Maybe I ought not to have put the word “bombs” in my blog title. Who knows what that will bring to my blog via the Search Engines. I don’t think I want to know.  But the title is appropriate, because these things are the bomb! The original recipe came from Tasty Kitchen, but I first saw the photo of it on Pinterest. (Pinterest – now sucking up even more time that I don’t have, but OH so fun. Sigh.)

Interesting to note – these bake up like cake donuts on the inside. The recipe says to dunk them in butter and roll them in cinnamon/sugar after baking. Well, that sounded like a bit much to me. I figured I’d bake them in cupcake liners, then brush butter on the top and sprinkle it with a dusting of cinnamon/sugar. Healthier, right? The problem with that is that the cake part is pretty bland and a light dusting of cinnamon/sugar didn’t cut it. So I said “the heck with it”, dunked them good, and rolled them in the cinnamon/sugar mix like they told me to. The result? Ohmyword good. Perfect. Some things you just don’t fight. Or “fix”.

Cinnamon Sugar Bombs

1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Topping:
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbl. cinnamon

Combine oil, 3/4 cup sugar, egg and milk. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Divide into 12 well-greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 10 – 12 minutes. (Note: I had to bake mine for 20 minutes. Not sure why.)

While hot, dip in melted butter and roll in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Let cool. Enjoy!

Now, on to the zillion other recipes I’ve pinned in Pinterest. Are you on Pinterest? Stay away from it if you can help it. Stay very very far away.

What did you decide to knit for Camp Loopy’s Project Two? Next Friday can’t get here soon enough, so that we can start in on our projects! I am knitting All The Water mittens (which we have now sold out of at Loopy, so pop over and get it from Kirsten if you’d like it) out of  Three Irish Girls Glenhaven Cashmerino Worsted (in Cara – the light blue color that matches my Winter’s Rhythm Capelet). I did finish my Project One Pamuya and it’s drying and blocking. I’ll show you that next week. Have a great weekend!

Sheri baking,despitebeingtakenoverbypackingboxes

The Campfire Story about Loopy is cracking me up! Did you read it? Loopy started off knitting in the attic of a house and he has: taught the UPS guy how to knit, drunk a portion of  shrinking potion, followed the Wollmeise trail to Germany, danced with blue and green lights, talked to Dr. Who, and met friends along the way. Great job on the story-telling! I’ll draw a yarn winner next week, so feel free to continue the story over the weekend.

Here is a cake that has ALL the right flavors in it – brownies, chocolate chip cookies, marshmallows, graham crackers, cheesecake, and chocolate frosting. Doesn’t it look unbelievably decadent? I especially love the thick layer of chocolate frosting on the top. I saw this over on Julia’s blog and asked permission to share the photos and recipe with you. (I was afraid that if I made it to photo myself, WH and I would then eat it. Which would have been very very good. And very very bad. But I will make it sometime, when there are more people around to eat it. It looks way too good to pass up.) You can find the recipe for this cake here. It’s a little long, so I’m sending you over there instead of typing it all up here.

Check out some of the rest of the recipes on Julia’s blog. She does a great job of coming up with unique flavors and combinations, that all work together to mix into something wonderful. Like Basil Cauliflower Pizza, Breakfast Cookies, Goat Cheese and Phyllo Pizza, Grilled Vegetable Platter with Cilantro Avocado Aioli, Chickpea and Feta Salad, and …. well, I’ll stop now. You can pop over there and poke through all of the categories on your own. I know you’ll come up with several “must make” recipes for yourself and your family.

Do you ever have a weekend where you SHOULD be doing one thing but you WANT to be doing another? I really should be packing boxes, since we’re moving our household in three weeks. But what I want to be doing? Working on my Pamuya Shawl. What should you be doing? And what do you want to be doing instead?

Sheri ormaybeIshouldavoidbothofthosethings
andjustmakethiscake?

Are you ready for s’more recipes that are perfect for camping? (Lame joke. I couldn’t help it.) These are best when you zap them in the microwave for 15 seconds before eating. It melts the chocolate and marshmallow just enough to seem like you’re enjoying an old-fashioned S’more. (Really, I can’t believe the authentic taste that you get from this recipe. Must be the graham cracker crumbs in the dough.)

S’mores Cookie Bars
(original recipe from Lovintheoven)

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (like Hersheys)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

Preheat over to 350 degrees and grease an 8 x 8 baking pan.

Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Gradually add this into the butter/sugar mixture at low speed, until mixed well.

Divide the dough in half. Press the first half into the bottom of the pan. Layer the chocolate bars over the dough and then spread the marshmallow creme over the top of the chocolate.

Roll out the remaining dough to fit over the top, and then layer it on. (You won’t be able to pat it out on top of the creme, so rolling with a rolling pin is the easiest way to do it.)

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting.

How are your Camp Loopy projects coming along? I started mine with the two colors I showed you in this post, and had to rip out the multi-color Mansfield Garden Party, four rows in. I really thought it was going to work, but once I added it to the Celadon, they just looked bad together. I’m using Seawash with the Celadon instead. Much better. I still love the skein of Mansfield that I have. I’ll pair it with something else and will make another two-color shawl. In fact, I have so many patterns that I now want to make, thanks to all of you for sharing links over on Ravelry. Have you found more two-color projects that are now on your list, once this first one is done?

Sheri whomayhaveeatenoneortwoofthosebars
fortestingpurposesonly

I found the easiest (yet yummiest) camping recipe to share with you today. Perfect for our Camp Loopy snacking. Do check out this link to the original photos from TSJ Photography, as the whole birthday idea is brilliant and the photography is stunning. (Photos used with permission. If you’re in the North Carolina area, I’m jealous that you have the opportunity to use Tracie’s photography service firsthand. What beautiful work.)

