Spiced Caramel Apple Cupcakes

OMG. These are heavenly! I've never been big into spice cake, although spice cake makes the hubby's heart go pitter-patter. But when you take spice cake, and combine it with apple and plenty o' caramel? Dino-MITE! These are soft and moist cupcakes, with bits of apple throughout and a subtle caramel flavor. However, it's the caramel frosting that really takes the cake out of this world, though.

Confession time? I don't really like... frosting. Oh yes, I went there. For me, there's never been anything appealing about a huge mouthful of butter and sugar. Especially if the frosting in question hasn't been beaten within an inch of its life. Through trial and error, I've learned that you just have to beat the frosting. Profusely. Like, a couple of minutes longer than you think you should. The result is frosting that is light as air, and isn't grainy with unincorporated sugar. These tips created one of the best frostings I've made. Of course, it is caramel frosting, so how can you go wrong there?

The fall here in Kentucky has been spectacular this year. The temperature is gradually creeping towards fall weather, which means the humidity slowly left and we are still getting sunny afternoons. The leafs are slowly changing color and beginning to accumulate in the yard. These changes have sent me into fall overdrive, and all I want to do is create concoctions of apple, pumpkin, and parsnip. I've really been craving something pumpkin, so expect to see some pumpkin recipes popping up ASAP!

I think cookies are going to be first :)

Ingredients:

Cake-
1 box- spice cake mix
3/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup caramel topping
1 granny smith apple, peeled and grated
2 egg whites
1 egg yolk

Frosting-
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1/8 cup caramel topping
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

-more caramel topping (for topping)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Line 2 cupcake pans with liners.
2. In a large bowl, beat together cake mix through egg yolk. Beat until well blended. Divide batter among cupcake tins. Bake in preheated oven 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in tins 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting.
3. While muffins are cooling, prepare frosting. In a separate large bowl, beat butter and sugar until well combined, 2-3 minutes. Add caramel topping, vanilla, and milk. Beat mixture until you reach your desired consistency.
4. Decorate cupcakes with frosting. Using a spoon, drizzle a tiny amount of caramel over the frosted cupcake. Caramel topping will harden completely within a couple of hours.
5. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from You Made That?

Banana Sundae Cupcakes

There must be something in the air lately, I've just been feeling really creative in the kitchen. I had some bananas leftover from last week that had to be used. Badly. After running through the usual options of muffins, banana bread, and banana pudding, I settled on cupcakes. I couldn't find a specific recipe I wanted to use, so I improvised on the recipe. I knew I wanted a banana cake, whip cream tasting-frosting, a chocolate drizzle, and chopped nuts.

The cupcakes turned out fantastically. Can't stop eating them good. The recipe made 24 cupcakes, so with a heavy heart, I knew I had to give most of them away. Between the hubby's aunt and uncle, and then his mother, we've managed to clear the house of most of them. They were a huge hit with all the in-laws, which I judged by the pace of which people were scarfing them down.

They were a bit laborious to undertake, but hey, the weekend was made for relaxing while baking yummy treats in the kitchen :)

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup flour
3 ripe bananas
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp lemon juice
3 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup greek yogurt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnut pieces, chopped

Recipe for frosting: Whip Cream Frosting

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners.
2. In a small bowl, combine cake mix and flour.
3. In another small bowl, mash bananas together with baking soda and lemon juice.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs through the vanilla extract. Add the banana mixture to the wet ingredients, whisk until well combined. Add the cake mix/flour to the wet ingredients, stir until batter is mostly smooth (there will be chunks of banana in the batter).
5. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 way full. Bake in oven 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven, cool in pan 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes to a cooling rack.
6. Prepare whip cream frosting.
7. When cupcakes are completely cool, frost with whip cream frosting.
8. In a double broiler, melt chocolate chips until smooth. Remove from heat, let cool for 10 minutes.
9. Place all cupcakes on a cookie sheet. Using a spoon, drizzle chocolate over cupcakes. Dust cupcakes with chopped walnuts. Place cookie sheet in the fridge for 30 minutes, then immediately serve. Store remaining cupcakes in fridge.

Cake recipe adapted from Your Cup of Cake

Weekend Wrap-up: 4/21/13

Spring is in full bloom!

