Wow. So much baking this past week. Loaves of Cinnamon Sugar Bread for the roommates and friends, brownies for the old roomie who was visiting, my mom's awesome rice crispy treats for and taco salad for the MSU game (sadface), and finally chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for one of my good friend's 21st birthdays.

Now, for a 21st birthday, you'd think that the baked goods should be something like Irish Carbomb Cupcakes, but the kid thought that would be silly since the alcohol gets evaporated when cooking. Beyond that, there were no preferences. Difficult.

After coming up with a few ideas one of his roommates, as well as one of mine, decided that I should make Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes. I've been wanting to make them for about a year, but never really had room in the fridge/freezer for the cookie dough! But there was room today!

Recipe adapted from here:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes!
Makes 24 cupcakes

For the Cookie Dough:
2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup mini chocolate chips

-Cream together the butter and both of the sugars. I always mix things by hand, so make sure the butter is softened, otherwise it'll be a bit of work! After that is mixed, add the milk and vanilla. Mix in the flour until well blended. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips! Scoop into balls (about 1.5 tbs in size) and place on a tray/plate that has been lined with parchment paper (wax paper works fine too). Freeze, preferably overnight. 

For the cupcakes:
3 sticks butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake tins with cupcake liners (24 total).

-Start by creaming together the butter and brown sugar. Once that is light and fluffy, beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing until completely integrated. 

-In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

-Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk into the butter, sugar, egg mixture, starting and ending with the flour. Only mix until just blended. Finally, mix in the vanilla. 

-Scoop approx 3 tbs of batter into each liner and then add a cookie dough ball on top. 

-Place on a middle shelf in the oven and bake for 16 minutes or so. When you do the toothpick check, make sure you are poking the cupcake and not the cookie dough ball. 

-Let cool!

For the frosting:
3 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

-Cream together the butter and brown sugar (it's like a theme!). Add in the powder sugar. Once that is all mixed together, add in the milk and the vanilla extract. Be careful with the liquids, depending on the consistency of frosting you'd like. I didn't have a problem with it this time, but I know that it can be difficult to use a decorate them!

Now, I just have to figure out how to transport 21 cupcakes over to the birthday kid's apartment!

**pictures to come**

A Very Harry Potter Day

Despite the url and name of this blog having something to do with Lord of the Rings, I love Harry Potter; I’ve been reading the books since I was in elementary school. Even though the books are 100 times better than the movies, I always enjoy when the movies come out. And today the final Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out. In addition to watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (I watched the other ones throughout the past week) and listening to A Very Potter Musical (if you haven’t seen that, you should watch it, here), and reading some of one of the books,  I wanted to bake something to commemorate the occasion.  I was really excited when I found a recipe for Butterbeer Cupcakes. They’d be perfect for tonight! At least two hours of waiting in line, we’d need something to eat! (I would get to the theater sooner, but alas, I have to work.)

I have not had Butterbeer from Harry Potter World at Universal, so I wasn’t exactly sure what it should taste like, so the recipe from amybites really helped.

The Cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 and line cupcake pans with 18 cupcake liners

2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
1 ½-ish teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon butter flavoring
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup cream soda

In one bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy, then add both of the sugars. Mix until well blended. Then add the eggs individually, beating thoroughly after each one. Mix in the vanilla and the butter flavoring. Then slowly alternately mix in the buttermilk, cream soda, and the flour mixture. Pour into the lined pans, filling each one about ½ to ¾ of the way full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.

Mmm.

While that’s baking…

The Ganache:

1 11-oz. package butterscotch chips
1 cup heavy cream

1 squeeze bottle

In a saucepan, melt together the butterscotch chips and the cream. Keep stirring so it doesn’t burn! (A double broiler can and probably should be used, but I didn’t). Once it’s all melted together and smooth, let it cool to room temperature and pour into the squeeze bottle. 

That bottle did make things easier!

 Once both that and the cupcakes are done, fill the cupcakes with the ganache by sticking the squeeze bottle into a cupcake and filling it until the ganache comes out of the top. The butterscotch sank down after a while, so I added a little more every now and again to some of them. Make sure you have some left over for the frosting!

