#30 Anne: “Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with corned beef and cabbage!”
#1473 Denise K: “Boys have Baseball practice on Saturday then a double header on Sunday.”
#4933 Julie D: “Taking my niece shopping for her birthday outfit. She’ll be 6 next week!”

Congratulations to the winners! Contact prizes@thepioneerwoman.com to claim your mixers.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Today, because the sun is shining, because the birds are chirping, and because we love ya, we’re giving away three (3) Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixers in this gorgeous “Bayleaf” color.

 
TO ENTER

To enter this giveaway, just answer the following question in the Comments section of this post:

What are you doing this weekend?

Whether you’re surfing in Hawaii or watching reruns of your favorite TV show, just shout out your weekend plans and you’re automatically entered to win one of the mixers.

 
 
THE RULES

One entry per person, please.

Winners will be selected at random and announced Sunday.

Good luck!

 
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Contest sponsored by Tasty Kitchen.

#107 Morgan: “It’s beautiful in the desert! 70 and sunny in Phoenix!”
#1577 Lauralee: “Rainy and cold!”
#2196 Sherrieboberry: “Sunshiney, windy, and cold (but not freezing).”

Congrats to the winners! Contact prizes@thepioneerwoman.com to claim your knives.

Today, to celebrate the wonderful community of Tasty Kitchen, I’m giving away three (3) of these sets of Wusthof knives.

Fantastic knives that’ll take you far in life!

 
TO ENTER

To enter this giveaway, just answer the following question in the Comments section of this post:

“How’s the weather in your neck of the woods?”

We’re getting ready for a blizzard here in Oklahoma; what about you? Just shout your local weather and you’re automatically entered to win one of the knife sets.

 
THE RULES

One entry per person, please.

Winners will be chosen randomly and announced Wednesday.

Sponsored by Pioneer Woman.

I can’t thank you all enough for your great feedback; I’ve been reading and taking notes!

Winner #1: Shawn “Tasty Kitchen has been a wonderful resource for finding good recipes to make for our family and for special occasions. It’s very helpful having photos of the recipes for reference. I’m always looking for quick and healthy family meals that everyone in the family will eat.”

Winner #2 Kara: “I heart TK and rely on it more than my cookbooks. If possible, it would be cool if we could have an online recipe box or some way to bookmark. I love the unique names of recipes, but unless you have a better memory than me, they are hard to find again unless you print them right then. An ingredient match would be cool too. Say you enter (chicken, mushrooms, heavy cream) and it matches your ingredients with a recipe that includes those. Hey you said bells and whistles, a girl can dream! Ha, it is already an awesome site!”

Winner #3 Elly: “I am not sure this will help you, but I LOVE the replies from people that have used the recipe and tips given for alternate ways to adjust the recipe. Participation is a great part of this site.”

Congrats, winners! Contact prizes@tastykitchen.com to claim your loot.

Here’s a redux of a pancake recipe from last spring. Perfect for Saturday morning!

***********

 
 
 

Here’s what you’ll need. Nothin’ difficult here!

 
 
 

First combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

 
 
 

Then whisk it together until totally combined.

 
 
 

Next, combine the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl…

 
 
 

And whisk them together to combine.

 
 
 

Next, combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients.

 
 
 

Stir gently to combine.

 
 
 

Heat a skillet over medium-low heat, then smear butter over the surface.

 
 
 

Use a 1/4 cup measure to drop batter onto the skillet.

 
 
 

Cook until you start to see bubbles. Then flip ‘em over and cook on the other side!

 
 
 

Now, we’ll serve this first batch with butter and maple syrup, of course. Of course.

 
 
 

And when I say butter…I mean butter.

 
 
 

And when I say syrup…

 
 
 

I mean syrup, baby.

 
 
 

Okay, that’s the traditional route. You could stop here and be happy forever and ever.

 
But “happy forever and ever” isn’t enough for me.

 
In her recipe, sapeylissy suggests serving these pancakes with icing, recreating the true “cinnamon bun” effect. So I decided to whip up a little bit of a butter/syrup icing.

 
 
 

Throw some butter into a bowl…

 
 
 

Melt it for about 30 seconds…

 
 
 

Then dump in some powdered sugar.

 
 
 

Now throw in some maple syrup. Maple extract would be okay, too.

 
 
 

And some milk.

 
 
 

Then just whisk it together until it’s perfectly smooth and combined. You could also warm this up a little bit before serving.

 
 
 

So ideally, one would place the pancakes on a plate and gingerly drizzle this buttery/mapley icing lightly over the top. But I sorta got carried away and poured a whole tankload on there.

 
 
 

Sorry.

 
 
 

Oops! Sorry again.

I don’t know what came over me.

I really loved both approaches—the maple syrup/butter approach AND the icing approach. I think there wouldn’t be anything wrong with serving both.

Thank you to sapeylissy for the yummy recipe!

Here’s the printable for the pancakes:

Cinnamon Bun Pancakes

Here’s the simple icing recipe:

Maple-Butter Icing for Pancakes

And in case you missed it, here’s Erika’s post on Pancakes, which includes links to many different pancake recipes here on Tasty Kitchen.

