I almost forgot the Sampson Sampler!!!  Here it is...

Butterscotch Chip Spice Cookies

Eggnog Snicker doodles (had to adlib, the previously posted recipe was giving me trouble)

Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Red Velvet Cake Truffles

Happy Baking!

Kristi

Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes

Thin Mints, Andes Mints, Peppermint Bark, Peppermint Oreos, York Peppermint Patties…

As you can see, chocolate and mint have a loving relationship.  During Christmas peppermint is everywhere, Starbucks starts making Peppermint Mochas, Oreos comes out with the Peppermint Holiday Edition, and Kristi makes chocolate peppermint candy cane cupcakes!  These are super easy to make.  I used the “Triple Chocolate to Live For” muffin recipe for the base and then just made a cream cheese peppermint frosting.  MMMMMMMM peppermint cream cheese…..These are delicious J  Oh and I forgot to mention that I purchased some Opal Sanding Sugar that I think is going to be my new decoration of choice.  It’s so sparkly and non-chunky – Love it!  In case you were wondering for what festive occasion I made these, I made them for a wine holiday party and also for Christmas Eve with the Hub’s side of the family.  I was really excited to learn that I had red food coloring in the cupboard so I could make candy cane colored frosting.  More two-toned frosting yeah!!Enjoy and Happy Belated Holidays   

Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes -

 I forgot to mention the snowflake sprinkes!!!

Hubby Rating:

Cake - 9.5

Frosting - 10

Appearance - 10 

Overall - 9.9

Happy Baking!

Kristi

Rum & Coke Cupcakes

What would any holiday be without the customary holiday party?  This year I made rum and coke cupcakes again for the office “Ladies’ Luncheon”.  These always are a hit and if you are looking for the recipe, check out

http://iheartcuppycakes.com/2009/04/19/iron-cupcake-soda-pop/

Now, I’ve never made her recipe for frosting, I always just make a buttercream and add rum instead of vanilla for the desired component to the “Rum & Coke” inspiration.  **WARNING** the cake batter will look really really thin but it bakes up just fine J

Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted one of these cupcakes…curious.

Here they are…

I had fun trying to make them look like Christmas trees.  Not too successful but I like them, remind me of Dr. Seuss a little bit J

Happy Baking!

Kristi

Cookie Jar

OK so most of my posts involve cupcakes but in preparation for Christmas I had to test out some new cookie recipes to be added to the Sampson Sampler Platter for 2011.  Let’s rewind….the hubs has 5 siblings, 3 married, 2 unmarried.  I used to make baskets for the married couples (ie pasta night, pancake breakfast, etc) however, last year we decided to put the baking skills to good use and bake up some goodie plates for the married siblings.  My Mother-in-law also makes cookies for Christmas so we knew we had to make some different options to not clash with the already established goodies.  FAST FORWARD…This year I got two new cookie/treat dedicated magazines and was soooo excited to try out the new recipes.  So this post is dedicated to cookie trial.  This is a big deal, because if they don’t pass the test, they don’t get a spot on the Sampson Sampler.  If I were a cookie, I would want to win. 

The two recipes I decided to try were butterscotch chip cookies and eggnog tea cookies.  Much to my surprise, butterscotch has been a clear favorite amongst the co-workers so I thought this would be a good choice.  Eggnog on the other hand…the hubs favorite holiday drink…I wasn’t too confident that these would be tasty.

Cookie #1 Eggnog Tea Cookies with Butter Rum Icing

Adapted From Cuisine Cookies for the Holidays 2011

For the cookies –

2 C. All-purpose Flour2 tsp. Ground Nutmeg½ tsp. Table Salt1 C. Softened, unsalted butter (2 sticks)¾ C. Granulated Sugar1 Egg2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

For the Icing –

2 C. Sifted Powdered Sugar2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter, Melted2 Tbsp. Heavy Whipping Cream¼ tsp. Rum (I used Bacardi Spiced Rum)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Stir flour, nutmeg, and salt together in a bowl and set aside. 

Cream 2 sticks butter and granulated sugar together in another bowl with a mixer until smooth.  Add egg and vanilla; beat until incorporated, then mix in the flour mixture until just blended.  Cover and chill dough for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

Roll dough into scant 1.5” balls.  Arrange on prepared baking sheets spacing 2 inches apart.  Bake 10 minutes or until firm to the touch and light brown on the edges, transfer to rack to cool.

