Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

As you may know I got a babycakes cupcake maker for Christmas, and I used it for the first time today. It is awesome. I had also gotten a cookbook strictly for the babycakes maker. I decided to make some a couple days ago but then my mom was in the hospital and I didn't feel like making them, I felt like being at the hospital keeping her company cause hospitals suck. The good thing is that she was in the hospital for only two nights. One of the things that she has to do now that she is home is give herself shots in the belly. Since I have a pretty squeamish stomach and have no chance of becoming a nurse, but wanting to give a shot and mom being a nursing instructor. She instructed me on how to give a shot, and then let me do it. She said that I did it as well as any of her students, moms are awesome. She asked me if I was nervous about it, but I wasn't, I was excited. I know that may sound weird, but I don't care. It was awesome, so awesome in fact that I got excited and fell down because my socks are too slippery for the hardwood floors. I figured that now is as good as anytime, since we brought mom home today, to make some cupcakes and try out my babycakes maker. It took my only about an hour total from start to finish to make them. It did not make as many as the recipe says it will, but I might have been filling it up a little too much, oh well.

Aren't they cute?








Cherry Limeade Cupcakes from 175 best babycakes cupcake maker recipes
2 cups white cake mix
2 eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup low fat cherry yogurt
Zest of 1 lime
1/4 cup lime juice
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 drops red food coloring
1/4 cup finely chopped well drained maraschino cherries
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on low speed, beat everything except the cherries for 30 seconds or until moistened. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Gently stir in cherries
If desired place paper liners in wells. Fill each well with about 1 1/2 tbsp batter. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Now the book said to use freshly squeezed lime juice, but I didn't want to waste limes so I used the fake kind except for what I squeezed out of the lime that I zested which wasn't enough

Cherry Limeade Buttercream Frosting also from the babycake cupcake recipe book
1/2 cup butter softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
3 to 4 tbsp cherry juice
1 tsp lime juice
In a medium bowl using an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat butter for 1 minute or until light and creamy. Gradually beat in sugar until blended. Beat in the juices until light and fluffy.
If a thinner frosting is desired, beat in extra juice.

Banana Split Cheesecake Bars

Mom reminded me that I haven't said anything about my favorite present, but that is because I forgot that it was a present because I got it before Christmas, because it was of more use to me in my hand than under the tree. I got a new camera. I love it, its blue and pretty and takes some pretty awesome pictures. I don't take many pictures of food because I can be pretty messy sometimes and I don't want to ruin such an awesome camera.

Holly KittenPants (HKP) annoyed at me 

Most recent shot of me

HKP interested in the new camera

Everybody makes mistakes, this is a short tale of one of mine, 

I get bored really easily sometimes. Today, was one of those days. I decided to make something. I had been planning to make these about a week ago, but I was told I wasn't allowed to make things for a little while because we had too many leftovers from Christmas to eat. Our refrigerator is pretty full still, but not with the same leftovers from last week. This recipe calls for a 9x 13 inch pan, but I didn't have room for a pan that size in the refrigerator, so I made it in a smaller pan. Which ended up being a bad idea. The smaller pan made the crust bigger so it didn't cook in 20 minutes. I let it cook until the center was mostly done. I then had trouble making the cheesecake part because the food processor we own is not big enough to hold all the ingredients for the cheesecake layer. When I finally got it all mixed together and put on-top of the brownie, or so I thought it was on top of the brownie. The crust wasn't as done as I thought it was and the cheesecake layer mixed in with brownie layer in the center. I went ahead and put it in the oven to cook and see what happens. I took it out when the center no longer jiggled just like the directions said. I let it cool, didn't put the top on, cause I'm a lazy baker sometimes, (plus I didn't have any of the ingredients). When I cut into it was still a little warm in the center, and because the size of the pan was smaller than what the directions called for, the cheesecake bar was deeper that what it normally would be. Somehow everywhere but the center got done, if not overly done. I mean it was like pudding, really soupy, the kind of undone the makes you worry if it is safe to eat. I tired the outer edges and found that it was pretty good and next time I should probably take the directions advice and use a 9x 13 inch pan. I got this recipe out the Denver Post.

