After our inaugural dinner last night (our first one since returning home from our RV trip), I made brownies. Never one to follow the status quo, I spiced things up a little bit.

Did you know that flaxseed meal can be used as a replacement for up to 1/4 cup of oil in baking? I just used three times as much flaxseed meal as oil that the recipe called for. (You can also use 1 Tablespoon of flaxseed meal and 3 Tablespoons of water to replace an egg in a recipe, provided you are not already using it to replace oil.)

I added flaxseed meal, flaxseeds (both in the mix and sprinkled on top of the brownies), a bit of protein powder and a healthy dollop of peanut butter and then baked as normal. Delicious!

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about visiting out goat milking friends. Tonight I’m a little busy finishing up Houston photos, following pregnant Kitty around like a hawk to try to make sure I catch when she goes into labor, eating leftover brownies and snuggling with some of my loves in bed.

Difficulty level: easy

Nutritious value: debatable, depending on the type of cookie recipe you use, but at least the flax adds lignans*, antioxidants, omega 3 and 6 fatty acids and fiber

*cancer fighting and cholesterol reducing

Taste: fabulous

To make: Prepare your favorite cookie dough recipe, replacing 2 tablespoons of flour with 4 tablespoons of ground flaxseed meal. Mix in 3 tablespoons whole flax seeds to the dough. Combine well. Drop by rounded teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake as directed by your cookie recipe, minus about 5 minutes baking time, as these overcook easily.

Enjoy!

Didja guess? Huh, huh? Didja?

In honor of our dear mother, who used to make Red Velvet Cake once a year, my sister made snow pops out of the crimson cake crumbles.

Oh my stars. I was in heaven, eating much more than my fair share of the cake pops she brought to our family Christmas last weekend. Her snow pops were the yummiest ones I’ve ever tasted. I am not sure if she drew inspiration from Bakerella’s makes you want to lick your screen website or not. I’m guessing so. I would have asked, just so I’d know. Had I not been too busy, you know, eating.

If you’ve tried following my directions for snow pops right here and have had trouble with the balls sliding down the sticks, here are a few things to try the next time:

Use less frosting.

Make sure the balls are thoroughly chilled, or even frozen, before you dip them.

Add some powdered sugar to the snow pop mixture before making the balls.

Use sticks with a bigger diameter.

Make the balls a little smaller.

Stand on your head while whistling Dixie as you dip the snow pops into the melted chocolate.

Wait. Nevermind about that last one.

But seriously, you could always just lay the pops down to cool on waxed paper and forget the whole perfectly round and symmetrical thing. If I weren’t so darn anal retentive er, I mean annoyingly perfectionistic, rather charmingly firstborn, that might be what I would try next.

Oh! And I almost forgot. I think one of the reasons my sister’s snow pops were so yummy was that instead of using candy melts, she used almond bark. She’s a genius. My husband made some snow pops for friends the other day, and he tried using regular baking chocolate chips. Bad idea. I mean, they were delicious. But they didn’t hold their shape and were were just kind of messy looking. But please don’t tell him I said that.

Anyway. New Year’s Eve is a whole two hours away. If you get to the store now, you can still make some Red Velvet Snow Pops to bring to whatever soiree you’re attending tomorrow! As for me, I’ll be at my dear friend Carrie’s wedding! She and I met when we taught school together in a former life before I was married with children and I’m excited to not only be attending, but also photographing, her big day tomorrow!

Wonder if she’s planning on having snow pops at her reception? I guess only time will tell!

With plenty of white stuff all over the Frozen Tundra, my sweet tooth not looking like it’s taking a winter break and Christmas all but around the corner, I though a rerun of the snow pop post was in order! Especially since I’m spending every ounce of daylight today photographing Atlanta folk and won’t be able to attend to my blog at all. Or to my children, but all five of them have a very fun day ahead with Daddy!

I plan to make red and green snow pops for Christmas this year and my husband really wants to make some for Big Mac’s birthday in lieu of a cake. Want to whip some up yourself? Here’s how!

As many of you faithful readers know, I am not much of a baker. But I am good at other things. Like crafting cliffhangers for my blog, decorating with turquoise and making children. But I digress. I’m not a baker. This is the point.

I do, however, love to look at baked goodies (and eat them, of course). When my dear friend Alyssa had us all over recently, and she was making adorable treats that she discovered here, I was beyond inspired.

So, I adapted her recipe and have spent the last few days perfecting…snow pops.

Fun. Adorable. Delicious. (Relatively) Easy. Eye Candy. Make Them. Now.

Here’s how I made mine:

First, I baked a chocolate cake, following the directions on the box (No, I am not advertising for anyone in this post. These are just the things I bought at Walmart to make my snow pops!).

After I baked it, I hunked up the cake and chopped the pieces in my food processor until the cake looked like this:

I ate a little bit of it. Just to make sure it was okay to eat and wasn’t a bad nut like Veruca Salt on Willy Wonka. It wasn’t.

Then, I made up a batch of cream cheese frosting. Remember when I posted that recipe here? In case you don’t, here it is again. Combine:

8 oz. package cream cheese, softened

6 T. butter, softened

1 t. vanilla

1T. cream (or milk)

3 cups powdered sugar

I added the cream cheese frosting, a half cup at a time, to the cake crumbles (until all the cake was moistened with the frosting and was moldable like dough), combining well with a spatula. But of course you can use a spoon. Or your bare hands. A little more than a cup of frosting worked well for me.

Actually, I added a bit too much, so to offset the frosting heavy mixture, I added about a half cup of rolled oats. But hopefully you won’t do that and won’t need to add the oats. Unless you want to, of course. I rather like how mine turned out with them.

I formed the cake mixture into balls, put them on a plate and refrigerated them.

While they were chilling, I opened five bags of white chocolate melt-a-ways. Regular chocolate and candy melts would also work fine.

My husband was cooking venison in the kitchen and he helped me unwrap the individually wrapped white chocolates.

They looked like slabs of butter when they were unwrapped. Small Fry thought they were “cheeses.” I melted mugs full of the chocolates on medium power in the microwave. Of course you could use a double boiler. I don’t have one. Remember? I don’t bake.

After they were melted and I stirred them up, I added a few drops of food coloring to each mug.

Turquoise and raspberry, of course. (Edited in 2010 to add: Last year, these were a sweet hint about the expectant news we were about to announce. Remember?)

Small Fry thought it was hummus and she “wanted some.” I obliged and let all the kids have some apples wedges and a small bowl of the melted delight to dip them into. They were in heaven and left me alone to work on the snow pops for at least 15 more minutes.

Next, I stuck long, wooden dowels into the chilled balls. One by one, I dipped them into the melted candy.

Rotate.

Rotate.

Then, I put sprinkles all over the snow pops quickly before the candy started to harden. Adorable!

The clean up would have to wait until later, for I had snow pop arranging to do!

And what better place to photograph snow pops…

…than in the snow!

Go ahead and make some…and enjoy! They are actually quite tasty and go over well with anyone under age 20. And also with the over 20 crowd.