Chocolate Cupcakes w/ Strawberry Swiss-Meringue Buttercream

Strawberries were on sale the other day when I went to the grocery store so I thought it would be the perfect time to try this recipe from pinkparsley.

Got all my stuff together for the cake part

(I'm not a coffee drinker but happened to have a packet of instant)
Got it all mixed together then added the coffee and got a bit worried... it was SO THIN.
But then as the recipe calls for I mixed it with a spatula a bit and went with it, they ended up baking perfectly.

Then came the frosting...



I've never done one of those stove top sugar egg white frostings before so I was a tad worried I'd mess it all up... I mixed and mixed and mixed while it was over the heat, and it just want getting completely 'smooth' between my fingers. So I decided it looked good and went on! (ok, so maybe I'm impatient)

It ended up coming together nicely!



I've already delivered to 3 of my neighbors and had 3 mini ones myself! I just dropped them off so I'm not sure what they think of them yet. I REALLY like them, def. making again.

Biscuits and Papa Haydn

I made biscuits for the first time in my life the other day (minus helping mom when I was a wee one). I find this very strange since I love baking... and I love biscuits!

I found a super easy recipe during my online food hunting at 'and now for something completely delicious'. It took about 5 minutes to prepare (partly thanks to the butter moosher my mom gave me - its actually almost the same one as in the pic of that blog) then like 10 minutes to bake.

I made mine a bit smaller and ended up with 12, I also did the milk + lemon thing since I almost never have buttermilk on hand.

mmmmm - topped with home made strawberry jam from a friend.


And now for the Papa Haydn portion!

This was mom and my 2nd stop for our Treat Tasting. I already knew one treat I liked at Papa Haydn's, but I hadnt actually tried anything else.

They also serve food so when we got there we were very nicely greeted to be seated but let them know we were only on a mission for the treats!

The guy behind the nom case was very pleasant and patient. We looked at everything. One thing I LOVE is that the treats in the display case are the ones they serve, so most of the time they are already cut into so you get to see all the inner goodness.

I asked if I could take a picture and he said 'of course!' It was pretty sunny so theres some glare. The treat we decided on isnt in the picture because just as we made up our minds another person ordered it so he had already removed it.



All the goodies have little name-tags with the price on them.

We decided on:
Autumn Meringue
Swiss meringues layered with rich chocolate mousse and pot de creme, wrapped in ribbons of chocolate.

(image from their website)

The grading was hard... because I already have love for another one of their treats which I'll mention later...

So I gave it a B

It tasted great! The mousse was a wonderful smooth texture and the meringue (I only like the crunchy kind) was ACE. I dont know if I wasnt feeling like chocolate or if my other love was intruding in my taste buds. So I just couldnt give it an A. (plus I gotta give room for future sweets!)
My favorite part was the meringue... so I saved most of it for the end!

mmmm


Papa Haydn's gets an A+
The setup is perfect (I basically already mentioned all the good stuff)

I do realize that I'll probably have to recap when I have quite a few and may have to re-grade! Thinking back I dont know if I would still give Piece of Cake a C-!
Maybe I'll re-review in clumps of 5 and assess in my afterthought and other experiences.
I also see I didnt give pricing, so I'm adding that now
Piece of cake: $5.75
Papa Haydn: $8.00
Mom and I are splitting all the treats we get (if possible) so we are actually only spending 1/2 of whats listed.

My Papa Haydn love....
Boccone Dolce
Swiss meringues drizzled with semi-sweet chocolate, layered with fresh fruit and chantilly cream.

(image from their website)

When we walked in I didnt see it... then as I said "its not here!" it was put back into the case *phew!*

Mom and I had already decided a slice was going home with each of us... how could we go and NOT get one?!
Its not always the same as they use fresh fruit so it goes by what is available. This time (I havent actually eaten it yet I just nibbled a few bits and took pictures) it looks like theres banana and strawberry.
This one gets an A+ every time and is also $8 per slice. This is one I wont share!
may not be the prettiest treat... but that doesnt stop me!