You can see the (not so) tiny holes. They'll get covered up by the frosting anyway

 

Once that is done, it’s time to make the frosting… 

The Frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/3 cup butterscotch ganache
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon butter flavoring
pinch of salt
2 ¼ c powdered sugar
Splash of milk or cream (as needed)

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the ganache, vanilla, butter flavoring, and salt. Beat in the powder sugar, slowly, until the desired consistency. I must say, this has got to be the first time in a while that I didn’t get powdered sugar all over the place. Then decorate! Some of mine are drizzled in remaining butterscotch ganache, some of them aren't. Just testing it both ways. Also, I thought about making fondant snitches to go on top, but I didn't think of making them 2 dimensional instead of 3 dimensional, and the 3D way wouldn't have looked very good.

Pretty

 I normally stink at decorating, but this is the first time I used a 1M tip, and they don't look half bad if I do say so myself!

Chocolate Chip Oreo Brownie Bars!

So today, I was hanging out with a couple of friends and we had run out of things to do. We decided to bake. :-) I haven't gotten to bake in what seems like forever and if it didn't happen soon, I'm sure I'd go on baking withdrawals. After much debate and internet searching, we decided on baking this. They looked absolutely delicious and like they had more calories than I should eat in a week. 

It was actually super easy to make, especially with 4 extra hands and a mixer.

Preheat the oven at 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan

Start with the chocolate chip cookie dough. Your favorite recipe will do. This is the one provided by the original post. I usually go with the standard Nestle recipe, and melt the butter.

Look at Colleen mix!

Put that in a greased 9x13 pan. 

Next, layer Oreos on top of that!

And that's not all!!

After that, make a really fudgy brownie mix. We used a box and added the hot fudge topping like the recipe called for [and probably a little extra]... but a homemade recipe would be delightful as well, just a tad bit more work. That goes on top the Oreos and cookie dough... mmm

Mmmm.

That goes in the oven for 45-55 minutes at 350 degrees. And it comes out like....

So. Much. Delicious.

 I wasn't going to have any (what good would that be for the workout I did this morning!?), but the other two weren't letting me say no. It was gooey and delicious, but I probably couldn't have more than one in a night. And by in a night, I mean a hour or two. :-)

Maple & Honey Pork Chops and Cookie Dough

When I'm at school, Friday's are typically my baking day. At home, over summer vacation, I have far less to do, so I want to bake more often. Yet, between not having working air conditioning and having less people to taste/eat my baked goods, I don't do it nearly as often as I would like. So today, instead of baking, I made dinner and "dessert." 

Dinner, it's not something that I usually make. I much prefer the joys of baking. But today, I decided to help my stressed mother out and make [the second set of pork chops for] dinner. After much debate, we finally settled on making her pork chops. They are really simple and quite delicious. And by simple, I mean, they require practically no work whatsoever. 

Ingredients: 

Pork Chops 

Honey

Pure Maple Syrup

Allspice

Start by browning the pork chops in a large frying pan on a medium to high heat. This should take a few minutes on each side. 

As that's going, mix together the honey, maple syrup and allspice. Since this is my mother's recipe nothing is exact, BUT, she uses roughly, 1 tablespoon of honey per pork chop, as well as 1 tablespoon of maple syrup per pork chop, and 3/4 to 1 teaspoon of allspice total (depending on your preference). Make sure it's mixed thoroughly! 

Once the pork chops are browned, turn the heat down to low, and pour the honey mixture over the pork chops. Cover and let simmer for a long while! Or at least it seems long while starving. Occasionally flip the pork chops, making sure each part of it is getting in that wonderful sauce. They should be done in about 30-45 minutes - they should look that "caramelized brown color" according to my mother. 

Four delicious pork chops!

Since that requires very little attention while cooking, I decided to make cookie dough [per my mother's request]. I had talked about making cookies while it was much cooler out, when it looked like it was going to pour all day. By the time I had all of the ingredients for it, it was getting to be the predicted 90 degrees or so outside. That's why I've only gotten around to making the dough... and really, that's all the mother wanted anyway. 

