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.

Moroccan Pilaf & Cinnamon Sunflower Truffles

A couple of weekends ago I went up to Milwaukee to celebrate Gregory's birthday. We exchanged a few e-mails before the visit to decide on the menu options. He was all about cooking up a delicious dinner that was elimination diet friendly and I could not be more appreciative of that! I really enjoy cooking and baking, but my limits have been stretched on this journey since I need to prepare every meal and snack 24/7 to ensure that I am am not taking in any additives or other foods that I should not be having. Unfortunately this is one of the few recipes that has made me realize that dried fruits (raisins, currants, figs, etc) are a migraine trigger for me, but I still wanted to pass it along, because it is an absolutely wonderful blend of flavors and textures. I have made quite a few recipes from http://www.nourishingmeals.com/ and Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook ,which is where I am gaining all the knowledge for my elimination diet, and everything has been so good. I will continue to make these recipes again and again, even once I am through with this cleanse. We also decided to try our hand and one of the elimination diet friendly desserts and if I do say so myself, they were pretty delectable little treats, even though they looked like cheesy meatballs! It also made me want to invest in a food processor since we had a little incident with a wooden spoon and the blender. Gregory got an extra birthday present and was the lucky recipient of a small wood chip in the last truffle he ate, whoopsy!


Moroccan Quinoa Pilaf
Ingredients:
-2 to 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
-1 medium onion, diced
-4 carrots, sliced into rounds
-1 cup raw almonds, chopped
-½ cup currants
-1 ½ to 2 teaspoons mild curry powder
-½ teaspoon turmeric
-½ teaspoon ground cardamom
-1 teaspoon Herbamare (this can be found in the natural/organic spices; you can also substitute sea salt)
-4 cups chopped kale
-4 to 5 cups cooked and cooled quinoa (about 1 cup dry)
-1 small lemon, juiced


Directions:
1. Heat a large skillet with olive oil over medium heat. Saute onions for 5 minutes. Add in carrots, and saute about 10 minutes more. Until soft but not quite browned.
2. Add the almonds, currants, and spices- Saute 5 minutes. Add in chopped kale (still wet from washing) and saute 5 more minutes.
3. Stir in Quinoa and stir until thouroughly mixed and all ingredients are heated through. Remove from heat and add lemon juice.

Cinnamon Sunflower Truffles  
Ingredients:
-2 Cups raw Sunflower Seeds
-2 Tablespoons Cinnamon
-1/8 Teaspoon Sea Salt
-1 Cup Pitted Medjool Dates
-2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
-2 Tablespoons Agave Nectar or Maple Syrup
-1/2 Cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut

1.Place the sunflower seeds, cinnamon, and sea salt into a food processor fitted with the "s" blade. Process until seeds are very finely ground. It only takes a minute or so.

2.Then add the pitted dates and olive oil. Process again until combined and sticky. Only add the agave or maple syrup if need be. Your dates may be moist enough and you might not need extra sweetener. Check to see if you can form a truffle by rolling some of the mixture in your hands. If it falls apart then add the sweetener and process again. If I were to do this again without a food processor I would process the dates in a separate blender and then mix them with the sunflower seeds.
3. Scoop out the sunflower mixture by the large spoonful and roll into balls. Then roll in shredded coconut. Store in the fridge for up to 10 days.

Dessert Squash

The cleanse is going well, and I have only had 2 migraines in 3 weeks. That may not sound great, but lately, that is a new record for me. I know one migraine was stress induced and the other may have been triggered by the addition of almonds into my diet. I will test them again in a week or two in order to confirm if it was a fluke or not. Anyway, I am feeling great! I have so much more energy than usual and in general I am in better spirits. It has actually been an easy process for me and there is nothing that I am really craving. Although I definitely have my days where my fruit intake is through the roof, so I must be in need of some sugar :) Last week, I was having one of those days, so decided to concoct a little something that would satisfy my sweet tooth and still be 'Elimination Diet' friendly. Maybe my taste buds are skewed after 3 weeks of only fruits and veggies, but I thought it was a delicious treat!

Apple Cinnamon Acorn Squash (makes 2 servings)

Ingredients:
1 Acorn Squash
2 Apples
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Cut Acorn squash in half and scoop out seeds. Fill a glass baking dish with about a 1/2" water. Place squash in a glass baking dish cut side down. Bake for 30 minutes, or until squash is tender.
2. Slice the apples and mix with maple syrup and cinnamon.
3. Once squash is tender, flip over in baking dish and fill each half with the apple mixture. Bake another 15-20 minutes.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

It has not taken me long to truly enjoy the art of baking bread. I am still starting out and have yet to try some more complex breads (I am waiting to get a kitchen scale so I can weigh flour and also waiting for some warmer days). However, a couple of Sunday's ago it was a gorgeous sunny day which I figured would aid in the rising of my dough and it certainly did. A few days earlier I was out with some co-workers and someone mentioned cinnamon raisin bread and I could not get it out of my head. Of course Martha has a recipe for it in her baking hand book so that is the recipe I chose to proceed with. It turned out SO good, I could have eaten the whole loaf right out of the oven. I was initially excited because the recipe made two loaves so I made sure to freeze one right away for a future day. Well, I recently retrieved that loaf for the weekend because I had friends in town, and although it worked perfectly for french toast, freezing it had dried it out a lot. I guess from now on I will just have to be a generous bread baker and pass on a delicious fresh loaf to a lucky recipient.