Pretty tree in our yard.

The traditional Red Velvet Cupcakes for my mother-in-law's birthday.

Bros.

What Gizmo has 99% of the time- the Blue Monkey :)

Me and the Giz.

Couponing haul for 4/21/13.

One of the hubby's crafty projects- A non-headboard headboard.

New products I'm currently testing.

Fun, purple Springtime pedi.

Trip Conclusion

OMG.

It's our last day here.

I honestly think this was one of the fastest month's I've ever had. I can't believe the hubby and I have to pack up and fly out tomorrow. I'm feeling a bit melancholic over everything. It would be different if the house was done, and the hubby and I were going back to our brand new home. But, it's not. So, I don't want to go back :) The good news? Looks like we are about 3 weeks out on the house getting done. I'm trying to remain optimistic on that one.

I've got some pictures to wrap up the last week or so of our trip. The little brother got married on Saturday. This went off without a hitch, and was a beautiful wedding. More on that when the pictures are done!

I snapped this adorable pic of Gizmo drooling over the hubby's breakfast. He couldn't take his eyes off what he couldn't have.

Pre-wedding manicure. My mom, my brother's fiancee, and I all got pedicures and manicures Friday before the wedding. It was nice to have a moment to relax amidst the wedding chaos. Plus, I loved the color I picked.

The hubby and I at my brother and his fiancee's rehearsal dinner. It was hosted at my parent's house, and it was nice to have a glass of wine and get to know the family we are blending with.

Fresh roasted pumpkin. Yum!

So, I made Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes yesterday. I was disappointed in how these turned out. The recipe is almost soufflé-like. There is very little flour in the recipe, and no fat. The cupcake is supposed to get a slightly done crust while have a custard-like middle. I guess I didn't get these done enough, because they are all custard. I'm not giving up on the recipe though, because I think once cooked properly, these will be delicious! Not that they aren't delicious, but they just aren't perfect. And we all know I like perfection!

Last night, my parents, my hubby, and I went across the street to my parent's neighbor/family friend's house for wine and hors d'oeuvres. As I was shutting the door to leave, this was the site I was greeted with. Not a single dog approved of us leaving for the evening :)

Hors d'oeuvres platter, plus homemade guacamole. My favorite!

I loved these rustic goblets my parent's friends had. What a cool idea! Might have to be getting me some of these!

So, time for some bad news. The hubby and I will be staying with his mother when we get back to Kentucky, and she unfortunately doesn't have Internet. It will probably be about 3 weeks that I won't have Internet (I know, in this day and age, right?) Anyways, I will be taking a sabbatical for an unknown amount of time. The good news? I'm revamping the blog so when I come back, it will look all shiny and new. Plus, I will be in my new house!

Fingers crossed that this time period goes fast.

And double crossed.

And then cross some more fingers.

***Update***

Last night before bed, I put the cupcakes in the fridge, hoping to save them. And save them I did! When I took one out of the paper wrapper this morning, a crust had formed around the custard. Yay! I'm happy to report these little portable pies are delicious! Turns out they just have to be refrigerated before serving. This is a very important step. I'd say refrigerate overnight before serving. Happy eating!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

So... our trip is coming to an end. I'm sooooo sad. The hubby and I only have 4 more days in Oregon, and then we head back to Kentucky. I can't believe this month went so insanely fast. It was a wonderful vacation, spent in basically another culture. The West Coast mentality could be considered to be on the complete opposite end of the behavior spectrum from a Southern mentality. I think sometimes I get stuck in a pattern of thinking, and it was refreshing to remind myself that the way life is in Kentucky is not how life has to be. I need to remind myself to hold on to my laid-back, easy-going side, and not get as uptight about the little things in life that really don't even matter.

I've got to do some baking while I've been here, and that I've immensely enjoyed. My mom had a couple of extremely ripe bananas that she was begging me to use. It's been awhile since I've been treated to homemade banana bread, and oh wow. You don't know what you're missing until it's gone. Sure, I've thought about banana bread. And chocolate chip cookies. And cupcakes. But I finally got to indulge my sweet tooth. Yum!

