Halloween Puppy Chow

OK, so I kind of get a kick out of making Halloween treats. Here's another one. I only discovered puppy chow snack mixes in adulthood and wow, are they yummy.

This recipe uses Nutella, but you can easily swap it out for chocolate to avoid nuts. Make adjustments for the mix-ins as needed based on your family's preferences. The original recipe called for a lot of peanut butter candies, but my kids don't like those, so I went with M&Ms.

Mangia! Mangia!
Andrea

Halloween Puppy Chow
Inspired by this recipe from the Kitchn.

5 cups corn Chex cereal
3/4 cup Nutella
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups salted popcorn
2 1/2 cups mini pretzels
1 cup M&Ms

Set aside a large baking sheet. Place Chex cereal in a large bowl. Set aside.

In a large ziplock bag, apace powdered sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside.

Put Nutella in a small microwave safe bowl and heat about 30 seconds, until melty. Drizzle over cereal on bowl. Gently stir of coat cereal in Nutella.

Place cereal in ziplock bag and shake until evenly coated. Spread coated cereal on cookie sheet to cool.

Meanwhile, place popcorn, pretzels, M&Ms and any other add-ins into late bowl. Add cereal once cool and mix to combine.

Eat immediately or store in air tight container.

Banana Muffins with Nutella Swirl

My son Sam truly loves to be in the kitchen — almost as much as he loves Nutella. I need more ways to get him to eat more bananas.

Say hello to banana muffins with Nutella. You can use your favorite banana bread or banana muffin recipe here. The chocolate-hazelnut topping makes these treats special for breakfast or a snack.

Kids can help by swirling the Nutella into the muffin batter.

Mangia! Mangia!
Andrea

Banana Muffins with Nutella Swirl
Inspired by this recipe from MyRecipes.

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup Nutella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 12-muffin tin with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder and salt. In a second bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, banana and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Add flour mixture in batches, beating to incorporate after each addition. Use a spatula to scrape down the side of the bowl.

Divide batter among the muffin tins. Top each muffin with a heaping teaspoon of Nutella. Using a toothpick, swirl Nutella into muffin batter.

Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

4-Layer Birthday Cake

Both of my boys celebrate their birthdays in March – just nine days apart. And each year they get to pick what kind of birthday cake they want.

In the past we've done the traditional chocolate cake with chocolate frosting or yellow cake with chocolate frosting. One year lemon cake topped with fruit was the highlight.

This year, my oldest (now age 11) spotted a video on social media of a four-layer chocolate cake filled with caramel and chocolate, covered with a chocolate glaze and drizzled with white chocolate.

He showed it to me once, but apparently watched it himself multiple times. When we couldn't find the video a few weeks later to make sure we knew how to make his chosen birthday dessert, he was able to describe every step in full detail.

For me, the best part about this dessert was the fun of making it with my boys and my brother, who was in town for a visit.

When my youngest's birthday rolled around a week later, we made the cake again, with a few variations to suit his tastes. He (now age 8) wanted a yellow butter cake – with Nutella as the filling between every layer. I don't even want to imagine the calorie count!

We tried a mirror glaze on the first cake, but it required lots of ingredients and didn't thicken on its own, so we ended up adding chocolate spread to it. The second time around we went with a simpler chocolate topping that was much easier to work with.

If you try this out, let us know what you use for the filling between your cake layers.

Mangia! Mangia!
Andrea

4-Layer Birthday Cake

1 box of your favorite cake mix or your favorite recipe for two-layer cake
Caramel spread and chocolate spread
or
Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread
Chocolate glaze (see recipe below)
Chocolate shavings
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
Optional: Raspberries

Prepare cake according to package directions, using 2, 8-inch pans. Bake cake per instructions. Let cool, then turn out onto wire racks and cool completely.

Once cake layers are fully cool, carefully slice each one in half lengthwise, using a serrated knife. You will end up with four cake layers.

Set one cake layer on a cutting board.

Alternatively, you can use an angel food cake pan with the center piece removed to build your cake and hold it in place. (We tried this the first time around, but the layers slide around inside the pan. If you use this method, top the cake pan with a cutting board and invert so allow layered cake to slide out before glazing.)

Putting the cake together on a cutting board allowed us to gently move layers into place if they started to slip.

Also, if you have a cake lifter, life will be easier as you assemble and glaze the cake. You can also use a cutting board to help move and lift the cake layers.

Using a flexible spatula, gently spread filling on the bottom layer of cake. Top with second cake layer and spread on the second filling. Place third cake layer and spread the top of it with your third filling choice. Top with final piece of cake.

Transfer the cutting board with cake to try refrigerator so that it can firm up a little while you make the chocolate glaze.

Chocolate Glaze

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Pinch salt

Place chocolate chips and salt in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil, then remove from heat and pour over the chocolate chips. Whisk until smooth. Let cool until mixture becomes slightly thickened.

Now it's time to glaze the cake. It helps to have a second set of hands for the glazing.

Set a large bowl on the counter and place a wire rack on top of the bowl. Carefully transfer the cake from the cutting board to the center of the wire rack. Slowly pour glaze over the cake, ensuring that glaze covers all sides.

You might want to repeat the process to make sure every centimeter of the cake is thoroughly coated in chocolate.

If you do, carefully lift wire rack with cake and set the wire rack on the cutting board. Pour excess glaze from large bowl back into small bowl. Replace wire rack and cake on top of large bowl and slowly pour glaze over cake again.

(My boys did close inspections of each cake we made. It took three pours of glaze to get their seal of approval!)

Let glaze drip off cake. Carefully transfer cake to a cake plate. Dust with chocolate shavings. Return cake to refrigerator to allow glaze to harden.

Place white chocolate chips in a small bowl and melt in microwave for 30 seconds. Stir and heat another 30 seconds if needed. Transfer melted chocolate to a small plastic sandwich bag and seal. Gently squeeze melted chocolate into one corner of bag. Snip a tiny hole in the corner.

Drizzle top of cake with white chocolate. Top with raspberries if desired.

This is the butter yellow cake filled wth Nutella. Luckily, I took a photo before we ate it all!