Cream Puff Cake

This is my favorite-absolutely favorite dessert to make! I got the recipe, well a conglomerate of recipes, from a friend of mine that never disappoints when it's her turn to bring dessert over.

I made this for our Bible Study Friday Night and I must say, it was yummy!

Cream Puff Cake Ingredients

1 C Water
1/2 C Butter
1 C All-Purpose Flour
4 Eggs
1 (8oz) Package of Cream Cheese
4 C Milk
3 small boxes of Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix
1 (12oz) container of Whipped Topping (Kool-Whip)-Thawed

1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 T butter

water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large heavy saucepan, heat the butter and water to boiling over medium high heat. Add flour and reduce heat to low. Cook and stir until it forms a ball and pulls away from the pan.

Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Spread this mixture in the bottom and up the sides of an ungreased, 9x13 inch pan and cook for 35 minutes. This doesn't have to be neat or spread evenly-and watching it bake is the fun part!

To make the chocolate frosting, (you can never have too much of this stuff!) melt 1 C chocolate chips with 2 T of butter over low heat. Then stir in 1/2 C of powdered sugar and 1 t vanilla. At this point you just play with the frosting by adding 1 T of hot water at a time until it is of pouring consistency-keep the stove on low (making sure not to burn chocolate) to help melt sugar. This step sounds like a pain but it makes this dessert so much better!

Pour about 3/4 of your chocolate over the cream puff shell, spreading it to the edges

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For the cream cheese filling: combine the softened cream cheese and pudding mix in a large bowl and beat it until it is smooth; slowly add milk. (I used Vanilla Soy but regular works great, too.). Once mixed, fold in whipped topping.

Spread the mixture over your chocolate covered cream puff shell. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now drizzle the rest of the chocolate on top and divide into 4 equal pieces-LOL-Enjoy!

Comfort Food

I am the Queen of Comfort Food. Just give me something warm & cozy on a cold snowy day and I can fully escape into Taste Bud Heaven. Today was a day that called for some comfort food. A little chilly outside, a scratchy throat and an all around melacholy mood called for some....ready for it....Chicken Pot Pie... Uh huh! Crispy flaky crust (Pilsbury of course) and some chicken gravy. Perfection!

I'll share because I love this recipe-it's so easy and quick and it does the trick!

The ingredients are so simple!

1 Pound of Chicken Breasts

1 Bag of Frozen Mix

ed Vegetables

4 oz. Cream Cheese (cubed)

1/4 C Zesty Italian Dressing-Low Fat

1/2 C Chicken Broth

2 T Flour

Double Pie Crust

Cut the chicken breasts into bite sized pieces.

Then brown the chicken in the low-fat dressing,

(Yeah!! No oil!)

Add the flour and mix.

Now it's time to stir in the chicken broth

and the cubed cream cheese.

When the cream cheese is melted,

stir in the veggies until it's all warm and gooey!

Now just lay the bottom crust into your pie pan. I like to use

a glass pan because it seems to keep the crust from getting soggy. Tuck the crust into the pan and cut slits in the bottom. This will keep your crust from bubbling up. Now pour your gooey-yumminess mixture inside the crust and take a pair of your kitchen scissors and trim the crust to the edges.

Put the top crust on, flute the pie edges (flashback to 8th grade home-ec class) then make a fancy design on top to let the steam escape.

There you go! So pretty! And, after years of trying homemade pie crusts, I proudly say that Pillsbury can win the blue ribbon on it. That is not for me!

Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until your edges are nice and brown and Voila!

Yes, it definitely hit the spot! Enjoy!