Another winner in the Pop-Tarts giveaway

Well I didn't hear back from the first winner in 48 hours, so I had to draw a new winner for the BlogHer $100 visa gift card. We had 332 entries spread over both Pop-Tarts posts, and Random.org drew #91, which was this comment on the first post:

Lori A. said...
We love to have eggs, bacon, biscuits & gravy! Yum! ljatwood at gmail dot com

Congratulations Lori!!

I'll be emailing a winner's announcement right now, and Lori you've got 48 hours to respond or I'll have to draw a new winner.

Winner Pop-Tarts giveaway

I've drawn a winner in the Pop-Tarts $100 Visa giftcard giveaway. We had 206 entries on the first post and 126 on the second post, for a total of 332 entries. I used random.org to draw a winner, and the site chose #169, which was this comment:

McCurdysZoo said...
We love waffles!! Especially oatmeal waffles!
April 5, 2010 3:56 PM

Congratulations!

The winner has an email address listed in her profile, so I'll be emailing her shortly.

Cheers, and thanks for all the fun entries. You guys sure made me hungry!

Review and giveaway: A Salsa in China Pop-Tarts recipe (yipes!)

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries.

For the second part of our Pop-Tarts review (see the first part here), we were asked to make up our own recipe using any flavor of Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries and serve it to our families for breakfast. Yipes. I am SO not a fantastic cook... But that's ok, I am creative, and my helpers were very enthusiastic (they always are). It doesn't hurt that they've been big Pop-Tarts fans from a very early age. Does anyone remember this picture? Awwwww.


Anyhow, our creation was Brown-Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts Coffee Cake, and it actually turned out really well. Phew!! I thought that a nice coffee cake with frosted brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts sprinkled throughout and on the top might be just the ticket, so I looked at a whole bunch of coffee-cake recipes, and kind of adapted one that would fit what I pictured in my head. Here's what we did:


Preheated the oven to 350 degrees, then gathered these ingredients:

3/4 cup butter (softened), 1 1/2 cup sugar, 3 eggs, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla, 3 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 1/2 cups sour cream (a 16 oz container), 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 6 frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts.

Combined the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together in a large bowl and beat it on medium speed for a couple of minutes. There was a little tussle over rights to the uber-cool mixer (there always is), so each girl got to take a turn (and our poor little batter got way overmixed, but who cares, everyone was happy):



Next, we added in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sour cream. Then beat it again until it made kind of a stiff dough. We set this bowl aside (and out of reach of sneaky little twin tongues and fingers) for a few minutes.

In another bowl, we made the filling (the good stuff!). Combined the brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon, and crumbled Pop-Tarts (Ro and Ree started cutting the crusts off on their own and tossing those parts out, and I kind of thought it was a good idea, so I let them have at it).



Now we spooned about a third of the batter (around 2 cups) into a greased bundt pan and sprinkled with about a third of the filling. Then repeated the batter-and-sprinkle layering two more times. (Fun fact: This bundt pan is an antique. It used to belong to my grandmother.) We ended up with a yummy-looking top that was completely covered with sprinkles.



Um, there was a quick pause for some "cleanup":


Then we baked it at 350-degrees for 50 to 60 minutes (it's done when a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean).


Hey that looks pretty good! Ree thought so too, because she couldn't wait until I was done to sneak a bite:


Everyone actually liked it, so yay me! TubaDad said "Hey that's good!":


Ro said "Dat's gwate!" (that's great):


And Ree said "Dat's awesome!":


Fun stuff. I liked it too. Next time I might even get a little wild and use cherry or blueberry Pop-Tarts for a little extra surprise in the middle!


The Giveaway: BlogHer has something special for you too! One lucky Salsa reader will win a $100 Visa giftcard. To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me your favorite family breakfast. The contest runs from 4/2-4/16/2010 and entries will be generated by this post and our previous Pop-Tarts review on 4/2. Make sure that your email addy is in your profile or that the e-mail address you leave is correct (feel free to use weird spaces and spell out "dot" or "at" or that sort of thing) so I have some way to contact you.

