Christmas Tree Ornament Cupcakes

My mom told me that there was going to be a bake sale at the hospital that she volunteers at, so I took it as an opportunity to try out a holiday themed cupcake design. I went to my go to cupcake decorating design "Hello Cupcake" and went to the holiday section. They had a design for Christmas tree ornaments that are easy to make a large quantity of unique cupcakes. I ended up making four dozen cupcakes.

The cupcakes, although made the same, came out differently because I have problems keeping my oven at a constant temperature.

I made one dozen all red to look like the top of an ornament.

For one dozen I made a red stripe. I piped frosting on just where I wanted the red to go and dipped them in sprinkles.

Then I pipped on icing onto the rest of the cupcake and dipped it in the green sprinkles.

This gave a nice side view to the ornament.

Next I made the top of the ornament that is used to hang it onto the tree. I started by putting a spice drop onto a pretzel stick. This requires patience, practice, and the ability to cope with sticky fingers.

A Twizzler was added to the top to complete the hanger.

In addition to the green with red stripe, I made red with green strip cupcakes.

To jazz them up a bit more, I added cinnamon candies.

I loaded them up into trays to give a mixture of top views, side views, red, and green.

Then they headed off to the bake sale where I hope they added some holiday joy.

Nestle Mint Chocolate Delights

I was at the store with my Mom and we ran across the limited edition Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels by Nestle Toll House. It was just a matter of saying "Hey Mom, check these out" and getting a response of "Put them in the cart." I decided to make the Mint Chocolate Delight recipe on the back of the package. It's like their normal chocolate chip recipe, except there is cocoa powder in the batter and the chocolate chips are a combination of dark chocolate chips and mint flavored chips.

I started baking them off and remembered why I have a love/hate relationship with chocolate cookies. The love part is simply that I love chocolate cookies. The hate part is that they are more difficult to tell when they are done cooking since you can't look for the golden brown color that you get with normal chocolate chip cookies. This is compounded for me by the fact that my oven is very temperamental and does not always have the correct temperature, so cooking time is always a game of guess and check for me.

With all of that being said, the only problem I had was with the smaller bite sized cookies. The package indicated that bite sized cookies could be made and I gave them a shot. However, they came out a little bit burnt on the bottom, because my oven doesn't like me. The normal sized ones, on the other hand, came out perfectly and taste like a thin mint cookie disguised as a chocolate chip cookie. I will definitely be looking for these chips again.

Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Pop Kit

My mom got me another Pillsbury Pop Kit, but this time it was cake.  It is similar to make as the brownie one that I did before.

So it starts off like you're making any other cake. 

And then things get fun. You have to tear apart this cake until it is just a bunch of crumbs. It's hard to put into words how satisfying it is to destroy a cake into tiny pieces, but it is AMAZING!

Here it is crumbled into submission.

Then you add some frosting to act as glue to hold this all together.

Then you make twelve equal balls of cake.  I always have trouble making them equal sized, but it really doesn't matter. All they really need is to stick together well, so press those puppies together well. This is also the part where you want to make sure your hands are all clean before starting so you can use the phrase that my family enjoys using in these situations: "Untouched by human hands"

This is the same as the brownie mix I made. You add chocolate to the sticks and put them in the fridge to cool down which helps them stay together when you add the melted chocolate on top.

I'm not sure why, but I had more problems with the white chocolate being sticky and clumping instead of being smooth.  I worked though it and got them covered and sprinkled.  As you can see, I did have one fall apart on me when I was putting chocolate on it, but it easily became the first taste test.

Here's how mine came out.  Compared to the brownie pop kit, I thought these weren't quite as good.  Part of this is that the cake is harder to hold together than the brownies were. The other reason is that if you give me an option of chocolate vs any other flavor of cake, I always choose chocolate.  That being said, I would be interested in trying a cake kit in chocolate cake.

Jam pocket cookies

I saw these cookies online and thought they looked delicious.  The original is made to be in a Halloween style like a vampire bite which is a really neat idea.  For full instructions, I recommend looking at the original here:

http://bakingbites.com/2008/10/vampire-cookies/

Here's how mine came out:

 Adding the jam

 Putting on the top

 Fresh out of the oven

Yum! They taste like a pie in the form of a cookie.  Does that even make sense?  You'll like these if you're into jam thumbprint cookies or jammie dodgers or that sort of thing.  You could even change the filling for something else like Nutella for a different flavor.

Twinings Chocolate Cake

Due to some buzz by a couple friends of mine, I decided to try out Twining's recipe for Assam Chocolate Cake which you can find the recipe for here:
http://twinings.co.uk/about-twinings/tea-recipes/make-a-delicious-assam-chocolate-cake

I was overzealous in getting started that I started before really preparing for making this recipe.  First off, the recipe is written using weight measurements and other methods that I'm sure are standard in the UK.  I had to spend a good deal of time converting the measurements into USA baking measure friendly ones.  I also failed to realize I was missing two ingredients.  One of which was probably the greatest over-site, because it is in the name of the cake.  I do not have any Assam tea.  I do, however, have English breakfast since that is my favorite flavor of tea, so I substituted that in.  Next I went to the fridge, pulled out my milk, and noticed that the pull date was past and well, it wasn't suitable to use.  Since it wasn't a whole lot of milk being used, I just replaced it with water and continued on.  The rest went rather smoothly until I came to my baking pan.  It says to use a springform pan, but the only one I had was too large.  In fact, the closest in size I could find was still too big, but I used it anyway.  I set the temperature and cooked it as long as it said.  I really should have cooked it a bit less since the pan was larger.  The cake puffed up while baking and settled once I took it out.