Ingredients

For the Brownie Crust

12 oz semisweet chocolate

¾ cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

¼ cup all purpose flour

¼ tsp salt

4 eggs

For the cheesecake layer

2 8 oz packages of cream cheese

3 ripe bananas

½ cup sugar

2 tbsp all purpose flour

3 eggs

For the Topping

1 quart strawberries, hulled and sliced

¼ cup pineapple jam

1 tbsp water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees. Coat a 9x13 inch baking pan with cooking spray. In a microwave-safe bowl, heat the chocolate and the butter on high for 1-2 minutes stirring every 20 seconds, or until melted. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour and salt. Add the eggs and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. Stir in the chocolate-butter mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven. If there are any bubbles in the crust, gently push them flat. Leave the oven on.

To make the cheesecake layer, in a food processor, combine the cream cheese, bananas, sugar, flour and salt. Process until completely smooth, scrapping down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, processing and scrapping the bowl between additions. Pour the batter over the brownie crust, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the center no longer jiggles. Cool, then refrigerate until completely chilled.

When the cheesecake is completely chilled, arrange the sliced strawberries over the top. In a small microwave safe bowl, mix the pineapple jam and the water. Microwave until bubbling. Spoon the jam over the strawberries. Allow to chill for 15 minutes for the jam to set up. Cut into squares. Store, well wrapped, in the refrigerator.

Tiramisu Drops

Christmas did not feel quite like Christmas. My brother wasn't here and that made me feel like it wasn't really Christmas because my family wasn't together, but I guess that is part of growing up and moving on with life. Not always having my family together for major holidays. However I did get some good gifts like a mini cupcake maker, a doughnut maker and a soda maker, so I know my family and friends love when I make things otherwise they wouldn't buy me makers. I also got three cookbooks, one as a joke, but still has recipes. I also got 1500 count sheets and a bed pad warmer which makes my bed warm before I even get into it, both of these combined make my bed awesome. And some other odds and ends that I got that I'm not going to ramble on about, but one of the things that I gave were these cookies that I made. I got the recipe out of the Denver Post or whatever the newspaper is called. And of course I had to change it some because that is just what I do. The cookies were a quite dry and could be changed so it is better. Like I had a hard time trying to make balls out of the dough so I added milk to them so that they would stick together better. I also added Kaluha to the filling so that I was a little bit closer to an actual tiramisu.

Tiramisu Drops

Ingredients

1 cup slivered blanched almonds, lightly toasted

½ cup sugar

¾ cup butter room temp

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder

¼ tsp salt

1 ¾ cup ap flour

1 tub mascarpone cheese (8oz)

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Directions

Heat oven to 350 F, line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a food processor, pulse together the almonds and sugar until finely ground but not reduced to a paste. Add the butter and vanilla, then pulse to incorporate. Add the espresso or coffee, salt and flour, and pulse until a crumbly dough comes together. Shape the dough into 1 inch balls and place on the baking sheets. Using your finger, or the handle of a wooden spoon, press an indent into the top of each cookie. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden and firm. Allow to cool on the baking sheet. When the cookies are cool, in a medium bowl stir together the mascarpone and 2 tablespoons of the powdered sugar. Transfer the mixture to a pastry bag or a zip-close plastic bag with the corner snipped off. Pipe a dollop of the filling into the indent of each cookie. Sift the remaining tablespoon of powdered sugar with the cocoa powder. Sift over the tops of the cookies. Decorate with shave chocolate if desired.

Coconut Cupcakes

While every other blog that I read seems to be doing something very Christmasy I've decided to bring back one of my old favorite cupcakes. I haven't made these since high school, and while for most people that might be along time ago, but that the last time I made these was about five years ago I think. It might have been more recent. I finished my last required credit and should be getting my degree in the mail sometime after the end of the trimester. I'm excited. Except that all I face now are boring academics that some how always seem to be too much work. I did find a recipe that I want to try out soon, actually its more like five recipes, the only problem being that I don't want to have to eat them all. Like Tiramisu Drops, are cookies that are like Tiramisu but in a much simpler way. I might jazz up the recipe that they have, but that is just something I like to do sometimes. However I haven't really jazzed up this recipe because it is so delicious.

Coconut Cookies
3/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 extra large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoon (1/2 tablespoon) vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon almond extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
14 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 325. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time with the mixer on low, scrap down the bowl after each egg. Add the extracts. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. In three parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the batter, starting and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in half the coconut. Line a muffin pan with liners. Fill each cup to the top with batter. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until golden and toothpick comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes in the pan. Remove and cool completely. Frost with icing and sprinkle with remaining coconut.

