Korean KupKakes

These are for my Korean friend who has a ton of national pride. These were chocolate cupcakes out of a box, with strawberry filling. The filling is just strawberries, sugar, and water, boiled till it reaches a jelly-like consistency. I made holes in the cupcakes using a bottle cap, filled them up with the jelly, and then topped with store-bought icing.

Holiday Cupcakes

Sorry I didn't have a chance to post this over the holidays, but here is a quick and fun holiday treat.

Peppermint Cupcakes (makes 9):
1/2 box of devil's food cake mix
3/4 cup of milk
chocolate frosting
chocolate chips (1 handful)
6-9 candy canes (to taste)

Grind up the candy canes. Pass the powder through a large - sieve. The small powder will go into the cake mix, and the larger pieces will serve as the cupcake topper. Mix the cake mix, fine peppermint powder, chocolate chips, and milk, and pour into cupcake papers. Bake for 25-29mins. Let cool. Frost. Cover with the larger candy cane pieces.

Walnut Cupcakes (makes 9):
1/2 box of devil's food cake mix
3/4 cup of milk
cream cheese frosting
chocolate chips (1 handful)
walnuts (1 handful)

Chop up the walnuts into very small pieces. Mix the cake mix, walnuts, chocolate chips, and milk, and pour into cupcake papers. Bake for 25-29mins. Let cool. Frost. Decorate with piping frosting.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Filling

When I bake, there are three requirements...it has to be eggless, quick, and delicious. Here is one of my favorite combinations that I have used in both cake and cupcake form.

The cake is easy...I use Duncan Hines devil's food chocolate cake mix. Instead of egg, oil, and water, I add milk (to replace the quantity of water on the box). The cake rises very well even without the egg. You can make a sheet cake or cupcakes.

Filling: Fresh strawberries and sugar at a ratio of two-three table spoons of sugar per small basket of strawberries depending on sweetness of berries. Chop the strawberries up into very small pieces, and heat berries and sugar on the stove top at a high setting. Let the mixture boil, and the moisture evaporate, and stir often. Eventually, the mixture will start to resemble a jelly. You want to wait until this stage, as too much moisture in the filling with make your cake soggy.

For a cake, spread the filling between layers. If you will be storing the cake before consuming, a thin layer of frosting between each layer of cake and the filling will help keep the moisture in the filling out of the cake.

For cupcakes, use a deep bottle cap (one from a screwtop bottle of wine works well) to drill/scoop out a hole in each cupcake. Fill this hole with the filling, and then frost.

Frosting: I have used both cream cheese and chocolate frosting with this combo, and both taste great!

Poker Face

Another simple out-of-the-box sheet cake from me. I think the theme of the party this cake is going to is obvious. I was trying to recreate her classic look when she tied her hair into a bow.
This was a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. I flipped the cake out of the silicon cake pan for a flat surface to work with. I first frosted the cake with the frosting, and then used a butter knife to cut out the shape. If you cut first and frost second, chocolate crumbs from your cake will mix with the frosting giving you a kind of 'oreo' look, which I didn't want for Miss Gaga's face. The colors were made by adding food coloring. I added the texture of hair using a fork. For the sunglasses and lips, I put the frosting into Ziplock bags, cut a tiny hole in the corner of the bags, and piped on the details. The end result: Ga-ga-ohh-la-la!

Cream Puffs!

I originally considered making a whole croquembouche for my parents' anniversary, but then decided it'd be too hard to move and whatnot, so ended up just making the cream puffs instead. I also brought some to a BBQ with old friends, where it was very welcome. :) I like a richer filling than normal whipped cream, so I tried a cheese filling instead, and I gotta say, it worked out OK. After one bite, one of my friends declared I should start all dates by feeding the guy one of these.

