S'Mores Cupcakes

What I love about Kitten is that she likes to be wherever I am. If I'm getting ready in the morning she will sit on the toilet or the edge of the counter and watch me put make up on and do my hair. If I'm watching TV, she sits in the living room and watches me watch TV. And if I am cooking or baking she sits on the kitchen table chairs and watches. So of course I had to snap a quick picture of this cuteness, even if she looks bored out of her mind. 

So back to cupcakes; I love S'Mores anything. And I love cupcakes so awhile ago I got the idea of putting them together and the outcome was amazingness.  These were probably one of the most complicated (and messy) cupcakes I've made, but they tasted amazing. 

S'Mores Cupcakes

So here's what you need:

Graham crackers

Mini Marshmallows

Devil's Food Cake Mix

Eggs

Veggie Oil

Butter or Margarine

What to do:

Crush up the graham crackers into crumbs almost like a powder. Put a Teaspoon of the crumbs in the bottom of your cupcake liner. (adding a bit of margarine to the mix can help it compact) Mix your batter as directed and bake 350 for 18-20 minutes. Poke with a tooth pick and if it comes out clean they are ready. Cool completely. 

Now here comes the messy and complicated part. Use a double boiler or one pan with water and one on top with your mallows, and melt the mallows like you would for rice krispies. 

While that was melting I put together a piping bag with an long tip that is used for injecting cupcakes but you could probably uses any circular tip to do this. Or even cutting out a small cylinder in the middle of your cupcake for the mallow filling. 

So once the mallows melted I let it cool for a few minutes and then put it in my piping bag. (This is the messy part) I then filled the middles of all my cupcakes. Its really crucial that the cupcakes are all the way cooled and that your mallows are somewhat cooled too because the first time I tried injecting the mallows when the cupcakes were still warm inside they cupcakes just absorbed the mallow and the mallows disappeared. 

Although now that I think about it using mallow fluff probably would have been a lot easier because it's already the consistency that you want to inject the cupcakes with. So using my bag and tip I injected the cupcakes and put them in the fridge to chill. 

I then frosted the cupcakes with a chocolate frosting and dipped them in the remaining graham craker crumbs. I used some of the remaining frosting to attach extra marshmallows. I wanted to toast them to give it that s'more authenticity but that got really dangerous, really fast because all I had was a small lighter. 

Voila, S'mores cupcakes. If I were to do this again I would use marshmallow fluff, for not only the filling but as the frosting too. I would dip it in the graham crumbs again and maybe bake it on a low temperature for a few minutes to see if that would make the mallow stiffen up like it would over a fire. But that's still in the experimental phase so if you have any suggestions let me know!

Overall the reaction I got when I gave these to friends was great! They weren't expecting the mallow in the middle and that was the cherry on top to their excitement of getting cupcakes in the first place. So thank you to Sarah, Kiel, and Dean Morris for being my test dummies! I will be trying this out again and experimenting with different toppers. 

Cotton Candy Funfetti Cupcakes

What I love most about one of my jobs is that I can always count on people to eat anything that I bake.Especially Sarah. :) She's got a sweet tooth like mine so we bond over eating food that is bad for us. So when the bossman sent  out a memo saying we'd be having a team party I immediately was thinking, "yes I get to bake!" And so I made something quick and easy because I didn't want to have my oven on longer than necessary due to my small apartment already being so warm.

And so I made this sweet treat.

Funfetti Cupcakes with Cotton Candy Frosting

What you need:
Funfetti Cake Mix
Eggs
Water
Veggie Oil
Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Frosting & Cotton Candy Flavor Pack

I love the Frosting Creations because its so easy to mix a flavor and not have to worry about whether or not it's going to taste okay. And they have a lot of different flavors that are fun. I want to experiment and put the flavor pack in the batter to see if I could use it as a batter flavor; but that's for another day.


What to do:
Mix the funfetti cake mix as directed and bake at 350 for 18 minutes. Make sure to let them cool completely.

While waiting for them to cool mix the frosting. Take the plain frosting and add the flavor packet. Use your knife or spatula to make a hole in the middle of the frosting and dump the packet in there. Mix thoroughly.

Once your cupcakes have cooled pipe or frost with a knife onto your cupcakes. I added some sprinkles for a little bedazzlement but isn't necessarily needed.

And speaking of bedazzlement, kitten is a natural diva model herself. I just can't help but be obsessed with this cute face!

Peanut Butter Cup Cake and the Baking Fail

Kitten watched the destruction of my kitchen
and my epic baking failure. 

