Busy Busy Bee

I've gone full-throttle into baking for the holidays and the madness has just begun.

Eggnog is usually a Christmas staple, if you're into that thing. I however, am not a huge fan of it. I like to think I like it, but I can't drink an entire glass, it's too rich. After seeing a recipe for "Melt in Your Mouth Eggnog Cookies" I had to try it. Just a touch of eggnog couldn't hurt, right? 

The recipe calls for rum extract and the first time I made them I didn't have rum extract and didn't feel like trekking out in the snow to get it, so I uses almond. The almond extract worked pretty well, I was pleasantly surprised. Second time around however, I made it with rum extract and it was so much better! Eggnog has a similar flavor to the rum extract which brought it out even more without having to use too much, especially in the frosting. Putting too much liquid will otch your icing so the extract gave the eggnog a little help in standing out. 

It's perfect for the holidays whether you love eggnog or like to think you love it. 

After making these I had some eggnog left and wanted to incorporate into something else. I started making peanut butter cookies, adding some peanut butter chips to the batter and thought maybe some eggnog frosting/glaze would go well. I was nervous about the two flavors mixing but they worked out pretty well. 

The peanut butter and the eggnog complimented each other well. The eggnog balanced out all of the peanut butter and visa versa and they turned out even better than I thought!

Pretty in Pink

Last Friday I had the pleasure of babysitting my three-year-old niece for a few hours and I thought, what better way to have fun than teach her my favorite hobby: baking!

This little cutie patootie is kind of partial to the color pink. Kind of as in that's all she talks about so of course we had to translate it into a cupcake. Now I'm new to the whole "pinkalicious" movement but she loves it. So I went with it and we created the Pinkalicious cupcake.

Nothing too fancy, just some food dye, sprinkles and yellow cake. But hey, pink cupcakes are a big deal.

I've decided to always make my own frosting from now on. I never really noticed how much of a difference there is before but it's definitely there. It makes my teeth hurt thinking about the stuff in a tub so I taught Erin how to make it and well, she got a little heavy on the mixer. 

After letting the cupcakes cool we were ready to frost and no pinkalicious cupcake is complete with out some pinkalicious sprinkles. I've never seen someone so excited over pink cupcakes and sprinkles but that made it all worth it. 

And there you have it, super simple cupcakes that taste great and a super fun project for you and your favorite little one. 

Square Spice Cookies

Looking back onto the cupcakes I made, I already planned on cookies but decided to reuse the frosting.

I still wanted to make pumpkin without pumpkin so I made pumpkin spice cookies and added the brown sugar frosting.

Not the prettiest things in the world but they're super delish. Perfect fall spices for a perfect fall dessert. :) And I didn't waste any frosting. I was worried about it being too much on the cookie but it was perfect. 

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Baking into Halloween

I always say holidays are a perfect excuse to bake. Not just to bake but bake with themes and decorations. The pumpkin craze continues and I still wanted to make something with pumpkin but without actual pumpkin in it. Long story short, one of the people I'm baking for cannot have actual pumpkin. To the spice cabinet!

All I needed was cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger to give it that fall/pumpkin flavor. You can even by Pumpkin Pie Spice at the grocery store.

For once, I didn't want to go too crazy with the cupcakes so I made a simple yellow cake and a simple-ish frosting. I used shortening in the frosting to help it hold a little longer too and you can't even tell the difference. There's vegetable shortening but and vegetable shortening with butter flavor. I suggest the butter so it's not too greasy and actually tastes like what it's supposed to.

One reason I didn't want to go too crazy is because I had fun Halloween stuff to add. 

Found these at HomeGoods. Make sure you don't rip the entire seal off, otherwise you may end up with way too many sprinkles on a cupcake. 

Anyway, I added some of the pumpkin spice mixture to the cake batter but mainly saved it for the frosting. A last-minute thought was also adding some brown sugar with did add a lot without overpowering anything. 

The frosting also had a chance to stand out by using a simple yellow cake recipe. All that's left is to frost, decorate and enjoy!

Wait until you see the cookies I made with the leftover frosting. Happy Halloween!

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Super Cupcakes for a Super Birthday

I was asked a very big favor a month ago and was very excited. I was asked to make cupcakes for a five-year-old's birthday and not just any kind of cupcakes (why be boring?), super hero cupcakes.

I found out he likes chocolate so I obviously had to make a chocolate cake but I didn't stop there. I added cream cheese and Nutella in the center. It definitely broke up the chocolate without losing too much of the chocolate flavor. Different textures usually help. 

My original intention was to put a hot chocolate mousse in the middle, but that didn't go so well.

Now onto the decorating. I made a normal buttercream frosting and divvied it up to make different colors per super hero. Spiderman obviously got red, Superman was red, blue and yellow (I bought the appropriate cupcake paper too) and Batman was blue. I found some toothpicks with the characters and decided to add M&M's on top, for another different texture. 

Needless it say it was a success and I'm really excited for more themed cupcakes. Shoot me an email if you're looking for something sweet for your next event! In the meantime, I can't wait for October...

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Break me off a piece of that ...

I think that Kik-Kats are kind of underrated. They're not usually the first thing people think of when you say candy bar but I realized it's the perfect mix of chocolate and crunch and good consistency for a frosting. I've also had requests for red velvet cake and instead of the normal cheesecake frosting I mixed it up with some crumbled kit-kats. Simple, but delicious.

I've done red velvet before - for Valentine's Day, how cliche! - and I wanted to mix it up. I did before by adding chopped up white chocolate and chocolate chips to the frosting and white chocolate chips in the batter but anyone can make a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. My creativity escaped and I've been thinking about what I can make with Kit-Kats and this was perfect. I LOOOVVEE Red Velvet and balancing it out with a buttery frosting with the milk chocolate from the Kit-Kats balanced it out pretty well. 

I've got quite the knack for turning candy into cupcakes. Any more ideas??

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I haven't had anything yet, so how could I have some more?

This cupcake pays hommage to a baseball classic. 

S'mores are the best part of a bonfire but when you don't have the resources for a bonfire, what better way to recreate the tasty treat as a cupcake that you can bring anywhere? And how about an upgrade? Instead of Hershey chocolate bars, try Nutella. 

Just use your favorite cake recipe and in the center of each cupcake put a couple mini marshmallows and a spoonful of Nutella before baking.

As for the graham crackers? Crumble up a bunch and toss them into the frosting as it's mixing and it provides the perfect sweet cinnamon crunch. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top and voila! Portable, anywhere s'mores. 

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Two Pretzels were walking down the street, one was assaulted

I thought I hit a jackpot with these babies but making the impossible possible, I struck even more gold with caramel pretzel cupcakes. Not only that, I got to use my favorite gadget in the world to make the frosting.

I give you, the Kitchen Aid Mixer.

Yes, I've fallen in love with an appliance. If you bake, you understand. Not only that, the frosting could not have been easier to make. All it is is butter, powdered sugar and chopped up pretzels. The pretzel frosting pretty much makes the cupcake. Not only that, but I put a Werther's caramel chew in the middle of each one. 

I didn't get the gooey-consistency center like I expected but it turned out even better. It created a caramel coating on the bottom of the cupcake that had just enough candy crunch but not enough to where you feel like your teeth are going to fall out. 

And for the grand finale...

They went over pretty well, to say the least and I will be making them again. Perfect combo of sweet and salty and I'm kind of proud of myself for whipping this up on just a hunch and a trip to Aldi. 

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