Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes-POST EDIT

Um, the title says it all. These are DELISH! If you like chocolate and peanut butter, that is. And according to my mom, people who don't are crazy. Disclaimer: my mom doesn't actually think you are crazy. At least not for that. Next time I will coarsely chop some peanut butter cups and use that instead of chocolate chips.

The cupcakes are whatever chocolate recipe/cake mix you like. For the frosting, I used this recipe from all recipes.

So great! And the best part is, people think you are fancy and spent a lot of time on them, but they are SO easy!

**I made these for Drew's birthday party and dinner with Laura and Kart. I made them with a sub-par cake mix. They are definitely way, way better with devil's food or a really good chocolate cake.

Conversation Cupcakes

These cupcakes are in my favorite cupcake book. They are an idea for Valentine's Day. I thought it would be cute for Drew who is graduating from grad school (yay!).





I wish I had time to fill these a la hostess style (but much better).

The frosting is a ganache glaze. It was good, but not chocolately enough for me. Next time I will make the non-shiny version of the glaze. It has more chocolate. The nice thing about the glaze is you just dip the cupcakes in. Super easy.

You can find the recipe here.

One thing that was weird was the glaze was a light-brown-with-chocolate-flecks color. Not what I expected. But then as it dried, the glaze darkened. So don't be stressed out by the strangeness of the color!

The writing is melted white chocolate in either a baggie or a paper cornet.

They are definitely fun!

Molten Chocolate Cake

aka Lava Cake
aka delicious heaven

I've wanted to attempt a molten cake since we were first married. A few months ago a friend asked if I had a recipe. I had looked around a lot and seen different versions, but had never made any. I decided the Martha Stewart recipe was worth a shot. I finally made it a few weeks ago for a joint birthday bash for Brad and Tor. It was magnificent. I didn't get a picture, though. I made it again last night and tried to take a picture but it didn't work so well. Basically, the cakes are delicious but I have not yet figured out the presentation. The best I could do is take a picture while still in ramekins. The recipe calls for muffin tins but small ramekins work just as well and are perfect for individual servings.


Go here for the recipe.

lemon cream cheese frosting

Yesterday, I made my Easter bunny cake. I don't really love traditional frosting- it's too sweet for me. So, I made a lemon cream cheese frosting that was really smooth and good. It isn't super thick so it wouldn't hold together a layered cake, but I think it would be really good on cupcakes!

8 oz softened cream cheese
5 Tbl. softened butter
1 Tablespoon lemon juice (fresh is best)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 c. powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice and vanilla together in a bowl until creamy. Add in powdered sugar in parts and mix in until smooth.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Biscotti

Today it is snowing. In honor (or abhorrence) of the snowy day, I decided to make some biscotti to go with a mug of hot chocolate. Andrew had to work in the Burn Unit today, so I know he'll be excited to come home to a couple of these.

Biscotti Recipe

1/2 cup butter or margarine, soft
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (today I used 1/4 tsp)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, until blended.

Combine flour and next 3 ingredients. Add to butter mixture, stirring until blended. Fold in chocolate chips (and nuts if using).


Divide dough in half. Shape each portion into a 10 x 2 " log on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (I did 20 in my oven today) or until firm. Let cool 5 minutes on sheet. Remove to racks.


Cut each log diagonally with long knife. (It says to use a long serrated, but I thought that the sawing tore up the cookies a bit so I just cleanly cut downward with a regular knife.) Place slices on an ungreased cookie sheet.


Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Turn cookies over and bake another 8-9 minutes. Remove and cool on wire racks.


Today I shortened the first cook time to 20 minutes, the second cook time to 8 and the third to 9. I wanted to see how they did as a little less crisp than they usually are. They were pretty good. I like them both ways. More and less crisp are both good.

Lemon Yogurt Cake

I got this Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe from the cooks at Eat Your Veggies, Peas. It was really yummy!

(I hope you ladies don't mind I used your cake picture since I ate mine too fast to take one)

yes, sometimes it just doesn't work...like this flat apple pie

I seriously don't know what I do wrong. I have a few ideas that I could try if I was willing to try this yet again. But, I tried making this darn Flat Apple Pie two times already and I'm just done. The Pioneer Woman made it look so easy that I went in completely confident that I could do it in no time flat also. I don't know how she does it! I tried it with my pie crust recipe and her pie crust recipe (which I think is really cool, actually. I need to try it in a regular pie pan with a regular pie now) and both times went so wrong...

My First Attempt:

I intended to make this for my little brother's birthday treat. This good idea came to such a sad end. The first time, I made the apples before I had the crust ready. Because of this, I had to let them sit around while I made Ree's pie crust. Then I saw that she freezes her crusts. So, I had to bag them up and freeze them. I couldn't wait that long so I then made my own pie crust and tried to use that. After all the sitting, the coating (sugars and flour) turned into a liquid syrup.

#1 I rolled out my pie crust
#2 I put the apple filling in the center (there were probably too many apples)

#3 I turned up the edges and put the butter on top

#4 I cooked it in the oven. After moments, the filling started running out the bottom, over the parchment paper and burning onto the cookie sheet. There was no salvaging this, though I tried to spoon some back onto the center.

#5 I baked it the whole time, took it off and let it cool on the sheet. It looked fine, though it had no gooey center. It was purely apples and crust. I guess luckily, Nathaniel was being stood up on the island next to the cooling rack and in one easy side swipe of the foot knocked the rack and disastrous pie onto the floor. It was kind of a relief- I didn't have to decide what to do with it.

