Simply Social Blog

Are you ready for some baking?!

I love excuses for themed food. And the Super Bowl is just one of many “holidays” that allows for that. Giant meat and cheese platters constructed in the shape of football stadiums, wings so hot you lose feeling in the bottom half of your face through the first quarter and more chips and salsa than they serve in a week at an all-inclusive Mexican resort. Trust me I’ve experienced the latter first-hand.

Snackstadium courtesy of the NY Daily News

A group of my friends host an annual Super Bowl party and while none of our respective teams were in the big game this year, I knew we would still manage to overindulge on food, drinks and bad commercials. After all, it’s tradition.

An advertising geek at heart, I was a little disappointed with the ads this year. Don’t get me wrong I love sports as you may have gathered from my Color Commentary post last week, but I really love the anticipation that comes with the latest and greatest commercials. What’s trending? Who wins the Oscar for best ad? Which one takes the toilet bowl?

By far my favorite this year was the Budweiser “Brotherhood” ad with the Clydesdales. I love sports and I love commercials, but I have a real soft spot for animals. Pair that with a fondness for the St. Louis Cardinals and well, America and you’ve got a hook, line and sinker for your target demographic, Budweiser.

Now that I’ve softened you up, let’s get back to the recipes.

In an effort to utilize some of my pantry items and keep things a little fresher this year, I decided to attempt a few healthier recipes I’d been eying as of late. Well that was until I didn’t feel like I had enough options to bring and decided to throw in some Chocolate Nutella Football Whoopie Pies. I don’t like to show up places empty-handed. I blame my mother.

On the menu, homemade spicy Chex mix, lump crab salsa and chocolate Nutella whoopie pies.

Spicy Chex Mix

• 4+ cups whole wheat and corn Chex
• 2 C pretzels
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 C walnuts/pecans or pumpkin seeds
• 1 TBL sesame oil
• 1/4 C soy sauce
• 1-2 TBL Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp Tabasco chipotle sauce
• 1/4 C olive oil
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 300°F.

In a large bowl, combine Chex, pretzels and nuts.

In a small bowl whisk soy sauce, olive oil, sesame oil, Worcestershire, chipotle, cumin, chili powder and salt.

Stir liquid into dry mixture until coated. Spread in a single layer on a jelly roll pan lined with parchment. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden, being sure to stir every 10 minutes. 

Let cool and serve!

Prefer the original? Recipe adapted from this Whole Grain Cereal Party Mix.

Lump Crab Salsa

• 1/2 Cup cilantro
• 2 shallots
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 jalapeno, seeded
• Finely grated zest and 1/4 Cup lime juice
• 1 TBL fresh lemon juice
• 2 garlic clove, very finely chopped
• 2 TBL extra-virgin olive oil
• 18 oz. crab meat
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup roasted almonds, coarsely chopped

In a large food processor, add shallots, garlic, peppers and cilantro. Pulse to desired consistency. Add lime zest, and lemon and lime juice.

In a large bowl, fold crab meat into salsa and add salt, pepper and olive oil to taste.

Garnish with chopped roasted almonds and serve with your choice of chip or crostini. I used some black bean and corn chips from TJ’s (yes Trader Joe’s and I are on a nick-name basis).

Prefer the original? Recipe adapted from Food and Wine.

Chocolate Nutella Football Cookies

I’ve made this recipe before so it was a quick decision to go back to it when I wanted something the color and shape of a football. I did brown icing a few years ago on some sugar cookies for a Super Bowl. It wasn’t pretty.

• 1 1/4 C flour (I ran out of all-purpose so I used half whole-wheat)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/2 C dark brown sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 C Nutella
• 1/3 C skim milk

Preheat oven to 325°

In a small bowl, whisk flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder together.

Beat together the butter (room temp), sugar, and brown sugar in your handy-dandy KitchenAid® Mixer. (Maybe a pretty Aqua one like this that I’ve been drooling over since I got the latest C&B catalog) Add vanilla and Nutella and mix until at medium speed until smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture and mix until combined. Add milk. Then add remaining flour mixture and mix completely. Wrap dough in clear wrap refrigerate the dough for an hour.

When you are ready to bake, line pan with non-stick baking mat or parchment, scoop  and roll dough into 1 inch balls and press down with the bottom of a glass to make cookies.

I decided to make football shapes for my whoopie pies so I rolled the dough into a sphere and pressed out football shape with my fingers. Unfortunately dough is too sticky to roll for cutout cookies. Boy wouldn’t that have been faster.

Bake for 10-12 minutes depending on your oven. Cookies are done when they start to crack on top. Let cool on pan for 5 minutes before moving to cooling rack.

Once cookies are cooled, simply (I say simply but it’s a sticky process) add marshmallow creme to the center and press down to make football whoopie pie. If I didn’t run out of time I would have then added stitching on the top with royal icing. A girl can dream, right?

apologies for bad iPhone photo

These cookies are excellent sans marshmallow creme as well. Prefer the original? Recipe adapted from Our Best Bites.

What was your favorite super bowl commercial? Which one was just awful? Did you eat anything awesome? Share your comments below!