Halloween Graveyard Cake (Easy)

This is an easy cake to make for Halloween and fun to do it with your kids. You can find this recipe at:
Halloween Graveyard Cake From Cooksrecipes

Candy Corn Cookies From Betty Crocker

Along with the Spooky Brownies, I also found this recipe on Betty Crocker, and I think its super cute but might be a little difficult then the brownies. But if you are interested in trying these cute cookies that will definitely be an attention getter, you can find the recipe at:
Candy Corn Cookies From Betty Crocker

Spooky Halloween Betty Crocker Brownies

As I was surfing the web for Halloween/Fall theme recipes, I found a few recipes on BettyCrocker.com that I thought would be great for anyone to do, and if your on a budget. This is an easy easy recipe, you can make for your Halloween party or kids. I love brownies and I think it is an easy and decorative project for anyone who may feel that you have to go to pastry school to produce decorative desserts.
Spooky Brownies From Betty Crocker

JIFFY Pineapple Yellow Cake!

Yesterday, it rained all day so I was home and looking for something to keep me busy, when I decided to bake. I love all JIFFY mix, from corn muffins to their lemon cake. I wanted to try something different with Jiffy's yellow cake mix, and first I was thinking maybe I should try to make cookies out of the mix, but then I found some crushed pineapple and a can of pineapple juice in my pantry, and left over cherry syrup from a bottle of cherries I had. However, I still wanted to stay away from making a cake, so I made the recipe into bars, more or less the same thing and topped it off with cherry buttercream. I do wish I had some cherries, and pecans to finish it off. There is two ways to make this recipe, one way is where I added flour to the jiffy yellow cake mix and another way where you can follow the jiffy recipe on the box and subsuite water for pineapple juice, mix in about 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, and stir in about 1/4 to 1/3 cups of crushed pineapple to your liking. If you use my recipe, the cake will be heavy.

My Recipe
1 box of JIFFY Yellow Cake mix
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 egg
3/4 cup of Pineapple Juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup crushed pineapple
2 tbsp cooking oil

Cherry Buttercream
1 stick of unsalted butter (room tempature)
3/4 cup sifted confectioners sugar
1 to 2 tbsp cherry syrup

1. In a large bowl, mix egg, cooking oil, and pineapple juice until combined. Add sugar, and beat well.
2. Add the jiffy yellow cake mix and all-purpose flour, to the wet mixture and mix until smooth. Then stir in the crushed pineapples.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8x8 squared pan. If you have some extra pineapples you can also sprinkle them on top of the batter. Bake for about 30 minutes or until light brown. Let cool, cut into bars and enjoy!
1. For Cherry buttercream, beat all ingredients in a small bowl with electric beaters until smooth and creamy. Spread over the entire cake.

JIFFY Recipe
1 box of JIFFY Yellow cake mix
1/2 cup of Pineapple juice
1 egg
1/4-1/3 cup of crushed pineapples

1/4 cup granulated sugar
1. Follow the directions of the jiffy mix, subsituting water for pineapple juice, and mix in crushed pineapples. Pour batter in an 8x8 squared pan, bake as directed, let cool, frost with the cherry buttercream frosting and cut into bars. Enjoy!

HALLOWEEN Sugar Cookies!

October is Halloween month, and these are my first Halloween cookies for the month. I must admit, I did have some trouble with the icing, and I think that is because I was missing corn syrup and meringue powder. The corn syrup makes it nice and glossy and the meringue powder makes the icing dry hard. I used a basic sugar cookie recipe that I have been using for a few years now. This is not hard to make at all, as far as the recipe that's easy and decorating the cookies is very fun and anyone can do it. I am usually stocked, however I did run out of piping bags, so I used my last three zip lock bags by snipping off the tips. At least the theme of these cookies is Halloween, because they are kind of messy and the color is a little off. But it was fun, and easy to do. I used a set of Wilton Icing Colors, which you can find at Wilton.com and if you want to try this project but do it very quick and simple, you can also buy Ready To Use White Cookie Icing by Wilton, I bought mines at Walmartin the bridal/craft section. With the ready to use icing, all you would need to do is warm it up in your microwave and add any color of your choosing. So lets begin, here's the sugar cookie recipe I used:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a large bowl, sift flour, salt, and baking powder together and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg, mix well. Reduce speed and add flour mixture until well combined. Stir in vanilla. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate until cold, about 45 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll out chilled dough, on a well floured surface to a little more then 1/8 thick. Cut out shapes and place 2 inches apart on baking sheet.
4. Bake cookies for about 10 to 12 minutes or golden brown. Let cool and enjoy.

