Easy Graham Cracker Pralines

I first made these a few weeks ago when I had some of my family over for dinner.  Nolan was 5 weeks old at the time.....we were having cheese and chili enchiladas...and I wanted something easy and that kind of went with the Mexican food theme.  My mother-in-law first told me about these a few years ago after Grace was born.

All of this to say....I never made them 3 years ago when I first got a recipe.  And then a few weeks ago, when I decided to finally make them...I did some recipe research....and came up with my own recipe.  So I wanted to share it here because everyone loved them.  And because they are SO easy.  And because they are SO good, too.  You eat one and then you have to have another.  And another.  

Just sayin'.

What you need: graham crackers, 1 cup butter, 1 cup chopped pecans, 1 cup packed brown sugar, and 1tsp vanilla.  That's it!

Lay out your graham crackers on a jelly roll pan.  I'm not sure the size of this one, but it was my biggest one.  And I used 12 whole graham cracker pieces.

Place the butter and brown sugar in pan.  Melt and bring to a slight boil.  I pretty much stood there and stirred it the whole time (but I'm not sure if that's necessary, it's just what I did).

Some of the recipes I looked up said to let boil for 1 minute, some said 2 minutes, some said just as it gets to a boil.  SO.....I just brought to a boil and didn't wait very long....

.....then added in the vanilla and chopped pecans.

Then I took a picture of my {then} 5 week old baby screaming and ready for me to pick him up.  NOW.  (He was still in his car seat because he had been sleeping in the car and here...he had just woken up.)

Poor the hot buttery, carmal-y goodness onto the graham crackers.

Then attempt to spread it out evenly.

Then place in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes.  Mine was very bubbly.  I'm not sure what you're looking for as to decide if it should be 8 or 10 minutes?  I did 9 minutes and I think they turned out great.

When it came out of the oven...the graham crackers head spread apart a bit...so I squished them back together some, just because I wanted all of that gooey carmal to be ON the graham crackers and not on the pan.

A lot of the recipes I had looked at said to only let cool for a couple of minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.  But for mine- I guess because of how much butter I use- I had to let them almost completely cool before breaking apart.

So- let bars cool (or even warm is fine, just when they are set)...then break apart.  They do so easy.

 And SO good, too!

Linking up with: Little Inspiration

Rainbow Birthday Cake in a Jar

My mom's birthday was back in August....and Kristin made dinner for everyone.....so Parker and I made the dessert.  I cam across these cute little things on pinterest.  I did use smaller jars because I wanted it to be more of a 1 serving size.

This girl was all too excited and ready to help out.

Much to my dismay....we were out of vegetable and canola oil.  So I had to use this thick sunflower oil.  Luckily- all of the sugar and other processed ingredients pretty much covered up the sunflower-y flavor.

At the time....one of our mixing blades, or whatever, was missing.  The one did just fine with my less than $20 blender.  ;)

I sprayed quite a bit of pam into the jars.

I let her fill one of them all by herself.  It was hard to watch.  ;)  She was so proud though.

Do you see Parker's?  :)

We headed over to Gramma's before we iced them because they still needed to cool.  The girls helped with the sprinkles.

Seeing Gramma as she walked in....

Hope you had a happy birthday, mom (2 months ago).....

I'm loving mason jars these days.  Can't wait to try out a few more things in these jars.  I also want to get some other sizes, too.  ;)

Dump Cake: An Easy Toddler Activity

I had originally found this idea as a "toddler activity" from this book...

This book is great....it even has some ideas for 1 year olds. As I have gone through it...I find that I wish I had found out about this book when Parker was younger.

Anyway....

They have a section in the book called "Kids in the Kitchen"....and they had this "Dump Cake" idea in there. I had marked it something I definitely wanted to try with Parker. I had never heard of a "Dump Cake" before.

Then...a few weeks later....Bakerella posted a recipe of a dump cake! As it turned out...I liked the stuff that you 'dump' into the cake that Bakerella posted much better....so that's the one we (they) did.

I think they both had a good time.....and more importantly....it was SO good. Seriously! You almost think that it couldn't be that good....but it is! :)

Dumping in the peaches....

Parker watched as Geoff cut them in half....

She attempted to help shake the cake batter out...but.....


She could not help herself. She would stick her finger deep into the batter mix....place it in her mouth...then she would say, "MMmmmm...that's delicious!" It was cute...but especially funny because she would say it with almost every bite.

She did a great job laying out the butter....


Then helped some with the sprinkling of the brown sugar....but again....was more interested in eating this...




Then the walnuts....

I asked her to show me her messy hands. The adorable face was an added bonus. :)

So at the end...I told them both to look at me and say "Cheese" by their dump cake....

And they were definitely "cheesing" it....almost like they were patronizing me! Haha! :)