Well, you might not realize that if you don’t live near an east coast beach town. For those of us who are in the know about boardwalk treats, we get the joy of candy shops with thick slabs of fudge for sale everywhere. It can’t be beat!

I’m not due to hit the beach for another month or so, and I could just throw up my hands in despair and decide to wait. Or I could make this rocky road fudge, which takes about five minutes to put together and tastes oh so beachy!

For her birthday a few weeks ago, we gave my daughter a doll and a tricked-out stroller. She really wanted an American Girl doll, but I mean, come on. They’re a hundred bucks a pop, and that’s before clothes and accessories. Plus, she’s a child. Can she really take care of a hundred dollars’ worth of anything? We had doubts.

I’m glad we got her the cheaper doll, since she’s been dragging it around by its hair or swinging it by its arms. I feel really badly for the poor doll. She’s probably wondering why she had the rotten luck of being adopted by this crazy family.

The other day, my mother brought over the doll cradle that I used when I was growing up, and I was actually surprised to see that it was in pretty good condition. But then I got to thinking about it, and I took pretty good care of my toys. I was never neat, and I was certainly no angel of a child. But somehow, the toys stayed nice.

With my kids, it’s a totally different story. They’re not precisely destructive, but they’re not good at understanding how caring for something lengthens shelf life. So in yet another episode of Mir’s Mom Guilt, I ask you: how to create learning opportunities for them? Short of confiscating all their toys, that is?

I’d like to see somebody try and confiscate anything of mine. I’d be pretty fierce. Especially if they were trying to take away dessert. Not happening!

Whenever I’m in a hurry, I make fudge. Seriously. The whole thing takes less than five minutes, thanks to our good friend, Mr. Microwave. And after the requisite chill time, it’s time to dig in!

This fudge is loaded with mini-marshmallows, walnuts and lots of chocolatey goodness. Your inner rocky road fanatic will be quite pleased!

If you can’t get to a beach town this summer, here’s the next best thing. Give it a shot!

Yes, I said “skort.” Before you assume that I’m dressing like a 2 year-old, they do make cool skorts nowadays that look like miniskirts but that have shorts under. It’s more ladylike not to flash people.

When it’s hot outside, I like to sit on my front step drenched in sunscreen and mosquito repellent. I’ll bring out a book, a cup of ice water, and a frozen treat. This week, these peanut butter fudge pops are getting a lot of play. They require only two ingredients, so get cracking!

Lately, I’ve been trying to up my crossword puzzle action. Studies show pretty much everything you want them to show, but one of those things is that crossword puzzles keep brain function higher as we age. I don’t know if it’s true, but by golly, I’m gonna do them anyway. After all, crossword puzzles are fun, and if they’re maybe healthy for my noggin, why not?

My grandmother was a big crossword puzzle enthusiast. After she retired, she would wake up in the morning and start a puzzle before going for her daily swim. When she got back, she’d dry off and make lunch, and then after lunch, she’d make a cup of tea and finish the puzzle. What I remember most is that she always used an erasable pen, a habit that I plan to mimic when I hit retirement. After all, writing in pencil is no fun, but mistakes in pen don’t work with crosswords. She was a very sensible woman.

When I was a kid, I’d spend every third Sunday with my grandparents. My grandmother would honk her horn and I’d come outside quickly, dreading a second honk. Then we’d head to the pool together, where she’d forego her usual laps to watch me splash around and play with me. When we go home, my grandmother would make me a pizza with extra cheese while she prepared sandwiches for my grandfather and herself, and she’d always let me snack on cheese while the pizza was cooking. And dessert was always ice cream in a fancy ice cream parlor-style glass with Magic Shell on top.

Back then, I didn’t know what the word “pamper” meant, but that was definitely it. Nobody pampers like grandparents. My relationship with my grandparents was complicated, but I loved those Sundays of being indulged. I mean, I ate a whole pizza every time. It was amazing. And I was allowed to spend the afternoon doing whatever I wanted. Now I see my kids with their grandparents, and I know they don’t yet appreciate how lucky they are. But they will someday!

