Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Matt had a Thanksgiving potluck at work today - he signed up to bring cupcakes.  So we decided I would make the recipe from Carol and Tim's wedding cake.

I made one batch of the cake batter recipe and ended up with 35 large cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes!! I guess I could have halved the recipe!

I made a double batch of the filling recipe and had only a little bit  left over, which is perfect because I will be making a half batch of cupcakes to take to my grandparents on Thursday.

The cupcakes only took about 12 mins to cook (about 9 for the minis.)

I just piped the icing on in a swirl. I should have let the icing chill in the fridge for a few mins, but I didn't so the swirl sort of blended together. But they still tasted yummy!

This recipe has become a favorite of mine. :-D

(sorry no pics - I left the camera in the car for this one and didn't want to get my cell phone all messy- See cake post for pics :-D)

Harry Potter Butterbeer

Remember on my birthday I made a list of recipes I wanted to try? No, ok check it out here.
One of those things was Harry Potter Butterbeer.
I am a big HP fan, and typically see the new movies on opening weekend (even a couple midnight showings.) When I heard that they were opening a whole area of Universal Island of Adventure that would be devoted to HP, I couldn’t wait to get to FL (still waiting- but hopefully soon.)
This drink is very popular in the park, makes sense since it is one of the drinks the wizards drink at the 3 broomsticks pub.
This was very good, sweet with a sort of butterscotch taste to it.
I found the recipe from Noble Pig. I pretty much followed her recipe exactly.
[Printable Recipe]
Ingredients:
For butterbeer:
1c. packed light brown sugar
2 Tbsp. water
6 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. heavy whipping cream
4 12 oz. bottle root beer
For whipped cream:
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
Directions:
Combine brown sugar and water and bring to a boil.

Cook until reaches 240 degrees.

Add butter, salt, vinegar and cream.

Stir until combined and butter is melted.
Let cool to room temp.
With mixer, whip cream and brown sugar for about 3 minutes until thick.
 
To assemble:
Put sauce in bottom of the glass (I put a little less than 1/4 c.- next time I might use more because Matt said the root beer flavor was pretty strong)

Add 1/4c. root beer and stir to combine. The sauce is thick so stir well.

Then fill glass with remaining root beer.

Spoon a bit of whipped topping on it and serve.


This was really good. I liked it a lot. Saving the extra syrup so I can make more later this week. I think that adding a little rum to this would be good too. After all in the movie those who drink butterbeer get a little tipsy! :-D

And now I am ready to go see Harry Potter 7!

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Dip

I made this recipe to take to a Halloween party. I figured I could call it lizard eyes or something.

I adapted this from The Sweets Life

[Printable Recipe]

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese – softened

1/2 c. butter – softened

3/4 c. powdered sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

3/4 c. mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Beat cream cheese and butter together until fluffy.

Add powdered sugar and brown sugar

Add vanilla

Stir in Chocolate chips

Cover and refrigerate for about an hour

Place on piece of plastic wrap and shape into a ball.

(you can’t tell, but this is on plastic wrap)

Refrigerate for another hour.

Serve with Graham crackers and vanilla wafers.

My skills at shaping this into a ball were lacking. It might have been because I didn’t let it set up in the fridge long enough, but it was basically just a blob of yummy goodness. We served it with a spoon to dip it out. So good! So good with the vanilla wafers.

 

This is a new must make for a party.

Recipes for Carol and Tim’s Cake

The cake was Pumpkin Spice cake – recipe adapted from Brown Eyed Baker
The filling was Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing – recipe adapted from Gimme Some Oven
The Icing was Buttercream icing – Recipe adapted from Wilton. ( taken from the book from my cake decorating class)

