Funfetti! YUM!

So Allie's birthday is coming up and she's weird. Like SUPER weird. She doesn't like chocolate. Who doesn't like chocolate?! (Well, Allie... but oh well. You have to love besties even if they're weird.) So her favorite cake is funfetti and she's a cake mix loyalist and eats them without frosting and I'm a-okay with that because I, too love funfetti. So I found a recipe online to try (because I love real homemade goodies) before I started recording where they came from, but if you want the recipe, please let me know!

Onward and upward. I started with the recipe and realized that I added a whole stick of butter when I was supposed to only add 6 T. Oiy. I could tell with the batter because it does this weird separating thing where you can tell there's too much butter. Frosting does the same thing and with frosting you can add powdered sugar to make it all better. So I added 1T more flour and tasted and I needed sugar so I added 2T of sugar. Ugh. So annoying. It didn't taste like the mix like I had hoped. I think maybe more or better vanilla flavor? Maybe there's another flavor in there I'm not familiar with? It just wasn't the same. Anyways, the batter ended up looking pretty because anything looks pretty with sprinkles. So I baked them and they looked okay, but flat and spread out a bit too much, but I did fill them higher then I should. ONE of these days I will master the art of filling cupcake liners without over doing it. I'm thinking the butter made them so flat and lifeless. (but pretty!)

Next the fun began because who doesn't love to decorate a cupcake?! So I frosted with Buttercream/cream cheese frosting and it's pretty tasty. I'm getting good at frosting finally. The key is mixing for a while so it gets nice and fluffy. I frosted these bad boys with the angled spatula instead of my favorite, the piping bag. I think these would look lovely piped and sprinkled too, but I really wanted to try a decorating thing I saw online:


Cute, no? It's a flat-top frost with angled edges then you roll the edges in non-pareils poured on a plate (don't pour them too fast- they are some BOUNCY little buggers. I now need to re-sweep my kitchen floor).

I ended up almost popping the cupcake top off because these were so light and fluffy and the frosting was weighing the muffin top down so much that it started separating from the bottom. So it's cute, but do it with a denser cake. I only did two like this and frosted and sprinkled the rest. The end result is just cute. Perfect for a party, but not a good replacement for funfetti from the box.


Trust me I know. I slaved over a cute cupcake.


And I did right by that cupcake! And wrong by my hips, but let's ignore that tiny detail and the extra 2T of butter...

The end result was tasty, especially with the icing, but as with the strawberry cupcakes, the frosting steals the show.

Overall, they're fun and cute, but if you're a loyalist this is one recipe i would (and it pains me to say this) use a box mix for your funfetti cakes. *sigh*


Enjoy folks!

Strawberries galore!

So I had two containers of strawberries that I bought this weekend and were like 5 seconds from going to the great strawberry field in the sky (aka my trash can). I hate to be wasteful, so I just had to figure out how to use them. First things first, strawberry muffins. Why not, right? Here's what they looked like going into the oven



Nothing too exciting, but I added the brown sugar because I felt like making them look pretty :)

This is how they looked after their trip into my oven.



Not too shabby! They look a little light, but the toothpick came out clean.

These muffins can be re-created with blueberries or raspberries or peaches I'd imagine would be good too. I would suggest adding a smidge more butter maybe? Maybe some oil? They are a hint too dry, but the flavor is just right.

P.S. If you want to do peach, add in some cinnamon to bring out the peachy-ness. Yum!

Next up: Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcakes a la Martha Stewart.

These are pretty easy considering they're from one of the most popular bake shops (Sprinkles). They'd better be good!!! :)

First things first- two recipes in one night means a messy kitchen...


Quite the whirlwind. It's all cleaned now and the cupcakes next went into the oven:


Not too tasty-looking from here but alas, we're not finished yet!

When the lovelies came out of the oven, they were PURPLE! Yay for purple cupcakes.

Here's hoping they taste better than a purple strawberry :) Although I'm not quite sure how that would taste. Anyhoodles. Since the reviews of the frosting said it was too buttery, I went with a slightly modified recipe of Strawberry cream cheese frosting and I can attest to its deliciousness.

Yay again for Strawberry cupcakes!!!! And not being wasteful!

Yum-OH!

