Caramel Macchiato Milkshakes

The easiest, tastiest milkshake you'll ever make with just 3 ingredients!

I first made this recipe years ago and had the world's worst picture for it. I meant to remake it time and time again and then I finally did when we moved into our new home last year. And, of course, I'm just now getting around to posting it. This is a super simple way to make a milkshake. And with the amount of different creamers out there, it could easily be switched up to make any milkshake you could think of.

Copycat DQ Ice Cream Cake

Classic DQ ice cream cake with layers of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate crunch bits, chocolate fudge, and a light and fluffy whipped topping.

When I was a kid, Dairy Queen was a big deal. I loved going and getting the chicken strip basket and loved even more getting to turn in my coin for a Dilly bar. Occasionally, if it was a good year for my family, my mom would get a DQ ice cream cake for my birthday and I loved when she did so so much. I don't really even care for chocolate ice cream, but the DQ ice cream cake is supreme! My favorite parts are definitely the chocolate crunch bits AND the delicious light and fluffy whipped frosting. I'll be honest and tell you that I have no clue why I made this cake when I did. It was in the midst of all the birthdays, but it wasn't for someone's birthday. Because as an adult, you don't have to wait until your birthday to have the cake of your dreams, I guess!

Peach Crunch Cobbler

This peach cobbler has a good crunch and is fantastic on its own, but even better with ice cream on top!

This was supposed to be blackberry crunch cobbler, but I have had no luck finding blackberry pie filling. Is that a thing that exists in stores? I shop at Kroger - maybe that's why? If you have purchased blackberry pie, where do you get it? I decided upon peach because for whatever reason, we've been eating a lot of peach cobbler and cobbler-like desserts as of late. I thought this was one of the best cobbler recipes I've ever had. I also insist that you test out different flavors of ice cream for topping. Vanilla bean is bomb, but we love churro ice cream paired with peach cobbler. But there are also tons of other flavors that would work. The ice cream aisle has endless possibilities!

Amazing Pecan Cobbler

Pecan pie has nothing on this Amazing Pecan Cobbler!

I have never really liked pecan pie. I think it's way too much sugar and that's coming from someone who loves sweets. However, it's my husband's favorite pie and that means every once in a while I will make him one because I love him. Sometimes he'll make a compromise and we pick out a dessert that is similar to what he wants but something I will eat. Because he definitely won't eat a dessert all by himself! Our compromise last year for the holidays was this pecan cobbler. It has the flavors of pecan pie but without being so overly sugary. I personally love cobbler and it's one of my favorite types of dessert, so I knew I would love this recipe. We ended up loving it so much that I made it for Thanksgiving AND Christmas.

Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

These fantastic cinnamon rolls have all the wonderful classic flavors with the addition of a slice of bacon in each roll.

I had this recipe saved for quite a while. In fact, I probably had it saved for at least 5 years before I finally got around to making it. I have a lot of cinnamon roll recipes saved, but I always put off making them because I hate the waiting part. This is silly because I make homemade pizza dough just about every other Friday and it takes an hour for that dough to rise. Then again, I think it's frowned upon to eat cinnamon rolls for dinner. :)

I love the addition of bacon to these cinnamon rolls. They are very much a classic cinnamon roll and there is not that much more work to add bacon using the precooked kind. They also have way less grease than if you were to use freshly cooked bacon. I especially loved using a tiny bit of vanilla ice cream to thin out the icing. It really added a nice little sweetness to the icing!

Rolo Ice Cream #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

This month's Fantastical Food Fight theme is ICE CREAM. I was gifted an ice cream attachment for my stand mixer for my birthday in 2014 and if I'm being completely honest, I've only used it a handful of times and I definitely feel a little guilty about it. Don't even get me started on the pasta attachment I received for Christmas 2014. Since there wasn't a stand out theme or ingredient for July, I thought ice cream would fit really well. The caveat being that we would stick to ice cream - no gelato, froyo, sherbert, etc. It could, however, be made in an ice cream machine or a no churn recipe, which are the coolest ever if you ask me!

I did not have a recipe in mind when I picked the theme for the month. So I went straight to my frozen dessert board on Pinterest and tried to narrow down a few recipes. Ultimately, I decided upon this Rolo ice cream. The recipe came from My Baking Addiction and was adapted from an Alton Brown recipe. It was really helpful for me to watch the video of him making it so I could nail the process. I always get nervous when I have to temper ingredients. I did make a few errors (like dumping all the sugar into the eggs, instead of slowly) but miraculously, it turned out beautifully. It was super smooth and creamy. Very light and luscious. I would only change one thing and that is to fold the rolos in with the caramel sauce instead of throwing them into the ice cream maker when it was in soft serve stage. We ended up with a few balls of chopped Rolos and they are not too nice to your teeth when they are frozen.

