A Minnie Mouse Birthday

My daughter requested a Minnie Mouse party for her 4th, complete with PINK cupcakes! Well, I'm a chocolate girl, myself, and I don't think any birthday is complete without chocolate cake. So I made her both--pink cupcakes, pink frosting, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate frosting--and mixed and matched.

 For the pink cake and pink frosting, I used a raspberry cake and raspberry buttercream recipe. Both were okay--again, I'm a chocolate girl.

 For the chocolate, I used my default, go-to, straight-from-mom recipe I've been making and eating for years. It is always amazing, even when you screw it up. I eat the batter by the spatula-full, and the frosting won't last long in a container on my counter. Usually I'm good and sick by the end of the process.

 The finished result was darling! I spent several days molding pink candy bows in a mold I bought on Etsy (using pink white-chocolate candies), and paired them with semi-sweet baking discs for Minnie Mouse ears.

And for the recipes:

Recipes:

Raspberry Cake
adapted from Sugar and Cloth

Ingredients:
1 cups Sugar
1 cup Butter
3 cups Cake Flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 eggs, room temperature
3 egg yolks, room temperature
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 cup raspberry jam
Pink food coloring

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Sift together cake flour and baking soda and set aside. Combine milk and vanilla and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then add raspberry jam. Add dry ingredients and milk in alternating batches (at least 3), beginning and ending with the dry. Add food coloring and fold batter a few times to be sure everything is incorporated.
3. Pour into prepared pans (recipe makes 3 cakes) and bake 17-22 minutes.

Raspberry Butter Cream

Ingredients:
2 lbs. Powdered Sugar
1 lb. butter, room temperature
1/2 cup raspberry jam
1 tsp. vanilla
Pink food coloring

Directions:
1. Cream butter until fluffy, and then add sugar, two cups at a time.
2. Add vanilla and food coloring. Whip until good consistency and apply to cooled cake.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
4 oz. Unsweetened Chocolate
1/2 cup Butter, softened
2 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
3 Eggs
1 cup Sour Cream
2 tsp. Baking Soda
2 1/4 cups Flour
1 cup Boiling Water

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Melt chocolate.
2. Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time. Add melted chocolate.
3. Stir in sour cream and then add dry ingredients. Add boiling water; you must work quickly once water is added.
4. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 35 minutes. Cool before frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:
4.5 oz. Unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/2 cup Butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 lb. Powdered Sugar

Directions:
1. Melt butter and chocolate together. Meanwhile, combine milk and sugar in a food processor.
2. Add chocolate and mix until combined. Frosting will thicken as it cools.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake

A friend of mine gave me this recipe after I oogled over her picture on Facebook. And it's yummy! AND, it uses stuff I regularly keep around the house, so it was easy and fast to make! It looks pretty gooey and rich in the picture, but it has a great texture and taste--I recommend it!

Recipe:

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup Quick Oats
1 3/4 cup Boiling Water
1 cup Granulated Sugar
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Butter
2 Large Eggs
1 3/4 cups Flour
1 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Cinnamon
2 cups Chocolate Chips
3/4 cups Chopped Walnuts

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Place oats in large bowl and pour boiling water over. Slice butter over the top and let stand 10 minutes. Prepare a 9x13" pan.
2. Add sugar and brown sugar, stirring until butter is melted. Stir in eggs, baking soda, cocoa, cinnamon, and flour. mix until combined.
3. Fold in half of the chocolate chips and pour into a pan. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips and nuts.
4. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have found. I used to use a different one, but moving to high altitude wreaked havoc on my cookies, and it took a while to find a new, BETTER recipe. The secret isn't so secret anymore... cornstarch! Perfect, fluffy cookies. With that said, the batch made on this post weren't the best I made (appearance-wise, they always taste great), and they still look pretty darn good!

Anyway, this recipe is like fool-proof. I will admit that I decreased the amount of chocolate chips, and that IS saying something (I'm always for more chocolate). It was just a little too much! They were rattling around in the bowl with nothing to stick to!

Recipe:

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup Unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1 Large Egg
2 tsp. Vanilla
2 cups Flour
2 tsp. Cornstarch
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
3/4 cup Chocolate Chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line pan with parchment paper.
2. Cream butter with sugars and add vanilla. Once creamy, add egg and mix.
3. Add dry ingredients (flour last) and mix until combined.
4. Add chocolate chips and place in tablespoon-fulls on pan (makes about 24 cookies).
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Daring Baker's Challenge: May - PÃO DE QUEIJO

So I said I was going to do it and I did it! I'm officially a "daring" baker! I didn't join until now, though, because of my foreign travel plans. I figured I needed to wait until I had time to commit. And so May is the first official month as part of the challenge, for me!