Cream Cheese Frosting
3/4 pound butter, room temperature
1 pound cream cheese, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 pounds powdered sugar

Blend cream cheese, butter and extracts in mixer. Add the sugar and mix until smooth.

Grilled Stuffed French Toast Waffle Cheeses

Or something like that. I have no idea what to call this delicious invention I thought of. Last night for dinner I could not decide on what I wanted to have for dinner. Some people have a go to dinner, like my mom, who eats eggs and toast whenever she doesn't know what else to make/eat. My typical go to dinner is french toast or calabasitas when we have zucchini from our garden. But last night I wanted french toast or waffles or pancakes. Earlier in the week we had chicken fried steaks and sweet potato fries. Since I'm the kind of person that likes to dip fries into some kind of sauce and the Utah fry sauce wouldn't be good on sweet potatoes I made my own kind of dipping sauce out of cinnamon, caramel and cream cheese. It was delicious. When I was trying to decide on what to eat last night and I had finally decided to have french toast, I wanted to have some of my caramel cinnamon cream cheese on my french toast. That is when my mom had the idea of putting the cream cheese in between two slices of bread, dipping that into an egg mixture and then putting that into a waffle iron. Delicious. Serve warm with maple syrup.
In other news I am almost done with my last lab class. This lab class has been one of the most difficult labs I've had to do. Mostly because of my schedule, but after Monday, there will not be anymore of the six to midnight class that made my life sleep deprived. It is also kind of sad for me, that I won't be able to get away from boring academics.
I'm going to be making coconut cupcakes tomorrow so I'll have that recipe for you then, and a picture of my favorite plated dessert from lab so far.

Turtle Pie AND Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I'm a horrible blogger/baker. I haven't been making much in terms of sweets and I certainly haven't been updating. School has been boring, like really boring. In psychology I seriously count how many times this one guy says the word like, it is a lot of times. (60 times in one class period(1 1/2 hours long)). It is quite distracting, but I'm easily distracted in that class because it is so boring, the prof has a quiet monotone voice not cool.
I feel guilty about not blogging and then I start feeling guilty because I'm not baking, and its a guilty spiral into shame. Its not like I don't have time to bake, its more like I don't really have anyone to bake for, because I start to feel guilty about making sweets and then eating them all. See just more quilt, I can't get away from it.
This weekend I was feeling sorta home sick, but I'm home so I don't know what to call it really. I was missing our good friends the Erickson family and I thought I'd make a turtle pie because it is Mr. Paul's favorite. I don't feel as guilty about not baking things, even though you don't bake a turtle pie, and it also means that I should blog, so I can stop feeling guilty about that.
I actually started writing this post about a week or so ago and haven't finished it, but it has given me a chance to do more so that I can write more. I have now made pineapple upside down cake as well. My brother and his fiancee came in for a visit this weekend and so I made cake because now there are more people to actually eat it. I have discovered that when Holly (my kitten) is purring he has an on and off switch. All you have to do is put your hand on his face and he stops purring, lift the hand off and he starts up again. It is almost finals week for me and of course all the teachers think that the projects need to be done this week before finals, so I have three papers to write, two posters to make and one test to actually study for. Its kind of a hectic weekend for me. It doesn't help that Holly's favorite place to nap is in my lap. I love that he naps on my lap but it is kind of hard to get things done when you don't want to move and disturb the adorable thing.
The first recipe is for pineapple upside down cake.

Ingredients
1 box of white cake mix
2 cans of pineapple rings
1 jar of maraschino cherries without stems or pits
1/3 cup of melted butter
1 cup of brown sugar

I followed the direction on the cake mix except I used the juice from the pineapples and cherries and instead of just the egg whites I used the whole egg(minus shell of course). And I know that I'm a pastry student and shouldn't be using cake mixes, but they are just so easy, and I'm kind of lazy. What you do first is you preheat the oven to whatever the cake mix tells you to. Then you want to mix the melted butter with the brown sugar, and make sure its nice and moist then spread it as evenly possible on the bottom of a 13x9 pan. Place the pineapple rings in the brown sugar mixture and place a cherry inside each ring. Mix the cake batter and pour over pineapple. Bake.Once the cake is fully baked, take it out of the oven and flip it over onto a cookie sheet and let cool. Once it has had time to cool enough that you can lift the pan up without gloves, then remove the pan. Serve and enjoy.