Slow Cooker Apple Cake

This wonderful fall dessert is made in the slow cooker and takes little effort to throw together!

Slow cooker desserts are among my favorite thing because you can set them and forget them and you have a delicious dessert ready after dinner. This particular recipe for apple cake is perfect for late summer into fall. It's pretty much a dump cake because you just put all the ingredients into the slow cooker and cook it. There is not beating of ingredients and a crazy amount of preparation. It is simply tossing the apples with cinnamon and sugar, topping with cake mix, topping with melted butter, and cooking. This is a great dessert to make with children or for a potluck. You can even add some caramel sauce when you serve it up for a little caramel apple goodness!

Maple Bacon Crunch Ice Cream #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

It's time again for another Food Fight and I'm so excited about this month's theme: ICE CREAM! The Food Fighters were not given any particular flavor...it just had to be ice cream. It could be an ice cream maker recipe or a no-churn. I love both and look forward to seeing what other recipes are shared today. Plus I'm really excited to see if there are any creative flavor combinations.

I went through my recipe binder to see what I had in my dessert section for ice cream. I found a clipping from Food Network Magazine for Maple-Bacon Crunch Ice Cream. Personally, I'm not a big fan of maple syrup at all. But Nick (my husband) loves it and I am no stranger to making foods that someone else may like that I don't. Nick about died when he heard I was making a maple ice cream with bacon brittle in it.

I had a time and a half with this recipe. The ice cream part....I cooked my egg mixture 30 seconds too long and it cooked the eggs. So I had to scrap it and redo it. It was perfect the second go around....then I had issues with the original bacon brittle recipe. It was just rough. So I looked up one on AllRecipes for peanut brittle. I subbed in some honey for corn syrup because I ran out and, of course, no peanuts. Just bacon! :)

From an objective standpoint, the ice cream was very creamy - the perfect consistency. The crunch of the brittle was wonderful. It does taste like maple, but I will say that it wasn't an overwhelming maple taste and I think that is really appealing. The aftertaste almost reminded me of one of my favorite flavors of ice cream: butter pecan. Nick loved the ice cream and that's what I was going for, so it was definitely a winner. If you love maple and you love bacon, you will LOVE this ice cream.

Hazelnut Chip Ice Cream

This homemade ice cream is smooth, creamy, and wonderful!

I received an ice cream maker attachment for my mixer almost 3 years ago for my birthday. Admittedly, I don't use it as often as I should or as often as I'd like. I have been pretty intrigued by recipes that use coffee creamer lately because of the versatile flavors you can put into whatever you're making. I decided I wanted to take a base recipe for ice cream and sub in some coffee creamer. My first thought was to go with hazelnut because I love hazelnut creamer and I had some in my fridge. I subbed some of my milk with the creamer and the end result was wonderful. I loved how smooth and creamy this ice cream was...unreal, I tell you!

Cookie Sundae Cups #Choctoberfest

These mini Pizookies are topped with ice cream, hot fudge, and a homemade buttermilk caramel sauce

I love the classic desserts like chocolate chip cookies hot from the oven. I also love a little spin on a classic dessert, like these sundae cups. Some people call these pizookies - because they are like a little cookie pizza. I used my absolute favorite cookie recipe - the one on the Nestle Tollhouse morsels bag - and made the homemade buttermilk caramel sauce that was in the Our Best Bites cookbook (where I found the sundae recipe!). It's so good and so simple. You could definitely use premade cookie dough and even switch up what kind of cookie dough you use and ice cream you top it with. The possibilities are endless!

Biscoff Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Safe-to-eat Biscoff cookie dough in homemade vanilla ice cream - so decadent and delicious!

After making the monster cookie dough ice cream, I wanted to make more cookie dough ice cream because it's one of my all-time favorites. I actually had not had cookie dough ice cream until I was in 6th grade. I don't know why I never tried it, but my math teacher in 6th grade took a poll on our favorite ice cream for an example of something or another and the majority chose chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I begged my mom to get some at the store and that's when my love affair started. I get the craving every once in a while and I go crazy and buy all kinds of cookie dough ice cream, but this time I wanted to make my own. The monster cookie dough ice cream is a no churn recipe, whereas this one requires an ice cream machine.

