Yeah, I'd Bake That's Not Favorite Things Because That Name Was Taken But Items We Really Enjoy List! Part 1

Today we kick off our 2nd(!) Christmas season with Yeah, I'd Bake That's Not Favorite Things Because That Name Was Taken But Items We Really Enjoy List!

Let's talk about this title. I am not giving anything away so "12 Days of Giveaways" was scratched off the list, and I just didn't feel right using "Oprah's Favorite Things". "A December to Remember" is great if you can also say "Everyone's getting a car!" but sadly, not this year. YIBT that is in no way endorsed by Oprah, licensed by Hasbro, given special accommodations from any baking company, affiliated with Lincoln Motors, herein withto, ipso facto legal talk.

Easter, Chocolate Bunnies & Cake

There are a lot of things happening in the next few weeks make life on this blog difficult. Starting school again today, finishing our taxes, moving to an entirely different part of PA (not like our 3 minute move from Manayunk to East Falls) and Easter. Easter's been at the bottom of my list these past few days, but I can't deny how much I actually enjoy the holiday. Besides the fact that it's always fallen right around my birthday, it's got some of the best looking candy filling up two aisles at Rite Aid. Two aisles!

Every year I just slink through the aisles looking at it. Marshmellow covered everything. This year I saw orange bunny peeps (I was shocked too). Chocolate in the shape of eggs, eggs made of creme, and carrots filled with reeses pieces. You could get a cavity just looking at all of the sugar, it's amazing. 

I think I love Easter because when I was little I used to occasionally bring home chocolate easter bunnies from winning drawing contests or guessing the right amount of jellybeans or something. I remember that they were always deceivingly hollow. When I'd bring them home, Allyson and I would size them up to see if we could open the box and eat a part of it before my parents got home. It never really worked, but when we were allowed to open it up I remember you could almost see a puff of smoke come out of the rabbit's head when you yanked an ear off. Like in Christmas Vacation when the turkey is too cooked and just explodes completely hollow, these rabbits looked like they were five solid pounds of chocolate but they were just a thin shell of a bunny. So disappointing. 

Birthday Red Velvet Cupcakes

We're backkkkkkk [bitches!]. I'm not sure if it's appropriate to use bitches like that because this blog is rated G for content, but it felt right. Just really right.

So after a prolonged hiatus due to the stressors of grad school, particularly the audacity of one professor who assigned us a 10 page paper for finals week, I'm back with a vengenace [insert karate kick sound here].  I've been holed up in an office for the past two weeks creating lesson plans for invisible students and writing papers and as soon as I was free I went straight to the grocery store to stock up on red velvet cupcake ingredients. For those of you who had these red velvet guys back in November, this is that recipe. Not only is it a great comeback gig, but Saturday was my birthday so I went all out here.

Red velvet cupcakes are fun to make for two important reasons. 1. There's so much red dye involved that you feel like you're recreating a crime scene from Dexter. It's fun to walk around the kitchen and say things like "yeah, the perp came at it from this direction". The second reason is that when you accidentally combine baking powder with white vinegar you get an awesome explosion! Who doesn't love that.

Lofthouse Style Sugar Cookies

With the most super of bowls fast approaching, I've been trying to think of a way to weave a few different recipes into the same post. You can obviously just list them, but that's not clever. I want to be like the Lonely Planet guide to your super bowl refreshments. The Frommers of your food spread, if you will. This weeks post is going to be a short one in anticipation of next weeks. But although it may be short, it's still worth reading because it contains a knock off recipe for those super soft, usually pink-iced cookies that are always near the cash register at the grocery store.

You know those cookies I'm talking about. You can slave over the oven all day making homemade cookies and the moment someone walks in with those soft, pink cookies everyone can only talk about how soft they are. Because how could someone make a cookie that soft?! It's not a pillow.

Day 11: Ricotta Cheese Cookies

I’m going to throw this out there for all of you non-believers and say I don’t like cheese. There, I said it! Now, like many of the greatest proclamations, there are a few caveats to that sentence. I like grilled cheese sandwiches (if there is only one slice of cheese). I now eat almost all of the cheese on a slice of pizza (although if the cheese to sauce or pepperoni proportions are way off, things change). I like sausage cups (which, even I can’t explain). And more importantly, and for the purposes of this post, I like Ricotta Cheese Cookies.

