Maraschino Cherry Cupcakes

Last month two friends of mine had a birthday on the same day. One got cupcakes...

and the other got a cake. 

They both had the same frosting but were different cakes. Today I'm blogging about the cupcakes. The cupcake is adapted from Lizzy Early over at Your Cup of Cake. 

Maraschino Cherry Cupcakes

1 box white cake mix, sifted

3 eggs

1/3 cup oil

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp almond emulsion (or extract if you don't have emulsion)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 small jar (10 oz) maraschino cherries, drained and chopped (reserve the cherry juice for the frosting)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with wrappers. Mix together the eggs, oil, buttermilk, and emulsion, then add the sifted cake mix and beat for a minute. Fill liners 3/4 full of batter and bake for 17-22 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean. 

Cherry Frosting

1 cup butter, softened

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 tsp almond emulsion (or extract)

1 tsp grenadine syrup

1 T maraschino cherry juice

5 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter and cream cheese together for 3-5 minutes. Add almond emulsion, grenadine syrup and cherry juice. Stir to combine. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Beat on medium-low speed for 10 minutes. Frost cooled cupcakes and top with sprinkles and a stemmed cherry if desired. 

I'm going to make these again but next time I will make them chocolate cherry cupcakes by filling them with a chocolate ganache in the center of the cupcake after they are baked. Then I will top them with chocolate curls and a chocolate dipped cherry. Can't wait to see how those turn out! 

*Update-I couldn't wait. I made these today and added chocolate ganache to the center of the cupcake, but didn't have time to add the chocolate curls so I just used some very slim Jimmies and topped it with the chocolate cherry. Lovely! 

The Bread of Life

Laura has asked that we start eating more "from scratch" food, so I whipped out my wheat grinder and my Blendtec mixer and got busy on some bread. I wanted to try a recipe from Six Sisters and I was glad I did! This was really good bread. It doesn't look or taste like what you think of when you hear "whole wheat." This is light and chewy and yummy, and hard to not slice off just one more piece! 

The recipe comes from here.

I changed a couple of things though. I used 12 cups of freshly ground whole wheat flour and then finished it up with about 3 cups of all-purpose flour, mostly because my wheat grinder tops out at 12 cups of flour per cycle and I don't want to have to grind a little more wheat to finish up the dough! I stop adding flour when the dough in the machine pulls away from the sides like they explain over at Six Sisters. If you don't have a machine to knead your dough for you, you want to stop adding flour when the bread is still a little sticky, but not overly sticky. I know that's hard to determine when you haven't done it before, but you are all smart people out there and I am confident you can figure it out! Or go buy a machine, which is what I did after watching a friend of mine make bread a few years ago!

The second thing I changed was I let my dough rise once in the bowl before shaping into loaves and letting them have a second shorter rise in the pans. I use 1 1/2 pounds of dough in my slightly smaller bread pans and 2 pounds of dough in my larger bread pan. It bakes at 350°F for about 30 minutes (or until it reaches 195°F on an instant read thermometer. I haven't made six loaves of bread yet from a single recipe (I've made this recipe twice in two days!) because yesterday we made what we call "Hot Spots" (dough wrapped around ham, cheese, broccoli and sometimes red pepper and bake them for about 20 minutes) and today we made hamburger buns with some of the dough. This is now my favorite bread recipe and I hope you'll try it to see if it will be your favorite one too!  

Pound Cake

I know I haven't been blogging lately, but was surprised to see exactly HOW LONG it's been since my last post- six weeks and a day! That's terrible. To make up for it, I'm sharing the best pound cake I've ever had, so get ready for deliciousness!

This recipe comes from my daughter's mother-in-law. I don't know where she got it, but we're glad she has got it!

I didn't have any strawberries because these were the last two pieces of the cake, and the strawberries had been devoured when we enjoyed the rest of the cake the day before. 