Recently I decided to take on the challenge of making a birthday cake, my initial idea was ice cream cake! DUH! It's been so hot out that ice cream would be the perfect solution. I should've kept this idea to myself because I failed miserably and it was so awful. So I started out making an ice cream cake the way I thought made sense, soften the ice cream, put it into my 9x11 pan and freeze it over night. Well all is good so far but then I had two 1-1/2 layers added on top, let the freeze and then decided to frost it. This is where things went haywire. My apartment is SOOOO hot that I couldn't get through 2 minutes of frosting before the ice cream was oozing out the bottom. So I would put it back in the freezer and chill it then attack again. This would have worked had the weight of the cake not been squishing the ice cream layer on bottom. So it wasn't just the heat affecting the ice cream it was the cake itself. So after I get home from work, its about midnight and I need this cake done by morning, I decided maybe I can just rearrange the layers. And then it hits me: how the heck am I supposed to get this cake to the party anyway without it melting? My AC in my car isn't working and to my surprise my ice chest is too small. UGH! By this time I'm nearly in tears because I am such a perfectionist. But then I took a breath and decided I would just have to make a regular cake in the morning before the party and just have to live with it. So at 7:30am I'm at Walmart getting new supplies and baking this dang cake. Thankfully the results were good and everyone loved it! So here is the alternative cake that I made, Peanut Butter Cup Cake.

Peanut Butter Cup Cake:

What you need:


Chocolate Cake Mix
Vanilla Cake Mix
Eggs
Veggie Oil
Peanut Butter Cups, cut in 1/4, and chopped.
2-3 containers of Chocolate Frosting

What to do:

If you have seen my Moose Tracks Cupcakes I did the same process to make the marbled cake. Mix the chocolate and vanilla in separate bowls then swirl together in a pan. I used a 1 cup measuring cup and did probably 2-3 cups of both chocolate and vanilla in my greased 9x11 inch pan. Bake as directed, 350 for about 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Chill and set aside. You should be able to make 2 layers which is all you need.




Once the layers are chilled the level them and frost the bottom layer with chocolate frosting so that the second layer can stick to it. I added the 1/4 cut peanut butter cups for a little extra something in the middle.

The top with the second layer that has been leveled as well. Frost the whole cake with the chocolate frosting. I attempted to pipe Happy Birthday and that didn't look good at all but I just went with it because I didn't have the time to fix it.

With all of your chopped up pieces of peanut butter cups (this gets messy) squish them into the side of your cake and let the frosting act as a velcro wall. I piped the top edge with chocolate to make it look a little more polished but you don't necessarily have to.

Final Product

Even though everyone loved the cake, and it was delicious, I was really disappointed with my frosting skills. Especially after seeing my friend Melina make this beaut! So you can see why I want to open a bakery with this girl! She's so AMAZING!

Melina's cake she made 

But I've come to the conclusion I will just stick to cupcakes because cakes are just too overwhelming for me and at least with cupcakes you can make mistakes and people don't really notice. Cakes are observable from all sides. Cupcakes aren't as out there. So with struggle came a success...and a bit of jealousy the Melina is so much better at piping than me haha.

Raspberry Crumble Bars

With summer comes the heat and I have definitely been feeling the lazy bug that goes hand and hand with the heat. Kitten has too. She sleeps and lounges so much that it make me feel exhausted and worn out. She often likes to lay on her back and I have no idea why but it's so adorable that I just can't deny giving her a treat for being so cute. But I also wonder if it's just a way for her to air out and cool down. If only it worked like that for everyone, but unfortunately I have neighbors so I can't exactly lay spread eagle like she does (not to mention it'd be kind of weird anyways if I did). But with my army of fans I stay as cool as I can. 

Anyways, I've found that along with the summer heat, you want to eat things that keep you cool and refreshed; which is usually fruit. So to celebrate the summer heat here is a great recipe to beat the heat and tastes great!

It's hard to tell they are bars but don't they look delicious!

Raspberry Crumble Bars

What you need:
3 cups flour
1 -1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon corn starch
4 cups fresh or frozen raspberries (though any berry substitute will work as well)



What to do:
Grease a 9x11 inch pan. In a large bowl combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Cut in the shortening (I just used a fork to do this because I didn't have any other tools to cut the shortening). The mix should be crumbly. Add in the 2 eggs and the extract and mix well. Press in 2/3 of the crumble mix into the pan.

In another bowl combing the cornstarch and sugar. Add the berries. Frozen berries do not need to thaw before hand just break them apart and add them to the mix. Toss or stir the mix until the berries are pretty evenly coated in the cornstarch and sugar mix.

Toss the berry mix over the crumble mix in the pan and spread as evenly as possible. Sprinkle the remaining crumble mix over the berries.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until the bars are golden brown. Keep refrigerated. And enjoy!

Dad's Zucchini Bread

One thing I really love about the summer and early fall is all the gardening my family used to do. We used to live in the valley where there was really rich soil and we got to add the manure from my grandparents cattle farm so it was an extra boost in our garden. One thing we always grew was zucchini. We would have competitions with my grandparents to see who could grow the biggest ones. And when I say we grew zucchini, they weren't your average ones you buy at the store that are only like 6-7 inches. The ones we grew were like almost 2 feet long and at least 6 inches wide. They were absolutely enormous! I have a picture somewhere I'll have to find so you can actually grasp the concept of how big they were.

