Happy (Very Belated) Hearts Day & Mocha Cupcakes

Valentine's Day and I have a love/hate relationship. For seventeen years of my life I celebrated it with my parents and my brother but this year I was stuck at school and had to make due. To get in the spirit I wore a skirt with hearts all over it and brought some delicious mocha cupcakes back to school with me for my roommate and my "valentine" aka my friend Amanda (she was my school valentine... I had another one at home hehee). Oh, and I listened to Rihanna's "Te Amo" nonstop. Not your traditional romantic mushy song but it's pretty awesome.


I went to Michael's to get art supplies the weekend before V-Day and saw some cute take out boxes with "xoxo" on them and of course I snatched them up to load goodies into. I then went back to my house and proceeded to make a huge mess with the cocoa powder and some flat lookin cupcakes. Hmmm... They were so good and had a nice flavor but after a few days they got really dry. Most cupcakes I make taste good even a week after they're made so this was a weird experience for me. Not sure why that happened, but hey, the mocha buttercream was still delicious!


Mocha Cupcakes recipe from Marth Stewart's Cupcake Book. Yield: 24 (I cut the recipe and made 18)


2 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp.
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temp.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup freshly brewed espresso
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (not instant coffee)


1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Mix together cake flour and cocoa. Cream butter until light and fluffy. Beat in brown sugar and eggs. Add vanilla, baking soda, and salt, beating to combine thoroughly.
3. Reduce speed and add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of sour cream, and beating until just combined after each. Mix brewed espresso and espresso powder together and add to batter. Beat until smooth.
4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 18-20 minutes. 
5. Let the cupcakes cool completely while you make the buttercream. I can offer no measurements for this but I usually use about two sticks of butter and four or five cups of confectioners sugar? That may actually be completely off - I'm not sure. Haha. Add vanilla extract and instant espresso powder to taste.

my bad... cocoa powder is tricky to clean!!!

For some reason I can never wait for the frosting to try my cupcakes!

Red hot, white chocolate chip and chocolate chip hearts

cuuute. I love take-out boxes haaha.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

Chewy Lime Sugar Cookies and the Thumb Zest-er

Okay so it may be obvious by now that I love baking cookies. I don't know what more perfect food there is. You can throw anything in cookies and they will still taste incredible. Nuts. Chocolate. Granola. Coconut. Fruit. Dried fruits. Strange spices. Tea. Peanut butter. And now limes!

I love limes for some reason. I'm not really sure what it is but there is something about a lime which makes it just a million times better than a lemon. I've had the recipe for these "chewy lime" sugar cookies saved for some months and when I came home from school this weekend I thought they would be a good thing to make.

Boy was I right! I baked them Friday evening. My parents had friends over Friday night and these cookies met with rave reviews. The original recipe is from My Baking Addiction and there is a version of these cookies made with lemon as well. This recipe is very simple but of course I managed to make a couple mistakes. My butter was melted, not fluffy at all. And when I was supposed to me zesting a lime I ended up zesting my thumb! My thumb may have suffered but the cookies, miraculously, did not. Hooray! Another successful baking adventure in which I manage to keep the blood away from my creation!

Chewy Lime Sugar Cookies Yield... about 40 or so I believe. They went fast so I didn't have much time to count.

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of one large lime, finely minced (nooooot your thumb. Ugh)
3 tbsp lime juice (I used the juice from 2 limes)
½ cup shredded coconut
sugar for rolling cookies


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray two cookie sheets.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy. I of course, had the butter in the microwave softening for too long and ended up with sugar/butter soup. Delicious still, but not what the recipe calls for.
3. Beat in egg, vanilla extract, lime juice and lime zest. Mix in dry ingredients and coconut.
4. My dough (because it had melted butter in it instead of room temperature) was not sticky enough to roll in the sugar so I chilled it in the fridge for an hour. If you too melt your butter this is a quick and easy fix. YAY!
5. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in sugar. Place on lined cookie sheets and bake 8 to 10 minutes in oven, or until golden brown.
6. Let stand on cookie sheet for a couple minutes before loosening. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

 Butter and sugar... Definitely not smooth and fluffy...

 Poor bloody knuckle... and the weapon of choice in the background.

Very flat, but still very chewy. And completely addicting. I've been eating them for breakfast they're so good!

A Long Awaited Post and Banana Pecan Walnut Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies for the Soul

It has been a long, long time since my last post. I apologize to the three-ish (or less?) people who read this blog. It was an unintentional absence. As you can imagine, the end of my first semester in college was a busy time and then it was the Holidays. I didn't have time to post all the wonderful things I found myself baking over break but I am back in action now!

I made a wide variety of cookies, cupcakes and desserts over the holidays. I baked from scratch. Baked from boxes. And then I did something so very unbakerly (that's my new word. I made it up. Impressed?) that it shouldn't even be called baking... No I think "take and bake" cookies is more "faking" than baking, don't you agree? (They taste amazing though. Nestle sure does know how to refrigerate dough!)

