Featured: Spring Cupcakes! by Sarah Duzon

Photos by Sarah Duzon
Lets begin the Spring season with these delicate delicious mini cupcakes. Thanks to Sarah, we all can attempt to recreate these beatiful little cupcakes that brings us right into the spring season.

For those who would love to make these cupcakes, it all starts with a basic pound cake recipe.

Followed by whipping cream cheese, lemon filling and icing sugar together and piping it on top of the cupcakes.
I have included a link to a Pound cake recipe from FoodNetwork.com by Paula Deen Mama's Pound Cake Recipe

The Ultimate Chocolate Cake Gone Wrong

Valentine's Day and the V-Day weekend means chocolate chocolate chocolate! So here's my rendition of every ones favorite chocolate cake with The Ultimate Chocolate Cake. Using a ready made cake mix from the box is always quicker and easier, but sometimes we would like to try baking desserts from scratch with equally the same quickness and ease. This chocolate cake took no special ingredients nor did it take hours in the kitchen. However for a finer quality cake, you can buy gourmet chocolate powder from brands such as Guittard, Callebaut or Scharffen Berger.

Heres what to do and not to do. The only difficulty I had was forgetting the baking soda, and in doing so; as you can see the cake did not rise as it should nor was it light and fluffy. It was more dense. Using baking soda, requires acidic ingredient in order to work properly and to avoid an alkaline flavor in the cake. The acidic ingredient can be natural cocoa (which is Not Dutch-processed and is lighter in color), orange juice, lemon juice or sour cream. And that is why some chocolate recipes ask for Buttermilk. In making this mistake, I learned what ingredients to use when making a chocolate cake. Chocolate cakes can be made with cocoa if your wondering, but also a combination of chocolate and cocoa may produce better results.

2 cups boiling water or (1 cup boiling water & 1 cup buttermilk)
1 cup unsweetened Hersey cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
2 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour or (2 1/2 cups of cake flour)
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups of white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup of butter, softened or ( 1 cup of vegetable oil)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Pour boiling water over cocoa powder, whisk until smooth and let cool. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time, then stir in vanilla.
3. Add flour mixture alternately with cocoa mixture. Spread batter evenly between 3 prepared pans.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until inserted toothpick in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.
Chocolate Buttercream:
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa or three 1 0z unsweetened chocolate squares
1 tsp clear vanilla extract
4 cups of sifted confectioners sugar
3-4 tbsp milk
(Makes about 3 cups of icing)

1. Cream butter and shortening together with an electric mixer. Add vanilla and cocoa. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time beating well on medium speed and add milk one tablespoon at a time until light and fluffy. For a thin consistency add 3-4 more tbsp of milk, water or light corn syrup. Cover with a damp cloth until ready to use. Re-whip before using.
Refrigerate in an airtight container. Icing can be stored for up to 2 weeks.

A Vegan's Dream: M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies

Being that my mind was completely blank today, having no idea what I should bake I decided to surf the web and look for chocolate recipes. However, I realized that I do not have any eggs and not wanting to go to the store; and wanting to try something different, I began my search for recipes with no eggs or egg substitutes. I have now come to realize that there are many people in search for egg less, flourless and etc.. recipes due to allergies or looking for no cholesterol recipes. So I found one egg substitute recipe for eggs when baking cookies and cakes. Now you might be wondering why candied fruits? Well, they were on sale after Christmas and have been sitting in my freezer ever since plus I had half a bag of Nestle Toll House Chunks, two fun size bags of M&Ms and thought that I would make Candy Cookies! I do not know if vinegar will have a bad effect for some but these cookies are great! Its weird, they almost taste better then when I make chocolate chip cookies with the egg. But do not fair, I will make other cookies or cakes without eggs using other methods of egg substitutes.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened or 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 or 1/2 cup of Nestle Toll House Chunks, roughly chopped
1/3 cup of Candied Fruit, roughly chopped (optional)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1/3 cup walnuts (optional)

Egg Substitute as follows:

1 tbsp water
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking powder
(recipe for each egg)