Here it is out of the oven settled down.

Here's a slice of the cake itself.  It tasted good, although, because of the larger pan, it did not come out as pictured.  I don't mind, because it hit the spot and made me consider other things that I could possibly put a tea flavor into.  Despite the over-sites, I would consider this cake to be a success.

Oreo Cookie Cupcakes

My mom gave me a recipe from one of her friends for these cupcakes.  I was excited to try them because I am a fan of both Oreo cookies and cupcakes.  They were pretty easy to make with the hardest part being the time I had to restrain myself from all eating the cookies before they could make it into the cupcakes.

Here's how they turned out fully decorated and delicious.

I started by putting an Oreo cookie on the bottom of each cupcake and poured chocolate cake batter on top to cover and fill the rest of the wrapper and put them in the oven.

Next I made the frosting which is a cream cheese frosting with crushed Oreo cookies in it.  The directions said to chop them finely in a food processor.  I naively thought that I could get away with just crushing them up in a plastic bag with a hammer.  I soon found out that a food processor was really the way to go.

I put the frosting in a pastry bag to pipe the frosting on in swirls to make it look fancier.  It was shortly after starting the application process that a chunk of Oreo got stuck even though I was using the largest icing tip that I had.

As a result, the first few that I did look kind of awkward when I had to stop and restart constantly to remove the large pieces of Oreo.  However, once the large pieces were removed, the icing came out smoothly and I got some professional looking cupcakes out.

As a final decoration, I placed a mini Oreo cookie on the top.

As you can see, the cookie on the bottom isn't visible until you really pull back the wrapper.  It also makes it easier to remove the cupcake from the wrapper and keeps it together better when eating.

With the cookie on the bottom, there is a crunchy texture which is a nice change.  In fact, I think I'll go eat another one right now, because they taste delicious.

Chili Pizzelles

My neighbor told me that there was a cookie contest at the fair and I decided to give it a shot and enter.  The rules asked for an original recipe, so I put my thinking cap on and got to work.  After many test ideas and feedback from my neighbor, I decided to enter a chili powder pizzelle.  Pizzelles are Italian cookies made in a press similarly to a waffle cone.  Typically they are anise flavored (black licorice).  I added enough chili powder to a normal recipe to get the flavor to pop.  I nervously entered the contest and hoped for the best.  I wandered around the fair and returned to hear the judgement.  It was at this time that I noticed that all the judges could be classified as senior citizens and would most likely not like something that didn't taste traditionally sweet and yummy like a chocolate chip cookie.  Alas, I was unsuccessful, but the experience was well worth it.  I will definitely look into doing it again in the future.  As for my recipe, just add two tablespoons of chili powder to a basic pizzelle recipe and don't add in any anise extract.  Also, I waited until all but the last cookie was eaten to take a picture, so it unfortunately is a bit broken for this picture:

French Macaroons with Raspberry-Rose Buttercream from Bon Appetit

With macaroons becoming more and more popular, I decided to give it a shot after my mom showed me the French Macaroons with Raspberry-Rose Buttercream recipe from her Bon Appetit magazine.  If you are interested in the recipe, you can get it here: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/01/french_macaroons_with_raspberry_rose_buttercream

Macaroons are pretty much fancy sandwich cookies.  They are made with almond flour and are fussy, but delicious.

Almond flour is just finely ground almonds.  You get a batter like this that you then pipe out into dots on a cookie sheet.

If you've ever made meringue cookies, it's a similar process.  However, the baking process is fussy and you need to be by the oven to make adjustments often.

After baking the cookies I made the filling for the recipe.  One part of the filling is making raspberry jam.  If I make this recipe again, I would probably just go buy some jam as I didn't think mine tasted too different and it would save on the time that it takes to make these cookies.

I ran into a snag with the rose buttercream.  I couldn't find any rose water, so I'm not sure how that would have changed the taste.  I was skeptical about the frosting since you have to heat it over a water bath and I was sure the eggs in the recipe would curdle.  I was wrong and it comes out as a smooth frosting that even with the addition of the jam tasted to me like a fancy butter spread that will be going on some waffles in the near future to finish up the leftovers from the recipe.

The next part is the assembly.  I tried to match up all the cookies since my hands aren't steady and I don't have the practice and finesse of a professional baker to ensure equal sized cookies.

Next I applied the jam to one side of the cookie.  I also don't think I cooked my jam long enough, because it stayed runny.  I also would probably just strain all the seeds out, because I'm not a fan of them, but it isn't a critical thing for the recipe.

Then the frosting was spread on the other half of the cookie. 

And then after putting the two together, a marvelous macaroon was created.

Because of the piping method for creating the cookies, I made exactly the three dozen cookies that the recipe said it would make (I usually make my cookies too big and end up with significantly less).

And then I got to indulge in the tasty treats.  They came out delicious, but the amount of work that went into them makes me hesitant to try them again.  However, I was really pleased with the cookie part which is plain, so I think I'll make those again and maybe try some different filling combinations.

The one bad thing about macaroons is that they do not hold up for a long time.  I kept mine in an airtight container in the fridge, but the liquidy jam I made had them getting softer after a day.  I'm not sure how well they would have lasted after that, because they were all eaten.