Pound Cake (from Laura's mother-in-law)

1 cup shortening (I may play with changing part of this to butter because, well...it's shortening, but the cake was delicious, so maybe I should leave it alone)

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 cup buttermilk

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 T vanilla extract

2 T lemon extract

1 tsp almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk the baking soda into the buttermilk and set aside. Cream together the shortening and sugar until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk the salt into the flour. Alternating the dry and wet ingredients, and starting with the dry, add a third of the flour mixture into the sugar mixture and mix on low speed. Add half of the buttermilk mixture and mix until blended. Add another third of the flour mixture and mix until incorporated. Add the last of the buttermilk and blend and finish up with the last of the flour mixture. Now add the three extracts and mix it together. Spray a tube pan or bundt pan with Baker's Joy, or grease and flour your pan. Add batter and bake on a middle rack for 75 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean. Remove from oven and let it rest in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and continue to cool until completely cool. You know what to do from here! 

Butterfinger PB Rice Krispies Treats

For the past two years, my husband and I have been serving a mission at the local employment center for our church. Today was our last day. Again. That part is a long story, so let's just say that this time it was really, truly our last day. 

Whenever it is someone's last day, treats are brought. My friend, Kathy, brought oatmeal raisin cookies, which happen to be my husband's favorite cookies! Perfect! But I wanted a little more oomph to the treats on our last day. I went home at lunchtime and decided to use our last day as an excuse to try something out that's been nagging at me for a few weeks. These guys, right here. 

It only takes a few minutes to throw these guys together. Let me tell you how much you want these in your life. A lot! Unless you are on a sugar-free, peanut butter allergy kind of lifestyle. Then I would avoid them.

(Edited 4/23/14- I've updated this recipe to be a little more exact on the peanut butter frosting.) 

Butterfinger Peanut Butter Rice Krispies Treats (adapted from Your Cup Of Cake)

6 cups Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal

12 oz. miniature marshmallows

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter (I used Skippy)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Peanut Butter Frosting (adapted from Your Cup of Cake)

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

4 tsp milk 

Chocolate PB Ganache

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

1 cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Topping

crushed Butterfingers (about 1/2 cup)

Reese's Peanut Butter chips (about 1/4 cup)

Frosting-

You want to make the frosting first because the rest of this comes together so quickly. Add peanut butter and butter together in your mixing bowl. Blend for two minutes. Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and beat for one minute, then add the milk and beat until smooth.

Treats-

Prepare a 9x13 pan by lining it with a sheet of parchment paper, allowing two of the edges to hang over the sides of the pan so you can lift the treats out before cutting them into bars. In a medium bowl, measure cereal and set aside. In a large microwaveable bowl, heat the marshmallows, vanilla and peanut butter for 30 seconds and then stir. Depending on how fresh your marshmallows are, it will need up to one minute more of heating time. Quickly add the cereal and stir to coat. Pour coated cereal into prepared pan and press to fill the pan (see photo- I like to make mine a little short of the pan size so they are thicker). 

You can either put water or butter on your hands to keep the cereal from sticking to you. Frost treats with the peanut butter frosting and either place it in the refrigerator while making the ganache or don't, depending on your preference. 

Ganache-

In a small to medium microwaveable bowl, heat the chocolate chips for 30 seconds. Stir well, and if needed, heat for an additional 30 seconds until chocolate is completely melted. Add the peanut butter to the melted chocolate and stir until smooth. This melts the peanut butter and cools the chocolate at the same time. Pour ganache over peanut butter frosting layer (this shows how thick the ganache is when adding it to the treats), 

smoothing gently so as to not disturb the frosting beneath the ganache. 

Immediately sprinkle smoothed ganache with the crushed Butterfingers and peanut butter chips. Refrigerate for about 10-20 minutes to harden the ganache a little bit. 

Remove treats from the pan by lifting up on the parchment paper overhanging the edges of the pan. Cut into bars and serve. I cut mine into 5 rows and 5 columns. 

You can even eat these for breakfast because the main ingredient is cereal!

People are starting to curse at me for bringing these to different events, but they always curse with a smile on their face and a treat on the way to their mouth! 

Carrots or Candy?

