Things I made

Black-bottom cupcakes with cheesecake filling. 

http://www.joyofbaking.com/BlackBottomCupcakes.html

Peach crisp. 

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/peach-crisp-iii/detail.aspx

I looooove cooked fruit, because it's the only time I can really eat fruit. This crisp was pretty tart, though. I'd add more sugar next time. Don't judge...

And this is my dog. I love him.

(Cake) Balls in your mouth

Let's just get this out of the way:

"Mmmm... I love these balls in my mouth!" - My brother Max.

Yes, cake balls do lend themselves to some pretty excellent 17-year-old boy jokes. BUT, as much as I enjoy these cake balls in my mouth, I'd like to expound the pleasures of forming these balls with your hands and dripping chocolate over them, too.

Ok, now I'm really done.

CAKE BALLS! CAKE! BALLS! YES! These are seriously the cutest damn things. And also pretty easy to make. Here's the basic formula:

Bake a cake.
Crumble the cake into a bowl.
Scoop a can of frosting into the bowl.
Mush it all together.
Form it into balls.
Cover it with melted chocolate.

Yes! Folks, it is just that easy! Here's a more detailed procedure:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/10/cake-balls-halloween-style/

I made these for Sam's lacrosse team, so I went with the kid-friendly combo of Funfetti cake and cream cheese frosting.

 If you don't want to stick your face right into that bowl, I'm not quite sure we can relate.

They kind of look like rainbow meatballs...

Pink ones!

White ones!

The best part is, you can make them with any flavor of cake and any frosting. The ones I made were crazy sweet and sugary. Not that I'm complaining. Nobody wants sour balls in their mouth.

It's Good to Be a Jew

When I was growing up in Maryland, we'd frequent Jewish bakeries and pick up some Jew treats. Half-and-half cookies, chewy fresh-baked bagels, and my favorite - rugelach. (For all you goys out there, google "rugelach" - I definitely don't want the pictures below to be your first introduction to a generally tidy-looking pastry.)

In Colorado and Utah, there seems to be a lack of Jewish delis around. Who knew? We've had to resort to Costco rugelach in our desperation. (Actually, Costco does rugelach pretty damn well. And apparently the sushi restaurants in Utah buy their salmon from Costco, too. And half of my mom's wardrobe is from Costco. Cheap and chic!)

So when my mom saw the Barefoot Contessa making rugelach, she decided we could do it, too.

Look at this classy lady chopping tomatoes in a denim shirt (from Costco, probably.) How could I compete with that?

So here's the link to the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/rugelach-recipe/index.html

I found that it's easier to roll the dough if you leave a little naked circle at the center of the flattened dough. Unlike the picture below.

Aww. It's a little pizza-lach.

Of  course, we had to make Nutella rugelach. It's like Jew-squared. 

 So this is where things go a little awry. Because I am not, in fact, a classy lady chopping tomatoes in a denim shirt.

The rugelach kind of... leaked a little bit. I think I didn't wrap them tight enough, so I'm going to try that next time.

They're more like rugged-lach.

You can choose whatever fillings you want. We took out the nuts for anaphylactic reasons, and we swapped the apricot preserves for raspberry preserves for a batch. Make sure you cook them until they're pretty golden brown - my first batch was a little mushy because I was afraid of burning them. Not like I've ever burnt a baked good. Ha. 

So they turned out pretty nicely, and tasted crazy good. Perhaps as good as the deli-made ones back in Maryland! Or maybe I'm just flattering myself.

Nutella Cupcakes

So I'm home for the summer, and we all know what that means -- time to bake.

Max and Sam had a bunch of friends over tonight, so I decided to make cupcakes. We have 2 Costco-size tubs of Nutella in the house, so I looked up a recipe for Nutella cupcakes, and they were so delicious!

First, we tried them without any frosting. They were a little dry, so I decided to whip up the Nutella buttercream part of the recipe. Max's friends loved the frosting - maybe because I handed them the entire bowl and a bunch of spoons after I was done frosting the cupcakes. What? It's how I was brought up. If your cooking experience doesn't include some kind of salmonella-on-a-spoon, you're missing out. 

Also, the only people who contract dangerous salmonella infections are very young or very old. Trust me. I'm a Bio major. So unless you're an avid 8-month-old consumer of this blog, grab the spoon and lick away.

ANYWAY, here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

For cupcake
10 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups sifted flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
12 tsp Nutella

For nutella buttercream
1 stick (1/2 cup) of unsalted butter, softened
4 cups confectioners sugar (or more to taste)
1/4 cup whole milk or half-and-half
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup of Nutella (or more to taste), softened

Preheat oven to 325F. Prepare cupcake pan with liners.

To make cupcake—
Cream together butter and sugar until light, about 2 minutes. Add in eggs on at a time, until fully incorporated. The batter may not look smooth, this is fine. Add vanilla.

Stir in flour, salt, and baking powder until batter is smooth and all flour is blended. Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin liner with batter. Cups should be 3/4 full if you’re not using a scoop.

