McCafe Dulce de Leche Shakes Review

Summer is right around the corner and the weather is starting to heat up in SoCal! With triple digit temperatures on the way it's great to know McDonalds has some delicious new treats to help us foodies keep cool!

The latest product on the McCafe lineup is the new Dulce de Leche shake!

"Inspired by the traditional Latin American dessert, McCafé Dulce de Leche Shake is made with McDonald’s vanilla reduced-fat ice cream, caramel and topped with whipped cream and a cherry." via McDonalds 

Sounds absolutely fabulous right? My sister and I tried the McCafe Dulce De Leche shakes over the weekend and they were crazy delicious! 

I swear we're sisters, even though we look nothing alike! 

As you can see, McDonalds is pretty generous with the caramel in this Dulce de Leche shake, the shake itself is caramel with even more caramel drizzled throughout the shake! It's a caramel lovers dream! What surprised me about this shake was how it wasn't overly sweet. Usually with a flavor like Dulce de Leche you sometimes end up with a super sugary dessert that either makes you sugar crash later or get that almost sickly sweet feeling. That wasn't the case with this shake at all! 

We paired our shakes with an order of fries, because salty fries and a shake are one of the food world's greatest pairings. No, it's totally not weird to dip your fries in your shake...right? 

Either way, we loved this shake and are glad to have a new sweet pick-me-up for the Summer season! 

We want you to have a chance to taste McDonalds Dulce de Leche McCafe Shake too! We're giving away a prize pack to three lucky winners! Each prize pack contains four Dulce de Leche McCafe Shake vouchers to enjoy with your friends along with some other fun surprises! Enter using the rafflecopter widget below!

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***Disclaimer: I have been compensated by McDonalds and the Latina Lifestyle Bloggers Collective for this sponsored post. All opinions and views are my own and they have not been directly influenced by either McDonalds or the Latina Lifestyle Bloggers Collective.***

Close Enough: Skinny Tuna Cakes

The top is what "Skinny Tuna Cakes" are supposed to look like, according to Pinterest (The people who post these recipes are so creative and clearly have A LOT of time on their hands, I can't even). The bottom is what happened when I cooked the tuna cake. I am sparing you by posting the only picture that managed to look close to the inspiration btw, but ....look; close enough.

When Macarons Go Terribly Wrong.

About a month ago I made Totoro Macarons for a bake sale my friend invited me to. I used Rosanna Pansino's recipe on her Nerdy Nummies YouTube video. I was so excited, it was my first time making macarons and only a couple of them cracked, they had feet and looked pretty good!

Look at those gorgeous looking feet. I thought it was a macaron miracle, especially for my very first attempt at such a temperamental little bugger of a cookie. They were a hit at the bake sale so a month later when I found a Banana Nutella Macaron recipe I figured, "Hey, I made them once before, I can do it again no problem!"

NOPE.

I don't know if it was beginner's luck with the first batch or if the macaron gods were just smiling upon me that fateful day but today they were not kind. Everything that could go wrong with these cookies did. They didn't get feet. They cracked. They got some kind of terrible puffy that made them look like hot cross macarons. 

Macarons are not supposed to look like sandollars. They just aren't. What's even more upsetting about this whole thing is that the macarons totally played me. I piped them out, tapped the pan to get all the air out and let them dry for 20 minutes. They looked perfect at this point, WAY better than my Totoros at this stage so I was really excited that these cookies would look gorgeous.

But it wasn't meant to be. I should have known something was wrong when it took me so long to fold the meringue with the dry ingredients. The batter got extremely stiff and wasn't getting to the macaronage stage I wanted. I think it may have been too much dry ingredients that was the main cause for my macaron fail...that and the batter could have still been undermixed, even though the batter was melting back in on itself and flowing in a lava-like ribbon, which is the state you want it in according to macaron expert, Brave Tart.

Imagine my face of utter baking sadness when I pulled these out. I spent TWO HOURS whipping, sifting, measuring, food processoring, macaron-aging and piping and this is what I get. Like I said, they have no feet on them, I probably should have let them dry a bit longer before I baked them. Or they could have cracked because the heat hit the cookies too fast, which is why some bakers recommend double cookie sheets when you're making macarons. 

Even though these macarons were what I consider to be a baking fail, it definitely taught me a lesson in macaron baking. I was upset for a little while but you learn a lot more from your baking mistakes than your baking successes. Plus, it could have been worse, these little guys didn't look like the fancy macarons they should have but they sure tasted amazing! But really, how can you go wrong with bananas and Nutella?

Sound off on your baking horror stories below!

Strawberry Banana Orange Smoothie Cupcakes

It's a Cupcake Couture Blog Party y'all! We were invited by Betsy Eves of Java Cupcake to participate in this wonderful Cupcake Couture Blog Party and giveaway along with 20 other food bloggers. How cool is that?! You can find all the participating bloggers' recipes below...that's 20 new cupcake recipes!

An American Cupcake in London
Bella Cupcake Couture
Chronicles of a Foodie
Crazy for Crust
Creative Food
Cupcakes Take the Cake
Diary of a Mad Hausfrau
Eat Your Heart Out
Haniela's
Hoosier Homemade
In Katrina's Kitchen
Inside BruCrew Life
Java Cupcake
Love From the Oven
Make Bake Celebrate
Not Just a Mommy
Sugar Daze
Sugar Swings! Serve Some
The Baked Equation
The Baking Cup
The Decorated Cookie

All the participating bloggers were sent a beautiful set of cupcake wrappers by Bella Cupcake Couture and were asked to create a recipe to match our assigned wrappers. I received the "Hannah" wrappers, which features a fabulous pink and citrus floral pattern.