Anyway moral of the story is that we would have so much zucchini we wouldn't know what to do with. I mean we put it in our eggs for breakfast and fried it for dinner. But my dad LOVES to make zucchini bread with it because it makes a million and one loafs. Okay that was a slight exaggeration but with the amount of zucchini we had it seemed like we made a million and one. So I'd like to share the recipe so that it can bring you as much yumminess as it does for my family!

What you need:

 3 cups flour
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2/3 cup veggie oil
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon (sometimes I add just a tad more because I like cinnamon)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 eggs

Preheat 350 degrees and grease your bread pan.

Mix all the ingredients together; I don't think order makes any difference to the outcome of the bread. Make sure batter is well blended and then pour into pan and make it relatively evenly distributed.

Bake 45-55 minutes (on the bottom shelf) or until tooth pick comes out clean. Remove and cool.

I baked it on the center rack and every time I put a toothpick in it came out somewhat doughy so I kept baking the bread for longer but you also have to know your oven and I wouldn't bake mine any more than 50 minutes. And I think the bottom rack cooked it thoroughly the first time so I didn't have to keep putting it back in for a few minutes at a time.

And since we walked down memory lane, here is a picture of Kitten when she was still just a baby! Those were the days when she was a mini cat not a full adult

Moose Tracks and Banana Cream Cupcakes

This blog is dedicated specially to my Grandpa Banaszak. 

He was a true Cougar fan

Grandpa & I dancing when I was younger

The last two weeks have been relatively rough because my family lost a great man and the head of our family. My grandpa was an amazing person and will forever be remembered as that. So for his memorial I decided to make cupcakes. I decided on two flavors, Moose Tracks and Banana Cream Pie (that was Grandpa's favorite pie). 

Moose Tracks:

I had been trying to make up my own recipe for Moose Tracks cupcakes for awhile because it is one of my favorite ice cream flavors and I had found a few different recipes but thought that it didn't quite capture what I was trying to create; so I let my imagination take over and ended up with a masterpiece! The only issues I had with making these is that it got really messy really fast!

What you need:

1 box chocolate cake mix
1box vanilla cake mix
eggs
veggie oil
peanut butter cups cut into 1/4

Frosting:

1 large can of chocolate
1 small can chocolate
peanut butter (I used about a cup but it depends on how much you like peanut butter)

What to do:

Mix both mixes in separate bowls. Add cut peanut butter cups to the chocolate batter. Add a spoonful of each batter to the cupcake liners and swirl them. Luckily I had a baking assistant (my cousin Riley) so we were able to swirl them at one time (she had one spoon and had another). Then we took a toothpick to swirl them a bit more to make sure we swirled them good.

 Bake as directed on the box, usually 350 degrees for about 18 minutes.  And they turned out as this cool marble effect and smelled soooooooo good!!

We put them aside and began to work on the frosting. We created a chocolate peanut butter frosting by emptying 2 containers of chocolate frosting (between both batters we made a little over 3 dozen cupcakes) and whipped it together with peanut butter. I used about a cup or a little over because I didn't want the peanut butter to be overwhelming and then piped it onto our creation. 

And they turned out amazing! Riley did such a great job frosting them and though I didn't have one everyone was gushing over how delicious they were. Mission accomplished.

Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes

These were my favorite of the two that we made! 

What you need:

1 package instant vanilla pudding

milk

1/4 cut bananas (varies depending on how much you like bananas in your filling)

1 box yellow cake mix

eggs

veggie oil

For whipped cream frosting:

Heavy whipping cream

powdered sugar

vanilla

To begin: 

I made the pudding filling with bananas ahead of time so it had time to set in the fridge. So make the pudding according to pie filling instructions and add bananas to your liking. We cut the bananas in half the long way then cut each half in half again the long way. We then cut those into little chunks so the banana pieces wouldn't be too big and have people choke on them. That wouldn't be good. After making the filling put it in the fridge so it could set and we began on the cupcakes.

So mix the yellow cake mix as instructed and fill cupcake liners. I used 2 boxes of cake mix because I was baking for a lot of people and I made a little over 3 dozen because I filled the liners a little more than 2/3 so they would bake larger. 

After they bake let them cool. Cut the middle out, I did a cone shape.  

Make sure the cupcakes are fully cooled before adding the filling. I put the filling into piping bags because spooning it in was too messy.

We put them in the fridge while we made the whipped cream topping.

To make the whipped cream topping pour the heaving whipping cream into bowl and beat with electric beater on the highest speed. Add powdered sugar to give it body and vanilla for flavoring.  Whipped cream should be pretty thick to be able to pipe. Amazingly the whipped cream was able to stay out for the entire duration of the memorial and then for awhile longer when we went back to Grandma's house for family time. 

These were a big hit and I'm sure Grandpa would've loved them!

A special thanks to Riley for being my baking assistant and doing such a wonderful job frosting all the cupcakes!