My Take on Bakerella's Christmas Cake Pops

So when I saw these things on her site, I thought "Golly gee, those are adorable." I immediately wanted to make them. Sadly, the process was not as easily as I would have liked and, well, my results are lacking.

Let's do a comparison:

Here are her versions:

Cute, right? Look at those Rudolph's! LOOK AT THEM!

And here are my sad little versions:

Okay, my trees aren't so bad. They don't have stars because I couldn't find any, and they don't have the great texture because I couldn't do it without mangling the whole thing.

But that reindeer. That is one entirely deranged animal. Where did I go wrong? Well, the eyes are candy coated sunflower seeds which are all different shapes and sizes and lent perfectly to the crazy eyes. I honestly couldn't find anything better to use for the eyes. Aside from that, I was sawing down a bunch of mini pretzels trying to get antler shapes because I couldn't find those nifty alphabet pretzels. And finally, I'm just plain terrible at working with candy melts, or any sort of melted object and what has resulted from this is a herd of reindeer with apparent skin conditions. Ah well.

To see how to make these and all sorts of other ridiculous cute edibles, go here.

Merry almost-Christmas to you all!

Roll Out Sugar Cookies, Christmas Style

When my mother and I make cookies for Christmas, they always look more or less like this. This is our signature look, you know. Most of our Christmas cookie cutters have disappeared or become generally misshapen in the years that we've had them, so we always have round ones now. Also, it seems that we attempt to make up for our lack of decorating skills by seeing how much frosting we can get on each cookie.

 

Okay, so I tried Fannie Farmer's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie recipe for this. They aren't bad, but take more flour than the recipe calls for if you actually want to roll them out.

The frosting is from somewhere, I'm sure, but I got the recipe off of a little paper that's been taped inside the cupboard for as long as I remember. It needed a little bit more milk than it called for, but then again, our frosting was a little on the running side, so exercise judgment.

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Roll Out Sugar Cookies

1 c butter
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk
3 c flour (plus some amount)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Beat in sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Add milk. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder, then stir in. Chill overnight (or until you think it's ready I guess). Roll out 1/4 inch thick, cut out, and bake on buttered cookie sheet for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. I used tinfoil rather than butter because I thought it would make more and was planning to do it assembly line style. Makes 36 cookies (2.75 inch diameter)


Decorator's Frosting

2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tbsp milk (plus maybe a tsp more or so)

Cream butter until soft. Blend in sugar, milk and vanilla.

I made four batches of this. Making two will give you enough to frost 36 cookies, making four gives you enough to do that and pipe on a bunch more. So what we did was make two batches, frost all the cookies, make two more and separate them in half, colored one half green and the other half red (and added 1/4 tsp strawberry extract to make a nice hint of flavor). Then we piped ourselves silly. Voila! Christmas cookies.

Chocolate Lime Cupcakes with Almond Extract Buttercream Frosting

I felt like making something today. I didn't know what, but I knew I was kind of low on sugar and butter and had some extra limes. So! I made these cupcakes.

As a jumping off point, I took a look at  Fannie Farmer's Quick Mix Fudge Cake. With a snip here and a cut there, this is what I ended up with:

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Chocolate Lime Cupcakes

1 c 1 tbsp cocoa powder (F.F. called for 3 oz chocolate and no butter)
3 tbsp butter, melted (I only had unsalted.)
1 3/4 c cake flour
1 c sugar (originally 1 1/2 c sugar, but like I said, I was low)
1/8 c Splenda (yeah, I used the little packets. It came to maybe 20 or so. Ludicrous.
1 tsp salt (originally 3/4 tsp)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
1/2 c oil
2 medium limes worth of juice (a little less than 1/3 c or so) and zest
1 tsp almond extract (originally vanilla)
2 eggs
2/3 milk (originally didn't call for milk)

Mix together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa. Add butter oil and milk and beat on low until mixed. Add lime juice, zest, almond extract and eggs and beat until smooth. Fill 3/4 full (for nice doming action) and bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. Makes 13.