Puffs
Ingredients
1 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 Tbsp sugar
dash of salt
1 cup flour
4 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 425F. Over high heat, bring water, butter, sugar, and salt to a boil. Turn off heat and mix in the flour; it should pull away from the edges of the pot into a ball of dough. Wait a few minutes for it to cool slightly, then add one egg at a time, mixing to incorporate the whole egg before adding the next. The batter should be thick, but thin enough to slowly fall from a wooden spoon - add another egg if it's still too thick.
2. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large, plain tip. Pipe 1" round, 1/2" high disks onto a foil or wax paper lined baking sheet, leaving some space in between each dollop. With a wet finger, knock down the tip of each dollop. Bake at 425F for 15min until puffy, then drop the temperature to 375F for another 10-15min, until golden brown.
3. Peel the puffs off the foil immediately; once the foil cools, it'll be hard to peel them off without peeling the bottom off the puff.

Filling
Ingredients
2/3 cup mascarpone
2/3 cup ricotta
3 Tbsp sugar (more to taste)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix ingredients together. I couldn't figure out a way to pipe it into the puffs, so just slice the puffs halfway in the center and spoon a dollop of the filling inside, then close.

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today I made another great recipe from Lovin From the Oven, her Grandma's Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies (I cut her recipe in 1/4th since it makes an obscene amount of cookies).

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 and 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
15 oz dark chocolate chips
3 oz white chocolate chips
3 oz milk chocolate chips

Directions: Combine butter, shortening, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until well mixed. Separately mix flour, baking soda, and salt and add to butter-sugar mixture until mixed. Add chocolate chips. Drop in spoonfuls on cookie sheet, bake at 375 for 11 minutes or until lightly brown.
The recipe claims to make 3 dozen, although I've found it makes about 4 dozen (unless you like your cookies giant).

You might notice that this looks almost exactly like the Nestle Tollhouse Recipe. In fact, there are only two differences: 1) subbing out half the butter for shortening, and 2) using different varieties, and a larger total amount, of chocolate chips. Shortening is apparently really ridiculously bad for you (something or other about trans fats...psh) but I think it makes cookies so excellent, because it has a higher melting point than butter or margarine, so the cookies don't spread out very much! They stay nice and fat, just the way I like them :P I also like my cookies loaded with chips, but if you don't, you could cut that down a little.

Cookie Dough Truffles (vegan!)

My boyfriend LOVES raw cookie dough, but I don't like to eat it, because I am very paranoid about raw and undercooked eggs and poultry. Also, while I like it, its not SO good that it really tempts me to stray from my no-raw egg policy (brownie batter, on the other hand...). Anyway, when I saw this recipe for chocolate cookie dough truffles, I absolutely had to make them. I knew my boyfriend would love them, they're egg-free, and the added chocolate coating made them really exciting to me. They definitely did not disappoint...the recipe made at least 40 truffles and we gobbled them up in...oh, I don't know...three or four days?

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk (I used regular skim milk)
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 12-oz package chocolate chips or dark candy coating (for dipping).

Directions:
Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and stir until incorporated. Stir in mini chocolate chips.

Cover and chill dough for 1 hour. (I think I actually omitted this step when I did it...oops)

When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1″ balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in the fridge and let chill for 30 minutes.

Melt chocolate candy coating or chips in a double boiler or in microwave (I used the microwave - I zapped about half the chips at a time, for 30 seconds or until glossy and then stirred for awhile until they were completely melted.) Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. (I actually used my hands because the cookie dough kept falling off the fork. Hands was VERY messy, but seemed to work well for the truffles). Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container. MMMMMM so good!

Coconut Chocolate Cookie

I like chocolate. I like coconut. I like cookies. So I combined them, and the result was very well-received. I mostly just modified a standard cookie recipe by adding flaked coconut and chocolate chips. I made some cookies without the chocolate chips because I thought there was too much chocolate, but my roommate's boyfriend convinced me that there's really no such things as too much chocolate. Sorry about the coldness of the picture though; I haven't quite worked out how to take good food pictures with my new camera.

Ingredients
1.25 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup minus 1 Tbsp white sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease baking sheet(s).

2. In a small bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until well blended. Beat in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients until well mixed. With a wooden spoon, mix in the coconut and chocolate chips last.

4. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake for 10-12min. Cool on wire rack.

My Mom's Blueberry Crumb Cake

This cake has been a hit with anyone I have ever made it for.

Ingredients:
3/4 C Sugar
1/4 C Soft Shortening (butter ok)
1 egg
1/2 C Milk
2 C Flour
1 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C Blueberries (use wild Maine blueberries, because, lets face it...all other blueberries are wannabes)

Topping
1/2 C Sugar
1/3 C Flour
1/4 C Butter (out of refrigerator for awhile but not really soft yet)
1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
Blend with pastry blender

Grease and flour a 9x9 or 7x11 pan. Mix sugar, shortening and egg thoroughly. Stir in milk. Blend dry ingredients. Stir in. Carefully blend in blueberries. Spread batter in pan. Sprinkle with topping. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. Enjoy!!

Pecan Sandies

My grandpa liked the chocolate chip cookies I once made, so I thought for Chinese New Years, I could make him some other cookies he liked. Looking around, I stumbled across some very yummy looking recipes for pecan sandies, and finally settled on using the one from Smitten Kitchen. Let's just say, the result was melt-in-your mouth delicious, and made the whole house smell amazing while baking, to boot. As part of my standard operating procedure, I reduced the amount of sugar - for this recipe, I'm not sure that was the best of ideas. At least if something's not sweet enough, you can always sweeten it by dipping it in chocolate, or spreading some Nutella on before eating! :)

Ingredients

slightly over 1 cup pecans
2 cups flour
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake the pecans for about 12min, until they are browned and nutty. They will be delicious at this point, so feel free to bake a few extra to munch on. After they cool, grind the nuts with 1/4 cup of flour in the food processor (depending on the seal of your food processor, it might make a mess, so clear the area around it). Set aside.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Stir in the vanilla. Sift together the remaining flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the nut mixture. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about 2hrs.

3. Preheat the oven to 325F. I cut the dough into four quarters, then rolled each quarter between two sheets of wax paper until they were the thickness I wanted my cookies (it doesn't rise much in the oven). Cut into squares of desired size. The recipe said to not reroll scraps - I'm not sure why, but I just baked them as was and munched on them myself. Maybe that's why?

4. Put on baking sheet with a little space in between (they don't spread, so you don't need that much space in between). Bake at 325F until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Cool on wire rack; repeat for remaining dough.

Third Time's the Charm? Brownies #3

Adrienne's post on how brownies from scratch were always inferior to brownies from mix read to me like a challenge. So I started with a base recipe and started making adjustments, making sure to take careful notes after each batch. I also started making half-batches because y'know, trial brownies... Upon hearing my quest for the perfect brownie recipe, my friends started giving comments, which have helped a lot, so thanks guys! While I was making this batch, my roommate's boyfriend suggested I incorporate Nutella and hazelnuts into my next experiment - that suggestion was very well-received and will happen next time. I keep meaning to get walnuts to add as well, but I never get around to actually getting walnuts... Anyway, this batch was my third and I think the first one good enough to make a post about, so here we go.

Ingredients
2.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 tbsp butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
2.5oz dark chocolate, chips or chip-sized chunks
slightly under 1/2 cup flour

For the flour, I use the scoop-and-sweep method. Using a 1/2 cup measuring spoon, scoop out the flour, then sweep your hand across the top, brushing off the excess flour without packing the flour in. Someday I'll get a scale and actually measure flour correctly, but this method suffices for now. I then shook out a little of the flour, about 1 Tbsp, to make it just that little bit fudgier.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 8x8-inch baking pan.
2. Microwave chocolate and butter together until butter is melted (add 30 sec at a time so you don't overheat). Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar.
3. Let the mixture cool down a little, then stir in eggs and vanilla (the first time I did this, I think the chocolate mixture was still too warm and it looked like the eggs were cooking as soon as I stirred them in...). Sift in flour and salt and mix until just incorporated; don't overmix. Stir in chocolate chunks (or chips if you like). Scoop into prepared pan (the mixture was dry enough that I couldn't really pour it, but a spatula scooped it out well enough).
4. Bake at 350 for 25-30min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. Do not overbake - check it at 25min, and add time as needed.
5. Leave it in the pan to cool. I put a plate over the pan while cooling also; I don't know if that affected it at all. Makes about 16 brownies. :)