Anyway. I was not lacking in baked goods over the holidays thanks to family friends, Christmas gifts in the form of food, my mother's delicious desserts (pumpkin cheesecake and tiramisu, anyone?) and my own skills in the kitchen. I will hopefully be able to write more about those recipes at a later tonight but today... We're going to talk about the Banana-pecan-walnut-oatmeal-chocolate-chunk cookies with my best friend Katie. (Yeah, same name. It's cool, I know.)

So one day Katie came over and said "Do you have something delicious you've baked recently that I can eat?" Okay clearly, she knows me too well. On this occasion however I had nothing to offer her because I sadly had not baked in a while. We decided to rectify the situation immediately by baking some cookies of our own to eat.

Katie and I made the most amazing banana cupcakes once and ever since then I've been wanting to do something else with bananas. Unfortunately, we're both disgusted by mushed up bananas so that part of this recipe was no fun. I had the unhappy task of squishing the banana since she did it when we made those cupcakes. Anyway, banana squishing unpleasantries aside, this recipe/experience was a definite success. We photo-documented the whole thing very well, don't worry.

Which further ado, here is the incredible recipe (or link to it, because I am that lazy today) and lots of photos to keep you entertained. Eat up!!

 ew.

YUM.

 My mom made this for me when I was much, much shorter...

 She made this for my brother. It looks good on Katie, too.

 We had an accident... poor wasted cookie. Just kidding. It wasn't wasted... I may or may not have eaten the parts that didn't fall on the floor.

 There was a NUT in my apron pocket!

 Katie :) What a cutie.

 Our weirdly perfect cookie.

 Me and Katie. The bakers. The aprons were my moms and grandmothers.

Finally product!!! Looks good, right? Wrong. It was delicious. Almost like a banana nut muffin in cookie form.

Pumpkin Time

I love fall. I think it is my favorite season... Winter is a close second though. Why is fall so fantabulous? Well, first of all, it's beautiful. The colors on the trees (especially in the mountains) are enough for me but it gets better. Fall has the best weather. Fall means there is no grass to mow anymore. Fall is almost Thanksgiving and Black Friday time. Fall is Halloween and I loooove dressing up. Fall means crunchy leaves. Candy. Apples. Pears. Warm pies. Cinnamon. And... Pumpkin.

If there is one thing I love more than fall, it's probably pumpkin. I don't really know when this obsession started but it is indeed an obsession now. I love it. I tried to make myself a delicious loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip espresso bread, but alas, as I said in my last post I am no good with the bread baking thing. Who knows what's wrong with me. I quickly overcame this bread obstacle and immediately made around 5 dozen pumpkin oatmeal cookies. They. Are. Amazing.

So thanks to My Baking Addiction I had the perfect recipe to work from.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies Yield: I got 5 dozen small-ish cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter; softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup pure pumpkin puree
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup craisins; roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly spray.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract. Mix well. Add flour mixture; combine until all ingredients are incorporated. Fold in white chocolate chips and craisins.
3. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are light brown. Cool on baking sheets for a couple minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

*** For about half my cookies I used white chocolate chips and craisins/raisins. Here's the thing though, I made the other half with butterscotch chips and chopped pecans and they were INCREDIBLE. Seriously. The added fruity taste of craisins is nice, but the butterscotch and nuts just took these cookies to a whole new level.

A Chocolate Cookie Fix

As much as I love cupcakes (which is a LOT), sometimes I just go on a cookie kick. These past couple weeks I have been on full cookie-mode. The best thing about cookies is how easy they are. I mean, you make the batter, you put it on a sheet, you bake it, you eat them! Cookies are also pretty hard to mess up which is a bonus for me because I have discovered recently that I do not have a gift for breads and muffins. The sad thing is, most of the recipes I have stock piled are breads. Because bread is delicious. It just doesn't think much of me...

Anyway! More about breads later. This is all about COOKIES. This first cookie I found the recipe for on Brown Eyed Baker's site. The original recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan and were dubbed "World Peace Cookies" because they are so good if everyone ate them there would be peace. What are these epic cookies you ask? Chocolate Salted Shortbread's. And *bonus* they are easy!

Chocolate Salted Shortbread Cookies
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons butter, at room temp.
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1/4 granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Whisk together the flour, cocoa and baking soda. Beat butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add sugars, salt and vanilla. Beat for another 2 minutes more.
2. With the mixer off, add dry ingredients. Turn the mixer on and off low speed (pulse) for a second or two about 5 times so that the flour mixture gets incorporated. Then mix on low speed for about 30 seconds, just until the flour disappears into the dough (the dough will look crumbly).
3. Turn the dough out onto work surface and divide it in two. Shape each half into a 9-inch log. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated up to 3 days)
4. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325. Prepare (grease or line with parchment paper) 2 cookie sheets.
5. Using a sharp knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 in. Leave about 1 inch between the cookies on sheet. Sprinkle a small amount of extra salt on top of each round. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm. Serve immediately or let them reach room temperature.