The one thing I’ve always had a problem with is why anyone in the their right mind would have combined cheese and cookie batter. Even in my dark twisted fantasy Kayne West mind, I cannot come up with a scenario where I would say “Wow, you know what would make this cookie better? Cheese.”

Cookies and Creme Cupcakes

When I first decided to start chronicling my baking ventures in a blog I promised myself that I wouldn't say things like "hubby approved!" and "kevin loves it!" Thats just not me. And if Kevin knew what were good for him he'd like everything I baked - which he does with the exception of anything with mint. (i rediscovered this fact when i made these) The reason I even mention it is because this story all started with a slip of Kevin's tongue. <-- that's the last time I'll mention him by name, I promise!

We were driving home from the movies the other day when my spouse said "i'm looking forward to your first real fail." This came at a break in the conversation, and while I first thought he was talking about general life fails, he was really talking about baking and my blog posts. There are a few things wrong with this sentence. 1. Why would you say that to someone?! Actually, that's about the only example I need. You just don't wish failing upon people spouse, you just don't.

So somewhere in the back of my mind, in a little cob-webbed corner I hid that thought away. But in reality, I was just waiting for it. It was only a matter of time. Spouse had cursed me, cursed me good.

I was making cookies and creme cupcakes for a friend's birthday, and was looking forward to trying out this recipe because there's oreos inside. Even the icing has oreos in it! The party was hinging around a game of frisbee golf, so I decided early on that I would make the icing look like grass and lodge one half of an oreo in the top of the cupcake to look like a frisbee. This is what I was going for:

It's not the clearest image, but it worked.

The plan was simple enough. The recipe for the cupcakes worked out great, and the icing was extremely complementary. The problem was that the recipe said you should just spread the icing on the cupcakes, and now that my icing was green there was no turning back from piping it to make it look like waves of grass. This is where the problems started, THIS is where my fail began.

Behind the cupcake you can see my icing gun - this thing does everything. I have about 6 different tips I can put on it that will make different designs. I opted for the second largest one because I wanted smaller pieces of grass. Fail. The cookies that were in the icing were getting lodged in the tip, so I put the bigger one on. Bigger fail. There was actually a minute where I thought of aborting the whole mission and throwing all of the cupcakes in the garbage.. because I have a temper.

It's these kinds of situations where I have to walk away and figure out why it's not working. But in this case- I yelled to my spouse that he better come to the kitchen and help me out of this jam because he jinxed me. Not the fun kind of jinx where we laugh and owe each other cokes - I was on the edge and had to finish 28 cupcakes with icing that just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. Fast forward an hour later, and we had iced them all one. at. a. time. We'd ice one, clean out the cookies and then move on to the next. An awful lot of work just to see one fail. I hope you're happy you who shall not be named.

In reality, this really wasn't a huge fail. It could have been a lot worse. The recipe is actually pretty great, and the cupcakes certainly tasted good. They were a little dry for my taste, but I'm chalking that up to the amount of crushed oreos that were inside. Not my anger.

You can find the recipe I used here: http://javacupcake.com/2009/12/cookies-n-creme-cupcakes-2/
There are a lot of other cookies and creme cupcakes I'd like to try, but this was a good beginner one.

Here's a few pictures of the final product:

Here's the pink cupcake stand I made.

I wanted to give a cupcake to my neighbor, and found these little cupcake boxes on Amazon. 

Give them a try! And if you have better results than me, just don't tell me.


Source: Java Cupcake: Cookies-n-Creme Cupcakes
http://javacupcake.com/2009/12/cookies-n-creme-cupcakes-2/

Molten Chocolate Cupcakes

In my long, long history of blogging for Yeah, I'd Bake That there hasn't been a post that has gotten more views or comments than the notorious Chocolate Dump Cake. Something about it has attracted and captivated..four or five people.

