Valentine's Day Treats

Valentine's Day is just around the corner! Actually, it's tomorrow! Which is even closer!

I have been having some fun baking delicious treats, using tons of sprinkles, and crafting up some cute cards.

--- Happy Valentine's Day ---

from Truffles n' Treadmills

Being the broke college student that I am, I didn't have a ton of money to go out and buy fun presents for all of my loved ones. I also didn't have enough left over spending money to go out and buy more dipping chocolate so I had to do some improvising.

I had a package of Oreos that I wanted to dip completely in white chocolate but I only had one square of white chocolate bark leftover from Christmas baking. I decided to instead spoon some of the chocolate right on top of the Oreo and then decorate with sprinkles!

They're still fun, delicious, and festive. Oh, and they're "better" for you because they are covered in way less chocolate than if I were to dip them completely ;)

Pretzel Crisps® was so kind to send me 9 different varieties of their crisps so I could incorporate them into my baking and cooking. I have came up with a few recipes already but still have a few more up my sleeve so I am not going to share them all with you just yet!

I dipped the Original Pretzel Crisps® in milk chocolate and then decorated with fun Valentine's sprinkles. I love the sweet, salty, and crunchy combination that this treat has!

I found these cute treat bags at Target in their beloved dollar aisle. I also found the fun holiday paper straws there too! I stuffed the bags full of treats and then used washi tape to tie them closed. The washi tape also doubled as name tags for the treat bags.

On a side note, if you don't follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest yet, click HERE so we can stay connected and up to date! You will know of upcoming giveaways, be able to see some of my delicious meals, and see all of my favorite pins!

P.S. The LARABAR giveaway is ending today! Be sure to enter before it's too late.

Question of the Day

Do you have any fun plans for Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day LARABAR Giveaway

I have definitely been in the Valentine's Day spirit lately.

My mom gave me a bag of Dove chocolates (my favorite), a cute personalized notebook, and a pretty red casserole dish for the holiday. Today I used the new dish and baked up a delicious Quinoa Banana Chocolate Chip Breakfast Bake that I found on Pinterest - I will share the recipe with you all soon because it was delicious.

In the mean time, how about a giveaway? Wow, when was the last time I hosted one of these? I can't even remember because it's been so long.

If you aren't familiar with LARABARs here's a little bit about them - LARABAR is a pure and simple bar made of fruits, nuts, and spices. The bars are gluten, dairy and soy free, have no added sugars, are vegan, and have no preservatives. So pretty much anyone can love and enjoy these bars even if they have allergies or special eating habits.

They have so many yummy flavors from apple pie to peanut butter chocolate chip so there is a bar to meet everyone's liking!

The winner will win a case of 16 assorted LARABARs. Talk about awesome!

All you have to do is enter and a winner will be announced on Valentine's Day next week! Also, you may earn extra entries by tweeting each day - just make sure you come back to the blog to enter each time ;)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Peanut Butter Chocolate Heaven

Peanut butter M&Ms are my favorite. Actually, let's face it, anything peanut butter and chocolate is my favorite.

I made these peanut butter M&M chocolate cupcakes the other day and every one loved them. They were chocolatey, moist, and had a hint of peanut butter. And the best part? They were so easy to make.

These cupcakes ended up serving a lot of different purposes - I gave Jon a plate for our anniversary, I gave my roommate a few for her 21st birthday (I used M&Ms to create the numbers "2" and "1" on her cupcakes) and I took the rest to our Super Bowl party!

Ingredients:

1 box chocolate cake mix

ingredients on the back of the cake mix box (eggs, water, oil)

1 cup Peanut Butter M&Ms

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350'

2. Prepare cake mix as directed on box

3. Put M&Ms in a ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to crush them up into pieces.

4. Fold crushed M&Ms into the batter

5. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake as directed on the back of the cake mix box

6. Let cool and frost with peanut butter icing and decorate with any extra M&Ms.

yields: 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes

Peanut Butter Icing

I used this recipe from Better Crocker to make my peanut butter icing and it was to die for! I would recommend cutting the recipe in half because I have so much icing left over but if you are planning on caking the icing on the top of your cupcakes then the original recipe will work.

*Beware, these will not last long!

Question of the Day

What is your favorite peanut butter and chocolate combination?