Everything Deep Fried!

The North Carolina State Fair is here at last! From October 14th-24th you can buy anything and everything your heart desires in deep fried form. This means twinkies, oreos, peanut butter cups, milkyways, snickers, pickles and cheesecake. Not to mention giant turkey legs, gourmet funnel cakes, ribbon fries, lollipops as big as your face, bbq (I mean it IS North Carolina), philly cheese steaks, popcorn, nachos, gyros, corn dogs, candy apples, hamburgers, foot long hot dogs, lemonade EVERYWHERE, pizza, blooming onions, corn on the cob, cotton candy and so much more. Sound healthy? I think eating two or more of these foods together on the same day is bound to take a few months off your life but that's what the state fair is for!!!

Deep fried twinkie. Surprising delicious.

Deep fried Snickers. If the twinkie was surprisingly delicious, then the snickers was absolutely amazing.

Ribbon fries! There was a mountain of them originally but Steven and I ate most of them before I remembered to take a picture. We were standing in line about to buy our deep fried twinkie right here.

Apparently there is a "flavor burst" cone option... I didn't spend the $5 to figure out what exactly those flavors were.

Candy Land garden!

Vegetable exhibit :) Looking at this made me feel healthier. I think that might be why everyone else is there too. They just had a sausage dog and funnel cake too probably.

You can pick these little cuties up and play with them! It's always been my favorite part of the state fair. Too bad I just realized this year they're labeled as "baby poultry".

An Almond Joyous Anniversary

As of today, Steven and I have been dating for six whole months! We do something every month but for six months I wanted to make him something special. Steven's favorite candy bar is an Almond Joy... so I decided to start searching the internet for an Almond Joy-like cupcake.

I was inspired by this cupcake but I didn't like that the only part of the cupcake that resembled an almond joy was the topping. After much thought, this is what I came up with for the special occasion...





Almond Joy Cupcake (original recipe) Yields 18
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 sticks butter (3/4 cup)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Mix the cocoa and boiling water until smooth. Set aside to cool.
2. Combine eggs, water (3 tablespoons) and extracts.
3. Sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Mix in cocoa mixture and butter. Beat for one to two minutes until well combined.
4. Add egg mixture in two parts.
5. Fill 18 greased muffin tins 2/3 full with batter. Bake 16 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean.

Coconut Filling (inspiration)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 cup flaked coconut
1 dollop sour cream
1/2 cup of half and half or whole milk (the original calls for whipping cream but I never seem to have any...)

1. Stir cornstarch, 1 tablespoon water and almond extract together in a bowl.
2. Bring milk, butter and sugar to a boil over medium heat. Remove.
3. Add cornstarch. Stir in coconut and sour cream.
4. Cover and chill 8 hours.

* Ahem. This created a nice big mess. This mixture did not firm up at all like I was hoping it would with the cornstarch. I'm preeeetty sure that's because I added too much water to the cornstarch. But I worked with it regardless. It was soupier than I was hoping... but it was delicious.

Chocolate Buttercream (Wilton's)
1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
1/2 + 1/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (or almond!) extract
2 cups confectioners' sugar 
2 tablespoons milk

1. Cream together shortening and butter. Add cocoa and vanilla. 
2. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time. Beat well at a medium speed until combined. ten.
3. The icing will look "dry". At this point, add the milk and beat at medium speed until fluffy. 
4. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use. 
  
Chocolate Covered Almonds 
54 whole unsalted almonds (enough to put three on each cupcake)
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3 tablespoons margarine or butter


1. Melt chocolate chips and butter in microwave. If the mixture is not melting quick enough, or is chunky, add more butter and heat again. Stop and stir often.
2. Dunk almonds in chocolate and place on wax paper to dry.
3. Put in refrigerator to finish cooling.
 
NOW!!! That's a lot right? I know. It was. But sooo worth it, trust me. 
 
Like I said. Those Almond Joy cupcakes I saw online were a little lacking but I couldn't quite figure out what to do to make them even better. Then, as I was flipping through Martha Stewart's cupcake book, I realized that these cupcakes needed to be layered! Here is what I did:
 
1. Cut cooled cupcakes in half horizontally.  
2. Spoon almond/coconut filling onto bottom half. (These cupcakes were a little dry so I spooned some of the extra creamy bits of the mixture on the insides of the cupcake so it would absorb it and hopefully become more moist. It worked! Thank goodness for that soupy mixture, right?)
3. Pipe a circle of buttercream on top of the coconut layer and sandwich the cupcake,
4. Pipe more buttercream on top and garnish with chocolate covered almonds.
Voila!

These cupcakes got rave reviews. Steven thinks they're the best things ever. Which is exactly what I was hoping for! I was pretty impressed myself. Maybe I will make them again for seven months... :)


¡Feliz seis meses!