Shamrock Breakfast Treats: Rainbows Blog With Friends

Today’s post is the next in our series of Blog With Friends theme collaborations. Each month a group  of bloggers get together and each publish a project based on a theme. What I love about this partnership is that it’s not bloggers with similar interests or strengths but a diverse group coming up with a variety of posts. In any given month we may have a recipe, sewing tutorial, crafts projects, book review and/or a technology post all related to the theme of the month.

This month's theme is Rainbows.

There will be individual project pictures and links to what everyone else has to offer at the end of my post, but here’s a peek at what we all came up with:

I made Shamrock Breakfast Treats.

Shamrock Breakfast Treats

I actually had a bit of a hard time with this post. First, I had already published four years ago, my Lucky Rainbow Cookies. 

I even wrote a funny story in that post about a Leprechaun who found my cookies and used them for . . . well . . . pants.

So a cookie was out for this project. Plan B, I'll do a cake. Nope. Tamara had already signed up for a Rainbow Cake. 

Good thing there are a lot of letters in the alphabet, I may need them for this project. OK, Plan C. Thinking it through again, focusing on the fact that St. Patrick's Day is just a few days away, I decided to go with the shamrock. 

Turns out it's good I'm not making a cake after all, as, a year after the Rainbow Cookies post, I continued the story of Lucky Leprechaun and included the recipe for a Creme de Menthe Shamrock Cake. BTW, I realized when looking at shamrock pictures for this project that shamrocks actually only have three leaves. I'd made a Creme de Menthe Four Leaf Clover Cake, not shamrock cake. Oops, my bad.

In order to keep with the theme here, I need to be able to incorporate rainbows. Desserts (and pants) pretty much covered, I decided to go in a completely different direction, breakfast. I'd make Shamrock shaped cinnamon roll treats and I'd use colored sugar to make them the colors of the rainbow.

This is a really simple recipe, using packaged cinnamon rolls both for quick baking since they're a breakfast, and for the ease of starting with a "cheat".

I rolled out the dough between waxed paper to between 1/4 inch and 1/3 inch thickness and cut out small hearts to use to make the shamrock leaves.

 
On parchment paper already placed on the baking sheet, I formed the dough shamrocks using the hearts and then rolling scraps for the stem.

I brushed with butter, added colored sugar and a small candy pearl to the center of each shamrock. I used five different colors and made one multicolored.

They puff and rise when they bake. I let them cool for a few minutes, then thinned the icing provided and drizzled over the cooked treats. If you use a long spatula and remove from the baking sheet carefully, they will stay together. If not, just reshape on the plate. Enjoy!

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Wishing you luck that's more of the "end of the rainbow" type (which I'm actively aspiring to, myself) and less of the "Murphy's Law" type (which is, sadly, my current streak).

As always, any time you make one of my recipes, feel free to post a picture of it to my Baking In A Tornado Facebook Page. I'd love to see it!

Be sure to visit all of this month's other Blog With Friends projects:

Tamara of Part-Time Working Hockey Mom shares how to make a Rainbow Sheet Cake. 

Jules of The Bergham Chronicles shares Rainbow Colored Glasses, affordable rainbow items that can be bought to add color to your life. 

Dawn of Spatulas on Parade shared Rainbow Muffins and Sprinkled Treats. 

Melissa of Heartfelt Sentiments shares how to Color Your World with handmade cards.

Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares how to find the beauty in the midst of chaos, Finding the Gold.

Be sure to stop by again next month for more theme based projects.

Shamrock Breakfast Treats

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

NOTE: I use a small heart shaped cookie cutter to form a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day but you can make them any shape and incorporate any colors for other occasions.

Ingredients:

1 tube refrigerated cinnamon rolls
2 TBSP butter, melted
1/2 tsp each of 6 different colored sugars (can use multicolored also)
6 candy pearls or mini M&Ms

1 TBSP milk

Directions:
*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Set aside the icing packet that comes with the rolls.
*Roll all of the dough into a ball. About 1/4 of the dough at a time, roll between 2 sheets of wax paper to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thickness.
*Using a small heart shaped cookie cutter, cut hearts out of the dough until you have 18 hearts.
*On the parchment paper, use the hearts in threes to form shamrocks, attaching at the points. Repeat until you have 6 shamrocks. 
*Roll the remaining scraps into a thin log. Cut 6 pieces and curl below shamrock, attaching at the tip of the hearts to form a stem.
*Using a pastry brush brush all of the shamrocks with melted butter. Sprinkle each with a different color of baking sugar. Place a candy pearl or mini M&M into each where the stem meets the hearts.
*Bake for about 12 minutes or until they puff and barely start to brown. Allow to sit on the baking sheet for 2 minutes.
*Place the icing into a bowl. Whisk in a TBSP milk to thin it a bit. Drizzle over the shamrocks. Allow to sit for about 5 minutes. 
*Remove from the baking sheet with a large flat spatula and they should stay together. If not, reassemble on plates.

