Monday, December 30, 2019

CHOCOLATE CHIP OOEY GOOEY BUTTER CAKE


Ahhhh!  We are down to our final two days of 2019!  I still find that so hard to believe!

We always host a little New Year's Eve party at our house so I'm taking down the last of the Christmas decorations today and trying to remember where all my normal decor goes.  I hate un-decorating after Christmas.  It's so sad!  My house always looks so plain and boring without twinkly lights.  I will throw out a few cheesy NYE decorations for the party though so at least I'll have that to tide me over before it really does ALL come down.  Sigh.

Every night is New Year's Eve
(Pretty darn accurate for a lot of us! #dontletmegetto3)

Anyway, I know a lot of you are going to be heading over to friends' and families' houses tomorrow night as well or hosting your own so I wanted to share an easy and delicious dessert recipe that is always a hit at parties in case you were looking!

Let me just say that I'm not reinventing the wheel or anything over here.  I've heard this called everything from Ooey Gooey Cake to Butter Cake to Neiman Marcus Bars.  Paula Deen has a famous recipe for it and serves it at her restaurants but it's been around way before her.  This recipe is all over the internet but it's one I grew up on (and you probably did too!) and we just called it Gooey Cake.  And it was my absolute favorite.


When I got married, my mom gave me her recipe and I made it for a while just as she did.  But then I came across a recipe on Pinterest a few years ago where they added in chocolate chips and I loved it!  So 9 times out of 10, this is the one I make now.  I love it cold and chewy but it's also great warm and melty. :)

So if you need something to bring to a party tomorrow night, here's the recipe for something that will be a hit!

INGREDIENTS:

Crust:
1 box butter cake mix
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted

Filling:
1 8oz package of cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 16oz box of powdered sugar
1 stick butter, melted
1 cup chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly grease a 9x13 pan.  In a bowl, combine cake mix, egg, and melted butter and mix well with an electric mixer.  Pat evenly into the bottom of the dish.

Beat cream cheese with the electric mixer until smooth; add eggs and vanilla.  
Carefully dump in your powdered sugar beat it into mixture. Then slowly pour in the melted butter and continue mixing until thoroughly combined.  Stir in your chocolate chips with a spoon.

Pour mixture over the crust and spread evenly.  Bake for 40-50 minutes.  Ovens will vary so be sure to start checking it at around 35-40 minutes. (Mine takes about 43 minutes.) You want the center to still be a little gooey and wiggly and the top to be golden.  Let cool completely before cutting or it's going to get messy.

I always sprinkle powdered sugar over the top before I cut them.  These are delicious served warm from the oven but I love them cold as well.  They get super chewy but still have that "gooey" center.

 

And since we're talking about New Year's Eve, if you haven't seen the movie New Year's Eve before, it is a MUST WATCH!  It's one of my favorite movies ever.  It will get you in the NYE spirit if you aren't quite there yet! ;)  The perfect NYE movie if you're staying in.


So that's it for 2019!  I hope you all have a very safe and happy New Year!!  See you in 2020!

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Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Friday, December 20, 2019

A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS VACATION

Ahhhhh!!  Friends, I don't even know where to start this post!  Travel recaps are my favorite posts to write so when Holiday Inn Club Vacations reached out to invite my family (and my parents!) to their Villages Resort in East Texas for a complimentary holiday getaway I said HECK YES!  (Seriously.  I really said that out loud when I read the email.  In my best Napoleon Dynamite voice and everything. 😉)  In exchange, I would recap our Jollydays experience to share with all of you so here we go!  All opinions are 100% my own.

This was such a special (and completely unexpected) treat for us and when I say this place is a hidden gem I absolutely mean it!  Villages Resort is just a 2-hour drive for us in Mckinney (and the Dallas area) and we had no idea it even existed until a few weeks ago.  I feel cheated that we've lived here for 12 years and I'm just now finding out about it!

Never heard of Villages Resort either?  Well, let's remedy that, shall we?!  There are actually 29 Holiday Inn Club Vacation Resorts across the country too so don't let the fact that you aren't from around my area stop you from reading!




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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

WHAT'S UP WEDNESDAY | DECEMBER 2019

Hey hey!!  It's the last What's Up Wednesday post for 2019!  This year has been a whirlwind and I'm hoping to stretch out the rest of 2019 as much as possible.  It can't be over yet!

But today's post is all about what we've been up lately and this linkup with Shay and Sheaffer is a great way to share a whole bunch of random stuff with you guys all in one place.  Those are always fun, right?!

What's Up Wednesday Graphic

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Friday, December 13, 2019

FRIDAY FAVORITES & A CHRISTMAS-Y GETAWAY!

Happy Friday, friends!  It's been radio silent over here in my part of Blogland all week which is not necessarily unusual.  Y'all know by now I tend to come and go here on the blog and focus most of my attention on my Etsy shop and my Deals Group.  But this week my Etsy shop completely won out over everything and it was pedal to the metal.

I had 50+ signs, cups, burlap prints, and earrings to make, pack and ship by Friday which is totally doable in a normal week.  But this week, things were different.  I worked until midnight Monday-Wednesday to get all those orders completed so that I could spend Thursday packing and organizing (and last minute shopping) because we are leaving today for a fun little Christmas getaway!

We are all so excited!  I love a mini-vacay any time of year but couple that with the whole thing being Christmas-themed and I'm in heaven.  Then throw in a lake, some Smores, hot chocolate by the fire, outdoor movies, lots of buffalo plaid...I can't wait.  The best part is that this resort we're headed to is just 2 hours away from us!  I love a vacation but I hate long travel times so this is perfect!

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Friday, December 6, 2019

THANKSGIVING 2019 | FRIDAY FAVORITES

Happy Friday, friends!  We've had a wild week around here trying to get back in the swing of school, trying to keep an eye on all the great sales for my Deals Group, pumping out everyone's Etsy orders, attending Matthew's very first band concert and helping him with a pretty huge (and SUPER ANNOYING) project at school.  Gah, I HATE school projects, y'all.  I still have no idea how to do a "Works Cited" page in 2019.  Is that really necessary?  Why can't you just put the web page and be done?  Or maybe just "Google.com".  #amIright?

But I digress...as I tend to do.

Let's get back to something that was way more fun.  Like our Thanksgiving!

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