January Foodie Penpals- Reveal Day!

**Unfortunately, I lost all of my photos for this post. Please continue reading to find out more about the program!**

Yeah! It’s Foodie PenPals (FPP) reveal day! I mean, most of the stuff I received is already gone. Let’s face it, my Foodie Penpal nailed it this month!

If you haven’t heard about this program, it is about connecting blog readers, writers and foodies alike! Foodie Pen Pals is organize by Lindsay from The Lean Green Bean. Each month, you sign up and get paired with another blogger or reader. Once the pairings go out, your pen pal emails you to find out what food you like or dislike. Based on their answers, you prepare a box of goodies to send out to them while a different pen pal sends a box of goodies to you. I mean really, who doesn’t love getting surprise packages in the mail! For more information about FPP, click the button below.

This month, I received a package from Jacquie. She runs the blog Bee Morse Farm. Jacquie is a mother of two boys and lives way up in Northern Maine. When I first read her email, I immediately could relate when she was telling me about the wild weather they were having. I love when I get paired with Penpals from the east coast!

When I was unpacking the box I got from Jacquie, I knew she had spent some time looking at my blog and tapping into my interests and I always appreciate that!

Let’s start with the popcorn, Jacquie said that this was one of her favorite, well it is one of mine too!!! We eat this by the bag full at our house, so I am sure it won’t last long! She also sent me a bag of Chia seeds. I am not totally familiar with how to use these for cooking, but as we are trying to eat healthier, my boyfriend and I have looked at adding Chia seeds into our diet, so I am excited to use these!

Gluten-Free Carrot Cake for National Carrot Cake Day!

Sunday February 3^rd is a big day. If you are enthusiastic about football, I suppose you will watching the Super Bowl, drinking beer and pigging out on salty foods. If you are not interested in football, you might be indulging your sweet tooth, because it’s National Carrot Cake Day! I am making an delicate crumbed gluten-free carrot cake with a creamy vanilla cream cheese frosting.

Let me give you a little background story here. A good friend of mine is getting married in Mammoth this summer and she asked me to make cupcakes for her wedding. I delightfully agreed. I have an awesome carrot cake recipe that we have been making since I was a kid, and now I wanted to try a gluten-free version (the bride is gluten-free). The results were amazing and I never thought I could make a gluten-free carrot cake taste so moist. You would never guess it was gluten-free unless I told you!

Beyond Frosting is now on Bloglovin!

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Hi everyone! Just a quick update here. You will now be able to get my blog feed on Bloglovin. Click the link above to follow me there!

I am off to do a little bit of this for the next few days! WEEE

Oh So Easy Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Special delivery! I realize not everyone has the time to make cake or cupcakes, so I want to offer you some other awesome sweet treats for Valentines Day. I certainly didn’t know how easy these were until I tried them, so you should know too. Gourmet chocolate covered pretzels started popping up all over the web last summer, and I never understood why it was so popular until I tried it!

Last week when I was making Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, I had some pretzels in my pantry. I have always had a weakness for chocolate dipped pretzels, and they are often my candy of choice in a chocolate shop. I used to sneak them all the time when I worked in my local bakery/chocolate shop in high school! Well these were way better than the ones I used to sneak!

I used my melting pot since I had leftover chocolate, but it is not necessary to have a melting pot to make these. You can easily melt your chocolate in the microwave All you need is some chocolate, pretzels and sprinkles or toppings of choice. You could use cocoanut, nuts, graham cracker crumbs, the possibilities are endless!

First, you need to break up some chocolate into a microwave safe bowl. I suggest to melt your chocolate in the microwave in 20-30 second increments until melted and smooth. Make sure to vigorously stir your chocolate after each time you microwave it, as it will help to spread the heat and melt the remaining chocolate.

Often times, when I talk about cake pops or dipping chocolate, people ask me how I get the chocolate so thin and smooth. The secret is Crisco. As I melt the chocolate, I also melt in 1 tbsp at a time of Crisco and mix it very well until I get my desired consistency. I talk about that more here as well.

First you will want to line a baking sheet with wax paper or a baking mat to prevent them from sticking to the baking sheet.

Next you need your pretzels. I choose to break my pretzel rods into two so that I could cover more of the surface area in chocolate. You can use any type of pretzel for this!

I found it most useful to use a spatula to gather some chocolate on the end, and then roll my pretzel in the chocolate.  I tapped off the excess chocolate on the edge of my spatula.

Immediately apply sprinkles or other toppings before the chocolate cools and sets. You will probably find it useful to do this over a bowl or plate to catch the excess sprinkles that don’t make it onto your pretzel.

Set your pretzels on a lined baking sheet and allow the chocolate to harden. If you want to drizzle white chocolate cover the top, I suggest you let the milk chocolate harden first.

Try not to eat them all in one sitting! I packaged mine in some treat bags I found in the dollar bins at Target. I made the header cards on my Silhouette Cameo and tied it with some baker’s twine (My boyfriend came up with the final presentation!). These would make great gifts for your Valentine!

Healthish Foodie Finds!

This week’s foodie find is about healthier eating. I decided to wait until the end of January to “get healthy”. I am by no means any kind of dietician or nutritionist, but I do know what works for me. I have been participating in the Weight Watchers program since 2008.

I bake a LOT of desserts, and I do my best not to indulge too much, but I have to try what I make. So I am making an active effort to hold myself more responsible for the foods I eat.

Now that you know a little bit more about me, here are some snacks that are going to help keep me on track. Most of them are from Trader Joes or Whole Foods because I shopped in both of those stores recently. If you are interested in more specific nutrition facts, please leave me a message in the comments or send me an email!

Trader Joes makes these mini Pita pockets which are going to be my afternoon snack. They are only 1 WW point each. I can stuff them full of veggies or maybe some light cheese or low calorie peanut butter. Today I added a tablespoon of hummus.