Cake recipe
[Printable Recipe]
Ingredients:
4 c. cake flour ( I made my own – I will explain in another post – but you can use store store bought too)
1 tsp baking soda
1Tbsp + 1tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon (my teaspoons were not level – but not exactly heaping – I just was generous with the cinnamon)
1 Tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg (I didn’t use fresh grated- I used from the jar)
1/4 tsp cloves
2 sticks butter – room temp
2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
1 c. buttermilk
1 and 1/2 c. canned pumpkin puree (generous with this measurement too)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices – I sifted twice.
In mixer on med- cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy.
Add in eggs one at a time making sure each are incorporated and scrape sides in between each one.
Reduce to low (make sure you do this – oops)
Add flour mixture alternating with buttermilk. (Three batches of flour and two of milk – start and end with flour mixture)
Beat until combined.
Add pumpkin and beat until combined.
Pour into a cake pan (I used wilton’s cake release, but you could just butter and flour your pan)
Bake for 25-35 mins.
(a 10” cake took about 32 mins , 8” – 30mins, 6” –27 mins and the 11x14 sheet cake was 34 mins)
Let cool on rack completely before icing and filling.

Filling Recipe
[Printable Recipe]
**I made this recipe as the icing for the cake when I made the tester cupcakes**
Ingredients:
8oz cream cheese – room temp
4 Tbsp butter – room temp
1 lb powdered sugar (more to taste)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon (generous tsp)

Directions:
In mixer mix together cream cheese, butter and vanilla.
Slowly add powdered sugar until all incorporated.
Add cinnamon.
Add more powdered sugar if needed (I prefer it more sweet- I put a few Tbsp extra in)
Refrigerate until ready to use. Let come back to room temp before using.

Buttercream Recipe
[Printable Recipe]
Ingredients:
1 c. white vegetable shortening (crisco)
1/4 tsp vanilla flavor (use clear vanilla extract if want white icing)
1/2 tsp butter flavor
2 Tbsp water
1 lb powdered sugar – sifted
1 Tbsp –Wilton Meringue Powder
pinch of salt
Directions:
In mixer cream shortening, flavors and water. Sift sugar and meringue powder together. Slowly add to the mixture. Add water until you get desired consistency.

The cake and cream cheese icing make really yummy cupcakes – just throwing that out there!!

Mini Oreo No Bake Cheesecake

Remember MONTHS ago when I was given 4 mini spring form pans to review?  Here
Anyway I received them,
and then got really busy but I kept my eyes out for someone to post the perfect cheesecake recipe.
Luckily for me, Naomi at  Bakers Royale did just that. 
I love cheesecake, but unfortunately for my waistline, Matt does not. I didn’t have anyone in this house to help me eat all these. So I gave them to my boss, and she shared them with her family for the weekend.
The cheesecake recipe is adapted from Bakers Royale and the crust recipe is adapted from Real-Restaurant-Recipes.com


[Printable Recipe]
Ingredients:
Crust:
2 1/4 c. crushed Oreos cookie crumbs
1/2 stick butter
Filling:
2 1/4 c. heavy cream
1 lb cream cheese
2/3 c. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Oreo cookies crushed.
Directions:
Make cookie crumbs in the food processor

Check out the 70’s beauty my mom gave me! One day I will upgrade to a kitchen aid processor. One day.
Combine cookie crumbs with butter and stir
Press into the bottoms of pans going up the sides a little

Refrigerate the crust for an hour
Beat heavy cream until medium peaks form and then set aside.

Add cream cheese (softened), sugar, salt, vanilla and lemon juice and beat until smooth

Add to heavy cream and mix until incorporated

Gently fold in Oreo cookies

Fill pan with filling and refrigerated overnight.

Remove from spring form pan and serve. I would have served with whip cream and Oreos on top had I been serving them to someone other than myself.

These were so easy and fail proof! You have to make them. You can also make it in a 9inch pan if you want one large cheesecake.

Mom's Cherry Dump Cake

This is straight from my mom's recipe box, but I know there are plenty of variations on the Internet.

I made this for the 4th of July party we went to. It was a pretty big hit, heard lots of good things floating around about it. There was even a little left for me to snack on Monday night watching the Bachelorette.

I love it warm and I always heat up my leftovers. Matt likes it straight out of the fridge, to each their own I guess.

Mom's Cherry Dump Cake

[Printable Recipe]

Ingredients:
1 20oz can cherry pie filling
1 20oz can crushed pineapple (undrained)
1 box yellow cake mix
1 1/2 - 2 sticks butter, melted

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Now do just what the title says, dump everything in a 9 x 13 pan.

