Red Velvet Cupcake Surprise

It's been awhile since I've posted a recipe but here I am.  Who doesn't love red velvet cupcakes? I made these for Valentine's day and packaged them up in some cute boxes and gave them to my lovers a.k.a. friends w/cake benefits Lol.  Red velvet is a basic vanilla cake recipe w/a hint of chocolate flavor and of course it's red color. The reason this recipe is a surprise, is because the middle of the cupcake is filled with a chocolate filling. I love a good surprise, and what better surprise to have in your mouth than to sink your teeth into a moist cupcake with a smooth filling of chocolate cream. Enough verbal seduction....let's get it on.

-Cupcake liners
 -2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
 -2 cups sugar
-1 Tablespoon cocoa
-1 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-2 eggs
-1 1/2 cups oil
-1 cup buttermilk
-1 Tablespoon vinegar
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-2 oz. red food coloring

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line your cupcake pan with the cupcake liners. Lightly whisk the eggs in a medium bowl. Add remaining wet ingredients and whisk until blended. Set aside. Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together with a wire whisk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined. Fill your cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full of the batter, drop the pan on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool completely.

 Filling (Optional, but recommended)
-1 tub of whipped fudge chocolate frosting or your own homemade frosting.
 - 1 teaspoon vanilla, optional

Tip: Mix the tub of frosting with the vanilla so it doesn't have that store bough taste.

 Frosting:
 -8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

-1 cup butter, room temperature
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-6 cups confectioners’ sugar

Sift sugar and set aside. Beat in the cream cheese and butter on high until creamy. Add vanilla. Then, add the sugar in a cup at a time.  Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl.   

Put it together: If you want the surprise filling, you want to core out the middle of your cupcakes.  I bought a cake corer at Walmart in the baking aisle.  It was $3.  If you don't want to buy one, you could use an apple corer, melon baller, or just a small spoon.  You want to go about 3/4 of the way down into the cupcake so that that the base still holds together.  Using a piping bag or homemade piping bag, fill with the chocolate cream.  Fill the middle of the cupcakes with the cream.  In a separate piping bag, fill it with your cream cheese frosting and pipe the top of your cupcakes.  Make sure you cover the middle, so the chocolate can't be seen, hence the surprise....duh.  Enjoy :)

 FYI: Your going to want to eat the cupcake parts that you core out.  Your welcome :)

01 02 12

Pumpkin Cornbread

This is a totally late post for this recipe that I promised forever ago buuuut...get over it.  If you ever had KFC's yellow cornbread that they used to make, then you already know that it was moist, dense, and uuhhhmazing, but of course like all good things for some reason they removed it from their menu.  Anyways, this here pumpkin cornbread even if you hate pumpkin (what the hell is wrong with you?!!) doesn't have a strong pumpkin taste at all but it is the closest if not better than KFC's cornbread recipe that I have ever made or had.  If you try it, let me know how it turns out or if you tweek it in some way, let me know so I could try it to.  By the way.......YES! I'm back in the blogging world.  Happy New Year! In with the UPGRADE ;)

-3/4 cup sugar
-3 eggs, beaten slightly
-1 1/3 cups buttermilk
-1 cup canned pumpkin puree
 -1 1/3 cups cornmeal (white or yellow)
-1 1/3 cups flour
-3/4 teaspoon salt
-1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
-1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
-1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
-Pinch of nutmeg
-8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

HEAT oven to 350 degrees. Use an all-purpose cooking spray to grease a muffin tin. Set aside.
MIX sugar, eggs, buttermilk and pumpkin puree in a medium bowl until well blended. Set aside.
COMBINE cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well. Add the melted butter and stir until thoroughly combined.
SPOON batter into muffin tin, about two-thirds full. Slam muffin tin down on kitchen counter several times to release air bubbles. Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, turning pan 180 degrees after first 10 minutes.. The muffins are done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean and the tops are set.

*You can also just pour the batter in a 13x9 pan and bake for about 20-30 mins.  Just keep checking on it.  I doubled it for a potluck in the fall and baked it in a 15x10 deep cake pan.  It made ALOT for about 20-25 people.

Yield: about 1 1/2 dozen muffins

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/26/3311590/specialty-of-the-house-the-pits.html#storylink=cpy

01 02 12

Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting

Lately I've been on this Nutella craze!  It's not enough to say that I "LOVE" nutella in caps lock lettering, when I open a brand new jar of nutella and peel back that paper seal I slowly take in the hazelnut/cocoa aroma that so sweetly infuses my nostrils hahaha!  Yes, I am that passionate about a spread.  Anyways the other day I was craving yellow cake and had the thought that "ooooh nutella spread on a yellow cupcake would be so delicious".  Well, if their is anything you can count on me for, it is that I will ALWAYS find a way to put a food thought to action, whether I'm making, buying, or somebody else is buying Lol.  You can use this frosting for any kind of cake mix you like, I used yellow cake.

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1/3 cup Nutella
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups of powdered sugar (have an extra 1/2 cup on hand, just in case.)
• 1 Tablespoon of milk or cream

* Beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth (about 3-5 minutes on medium speed). Add the Nutella, salt, and vanilla extract; Beat until well combined.
On low speed, slowly begin to add the powdered sugar. (I added mine in 1/2 cup increments.) Once each addition has dispersed into the butter mixture, increase the speed to medium and beat until well combined before adding the next.
If the frosting looks too thick after adding 3 cups of sugar, add about 2 teaspoons of milk (or cream), and beat to combine (only add a little bit at a time since liquid goes a long way in frosting). If the frosting is too thin, slowly add the remaining 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar until it comes to a spreadable consistency.