I always think of childhood when I make popsicles. Isn’t that the age when we’re most delighted with food on a stick? Oh, who am I kidding. Everyone loves that!

These pops are made of two things: peanut butter and chocolate milk. That’s it! Mix and freeze. You’re done. It’s like a frozen fudge bar, but with a peanut butter twist. Calcium and protein in one shot, friends! How is that for healthy?

And if you’ll excuse me, I have a crossword on the front porch to attack along with one of these. Hope you have a moment to yourself today!

I kid you not. I grew up in a family that considered a trip to the ice cream parlor an excellent substitute for lunch, and thank heaven they did. Because my favorite drink in the world is still a Baskin-Robbins Jamoca Almond Fudge milkshake with chocolate syrup. It’s just where life is at.

Today, my friend Megan is celebrating her 100th blog post with a giveaway, and a bunch of her best bloggy friends are taking part! I’ll talk more about Megan in a minute, but for now, enter to win. And while you’re at it, enjoy this no-churn mocha almond fudge ice cream, my own personal loving tribute to Baskin-Robbins!

When I first began blogging a short two and a half years ago, I joined a pretty overwhelmingly large and yet supportive group of food bloggers. There are a bazillion of us out there, and it can be hard to find your way to an audience.

Fairly early in the game, I stumbled upon Megan’s blog, The Emotional Baker. She had some pretty rockin’ donuts up that day, and she was writing about her struggles with a running injury. I’d recently recovered from a stress fracture caused by my own running, so I immediately felt a kinship with her.

Fast-forward to now, and I’m still a big fan. Megan has posted some of my favorite desserts, from these peanut butter pretzel bars to carrot cake pop tarts. And every time I visit her blog, I see yet another idea that pushes the bounds of creativity.

As food bloggers, we’re faced with the constant challenge of coming up with ideas. How many things can you do with a brownie? If you’re a blogger with regular postings, finding ways to switch it up is a constant practice. It can be stressful, joyful, empowering, or all of the above.

That’s why we’re so tightly knit, and so supportive. Only someone who is caught up in the crazy world of blogging can understand, and most of us have full-time jobs as well. We do this for the love of the work, and enjoy our friendships with one another along the crazy, wild ride this is!

One passion many of my fellow bloggers and I share is a love of no-churn ice cream. There’s an ice cream maker somewhere at my parents’ house nearby, but I’ve never had to borrow it. Why? Because of a little miracle known as sweetened condensed milk.

When SCM (as those of us in the know call it) gets combined with whipped cream and frozen, it turns into ice cream. You can customize flavors at will, too. Some people like to use Cool Whip as a shortcut, but I personally use my KitchenAid to whip up the real thing. It tastes better and creamier.

This ice cream is made with a chocolate-coffee mixture, and then I mixed in roasted almonds, chocolate chunks and hot fudge. Honestly, putting this ice cream away is a real challenge. I keep digging around for more chocolate chunks or almonds.

Here’s wishing Megan many more happy blog posts. Now it’s time to celebrate with some ice cream and a giveaway!

I’ve teamed up with 15 other bloggers to help celebrate The Emotional Baker’s 100th Recipe! We’re giving away two prizes.

• Grand Prize: $100 Amazon Gift Card.
• 2nd Place: TEB’s Favorite Baking Tools Prize Pack.

The prize pack includes:

• One Camry High Accuracy Digital Kitchen Food Scale // $18.99 value
• One iSi Basics Flex-It Measuring Cups // $24.99 value
• One RSVP Endurance Spice Measuring Spoon Set // $13.95 value
• One Wilton ColorSwirl 3-Color Coupler 9-Piece Decorating Kit // $7.90 value
• One Chef’n Switchit Narrow Silicone Spatula // $9.99 value

Giveaway Made Possible By:

• The Emotional Baker
• Spoonful of Flavor
• Eva Bakes
• FIVEheartHOME
• Cook Nourish Bliss
• Beer Girl Cooks
• The Seasoned Mom
• No Spoon Necessary
• Beaming Baker
• Flavor the Moments
• Like Mother, Like Daughter
• Fresh April Flours
• Vanessa Baked
• Brooklyn Farm Girl
• The Semisweet Sisters
• Just About Baked