Needless to say, Brett didn't get this apple pie for a birthday treat. Bummer. Or maybe it was a good thing so he didn't have to eat kind of a yucky dessert.

My second attempt:

The recipe makes two apple pies so I had extra apples. I decided to rinse off the left over apples and remake the filling. This time, I wouldn't have the runny syrup. I thought if I had the dry coating on the apples, I wouldn't have the yucky running. I also decided to use the freezer pie crust I had from Ree's recipe from the day before. I thought maybe that was part of the problem too- trying to use my own. Now, I've never had a pie crust like this. The taste is really good (from snitching some unbaked dough) and I look forward to using the rest of this crust in my next pumpkin pie. So, I tried again the next morning with enthusiasm that I was going to master it this time.

#1 According to her directions I thawed and rolled out the crust first and put it on parchment that covered the entire cookie sheet (should the dripping happen again)

#2 I had already measured out the dry ingredients but hadn't put them with the apples until I had rolled out the crust. But, it took me 30 seconds tops since all I had to do was throw the apples in the sugar mixture. Then I used a little less apples and put it in the center of the crust.

#3 Then I folded up the edges, dotted the butter and pressed around the bottom edges making sure everything was sealed tight. I even double patched some places with extra dough to ensure no leakage. I felt pretty confident.

#4 Cue the leaking (see the leaking in the first attempt) and by the end of the 30-40 minutes I had charred filling. Again, dry apples, no filling and nice flaky crust.

# 5 As promised, you can cut this pie with a pizza wheel. It was dry, a little tasteless since there was no sugary goodness left inside. I did try a bite and it wasn't so bad when it was warm. I tried saving it to have a little later and it was just not good. Boo.

If you can figure out this recipe, please let me know. The recipe is at the top if you click on "Flat Apple Pie".

Some good things that came from this disaster:
1. I found a new crust recipe to experiment with
2. I remember how much I love my pie pans
3. I realized that I should plan ahead when trying a new recipe for events such as birthdays and not let my baby around my newly baked goods or they will meet a sad, sad end.

Sometimes it just doesn't work...

I don't usually have recipes fail. Here's a little tribute to Martha Stewart:


It's hard to tell, but this cake is completely sunken. Plus a whole lot of butter dripped into the oven and it reeks. Here's what happened.

I used this recipe. I had used it before and remembered that the cupcakes turned out flat. I read the comments and someone mentioned that the video called for 2 TBSP baking powder but the recipe only called for 1. So I decided to try the 2. Mistake number 1.

The recipe did not call for softened butter. I let my butter soften for a little while, but not all the way. As a result, my batter had huge clumps of butter that melted and dripped out in the oven causing a mess. Mistake number 2.

The extra baking powdered caused the batter to expand too much that it fell. The picture is har to see. The cupcakes rose so much that they spilled over the sides. Now I have butter and cake batter on the bottom of my oven. Nice.

One day I will try this recipe again, but it will be a little while. I need to take a small break.

Shortbread Chocolate Pie-lettes

This was my valentines treat to Andrew!

This recipe was a disaster making because I kept getting distracted, had bad timing and was in a big rush- but turned out ok- even better than ok. They are even really tasty! A few tips:

#1- Stir the filling on the stove constantly. Duh. I know this one! It only took 30 seconds to go from nothing to clump. I got distracted reading a page in my book while I waited. The story: I made the chocolate filling and got really antsy waiting for it to thicken so I turned up the heat a little more (which would have been fine) without stirring the WHOLE time and it started to clump. I had some little clumps... but you couldn't tell in the tiny tarts. And I threw the rest away since it wouldn't be good to eat on its own with clumps. The cookie covers it.

#2: Put the filling in a bowl and place that bowl in an ice water bath while stirring CONSTANTLY if you need it to cool faster.

#3: I did this one and it was great. Put the cooled filling into a sandwich bag and pipe it in.




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Shortbread Crust (makes 32 little pies)

1 c. butter at room temperature
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
11/2 c flour
2 Tbl. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar together (about two min) with electric mixer.
Beat in vanilla.
In a smaller bowl whisk flour, cornstarch and salt.
Gradually add this to the butter mixture until just incorporated.
Let chill for 1 hour.

Divide into 32 balls. Press up the sides of a mini pie tin (with cupcake cups or in a greased tin).
Freeze for 10 minutes until firm.
Bake at 325 degrees for 18-20 minutes. You will need to poke down with a fork atleast 1-2 times halfway through to keep the indentation! It will puff up in the center and there will be no where for the pudding to go if you don't keep making the indentation. I finally used a mini spoon to make the center empty after it kept filling in.


Homemade Chocolate Filling

I halved this recipe and still had extras. You may want to third it if you are only making the pie-lettes. However, you could make it all and use the rest of pudding or a chocolate pie.

1 c sugar
1/2 c. flour
3 egg yolks
1/3 c. cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. milk

Combine sugar, flour, salt and cocoa in a saucepan and mix.
Add 1/2 c. milk and egg yolks and beat.
Pour in remaining milk.
Mix and heat on low until thick- stir constantly! (I left mine alone for a few min. and it started to clump.)
Add vanilla and mix.
Cool before using.

Assemble by piping cooled filling into cooled shortbread cookie pie. Top with whipped cream and whatever topping you'd like- I used cocoa powder.