S'Mores Cupcakes with Nutella

 I have found the cupcake Mecca!

And no, I will never go back to plain ol' cupcakes ever again.

After the Lemon-Marionberry-Lavender creations my mind has been awhirl with thoughts on new ideas for more cupcakes.

I knew after "S'Mores" came to mind that it had to have already been done. Which it has, but most of the recipes I found online called for chocolate ganache. Now I must say I have nothing against ganache. But it seemed so simple, plain almost.

And that is when I remembered that my favorite way to make S'Mores isn't with a chocolate candy bar but with Nutella!

 Frosting made from Nutella! Genius! And I was also wasn't the first to come up with this either. So I married a recipe for Nutella Frosting, and a recipe for graham cracker cupcakes and piped them with marshmallow creme... They are devine!

Ingredients:

Graham Cracker Cupcakes:

• 11/2 cups graham cracker crumbs.
• 1/2 cup cake flour.
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder.
• Pich of salt.
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened.
• 3/4 cup sugar.
• 2 large eggs.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
• 3/4 cup milk.

Filling:

• Marshmallow Creme (1 can should be enough)

Frosting/Topping Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup Nutella
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• Milk/Cream
• Teddy Grahams

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees & line cupcake/muffin pans with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl mix together graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder & pinch of salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl beat butter & sugar until light & fluffy.
4. Add eggs into butter mixture one at a time, blending well after each.
5. Beat in Vanilla.
6. Alternatingly add part graham mixture & milk until all is blended together into large bowl.
7. Pour into lined pans and bake. 22 minutes for standard size cupcakes, 14 minutes for mini cupcakes (or a toothpick comes out clean).
8. Cool completely.
9. Cut out hole in center for piping marshmallow creme into.
10. Put  marshmallow creme into a quart ziploc bag, seal and cut off one corner the size of the whole in your cupcake. Pipe creme into cupcakes.
11. With mixer on high, beat butter & Nutella until evenly combined. Add powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time, mixing well after each. Add milk/cream as/when needed to reach desired consistency (I used Heavy Whipping cream).
12. Put Frosting into decorating bag with desired tip and pipe onto cupcakes.
13. Garnish with a Teddy Graham.
14. Enjoy!

Lemon-Marionberry-Lavender Mini-Cupcakes

Lemon Cupcake with Marionberry-Lavender Preserves 

and Lavender flavored frosting:

I LOVE Lavender. I know that most people don't really like it other than for its sweet aroma. But I personally could eat lavender flavored food/sweets/candy all day long. So I was thinking one day, "How can I incorporate lavender into a cupcake?" And I just kept thinking about it until I thought, "A lemon flavored cupcake with lavender flavored frosting would be devine!"

So of course I had to Google it and see if anyone had a recipe I could use to make it all happen. All the recipes I found either had way to many steps or were to complex for my patience/expertise. I also found a farm in Hood River that had culinary lavender and Marionberry-Lavender preserves in their online store, so I ordered those, but figured they wouldn't arrive as quickly as I would like.

And then I found these on Sur La Tables website 

(and then went to the store and bought them):

Lemon Extract (which I am pretty sure you can 

get at any grocery store as well) and Lavender Extract!

So I figured if I took a basic vanilla flavored cake recipe but substituted the lemon extract for the vanilla extract it would suffice. And if I took a basic vanilla frosting recipe and replaced the vanilla with the lavender extract I would be good to go.

I was surprised that my culinary lavender and Marionberry-lavender preserves got to me within two days of me ordering them. Well now I could put some of the preserves into my cupcakes as well. 

So here is how to make my lovely little creations:

Lemon Flavored Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
• 1/2 cup oil (I used vegetable oil)
• 1/2 cup buttermilk 

(which I was out of so I used whatever milk was in the fridge)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, prepare muffin/cupcake pans with paper liners.
2. 1st bowl: Mix together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. 2nd bowl: With electric mixer, beat eggs 10 - 20 seconds. Add sugar and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add lemon extract and oil. Beat together.
4. Reduce speed to low, alternately mix in flour mix and milk into first bowl, beat until just combined. Scrap down bowl. Batter will be thin. Fill paper liners 2/3 full with batter and bake 12 - 14 minutes. Cool in pans 1 - 2 minutes. Remove and finish cooling on wire racks.

Lavender Flavored Frosting:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick/8 tablespoons) butter, softened.
• 8 oz. of cream cheese, softened.
• 1 teaspoon Lavender Extract (more or less to taste).
• 4 cups powdered sugar.
• 1 - 4 tablespoons heavy whip cream.
• Food Coloring (use directions on box to achieve a purple color)

1. Place butter in bowl, blend slightly. Add cream cheese and blend until combined, about 30 seconds.
2. Add lavender extract and powdered sugar and blend on low until combined. Increase to medium and beat until fluffy.
3. Slowly add whip cream until desired consistency is met, beat until fluffy.
4. Mix in food coloring with mixer to achieve a purple/lavender color.