*sigh* ily

We havent decided where we'll go next, or when! But I'm excited! (ok some of that excitement may be from knowing I have amazingness in my fridge waiting to be consumed)

Chocolate Peanutbutter Cup Cupcakes

YUM!

I used the same chocolate cupcake recipe that I posted about before and made a peanutbutter frosting with peanut butter, powder sugar, vanilla, and milk. I would tell you how much of everything if I knew!

I put a miniature Reese's cup in the bigger cupcakes and one of the new mini ones in the tiny cupcakes. Which was the only part of this recipe that didnt go quite right... of course the Reese's fell to the bottom and stuck to the paper! oops! the good thing? They still tasted AMAZING!

This is basically what you need:


and this is what happens:


My mom just couldnt wait for Easter so invited me over last weekend to celebrate super early (we have the combined excuse that the things she got me I could USE for Easter so it only made sense to do it early!)

The loot?


look at that amazingness!
She got me cupcake boxes for gifting to people, a piping bag, a bunny spatula, a bunch of cupcake cups!, a smoosher thing for making biscuits, craft paper, some stickers that are just tooooo cute, a cupcake plunger (for filling cupcakes), and my favorite? the 56 piece tip set! but she made it more awesome by splitting it up and instead of candy she put each tip in an egg.
Thats right, I still hunt for Easter stuff! oh so fun!

AND she finished my blanket!

Seriously? its amazing. Thats her bed by the way. Its a queen size. I have a full.... basically I have it folded in half so the lines are horizontal on my bed and its STILL big enough for me! LOVE.

I cant post my current crafty stuff cause its for a swap. So thatll come later.

11/50 - Easter Wreath

Found a pretty wreath on whipperberry while browsing pinterest and told my mom I'd love to make some for Easter with her.
She had her paper all cut when I got to her house, however the night before I wasnt sure if I still wanted to do mine with the mod podge. So we decided to do hers the same way and mine different (and actually ended up doing hers a bit different still)
I helped her mod podge strips of paper...

I've still got glue on my nails!

Then we needed to paint the base wreath but stopped for a pic together


Then painted


While they dried mom worked on her strips and I cut mine


Then it was time to glue everything together YAY HOT GLUE GUNS!!


Just need to add some Easter goodness


ta-da!


I didnt glue any of the Easter stuff in, instead I picked the colors my place is decorated with so I can use it for other holidays by just adding cute things.

I currently have it hanging in my window but will eventually have to find a better spot for it (its hard to see any detail with the lighting)

Momma started a blog and wrote about hers here.

I also made some Cream Cheese Cookies from Bake, Sew, Sing last night to contribute to dinner with my neighbors.

However, I didnt have quite enough sugar so I added a bit of brown sugar and ground up some fancy sugar to coat the outside of the cookies. I also added a touch of almond extract. I like how they turned out! Very moist inside and a nice crunch on the outside, I did have to bake them closer to 9 minutes though (recipe calls for 7)

Cake Mix Cookies

Easiest cookies EVER

Found the recipe on Stephanie Cooks who got it from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 (18.25 oz.) box cake mix (I used vanilla cause its what I had on hand)
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used a whole bag of mini's)


Directions:
-preheat oven to 350
-mix cake mix and baking powder

-add eggs and oil

-mix until well blended

-stir in chocolate chips

-scoop balls (hehe) onto cookie sheet

-bake 9 minutes

-let cool for a bit on the sheet before transferring to wire rack

then NOM

Banana Cupcakes

I've actually been calling these Banana Bread Cupcakes... Cause thats what they are like!
I got the recipe from Cheesecake for All (see recipe there) - I didnt have buttermilk so I did the Milk/Lemon thing.

Got all my ingredients together (except for the cream cheese frosting, that was out of the picture but still on the counter)


It has a few steps to it so I needed 3 bowls


mmm all mixed up! (the batter tasted good!)


I didnt take a pic of the tin filled, but I filled them almost to the top, they didnt rise too much so that worked out well

Then bake!