Karma on Fire: Secret Subject Swap

Welcome a Secret Subject Swap. This month 8 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject participants.

My subject is: That time Karma did a fantastic job.
It was submitted by: Tamara of Part-Time Working Hockey Mom.

This is the story of something that happened many years ago. It was a pivotal time in parenthood for me, a very difficult time, made just a tiny bit easier by Karma.

My house had always been a place where kids congregated. We had the basement set up for them where there was a huge TV and game systems, a pool table, a card table, an arcade game, a refrigerator stocked with drinks and a bathroom down there too. Any kids here at dinner time either ate or got a ride home And, of course, there were baked goods. Always there were baked goods.

German Chocolate Brownies

There were lots of kids in and out of the house. Skateboards lined the driveway. It was a fun time. But there were issues too. The most difficult for me was when I needed to sever a relationship between one of my boys and someone they considered a friend. It had happened once before in our former home, the final straw with this particular child was when he, in our backyard, pulled down his pants and mooned our Mormon neighbors. 

There was a situation that was coming to a head again when my older son was in elementary school. It was weighing heavy because Sydney, the friend's mom had been a pretty good friend of mine. In fact, since she and her husband worked and had trouble making arrangements for her son Taylor on Wednesdays when our elementary schools let out early, I had been bringing him home with us. Every week.

It started with her other son Skipper who was 5 years old. He was a bully, even at that age. My younger son had played with him now and then but that ended. When we were all together, like at sports, it did become a problem, though. I remember one time in particular when our older kids were at a baseball practice and the younger ones were playing. I looked back to see her Skipper going after the others with a stick. Now I admit I was too much of a helicopter mom, but she was too much of a free ranger. You know the type, kid does something dangerous and her reaction would be "well, boys will be boys". Refusing to stop her son, I had to pull mine away. Honestly, even if she didn't care whether her son poked a kid in the eye with a stick, I was angry. I care for her older son every week, could she not make a concession for me?

Those kinds of situations continued. I let them slide but was definitely resentful. The next episode forced my hand. My older son was playing at her house and she'd left her 3rd son, a teenager, to babysit. When I called the house I couldn't get an answer. Ever. Whenever he "babysat", he'd be in the basement, there was no supervision at all.  

Back at home my son told me that they'd played in the garage and out in a nearby field. It was some time later that it came out that Taylor had matches in the garage. It was incredibly difficult telling my son he could no longer play there. He was angry and blamed me. He even blamed himself for telling me. The whole situation sucked, but I had to make a stand for safety and I did. It was also pretty much the end of my relationship with Sydney.

A few weeks later I was talking with a friend, Missy. Missy has a son who was friends with both mine and Taylor. Her son had stopped going over to Taylor's house some time ago, but she never really told me why and I never pushed it. She did know why I'd stopped my son from going over there, and she knew Sydney and I were not in touch. 

On that particular day, Missy wanted to know if I had heard the news about 5 year old Skipper. No, I hadn't. What did he do, poke some poor kid with a stick? No, actually, he'd set Sydney's kitchen floor on fire.

Now I'm not one to gloat. After all, Karma would probably catch up with me if I did. But I'm hoping Miss Karma will forgive me that little (OK, big) smirk of satisfaction.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Cognitive Script
The Lieber Family Blog
The Bergham Chronicles 

Southern Belle Charm
The Blogging 911
 Part-Time Working Hockey Mom  
Climaxed 

German Chocolate Brownies

                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe


Ingredients:

3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup pecans
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
1 box (3.5 oz) Almond Joy Pudding mix 
Your favorite brownie recipe or 1 box Dark Chocolate Brownie mix and the ingredients specified on the box
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar


Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the coconut flakes on a baking sheet and the pecans on another. Place in the oven and bake until they just barely start to brown. Remove immediately and set aside to cool.
*Whisk together the heavy cream, milk and the pudding mix. Set aside.
*Prepare the brownies and bake in a 9 X 13 pan. Cool completely.
*Beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar and the heavy cream/pudding mix. Spread over the cooled brownies. 
*Chop the pecans. Mix together the toasted coconut and pecans. Sprinkle over the top of the cream cheese layer of the brownies. 