Chocolate Chip Coookies

In my opinion, you can't beat plain old Nestle TollHouse for chocolate chip cookies! I practically have the recipe memorized. In case you don't here it is -

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 large eggs
2 and 1/4 cups flour
1 12-oz package of chocolate chips

Directions: Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each egg. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Stir in chocolate chips, drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 9 to 11 minutes. Enjoy with a big glass of milk!

mmmmm chocolate chip cookies :)

A Homemade Brownie That's Better than a Mix?

I have a confession: until today, I had never made brownies from scratch. This might be surprising, considering how much I love to bake, but I honestly believe that brownies from the best mixes (coughGhirardellicough) are darn near perfect, and growing up brownies were the only baked good that it was "acceptable" to make from a mix. When my boyfriend and I first met, he was SO skeptical of my boxed brownie mixes, but he quickly became a convert.
However, today we wanted to make brownies and didn't have any box mixed on hand - but we did have all the other necessary baking ingredients, so I decided to see if I could find a homemade brownie recipe that would stand up to my beloved mixes.



We tried this recipe for Killer K-A brownies, and although the batter tasted AMAZING, the final result was pretty disappointing. The flavor was good, but the brownies came out a bit crumbly and cake-y, as opposed to the fudgy brownies that we love so much! (I wondered if they would, with 4 eggs in the recipe!) My bf's comment was "I don't hate them." (But he still ate a lot, ha!)





The conclusion was that these brownies are definitely not better than from-a-mix brownies. Maybe if I find a recipe that's supposed to be super fudgy, I'll give it a try again some day, but for now I think Ill stick to my boxes!

Cannolied Tuile

My work had a holiday potluck again for the Christmas holidays, and this time I decided to try my hand at tuiles. I was discussing fillings with OhmsAndFarads when one of us mentioned cannoli filling. She said I should do it, so I did. I even decided to fill them with multicolored filling for the holiday season. I don't think the tuile cookies were quite as crisp as I would've liked, but the filling was delicious. I also had extra tuile batter and not enough filling, so I bent some in decorative shapes and used it to decorate the plate.

Tuile
Ingredients
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sifted flour

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream the butter and sugar. Slowly add the egg whites and vanilla. Slowly add the flour. Cover and let sit in the fridge as you work in batches.
3. With a spatula, spread a thin layer of batter into a rectangle on a well buttered baking sheet. I made some about 1.5"x4", then I made some even smaller ones. Start out with 2-3 at a time until you get used to the process, then you can do more. Bake at 350F for about 5-8min, or until the edges start to brown.
4. Once out of the oven, work fast. Carefully peel the tuile off the baking sheet with a spatula and roll into a cylinder. Place the sealed side down on a cutting board and let cool - once it cools, it'll stiffen and stay.

Cannoli Filling
Ingredients (x3, one for each color or flavoring)
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1 Tbsp sugar
dash of vanilla extract (or other flavoring of choice - I suggest Kahlua)
1 drop food coloring of choice (optional)

1. Mix everything together. Put into pastry bag (or ziploc bag) and keep in fridge until ready to serve. Pipe into tuile cylinders just before serving.

Brownie Cups

My coworker brought brownies in little cupcake cups to our potluck the other day, but it didn't work out too well. The brownies were stuck to the paper liners, but I liked the idea of individual brownie pieces. Instead of the paper liners, I used puff pastries, and it worked out pretty well. I made it again to bring to my family's Thanksgiving dinner - the Chinese generation was very confused (some thought it was filled with red bean paste, others thought just pieces of chocolate), but all thought it looked and tasted good.