Now for the Cream Cheese Frosting

Butter and Cream Cheese


Vanilla


Powder Sugar


Nommm


Ta-Da!

9/50 - Cupcakes!

WOOO CUPCAKES!

Now, I normally wouldn't count a cupcake as a 'project' but I used the stove for a couple things making it a whole new world for me! And as I said in my first post about projects... new things in the kitchen are going to be projects!

I used the recipe from 'What's For Dinner' - Its a Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Buttercream (a whole new-to-me kind of buttercream! made with Granulated Sugar!)

While I was at my moms last weekend we were watching Cupcake Wars and I was like "UGHGGJUHGRFJ! I WANT TO MAKE CUPCAKES!" she said "WE SHOULD!!" and then it happened!

While she went to the store to get milk and liners I started what I could. I got the cocoa mixture ready and started the dry ingredients... She got back right in time!


I got everything together and was about to add the cocoa when...

THIS ISNT LOOKING RIGHT!

Then I realized "Crap! I added the butter! oops!" (butter was supposed to be for the frosting, NOT the cupcakes)

So I started the batter over and it looked great so I was able to add the cocoa mixture


messily fill cups


and bake!

(dont they look nice?!)

So while they cooled I made the frosting... You have to mix the milk and flour until its kind of the consistency of brownie batter, add vanilla, then let it cool to room temp. While it was cooling to room temp you beat the crap out of sugar and butter. With exception of scraping down the edges sometimes I literally had it mixing the entire time it took the flour/milk/vanilla to cool...

I read the comments on her blog and some had problems with mixing so much it then separated... so I dont know what I did but it worked!



NOMMM


So the cake part is very moist, exactly how I like it, light and very cake-like. The frosting is SUPER light, like whipped cream light! and its got a very light taste, not very sweet, but enjoyable. My personal preference is more sugar but it was def. nice for something new!

Also Mom and I decided we're going to try some bakeries around and just share what we get... so we went to a place today and got some kind of raspberry chocolate cake.
The cakes frosting tasted EXACTLY like this, except it had a raspberry flavor to it.

I guess I should take pics of what we get from now on cause we totally graded it.

We went to Piece of Cake in Sellwood
I guess this is what we got:
Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream Ganache
Layers of chocolate cake filled with raspberry, iced in buttercream & topped with dripping ganache.
We gave the bakery a C-
It was very cute inside, you can see the whole kitchen, but the only things that had labels were the cupcakes. So we had to ask about each cake... which was difficult because the woman there had an accent and talked SUPER soft. I literally leaned into her and had her repeat herself, even with no accent I would have had to have her repeat herself.
She gave us a menu but there are no pictures... so it was very hard to decide, and they kept the cut cakes out of sight, so you couldnt even get an idea from looking at them. It kind of killed the experience.
She also didnt ask if we were eating there or taking it, she just put it in a to-go box... so we brought it back and ate it. We didnt even see what it looked like til we got back!
We both agreed if we saw the cakes inside neither one of us would have decided to get it, a very unexciting looking cake.

The cake itself got a C
It was ok tasting but super boring. The raspberry flavor was too faint.

So I dont know that we will go back again just because the way its set up was too difficult to be visually stimulated. (Which is how I pick what I want!)
This was very disappointing cause I always pass this place and was very excited to finally try it... WOMP WOMP...

WHEW LONG post!

3/50 - Window Scarves (End!)

I FINISHED!


I'm excited, I dont feel like the photos really show how much nicer it looks in here.


I'm also excited that I can now start working on other things!


I was originally going to leave the caps off because I have mismatched sets and one missing. Turns out they look pretty nice though!


And the lacking one I used in the kitchen since its on the side of my fridge anyway it shouldnt be missed.


Its very nice to have some color on the walls!

I've ordered some prints from naokosstoop with Christmas money from my father and I'm super excited for them to arrive to add even more to the walls.

A couple other things I've done since my last post:

Birthday card for a friend


Cupcakes for the BCS game