Tres Leches Cupcakes & Mexican Brownies- Ole'

Happy Belated Cinco de Mayo or Happy Siete de Mayo! If you have been paying attention to this blog for the past year you may have noticed that my co-workers and I enjoy a good themed lunch from time to time. I think this is mostly forced by Natalie and I because we LOVE to order fabulous decor from Oriental Trading. Unfortunately we didn't plan this lunch far enough in advance to order any amazing party supplies, but it was a fun lunch anyway. We catered in some burritos, quesadillas, and chips and salsa, and I offered to make some mexican inspired treats. Ale also made some delicious guacamole, it disappeared almost immediately!

The cupcakes and the brownies both turned out great! I have a feeling I will be making the brownies again and again. Not only are they easy, but cinnamon cream cheese frosting....need I say more?! Thank  you Bridezilla Bakes for another amazing recipe!

The cupcakes are yet another recipe from the Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. Since the recipe is not on-line here is a link to the closest thing from her website, a Tres Leches Cake They were very tasty, but they were extremely time consuming and if I am to make them again I will definitely make at least a few more cupcakes. I made 20 (like the recipe stated) and a few of them ended up being a little too big,  making it very tricky to brush the tres leches mixture onto. It was messy! I ended up placing the cupcakes on wire racks over cookie sheets in order to catch the mixture that didn't soak in. This was also my first time making whipped cream since the kitchen aid mixer landed in my kitchen and it whipped up like a dream! I don't think I will ever again buy whipped cream.

Mexican Brownies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
-1/2 C Flour
-1-1/2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
-3/4 teaspoon chili powder
-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
-10 tablespoons unsalted butter
-1-1/4 C sugar
-3/4C +2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
-2 large eggs

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 325°. Line an 8"x8" baking pan with aluminum foil. Spray foil with non-stick spray. Allow some foil to overhang for easy removal.
2. Whisk together flour and spices. Set aside.
3. Melt the butter in a double boiler and add sugar, cocoa, and salt until the mixture is hot to the touch. The mixture will be grainy, but everything should be fully incorporated.
4. Stir in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time. When the batter looks shiny add the four and spice mixture and stir until just incorporated. Then beat vigorously for 40 strokes. Spread evenly in lined pan.
5. Bake 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out of the center just slightly moist with batter. Cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
- 4 oz cream cheese, softened
-3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
-1/4 teaspoon vanilla
-1 cup confectioner's sugar
-2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla at high speed until fluffy (about 3-4 minutes). Sift in confectioner's sugar and cinnamon and beat at medium speed until incorporated. If the frosting is too thin slowly add more confectioner's sugar 1/4 cup at a time; if it is too thick slowly add warm water 1 tablespoon at a time.

1st Blogiversary! Lavendar Brownie Cupcakes & Something I can eat right now....

Today marks 1 year from my first blog post, fruit sushi. I made a delicious Asian pasta salad last night (recipe to come), so I must have some serious asian persuasion this time of year. I had big plans to attempt a re-creation of the most delicious banana caramel cake I ate at a restaurant a few months back, however, due to my dietary restrictions until May 11th that deliciousness is going to have to wait. I did attempt a vegan/gluten free version, but they came out with about the same consistency of a gummy bear. Instead my 1 year blogiversary will be celebrated with some Lavendar Brownie cupcakes (for everyone else) and some no-bake almond butter chocolate bars (for me and everyone) inspired by a recipe from a fabulous blogger I met at the bakesale the other weekend. Everything (banana cupcakes aside) turned out great and I feel like my blogiversary recipes are the perfect culmination of my year of experiments......some successes, some failures, but overall a sense of pride that comes with creating something with my hands and the joy of sharing my creations with others.





Lavendar Brownie Cupcakes
recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes Book

Ingredients
-3/4C + 2T all purpose flour
-1/2t baking powder
-1/2t salt
-10-1/2T butter
-3-1/2oz unsweetened chocolate
-1-1/3C sugar
-2 large eggs (room temperature)
-1t vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line 24 standard muffin tins with paper liners (I could have filled mine a little less, but I only got 15 cupcakes from this recipe).
2. Melt butter and chocolate in double boiler. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
4. On medium speed beat together chocolate and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in Vanilla.
5. Reduce speed to low and slowly add in flour until just combined.
6. Spoon batter into muffin tins, fill a little over half way. Bake about 18-20 minutes, rotating half way through. I took them out when a toothpick came out almost clean. They continue to cook as they cool and I did not want them to be dry. Allow to completely cool before spooning on the icing.

Lavendar Icing (This recipe made about double what I needed)
-1/3C whole milk
-1/2t dried lavendar
-3C confectioner's sugar
-Violet food coloring (or equal parts blue and pink)

1. Bring milk and lavendar just to a boil in a small sauce pan. Remove from heat, cover and let steep for 5 minutes.
2. Strain milk/lavendar mixture into a medium bowl. Be sure to remove all of the dried lavendar bits. By hand, mix in 3 cups of confectioner's sugar. Slowly add in food coloring. I ended up using 4 drops of blue and 4 drops of pink.
3. Immediately spoon onto cupcakes and smooth with a knife.

