Birthday Cake Chocolate Chip Cookies

Birthdays were always sweet celebrations growing up.  But I like think you don't need to wait for a birthday for a celebration; enter in these cookies.  Birthday Cake Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies...made with Cake Mix and Birthday Cake Oreos. be.still.my.beating.sugar.crazed.heart.  

I like cake.  I also happen to have a thing for cookies.  So combining the two together is completely earth shattering. 

Start with these little yummies...and have some extra on hand for snacking

 

Break them up and add to the batter...exercise great self control to not nibble at the cookie chunks

Throw some white cake mix into the batter


Along with sprinkles and chocolate chips

Ingredients

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups cake mix
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sprinkles
2 cups chocolate chips
2 cups chopped Birthday Cake Golden Oreos

1//  Blend butter and sugar together for about a minutes until light and fluffy. Add in eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth

2//  With mixer on low add in baking soda, salt, flour and cake mix, stirring until mixture just comes together

3//  Add in sprinkles, chocolate chips, and chopped Oreos. Mix together until evenly distributed

4//  Preheat oven to 350°

5//  Line baking sheet with parchment paper and form dough into round balls, placing them about 2 inches apart

6//  Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes until edges are slightly golden

7//  Allow to cool on baking sheet for a few minutes (if you can wait that long) and transfer to to a plate where you're set to chow down

8//  Don't forget a cold glass of milk too


Minus the two whole sticks of butter, I cannot imagine making regular chocolate chip cookies again.

Celebrate good times. C'mon.

When recipes don't turn out Pinterest perfect

I have been married almost two years.  At our shower, we got a lot of cook books.  I think guests were secretly trying to send me a message.  Oddly enough I have never even cracked the binder on any of those gifts, and really looked to the online world of cook booking (Pinterest) to help me become Suzy Homemaker.

When I follow the recipe, its highly likely about 85% the dish will turn out well and there will be happy, full tummies at home.  However 15% of the time, there have been some special incidents where it felt like the glamour of Pinterest cooking failed me.

1. Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars
For Easter dinner, I was bringing a dessert and wanted to do something more fancy.  The flavor combo of lemon/blueberry was up my ally, not to mention cheesecake.  Need I say more?

The day before Easter I re-read the recipe several times and felt confidant it would turn out great.  Well once again I was reminded HOW closely one should really read the instructions.  The two packages of cream cheese needed to be room temperature.  Instead, I hastily mixed in semi-firm cream cheese.

After taking the bars out of the oven, they just looked weird.  Instead of that smooth, creamy looking cheesecake they looked more like curled cream cheese bars.  Thankfully, my stomach knows not ugly...but its definitely interesting explaining at Easter dinner that the dessert is "safe to eat".


2.  Healthy Banana Oatmeal Cookies
The "healthy" part should have tipped me off right away...I want to be healthy, but cookies I like better sweet and sugary.

I know I followed the recipe on this one, but when I took them out of the oven Jim told me the cookies looked like donkey turds.  Thanks dear, always free with the affirmations.
If that were the worst of it that would have been one thing, but the taste on these things was HORRIBLE. 
Like the horrible when you have to wipe your tongue down with paper napkins.  This one will never be a repeat.ever.


3. Frozen Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream
I had really, really high hopes for this one...homemade ice cream with chocolate and peanut butter? yes.please.  I did use a blender instead of food processor, but I don't think that would make that big a difference, would it? Who knows....

Anyways back to the ice cream making.  I blended and added what I was supposed too and though I was doing good.  At all the blending the taste was kinda bland, but I had hope that maybe throwing it in the freezer would help.
The picture for the recipe on Pinterest looked like this...

 

And my final product looked like this...

 

After putting it in the freezer for an hour, I tasted it (hence the spoon markings).  

Obviously it tasted like banana but that was all; the cocoa and peanut butter didn't do much for flavor.  I tried to pawn some off on Jim the next morning for breakfast, but that didn't seem to work.  3 days later I forgotten about it in the freezer.  Currently I am thawing out this banana-poo-like-substance so I can have my cereal bowl back. 

What has been your biggest cooking failure so far?

The time has come...to kick debt out!

I've always considered myself more of a spender.  My parents encouraged me the importance of saving so much from each paycheck and such, but it never really stuck with me.  I remember even as a teen Mom teaching me the envelope system  to set aside my cash for all expenses and save the rest (she was doing things the Dave Ramsey way before it was popular;).
When a paycheck came, it seemed like the money was gone as quickly as it was deposited into the bank.

Fast forward a few years to college.  Even though I worked 2 jobs through college and my parents helped me, I still didn't have enough money.  $34,000 dollars plus a well loved Visa card made it difficult to transition to being financially stable after graduation...oh did I forgot to mention I actually took out a loan to go to Europe?!  Clearly I was doing just fine handling my money the way I was.

Then of course, a few years later I met my husband.
We dated, fell in love, and got hitched. 
Thankfully he had no school debt when we married.

After we got back from our honeymoon, the reality of being financially stable as our own little family hit me. and freaked me out. way.out.  I will honestly say up until know we were living paycheck to paycheck.  And that sucked.a lot.

Sure we were paying our bills, but we both were spending irresponsibly and neither one of us were sticking faithfully to a budget with gazelle like intensity .  I would harp on Jim saying we need to put money into savings so we can afford a house someday...but how can we save for a house when we have a total of $38,800 dollars in debt looming over us and we're not really doing much with it?

Last fall I signed up to take Financial Peace University at our church.  After two sessions, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated trying to do it on my own while Jim was crazily working through grad school.  So I put it aside and said we would come back to it when we both could commit.

Well that time has now come folks.

Two months ago I had the courage to pick up and read The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  Honestly, I think I had been secretly avoiding it since fall 2012.  What I read was mind-blowing!  I finished the book in over a week.

I went crazy with my highlighter & dog-eared half of it.  I would excitedly tell Jim all this stuff I was realizing for the first time in my life.  My friend Mary and her husband are really into Dave Ramsey and they paid of all their debt last July; her experience and reading this book with great furry gave me the motivation to take the jump.

Two weeks ago I paid off my credit card for the last time.  It be gone.  I'm a little embarrassed to say we have made our first official budget since getting married.  Our budget kicks off in June.  We went online and purchased some Dave Ramsey tools to help us figure out what the heck we're doing.  Of course this is all still new and we're learning, but after adding in all our debts (my car, Jim's credit card, my college loans) it looks like we could be debt free in summer/fall 2016. 

I am excited, nervous, and scared to death all at the same time.  Jim is really excited and likes using the online tools. I'm really thankful for that because when I get all crazy-overwhelmed-emotional about this stuff, its good to have him help ground me down to earth.

I already am anticipating there will be times I want to throw my Dave Ramsey book across the room, yell, curse, and will likely want to throw a hissy fit because saying no to my instant gratification doesn't feel good.  But you know what feels worse?  The worrying and uncertainty about money.
If we don't get our act together now, how can we provide and set a good example financially to our kids someday?



Its the right time to do this...to start living like no one else so later we can live like no one else.