So in trying to recreate that same experience, I'm sharing a new super EASY recipe for Molten Chocolate Cupcakes. Let's face it- the best dessert any restaurant ever has is that chocolate cake that's all heated up and oozes out molten chocolate lava. In the kitchen of those restaurants, they just put a piece of cake in the microwave to heat it up and then watch as you 'ooh' and 'ahh' over it. (You can thank my previous work experience for that nugget of insider knowledge) This is exactly that, but in a more impressive way that you can make on your own. This recipe will make your friends think you're moonlighting as a part time pastry chef, and if they don't, then that's the last time you share your cupcakes with them! I mean, come on, could you give some positive feedback at least once if your life Karen?!

The recipe is from Betty Crocker, you can find it online here: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/molten-chocolate-cupcakes

I made this before I started the blog, so there's only one picture. After spreading the icing on the cupcakes I dusted them with powdered sugar, but they'd also be good with whipped cream and strawberries or vanilla bean ice cream. The one thing I should mention is that you shouldn't skip on the whipping cream for this recipe, it's a must!

Try it out and let me know how it goes! In the meantime, I've got a wicked recipe for cookies and creme cupcakes that I just finished and will be posting about soon. Here's a sample of what the post contains: oreos, self rising flour, and a failed attempt at streamlining (and possibly inventing?) cookies and creme icing. Discuss!



Source: Betty Crocker
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/molten-chocolate-cupcakes

Cherry Kolaches Part 1

I like to age myself. No really, what's so wrong with it sometimes? I'm only 25 but I bake like a Grandma. It's because when I was growing up my sister and I used to bake with our Gramma all the time. She was a master baker, and even though sometimes we give her a hard time for all of her crazy substitutions (like the one time when she only had so many chocolate chips so she used raisins. What's the difference really, they're both black) the lady's got skills.  She was the only person I knew that would keep bananas in her freezer just to bake with, and I'm pretty sure she's the only person I've ever known that refused to use the recipe on the back of the chocolate chips bag. That's ludicrous.

To get back on point here- today's recipe is old school. I found it in the mystery magazine that's still being delivered (see, now I'm harking back to earlier posts. I'm getting this.) It's official magazine name is Coffee Klatch Kolaches, but since I don't drink coffee and have no idea what a kolache is I felt the liberty to change the name for this blog. 

I've yet to make these yet, but will be baking them soon for this weekend. They look excellent in the magazine, and I was able to find the recipe online too: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Coffee-Klatch-Kolaches/?addtobox=y

If the link doesn't work because I am a (very prestigious) member of the site, here's a photo of what they will look like. These pastries will be cherry filled when they leave my kitchen, and will hopefully look like this photo. This is me clearly not taking the credit for the photo, it was taken from the website just for demonstration purposes.

They look good right? Yes, they do. And like any red blooded American, I had no idea how to pronounce Kolaches, but I'll save that explanation for when I post the results and all the non-stolen photos I will take.

Wish me luck! In the mean time, thank you to all 12 of my readers for making this blog an overwhelming success! We have over 400 views, and in turn, we are the big time.

Source: Taste of Home Magazine, April/May 2011

Recipe online: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Coffee-Klatch-Kolaches/?addtobox=y

Submitted by: Carol Houdek, Minneapolis 

Snickers Cupcakes!

Second post. Less pressure. This weekend was our friend Christine's birthday, and I promised I would come bearing cupcakes. I went with snickers, raspberry & peanut butter. The snickers cupcakes are heart attack inducing but ridiculously good. I found the recipe on a site called Annie's Eats - she collected the ingredients from:

[[Cupcakes from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, caramel sauce from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz, frosting adapted from My Baking Addiction]]

She does a better job of laying out the pictures and the ingredients than I ever could, so it's best to go there for the recipe. It's pretty easy to follow, just pretty time consuming. The carmel sauce alone will slow you down, but it's incredibly worth it. If you can measure success by high fives, than I think this was a good recipe to make again.

 I made the cupcakes and stuffed them with snickers at night.

I waited to ice them til the next day to make sure they still looked fancy for the party.

I was pretty happy with the final results:

I'll post the recipes for the peanut butter and the raspberry cupcakes another day. I actually ended up making a blackberry version of the cupcakes too, I'd say it was pretty successful baking venture. Definitely try these if you can. And make a dentist appointment too while you're at it.