I used two different recipes and put them together. The biscoff cookie dough comes from Sweet Twist of Blogging and the ice cream base is from Julie's Eat and Treats. They went together perfectly and honestly...the cookie dough bites would be fantastic on their own. I didn't use all of them in the ice cream and snacked on them throughout the process :)

{No Churn} Monster Cookie Dough Ice Cream

No machine needed for this awesome loaded cookie dough ice cream!

A late share today, please excuse me! It's been such a busy last few days. Tonight, we had the kids' meet and greet at their school. I'm excited that school is starting again and completely stunned that my babies are going to 3rd and 4th grade. I definitely need to make some more of this ice cream for an after school snack surprise. It's incredibly easy. Incredibly delicious! My kids seriously loved it the first time around. I used giant M&Ms and regular M&Ms in this...next time, it will definitely be mini M&Ms. I wasn't really thinking about how they would freeze and be hard as rocks. So save your teeth - use minis! Oh and the best part about this recipe is that it's a no churn and does NOT require an ice cream machine to make.

Copycat Starbucks Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino

This copycat is dead on and just as lovely as the real deal. You can't go wrong with strawberries and cream!

Y'all know I am no stranger to copycat recipes. I am obsessed with them. I love finding recipes for my favorites and I love to come up with recipes for my favorites. This go-around I happened to find a recipe for my old favorite at Starbucks: Strawberries and Creme Frappuccino! I had my first Starbucks drink in Fort Gordon, Georgia when Nick was stationed there for AIT. The on-base hospital had a Starbucks in the lobby and every time Matthew (my oldest) had a doctor's appointment, I would get this drink with a chocolate chunk cookie. So it's definitely a nostalgic drink.

I have previously tried a different recipe for it, but it was nothing like the real thing and quite undrinkable, if you ask me. So I waited patiently until another recipe fell into my lap and this one is definitely a keeper. It tastes just like the real thing. It is wonderfully easy to make too. Honestly, the "hardest" part is hulling the strawberries and even that isn't too bad. This recipe does make one drink, so if you don't want to share, be sure to double, triple, quadruple, or more the recipe :)

Pecan Pie Milkshake

If there is such a thing as leftover pecan pie, this is what it's for. This Pecan Pie Milkshake is decadent and delightful and very easy to make.

Today's is Veteran's Day and while I don't have a patriotic recipe to share, I do have MY veteran's favorite dessert with a twist. Nick served 8 years active duty army and now serves in the army reserves. He did a tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Although I wasn't happy when he initially enlisted, over time I came to know nothing but military life and transition to civilian life has been strange to say the least. I do often miss our military family (but definitely not Fort Drum) and I'm thankful to have had that experience.

The years that Nick's unit wasn't deployed, we did a huge Thanksgiving. We all brought food (most of the women did the cooking, so all the guys cleaned up after dinner) and went over to one household to celebrate. Those Thanksgivings are some of my favorites. It was always a large group. There was singing, dancing, laughing, and it was always loud and happy. There weren't many leftovers though with such a crowd, so this recipe wasn't really feasible.

I improvised and purchased a 2-pack of pecan pie from the freezer aisle to make this treat for Nick. If you are able to stash a piece of homemade pecan pie this Thanksgiving, I highly suggest making this recipe! If not, your local grocery store should have the 2-pack, so you don't have to buy a whole pie. It's simple to make and it's oh-so-good!

During the holiday season especially, I find it important to support the troops in any way that I can (obviously, all the time is important, but especially at the holidays).  The USO does so much for the troops and we worked with them a lot to send care packages during deployments [their website]. Soldiers' Angels has resources for both care packages and holiday cards on their website. Operation Gratitude also has a multitude of different ways to give and help [their website]. I know that a Christmas card seems like nothing, but Nick came home from deployment with so many. We also have a lot of injured and recovering soldiers here on the homefront at Walter Reed, too. These soldiers are so happy to know someone is thinking about them. :)

Blackberry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream #SecretRecipeClub

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal day for my group, Group D! What is Secret Recipe Club? It's a bunch of food bloggers separated into four groups that post once a month on a designated Monday. Each month, we are paired with another foodie from our group secretly (hence the name). We then pick a recipe (or two or more) from that blog and make it. On our reveal day, we reveal whose blog we had and what recipe(s) we chose all at the same time. It's like a Secret Santa every month, but with food and blogs! It's a great deal of fun :)

This month I was assigned to Group D (and Secret Recipe Club) newbie, Amber of Caleigh's Kitchen. Amber & her husband, Doug, live in Texas - as she states, so far east that they go to Louisiana for a good meal. Her blog name came from her very adorable Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix pup, Caleigh, who is always in the kitchen with Amber. And everywhere else, too! Not only does Amber have an adorable pup, but also a super cute 3 year old, Kirkley. All together, the four of them are just so cute!!