The Theme is…Pancakes!

Enjoy!

Jamie M. – “We made Cookie Salad last night with girl scout cookies, it was delish!”

Kimberly – “We wanted something fruity and spring-like, even though it was February. I had 3 kinds of berries in the freezer, along with some rhubarb–and combined a few recipes to make a delicious rhuberry crisp!”

Congratulations, winners! Contact prizes@tastykitchen.com to claim your loot.

Thank you, everyone, for sharing your most recent desserts.

More fun giveaways next week – see you then!

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I have a problem. I’m addicted to coffee-flavored anything. Coffee caramels, coffee ice cream, tiramisu, coffee itself. So as I was browsing the Desserts category yesterday for a sweet recipe to prepare, I grabbed at the first coffee-flavored treat I could find.

They’re Coffee-Toffee Bars, submitted by nhsweetcherry back in October, and I just knew they’d be something that would satisfy my coffee urges, at least for the afternoon.

When I read the recipe, I noticed right away that they’re not unlike these Spreads that I’ve made since I was a little girl—except with those, you bake the cookie base first, then spread melted chocolate chips over the top. These Coffee Toffee Bars are more of a chunky, substantial bar. Yum!

Here’s how you make them! Verdict is down below…along with a special surprise at the end.

The ingredients. Simple, pure, perfect…except I called the baking powder BAKING SODA. Why do I do this every time?

The “coffee” in these Coffee Toffee Bars comes from this ingredient—instant coffee granules. Did you know you can add a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee to most chocolate chip cookie recipes? Just throw it into the dry ingredients and it’ll add a delightful depth of flavor.

The recipe calls for 1 to 2 cups of chocolate chips. I decided to do 1 cup of semi-sweet and 1 cup of MILK CHOCOLATE chips. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Begin by creaming softened butter and brown sugar.

Then you grab these four ingredients: instant coffee, salt, baking powder, and…almond extract! I wondered what that flavor would do the bars, since the standard choice would normally be vanilla.

Intellesting. Velly, velly intellesting.

Then you dump all of that into the bowl…

And mix it all together. You’ll want to scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure it all gets mixed together well.

After that, you dump in the flour. The recipe calls for approximately 2 1/2 cups of flour, so I decided to add the full amount in order to get a point of reference.

The result was a pretty crumbly dough; I had to really mix it in order for it to come together.

However, it turned out fine! I dumped it into a greased 9 x 13-inch pan…

And pressed it lightly into the pan.

Yes, I will be getting a new manicure, probably sometime in the year 2011.

Then I sprinkled the chocolate chips all over the pressed dough.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of chips…but UP TO 2 cups. I used about 1 3/4 cup of chips, just to see how far I could push it. ***More on this later***

Then you just pop it in the oven for about 25 minutes.

Mmmmm. It smells so, so good.

The dough isn’t a hugely rising, overly poufy thing since it doesn’t contain eggs or baking soda like the average chocolate chip cookie. But it does rise and pouf just enough to anchor the chocolate chips without completely swallowing them up.

Look at that yummy crust.

Cut the bars into squares or rectangles, depending on how many servings you’d like to squeeze out of the recipe.

Oh, yummy. How lovely!

And I’m sorry…

But I had to do this.

The devil made me do it.

THE VERDICT: These were really delicious. I definitely used too many chocolate chips, though—the chocolate overpowered the flavor of the cookie/bar below. When I make them next time, and I will make them again, I’ll use 1 cup of chocolate chips, tops. Maybe even less. You really want that cookie to shine through.

The almond extract is very interesting! It definitely comes through in the flavor of the cookie. I thought it was delicious, but if you aren’t a fan of almond flavor, I think you could easily substitute vanilla extract.

You could also sprinkle finely chopped pecans on top, before you sprinkle on the chocolate chips.

And vanilla ice cream, of course, would be a divine accompaniment!

Thank you, nhsweetcherry, for sharing such a delightful treat!

Here’s the recipe:

Coffee-Toffee Bars

 
THE FUN PART

And now for the fun part.

Not that Coffee Toffee Bars aren’t fun!

Today, Tasty Kitchen is giving away two (2) KitchenAid artisan stand mixers in the classic White color above. There are so many yummy dessert recipes on Tasty Kitchen, and you need one of these babies to facilitate all the baking.

 
TO ENTER

To enter this giveaway, just answer the following question in the Comments section of this post:

“What’s the last dessert recipe you prepared?”

Did you make a chocolate cake last night?

Red velvet cupcakes last week?

Or was it that yellow Easy Bake Oven cake you made in 1974?

Just shout out the last dessert you prepared with your hot little hands (and feel free to include a link to the recipe if it’s online!) and you’re automatically entered to win a mixer.

 
THE RULES

One entry per person, please.

No entries after 11:00 pm Pacific Time Tuesday.

Winners will be selected at random and announced Wednesday morning.

Good luck!

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Contest sponsored by Tasty Kitchen, with cooperation from CHEFS Catalog.