Happy Camper Crunch

4 cups Golden Grahams cereal
3 cups mini marshmallows
2 cups milk chocolate chips (or M&M’s, if you want to add in more color)

Mix and serve in a big bowl, or package it up in single-size serving bags. Put on a family movie and gather ’round for a night of fun. (Note – you get to knit on your Campfire Night project while the rest of the family enjoys the movie with you. That way, everyone is happy!)

Enjoy your weekend. I am at our TNNA Market, scouting out new products and lines to add in at The Loopy Ewe. I’ll keep you posted on what I find. I might also need to make sure that Jeni’s Ice Cream still tastes good. That’s one of the best parts of heading to Columbus, OH for Market.

What are your favorite family movies? Maybe a weekly Family Movie Night is in order for the summer. What do you think? (And then maybe a Weekly Family Reading Night, too, just to make sure that books get at least equal billing.)

Sheri wishingIhadabagofthisHappyCamperCrunchtoday

It was fun to log on to Ravelry this morning and see that my favorite group (the Loopy Groupies) had hit 5000 members in the past day. Wow! That’s very exciting to us. I love that our board has a lot of active conversations going on, I appreciate how warm and welcoming all of you Loopy Groupies are over there, and I like knowing that if anyone has a question about a pattern or technique or just needs advice and posts on our board, people jump in immediately to help. (Actually, that happens all over Ravelry. What a great group of knitters and crocheters.) In celebration of hitting that 5000 mark, I have a contest going on over there. Just leave a link in the contest thread and we’ll be drawing a winner next week. See the first post on the “5000 Contest” thread for details. I am adding so many projects to my Favorites list over there, as a result of that thread. (Note – this photo is from our post on Ravelry’s Bob, when he was featured in our Loopy Limelight. You can’t have a big reference to Ravelry without Bob’s cute face, right?)

I’m watching our Facebook and Twitter groups, too. We’ll celebrate with a contest when each of those hit 5000 as well. Facebook is close, but we have a ways to go on Twitter. It’s always fun to celebrate with a contest.  And speaking of that, we have RED yarn to award to several of you, as a result of our Valentine’s Day blog contest. Most of you found something to appreciate about that day, although a few of you still don’t like it, and that’s ok. I liked reading about all of the Valentine birthdays. And I like that so many of you feel loved the whole year through. We used the Random Number Generator to pull the winners. We’ll be sending beautiful red yarn to: Carol L in NY, Pat F in WV, Marla G in CA, Karen S in MO, MIchelle M in Ontario, Canada, and Kathy R (comment #1102, who was glad she’s SINGLE – but Kathy, I can’t find you in our system – please email me so that we can get your prize out to you!)

Here’s a quick coffee cake recipe to whip up on a cold day. The brown sugar in the mix gives it a caramel-cake kind of taste, and of course the crunchy topping is delicious. We had this here at Loopy on Valentine’s Day to go along with our morning coffee.

Heath Bar Coffee Cake

Mix together:

1/4 lb. butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar

(Reserve 1/2 cup of this for topping.)

Next, add in:

1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg

Mix and pour batter into greased 9 x 13 pan.

Take the 1/2 cup reserved topping mixture and add in:

1/2 cup crushed Heath bars (or Skor toffee bits)
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix well and sprinkle over the top of the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

It’s another long weekend here in the U.S., since Monday is President’s Day (and a no-mail Monday). We’ll be back in on Tuesday to get your orders packaged up from Monday night’s update. We have a big batch of Dream in Color’s Smooooshy with Cashmere that arrived this week, so watch for that to go up on Monday, along with a few other fun things as well.

Sheri nowgoingtowalkaroundLoopyandfindyarntomakethis

It’s Random Acts of Kindness Reporting Day again! Your wonderful comments and emails have brought a lot of smiles to my face, as I read through every one of them. I know you’re bringing smiles to a lot of people by doing something nice and then sharing it so that others can get ideas and be inspired. Thank you again for participating in this fun December tradition at The Loopy Ewe. The randomly drawn winners from last week’s contest were Kathryn from TX and Robin from KY. Each won two skeins of The Loopy Ewe Solid Series in their choice of colors, a pattern of their choice, and a tub of our Soak Heel Creme.

Today’s recipe came about because of the ad for Salted Caramel Chocolate Peanut Bark that I saw in the Crate and Barrel magazine. I bought some (purely for testing purposes, you know) and then figured for that price, I could come up with my own recipe! So here you have it. It instantly became a family favorite in my household. Enjoy.

Salted Peanut Caramel Bark

2 lbs. chocolate melting bark (I use Ghirardelli chocolate, which is only available during the holidays. I get it at Sams in a 2.5 pound box and I used one box for this recipe. I also froze several boxes of it for baking later in the spring.)
2 cups of peanuts (I used dry roasted)
1 cup of caramel bits (found by the chocolate chips in the baking section at the grocery store)
Sea Salt

Melt the chocolate and stir in the peanuts. Let cool for a couple of minutes and then add in the caramel bits. Stir well and then spread out on waxed paper or a Silpat mat (love those).  Sprinkle the top lightly with Sea Salt. Put in the refrigerator until the chocolate has set and the bark is easy to break into smaller pieces. YUM.

What did you find to do this past week, to bring a smile to someone’s face? We’ll do two more drawings – for today’s entries, and for next Friday’s entries. Keep watching for opportunities to do something for someone and report back so that you can participate with us.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and sweet family memories this weekend. It’s snowing here today (with 2-4″ expected) and both kids are home. A perfect Christmas Eve.

Sheri coffee+chocolatebarkforbreakfast.
Isthatwrong?