How do they taste? I'll go with...different. It's like chocolate with a lime kicker if I'm being kind, tainted chocolate if I'm being less so. They're not bad! They're just different.

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The frosting on these guys is, once again, this recipe. The only thing I did differently was add 1 1/2 tbsp almond extract in place of the vanilla. Then I dipped the frosted cupcakes in colored sugar.

Lime Cupcakes with Rose Water Buttercream Frosting

Before I took ill, I was planning on trying this mixture of flavors. I'm thinking it was due more to my being partial to the combination of pink and green than to my thinking these flavors would go well together.

For these cupcakes, I went with Vanilla Garlic's recipe. The only changes I made were adding more zest and juice, using one lime's worth of both and adding 10 drops of green food coloring to the milk and lime mixture. The taste of lime is undeniable. The frosting is this recipe cut in half and with the rose water added instead of vanilla. The taste isn't very rosy, but the smell is dead on. Oh well.

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Lime Cupcakes (originally from Vanilla Garlic)

1 c unsalted butter
2 c sugar
4 eggs
2 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 c milk
the juice and zest of 1 medium lime

Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl and set aside.  In large bowl, beat butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating in between each. Measure out milk, lime juice and zest. Add milk mixture and flour mixture to butter mixture alternately and ending with the flour mixture. Fill liners about 2/3 to 3/4 full and bake for 22-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes about 22 cupcakes.

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Rose Water Buttercream Frosting

1 1/4 c unsalted butter
2 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tbsp rose water
1 tbsp milk
pink food coloring gel

In large bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add sugar gradually. Add rose water, milk and coloring and beat until fluffy. Makes enough to lightly frost 20-22 cupcakes.

Checking In

I'm not done with this. I've just been ill. I'll be back when everything clears up. Boy howdy I've had a craving for fresh baked goods.

Peach Yogurt and Honey Cupcakes

I had some of those fruit on the bottom yogurts around that, frankly, I'm not that fond of and decided to bake them up. What I discovered is that the amount of fruit in those things is a lot smaller than I previously thought. I made up the difference with some canned peaches that we're floating around the pantry.

As a starting point, I went with Cupcake Project's Sour Cream Cupcakes. I doubled it, replaced the sour cream with yogurt, added some peaches and used regular butter instead of unsalted. So the recipe became:


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Peach Yogurt Cupcakes

2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
2 c sugar
1 c butter
3 tsp vanilla
2 fruit on the bottom yogurt cups
1/2 c mashed peaches

Mix dry ingredients together in medium bowl. In large bowl, beat eggs and sugar together until light and creamy. Add butter and vanilla and beat on low for a minute or so until blended. Beat in the dry ingredients on low until blended. Add yogurt and peaches and beat until all mixed. Fill liners about 1/2 full and bake at 325 degrees for 22-25 minutes. Makes 32.

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I made Martha Stewart's Honey Glaze to cover these. I actually doubled what she made, but that made far too much. I tried to pour it on top of each cupcake and then squirt in on using a turkey baster and it all got very messy very fast. Only then did I try just brushing it on in layers, which worked fine. After glazing each cake I put some peach mush on top of them to try and create a more balanced taste. It partially worked, but honey is still the primary flavor here.

Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Ganache

So I would hear this word "ganache" every now and again, and I had no idea what it meant. Once I *did* learn what it meant, I decided to give it a try.

I decided to try the chocolate cake recipe out of my Fannie Farmer cookbook. It's a fair chocolate cake. It's not too dry and it domes well. I wish is had a stronger chocolate flavor, but in this particular instance, it's not what I was looking for anyway.

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Chocolate Cupcakes

1/2 c vegetable oil
1 1/2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 oz unsweetened baker's chocolate, melted
2 eggs, beaten
2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c milk

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In large bowl beat together oil, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, and eggs. Add flour mixture alternately with milk. Fill liners about 3/4 full and bake for 18 minutes at 350 degrees.

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For the ganache, I looked to Cupcake Project. The only problem with that was that I didn't have heavy cream anymore. Used it up, what, yesterday? So I made some substitutions.

