Oscar Party Marble Corn

Something so yummy shouldn’t be as easy as this to make.

There’s a fantastic dessert shop in downtown Truckee that makes the world’s best fudge and candied apples. Sweets is a local and tourist hot spot. My favorite is actually what they label as their “3rd best seller,” the MarbleCorn.  Made with buttered and lightly salted popcorn, drizzled with caramel and then Belgian chocolate, it’s a dream come true.  We always stop and get a bag of this stuff for our ride home.  This last time I started thinking how great of a dessert this would be for an Oscar party!

So here’s how I’m making it:

Ingredients

• microwave popcorn (I recommend Newman’s Own natural brand)
• 6 oz. of belgian milk chocolate (any melting chocolate will do, I get the Pounder Plus for $4.55 at Trader Joe’s)
• 1  14 oz. bag of Kraft caramels**
• 1 tablespoon of water

** Do not use caramel sauce – it will not harden.

Directions:

1. Pop your popcorn.
2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil.
3. Spread popcorn in a single layer on your lined cookie sheet.
4. Unwrap caramels from cellophane wrappers and place in a deep microwave safe bowl.
5. Microwave on high or medium-high for 2 minutes. Watch closely and be VERY careful, use over mitts, caramel will be VERY HOT when melted!
6. Using a spoon, carefully drizzle melted caramel over the popcorn. Make long ribbons of caramel and let it set until hardened. You can also put it in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
   
7. When caramel has set, chop your chocolate.
8. Place chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and heat on high until melted, stirring at 1 minute intervals.
9. Drizzle chocolate over caramel and let set in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or at room temperature.
10. Cut into strips and ENJOY!

Serve your caramel and chocolate popcorn on a plate or package it up as a party favor for your Oscar party or Movie Night

The post Oscar Party Treat: Caramel Chocolate Popcorn appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

Sometimes we all need to “get by with a little help from our friends.”

Let’s face it whenever big moments happen in your life, good or bad, you need your friends there.  And these days, whenever a new baby is born or word gets out of an illness, or worse – an email goes out almost immediately for all hands on deck.  Friends pull out their best casserole dishes and start cooking.  Within hours, you can have a freezer full of homemade mac n’ cheese and offers pouring in to help but with no way to keep track of them all.

Well, thank goodness we live in the platinum age of technology! There are free sites out there designed to help coordinate volunteers and make a friend’s and your life easier.

Meal coordination sites. Through these sites, for free, a coordinator invites a group of people via email (or even facebook) to sign up for pre-selected dates that a meal is required.  They are extremely user-friendly and up and running in minutes. The two sites that I highly recommend are mealtrain.com and Take Them a Meal.

Meals and More. If your friend needs more than just help with meals, there are few sites that really help you create an online community to care for them. Lotsa Helping Hands and Care Calender are two great ones.  In addition to posting needs for meals, a coordinator can request childcare, rides, playdates or anything they want. Volunteers can then view all their commitments on one calendar and receive email reminders the day before they are scheduled.

So hopefully these sites will make it easier for everyone whenever you next find yourself helping a friend out. And if you do sign up to take someone a meal, don’t forget to try foodily.com to search for a yummy recipe!

And this I just had to post here because it’s just so awesome. Enjoy!

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Want to make a show-stopper for your Valentine’s Day celebration? Why not try this gorgeous cake? Here’s the tutorial from i am baker.

Heart Cake Tutorial from i am baker

Wow!

The post i ♥ cake appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

I love food. I love to cook. I love the internet. Now put those all together and what do you get? 1,000’s of websites: gourmet.com, epicurious.com, allrecipes.com, William Sonoma… it goes on and on and on. I can never remember what’s where or which one was good.

Now only if there was a way to search them all at the same time… Wait! There is!  Foodily is here!

Such a great site that allows you to search ALL the recipe sites at the same time and also share with your friends via Facebook your faves. Love it!  You can follow them on Twitter and Facebook or their blog here.

Foodily.com

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