Royal Icing

4 cups of confectioners sugar
5 tsp marshmallow or meringue powder
5 or 6 tbsp water
Flavor to taste
1. Beat all ingredients at low speed for 10 minutes until icing forms peaks.
* Don't be afraid to add more water if needed or if to much water add some more powdered sugar.

CINNAMON Roll Knock-Up!

This is what I call a knocked up job of Cinnamon Rolls. As a student living in a studio, money, space, and lighting are limited resources, so bare with me lol. Usually when I want something sweet and homemade, I go rummaging through my pantry and grab hold of whatever I can find. So luckily for me I had all-purpose flour, cinnamon, sugar, yeast, and powered sugar. Then I scanned through some recipes and decided to make cinnamon rolls, however the recipe asked for bread flour and another recipe also asked for plain white flour, so hey! at least I had most of the required ingredients. One thing I did learn is that, improvising is cool but following a recipe thoroughly is better, because my cinnamon rolls came out kind of heavy.. not so light and fluffy. But when your looking for a knock up job consisting of something sweet this is the way to go. OK so here's the real recipe not my knocked up cinnamon rolls.

1 pkg active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
2 1/2 cups Bread flour, sifted

Filling:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar

1. Dissolve the dry yeast in warm water, let stand until creamy about 10 minutes
2. Combine the yeast with sugar, salt, egg, and 1 cup of flour, stir well until combined.
3. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of flour at a time, beating well with each addition. When the dough pulls together place on top a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 8 minutes. Cover and let rest 10 minutes or let rest over night.
4. Roll out dough into somewhat of a rectangle and now combine the filling mixture, brown sugar and ground cinnamon. Brush the dough with the melted butter and sprinkle the brown sugar mixture over the entire dough. Now roll dough length wise into a log and pinch edges.
5. Cut the dough into 16 pieces and place cut side up in a 8x8 squared pan. Cover pan with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until double in size, about 45 minutes.
6. Preheat oven 400 degrees. Bake rolls until golden brown and Enjoy!

Review 1: The Cake Bible

The Cake Bible is the ultimate book for beginners to experts. In great detail, this bible explains everything you would need to know from frosting's, custards, fillings, sauces, mouses, fruit toppings and purees to a variety of cakes and tortes. Here you can find the base of a cake recipe and add your own twist. I love buttercream frosting, and the cake bible gives you a few classic buttercream base recipes and then gives you alternatives to add to the recipe. For example, you have now finished mixing your vanilla buttercream frosting, but then you decided you would like to make it chocolate or make a raspberry buttercream, this book gives you the ingredients needed to add to your already existing base. I have had my book for a few years now, it was my mothers cookbook and now here I am the proud owner of, "The Cake Bible". This is definitely something you can pass on to your kids. Even though it does not carry much pictures, it is a straight forward book that gets right down to baking. Attempting to bake for 50 to 100 people, don't be scared because the cake bible is here, and gives you cake recipes in quantities for almost any amount. If your an everyday dessert seeker like me, you can purchase the cake bible at My Amazon Shopping List where my mom got hers and also I created a little store where you can find almost all baking products needed to create jumbo cupcakes, lemon cake mix cookies, and more.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars 1

My friends love Chocolate chip cookies, almost every week I must have cookies made for them. So this week was the week for me to make some and I just got tired of the same old cookies. What I decided to do was make the same recipe but make them into bars, less work and taste more like a cake cookie bar so to speak. Now this recipe is the base for an original chocolate chip cookie, however if you love cherries (as much as I do), pecans, walnuts, semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, and oatmeal you can add these items and anything else you love, which will make such a nice soft bar.. But don't forget the chocolate chips, its the base of the recipe. This is only one bar recipe out of many, as they say, "The Skies The Limit".

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cup Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 cup roughly chopped cherries (optional)
1/4-1/2 cup instant oatmeal (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in a large bowl, until creamy. Then add eggs, mix well. Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture, mixing until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips, saving 1/4 cup and stir in optional items, saving a few handfuls, if desire.
3. In a squared 8" pan or larger, spread the dough evenly throughout the pan, then sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips over the top and the few handfuls of optional items over the top as well.
4. Bake for about 25-40 minutes at 375F, it depends on your oven. Usually I check them at 25 minutes and leave them to brown for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Let cool and Enjoy!