Putting the Cupcakes together:

• Cut out holes in the cupcakes and pipe marionberry-lavender into holes. Or pipe preserves directly into the cupcake with approriate decorating tip stuck straight down into the cupcake.
•  Frost cupcake with Lavender frosting in a decorating bag with your favorite decorating tip or in a ziploc bag with a bottom corner cut off
• You can use yellow dusting sugar/sprinkles for decoration, edible flowers, really anything. I had wanted to use some of these candies to put on the top but couldn't find them anywhere I went.

 

Mini Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for my family reunion/bbq...

There was a slight problem with my thinking when I made these.

The recipe I found online was for regular size cupcakes, and when you make mini cupcakes instead of the regular size ones, you can expect the recipe to make almost three times as many cupcakes...

Nevertheless I still proceeded to almost triple my recipe...

I had around 200 mini cupcakes when I meant to only make 80!

But dang were they good!

If you like Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches you will love these cupcakes.

Heres how to make them:

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened.
• 1 cup smooth or crunchy peanut butter (I chose smooth).
• 1 1/3 cups firmly packed light brown sugar.
• 3 large eggs.
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.
• 3 cups cake flour 

(I must digress at this point to let you know that the original recipe called for all-purpose flour, but I had read online that using cake flour is better for cakes and the like. So I substituted it in to see if there was a difference. The cupcakes seemed a bit more dense and moist. So from now on I will use cake flour in my cake recipes).

• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk

(Another digression: the recipe called for milk. But as before I had read online that buttermilk helps the cupcake with density and moistness. If you can splurge on buttermilk go for it, but if not use whatever milk you have in the fridge).

• strawberry or grape jelly (well any jelly really, just don't get anything with chunks in it as you will be piping it and chunks will clog the tip).

Cupcake Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your muffin/cupcake pan(s) with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl cream together the butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat well. Mix in the vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Add the dry ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating with the milk. Mix well.
5. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not over bake. Once the cupcakes are cool you can either put the jelly into a piping bag with a decorating tip thats small enough to directly insert into the cupcake and pipe it that way. Or you can cut out a hole where the jelly will go (which is what I did). For mini cupcakes the back side of a decorating tip works well at getting the right size hole. For standard size cupcakes an apple corer works well. Decorate with frosting recipe (below).

Peanut Butter Frosting Ingredients & Garnish:

• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter.
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened.
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.
• 3 cups confectioners(powdered) sugar, sift if you are able to.
• 3 tablespoons milk (butter milk is optional)
• Mini Nutter Butter cookies for garnish
• Unused jelly, for piping a dollop on top of the frosting. 

Combine the peanut butter, butter and vanilla in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer beat until light and fluffy, about 1 - 2 minutes. Add the confectioners sugar along with the milk, and beat until well combined. Pipe frosting onto cupcakes using your preferred decorating tip or a ziploc bag with a corner cut off. Top with a dollop of jelly and a mini Nutter Butter cookie.

Cookie-Brownie Peanut Butter Cup Surprise!

These are definitely meant to be eaten with a glass of milk at the ready. I modified a recipe I saw on a friends Pinterest stream recently. I took them from full-size to mini form, and I am glad I did. As a full size one of these babies would definitely not be digestible in one sitting.

Here's what you need:

• 2 packages of refrigerated cookie dough 

(the kind you break off in pre-scored pieces) I choose to use Toll House Mini Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

• 1 box brownie mix of your choice

(plus everything needed to make said Brownie Mix) I choose Pillsbury Milk Chocolate

 

• 1 Bag of Mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

(You could essentially use any mini peanut butter cups, Trader Joes makes some that are just as good if not better than Reese's)

 
 

• Either mini cupcake pans or brownie bite pans

• Flour or Butter Cooking/Baking Spray

(this is a must as I forgot the spray on the last pan I put in the oven and they would not come out of the pan. The tops popped off and I was stuck scraping out the bottom)

Here's what you do:

• Make the brownie mix per package instructions.
• Spray the pans you are going to use with the cooking/baking spray
• Cut the cookie dough on the score lines. I tried breaking it apart by hand but it wasn't coming apart evenly, so I began just cutting it. 
• Put one square piece of cookie dough into the bottom of each well in the pan. Press the dough into the bottom of the pan evenly.
• Next place one mini Reese's peanut butter cup in each well on top of the cookie dough.

• Pour brownie mix in each well, do not fill completely or they will bake up over the top. While the brownie mix will cover the peanut butter cup you should still be able to see the form of the top of it raised in the center.