Giveaway Rules:

1. Enter the giveaway through the Rafflecopter widget below. Earn entries by following the host bloggers on social media. (If you’ve followed in the past, that counts! Just enter the information as prompted.) All entries will be verified. No purchase is necessary to win.
2. The giveaway is open until Wednesday, June 29, 2016 at 11:59 p.m. EST. One Grand Prize winner and one Second Place winner will be chosen at random and e-mailed within 48 hours. Winners must claim prize within 48 hours of initial contact. The retail value of the prize is $75. Prizes listed above are the only ones available.
3. Grand Prize: Open to USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom.
   Second Place: Open to U.S. residents with a valid shipping address only.

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With Memorial Day coming, everyone’s making barbecue and picnic plans. Well, everyone except me. I tend to forget all about it until the last second or just shrug it off, figuring that if worse comes to worst, I’ll just throw some meat on a fire and be done with it.

But for you lovely people who plan ahead, think about this delightful no-bake dessert for your get-together time. These bars are made of egg-free Oreo cookie dough and topped with thick white chocolate fudge.

This time of year, I really need the extra sugar hit. Our students are in standardized testing for weeks on end, and the resultant disrupted scheduling can be challenging when you’re in the same classroom with the same kids for several hours on end. I get so hungry, too. And I need to use the bathroom.

One of the golden perks of summer is that I can use the bathroom whenever I need to. 10 months out of the year, I hold it in. After all, a teacher can’t leave her students unattended. But for those two months, the bathroom is actually a possibility. Sometimes I go there just because I can, not because I need to.

TMI? Yeah, well, try being a teacher. We’re not allowed to pee. We’re also not allowed to be considered experts in our own field. They hire people to make policies that make very little sense instead, people who have never taught a day in their lives. Good system, y’all.

Here’s an analogy for you: how about if we send a bunch of people who have eaten food into all of the restaurants in America so they can make policy decisions about how those restaurants should be run? I’m predicting a lot of grease fires, some small floods, and some very sub-par pastries.

The moral of the story: just because you’ve gone to school? Yeah, means nothing. You have no idea how a school runs or, even better, how it should. That might sound harsh, but the truth hurts.

I’ll soften the blow a little bit with these Oreo fudge cookie dough bars. The bottom layer is a thick cookie dough filled with cookies and cream flair, and a simple stovetop fudge (no candy thermometer needed!) rounds out the perfect topping.

I can’t teach everyone how to fix the education system, but I can give them nice treats to make things seem better. That’s not a bad way to start a week!

Well, sort of. I mean, I’m not ready. But this is the closest I’ll be. We can’t spend life on a beach. Or maybe we can’t. I keep wondering if I could change my life and live on a beach. I mean, they need teachers everywhere, don’t they?

While I’m contemplating a change in location, I might as well bake. In fact, it’s one of the things that keeps my life grounded. Whether I stay in colder climes or not, I will always love crumb more than anything. These bars are all about the oatmeal crumb, which sandwiches a layer of fudge. The whole thing gets topped off with M & Ms. Did I say these were happy? Or was that just too obvious?

There’s so much I can share about my vacation, but I’m going to start with the fact that whenever Kenny and I go away, our getaway quickly becomes a test of how much physical activity we can squeeze into whatever time we have. Example: in one morning we rented both kayaks and paddleboards, and this was after an hourlong workout and a long beach walk. And that was just the morning. We kept the exercise up all day long.

We both love being fit, so when I realized that there was a barre studio across the street from our hotel, I called them and set up a class. If you don’t remember, I’m a huge barre girl. I started doing the workouts over two years ago, and I’ve stuck with them. I have my own barre at home, and I alternate cardio and barre (or do both) every day of the week.

The best (in my opinion) technique so far is Physique 57, which is one of the original barre methods. However, I tried another popular name-brand studio this time, feeling kind of guilty for cheating on P57. Don’t worry: the guilt didn’t last.