01 02 12

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

I found this recipe in a Better Homes & Garden magazine some 5 or 6 years ago and I haven't tried or felt the need to alter this recipe in anyway...well except for the addition of chocolate chips.  I don't think that really needs any explanation.

• 3 C. Sugar
• 1 C. Oil
• 4 Eggs
• 2/3 C. Water
• 2 C. canned pumpkin (make sure it's not the pie filling one)
• 1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1 tsp. Nutmeg
• 1 1/2 tsp. Allspice
• 3 C. Sifted Flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 2 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 bag or 2 C. Mini semi-chocolate chips  

Pre-heat oven to 350 deg.

Cream the sugar, oil, and eggs.  Add pumpkin, water, and spices. Mix together.  Sift in flour, salt, and baking soda.  Mix it well till its smooth.  Stir in mini chocolate chips.  Grease and flour 2 loaf tins, divide and pour the mixutre in the tins.  Tap on the counter to get any air bubbles out.  Bake in the oven for 1 hour.  Let it cool before you attempt to take it out of the tin or else the bottom of the pumpkin bread will crumble apart. 

*My Tweeks

- Regular chocolate chips tend to sink to the bottom of the pumpkin bread, so if you don't have any mini chocolate chips just throw them in a blender and pulse it a couple times to get a more chopped up chocolate.  The same can be done if you don't have chocolate chips at all but you have blocks of baking chocolate.  Just chop it up smaller and pulse it.

- I don't like the mess of greasing and flouring the pan so I just use wax paper and pam spray.  First spray your tins w/pam or any non-stick spray.  Cut out the wax paper a little bit bigger than the bottom of the baking tin and press it into the bottom and sides of the greased pan.  Then pour in the pumpkin mixture.  When its done baking let it cool in the pan for about 20-30 mins, take a knife and loosen the sides of the pumpkin bread, turn it upside down in the palm of your hand.  It should slide right out.  Peel the wax paper off gently.


01 02 12

Oreo Truffles

• 1 pkg. Oreo Cookies
• 1 (8 oz.) box of cream cheese, softened
• 2 (8 oz.) boxes of Bakers chocolate or any other brand of melting/dipping chocolate (could also use white chocolate)
• Wax Paper

1. Using a food processor or blender, grind cookies to a fine powder. In a medium bowl, blend 3 cups of the cookie powder and cream cheese until thoroughly mixed (there should be no white traces of cream cheese). Refrigerate mixture for 10-15 minutes..

2. Roll into 1-inch balls and place on wax-lined cookie sheet. Place in refrigerator..

3. In a double boiler or microwave melt baking chocolate until smooth...I just put about 1/2-1 C. of water into a small sauce pan and put a small glass bowl on top of the sauce pan of water, turn the stove on medium heat and melt the chocolate in the glass bowl, stirring. Personally, I don't like the microwave because the chocolate will start to harden quickly before even finishing coating all the oreo balls.

4. When the chocolate is melted keep your stove on a med-low setting so that the chocolate stays nicely smooth and doesn't harden, now you can start coating the oreo balls. I like to have a method so its not messy. Make sure your wax lined sheet is close by the sauce pan. I put in one ball at a time and using 2 spoons I move it around in the chocolate, let some of the excess chocolate drip off the spoon and neatly put the coated oreo ball onto the wax paper. Repeat for all the truffles.

5. Once you have coated all your truffles, if you want you can use the leftover oreo powder to sprinkle over the top of the coated truffles. Put the sheet of truffles in the fridge to set for about 1 hour or more.

You can do so much with theses truffles! The last batch, I coated the first half of the truffles w/the regular chocolate then w/the second half of truffles I added about 1 c. of Andes mint chips to the melted chocolate and coated the rest of the truffles, hence a very nice mint flavor. You could also use peppermint extract.

  I saved my Holiday cookie tin and lined it w/wax paper and put all the truffles in it. I like the truffles best refrigerated. Their almost like Bon Bons. Theirs something rewarding about making rich delicious chocolate bites of heaven. Enjoy!

01 02 12

Banana Chocolate Chip Bars

• 1/2 C. butter
• 1 C. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 C. mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)
• 1 1/2 C. Flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 C. baking cocoa
• 1 C. Chocolate chips
• 1/2 t. salt
  
  Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, vanilla, and bananas. Mix thouroughly.
  In a seperate bowl, combine flour, soda, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Divide batter in half. Add the cocoa to one portion of the batter, and spread that portion on the bottom of a greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Spoon the remaining batter on top, swirling gently with a butter knife, and sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. Bake 350 deg. for 30 mins or until fork or toothpick comes out clean. Cool & cut. FYI-The riper the bananas the better it is even if its black.

01 02 12

Chocolate Sheet Cake!

• 3  T. Unsweetened Cocoa
• 1 C. water
• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 C. oil
• 2 C. sugar
• 2 C. flour
• 1 t. salt
• 3/4 C. Milk
• 1 t. baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 deg. Mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl and set it aside. Heat cocoa, water, butter, and oil in a small saucepan to boiling and butter is melted. Mix the hot mixture with the dry ingredients. Stir in milk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Bake in a greased jelly roll pan for 18-20 minutes and let it cool.



Frosting

• 4-5 C. of powdered sugar
• 1 stick of butter
• 5 T. milk
• 3 T. cocoa
• pinch of salt
• 1 t. vanilla

Heat the butter, milk, and cocoa to boiling and butter is melted. Remove from heat and mix in vanilla and pinch of salt. Whisk and add 1 cup at a time of the powdered sugar and whisk really well until the frosting mixture has thickened up. Sometimes depending on the brand of powdered sugar you have to add more powdered sugar to thicken it to a frosting like texture. It may seem like alot but don't worry its fine. Frost the cake and enjoy! Like almost all my desserts I like this cake cold but its just as good warm :)01 02 12