I was racking my brain for a couple weeks trying to figure out what would go with such a vibrant print, all I could think about was what cupcake would be pink and orange. Eventually I started playing with the idea of strawberries and orange and somehow it turned into an experiment into recreating a smoothie as a cupcake!

I'm tempted to call these diet cupcakes. Or at least semi diet. Definitely semi-homemade though.

I used a yellow cake mix and mixed it with Orange Juice, Orange Creme Light Yoplait Yogurt, Eggs and added some powdered freeze dried Orange Slices. That's it! No butter or oil or water! So it's totally diet friendly, I mean, I used LIGHT yogurt for crying out loud. As you can tell, I'm trying to achieve an orange flavored cupcake, but the frosting definitely takes this cupcake into the smoothie side of the world.

I used Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Frosting Starter just so I could have a neutral flavor base for the frosting. You can go Vanilla or Cream Cheese but I was trying to avoid making the frosting too sweet.

Instead of using the flavor packet companion to the Frosting Creations I used freeze dried strawberries and bananas that I got at Trader Joes. I figured I could throw them in the food processor and make my own flavor powder made out of real fruit.

Using the freeze dried fruits instead of fresh fruit makes it easier to incorporate the flavors into the frosting without compromising its integrity. When you add too many "wet" components into a frosting you need to counteract it by adding more powdered sugar to thicken it back up. Then it turns into a balancing game of adding wet and dry until you get the consistency you want, but end up with a frosting that is way too sweet!

I threw the fruits into a food processor until they were a fine powder and I beat it into the can of frosting until everything was combined. Even though I used freeze dried fruits, I still had that fresh fruit feel to the frosting, like being able to see the strawberry seeds and get the crunchy little texture from them.

I think all the colors of the cupcake ended up matching the wrapper quite nicely! All the flavors went well together too, the orange cake with the strawberry banana frosting reminded me of the good ol' days sipping on an Orange Julius at the mall. I still think it's safe to call these semi-diet cupcakes. I even topped them with a trio of freeze dried fruits!

Strawberry Banana Orange Smoothie Cupcakes
adapted from Yellow Bliss Road

Orange Cupcakes
1 box Yellow Cake
1 container Orange Creme Yoplait Light Yogurt
1 cup Orange Juice
2 Eggs
1/4 cup Freeze Dried Oranges

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat cake mix, yogurt, orange juice and eggs on low for 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium high for 1 minute. Cut up or throw the freeze dried oranges in a food processor. Add to batter and beat for another minute.

Line cupcake pan with liners. Fill liners 2/3 full with batter. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Strawberry Banana Frosting
1 container Duncan Hines Flavor Creations Frosting Starter (or a white frosting of your choice)
1/2 cup Freeze Dried Strawberries
1/2 cup Freeze Dried Bananas

Empty frosting container into mixing bowl.

Add strawberries and bananas to food processor and pulse until both fruits are ground into a fine powder.

Add combined powder to frosting and beat on low for 1-2 minutes until strawberries and bananas are incorporated into the frosting. Taste to make sure it tastes as fruity as you'd like, if not, continue to add more strawberries and bananas 1/4 cup at a time.

And now onto the giveaway!

Thanks to our amazing Prize Pack sponsors for their generous donations! Please, visit their websites to see more of their fabulous products!
Bella Cupcake Couture
Cupcake Stand
Java Cupcake
Lil' Punkin Creations
Sweets & Treats Boutique
To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below. Contest opens May 21, 2013 at 7:00 PST and closes May 27, 2013 at 11:59PM PST. One winner will be chosen and announced within 24 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email to claim their prize. This contest is open to residents of the USA and Europe only.

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The Lobos Truck: A Review

As an avid food truck lovers and one of us previously being fully fledged vegetarian, The Lobos Truck was Lili's first food truck experience back into the meat eating world. The first impression I got from the truck was the friendly staff and especially the warm and outgoing chef who goes by the name of Queso. I must say a person whose nickname is that of a food, almost always has a positive correlation with the taste and quality of their product. When we were served our food it was a pleasant surprise to see that we got full portions of their menu items instead of small tastings that food blog writers are used to.

Guest Post: Ariel's Favorite Open Face Chicken Sammich

Today we have a guest post from one of my best friends who I've known since I was about eight years old, Ariel Tolefree! I asked her to write a little bio on herself so you all can get to know her!

"23 years old with an attitude. I try to change the way youth and their parents think about the value of education by day and listen to womanist podcasts and buy lipstick by night. Thanks to Ashley I've become a foodie who is learning to like cooking more and more."

Keogh's Crisps: Review

Back in March I wrote an article on Keogh's for Foodbeast. They had created the perfect St. Patrick's Day snack food, Shamrock and Sour Cream Crisps! These Ireland born chips, aka crisps, as their known across the pond, are only available in the US on the East Coast for now, but the company was kind enough to send us a variety of their Irish crisps to try for ourselves here in LA!