Red Velvet Milky Way Dark Cookies

Looking for a fun Valentine's Day treat? These are perfect! I actually made these for my Girls Night with some of my favorite ladies. But to get into the swing of the holiday, I thought these would be a good way to kick off the weekend. 

If you can't bake from scratch, these cookies are for you. Using a boxed cake mix is as easy as it gets. The hardest part is cutting up the mini milky ways, I promise. I was done from start to finish in 30 minutes. Can't beat that. And they are ridiculously tasty. 

Red Velvet Milky Way Dark Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 Box Red Velvet Cake Mix
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
• 1 bag Milky Way Dark Minis, cut in half 
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line a large baking sheet with a silpat liner or parchment paper.
2. Place cake mix, butter, egg and oil into a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Cut up Milky Way bars into chunks and stir into dough along with the chocolate chips. Scoop dough onto prepared baking sheet placing about 1 inch apart. Press each cookie down almost flat about 1/2 inch thick. Bake for 11-13 minutes, until baked through. Let cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

 

Hot Chocolate Truffles

Finally the weekend and I have time to bake! It's been too long - things have been hectic here to say the least. Finally a weekend where we didn't have any plans and we were taking full advantage of things. Which for me meant baking and BP it was playing his Xbox One. 2 nerds in paradise I tell you. 

So while he was getting in army tanks and running things over, I was making these. We are hot chocolate lovers in this house - especially hot chocolate with marshmallows. Nothing beats that on a cold night - yes we do get those during the winter believe it or not. Although I do have to say that I've been here for 3 years now, there is no way I could ever survive another winter up North. No way. 

Let me tell you, having a container full of these in our fridge is a dangerous thing. Once you plop one of these into some hot milk and let it melt, oh man it's hard to wait. You even get a nice melted marshmallow layer on top too....I had to add some more marshmallow though. 

Hot Chocolate Truffles

Makes around 20 

Ingredients

3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips 

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 jars mini mallow bits 

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in a medium pot and melt together on low heat until smooth, stirring constantly. 

2. Put pot in fridge and let cool until stiff enough to scoop, about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. 

3. Make small scoops, about 2 Tablespoons each (I used my cookie scoop), and scoop out onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Freeze for 1 hour. 

4. Remove scoops and roll into balls. Roll all of them at once. If you go back and forth you will have chocolate coated marshmallow bits. 

5. Press the marshmallow bits into the truffles. 

6. Wrap each ball in saran wrap and keep chilled until ready to use.

7. When ready, drop chocolate balls into 1 ½ cups of hot milk and stir!