Crystallized Flowers
-Edible flowers
-2t meringue powder
-2T water
-Superfine sugar

1. Remove stems from flowers
2. Whisk together meringue powder and water
3. Brush meringue mixture onto flowers one at a time and sprinkle with sugar. Place on a tray or wire rack and allow to dry completely.

No Bake Almond Butter Chocolate Bars
recipe adapted from Bridezillabakes

Ingredients
-1C granola
-1C almond butter
-1C earth balance margerine (or butter)
-3C powdered sugar
-12oz dark chocolate

1. Butter a 9x13 pan and set aside. Mix together first 4 ingredients (slowly adding powdered sugar until you reach the right consistency add more if necessary, I added a bit too much and they turned out crumbly). Spread evenly into pan.
2. Melt chocolate in double boiler and spread over bars. Allow to set before cutting.

Thanksgiving Day Parade of New Recipes

My brother and I have started a nice Thanksgiving Day tradition filled with cooking, baking, pajamas, and video games. This Thanksgiving I not only mastered 4 new recipes, but I am quite skilled at playing the drums on Wii Rockband.

Here is our Menu/Itinerary for the day:


Morning:

-Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

-Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Scones  I was so excited to finally find cinnamon chips, I just had to use them and these were SO delicious and came together very quickly!

Early Afternoon:

-Mario Kart

-Wii Fit

-Garlic Herb Focaccia Bread (made the dough so we could have it with our dinner)

-It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (a few episodes)

Evening:

-Vegetarian Tortilla Soup  minus the tortilla part since we had bread. This was so easy and tasty I will definitely be making this soup again and again.

-Focaccia Bread

-Wii Rock Band

-Truffle Brownies YUM, YUM, YUM, YUM, YUM!

Saturday:

We had Thanksgiving with our Dad's side of the family and whipped up these delicious sandwich cookies. Totally worth the time grating the carrots. Everything else is easy, especially eating them!

-Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies

Caramel Apple Cream Brownies

Fall is in the air and as much as I want to make some pumpkin goodies I still had some apples to use up from my apple picking adventure with Maria, so I decided to put all the delicious pumpkin recipes I found on Picky Palate and make these AWESOME fall brownies. With the apples and cream cheese in these brownies they are very moist and perfect for the bakers edge, because the one drawback I have found with this pan is that the cooking times are a little tricky and some of the brownies I have made have been slightly dry. These were the perfect treat to bring to CJ and Shelly and their adorable new baby Addison.

I made a few modifications to the Picky Palate Recipe:

1 Box Trader Joe's Truffle Brownie Mix (this is for an 8x8 pan or the baker's edge)

8 oz softened cream cheese
1/4 Cup granulated sugar
4 Tablespoons butter
3 small-medium baking apples, peeled and thinly sliced ( I used honey crisp and empire)
4 Tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 Cup chopped pecans (or other nut of choice)
14oz Sweetened condensed milk- for caramel sauce (or purchase caramel sauce and warm in microwave)

1. Preheat oven to 350° Prepare brownie mix according to package directions. Pour into a 8x8 inch pan that’s been sprayed with non stick spray

2. Place softened cream cheese and sugar into a mixing bowl, mix until smooth. Place dollops of cheese over brownie batter. Use a butter knife to carefully swirl without dragging against the bottom of dish.
3. Place butter into a large skillet over medium heat to melt. Add apples, brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped pecans. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and pour evenly over brownies.

4. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until center of brownies are cooked through. Remove and let cool completely before cutting into squares.

5. While the brownies are baking place sweetened condensed milk in double boiler. Cook over medium heat for 60-90 minutes, stirring occasionally until milk thickens and turns a caramel color. Just before serving, drizzle caramel sauce over brownies

Peppermint Patty Cupcakes

Another delicious recipe by who other than Martha?! I love that these are actually brownies in cupcake form and the peppermint patty center melts perfectly to give the entire cupcake a hint of mint. I also really liked that these did not call for a frosting (and it was not needed, they were plenty rich and flavorful on their own). Because there was not any frosting these were super easy to transport to the BBQ I was headed to. I purchased a large bag of peppermint patties so I thought it would be cute to make these cupcakes in a mini version. I tested this out by making 4 mini's first. I think the mini version would work with junior mints, but the small peppermint patties were still too large. The mint spewed out of the tops of the cupcakes and made a huge disaster. In fact, the tops popped right off the mini's. I'll have to try these again with junior mints, because a large cupcake is actually nearing too rich, even for me, which is next to impossible! Although if I make them as mini's I may just have to top them off with a bailey's frosting or something of the sort. I was a little disappointed that mine also didn't have the pretty cream center like the picture shows in the book, so I just went with the peppermint patty pic. Since I don't feel right about publishing a recipe that Martha does not have on her website, I'll let the St. Petersburg Times do it for me.

