Summer + Sugar

Sad, but true. I find the summer time to be a much more challenging time to eat healthy than any other time of year, including Halloween, Christmas and Easter. It's birthdays, barbecues and beaches... and a whole lot of belly-aching! Having said that, here are a few of the fabulous sugar concoctions that have graced my palette recently. All of them tasted fabulous and were really not to much work to make.

Sparklers!
These were easy, but only because I remembered to use metal when melting my white chocolate chips and not plastic! Yeah My chocolate did not seize up! The red and blue sprinkles made these pretzels a really fun Fourth of July food.


Yum! Yum! And more Yum! (p.s Don't plan on eating any dinner before you have this cake. It's a doozy!) My friend found this recipe at the Duggar family website. It is an easy recipe that will wow any crowd without stressing you out!

LAYERED ICE CREAM CAKE
Makes a 9”x 13” Pan
24 Ice cream sandwiches
8 oz. Cool Whip™
1 Hershey’s™ chocolate syrup bottle
1 Smuckers™ caramel syrup bottle
2 king size Butterfinger™ candy bars chopped up
1st layer -12 ice cream sandwiches
2nd – half of whipped cream
3rd - half of Butterfinger™ bars, Squeeze 1/2 of caramel &
chocolate over that.
4th - rest of ice cream sandwiches
5th – Cool Whip™
6th - rest of Butterfinger™, caramel & chocolate
You can freeze this and eat as desired! Yummy! Yummy!

So Ryan hit the big Three - Two on Saturday with a request for chocolate cake. With the intention of pleasing I took the chocolate theme to the extreme and whipped up this bad boy for him. Sure, we are still shaking a little from the sucrose rush, but it is all smiles over here and there were no complaints about this Sugary-Show-Down. I made a whipped chocolate frosting (that was about an inch thick on the top!) The inside cake layers were held together by this frosting and some of the extra-fudgey store bought kind. I inserted Mini Reses Peanut Butter cups on the side and M&M's on the top. The whole thing was then topped off using the old cake decorating tools and some more of that extra fudge frosting. Delicious! This was served with a side of Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. Oh yeah! I thought that I might die in my sleep last night, but I lived to tell the tale, and I even had more today.