Blend powdered sugar, 2 Tbsp. melted butter, cream, and run together for icing, using a hand mixer.  Frost cooled cookies, then decorate with sprinkles, as desired.  Allow icing to harden before packaging cookies.

Hubby Rating:  7

Decorated with sprinkles found in the dollar bin at Target, SCORE!

Cookie #2 – Butterscotch Chip Spice CookiesAdapted From Cuisine Cookies for the Holidays 2011

2C. All-purpose Flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon ( I use heaping teaspoons or 2 teaspoons)
1 tsp. ground ginger (see above)
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. table salt
1C. Unsalted butter, room temperature (2 sticks)
1 ½ C. Packed Light Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
12 oz. Butterscotch Chips
Powdered sugar

Stir flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl, set aside.

Cream butter and brown sugar with a mixer until smooth.  Beat in egg and vanilla, then add flour mixture.

Mix in flour mixture just until blended.  Do not overmix or cookies will become tough.

Fold in butterscotch chips, then cover and chill dough until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Shape dough into 2-inch balls.

Roll balls of dough in powdered sugar and arrange on baking sheets 3 inches apart. 

Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden and set.  Let cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to rack to continue cooling.

             

Hubby Rating:  9.9 “This is my new favorite cookie”

Good News Cookie Challengers - You Made the Cut!

 Happy Baking!

-Kristi

Pheww

It's been FOREVER since I last updated the blog...oops...In my defense, the holidays have come and gone and add in two sicknesses for the household.  Anywhosers to get ready for 2012 I've decided to finish up some end of the year posts and to try and get a new layout.  Since I'm apparently blog challenged, this should be a long process.   In the mean time, here are some more baking posts!!

Kristi

Franken-Cupcakes

Boo! 

It's that spooky time of year and tomorrow we are going over to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's house to see all of our nieces and nephews dressed up for halloween.  I was asked to bring cupcakes so I tried to think of something kids would like.  What better than OREOS?!  I followed the recipe from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen here but made some tweaks to it. 

I wanted the cupcakes to be very "Halloweeny" so I decided to use the orange holiday Oreos.  Let me tell you, you can't find these things everywhere.  Our grocery store had 12 different types of Oreos but not the orange filled ones...So I had to make a second stop to Target.  Even there they were hiding on an end cap in the back of the store hidden amongst all of the Halloween candy and above the Christmas Oreos!  Really Christmas Oreos already????  Target has already transitioned into the red and green holiday.  I wonder what they do with all of the left over Halloween specific items, like the orange Oreos?  hmmmmm...

So in order to make these Franken-Cupcakes I decided to make them different colors.  Kids like colors right?  I divided the batter into three bowls and dyed each one a different Halloween colors, orange, purple, and green.

I put in a spoon of each color on top of the Oreo at the bottom and swirled it around to make it look tye-dyed.

They baked a little funky and looked like little mountains in the center but that's OK.  I'm assuming this happened because there was an Oreo at the bottom and therefore the batter couldn't expand in the paper and had nowhere to go but up.  No worries, I was going to frost them anyway.

Can you guess what this is???  If you grew up in the '90s you might say it's slime, a la Double Dare or pretty much any Nickelodeon game show.

I always wondered what the slime was made of and if it was edible or not. 

 Well obviously I did not put slime or gak into the cupcakes so it must be the cream filling!  I don't think our nieces and nephews will get the Double Dare or even Nickelodeon reference but I think they'll like it just the same.  This is also why I called them Franken-Cupcakes.  When I put the lid back on the cupcakes the "slime" oozes out :)

 Covered in frosting you can't see the mountain underneath :)

All packaged and ready to go for tomorrow.

Hubby Rating:

Cake:  9

Filling:  9.5

Frosting:  9.5

Overall:  9.4

Wow he's getting technical with these scores.  I'm surprised he hasn't made score cards yet....

He's even taken to asking for an accompanying drink, this time it was chocolate milk.  

Happy Bakingween,

Kristi 

 The only other edit I made to the original recipe was to dye the frosting orange.  Again, think the kids will like it.  I like the way they came out.  The frosting was a nice consistency to pipe and I did not encounter any clogged piping bags this time. :)  Maybe that's because I stressed the importance of smashing the Oreos to a fine ground to my best baking assistant, the hubs.  He probably took about 10 minutes making sure they were pulverized, much to our downstairs neighbor's dismay.