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White Chocolate Ganache

1/4 c white chocolate morsels
1/4 c milk
1 3/4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp flour

Place chocolate in small bowl. Add milk, butter and flour to saucepan and heat until boiling, stirring to mix. Pour over chocolate and stir together until melted and combined. Spread over cupcakes (I actually dipped mine, but tomato tomahto.)

Sadly, there is not enough white chocolate to stand up against the regular chocolate cupcake, and it's completely overshadowed. Next time, less cupcake, more ganache.

White Chocolate Sour Cream Mini-Cupcakes with Raspberry Whipped Cream Frosting

I had some sour and heavy cream I needed to use up, and some white chocolate I wanted to eat, so I searched for a white chocolate sour cream cupcake. That lead me to Cake on the Brain's recipe. I made minis instead of full sizers and got 24 slightly too full cupcakes that I almost burned because I got distracted.

This wasn't the white chocolate taste I was looking for. Most likely I would have gotten what I wanted if I made her frosting as well, but I opted for a raspberry whipped cream (recipe more or less from Cupcake Project) that is an unusual blend of sweet and tart. I can't even say that I like or dislike it. It's like a tart raspberry with an afterthought of sweetness.

White Chocolate and Strawberry Cupcakes (500 Cupcakes)

I went back to my 500 Cupcakes for this recipe. I've had a craving for white chocolate lately, and I thought this might be just the thing to make. That wasn't really the case.

I don't know what went wrong with these things, but all of the white chocolate chips sank to the bottom and detached from the rest of the cake! It ruined the whole experience for me. The strawberry cream cheese frosting was very good (I think I might just be a new found fan of cream cheese frostings) , but not quite enough to make up for how let down I was with the cupcake itself. So! I'm not sharing that recipe. I'll share the frosting.

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Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

1 c cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp butter, softened
3 tbsp chopped fresh strawberries (okay, I didn't use fresh, but it's okay)

Beat first four ingredients together until creamy. Stir in strawberries.

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I also learned today that I'm a terrible froster. That's not a word. Er...terrible frosting-putter-on-er? Anyway, I can't do it. If I'm piping it on, I can make it look so-so, but otherwise it's just a big sloppy mess. Especially in this case, because with the lack of any real chopper mechanism, I had big chunks of strawberry floating around when I'm trying to spread the frosting out. But it's all good, I'm not entering these in a baked beauty contest any time soon.

Italian Wedding Soup

Okay, so soup doesn't fall into the baking category per se, but I made it none the less and I can put what I want here, right? Right. So. Italian wedding soup. This recipe came from a former boss of mine. There are some changes I would make next time, but all in all it's a good soup.

Before today, I had never made a meatball. I'm not much for handling meat, it's not my thing. I figured if I *am* going to get into that game, I should start with the basics: ground beef and chicken breast. Simple.

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Meatballs:

2 lbs lean ground beef (80/20 or leaner)
About 7 oz bread crumbs
About 1/2 container grated Parmesan cheese
Milk (just enough to keep things moist)

Mix all the ingredients together and form into quarter sized meatballs. Place in a shallow greased pan (I used a tinfoil covered pan) and bake at 325 degrees for about 8 minutes. Set those aside.

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Chicken:

4 good sized boneless chicken breasts
Olive oil (to coat pan)

Cut chicken into nickel sized pieces. Coat pan in olive oil and heat for a minute or so before putting chicken in. Cook until just done.

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 Soup:

4 containers of chicken broth (this might be considered cheating, but so what.)
1 package of frozen chopped spinach (the recipe called for 2, but that turned out to be too much.)

Put broth and spinach in large pot. Simmer until spinach is completely thawed. Add the meatballs and chicken and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

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Pasta:

1 lb uncooked Orzo or Acin de Pepe. (I used Orzo)

Cook pasta, staying more on the al dente side of the spectrum. It'll finish cooking in the soup. Drain completely and add to soup. Simmer for about 1 more hour.

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And that's that. If done again, I'd use less spinach and more broth, but it didn't turn out bad at all.