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8 Delicious Chocolate Cherry Dessert Recipes

Amy — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:15:37 +0000

Something about cherries and chocolate together make me very happy!

I have come across some wonderful chocolate cherry recipe ideas that are perfect for Valentine’s Day treats. Whether you love to bake or not, these photos will make your mouth water!

Chocolate Cherry Coke Cupcakes via Coco Bean.

Triple Chocolate Cherry M&M Cookies via Tidymom.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Whoopie Pies via Food Family Finds

Dark Chocolate Cherry Thumbprint Cookies via Quick Dish Recipes

Chocolate Cherry Pie with a Chocolate Pie Crust via Domestic Fits

Dark Chocolate Fresh Cherry Cupcakes via Confections of a Foodie Bride

Cherry Chocolate Kiss Cookies via The Curvy Carrot

Chocolate Cherry Mice via Omnomicon (Maybe more Halloween than Valentine’s Day, but so cute!)

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

Cherry Jello Jigglers – Party Recipe

Amy — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:59:35 +0000

I hope you are having a fantastic Holiday and ready to ring in the New Year! My last-minute Christmas party was a lot of fun. I made the cutest Jello Jiggler treats that would be perfect for any party or an after school treat.

If you are on Pinterest like me, then you might have seen this cool idea with the cherries in jello jigglers.

I love my Wilton Star Silicone Molds and finally got another chance to use them.

For these jello jigglers, I used Knox gelatin and juice. You could use any flavor of Jello.

To keep the treats from sticking to the mold, I lightly sprayed it with cooking spray then rubbed the corners with a paper towel. You can’t taste the spray and it made the jello pop out easy.

The bottom layer is Knox gelatin, pomegranate juice and pineapple juice. I let that layer cool in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes while I made the top layer with white peach cranberry peach juice cocktail and more Knox gelatin.

According to this recipe, I cut the bottom off of the cherries and let them drain. When the bottom layer of the jigglers was cool, I added the cherries and poured the top layer around them.

Add sprinkles before serving and listen to your guests oooh and ahhh over them!

I laughed that pretty much every parent thought they were spiked and for the adults. So if you’re having a New Year’s Eve party, you could make fancy jello shots and serve with some glitter sprinkles!

I think this is one of my new favorite easy treats to serve at parties! Get the entire recipe with detailed directions here.

What is your favorite treat to serve at parties?

Brazilian Mimosa Recipe & $50 Giveaway

Amy — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:49:27 +0000

It’s time for Holiday entertaining and I’ve got a great giveaway today from Sierra Mist to help with your party planning!

I love that Sierra Mist Natural is made with real sugar and 100% natural flavoring. It’s the perfect drink to serve at Holiday celebrations.

I also love Champagne. While experimenting with some cocktail recipes using Sierra Mist Natural and Champagne, my friend from Brazil told me that they put peaches in their Mimosas. That sounded fabulous to me, so of course I had to try it out!

For something different, I added some strawberries and boy did it turn out yummy! This is so easy and a fun cocktail to serve on New Year’s Eve for those who don’t like Champagne all on it’s own.

Brazilian Mimosa Cocktail/Mocktail

Ingredients

3 oz. of Sierra Mist Natural
3 oz. of Champagne (for a non-alcoholic mocktail – replace with Sierra Mist)
1-2 large Fresh Strawberries
2 large slices of a peach (canned peaches work best)
Ice

Directions

Mash strawberries and peaches in a cocktail shaker.
Add ice and Sierra Mist.
Shake gently.
Pour half of mixture into a sugar rimmed glass and fill to the top with champagne.

My daughter gave the mocktail version a thumbs up! Now I have to make this drink for her a lot! ha. She’s a little spoiled this holiday I think:-)

Fun Giveaway!

This week, one lucky winner will receive a Sierra Mist Natural holiday gift pack and a $50 Amex gift card to help with your own holiday entertaining!

Holiday Gift Pack Includes:

Sierra Mist Natural
A cocktail shaker set
Three packages of drink garnish/sugars
Party glasses
$50 Amex Gift Card

This giveaway is closed. Congrats to Kala!!