If you had to choose whether to eat carrots or candy, what would you pick? Well, now you don't have to choose because these carrots are as sweet as candy! And the bonus is that they are beyond simple to make!

Please ignore the crockpot potatoes that look awful (they weren't awful but they look awful). 

Candy Carrots
carrots- as many or as few as you need to feed your army or yourself
olive oil- just enough to moisten the carrots
kosher salt- a sprinkle or two
Place an oven rack in the center of your oven and preheat the oven using the broiler function. Peel as many carrots as you need (actually, you will need more than you think because people will taste these and then take three times more than you expected). Julienne slice the carrots into even pieces. I usually cut it in half horizontally, or thirds if it is a particularly long carrot, and then slice it into small pieces vertically. Drizzle a couple of teaspoons of olive oil into a gallon-sized ziplock bag. Add the carrot sticks and shake or massage the bag to distribute the oil onto the carrots. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray and spread the carrots onto the cookie sheet in a single layer. Lightly sprinkle the carrots with a little kosher salt. Place cookie sheet into the oven and cook the carrots until tender, about 15-20 minutes, depending on how large or small you cut your carrots. Take a peak at them about halfway through the cooking time and give them a little shake. You can even take them out and flip them over, but I don't find it necessary to do that. When the carrots are tender (just pull one out and test it!), remove them from the oven and serve immediately. You're going to wish you'd cooked more. I promise.

Samoas Cupcakes

I was asked to make a few dozen cupcakes for a church function last week. I made two kinds, both with a Girl Scout cookie theme- Thin Mints and Samoas, having recently purchased a box of each.

Here are the Samoas cupcakes. You can see the cupcakes sunk just slightly, but I figured it was just more room for frosting. It's all about learning to not sweat the small stuff. 

On display at the Relief Society birthday party

My friend, Michele, made the other stack of cupcakes. She made lemon-raspberry and the yummiest carrot cake cupcakes ever. I'll share that carrot cake recipe with you soon. 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

1 box chocolate cake mix

4 oz (or whatever size they've cut it down to these days) instant chocolate pudding

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup water

4 eggs

1 1/2 tsp coconut emulsion (or extract)

1 cup sour cream

12 oz chocolate chips

Mix the oil, water, eggs, coconut emulsion and sour cream together until blended. Add the cake mix and pudding and beat on low speed for 30 seconds and then at medium speed for two minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Don't fill more than that or you will have spillage when they are in the oven. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until toothpick tests clean. Remove from oven, let cool in pan for five minutes and then transfer to a covered container to lock in the moisture until cupcakes are completely cool. While your oven is still on, add 1 cup of coconut to a cookie sheet and spread it out. Toast it in the oven, stirring every 3-4 minutes until nicely brown, which will take about 10 minutes. 

Frosting- (slightly adapted from this recipe)

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)-if you use salted butter, omit added salt in the next step

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup whole milk (I used 1/3 cup 2% milk and added heavy whipping cream to make 1/2 cup)

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut, toasted

In a medium saucepan, melt butter, salt (if using) and brown sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for two minutes and then add the milk. Bring mixture back to a boil, still stirring constantly. When it comes back to a boil, remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Allow the sugar mixture to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally (you can speed up the process by putting it in the refrigerator, but the best way to do it is to make the frosting to this point before you bake the cupcakes, then it will be ready when the cupcakes are cool enough to frost). When the mixture is cooled, transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer. Add powdered sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. You may have to add a little more powdered sugar to get it to the consistency you desire. 

Drizzle-

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Frost cupcakes and then sprinkle them with the toasted coconut. Put the chocolate chips into a baggie and melt in the microwave for one minute, pausing at the 30-second mark to squish the bag a little bit. Snip off the tiniest corner of the baggie and drizzle the melted chocolate over the coconut. These are deceptively more delicious than you might think. Laura tasted one and she exclaimed that they need to go on my everyday list for when I "open my bakery." Another friend, who took one home from the church event, told me she ate it the next day and was disappointed she hadn't taken home more than one! In other words, she wanted "Samoa."