This chocolate chip banana bread is, sadly, long gone. It's been such a busy trip, I swear. I made this probably a week ago, and the bread only lasted a few days. The plan today is to make Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes with Whip Cream Frosting. Ambitious, I know. It's kind of miserable out today, with pouring rain, so I just might get this task done.

I totally used my recipe for Simple Banana Bread to make this banana bread, and then added about 2 cups of chocolate chip. Holy desert-a-licious! 1 piece was never enough, and then it became the self-control game.

Hopefully that's how the Pumpkin Cupcakes turn out! :)

April A-Musings

It was a busy month had by all!

The hubby and I decided to build a house, Gizmo acted weird for almost 3 weeks,  I continued to practice my baking, I saved $297.87 couponing, I participated in a 5k walk for charity, we celebrated 3 family birthday's, and Haloti enjoyed every minute of the whole, crazy ride.

We finalized our plans to build a house in April. We've had multiple inspections, including by the health department and the builder. We moved dirt and laid out the flow of the house. We finalized things with our bank. Next week, we sign our contract for the house and sometime next month, we will sign documents for the construction loan. And by far the best news? On May 14th, we will have only 30 days left in the rental!!! Yikes, I better start packing!

Gizmo and Haloti got groomed on April 9th. Gizmo immediately got a skin rash that had to be treated with anti-biotics and a steroid. He sulked and pouted for almost 3 weeks, all while doing none of his favorite things. No Blue Monkey, no sleeping in his bed, no cuddling with Mom and Dad, no walks, and no desire for carrots (our version of doggie treats). After keeping him a little bit dopey on Benedryl for a week to keep him from rubbing his skin raw and licking himself raw, Gizmo began to act more like himself last Friday. The hubby and I both gave a sigh of relief to have our puppy back. It was also decided that Gizmo will never go to the groomer again.

Haloti could care less he got groomed, and to be honest, I think he rather enjoyed the social time with the other dogs, as he was allowed to hang out with the "friendly" dogs after getting groomed. When I went to pick him up, he was sitting next to a very gentle Mastiff that was the size of a horse :)

We bought these bones to distract Gizmo from his woes. It worked!

I baked a lot in April. 3 family birthday's (brother's, hubby's aunt, and hubby's mother), with 2 requests for baked goods. I made Dark Chocolate Cherry Nut Cookies for the brother's birthday and the Red Velvet cupcakes below for my mother-in-law's birthday. The peanut butter cookies pictured above? Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I made these for my Dad's birthday (tomorrow!) and shipped them out to Oregon.

I experimented with yeast in April. I made Mini Doughnuts (twice) and worked on Cinnamon Roll Bread. The doughnut above is a Raspberry Filled Mini Doughnut. Experimenting with yeast this month turned out pretty delicious :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes for the mother-in-law's birthday.

Last Saturday, my sister-in-law (to the far left), also named Jessica, and I walked a 5k for the March of Dimes. Jessica's friend Shannon (middle) is a nurse at the local hospital. The nurses in her unit had setup a team of about 7-8 girls. Jessica and I both donated to her unit, and volunteered to walk. The walk was at 9 am on Saturday. I awoke that morning at 7 am to a thunderstorm right over Ashland. It was also very cold. But the march did go on, and Jessica and I powered through. Cold, wet feet and all. There was a surprisingly large crowd, despite the inhospitable weather.

Rocking a poncho at the March of Dimes! And yes, that is a Duck's hoodie under my poncho!

I can't believe April is over, this year is flying by. Hopefully I will blink, it will be October, and we will be in our new house! Hey, a girl can wish, can't she? :)

And, oh yes, the hubby and I put back $297.87 into our couponing account. On to May!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Another year, another batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes.

Monday is my mother-in-law's birthday and she made a special request- more of those Red Velvet Cupcakes please! I love when people ask me to make something for them, it makes my day! :)

Special cupcake for the birthday girl! This sparkly, gold icing I used drips like crazy, so my 5's look like S's. I won't be buying that anymore. I frosted the big cupcakes by hand for a more rustic look, and then piped the frosting onto the mini-cupcakes. Just for kicks.