Top each cake with about 1 tsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, folding a little batter up and over the Nutella as well.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove to wire rack and allow to cool before frosting.

To make buttercream—
In your stand mixer with flat beater, cream butter. Add 3 cups of the confectioners sugar, then milk and vanilla and beat until the mixture is smooth, about 3-4 minutes.

Add the remaining confectioners sugar, beating about 1-2 minutes. (You can add more sugar to get a thicker consistency if you want.)

In a microwave safe bowl, soften the Nutella until it has a spreadable consistency, about 15-20 secs.

Add the softened Nutella to your buttercream and fold into the frosting until well blended.

I copied the recipe from the I Heart Cuppycakes blog because there are some superflous Halloween pictures of baby Yodas and "Greaser Halloween 2005" that you might want to forgo. (Ok, ok -- If you really want to see Jedi toddlers : http://iheartcuppycakes.com/2008/10/31/vanilla-nutella-swirl-cupcakes/) 

The part when I cheat

It's not easy to make cupcakes in college. I don't have the ample stores of flour, sugar, butter and eggs that are so plentiful at home. So when I was asked to make a couple dozen cupcakes for a bake sale, I copped out. I cheated. I made these Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Cups:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/peanut-butter-brownie-cupcakes-recipe/index.html

All you have to do is make boxed brownie batter, pour it in cupcake tins, stick a mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in the middle, and bake the whole thing. Almost TOO easy. But man, were they delicious!

AWWW YEAH.

I wanted to make them prettier, so I tried melting a peanut butter cup and drizzling it across the top, but it looked like a weird lumpy gross thing. I yearned for the amply-stocked kitchen of Park City; I'm sure I could have melted peanut butter chips or even chocolate chips for a pretty little drizzle. A drizzle, for shizzle. But that's for another day. 

For the second flavor, I made the Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Granola frosting. I also made a huge flour disaster mess. The bowl was too small -- don't blame me! I cheated on these ones too -- I bought cream cheese frosting from the store. I didn't realize just how different store-bought frosting tastes, though. It's definitely not as good as the homemade kind, but I was not willing to sacrifice an entire wing of the dorm in a poisonous cloud of powdered sugar that exploded from a too-small bowl. (If I were to actually die that way, though... what a way to go!)

I made SO MANY CUPCAKES! And they turned out so well. Great success. And they all sold at the bake sale!

Cupcakes in the Springs

This past weekend, I decided to go on a cupcake hunt in the Springs. I wasn't sure there would be any shops in this relatively po-dunk town, but a Google search came up with like four places! Happy times! I decided to go to Couture Cupcakes because they had a cool website and lots of flavors. The shop is about 20 minutes away, but paired with a dinner at Olive Garden, it's totally worth it.

The shop itself is kind of strange -- they're either going through a remodel or shutting down. There's plaster everywhere, and I think I saw a bit of insulation. Not exactly hygienic. (I am my mother's daughter, after all.) I decided to brave the asbestos threat and chose three cupcakes - as seen below.

Lemon blueberry, chocolate peanut butter cup, and cinnamon roll.

To tell the truth, I was underwhelmed. Perhaps I'm actually becoming a cupcake snob, but these didn't taste fresh or homemade. The frosting was too sweet and tasted like it came out of a can, and the cake was dry and kind of bland. To sum it up, there was no love in these cupcakes.

We still ate every bite anyways, of course. Are you kidding?

Moral of the story -- I like my cupcakes the BEST! Except when they boil and collapse and go down in flames (metaphorically. no real incendiary incidents yet.) But other than that, it's yummier - and more cost-effective - to just make them myself.

~Hannah

Cupcakes for Breakfast

Some people may flinch at the concept of cupcakes for breakfast. But no, not me. These cupcakes are really easy to make and aren't super sweet. (I needed a break from those triple cookie dough cupcakes!) Also they have two whole bananas in the batter - very healthy. Basically, these cupcakes are the Power Bars of cupcakes. I think I lost weight after eating one.

ANYWAY here's the recipe:

Easy Banana Cupcakes with Vanilla Cinnamon Granola Cream Cheese Frosting

http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2007/10/easy-banana-cupcakes-with-vanilla.html

The frosting is unbelievable -- I love the granola in it! It's pretty much the same base as the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting on the pumpkin cupcakes I made a few weeks ago. Equally delicious. I'm a granola-head... what can I say?

I didn't end up using the 4 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting (because cupcakes are all about moderation, really.) I used about 2 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of blueberry-apple granola. Oh yeah. Blueberry-apple. Kickin' it up a notch. BAM!

Here's a pic:

Mmm crunchy bananarama! Bonanza! Go bananas! In pajamas!

Not my proudest frosting moment. My sexy sous-chef handled the granola-ey goodness a little better, as seen in the cupcake on the right:

They stuck to the pan a little bit, but perhaps that was because dorm pans aren't exactly from the Williams-Sonoma 2011 Titanium Superchef line. 

And then I nommed on these cupcakes and life was good.

~Hannah