Turns out these cupcakes were actually a little short on strawberry-ness, but the delightful frosting MORE than made up for any lack of fruit and the cupcakes were perfectly and deliciously moist.

Continuing to venture out on my own! Brownie Bites to dies for!

This week I was low on groceries and too lazy to shop so I decided to modify the recipe for Rocky Road Brownies courtesy of Alice over at Sweet Savory Life because it requires two eggs and that's all I had on hand. I'm not a fan of nuts unless in a delightful salad, so I knew I couldn't just do this recipe without changing it, but her photos looked SO delicious that I just had to try it.

The first time I made these I tasted the batter and knew they would be winning brownies, but I had to bolt towards the end of the baking time and had to leave the removal of the brownies from the oven in the capable hands of my roommate. They ended up a bit too toasty to eat and i ended up digging out the middle and snacking on that part alone. In spite of this little snafu of a baking experience, I knew I had to redo this recipe to prove to myself that this delicious batter was worth tasting in baked form.



Last week I purchased a mini muffin baking pan because I've wanted one for about a month now and happened upon one at Target- so whammo! I bought it. My twist on the recipe was minor but oh so tasty. I omitted the nuts and the marshmallows this time around and (of course) used the muffin pan to make bites instead of regular brownies. The final alteration was to use the leftover cream cheese frosting from last weeks Carrot Cake to top some of these bites and holy smokes! That was the best idea in the world! On the frosted ones I also decorated them with one of the Ghirardelli 60% Chocolate Chips (which are larger than normal chocolate chips) and that too was a wonderful addition.

The bites ended up tasting delightful both with and without the frosting and were a big hit at the office. I really think that they were my favorite recipe that I've ever tasted for a brownie- just delightful. So please, take a look and try these! I promise you won't be disappointed:



Brownies Bites Recipe- Modified from Sweet Savory Life

BROWNIE INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chocolate chips (dark or semi-sweet)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, combine marshmallows, almonds, and chocolate chips then set aside. In a medium-large bowl, mix (by hand) melted butter, sugar, and vanilla until blended. Add one egg at a time mixing/beating well. Add flour, cocoa, and salt and stir the batter until fully incorporated making sure you scrape the sides of the bowl including the bottom.
Spray the mini muffin pan with non-stick spray. Scoop brownie batter inside the pan- about 1 tbsp per cup. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top of the brownie batter. Using the back of a clean spoon, gently press down the chips into the batter just enough so the chips are slightly packed down. Bake for 19 minutes or until done. Allow to cool slightly before serving. Brownies slice really nicely if completely cooled.


ICING (from Pioneer Woman's Sigrid's Carrot Cake):
1 stick Regular Butter, Softened
1 package (8 Oz) Cream Cheese at room temperature
1 pound Powdered Sugar
2 teaspoons Vanilla

DIRECTIONS: In larger bowl, cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla and blend.

This one's for you mom!

So since I made a Chocolate Bundt cake for Trissie for Easter, I had to deliver for mom too. That means a request for Carrot Cake because Pioneer Woman re-posted a recipe last week that included fainting in the instructions. You know that's going to be a good cake!!! Anyhoodles.

I forgot to grate the carrots first, but it was no biggie- even with the newly orange finger nails. I also actually sifted as instructed. Please pat me on the back for that. I hate sifting with a passion.

I can tell I'm getting more comfortable with this whole baking business and i ventured out and *gasp* added nutmeg! Sidenote: my sister is the cooking kid in the family because she is all about not actually following a recipe (which makes copying her delicious food THAT much harder). She loves to add fun spices and new ingredients and I love her (and her food) for that. She really kicks butt in the kitchen. Well that's why I am now the baker for the family because I like recipes. I like order and instructions and guidance. They're my best friends and the reason that baking works so well for me. Baking is like a science experiment- a sometimes very volatile science experiment (see macaroons), so it's usually important to do as little fudging of the recipe as possible to make sure you get a moist and delicious baked good. So now you will all understand that nutmeg is a big step for me :)

The cakes are cooling right now and I whipped up the frosting (sans chopped nuts because adding nuts to dessert is just WRONG) and it is to DIE for. I whipped up a double batch per Ree's instruction and will undoubtedly have extra. Guess I'll have to take care of that myself! Definitely a cream cheese frosting recipe worth holding onto! Until later my friends! I must go and frost.