This month was "PÃO DE QUEIJO" and, honestly, it was a complete failure for me. Okay, maybe not a COMPLETE failure. It sounded delicious! I love bread. I love cheese! What else could a girl want? The pictures showed delightfully fluffy scone-like breads. Looked amazing.

So I ordered me some Tapioca flour online and, once it arrived, I followed the provided recipe and baked! It was an interesting experience, I'll admit. It seemed to progress according to the instructions. But my little scone-thingies didn't puff up in the oven AT ALL. They remained hard little golf balls. So maybe I did something wrong--maybe?

Don't get me wrong. They tasted fine. Not great, but not bad. They were edible. They were okay. But they weren't anything I was going to keep around after they cooled, and most made their way into the trash. It was disappointing... they are highly popular and I imagine quite yummy when made right!

Regardless, here is the recipe I was provided. Maybe you'll have better luck (but if I were you, I'd find some at a store and eat them there!):

Recipe:

PÃO DE QUEIJO

Ingredients:
4 cups Tapioca Starch
1 cup Whole Milk
2 3/4 Tbsp. Butter
1 tsp. Salt
3 cups Monterey Jack Cheese
1-3 Large Eggs

Directions:
1. Heat milk, butter, and salt in small sauce pan until it boils. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Pour hot milk mixture over sifted tapioca starch and blend with a fork (it will form a lumpy mixture). Break down lumps and continue to stir until just warm.
3. Preheat oven to 400. Add the grated cheese and mix in with your hands.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing with your hands, until dough comes together in a soft but pliable dough. It can be slightly sticky.
5. Form balls with dough and placed on lined baking sheets. Bake for 25 minutes or until just brown on the bottom. Do not over bake.

Challenging Myself - 2014 Dessert Challenge

So I have noticed that I'm still terrible about blogging. Here's the thing though... I'm trying new recipes all the time still! So here's to my goal to get back into putting the stories of my successes/failures on the blog. I decided the best way to do this is to institute a challenge again. I liked the Cheesecake Challenge. I royally sucked at it after my son was born, but it was FUN.

In an effort to make this a productive endeavor, though (and because I'm actually in the process of losing that 15 pounds--halfway and trying to maintain...), I'm going to make a more flexible "Dessert Challenge." I know,  it doesn't sound as cool, at all. But it's probably more practical, since I avoid cheesecake like the plague (it's too good to give away and too fattening to eat all the time!).

So I've decided to make my own "Baker's Challenge." The goal is to make one of these desserts a month, on average (at least). I have 7 desserts here, enough for one a month from June-December. I even selected a wide variety of treats to suit all sorts of occasions. Let's see if I can manage it!

1. Chocolate Chess Pie



2. Tiramisu Sandwich Cookies



3. German Dark Rye Bread



4. No-Bake Nutella Cheesecakes



5. Cannoli Cupcakes



6.  Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Skillet Cookie



7. Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Chocolate Chip Bars

I already have myself a go-to chocolate chip bar, and this is a slight variation on that, but it was a recipe I decided to try. And I did... it was pretty good, although I'll confess that I think it is much better right out of the oven. However, I do live in a very dry climate and things dry out easily (it was too dry for me on day 2... maybe if I had done a better job wrapping it?).

Anyway, these are yummy and chewy right out of the oven, and you'll eat more than you should!

Recipe:

Chocolate Chip Bars
adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Ingredients:
2 1/8 cups Flour
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
12 Tbsp. Butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk
2 tsp. Vanilla
2 1/4 cups Flour
2 cups Chocolate Chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325. Line pan with foil or spray.
2. Whisk together melted butter and sugars until combined, and then add egg and yolk.
3. Add vanilla and baking soda. Fold in flour until just combined (do not over mix).
4. Fold in chocolate chips and smooth into pan.
5. Bake for 24-28 minutes. Cool to room temperature (or eat them hot, how I like them).

Back in the Kitchen

I found this amazing website today called "The Daring Kitchen." It's just a group of bakers/cooks that each month take on a challenge. I love the concept! And I want to do it... but I am going to try to ease back into my blog, first.

So, life happened. I was writing up until late summer of 2012. At the end of 2012, my son was born. Let me just say, adjusting to two was a challenge for me! The last thing I had time for was blogging/baking/trying new things.

But now my little guy is over a year and I think we have our rhythm. Moreover, I'm getting back into meal planning and trying new recipes. Unfortunately, I'm STILL trying to lose 15 pounds. That hadn't changed since the inception of this blog. However, I am already 5 pounds against my goal, so it's going well! Which means, of course, I can't bake too much or too often. Although my coworkers like my diet--it means they get quite a bit of my left overs.

So here's to a new beginning. I'm not going to take on the Cheesecake Challenge again, yet. I even tried a few of those other recipes and didn't blog about them. But right now, it's baby steps into blogging. If I get going, I'll set a challenge. My goal is to join the Daring Bakers, but I need to make sure I can handle it, first!

Here we go!