5 T milk (add milk slowly, until you get the consistancy you want), 1 T cinnamon, and 1 t vanilla. Pour the glaze over the warm cinnamon cake. Serve warm, or at room temperature.

My Rating: 5 Stars (Well, 3 1/2 Stars the first time :D)
So here we go, the things that will make you LOVE this cake, and hopefully appreciative of this blog! :D
1.) For those who are wondering, I am by no means perfect, and therefore it took TWO tries to get this right, and even then it wasn't perfect. ;)
2.) MAKE sure you have all the ingredients gathered FIRST. I am not one to plan ahead as it were, and therefore missing ingredients is why I had to make the cake twice to get it right! I couldn't find the dern Splenda brown sugar ANYWHERE in the house, and had to wait for Mom to get home to tell me where it was. I had already mixed the cake part first, and so it sat on the counter for about 2 hours. Which messes with the melted better in the cake part. Which leads me to...
3.) Just to make sure that cake doesn't set too long while you're mixing up the cinnamon part of the cake, mix that all up first. From mixing the cake, to in the stove, you could taste the difference.
4.) I am aware that this recipe is not COMPLETELY sugar free, however I'm working on the glaze part. Here's the tentative new recipe for it: 4-8 oz. cream chease 1/2 C Splenda brown sugar 3-5 T milk 1 t vanilla 1 T Cinnamon If you get around to it before I do, let me know how that turns out. If not, look soon for the new and improve glaze recipe. :D
5.) It's a fact. In this house, if there's cinnamon involved ALWAYS double the cinnamon. :D Therefore, my recipe is modified to that. If you aren't a big cinnamon fan, you can tone it down a bit. And I might have just thrown in the cinnamon in the glaze, so you can take that out too. :D

Here's the link!
http://jamiecooksitup.blogspot.com/2011/12/cinnamon-roll-cakeeasy-breezy-beautiful.html

Happy Eats!
Samantha

Something for You Softies

Considering that I live in a VERY humid part of Texas, I have some amazingly dry skin, especially during the winter. Unfortunately the barometer count does not have a direct correlation to any one person's dry skin. :) It also doesn't help that because we have a wood burning stove, there is absolutely 0% moisture in our house from the month of November to around the middle of March. So I love anything that can help me get rid of gross, dry, skin and leave my hands soft and awesome! :) I was on PINTEREST (yes, I know, apparently I'm a junky haha) and stumbled on a pretty awesome vanilla scrub :). So let's get down to the nitty gritty (haha, yes pun intended) and check out that recipe for soft hands, and feet too if you have a mind to do that. :)


We didn't use specific measurements, but this is how we did it:

Homemade Sugar Scrub
Equal parts brown sugar and white sugar (ends up being about 1/4 cup each for a 6 oz. jar)
Fill to the top with olive oil (cover the sugars and then maybe an extra 1/2 inch)
Add about 1-2 Tbs of vanilla extract for some yummy flavor.

You could also add essential oils, but that is a little pricier.

So I did NOT use a 6 oz jar, but rather converted an old candle jar into a fairly awesome scrub container. :) Here are my adjusted measurements.
1)Still equal parts brown and white sugar: 3/4 cup of each for me
2)For the olive oil, I followed her directions, but I would recommend mixing it in a bowl then pouring it into the jar, and adding the 1/4 to 1/2 inch oil to the top. Depends on how gritty you want it.
3)You can use any extract. I threw in some cinnamon extract with my vanilla. You might really enjoy peppermint or mint flavor. It all depends. :)

My rating: 5 stars
After learning a few things in the making of this fun, easy scrub, here are my suggestions.
1) Do NOT, I repeat do NOT, forget to wash your hands after using this scrub. I have no idea if it's common practice to wash your hands after using a scrub, but unless you want oil residue all over EVERYTHING you touch after, you WANT to wash your hands after scrub use. :)
2) I'm not too crazy about the vanilla smell, so by all means, use something different! Cinnamon is my favorite flavor so it was easy to pick that over vanilla, but like the lady says, other oils are rather pricey. My advice is whip up a small jar with something you have at the house to see if you like it, and if you do, take a trip to the spice aisle, find your flavor, and whip up a big jar of this stuff!! :)
3) Last but not least, make sure you have a jar handy! I'm one of those people who gets it into her head to do something, and can't let it rest until it's done. Unfortunately, the night I picked to make this scrub I was very hard pressed to find one jar in my whole house! Therefore, I sacrificed a very unfortunate smelling berry flavored candle to the trash so I could have a jar! And that, my friends, took me almost 15 minutes to get the wax out of the candle jar, wash the jar, and ready for use.

After a few days, the cinnamon smell really settled into the scrub, and it smells heavenly. My hands are super soft, and the oil adds some much needed moisture. So far it's safe to use about once a day (two might be overkill, just sayin'), and the result is first-rate!


Here's the link:
http://www.homemadeginger.com/2011/05/homemade-sugar-scrub.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+HomemadeGinger+%2528homemade+ginger%2529

Happy Scrubbing!
Samantha

What's up silly bananas?

So here we go! A rejuvenated blog for some fun-lovin people! :)

Today, I'm gonna share with you a new recipe I tried!! It's called the Green Monster shake, and yes I found it on Pinterest! For all of you guys out there, Pinterest is this really cool site that we ladies (haha, I know some guys get on there too) go to, to find interesting things to repurpose, eat, and kinda build some dreams. :) So the green monster: I read the comments by different people, checked out the recipe, and thought, "Hey, let's give it a try!" So I did.

Here's the recipe:
Serves 1
Ingredients:
1 frozen sliced banana
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
1/2 cup 0% Vanilla Chobani Greek yogurt
1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze (or other kind of milk)
4 cups baby spinach (or more, or less)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Nutritional stats:
350 calories, 10g fiber, 21g protein

All in all, I give the shake 3.5 stars.
1.)You really CAN'T taste the spinach.
2.)I have no problem with using real milk, so I poured in some 1% (Mom's a diabetic, so no whole milk in this house! :)).
3.)The color of the drink was kind of a setback for me, but it might not be for you. I took care of that problem by using a solid glass and straw. Can't see what I'm drinking=enjoyment. :)
4.)Make SURE that you peel that banana before you freeze it, or getting the peeling off will be heck later.
5.)In this leafy green shake's defense, I did use vanilla malt instead of peanut butter, and we didn't have any Greek yogurt (I used Dannon Light and Fit Vanilla Yogurt), so in reality there could be another star in its future.
6.)On the plus side, it only has 350 calories so it makes for a great breakfast shake! So maybe one of these days, I'll give the Green Monster a second chance. Until then, my rating remains. But don't take my word for it, try it yourself! I promise you WILL NOT taste that spinach. :)

For more info:
http://iowagirleats.com/2012/01/04/my-top-secret-diet-weapon/

Happy tasting!
Samantha