The verdicts are in- the cream cheese frosting is delicious (my own input) and the cake is a perfectly dense, moist, not too carrot-y cake(everyone elses input)! All reviews so far have been amazing. I may even venture into adding more spices next time just to see what happens, but there will definitely be a next time! :)

A Chocolate Chip Cookie-off!

With as much time I spend meandering about the baking blogs, I've come across about a gazillion recipes that all look good enough to eat right off the screen and it feels like I'll NEVER have time to try them all- so I decided to have a cookie off and compare two recipes in one night! Plus- TWICE the goodies! YAY! Amy was a wonderful baking compadre (and she has a Kitchenaid, I'm just sayin...). She came armed with her best recipe courtesy of Thomas Keller a al Ad Hoc at Home. The book had some DELICIOUS looking recipes in there and she had tried the recipe before with a smaller, less accomplished mixer. I came armed with a recipe from My Baking Addiction for the Extraordinary Chocolate Chip Cookies. Jamie did not disappoint!

So she graciously let me start with my recipe. Nothing too extravagant in the recipe. The strange thing about chocolate chip cookies is that no recipe is really that far off from any other. All of the recipes have the same basics- butter, brown sugar, flour, sugar, chocolate chips, eggs, you get the idea). The key is in the ratios of all of the wonderful ingredients. I followed the recipe to a T being that it was the first time I was preparing it. I came up with some changes that I would make after tasting them. First things first though- they came out looking like I DID grab them off of the computer screen! It was insane. The taste was also surreal! The only small change I would make is to use either all salted butter, or one stick (of the two). This time was all unsalted and I think I would have like a bit more salt in there. I also would have mixed the chips better, used all dark chocolate chips (or at least part), and maybe a tinge less brown sugar- like one or two tablespoons less. These are all factors of taste though, so give it a go and make the changes you see fit.

Also worth noting: Amy has a wonderfully developed kitchen. I feel like my kitchen is a pre-teen girl going through "the change" and she doesn't quite have all of her confidence or her umm, fully developed equipment :) Amy's kitchen, on the other hand, is a mid 20's woman who's got all of her equipment in check and knows how to use it- especially her mixer. Man oh man! We got to break it in that night and it was quite a treat! Also? She has a cookie scoop. I never knew I needed a cookie scoop having used my hands to form cookies for the past 25 years. What a TREAT! Almost as much as the Kitchenaid! (Who am I kidding- there was no comparison! But it's nice to know that such a small tool can make baking so much easier) Another treat in Amy's kitchen? Silpat FTW!

After a mouth-watering dinner (Thanks Chris!!!) Amy moved into the ring for round two. I was in charge of reading the recipe from the book and played director. Her recipe called for cold butter (not a normal thing for baking since it adds more crunch), and some more delectable dark chocolate (60% and 72%). Let me tell you, the taste was divine. Absolutely untouchable. I definitely felt like I was eating cookies from an upscale chef at an upscale restaurant. It was how chocolate cookies should taste when they grow up! It was as if in this grown-up cookie the flavors aged so gracefully, while the cookies looked like they needed a little face lift (quite literally as they didn't have much leavening to them), but it's what's on the inside that counts folks! And that's exactly where these cookies ended up- on my inside- YUM! Maybe it was the cold butter that left them a smidge flatter than we would have hoped, but upon consumption, there was no question that Thomas Keller knows what he is doing.

My conclusion: If you like a traditional cookie, try Jamie's from My Baking Addiction. If you have a more refined palate- go big or go home and check out Thomas Keller's wonderful cookbook from his restaurant Ad Hoc. Oh, and I am SO very sorry about the lack of photos. I guess I'll have to force my self to do this again! Any takers? I would love to test out some more recipes!

Lemon cupcakes with Berry frosting

So today I decided to give it a go with something completely *gasp* chocolate free. It's obscene, I know. But if you're going without chocolate, why not Lemon with Raspberry and Blackberry frosting? So I used a recipe from my Cake Mix Doctor recipe for the cupcakes and decided to use the berry frosting recipes a la Patisserie Natalie via Cake Spy. Aren't her photos just delightful? I had to try the frostings if only because they were SO pink!