RECIPE!

Chewy Fudgy Brownie Perfection

I have been in search for the perfect combination of chewy and fudgy when it comes to brownies for quite some time. I found it……..and then did not blog about it for weeks, and now I am not positive if this is the recipe I used or not. I'm about 98% sure it is,but I will make them sometime soon,just to be sure.
Update: this is it!

Chewy Fudgy Brownies, YUM

Here are some representative photos of what I have been doing instead of blogging for the past month:

Taking Advantage of all the local farmer's markets

Jazz in the Park- Millenium Park

Narrowly avoiding cars while riding my bike.
Windy City Wine Festival


African Dance- taking a class that is.
Renegade Craft Fair- check it out!

Good Luck Fudgy Brownies

Bridget and Bethaney were home a couple of weekends ago for a final exam so I had to put my birthday 'Bakers Edge' to use to make some brownies, a study treat and good luck gesture for their upcoming exam. I decided to try a recipe from http://www.visionsofsugarplum.com/ since her oreo cream cheese brownies were so amazing. This time I went with the chewy fudge brownies. While they were absolutely delicious, I think I decided I really like a chewy 'cakey' brownie vs. fudgy. These were extremely dense, as a fudge should be, and I think I was craving a little more crumble. Anyway, the baker's edge worked like a charm, as did the sentiment of my making these, because the girls did great on their exam. If you are looking for a rich dense fudgy brownie, this is the recipe for you!

Birthday Brownie Marshmallow Crisp Bars

Happy Birthday to me! To celebrate the step into my late twenties, ahhh, I wanted to bring a b-day treat into the office. Having a summer birthday I never had a chance to bring in birthday treats for my classmates, so now my co-workers can reap the benefits of my over-compensating for long lost birthdays. A couple of weekends ago my Aunt Judy made a most delicious treat for my cousin's graduation party and I have been itchin' to re-create it. And one of the best parts about this brownie bar was that I didn't even have to go to the grocery store. I have finally hit a tipping point in my venture where I just happen to have a healthy stock of ingredients.

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer:

-1/2 (1 stick) room temperature butter

-3/4 C Sugar

-1 teaspoon Vanilla

-2 Eggs

-3/4 C Flour

-2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

-pinch of salt

Marshmallow Layer:

-2 Cups mini-marshmallows

Chocolate Crunch Layer:

-1 Cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (don't be afraid to overfill the measuring cup a bit)

-1 Cup Peanut Butter

-2 Cups Crispy Rice Cereal (once again, I'm diggin' the store brand cereal)

Directions:

1. Beat together butter and sugar

2. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time.

3. mix together dry ingredients and then mix into the egg mixture until combined.

4. Pour mixture into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes.

5. Sprinkle marshmallows over top of brownies and bake an additional 3 minutes.

6. Lightly spread the marshmallows with a butter knife and let cool.

7. In a double boiler melt chocolate chips and peanut butter over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in cereal.

8. Gently spread chocolate peanut butter mixture over marshmallow layer and cool in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours before cutting into bars.

Oreo Cream Cheese Brownies

This was quite an experiment for me, since I have never made regular brownies from scratch, let alone fancy'in it up with cream cheese and oreos, but I think I did a pretty swell job. I found this recipe on visions of sugar plum and the combination of dark cocoa and cream cheese made it a must try for me. Brownies from scratch is like anything else I have tried to make from scratch; just a couple extra ingredients and a couple extra steps, but a whole lot better than store bought. So that equals totally worth it for me! Hopefully my co-workers enjoy them, and the 2 that have wedding dresses to fit into this winter won't be too upset with me for bringing in yet another treat. I did substitute some of the full fat items for reduced fat and they still taste extremely rich and delicious, but I would still rather not know the nutrition facts of these!

Natalie about to enjoy brownie # ?, she does not have a wedding dress to fit into.

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

-3/4 cup granulated sugar

-8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese, softened (i used 1/3 less fat version and it seemed to work well)

-3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-1 cup all purpose flour

-1/2 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt

-2 large eggs
-1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped Oreo cookies (i used the reduced fat oreos and I can't tell a difference)

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8-inch square baking dish with foil; coat foil with cooking spray.

2.Melt the butter in a small saucepan, over medium heat. Whisk in sugar and bring to a boil, whisking frequently; boil 1 minute. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

3.In a small mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and vanilla extract, until well combined, about 1 minute.

4.In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder and salt; whisk until combined.

5.In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, until combined. Whisk in melted butter-sugar mixture until well combined.

6.Stir in flour mixture until just combined, followed by Oreo cookies.

7.Spread half of brownie batter into baking dish, followed by cream cheese layer; dot the top with remaining brownie batter, and spread evenly, as best as you can. Run a knife through batter to make "swirls".

8.Bake at 350 degrees F, for 25 minutes.Cool on a wire rack to room temperature before slicing. Lift foil out of baking dish, and slice. For easier slicing, try freezing the brownies for 30-60 minutes.