The cookie dough is simple enough... The recipe should look familiar since it was borrowed from the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag (I just omit a few of the ingredients)

Ingredients:

3/4 c white sugar

3/4 c brown sugar

1 c. margarine, mostly melted

2 eggs

1+ tsp vanilla extract

2 1/4 c flour

1 bag chocolate chips

1 bag M&Ms

I always mix together the white and brown sugar then add in the eggs, margarine, and vanilla. Once all of that is mixed together, I add in the flour and mix! Oh! And don't forget to mix in the chocolate chips and M&Ms!!. Growing up, we mixed nearly everything by hand, so I still do that now. I realize that an electric mixer makes life easier (and is required for some things), but I always get more satisfaction out of mixing things together by hand. That's pretty much it for the cookie dough, especially since it has not and might not ever be made into cookies! 

Mmm. Tasty.

It's Been a While...

So, I've baked a lot since my last post, but I haven't updated this thing at all. I've made different cupcakes, cookie dough cheesecake, different cookies, pies, and who knows what else. All of those things that I have baked have been recipes posted by wonderful other bloggers. Soon, hopefully, I want to be able to create something without using a recipe. I'm sure whatever I come up with will have already been done, but I want to become more comfortable and experiment more in the kitchen! My latest creation was a step in that direction. I made S'more brownies! They started with a graham cracker crust, followed by brownie, and topped with marshmallows.

Graham Cracker Crust:
1.5 packages of (light) Graham Crackers
1 stick of butter, melted
1/3 c sugar

Brownie:

3 c sugar

1 c butter, melted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 1/2 c flour

1 c. cocoa powder

1 tsp salt

1 bag of chocolate chips
(Recipe from Allrecipes)

1/2 bag or so of mini marshmallows

Grease a 9x13 pan & preheat the oven to 350
I started by crushing the Graham Crackers into crumbs. I used a ziploc bag and a rolling pin. Then I mixed in the sugar and then the melted butter. Once that was mixed well I spread it evenly along the 9x13. I just tossed it in the fridge as I made the brownie batter. 

For the brownies, I mixed the sugar, butter, and vanilla extract together. Then, I mixed in the eggs one at a time. After that, I added the flour, cocoa powder and salt and mixed until blended. I love chocolate, especially milk chocolate, so I tossed in a whole bag of milk chocolate chips. I poured this on top of the graham cracker crust and put it in the oven.

It's supposed to bake for 35-40 minutes, and I knew that the marshmallows couldn't go on until it was closer to being done. So when it had what should have been 5-10 minutes left, I added marshmallows on top. I gently pressed down on the marshmallows to [theoretically] get them to be baked with the brownies and not just on top of them. However, when I went back to check on the brownies, they were no where close to being done. They took way longer than usual (10-15 minutes) and they probably could have stayed in the oven a little longer (but who doesn't love slightly undercooked and therefore gooey brownies!). I'm not sure if this was because of the new crust or the new marshmallow topping, or both...
 

Verdict: Erin (former (of recent) roommate): They were tasty, but didn't quite have that S'more taste to them.

Plate of the brownies. Despite the top looking like graham cracker, it's actually [overcooked] marshmallows. Photo courtesy of the best roommate ever

Oreo Cupcakes

Today's adventure was Oreo Cupcakes. I wasn't sure how they'd turn out, so I only made half a batch with Oreos and the other half are just white cupcakes. I followed a standard vanilla cupcake recipe and then just added Oreos (about 10 for the half batch). I also frosted all of the cupcakes in an Oreo buttercream frosting. 

Recipes:

Cupcakes:

-2 1/4 c. flour

-1 1/3 c. sugar

- 3 tsp baking powder

-1/2 c. butter (1 stick) -- room temp
-1 c. milk 

-1(ish) tsp vanilla extract

-2 large eggs

-20ish crushed Oreos 

I mixed the dry ingredients together. Then added the butter, milk, and vanilla and beat it together. I added the eggs and beat until it was all well blended. Mix in the crushed Oreos.
Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Frosting:

1 c. butter

2 1/4 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbs milk

5 crushed Oreos

Beat the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla together. I gradually added milk, until I reached my desired consistency. Then, I mixed in the crushed Oreos!

Getting Started...

So this is my first ever blog. My intentions are to post about the things I'm baking. I'm still pretty new to baking but everything's been decently tasty so far.
Oh yeah, I'll probably occasionally post something I've cooked for dinner, but it probably won't happen often.