So I got started on the cupcakes and with little fan fare. I think (in hindsight, I KNOW) I filled the cups too high. Dang. They ended up spreading and it look practically like a cake. I then decided to break off all of the spread part just for fun. Also because I was really frustrated with myself that I filled them up so high. So annoying. Later on I realized that I completely forgot to add sour cream. How did I forget an entire CUP of sour cream?! I don't know. The cupcakes ended up tasting fine, but I would have liked to see how they would have tasted with the sour cream, more pound cake ish I think.

Anyways, while those cooled I moved on to frosting. I loved that I got to make the berry sauce from fresh berries. So I did that on the stove and left them in the fridge to cool while I moved on to sifting the powdered sugar. For the record, I hate sifting. I think I hate my sifter though because it's a squeeze sifter which is just means that I run out of patience about 30 seconds into the sifting and end up tapping the sifter until the job is done. Really- I have no patience for the darn thing and find myself longing for my mom's sifter- as old as it is. :)

So I sifted and mixed it with the butter and it was a lovely level of creamy. Then i split the butter and proceeded to split the mixture and make the blackberry portion. After mixing the right amount, I tasted and it tasted like it was practically ALL butter. I ended up adding the extra blackberry mixture that I had and about 2 extra cups of sugar just to minimize the butter enough to taste like frosting. I was pretty bummed.

I learned my lesson and for the raspberry portion I started by taking out about 1/3 of the butter mixture before adding the fruit and powdered sugar. I still ended up adding about 1/2 cup more sugar, just to thicken it up a bit. It tasted really berry-y and delicious and I would probably just use the raspberry frosting next time. I think would actually like to retry the blackberry frosting and cut the butter.

All's well that ends well, and I'm just glad that they ended up tasting fine. I would do both of these recipes again though and I had fun :) Ooo, funny sidenote: I ended up using a wide smooth frosting tip when I piped them and my brother said it looked like Care Bear poop. That's just a wonderful visual! Hah! Enjoy your Care Bear poop cupcakes! :)

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is where I can chronicle my adventures into baking- my new hobby. So far I've been baking 1-2 times a week and working with recipes I've found all over the web. For the most part I bake whatever sounds good- from cupcakes to cakes to cookies and to infinity and beyond. Mostly I've done cakes and had some pretty good luck. My goal is to find the best recipes from all of the sites for the classics like chocolate, red velvet, white, yellow, or funfetti. When I see a recipe that calls my name, I'll bake it.

Today I saw some Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies on Doughmessticated and couldn't help but wonder how that would change the flavor of the most classic cookie in the world! So I tried them out.

The recipe starts with melted butter- FINALLY. Most recipes call for room temperature butter. I'm a major last-minute baker and my butter is cold. As I saw in a baking book somewhere, cold butter makes for a more "cold" consistency- i.e. not as soft and squishy. Anyhoodles, the melted butter means I don't require planning. YAY!

There were more pretty basic ingredients: brown sugar, sugar, flour, baking soda, salt. It also had heavy cream, which I see a lot in cakes, but haven't seen in cookies, so I was intrigued. It called for bread flour and I used AP flour, so that may have something to do with my final product. Now, I don't know the difference between the two types, but I know that there is a difference and I thought it had something to do with leavening, so I added a bit more baking soda and salt, just for fun.

So I whipped these bad boys up and the dough is kinda sticky, but a good consistency. They baked to a pretty thick cookie, which looks amazing. These are easily the prettiest cookies I've made. I think it was the buttermilk that gave them this slightly matte sheen that cracks with the baking process. I swear- they're so pretty they look fake! I was pretty stoked to see them look so pretty, but the first dozen came out a little hard. The recommended timing was 12-17 minutes and I did 13:30 and it was too long. The next batch I did 12:30 and they were beautiful!!! Highly recommended.

Taste test has come through and the flavor is just divine. I just wish they actually were chewy. I haven't tasted the second two batches since they've cooled completely, but I am hoping for a softer result. Maybe it was the AP flour substitution for Bread flour- who knows? Even the well done cookies are just delightful with milk- trust me, I tried.

Best of luck should you try these lovelies! Let me know what works for you!

Original Recipe link