 

• Bake in a 350 degree oven for 14-15 minutes. Unfortunately because of the peanut butter cup in the center you can't stick a toothpick in to see if its done. You will have to go more by look and feel to tell that they are done.
• Let them cool in the pan about 5 minutes before popping them out with a knife, cutting around the sides to ease them out.
• Rinse/wipe out pan before re-using, dry, and then re-spray with the cooking/baking spray before re-loading with more.
• I just kept making them until I was out of brownie mix. I used a little over 1 package of cookie dough, the whole thing of brownie mix and about 3/4th's of the bag of peanut butter cups.

Delicious, but super rich! A great baking project for the kids to help you with as the cookie dough and peanut butter cup part are very easy to do.     Enjoy!

Baking Cookbooks

I love acquiring baking cookbooks... well good baking cookbooks that is. I hate those ones that only have a couple recipes that interest you. Anyhow, a couple weeks ago I bought this cookbook (which is not just baking related), Carnations EASY-DOES-IT Cookbook.

Reading through it has been the funniest thing! First off, the publishing copyright is 1958. Which should tell you a little about what is to be found inside. In complete it reads as a 'house-wife primer', how the little lady can make her daily life/chores easier for herself. And thus I would like to now list some of my favorite lines:

"Take a tip from your husband. Run your home as efficiently as he runs his office! Over 1,000 meals a year makes you a B.H.E (thats short for Big Household Executive) in your kitchen."

"If Men could change the time-honored wedding ceremony, some of them might suggest, "Love, honor and make good gravy!" Keep lumps out of your gravy!"

"BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT!"

"How Did Folks Manage to Entertain B. TV (before television?)"

"Sooner or later, every husband has an attack of barbecue-itis. Properly encouraged, this disease guarantees you a summer vacation from the kitchen!"

"Children and guests are seldom at their best in adult party surroundings. Isn't your party the time to have youngsters greet guests they know, and then disappear, or have dinner quietly by themselves?"

"You're not just impressing your family....every day, at every meal, you're making memories for them."

I had a laugh at the cookbook. It doesn't have the greatest sounding recipes, but as a cookbook collector I felt the need to have it anyways.

I found some other baking cookbooks at the library that I really really want to have in my own personal collection as well. These are:

Martha Stewart's Cookies

Hello! Its Martha Stewart Related, of course its going to be Fabulous!

Duncan Hines: Cake Mix Magic 2

Um, Cake Mix Magic 2? Is there an original Cake Mix Magic as well? I looked for it at the library, but alas, they had no such thing. This is an amazing resource. Sometimes I can get cake mixes really cheap, and this has lots of recipes to liven up the basic box mixes.

Pillsbury: Holiday Baking

Holidays included in this book are: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Years. Mainly its filled with sweet treats to make, but also sprinkled in are some party appetizers as well. Hello! Who wouldn't see the Peppermint Whoopie Pies on the front cover and not want to own this cookbook? Also I have seen many cookbooks recently for Whoopie Pies... so I guess they are making a comeback. Either way any cookbook about or including Whoopie Pies is tops in my book.

Thats it for this post. I will hopefully have some time tomorrow to write a post for the cake(s) I made today (well made most of anyways, I will put the topping on them tomorrow before consumption at Thanksgiving Dinner)

Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours!

Chai Spiced Tea Loaves with Mini Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

I have taken a month long break from the blog, but now I am back. My grandfather passed away a month ago and after that I put all my stuff in storage, moved in with my grandmother to keep her company & pay off the few bills I have. I also found a job in the month I have been away.

Today I am back at the baking! Thanksgiving is in a few days and I decided to bake a couple different things for the occasion.  Today I made Chai Spiced Tea Loaves with Mini Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. A few years ago I actually made the Tea Loaves (minus the chocolate chips) for the first time. They were the best things I made that Christmas from the Smorgasbord of goodies I tried my hand at.

This time I decided to add in some mini chocolate chips to give a sweet little punch to the delectable tea loaves.

Tea Loaves:
1/2 cup water
1 tea bag (black tea)
3 cups All Purpose Flour
2 teaspoons Chai Spice Blend
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
3/4 cup Vanilla Low-Fat Yogurt
2 sticks Butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
5 large eggs
(I also added in 3/4 cup to 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips)
Glaze Topping:
1 tablespoon water
1 cup Powdered Sugar
 
Pre-Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease & flour 6 mini loaf pans

Microwave 1/2 cup water for 1.5 to 2 minutes. Steep Tea Bag in Water.

In Medium Bowl Combine Flour, Chai Spice, Baking Powder & Soda, and Salt.

In Small bowl mix yogurt with 1/3 cup of the cooled tea.

