Ice Cream Bread!...

Yes, Ice Cream Bread.  Let me say that again, bread made with ice cream! This has to be the best idea for bread ever. AND, as if that isn't enough, to make it you only need TWO ingredients - ice cream and self-rising flour.  You can use any flavor ice cream you want so the bread flavors are endless.  This makes one 4" by 8" loaf.

Ingredients:

•  2 cups full fat ice cream (the bolder the flavor the tastier the bread)
•  1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

Directions:

1. Let your ice cream sit out until it is fully softened or put it into the refrigerator over night to soften.
2. Completely mix the softened ice cream with the self-rising flour.
3. Put the mixture on a greased loaf pan.
4. Have a grown-up put the pan into a preheated 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick in the bread comes out clean.

Even though the bread tastes delicious as it is, you can top your bread with sprinkles or chocolate chips before you bake it to make it fancier and give it extra taste.

The bread tastes great with a little butter spread on it especially when the bread is still warm.

NOTE:  Kroger sometimes has 16 ounce (2 cup) ice cream containers on sale for $1.00.  This can make it a pretty inexpensive treat.

These are the only ingredients needed to make ice cream bread.  This time I decided to make strawberry ice cream bread.

Measure 2 1/2 cups self rising flour...

...and pour it into a mixing bowl.

Measure 2 cups of ice cream...

...and put the ice cream in the mixing bowl with the self rising flour.

Then mix the ingredients together real well.  The dough mix will get very thick so you might need some help getting it all mixed together.

Put the dough mix into the greased 8" by 4" bread pan and bake it for 35 - 40 minutes.

And the best part of baking the ice cream bread is eating it.  A special fun thing of eating ice cream bread is that while other people have to eat their ice cream with a spoon, I get to eat my ice cream with my hands!  You can even spread butter or jelly or other topping for fun - remember, it is a bread.

Coloring Eggs...

In the past, when it was time to color Easter eggs, I used the standard egg dye and dipping.  That was fun and made nicely colored eggs, but this year I did something different.  I actually painted eggs.  After having an adult boil the eggs and letting them cool, I painted them with water colors.  They turned out beautiful with all of the swirling colors.

Here is my recipe for no mess up, getting perfect hard-boiled eggs every time:

First, if you want eggs that are easy to peel, buy eggs that are several days older than the freshest eggs ( but make sure they are still not beyond the expiration date).  Eggs that are a little older seem to peel better.  At Easter time when everyone is buying eggs, you may have to actually buy the eggs about five days earlier.

1. Put the eggs in a single layer in a sauce pan and cover by an inch or two of cold water.  Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil helps keep them from cracking.  Have an adult put the burner on high until the water boils.  With a lid on the pan, remove the eggs from the burner and let the eggs sit in the hot water for 12 minutes.  
2. Cool the eggs.  Strain the water from the pan and refill it with cold water.  Do this several times until the eggs are cool.  When the eggs are cool I put them back in the egg carton and into the refrigerator to decorate and eat.  The eggs should be eaten within five days.

Here's a tip - Ever have both hard-boiled and not hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator and don't know which ones are which?  You don't have to crack the egg to find out which is the hard-boiled or not boiled egg.  All you have to do is spin the egg!  If the egg spins evenly, it is a hard-boiled egg.  If the egg wobbles when you spin it, it is not a hard-boiled egg!

I used my kid water color paints to color the eggs.  I used different colors on each egg.

Here's what the egg looks like after I had painted it the different colors.

You can see how beautiful the eggs turned out.  These eggs are so much more fun than just dunking them in a color and so much more interesting.  Maybe next time I'll wrap the eggs with rubber bands and then paint them to see how they turn out.