Now the Turtle Pie recipe might be a little tricky.

Ingredients
1 pre-made graham cracker crust, again I'm a little lazy and it is just convenient

Chocolate mouse
5 oz semi-sweet Bakers chocolate
2 egg whites
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp butter
2/3 cup heavy cream

Caramel Sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1 oz butter
1/4 cup warmed heavy cream
Pecans as needed

In a small heavy bottomed pan, caramelize the sugar. Put the sugar in the bottom of the pan and turn to high heat, make sure that there is not an area of the pan that is not covered by sugar. Once all the sugar has dissolved and is a nice caramel color, remove from heat and add the butter. It will bubble up, keep stirring, once the butter has dissolved add the warmed heavy cream, again it will bubble up, but keep stirring. In the bottom of you pie crust place pieces of pecans and then pour the caramel over the pecans.
Next make the chocolate mouse, place the chocolate and butter into a bowl and heat in the microwave slowly until the chocolate has melted. Make sure not to over heat the chocolate. While heating the chocolate whip the egg whites until they are foamy and white. Gradually add the sugar and continue to whip until medium to stiff peak. Then whip the heavy cream until it has a medium peak, in a separate bowl. Once the chocolate has melted and is a little warm add the egg yolk. And mix thoroughly. Then add the heavy cream 1/3 at a time and mix carefully. Do the same with the egg whites/meringue. Finally pour over caramel and pecans then refrigerate or freeze until needed.

Here Fishy Fishy

So I know that I have been pretty lax when it comes to blogging. I just feel that if I don't do much then there isn't much to put so why put anything? Anyways, as of the 15th of August I had quit my job. I loved quitting. I can't really express how much I hated that job. Since then I have been doing basically what I did last summer, which is basically being a lazy bum. I have been taking my dad and going fishing. On the days that we actually catch fish we can't catch more than three fish, and they aren't big enough to eat or keep. I caught a pretty decent size one today but still not a keeper. Dad didn't catch any, I caught the three for the day. I don't like eating fish, except the fish that is made by Gourmandise, The Bakery is Salt Lake City every Friday because its that days special. One of the things that I hate about fishing, is when you catch a fish and are taking your hook out you have to hold the fish and that makes your hands smell like fish. And then they stink up your car...We have been using worms as bait the last couple days and so to get the worm on the hook my dad bought a worm threader. Which is kind of like a needle but not sharp, its hollow and you shove it into the worm so that it doesn't wiggle as you are putting it on your hook. As you might imagine this is very disgusting. I'm a pretty squeamish person. I throw up because someone else throws up, or I watch Tosh.0 and he shows something disgusting. I don't like that this happens but its just part of who I am. Anyway, I was doing fine with the poking worms and what not because my dad was doing it for me. Until I decided that I didn't like fishing where he was so I went a little ways away from him. I kept catching fish and they would steal my worm or eat my entire hook, and so I would have to walk back to where he was and put on a worm. It was so disgusting, their guts were coming out and they were bleeding and crapping. I was trying not to puke while I was doing this. I'm going to try and get my dad to go fishing again tomorrow, because I enjoy catching the fish even if there are parts about fishing that I hate.
I start back to school soon. I'm sorta excited, I'm one of those people who want to go to school while they are out of school, but want out of school when they are in school. I have a pretty easy schedule, and I don't have any gaps between classes, so I'm more likely to stay in my classes. In the past I've had times where I've had a two hour gap between classes and being a commuter its not enough time to go home and come back, a lot of times I would just leave and not go to the classes after the break. Its also nice that I have most of the day free so I can still do things. On Mondays and Wednesdays I don't have to be to class until 4pm. While on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to be to class at 2 pm.
I may have found a new job, that I would only have to work weekends and I would get paid more than BK paid me an hour. I kind of hope I get it because its nice to make money. But I would rather just win the lottery like just about everyone else would like to do, instead of working. Once I find exactly what I want to do, I'm sure that I will enjoy doing it and actually want to go to work. I know what degree I want, and I'm getting it, but I have no clue what I'm going to do with that degree once I get it. Its like a dog that is chasing a car, if it actually catches it, it wouldn't know what the hell to do with it.

And now I leave you with a picture of me and the biggest catch of the day...