Friends who have done live barre, please share: does your studio amp the music up so loudly that you can only kinda sorta hear the instructor? Because that’s what happened in Florida. Everyone seemed to be in a state of confusion. One woman was following the next who then followed the one after her, resulting in a bizarre body game of telephone where the last person in the row (ahem, me)  had to improvise a lot. And all the while, the instructor was walking around praising everyone (even me) for doing different things, not even noticing that some feet were pointed while others were flexed, or that I was making up a push-up series out of my own head.

So I apologized to the gods of Physique 57 in my head, and I’ll never cheat again. Well, probably. It’s hard to resist a barre studio on vacation, especially when you and your spouse are hell-bent on spending the day being active.

I’ll probably pick another day this week to talk about the sun and warmth, since I have to give a little time to these bars.

They’re heaven. That’s it. Oh, and no mixer. Just some microwave action!

It’s rough being back in the grind, but my baking will never desert me. Now all I have to do is think about whether life in D.C. can really trump a life at the beach!

Not me, unfortunately. My beloved Indianapolis Colts exited the season before the playoffs, so I selfishly stopped caring too much about the outcome of any games, except to hope that the Patriots don’t once again take it all. Tom Brady must’ve made a deal with Satan a long time ago to be both talented and good looking. I have issues with that man.

But no matter what happens with the actual game, I never pass up a chance to make amazing football food. And what better than a giant hunk of fudge shaped like a football? Nothing, I tell you. It’s the best!

This past weekend we had Monday off, so we bundled everyone up and drove out to the Baltimore Inner Harbor to their world-famous aquarium. It’s an amazing place set right over the water, and the building is ingenious. The whole building basically mimics the levels of the ocean with visitors descending via ramps as they fish-watch (or shark-watch) into darker depths.

And of course, there’s the dolphin show. Kids love a good dolphin show, and actually, so do I, as long as we stay out of the splash zone. Do you ever wonder why people like sitting in the splash zone and getting purposely doused with dirty, fishy water? And the day we went, it was about 10 degrees outside. Why would you do that to yourself? Then you could turn to a fishy water popsicle if you venture back outside.

The only bone anyone has to pick with the Baltimore Aquarium is its price tag. It’s $40 a ticket for adults and $25 for kids. We’re a family of five, so do the math. Let’s just say that we had to make sure we saw every inch of that aquarium, or we would feel that our money was not well spent. And we also were mean parents and refused to buy anyone a stuffed dolphin. The little angelic children were really mad about that.

When we got home, I wanted two things: a blanket and some fudge. Luckily, both were readily available. As you know by now, fudge is not hard to make. Watch!

My only caution to you would be to be much smarter than I was. For the football molds, I used a plastic candy mold. MISTAKE. I should have used something bendy, like silicone. Live and learn. Getting that fudge out of the mold was sheer hell. That’s why it’s not featured in my video.

We can survive any number of freezing cold aquarium trips if there’s fudge at the other end of the rainbow, so bear that in mind. And if you care about the Super Bowl outcome, good luck to your team! Unless it’s the Patriots. They don’t need no more help.

It’s hard not to, when it’s so easy to make people happy by giving the gift of fudge for very little effort. I’d rather put the hard work into maintaining friendships and being a good person rather than standing over a stove top with a candy thermometer. Not that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive, of course.

As my wise brother pointed out to me last week, there is something about the combo of white chocolate and mint that is just meant to be. So in honor of him, here’s a white chocolate fudge filled with holiday mint-flavored M & Ms. In one bite, you get both crunchy and creamy sweetness. It’s the best!

It’s important to move with the times, and in case you haven’t noticed, food blogs are all about incorporating video now. That means that just as I’m starting to figure out this whole photography thing, I am now going to have to become a cinematographer as well. It’s cool. I hope you enjoy my first effort, which took me far too many hours to complete!

Yep, it’s a first try, so don’t be too harsh. I’ll get better at it, okay? Film editing software ain’t no joke.

But you know, it’s important to learn new things. It’s good for our minds, which need to be exercised and challenged, and it’s also protection against our kids making fun of us for being out of the loop.

