A Bit of Spring!

Not only do I have one office mate that doesn't like chocolate but I have two! Seriously, people what is going on! I wanted find something that was delicious and outside of the norm (aka not vanilla cupcake with white frosting), also a great spring cupcake would also be perfect since the weather has definitely not been springy in DC! Well this is the perfect cupcake! People thought that these were professionally made, huge compliment in a city that has cupcake shops everywhere and even on wheels! People are also easily impressed with the fact that these are made with real strawberries (the recipe calls to strain them my strainer didn't work the greatest so the second time I didn't strain.) I used my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe, this cupcake recipe only makes 15 cupcakes so you only need half the frosting recipe(the halved recipes is in parenthesis.)





Real Strawberry Cupcakes(Source: All Recipes)


INGREDIENTS:

8 large fresh strawberries, or as needed
2 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons instant vanilla pudding mix (optional)(I use this)
1 drop red food coloring, or as needed (optional)(they come out light pink without it)

DIRECTIONS:

- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Spray cupcake cups with cooking spray, or line with cupcake liners.

- Place 8 strawberries into a blender, and blend until smooth. Pour the puree through a strainer to remove seeds (I strained the first time not the second). Puree should equal about 3/4 cup. Set the puree aside.

- In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, white sugar, vegetable oil, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, lemon zest, and strawberry puree until well combined. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla pudding mix (for a moister cupcake), and red food coloring to reach a desired shade of pink. Spoon the batter into the prepared cupcake cups, filling each about 2/3 full.

- Bake in the preheated oven until the cupcakes have risen and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 23 minutes. Allow the cupcakes to cool at least 10 minutes before frosting.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
INGREDIENTS:

1/2c. of unsalted butter (softened) (1/4 c)
2- 8oz. packs of cream cheese (softened) (1 - 8oz)
3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar (1 3/4 C)
1 tbsp of vanilla extract (1/2 Tbsp)

DIRECTIONS:

- Cream the butter and cream cheese together and then add the powedered sugar and vanilla.

Chocolatey Caramel Love!

I do not know how I never blogged about these brownies, they are amazing! They are delicious and one of the biggest crowd pleasers o and easy (easy is the key for me!!). I know they take a lot of steps but so worth it. Love these so much. I unwrap the caramels when they are in the oven for the first time. Enjoy these!




CHOCOLATE CARAMEL BROWNIES

INGREDIENTS

1 pkg (18.25 oz.) chocolate cake mix
1 cup chopped nuts (I've never included the nuts...it's your preference)
1 cup Carnation evaporated milk, divided
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or magarine, melted
35 (10-oz pkg) caramels, unwrapped (I would recommend 40-50 (around 12oz)
2 cups (12-oz pkg) semi-sweet chocolate morsels

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat: oven to 350° F.
Combine: cake mix and nuts in large bowl. Stir in 2/3 cup evaporated milk and butter (batter will be thick). Spread half of batter into ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
Bake: 15 minutes. ( I normally do for 13-14 minutes)
Heat : caramels and remaining 1/3 cup evaporated milk in small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until caramels are melted. Sprinkle morsels over brownie; drizzle with caramel mixture.
Drop: remaining batter by heaping teaspoon over caramel mixture.
Bake: 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. Cool in pan on wire rack.

BACK............AGAIN!!!

WOW!!! It has been forever since I have blogged and instead of throwing my hands up and saying I am done I have decided to come back to blogging. Since I have been back from Japan I have moved and redone my kitchen, I love all my new space and it is such a huge difference from my little galley kitchen!


So here it is what I have been doing:

THE KITCHEN:


Old Kitchen


New Kitchen

A FRIEND'S BABY SHOWER:
She didn't know what she was having so I made her favorite Red Velvet Cupcakes and made the frosting both pink and blue. I also made regular size and mini cupcakes. They were a big hit! I had sugar booties, duckies, and flowers to put on each one.

We did candy jars as favors:

BIRTHDAY CUPCAKES:
My officemate is not a chocolate fan so I made my lemon cupcakes and lemon frosting for his birthday. This time I let them cook longer and they came out delicious. In the earlier recipe I said to halve the cream cheese frosting so below is the halved recipe (enough for one batch of cupcakes). Sorry for the bad picture, they were the last cupcakes left!

LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
Source: Allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

- 1/2 of an 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
- 1/8 cup butter
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, lemon rind, and vanilla together until smooth and fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar in 2 additions. Beat until creamy. Add more icing sugar or juice as needed for easy spreading.

COOKIE DOUGH + CUPCAKE = WOW

My officemate loves cookie dough not cookies but cookie dough. For my birthday she made me one huge cookie and undercooked it since she loves the cookie dough taste. So for her birthday I decided I had to do something involving cookies and my usual cupcakes. I just got back from 5 months in Japan so my officemates were salivating/demanding my chocolate peanut butter cupcakes but I told them it was time to expand our horizons and boy were they happy to! These were a huge hit and were excellent! I made the cookie dough the nite before and left them in the freezer until the next nite. I don't usually like using box cake but I figured there was enough "homemade" stuff that it was okay. I used tried and true chocolate frosting!

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH CUPCAKE

(Source: allrecipes.com)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

1 (18.25 ounce) box yellow cake mix
1 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup canola oil
3 eggs


DIRECTIONS:

- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and sea salt; set aside. Beat the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add 1 egg and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Form the dough into tablespoon-sized balls; place onto a baking sheet, and freeze until solid, about 2 hours.

- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

- Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer to break up. Add the cake mix, water, and canola oil; continue beating for 2 minutes on medium speed. Spoon into the prepared cupcake liners, filling each 2/3 full. Place a frozen cookie dough ball on the top center of each cupcake.

- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion of the cupcake (not the cookie dough ball) comes clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.


CREAMY CHOCOLATE FROSTING

(Source: allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

2 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons evaporated milk (I used regular milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

- In a medium bowl, sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa, and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with evaporated milk. Blend in vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk or sugar. ( I used more milk)

An Excuse and Travel Food!

Okay so I have been an AWFUL baking blogger lately, okay for awhile. It is a two part excuse, one part I have no idea maybe I haevn't been baking as much maybe I am lazy?!?!! The other part of the excuse is real......I was in Japan for almost 5 months and while I was there I baked a little (mostly old favorites) and I promise I will blog about the new recipes soon. But I was also doing a blog for my family and friends about my travel and that just took a longggggggggggg time. Now that blog is done, so is my trip, so maybe I can concentrate on this blog again!

Here is a food post from my travel blog.


Seriously why has it taken me so long to do this post. Unfortunately, not all the food I love is featured here but needed to show a few things. I will be honest and say that I have packed on a few pounds since I have been here; actually, every time I have lived abroad I have gained weight and I think that is because of being a vegetarian and compensating with carbs. Being a vegetarian can be hard, think about it if you aren’t eating meat what are you eating when you travel? In the states I have the lovely Whole Foods (or Whole Paycheck as my dad calls it) but I always have difficulty outside of my comfort zone. Now this is where I could get extremely frustrated because my pants just don’t fit but I recently read something in a magazine that put it all in perspective (parphrased) “Instead of worrying about those last 5 pounds think about all the fun you had and the great food you ate to gain those 5 pounds.”

In Kyoto - I had some fantastic pees that were in this crunchy dough and some fantabolous dried fruit, seriously dried kiwi and strawberries!

OMG the fruit in Japan is HUGE! This asian pear was the size of my head, their peaches are the same way. The really cool thing is that they are sold with a foam protector.

On my last day of work in Sasebo Kaori bought me this awesome mini cake (even had its own ice pack with it!)

When I was in Korea Ryan and Holly introduced me to Tom n Toms Coffee, it is a Korean chain and o.......m...........g.............. this might be better than Starbucks! I know blasphemy but they have these pretzels that are made to order and the one below was sweet potatoe and cheese - I am salivating just thinking about it!

One nite when we were going back to the hotel Ryan, Holly, and I decided to stop and get a snack. Well I saw this ice cream that was "Sweet Corn" and I just couldn't say no because I was so intrigued. It tasted just like frozen sweet corn but honestly, I could not decided if I loved it or hated it and Holly was the same way. We both kept taking a bite and going hmmmmmmmmmmm not sure let me try it again!

When life gives you lemons.........

I have been so busy in Japan but when I first got here I was invited to my coworker's house for dinner. I have limited baking stuff here (no mixer!) but still seem to be doing just fine. It is super hot here in Japan but I will take it because that means it is not currently raining!!!! I decided to try something different and went with Lemon Bars. They were really good my one thing would be to decrease the cooking time. I did 15 minutes for the crust and they were still pale but it was good enough!


LEMON PIE BARS
(Source: allrecipes)

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice (I used the lemon juice in the bottle)
1 tablespoon lemon zest

DIRECTIONS:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Mix 2 cups of flour and confectioner's sugar together. Cut in the butter or margarine. Mix well until the dough resembles pie dough consistency.
- Press the dough into a 9x13 inch baking pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. (I baked for 15 minutes and it was still pale)
- Beat together eggs, sugar, 4 tablespoons flour, lemon juice and lemon rind for at least 1 minute. Pour the mixture over the baked crust.
- Bake the bars another 20 minutes, or until the lemon topping has set.
- Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar when cooled.

A little bit out of the comfort zone...........

Wow let's talk about being MIA.........the past few months have been absolutely crazy. I am actually living in Japan right now, I moved here in the beginning of May and will be here until the end of September. I am living and working on a military base and so we had a potluck at work for the 4th of July. They decided to center the meal around KFC chicken and as we all know I don't cook! I am always the dessert lady; however, those options were already taken so what was a girl to do! I decided to make a salad and biscuits. They both came out excellent and I even put the leftover biscuits in the freezer. Delicious!

The biscuit recipe says it makes 8; I doubled the recipe and definitely got more then 16 but I also don't think I made them as big as the recipe calls for. Don't forget you can always freeze them and defrost them later because they are absolutely amazing warm!

The nite before the potluck, I got all of the ingredients for the salad ready but then prepared it right before the potluck at my desk. Therefore, I was stuck with my bowl and so I probably didn't make it to all of the measurements listed but it is a salad so you don't really need to follow a recipe - I just liked having one to have some guidelines.



CHEDDAR BISCUITS:

(Source: allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups biscuit baking mix
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons margarine, melted
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic salt

DIRECTIONS:

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease a cookie sheet, or line with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, combine baking mix, Cheddar cheese, and garlic powder. Stir in milk. Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.
- Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Brush biscuits with melted margarine, and sprinkle with parsley and garlic salt. Bake for 5 more minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom. (I am getting used to a new oven so I subtracted about 1 minute from each of the times).





BEAUTIFUL SALAD:
(Source: allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

8 cups baby spinach leaves(I used 1 bag of spinach and 1 bag of 50/50 leaf mix)
1/2 medium red onion, sliced and separated into rings
1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained (I think I might have used a can and half)
1 1/2 cups sweetened dried cranberries (I used craisins)
1 cup honey-roasted sliced almonds
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing, or to taste (I put it on the side)

DIRECTIONS:

- Put the leaves in a bowl and sprinkle a little bit of all the ingredients, while carefully tossing, and just keep mixing everything in. Beware, the almonds and cranberries will go straight to the bottom of the bowl!