And Happy Freaking Birthday, Shannon!

So...a friend of mine lives in Mississippi. I live in Oklahoma. We decided that since she'd never had any of my awesome cuppies, that she REALLY needed to.

So we decided to try an experiment. The experiment of "how badly will beautiful caramel apple cupcakes be destroyed on a 2-day trip in the US mail?"

I think the answer is clear.

Before:

REALLY CUTE!!

After:

REALLY NOT!!

And, because I can't. stop. laughing. at this experiment gone awry...here's another picture of the dead cupcakes. It's so sad....but, CRAP, so funny!



Happy Birthday, Shannon. I hope you enjoy your present.

:)

EASY Peanut Butter Cookies

The man was craving something sweet, so I went through my recipes to find something fast and easy. This fit the bill perfectly.

And they turned out SO yummy! (Even though I made them a tad too big. I was supposed to make 36 cookies...I made about 25. Oops!)

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup peanut butter

Cream egg and sugar. Stir in baking soda. Fold in peanut butter.

Drop teaspoons onto a cookie sheet and crease top of cookies with fork.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until edges turn slightly golden. Take out of oven and cool on cookie sheet.

Happy Birthday, Megan!

I've sold 2 more dozen cuppies...this time for a little girl's birthday. When I was told about it, I was all kinds of excited, thinking of all the fun pink princess stuff I was going to do.

Then my fairy princess dreams were dashed by the little girl deciding she wanted vanilla cupcakes with white icing.

Vanilla. And white. HA!

And one little girl at the party was allergic to food coloring, so I couldn't even use sprinkles!

D'OH!

But, ya know, these are probably one of the favorite cupcakes I've made. Even plain, they're cute as a button. (And please note that I DID find sprinkles I could use...white ones...with no coloring! HA!)

See? Even without icing, these were SO pretty! They domed up perfectly.

White on white on white. Beautiful.

Golden Cupcakes (from Crazy About Cupcakes)

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, separated, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350. Insert liners into medium cupcake pan.
In large bowl cream together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the egg yolks. Beat well. Add the vanilla. Mix.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating wiht the milk. Mix well.

With clean beaters, beat the egg whites on high speed until stiff peaks form. With a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Fill the cupcake liners 1/2 to 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cupcake comes out clean.** Cool cupcakes in the pan.

**I filled mine 2/3 full and baked for 20 minutes. They were perfect! :)



Vanilla Buttercream

1 cup butter
1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
3 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp all-purpose flour

Mix cream & flour. Heat in microwave 45 seconds. Set aside to cool.

Mix butter, shortening and vanilla. Sift in confectioner's sugar. Combine on low. Mix on medium for 5 minutes.

Add cream/flour mixture and beat on medium for 10 minutes.

My New Swirls

I was totally jealous of BusyBaking's gorgeous rose swirls. So I had to try.

I have to say....not bad for my first try at them! Thanks, BusyBaking! This is my new favorite!





(Use 1M tip...start in the middle w/ bag at 90 degrees - straight up...swirl in a counter-clockwise pattern)

Don't Try This At Home

I found a recipe in an old cookbook my future mother-in-law has. It only had 5 ingredients, so I thought "what the heck!?"

Five ingredients. Three directions. Who could screw this one up?

Well, obviously ME.

Mint Julep Kisses

2 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp mint extract
2 drops green food coloring
6 oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Beat egg whites until stiff, gradually adding sugar. Add mint extract and green coloring. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheets.

Put in preheated oven and turn off immediately. Leave in oven overnight or for several hours.

Looked ok going in!


And they looked ok coming out!!



But....um.....well?


I had to chisel them off the cookie sheet. Since it's mostly egg whites, they pretty much vanished when I tried.

Can I just say oops?

USE BAKER'S PAM WITH THESE.

That is all.

Creme Brulee

Guess what I got for my birthday? A new mixer! And guess what else? Ramekins and a torch!

Needless to say, I baked some stuff this weekend. I didn't have access to the net, so I haven't updated yet...so here we go.

I made some caramel apple birthday cupcakes for a friend of mine (hi, Shannon!), but I can't show any pictures of that yet...she hasn't received them. Pics soon, though. They're WAY cute!


So here's the creme brulee. My first one ever! It's SOOOOO good, too. And easy!

Creme Brulee

2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
5 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt
boiling water
5 tbsp superfine sugar

In small saucepan, stir together cream and milk. Heat just to simmering. Stir in vanilla. Remove from heat. Cover and let stand for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place six 4-ounce custard cups (ramekins) into 13x9x2 baking pan.

In small bowl, whisk together egg yolks, granulated sugar and salt. Gently stir into cream mixture. Strain through fine mesh sieve into a 4-cup glass measure. (I didn't have a sieve...and mine turned out fine. Heh.) Pour into ramekins, dividing equally. Place baking pan on oven rack. Add enough boiling water to pan to come halfway up sides of ramekins.

Bake until custards are set around edge, and knife inserted near edge comes out clean but centers are still jiggly, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove ramekins from water to wire rack to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.




Blot tops of chilled custards with paper towel to remove any condensation. Sprinkle 1 1/2 tsp superfine sugar (I used regular...works fine) over custard in each ramekin to evenly cover the top.

Heat with a handheld torch until sugar starts to bubble and caramelize. Don't overheat or it will burn.


Let custards sit for a couple of minutes until the top hardens into a shell.

Perfection!

MOJITO! (Shout It From The Rooftops!)

Mojito, baby!

One of my favorite things in the world is a big ice cold mojito. And, I must say, I make the best mojito in the whole world. Ask anyone.

So, of course, the natural progression to that would be me thinking I could make the best mojito CUPCAKE in the world. I scoured the internet for a mojito recipe, but could only find a vegan one. And let's face it, I personally want to kill as many animals as I can with my cupcakes, so that was out.

I kid, I kid.

Kinda.

So I decided to close my eyes and pretend like I knew what I was doing....and make up my own recipe.

Well...ok. That's a little bit of a lie. I took a recipe I already had and added/subtracted things from it...and then hoped for the best. And ya know what? It turned out GREAT!! I was highly impressed with myself, seeing as it was my first try.

They were domed and then fell a little bit, but still taste amazing. IMHO.

So here it is. The new love of my life.

Mojito Cupcakes

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
zest & juice of one lime
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
4-5 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp mint extract
2 tsp finely chopped mint (I used fresh leaves)
2 tbsp Bacardi Limon Rum



Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter, mint leaves and zest until smooth. Gradually add sugar. Beat 3 minutes or until fluffy.

Add eggs, 1 at a time. Squeeze lime juice into a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Add enough milk to fill to the top. Pour into small mixing bowl. Add vanilla, mint extract and rum, and combine.

Combine flours together. Alternate adding parts of flour mixture with liquid mixture, mixing as you go.

Fill baking cups up to 1/2 full.

Cook 15 minutes. Rotate pan and cook another 5-10 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.



Minty Lime Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
3 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
zest & juice of 1/2 lime
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp mint extract
1/2 tsp butter flavor
1/2 tsp diced mint (I used fresh leaves)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp all-purpose flour

Mix cream & flour well. Heat in microwave 45 seconds. Set aside to cool.

In large bowl, mix butter, shortening, mint leaves, zest, lemon juice, vanilla, mint extract, and butter flavor. Using mixer, beat on low. Add confectioners sugar in 4 parts, mixing well after each addition. Beat on medium until fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Add cream mixture and beat for about 10 minutes.

Final Step : make out with whoever made these for you.
If that's you...then come make out with me.