I always wondered what the slime was made of and if it was edible or not. 

Apple Cider Goodness

Since it's cooled off a little in SoCal, my taste tester aka the Hubs decided it was time to have a fall-y cupcake.  I didn't research before going to the grocery store so while we were in the car on the way to the grocery store, I broke out the handy dandy iPhone and found a recipe.  Apples seem like a quintessential fall item so I opted for apple cider cupcakes.  You can find the recipe here:  http://www.sweettoothsweetlife.com/2011/09/29/apple-cider-cupcakes-with-apple-cider-cream-cheese-frosting/

As mentioned last time we recently went to Yucaipa.  On the drive up we saw a sign that said "As Seen On TV" The Best Apple Cider Donuts.  Well if that wouldn't make you stop your car right there what would.  I don't know what the fascination is with "As Seen On TV" but I fall victim to it's ploy like every other American.  I think our mentality is that if it was good enough to be on TV it must be amazing!  Some times this is true, some times it is not.

In the case of the Best Apple Cider Donuts...it was TRUE!!!

 Hot Mini Apple Cider Donuts

 Spicy Cinnamon Sugar Topping :)

 I also found this Christmas Tree...I wish ours could look like this, full of cupcake/sweet oriented ornaments

On to the cupcakes of the week.

I followed the above recipe for the cake portion which was super easy.  I'm thinking that these cakes may qualify as being "low fat" considering they do not contain oil or butter and only two whole eggs.  Let's just discount the globs of cream cheese frosting and go out on a limb and call them "healthy".  haha

They smelled amazing while baking.  If there were such a thing as "smell-o-internet" I would have posted the scent here. 

Instead of making the apple cider cream cheese recipe in the link, I made my own frosting.  I used 1.5 sticks of butter and 1.5 blocks of cream cheese.  Blend the two together, add in the powdered sugar to desired consistency and then added two tablespoons of apple cider and 1/2 T. of vanilla.  I also added brown sugar and cinnamon to the frosting because, well because why not?.  I also added candy corn pumpkins and regular candy corn for decorations.  I think they turned out pretty good. 

Hubby Rating

Cake:  5.5

Frosting:  8

Overall:  7

Husband claims the cake was dry.  For having no fat in it, it was probably OK.  He liked the cake/frosting combo.

Happy Baking,

Kristi

Orange You Glad It's Fall and 80 in California?

It may be Fall but apparently the weather didn't get the memo.  It's currently 80+ in California so instead of making something Fall-esque, I decided to make some orange cupcakes.  These were inspired by a recent trip to Yucaipa to go raspberry picking.  Now you're wondering how I got oranges from picking raspberries but follow me here...

On the way down the hill/mountain after picking raspberries, we stopped at this fruit/everything shack and tasted this amazing orange curd.  I've made lemon curd plenty of times but have never seen orange curd.  It was fantastic!  So I decided that I should buy some and put it into some amazing orange cupcakes. 

What goes better with oranges than RUM?!  It's the quintessential tropical combination (OK maybe pineapple/coconut/rum would qualify that statement better but you get the idea).  Since it feels like summer, why not make a tropical cake?  So today I got some oranges and rum and made the cupcake vehicle for the fabulous orange curd.  I even juiced the oranges by hand to get fresh orange juice to add to these beauties. 
The recipe I used calls these "Rum Zum Cake".

On a side note, apparently we have quick thinking to thank for Bacardi Rum.  See the article from the LA Times referencing how Bacardi made it out of communist Cuba.

Bacardi Story

Also, the hubs bought me orange roses as a surprise when I came on Friday so I think orange cupcakes were fate :)

Here's the finished product.  Instead of glazing the cakes as the recipe called for I decided to make cream cheese frosting.  Who doesn't love some cream cheese frosting.  I made two different flavors, one vanilla rum, the other had extra orange flavor.  I mixed the two together to get the 50/50 look. 

Gotta have sprinkles for that extra crunch!

They look super orange!!!