The Rules: Duplicate comments/entries will be deleted. You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments. This giveaway is open to US-residents only. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail. You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. Please see the official rules here. Check out the BlogHer.com special offers page to read other bloggers’ reviews—you've got seven other chances to win! For other recipes, and a full list of the flavors, take a peek at the Pop-Tarts website.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

COMMENTS FOR THIS GIVEAWAY ARE NOW CLOSED. I'LL DRAW THE WINNER AT RANDOM THIS EVENING AND WILL BE BACK TO POST THE WINNER.

Review and giveaway: Pop-Tarts Sprinkly Ice Cream Bites

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Kellogg’s® Pop-Tarts® Toaster Pastries.

When our family was asked if we'd like to do a Pop-Tarts review, the kids practically pushed me away from the computer and typed "YES!!!" themselves. Heh. We kind of like Pop-Tarts around here. When we found out we'd get to sample a new flavor and try out an Easter recipe with it, well shoot you should have seen the grins.

A few days later, we heard a knock at the door and found an entire case of Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts. The girls screamed and started jumping up and down singing "We have PopTarts... we have PopTarts!" over and over. It was kind of funny. Loud, but funny.

Anyhow, I think we were supposed to wait for recipe day to try the Pop-Tarts, but, um, it didn't happen. That box barely hit our foyer before it was ripped open and the girls were chewing. And man was that new flavor a hit.



On official recipe day, we printed out the directions for Sprinkly Ice Cream Bites from the Kellogg's web site and got right to work. (Ro is in the white sundress, and Ree is wearing the backwards yellow cardigan, in case you wondered.) This recipe has only three ingredients, and the girls could do everything themselves (always a bonus in our house).


Alrighty, here's what we did:

Grabbed a box of Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts (hm, this case used to be full...):


Cut each of the Pop-Tarts into four pieces. The girls did this easily using butter knives. (Notice I said "easily" not prettily. Heh heh.):


Put a scoop of ice cream between two Pop-Tart pieces and squished it together:


Rolled the edges of each ice-cream sandwich in sprinkles:


Hey, not bad!:


Yeah, this looks pretty tasty:


Let's see:


Yummmmmm!:


How many do we get to eat? Hmmmm?:


The girls definitely liked the new Pop-Tarts, and the Sprinkly Ice Cream Bites recipe (in pretty pastels, just in time for Easter!). And I might have eaten one too. Ok it was two. Alright fine, it was three little ice cream sandwiches. Ahem.

This would be a really fun do-it-yourself dessert bar to have at a kid's party. You could put out a whole bunch of pre-cut Pop-Tarts in a wide variety of flavors, have little ice-cream balls that you had scooped out and frozen ahead of time (again in a variety of flavors), and a whole bunch of bowls of sprinkles. The kids would go crazy for these.

As Ro said on the video, "four thumbs up," one from each person in our family. :-)

The Giveaway: BlogHer has something special for you too! One lucky Salsa reader will win a $100 Visa giftcard. To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me your favorite family breakfast. The contest runs from 4/2-4/16/2010 and entries will be generated by this post and a subsequent one on 4/9 (the girls and I get to make up our own Pop-Tarts recipe next week—should be interesting!). Make sure that your email addy is in your profile, or the e-mail address you leave is correct (feel free to use weird spaces and spell out "dot" or "at" or that sort of thing) so I have some way to contact you.

The Rules: Duplicate comments/entries will be deleted. You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments. This giveaway is open to US-residents only. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail. You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. Please see the official rules here. Check out the BlogHer.com special offers page to read other bloggers’ reviews—you've got seven other chances to win! For other recipes, and a full list of the flavors, take a peek at the Pop-Tarts website.

Comments are now closed for this post and the rest of the comments for this two-part giveaway will be received at the Salsa in China Pop-Tarts recipe post directly above this one.