I was looking over the post I did on Red Velvet Cupcakes from last year, and I realized that the recipe I posted was for cake, not for cupcakes. That, and the recipe can be simplified. I wouldn't know that if I didn't have a year of baking under my belt! Making these cupcakes today I realized how much I've learned in a year, and how far I've come. Culinary school may have been faster, but I had a lot of fun learning over the last year. No doubt that next year I will have learned even more than I know now.

Ingredients (makes 36 standard cupcakes):
Cupcakes-
3 1/2 cups cake flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs, room temp
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbsp red food coloring
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar

Frosting-
5 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour through baking soda. Whisk and set aside.
3. In a separate large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, one at a time until thoroughly blended. Mix in vanilla. Mix in food coloring.
4. In a small bowl, whisk buttermilk and cider vinegar together. In 3 separate additions, add flour to the butter/sugar mixture, alternating each time with the buttermilk mixture. Mix until the ingredients are well blended and batter is smooth.
5. Line 3 cupcake pans with liners. Fill cups 3/4 way full. Bake in oven 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Mini-cupcakes will bake in 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool in pan 5 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack, and cool completely before frosting.
6. In a small sauce pan, heat flour and milk until mixture is very thick, like brownie batter. This will take some time, 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool completely before moving on to next step.
7. Whisk vanilla into flour mixture.
8. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until pale and creamy. Add in flour mixture and beat the crap out of it. Seriously, like 10 minutes. The frosting will thicken before your eyes and take on the consistency of whip cream. Cool in fridge 15 minutes, proceed to frost cupcakes.
9. Eat, eat, EAT those cupcakes! Yum!

Just baked cupcakes, pre-frost.

Cupcake recipe adapted from Epicurious.
Frosting recipe courtesy of Tasty Kitchen.

Money Talks But Chocolate Sings!

I love dessert! Growing up, I always craved salt more than sweets and my go-to snack you could usually find me up to my ears in was chips and salsa. Over the last couple of years however, I have come to appreciate dessert. I have learned dessert doesn't have to be heavy and covered in mountains of chocolate. It can be as simple as one delicious cupcake or two delicate cookies. It can be as light and ethereal as creme brulee. Regardless, since my cookie extravaganza and the success I had, I am really revved up about baking lately. I want to do more and improve more, learn more. To continue on with my 2012 goals, here are my baking aspirations for the year:

1. To master the croissant. The hubby put in a request for me to learn how to make his favorite breakfast pastry, the cream cheese danish. Delicate, flaky pastry with a sweetened, vanilla-y, cream cheese filling and then topped with a sweet icing and toasted, sliced almonds. The first recipe I am going to try involves using puff pastry sheets but I want to master this pastry dough by the end of the year.

2. Cupcakes! Since the discovering the Dollhouse Bake Shoppe blog last month, I have found several of her cupcake recipes I want to try. First on my list is the Churro Cupcakes (also a request from the hubby!). They look delish! I think this will be as easy goal for me.

3. To master making breads. I have only tried once to make something bread-like. It was pizza dough and it was a disaster. I didn't knead the dough long enough and the dough never rose. My husband is a master baker when it comes to bread so I have always left the making of homemade bread to him. Well, no longer! I am going to learn to do it myself. I am going to try my hand at pizza dough again and then I am going to move on to a rustic french bread.

4. My fourth goal is not baking per se, but it greatly has to do with it... I want a STAND MIXER! I do all my baking with a hand mixer and I think it's time for a change. I truly believe all I need is that appliance and my skill will be magnified ten-fold (whether this is true remains to be seen). The hubby and I have decided this year to put all the money I save from couponing in one account and see how much we have at the end of the year and use it to buy our Christmas gift for each other. I am hoping some of this money will go towards this dream.

Stay tuned for pictures of whatever delicious desserts I bake this year! It's going to be a busy year and I haven't even outlined all my goals for the year yet :)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Our family tree. Our red curtains work perfectly for Christmas!