Since I teach high school, I’m more up-to-date than most adults about fashion, slang, and popular trends. In my deluded mind, this awareness keeps me young. But even with that added edge, I still feel like getting older is something to resist, both physically (who doesn’t love the gym?) and mentally (let’s make a video!).

Seriously, all the kids today make videos. It’s like they absorbed the skill in utero. When I was struggling to edit a clip, my son looked over my shoulder and shook his head. “No, Mommy. You have to press ‘split’ and then ‘detach.'” And he’s all of seven and a half. As far as I know, nobody’s taught him how to do this. He just knows, somehow.

Luckily, some of my knowledge transcends age, and making fudge is part of that. The best part about fudge is that it’s really hard to mess up. Unless, that is, the whole pan tips off the fridge shelf while setting. Yep. We’d best not speak of that.

The only caution I’ll issue is that when you’re working with white chocolate, you can’t overheat it. It’s much fussier than regular chocolate and will seize up if you look at it funny. Its feelings are very tender. So in the recipe below, follow the instructions to the word. That’s right, creative soul out there who wants to tweak it! Do that next time. For now, just follow the leader.

I’m getting older, but I hope that means I’m getting wiser, too. I’m definitely learning as I go, and I hope that you feel the same. Life should be full of lessons, even the ones that are best left to the next generation to master. Let’s learn all we can while we have the chance!

In a week or so, my kitchen will be overflowing with pans of fudge. I’ve been known to have 20 pans sitting on my counters, getting sliced up and mixed into assortments for family and friends. Somehow, everyone always looks forward to fudge with so much excitement that I have a hard time gifting anything else.

As long as we’re talking holidays, I might as well admit that I have some leftover Milky Way bars left over from Halloween. Or I should say, I had some. Now they’re all in this fudge!

Yesterday I had the most epic of baking fail days. We’ve all had them, and we pray that they’re few and far between. With this one, I actually wound up on the kitchen floor sobbing, while my daughter patted my back and said, “Mommy, just do it again.”

The “it” she was referring to was the cake I made three times in one day. Three. And it was a delicious cake all three times, but it seemed reluctant to get out of the pan without crumbling. On the final try, I was smart enough to use a different pan.

Still, by the time all was said and done, I was covered in a bag of flour (which exploded without any provocation whatsoever), there was a sink piled high with spatulas and mixing bowls, and I’d gone through a couple of pounds of butter. Thank heaven I know people who will eat the failed cakes so they don’t go to waste.

At the end of the day, the kitchen was clean, I had two packaged cakes ready to head to work, and one that didn’t fail. While I was proud of myself for not giving up, it was still way too tempting to stay on the kitchen floor and eat chunks of ugly failed cake.

We all have bad days, and I’m just lucky that when they happen, I have kids to pat me on the back and Kenny to play with them so I can keep on keeping on. Otherwise, the whole operation might fold and crumble.

In all my years of baking, fudge has never let me down, and I don’t expect it to. I love it too much, and I hope the feeling is mutual.

When you make this, be sure to use milk chocolate chips. Anything darker wouldn’t work as well with the creaminess of the Milky Way bars. And also be sure to layer half of the candy bars on the bottom evenly, to ensure a wonderful bite of Milky Way from top to bottom.

As the holidays near and our baking frenzies reach  fever pitch, we’re all bound to have a few failures. I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, roll with it. Or cry on the kitchen floor, whichever suits you. The important thing is to eventually get up and keep baking!

Here’s the ultimate perk of being a teacher. For two unpaid months  (yep, I inserted that word on purpose), I get a taste of what it’s like to be a stay at home mom. It’s great for these two months. I would not be able to do it year-round and maintain my sanity. Especially if there was no camp.

But for now, I’m remembering what life was like when I could just while away the day. Like, spend the whole day eating dark chocolate chocolate chip cookie chips without having to share with grubby hands. And fudge. Oh, the fudge I eat in summer. Summer is a fudge season.