I went a little broad with my recipe hunting this time and I picked out four recipes to choose my final recipe from: Smokey Poblano Salsa...errr, chili! Her post had me cracking up about the salsa. And the roasted ingredients...YUM! Then there's Honey Glazed Sweet Skillet Cornbread because I have recently had two cornbread fiascos...one was basically yellow cake with a tiny bit of that cornmeal grit and the other was raw no matter how much I cooked it :/ Deer Camp Cabbage just looked too good NOT to try and I will be trying it very soon.

In the end, the blackberry ice cream won out. I have been trying to make more ice cream this summer because last September, Nick bought me an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid and I already feel guilty enough about never having used the pasta attachment he got me years ago for Christmas...or the meat grinder attachment he got me this year for Christmas. Oopsies. Lately, our berries at Kroger have been on point, so I knew I wanted to make the ice cream out of the four recipes. I tried with no success to get mine the lovely purple (even mashed the berries), but at best, it got a slight greyish purple color. I added some mini semisweet chocolate chips in there as well. Next time I make it, I want to try and make a blackberry "syrup" - basically cook down the blackberries with the sugar and lemon and refrigerate it and make this a swirl ice cream. Possibly with no chocolate chips.

Regardless of the color it turned out, it's still an incredibly tasty ice cream. It's smooth and the right amount of fruity. I also really enjoyed the mini chocolate chips. They complimented the blackberry perfectly!

Thank you, Amber, for a perfectly summer frozen treat - we cannot wait to try the chili, cornbread, and cabbage!

Mint Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

Last year for my birthday, I got an ice cream maker and Ben & Jerry's cookbook from Nick. Ecstatic doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. I love ice cream and have wanted the attachment for my KitchenAid for FOREVER. I just didn't want to spend the money.

Now that the weather is warm again, I have made a few batches. This batch happened to be the first one I made in my ice cream maker [last September]. Ben & Jerry say that it was one of their best selling flavors and I know exactly why. Mint [chocolate chip] ice cream is unbelievable and one of my all-time favorites and cookies and cream ice cream is not too far behind. I've been known to polish off way more than I should way faster than I should of this Oreo-y goodness! :)

Coffee Nutella Swirl Ice Cream {No Machine Needed}

Over the last summer, I started testing out some frozen treat recipes. There was an influx of bloggers posting no machine recipes and it made me so excited! I had been wanting an ice cream maker, but still hadn't gotten around to getting one. Then my awesome hubby got me the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer for my birthday!

However, if you do not have an ice cream maker - this recipe is supremely amazing! Actually even with an ice cream maker, I'd totally make this again. It's delicious. Coffee and nutella - yum yum yum! The consistency is a little softer than ice cream from the store and it's quite rich, but it is so good. Very easy to make and very few ingredients :)

Starbucks Copycat Vanilla Bean Frappuccino

Alright, so I'm not big on Starbucks, but I do love to get their frappuccinos every once in a blue moon when I go to Target. I love all of them, but especially the Vanilla Bean one. I have been wanting to find a good copycat recipe for quite a while and I finally adapted one to suit my tastes and here's what I came up with!

Drinks Week: Strawberry Nutella Milkshakes

I am so so late on the Nutella craze, but I am coming around slowly but surely. I love strawberry milkshakes and thought that it could not be more genius to add Nutella to them. Genius and SO good. These are dangerously addictive milkshakes and you'll be sorely disappointed if you don't make them as soon as possible!

Drinks Week: Peppermint Mocha Milkshake for One

New York is not my favorite place to live. In fact, it's my least favorite. The winters are long and miserable and the summers...well...they are just as bad. It's been cloudy and raining for most of the summer so far. There are days where it is in the 50s. This week looks like it's finally in the 80s. I think one thing that keeps me going is that we're getting close to counting down our LAST YEAR in this state...and then we get to go home to Tennessee.

So when I'm bummed and the weather is crappy, I turn to chocolate anything. Ice cream is always close to the top of the list of chocolate..and let's face it...coffee is always welcome. I've been wanting to try this recipe from How Sweet It Is for so long, but I don't like sharing and I didn't feel like making two once my husband stole a drink of mine. Deployment is when I take advantage of my stinginess :) I doubled the coffee powder and drank it right up. So delicious!