Going Green

I truly hope I don't lose readers because of this post. The title is not to be misleading, really it isn't. It's just that, well, there's green and then there's green.

I do recycle. You'd think everyone would but I look up and down my street on trash day and don't see as many recycle bins as I'd like to. I shut off lights obsessively, in fact, don't take extra long showers, reuse bags . . . I try to do my part for the environment.

I say all this in hopes of mollifying those who came here thinking the environment was the subject of this post. No, it's not THE environment I'm hoping to impact, it's MY environment.

I've written many posts lately about the horrendous streak of luck I've been having. In fact, the latest post was just this past Friday when I wrote about my dishwasher going rogue. It's 11 days until St. Patrick's Day and in hopes of trading in the cloud I'm obviously standing under for the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, I'm embracing the green, going full in. 

Chocolate Mint Cookie Pops

So here it is, the why and how for going green, crossing my fingers, looking for four leaf clovers, chasing rainbows and putting all of my hope and prayers in the luck of (becoming) the Irish:

The why:
*At this point I've got nothing to lose. And I mean that literally. I've pretty much recently placed everything I own, some twice (dishwasher and coffeemaker, I'm looking at you).

*Green is the color of money. And if my bad luck doesn't change I won't have any left (another reason to covet those coins at the end of the rainbow).

The how:
*I am, coincidentally, the size of a Leprechaun. Green hat, spiffy buckled shoes and just watch my luck change.

*There once was a woman from Cork,
made her beef stew 'stead with pork.
"You're daft" husband said,
made twirl signs by his head,
Till she poked his fat arm with her fork. 

Got that one covered, I can limerick with the best of them.

*Four leaf clovers are good luck and I'm great at finding them. This one came from the park near our house.

What? That's not a four leaf clover? Sorry, my bad. Bet it's good luck anyway though. Well, unless you're the police. You're not, right? Crap, I may need a lawyer. Anyone know a lawyer? An Irish one preferably, I'll need their good luck.

*Another way I'll fit right in with my lucky Irish friends, I've already got the gift 'o the gab. In fact, it's often said I'm one of few people who can consistently make a short story long (see above four leaf clover story if you want proof).

*Never really understood it but apparently I'm expected to kiss the Blarney Stone. Not questioning, mind you, if that's what it takes, I'll do it. 

Unfortunately I don't know which stone the Blarney Stone is. Just to be safe, I'll start at my house and kiss them all. If you happen to drive by me and see my face to the sidewalk and my arse in the air, move right along, I'm just fulfilling my honorary Irish obligations.

*Every March I make my Crockpot Beer Infused New England Boiled Dinner recipe and Pistachio Soda Bread recipe. So if I don't have actual Irish blood, at least I've earned my points for trying. But if all else fails, there's the green beer. I don't even like beer (oops, did I just lose my Irish cred?). But if my luck doesn't change, I'll be in the closest Irish pub drowning my sorrows with the best of them. 

Decision made, I'm going green. Wish me luck!

Chocolate Mint Cookie Pops     
                                    ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

NOTE: You can make these pops with lollipop sticks or you can just make them as balls without the sticks.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups chocolate mint cookie crumbs
1/2 cup vanilla wafer cookie crumbs
6 oz cream cheese, softened
7 oz package spearmint leaves candies (15 - 18 candies)
1/4 cup green colored sugar
8 oz package, green candy melts
2 oz white candy melts 

Directions:
*Beat the cream cheese with both of the cookie crumbs. Divide evenly into the same number of pieces as you have candy.
*Push a lollipop stick about halfway up into each candy. Form a ball around each candy with a segment of the cookie mixture, completely encasing the candy inside. Put these pops into the freezer for an hour.
*Place the colored sugar into a dish.

*Melt the candy melts together according to package directions. Dip each pop into the melted candy up to the stick. Allow excess to drip off. Dip top in the colored sugar and place onto a piece of parchment paper to set. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.