To enter:

Let me know your favorite drink (cocktail or mocktail) in the comments below. I’d love to know the recipes too!

For extra entries:

Like Sierra Mist on Facebook and submit your most creative cocktail/mocktail recipe in the Sierra Mixology section. Your recipe might get featured on their page!

Follow SierraMist and LivingLocurto on Twitter and Tweet this:Tweet

Like Living Locurto on Facebook.

4 entries per person. Please let me know you did each item in a separate comment below. Giveaway ends Monday, December 26th.

This giveaway post is sponsored by Sierra Mist.

Christmas Angel Pancakes {Free Printable Tutorial}

Amy — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:43:40 +0000

Make Christmas extra special with Angel Pancakes. Yes, this is a pancake!

My daughter is going to flip out when I surprise her with this amazing pancake design by the talented Jenni Price! Turn your holiday breakfasts into something magical with just a few easy steps. This fun recipe requires just a few ingredients and tools so you can easily create this design yourself.

Click the link below to download the Free Printable Christmas Angel Pancake Tutorial.

Enjoy six pages of instructions with step-by-step photos all for FREE!

Free Printable Christmas Angel Pancake Tutorial (465)

{For non-Commercial Use only. All images and content © Jenni Price. Items not to be sold in stores.}

If you have problems downloading this free printable file, let us know. Enjoy!

Halloween Recipe – Brains in a Jar Cupcakes {Free Printables}

Kristan — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:56:32 +0000

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Spooky Halloween treats always make fun party food and gifts!

It’s almost Halloween, so… Surprise!!

I made you Brains in a Jar!! Isn’t that just what you’ve been wanting?

Obviously these are not real brains (much to the disappointment of my 7 year old son), but they’re close enough and are the perfect combination of creepy and gross. They can be put together ahead of time, and would be great for a Halloween party dessert table or class party.

Or you can do what I do and take one to your child’s teacher and say, “here’s a Brain in a Jar…and I look forward to my kid getting A’s on his work for the rest of the year…” and give a giant awkward *WINK*.

Anyway…

These treats are seriously easy to put together. You’ll need:

Small jars –I buy a box of half pint canning jars at Wal Mart, but you can buy bigger ones if that’s what suits your fancy

Seedless Raspberry Jam–Because blood doesn’t have seeds in it, mmmkay?

Pink cake–I used strawberry but you could color white batter if you prefer. I baked mine in a large jelly roll pan so it would be thin, but you could bake it in 9 x13 or do cupcakes and cut them in half.

Frosting–I made my own using THIS easy recipe. Just add a few drops of pink and a tiny drop of black to get that pinky grey color

Piping bag fitted with a #5 round tip (You can buy these at Michaels or Walmart)

Once your cake is cooled, cut a circle of cake the size of your jar. I used a round biscuit cutter, but you could also use another jar or a small glass.

Spoon some raspberry jam over the cake, covering the surface and making sure it reaches the edges of the jar.

Put some frosting in your piping bag. Hold the bag at a 90 degree angle and squiggle the frosting along the edges of the jar. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just squeeze and make a zig zag motion along the inside of the glass.

It should look like this.

With a smaller glass or cutter, cut a piece of cake small enough to rest in the center of the “brain frosting”. Place the piece of cake in the middle.

See? That way you don’t go hurting your hand trying to pipe frosting all in the center.

Holding the piping bag at a 90 degree angle again, loosely squeeze frosting all over the top of the cake. Just let it squiggle all over.

It should look like a gross brain in a jar.

Isn’t that totally disgusting?

But it tastes good, I promise. I even tried ~~a few~~ one for quality control.

All that is left to do is attach the cute printable tags that Amy made to go with!!

How easy and cool is that? We practically did all the work for you!!

Halloween Brains in a Jar Free Printable Tags

Download the Free PartyPrintables here:

Halloween Brains in Jar Labels & Tags

We hope you are disgusted by these in a good way. Enjoy your Halloween!!

About Kristan

Kristan is a fun mom from rural Arkansas with an amazing talent for creating cute recipes along with humorous stories. Find her on Confessions of a Cookbook Queen, Twitter & Facebook.