Ingredients
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
splash of vanilla extract
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 sheet puff pastry, thawed

1. Roll out puff pastry. Cut into 12 pieces and press into pre-greased mini muffin pan. Preheat over to 400F.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a microwave bowl for 30 sec. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and flour. Spoon evenly into puff pastry cups.
3. Bake for 18min, or until toothpick comes out clean.

I thought the brownie a little overly rich, but the puff pastry helped balance out a little of the sweet denseness.

Crepe Cake

I forget how I got the idea of making a crepe cake into my head, but once I did, it wouldn't leave until I found the perfect recipe and made it. And my perfect excuse? Why my coworkers' holiday potluck, of course.

I pretty much followed the recipe to the T. Except I reduced the amount of sugar in the batter to 6Tbsp. And I'll let you in on a little secret - I was incapable of making perfectly round crepes until the very last one, which I used as the top "layer." Instead, I made approximately half-circled crepes, then when layering them, rotated each layer by 1/3 of the circle. This made the cake kind of poof up in the middle, but I propped the edges up with a little extra cream filling, smoothed out the cream filling as thinly as possible in the middle, and all was well. I think I ended up making the cake too big in diameter though, so it looked flatter than I would have liked. Oh well. It tasted good; I'm considering making another one for Thanksgiving dessert this year.

Also, one last tip. For a realllllllly cold night like the ones we've been having? Standing over the stove making crepes warms you up very nicely, and you get to munch on crepe scraps from the "mishaps" you're bound to have along the way. ^_^

Halloween Cupcakes!

For Halloween, I planned to make cupcakes and decorate them as pumpkins. I made the cupcakes from a mix, and made an orange frosting using a simple recipe:
a box of confectioner's sugar, a stick of soft butter, 1/4 cup milk, and a teaspoon of vanilla. I colored it orange using red and yellow food coloring in about a 2:1 red:yellow ratio. I picked up green frosting & black gel from the grocery store, and planned to draw pumpkin tops and faces on the cupcakes...but it turns out my hand was not steady enough to draw pumpkin faces (when I tried they came out looking like a 5 year old drew them), so I just made green pumpkin tops, and wrote "Happy Halloween" on the cupcakes in black gel. They looked cute enough, but I don't think they were super tasty (although I may be biased, since I don't really like vanilla frosting).

Non-pie uses for Pumpkin

Pumpkin Biscotti
How could you not cook pumpkin between Halloween and Thanksgiving? With all the extra pumpkin we had, I also opted to make pumpkin biscotti, using Elise's recipe. I made the following substitutions:

1/2 cup brown sugar for the 1 cup sugar
1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger
no vanilla extract because I didn't have any

I also extended the baking time, because the biscotti came out still moist/chewy, but it was really good with the pumpkin jam that will be featured in the next recipe. :)

Pumpkin Bread
My friends are oddballs and had a potluck dinner for Halloween. I decided to make pumpkin bread, using Elise's recipe. The only difference was that I used 1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice instead of the individual spices, because I'm lazy like that. It came out pretty well. :)

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This is a great chocolate chip banana bread recipe that I made recently. The bread is very moist and dense, so even a tiny square is filling. This recipe also has a LOT of chocolate chips, so its great if you're a chocoholic like me, or if you're planning to eat this for dessert instead of breakfast.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

4 overripe bananas, mashed

1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

dash of salt

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1 and 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Directions: Mix together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and milk, and then the mashed bananas. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Stir in about a cup of the chocolate chips. Transfer the mixture to a lightly greased loaf pan (if you don't have that, a brownie pan works just as well). Top with remaining chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Blondies!

In general, I prefer chocolate chip cookies to blondies, but this recipe looked yummy and I was feeling like switching things up, so I tried it out the other night.

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Mix butter and sugars in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in egg & vanilla. Add flour and salt, stir until moistened. Add half the chocolate chips. Spread evenly in a greased 8x8 pan, add remaining chocolate chips on top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes 16.


Very easy and very tasty!