Ingredients
2 cups plus 1 1/2 teaspoons warm water (100 degrees to 110 degrees)
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
5 3/4 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons nonfat powdered milk
4 teaspoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 cups dark raisins
Canola oil, for bowl and plastic wrap
3/4 cup sugar
7 teaspoons cinnamon
1 large egg, beaten
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg white, beaten  

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine 1/4 cup warm water and yeast. Let sit until yeast is foamy, about 10 minutes. Add flour, powdered milk, sugar, salt, 3 tablespoons melted butter, and 1 3/4 cups warm water. Mix, using the paddle attachment, on low speed for 1 minute. Change to dough hook, and mix on medium-low speed for 7 minutes. Or knead by hand, 15 or 20 minutes. Add raisins, and mix on medium-low speed until dough is firm but not dry, 3 minutes.

2. Transfer to a lightly floured surface, and knead by hand into a ball. Place dough, smooth side up, in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap; let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.

3. Butter two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans generously, and set aside. In a small bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon, and set aside. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface, and cut in half. Cover one piece of dough loosely with lightly oiled plastic wrap.

4. Press the other piece of dough into a 10-by-12-inch rectangle. Brush with half of the beaten egg, sprinkle with half the cinnamon sugar, and drizzle with half the melted butter. Rub the surface with the back of a spoon to blend butter and cinnamon sugar. Starting at a short end, roll up dough tightly, and pinch together along crease. Roll the dough back and forth to make it cylindrical, and pinch the ends together. Transfer to a loaf pan, seam side down, and cover loosely with lightly oiled plastic wrap. Repeat process with second piece of dough. Let loaves rise in a warm place, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Thirty minutes before this final rise is completed, place a baking stone, if using, in the lower third of oven. Heat oven to 425 degrees.

5. Brush tops of loaves with egg white, and sprinkle each loaf with 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar. Bake 15 minutes; lower oven to 400 degrees, and bake 15 minutes more. Remove from oven; cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

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

I'm Dutch.......

So when I had some apples I needed to use up I decided to make Dutch Apple Bread. It is a simple apple bread with a delicious brown sugar/cinnamon topping like a Dutch apple pie. This turned out so great that I have actually made it twice since the initial trial. As I said, the first time I made it I just needed to use up some apples and ended up eating the whole thing myself during the coarse of a week for breakfast everyday. It was like having cake for breakfast, fantastic! The other two times I shared and brought it to gatherings where it was a real crowd pleaser and gone before my eyes. I apologize for my hiatus from blogging, especially since it's the end of apple picking season, but I suggest you try this if you happen to find yourself with some extra apples lying around.

Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup chopped, peeled apple
1/3 cup chopped pecans

TOPPING:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat Oven to 350°

2.In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.

3.Beat in eggs and vanilla.

4.Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Fold in apples and nuts.

5.Pour into a greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pan. For topping, combine the first four ingredients; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over batter. Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Birthday Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

Happy Birthday to Bridget (8/2) & Bethaney(8/10)! A couple of weekends ago Maria and I drove up to Camp Kawaga in Minocqua, WI to help the girls celebrate their birthday's......for those of you that don't know, they are camp nurses there for the summer, not campers. I was pretty excited to give Martha's Snickerdoodle cupcakes a try. I'm glad that I got over my funk since the chocolate chip cupcakes didn't turn out, because these are absolutely delicious! These have the perfect amount of sweetness and the frosting is so light and airy it's hard to stop at just one. The cupcake batter is quite easy to whip together, but the frosting is a little more delicate. I'm convinced that the only reason the frosting turned out is because I bought back-up ingredients for an easier vanilla frosting in case the Seven-Minute Frosting didn't turn out. Also, don't be fooled by the name of this frosting. The only thing that takes 7 minutes is beating the frosting until it is cool to the touch. I made a half batch (which was more than enough) so I can only imagine that it would take even more time had it been the full batch. I have yet to buy a candy thermometer so I took a chance and once the broken meat thermometer got to 210° I waited about 5 minutes and then started to combine the sugar mixture with the egg whites and it worked perfectly.

The only mistake of the weekend was packing for summer....I think we reached a high of 65° all weekend. There were a few other highlights of the weekend, including lots of cheese curds, learning to play 'Yee Haw' a newfangled drinking game that I may even remember how to play, kayaking, and of course the general experience of seeing what an all boys camp is all about.

Cinnamon Rolls

I'm not exactly sure how the tradition started, but ever since Katy, Carrie, and I graduated from college, pretty much whenever we visit each other we have cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I whole heartedly love Pillsbury grands cinnamon rolls, but now that I have this fancy dancy blog I thought I would try my hand at making some from scratch. Katy bought be a 'Simple Old Fashioned Baking' book for my birthday that had just what I needed. So not only did we have cinnamon rolls for breakfast during Katy's last visit, but she got to reap the benefits of her gift. I did modify some of the recipe, by using brown sugar in addition to granulated sugar and whipping up a quick cream cheese glaze. Next time I would use even more brown sugar and invest in a rolling pin to make the process a little easier. They also didn't get quite as golden as I had hoped, but they did taste scrumptious. Maybe I just need to bake them in a different pan, metal perhaps. Any suggestions for that?

Recipe:

Dough:

2 C Flour

4 t Baking powder

1/4 C Butter, chilled

3/4 C Milk

Filling:

2 T Sugar

2 T Brown Sugar

1/2 t cinnamon

1/4 C chopped pecans

Cream Cheese Glaze:

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Sift flour, baking powder & 1/2 t salt in bowl.

2. Rub butter in with fingertips.

3. Add milk slowly & mix

4. Roll out on lightly floured surface to 1/2" thickness.

5. Spread with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll like jelly roll & cut 3/4"slices.

6. Bake 10-15 minutes.

7. In a small bowl cream together cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Add in powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

8. Spread cream cheese glaze on top after removing from the oven. Enjoy!