If you doubt me, look no further than the beach. Every beach town worth its saltwater has fudge shops. Believe me. I’ve been to every single one. If a beach town has five fudge shops, I’ll visit all five, pressing my nose against the glass cases while taking inner notes. It’s my favorite kind of research!

Once upon a time, I would wake up in the summer, eat a leisurely breakfast complete with newspaper reading, work out, and go back to bed. I’d emerge sometime in the late morning to run errands, or meet a friend for lunch, or lie out on the deck with a cold drink. After lunch naps were always an option, along with TV watching and crossword puzzle time.

Plus, I had my projects. For a few summers I took tap dancing. Another summer, voice lessons. One year I sat down and wrote a 250-page novel just for the heck of it. I like to keep busy. And this summer, I still have my projects.

But I also have my leisure time back. Sure, I get up super early and exercise before getting the kids bundled off to camp with their swimsuits and hats and sunscreen and lunches. Sure, I have to pick them up after it’s all over. But those in-between hours are golden. I have more time to sit and think, to run errands without having to appease grouchy kids, to write in a quiet space. And of course, more time to eat fudge.

This fudge especially. My intense fondness for Hannah Max Cookie Chips has brought us here. As you know if you read regularly, I contacted the company a while back to ask to work with them. That’s how much I love their addictive product. And today’s recipe comes from one of my favorite flavors: the dark chocolate chocolate chip.

To make this fudge, you line the bottom of a pan with a layer of cookie chips. Then, chocolate fudge gets poured on top. It gets wilder after that. Another layer of cookie chips goes on top of that chocolate fudge before a white chocolate layer gets piled on. And for the season, July 4th sprinkles!

This fudge is crunchy. It’s creamy. It’s amazing. And I dare any beach town fudge shop to come up with something as completely satisfying. If you’ve never had cookie chips before, that’s a shame, but it can be remedied. Trying it in this black and white cookie chips fudge is a great place to start!

As I sit here, relishing the temporary solitude and the equally short summer (its lease hath all too short a date and all that, ya know), I’m glad that fudge is here to keep me company in these quiet, productive hours. It’s a great companion!

A product for this post was provided by Hannah Max Cookie Chips. All opinions are my own.

Or bless the day? I’m not really sure. All I know is that I have become totally okay with adding crust to my fudge, and now life will never be the same. And this key lime pie fudge is off the chain!

I’m going to mix business with pleasure here for a minute and rant about standardized testing. May I? Please?

Without getting into specifics right now because I’m a teacher and I value my job, I wish to all the powers above that our nation’s politicians would just back the heck off when it comes to testing kids. It does nobody any favors. Not the kids who are being given terrible tests created by businesses and not teachers, not the teachers who have to cut down on instructional time to administer the tests, and not the parents who don’t get a full picture of what their kids are in for.

The problem is, people don’t trust teachers, even highly qualified ones. It’s part of a cultural attitude toward a female-dominated profession, and I don’t know how to undo any of it. All I know is that unless people give teachers a little more credit for knowing what we’re doing, these tests will continue and children will cease to know what it means to think critically.

I have so much more to say, but that’s the tip of the iceberg, baby. And instead of going farther right now, I’ll just say that one of the things I love most about teaching is creativity. And that’s what I love most about baking, too.

What is more fun than creating new desserts? This key lime pie fudge became part of my consciousness in the middle of a solitary stroll, and now that I’ve made and eaten it (way too much of it, honestly), I can tell you that it’s an experience you need to have.

This fudge has the exact same flavor as key lime pie, but from there the experience differs. While you can probably eat a couple of slices of key lime pie without feeling an unbearable sugar rush, this fudge packs a powerful punch. A little goes a long way, which is why I immediately put half on a plate and gave it away. The other half is all mine to eat my way through slowly!

Yes, I’m greedy. But those flecks of lime zest in the fudge are irresistible. And the whole dessert lends a bright spot to an otherwise dreary time in my work life, when I have to stop teaching and proctor tests. I love teaching. It’s the best. So why does standardized testing keep ruining it?

At least I can control this fudge and keep my dessert experience pure. I recommend you do the same!