In a Large bowl, with mixer on medium, beat butter until creamy (about 1 minute).Gradually beat in both sugars. Beat 2 minutes, until fluffy. Reduce speed to low, beat in eggs 1 at a time until well blended. Beat in a little of the flour mix, alternating with a little of the yogurt mix until both are just combined in the butter mix. (At this point I stirred in the chocolate chips). Spoon batter evenly into the mini loaf pans.

Bake 30 - 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaves comes out clean. Cool loaves 15 minutes and then remove from pans and cool on racks for 2 hours.

Mix the glaze topping items together and drizzle over the top of the loaves (best if done while on the wire cooling racks with wax paper underneath or even with the loaves just sitting on wax paper themselves)

These loaves can be pre-made and then wrapped in parchment paper, put in ziplock bags and frozen until later (probably no more than 6 months though).

Mini Snickerdoodle Cookies w/Chocolate Glaze Drizzle

Snickerdoodle cookies are very tricky to make. It's a 'wet' dough that sticks to everything! It has to be chilled (I chose to freeze it rather than refrigerate the dough as that kept it solid long enough for me to work with it) before you can bake it. The Recipe I used was as follows:

Ingredients:
*1 cup butter (I substituted margarine)
*1 1/2 cups sugar (I have made them with both regular sugar and brown sugar)
*2 large eggs 
*2 3/4 cups flour
* 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 
*1 teaspoon baking soda 
*1/4 teaspoon salt
*3 tablespoons sugar (Again you can decide regular or brown sugar)
*3 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

Mix butter (or margarine), 1 1/2 cups sugar and eggs thoroughly in a large bowl with a hand mixer.

Combine flour (which should be sifted), cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.

Blend dry ingredients into butter mixture.

Chill dough, and chill an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10-15 minutes in the fridge. When you put the dough in to chill preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, mix 3 tablespoons sugar, and 3 teaspoons cinnamon in a small bowl. (you can use less cinnamon according to taste)

Scoop 1-2 inch balls of dough, place in the sugar/ cinnamon mixture. (1 inch balls make mini cookies)

Coat by gently rolling balls of dough in the sugar-cinnamon mixture.

Place on chilled ungreased cookie sheet, and bake 10 minutes.

Remove from pan immediately.

After the cookies had fully cooled I took some Duncan Hines Chocolate Amazing Glaze (http://www.duncanhines.com/products/glazes) microwaved it as instructed, then with all the cookies very close together on several overlays of wax paper, drizzled the glaze across the cookies. Store in a covered container, stacking won't be possible with the glaze as it remains sticky. You may also want to refrigerate before traveling with them, I did.

                                                                           Enjoy! ~ Sarah E. Lynch

I Bake, Therefore I Am!

I will tell you right from the start, I am not a talented writer. I've written my fair share of poetry and greeting card-esque passages, all decently prosed. But when it comes to writing news articles, stories, novels, etc... Well I leave a lot to be desired to say the least. 

But something I can do fairly well is Bake. Now don't take that the wrong way, that is to say, I can't cook. Well I can cook a slight number of things, but not enough to make a whole weeks worth of decent, edible meals. But when I bake something in the universe upends itself and allows me to make some delicious treats without me knowing exactly how I am capable of baking and following detailed recipes, but not being able to cook detailed meals.

Yesterday I was at Goodwill and looking through the cookbooks. I love finding cookbooks solely about baking, I have begun to have a slight addiction to buying them. Well of course yesterday was no different. I found two books I just had to have. The first (and the one I am most excited about): Gourmet's Best Desserts. The second: Readers Digest; Cakes, 1,001 Classic Recipes from Around the World.

Gourmet Best Desserts was published in 1987. Looking through the 500-odd pages I am feeling slightly daunted. I am in no way a professional baker or pastry chef, and many of those recipes are very detailed and intricate. But also the book includes tips, tricks, explanations of techniques that you are going to need to use. So I am excited to dive in and attempt most of the recipes on my own.

Cakes, 1,001 Classic Recipes was published in 2003. And its pretty much your straight forward recipe book. No tips, tricks or techniques listed for information on how to perform said recipes. But a good cookbook I think to have for reference when needing to make someone a sweet treat for a special occasion.

For awhile now this Blog has sat lonely and empty. I couldn't figure out just what to blog about. But right now all I can think about is baking. I've wanted to own my own bakery or bakery styled food cart for a year or two now. But as I am not anywhere close to be being in a position to having either of those things, this Blog will have to do for now. I guess it will be my baking journal of sorts. Right now I only mainly have the web cam for pictures, so most pictures I will include for now will be lower quality than I would like. But hopefully sooner rather than later I will be able to purchase a camera.


So thats my Blog entry for today. Short and Sweet. Check back later for updates on how my self-taught baking lessons are going!
                                                                                                       ~Sarah E. Lynch