Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows

Looking for a cute, quick and kid friendly snack? Here's a sweet one K and I whipped up yesterday. It took all of 5 minutes, looked adorable, and best of all, he did it all himself.

Following the 'cake pop' craze, we opted for marshmallows instead. And we didn't have lollipop sticks, but cocktail straws worked great. Anyways, here's what you need :)

Ingredients:

Large Marshmallows (we used Jet-Puffs)
Chocolate chips
Heavy Cream
Sprinkles

Basically, you make a chocolate ganache (you can find an easy tutorial here, but essentially you just heat the cream, pour it over the chocolate until it melts and then stir it up, easy peasy)

You put a cocktail straw through each of the marshmallows, dip them in the chocolate ganache, and then dip them in the sprinkles.

We used a blob of playdough at the bottom of a cup to stand them up.

And voila! Couldn't be easier!

The kids gobbled them up over the afternoon (pretty sure mom and dad dipped in too).

Enjoy!

Why Clean When You Can Bake?

Forget Fabreeze, throw away the air fresheners and incense, NOTHING makes a house smell better than fresh baked banana bread. All modesty aside, I make the yummiest banana bread around. Inspired by some great banana bread my girlfriend Karma had for us a few weeks back, I decided to crack out my Grandma’s old recipe book and with a few small modifications, I have a recipe the whole family loves (including James, who despite being a human garberator absolutely hates banana bread, but loves this one). So here you go, hope you try it!

Banana Loaf:

• 1/4 cup margerine
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips (original recipe calls for nuts…but since thats a no go, we do chocolate instead!)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 ripe bananas
• pinch salt

Cream margerine and sugar: combine remaining ingredients. Place into a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake at 350 F for 45-60 minutes.

I like to also sprinkle a bit of the sugar and cinnamon onto the top of the loaf, when it bakes it becomes this beautiful crunchy top to the loaf. Forget bread, as James says, this is more like banana cake. Yum!