Hubby Rating

Cake:  9

Filling:  6

Frosting:  8

Overall:  7.9

"Cake and frosting are very good and moist, good hints of rum and orange.  Filling was hard to distinguish from the other flavors."

Happy
Baking,

Kristi

Carnivore Cookies

On one of the hottest days of the week, I decided it would be easier to make cookies instead of cupcakes.  Note to self:  That was a bad idea.  It was definitely not easier or cooler to make cookies vs. cupcakes.  Maybe next summer I'll take up icecream making...

Anyways...on to what I made.  For some reason I decided to hop on the bacon bandwagon and put it in cookies.  I found a recipe online and decided to go for it.  Now here is where cookies get more difficult.  Not only did I have to make cookie dough but also fry bacon....Nightmare on a hot day.  So I made the bacon - Insert fail here - {In an attempt to not make a mess with the bacon grease and make it easy to clean up, I thought it would be a good idea to pour the bacon grease into a Ziploc bag so I could seal it up and throw it away.  Genius!  Not so much.  As it turns out, hot grease melts plastic bags.  Not such a revelation when you think about it but I'll chalk it up to the heat got to my brain.  Yeah that's it.  End fail.}

Oh and I almost forgot the other part was not just plain old stick butter but "browned" butter.  Which also involved me standing over a hot stove when it was 9 million degrees out.  Ok I exaggerate but it's all about perception and I perceived it to be 9 million degrees.

Once the bacon cooled, I made the batter, which was normal.  Then I added the bacon during the fold in chocolate chip step.

 Here's where I folded in the bacon with the chocolate chips, which were a Hodge Podge of whatever chocolate chips were in the cupboard that day.

 Baked and packed up to go to work.  I think I wound up with around 4 dozen and they were all gone except for two at the end of the day.

You can see the small bit of bacon swirled in next to the chocolate chip.  It was an adventurous not vegetarian friendly cookie to say the least.  Not sure I'd do it again.

Hubby Rating

6

"I personally was not a fan of the bacon, it added a weird texture and took away from the sweetness of the cookie.  I like sweet cookies."

Happy Baking,

-Kristi

Spumoni - Not just an icecream served at Italian restaurants

I'll start out by saying, "I love good Spumoni ice cream".  Something about the cherry, chocolate, and pistachio is amazeballs.  I tried to figure out how to best turn this lovely treat into a cupcake.  I will have to make more attempts because this is not it but it was still tasty.

Side note:  Spumoni will forever remind me of my first job here...

Credit

We had a flavor called "Fantasia"  it was pistachio, cherry, and banana.  Tasted weird, lots of people would want to order it.  I would warn them they should probably try it first.  If they disagreed and did not taste test first, 99% of the time they returned and asked for vanilla.  Come on!  I told you you wouldn't like it!  I remember the last barrel of this stuff, hanging out in the back of house we all got spoons and ate the last melty bit until there was Fantasia no more. 

 I made the pistachio the cake part.  I could not find unsalted pistachios so I used pistachio pudding to flavor the cake.  Definitely not strong enough.  I think next time I can rinse some pistachios and chop them up to use as decoration to add to the flavor or use chocolate cake with pistachio pudding filling....

I'm trying to remember but I think I mixed in chocolate chips for the "chocolate" portion of the Spumoni.

Next was the cherry, while at the grocery store and making up the recipe on the fly, I asked the hubs "is there some type of cherry flavoring?" To which he said, "I don't think so."  So I bought some maraschino cherries and used the juice to add to the buttercream frosting.  I also peeled the skin off of about a dozen of the cherries to cut up and add to the frosting to try and get that cherry zing.  This did not work.  I do not recommend it at all, it was a lot of work and not a lot of flavor. 

Fast forward to the next day when discussing said cupcakes with the hubs...
Me:  I wonder what I can use next time to make the cherry flavor better?
Hubs:  Oh you mean like grenadine, the stuff they use in Shirley Temples?
Me:  Where were you with this idea yesterday when we were at the grocery store?!
Hubs:  I was rushed and not thinking clearly.  I didn't know that was what you meant when you asked about cherry flavoring.

So, we have the not so Spumoni Cupcakes.  They look pretty but will have to be revamped for next time...

Cute right?  Maybe also I can use the aforementioned grenadine and make Cherry Coke cupcakes :)

Hubby Rating

"Can't recall"

Happy Baking,