Christmas is only 10 days away! I am very excited, I love the holiday season. Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday, but Christmas is not far behind. I love seeing all the Christmas lights on houses, Christmas tree's in windows, and not to mention having my own tree up! I have stocked up on everything for holiday baking, minus getting more eggs and more butter. I thought I had enough butter till I checked my recipes one last time and realized I might have to double some of my cookie recipes, especially my sandwich cookies.
I am probably a week out from starting on the cookies for Christmas but I am like a little kid. I want to make cookies now! I was itching to bake today so I decided to whip up another holiday treat. While browsing Cooking Light's website, I saw egg nog cupcakes. This of course led to a scouring of the internet to find a well-reviewed recipe. I found a wonderful blog, Dollhouse Bake Shoppe Blog. I decided to use their delicious sounding recipe. While mine don't look like their professional picture, I think mine looks pretty good!

Egg Nog Cupcake with Cream Cheese-Egg Nog-Rum frosting. Dusted with nutmeg.

The cake in these cupcakes is very unique. I don't think I have had one like it. The cake is super light and fluffy. Like putting air in your mouth. The recipe calls for a tbsp of vegetable oil, which I don't normally put in my cupcakes. This could account for the change in texture but another thought I had was it might be the egg nog? Whatever it is, I enjoyed it. They are very rich though so one cupcake is plenty. A good holiday treat in my book! You can find the recipe I used here, Egg Nog Cupcakes.

Adventures in Baking

I love to cook. Cooking is fun and relaxing and at the end of the day, you can make some pretty amazing things! I'm a decent cook due to the fact that I can follow a recipe and that I have been cooking long enough that I generally know what tastes go together and how much of what seasoning I should use. Now baking... baking is another story. Baking is all chemistry and chemistry (next to plant biology) was not my strongest subject in my education. Baking is about precise measurements whereas in cooking a heaping tablespoon is not going to kill your dish. Baking is also about precise cooking times and knowing exactly when that little toothpick pulls out "clean". Now I must admit that I have never had the precision of a surgeon or the desire to, which I think makes me better suited to cooking. However, I can't stand not being a good baker so over the past couple of months I have been trying out my hand at baking.

My first concoction was a Boston cream pie. What a lesson! My cakes did not rise, which I later found out was most likely due to the fact that my baking powder was expired. I learned to check my expiration dates on my products. I also over cooked my custard which resulted in the cream part of my pie being somewhat... dry and lumpy. Boo. Another valuable lesson learned. My next project was chocolate chip cupcakes, which actually turned out fantastic! I learned that cupcakes are ALMOST impossible to screw up. Keeping up with the cupcakes, my husband asked me to make Red Velvet cupcakes for his mom's birthday. These also turned out great!

The thing I have learned about cupcakes that makes them almost impossible to mess up is that if you properly cream the butter and sugar, the rest pretty much makes it self. I have found that creaming takes a lot longer than you think it would or should. In fact, a lot longer! But that proper creaming technique makes all the difference in the world and you end up with a light and moist cake. Here is the recipe I used for these wonderful confections-

Ingredients and Preparation:

• 3 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 6 tablespoons red food coloring
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 recipe Creamy Vanilla Frosting (below)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour three 9- by 2-inch round cake pans, then line the bottoms with waxed paper. To make the cake: In a small bowl, sift the cake flour and set aside. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a small bowl, whisk together the red food coloring, cocoa, and vanilla. Add to the batter and beat well. In a measuring cup, stir the salt into the buttermilk. Add to the batter in three parts alternating with the flour. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated, but do not overbeat. In a small bowl, stir together the cider vinegar and baking soda. Add to the batter and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth. Divide the batter among the prepared pans. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the layers cool in the pans for 1 hour. Remove from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack. When the cake has cooled, spread the frosting between the layers, then ice the top and sides of the cake with Creamy Vanilla Frosting (below) .

Creamy Vanilla Icing

• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

 In a medium-size saucepan, whisk the flour into the milk until smooth. Place over medium heat and, stirring constantly, cook until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to bubble, 10-15 minutes. Cover with waxed paper placed directly on the surface and cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. In a large bowl, on the medium high speed of an electric mixer, beat the butter for 3 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating continuously for 3 minutes until fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat well. Add the cooled milk mixture, and continue to beat on the medium high speed for 5 minutes, until very smooth and noticeably whiter in color. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes (no less and no longer- set a timer!). Use immediately.

I know this sounds like a lot of work but it's worth it!

My happy cupcake customers! Recipe courtesy of www.epicurious.com