First the pineapple, spread out evenly

Then the cherry pie filling (my mom uses 1 and a half cans of filling for more cherries - I liked the pineapple/cherry ratio with just one)

Cover with dry cake mix. Try to get as even as possible.

Cover cake mix with butter. I used a silicone pastry brush to make sure there was no dry cake mix left.

Bake for 45-1 hour until bubbly and brown. Make sure you watch the color the last 15 mins. My oven took 50 mins to get a nice crust.

There are so many variations I want to try. Next time my brother comes home I am making it with blueberry pie filling. I have heard of people topping the cake and butter with pecans. That would be goo too!

This is so easy to toss together and take with you to a party or pot luck.

***Edited to tell you not to drain the pineapple - I had someone call and ask and I totally didn't realize I didn't put it on the recipe! I am sorry!!!*****

Passover Recipe Round 2 – Matzo Brittle

This stuff is like crack. I couldn’t stop munching on it, neither could the mom’s at playgroup, or my boss. (I made a lot, and then someone else brought some too- so I brought A LOT home)
This stuff is so good, and so easy to make. This could be made anytime of the year I think and it would still be good. I think saltines could be substituted for Matzo and it would be just fine. Matzo is basically like a saltine cracker.
I got this recipe from Nosh With Me
Matzo Brittle


[Printable Recipe]

Ingredients:
Matzo (also spelled Matzah)
2 sticks of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 small bag chocolate chips
chopped pecans (optional)

Directions:
Line a cookie sheet with foil ( I used a disposable foil cookie sheet and I am glad I did)
Line cookie sheet with matzo, breaking them so they fit

Melt butter and add brown sugar, bring to a boil.


Pour over matzo

Bake at 375 degrees for 7 mins.
Take out and cover with chocolate chips

Put it back in for another min or 2 to help melt the chocolate
Spread the melted chocolate out even (add chopped nuts if you are going to use them)
 
Put in fridge and chill.

Break apart and eat.


SO GOOD. Try it!

Passover goodies round 1

Oh blog, how I have missed you so. I have so much to tell you, it will be so hard to break it up into smaller posts. But I will, because no one will read past this paragraph if I don’t. I have 2 YUMMY Kosher for Passover desserts to share with you. I also want to share my trip to NYC with you, but only the important parts, the food :-D. I also need to teach you how to make the best ice cream ever. OK see, my mind is going to explode with things that need to be blogged. So here I go.
So we were invited to a 1st night Seder, and it was potluck, so I signed up for dessert of course. Then I realized, Passover needs to be a special recipe. Not being Jewish, I was nervous I would screw it up and I knew most people there would be keeping kosher.  So I searched the internet for a recipe, and I would follow it perfectly, so I didn’t screw anything up.
I still hadn’t decided on anything until we were on the bus to NYC and I was catching up with my Google Reader. Smitten Kitchen posted a blog with a recipe for hazelnut thumbprint cookies filled with chocolate. I starred it, I found my recipe.
These did not disappoint.

Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies
from Smitten Kitchen

[Printable Recipe]

Ingredients:
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and cooled, skin removed
2/3 c. sugar
2/3 c. Matzo cake meal 

1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter melted and cooled slightly
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
chocolate wafers


Directions:
Put Hazelnuts, sugar, cake meal and salt into your mom’s hideous 80’s food processor and pulse until finely ground.
 

Transfer to bowl and add butter, egg and vanilla, combine.

Chill dough (I chilled for about an hour the recipe called for 30 mins)

Roll 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet (I lined with parchment paper to make the process easier and clean up simple)

Press a wafer into the middle of the ball, flattening the balls (they will crack, you can leave them or try to shape them a little)

Bake for 14 mins at 350 degrees.


These cookies were amazing. I wasn’t used to the fact that they don’t spread out like other cookies. They took a little longer to cook for me than the recipe said. These tasted almost exactly like Ferrero Rocher yummies.
There is a flour version of the recipe at smitten kitchen.
You have to try these. Seriously.