Hallmark Holidays are good excuses to bake and Valentine's Day is no exception when it comes to themed sweets. I admit, I fall victim to the cliches but what can I say, they're tasty.
First what every cupcake tends to be in the month of February: Red Velvet.
I added chocolate chips to the batter for a surprise but the frosting is what I'm most proud of... I took the leftover red chocolate chips and chopped them up with some white chocolate chips to mix into the frosting.
And it's pretty epic... The white chocolate balances out the dark and the dark chocolate balances out the sweetness of the cream cheese in the frosting. And that combo balances out the richness of the cake.
I'm not finished yet! I'm on a constant quest to jazz up sugar cookies and the Valentine's theme was easy to go with. Found some red food coloring, made some white icing with heart sprinkles and voila!
Whether you're a fan of Valentine's Day or not, it's always a good excuse for a cookie or a cupcake ;). I should also apologize to my neighbors if I freaked them out by leaving cupcakes and cookies outside their doors.. I had too many!
So I mayyyy have gone a little overboard last week with the baking; whipping out cupcakes, muffins, cookies and brownies but it was well worth it. I already shared the cupcakes and muffins, now let's get to the other goods.
I felt like I needed to add a little chocolate into the mix, and I'm not a fan of just plain chocolate so I had to mix it up.
I usually have butterscotch chips on hand and thought they'd be the perfect sweet touch to add to the rich chocolate and peanut butter chips in these brownies. They flew pretty quick at my boyfriend's apartment so it had to be a good combo.
This usually doesn't end well but I got into some late night baking Sunday. AKA I couldn't sleep and made a ton of cookies. Way too much... But they're cute AND delicious!
I took a sugar cookie and jazzed them up for Valentine's Day. And as my boyfriend told me, sugar cookies are underrated. I agree in that people look at a sugar cookie's bland complexion and think twice before indulging, so you gotta make them look good.
The good thing about Valentine's Day is there's always a ton of candy on sale and when I think of candy I think of what I can bake it with. I found heart-shaped chocolates that have a different filling in each one and baked them into the cookies. Anywhere from just fudge, peanut butter, caramel, crisps and even cookies and cream were in the candies and of course the heart shape made them festive and season-appropriate.
I also managed to find the right baking time so they weren't hard as a rock, it's actually pretty easy to burn a sugar cookie and making any cookie in this brownie pan can go horribly wrong and threaten to break teeth if you don't know how to bake them. Ten to twelve minutes usually does the trick, they may seem undercooked and too soft at first but when you give them time to cool they're the perfect consistency.
Before that I made the same exact ones with peanut butter. Just like too much chocolate, I'm not a fan of too much or just straight up peanut butter so the candies helped that balance out as well.
The topper to this Hallmark Holiday mood I've been in is now this classic has been stuck in my head and probably will be until the end of February. Thanks Huey!
And now I want to watch Back To The Future. Think I can make Delorean cupcakes?