Preheat oven to 350F.
1. In a large bowl beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until creamy. In a seperate bowl stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. Then add eggs (egg substitute) to the butter and sugar mixture and mix well.
3. Beat in flour into butter and sugar mixture, then stir in chocolate chunks, walnuts and candied fruit.
4. Teaspoon small amounts of batter onto a ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly golden brown around the edges. Let cool and enjoy. Store in an air tight container. Makes about 3 dozen

Apple Cinnamon Tart

Since I had so much apples and cookie dough left over, I just throw some cookie dough onto the bottom of the pan, place the apples on top and rolled out the rest of the dough. With a leaf cookie cutter from Wiltons, I was able to make these 3 leaf cut outs and place them on top of my apple tart. Also, being that I ran out of vanilla extract, I just used rum instead. This is just something that's warm, easy and simple to make on a nice cold day.

Sugar Cookie Recipe:

1 cup butter, softened
2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

1. Beat butter for 30 seconds, add sugar, baking powder, and salt.
2. Beat in egg and vanilla
3. Beat in as much flour as you can with a mixer.
4. Divide dough in half, refrigerate for an hour or 2, wrapped in plastic.
5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
6. Roll out dough onto a well floured surface, and use any cookie cutter to cut out the shapes desired.
7. Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes when using the dough as topping and crust for your pie. Let cool and Enjoy!

*This cookie dough recipe is different then my other sugar cookie recipes, this one requires more butter and the out come is more fluffy, soft and cake like. Rather then crispy and hard.

Apple Filling:

2 Granny Smith Apples- peeled, cored, and diced/chopped small
1/4 cup Sugar
1 tbsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tbsp Rum (dark or light)

1. Peel, core, and dice the apples into small pieces. Place medium saucepan over low heat and place apples, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and rum into the pot. Stir all ingredients together for about 1 to 2 mintues until well coated, then cover and let cook for about 8 mintues or to your liking.
2. Once done to your taste and texture, remove from heat and let completely cool.

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

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.

LEMON Cake Mix Cookies

Whenever I bought the Pillsbury Lemon cake mix, there would always be a recipe on the side of it. So this recipe that I tried, is called "Lemon Crisps". However I hate dried out hard cookies, so what I did was take a small spoon and shape the dough into balls, instead of flatting them out like the recipe says, I just left them as balls. Also, after mixing the ingredients together, I let the dough rest for about an hour or two. Because when i did attempt to make them right way, the lemon seemed really strong and it was as if you were eating straight sugar. You could taste the granules.

1 pkg Pillsbury Moist Supreme Lemon cake mix
1/3 cup Oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
2 to 3 tbsp lemon juice
1. Preheat oven to 375F. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, and eggs; stir with spoon until combined into a moist dough. Shape dough into 1-inich balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
2. Bake at 375F for 5 to 10 mintues or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 mintue and remove from cookie sheet.
3. Small bowl, combine powdered suger and lemon juice until smooth and drizzle over cookies. You can also dust the cookies with the powder sugar. Enjoy!
Find and enjoy your favorite baking needs to recreate this recipe and others at THE STORE

JIFFY Corn Muffin Ideas!

Got any JIFFY Ideas? I do! An all American favorite can be made in so many ways. I love this corn muffin mix, and here's a few ideas I have to make it even better.

Savory Recipe) 1-2 JIFFY corn muffin mixes
1/2-1Tbsp of Cilantro
1/2-1Tsp of Chili powder
Dash of Salt
Dash of Black pepper
1/3 Cup of Red Pepper
1/3 Cup of Green Pepper
1/2 Tsp of Onion powder
1/2-1 Cup of Monteray Jack Shredded Cheese

Mix all dry ingredients together, and then follow the recipe (twice if using two mixes) for the Jiffy corn muffin mix. Then add the shredded cheese and let the mix rest as stated on the box, after that bake at the required temperature in a round or squared baking pan. Enjoy!

Sweet Recipe) 1-2 JIFFY corn muffin mix
1-2 Tbsp of granulated Sugar
5 Tbsp of any kind of Jam

Follow the recipe on the box, plus add sugar, mix and let rest. Place in a round or squared baking pan, and marble the jam of your chose throughout the mix. Bake as directed and Enjoy!

Sweet Recipe) 1-2 JIFFY corn muffin mix
1 can of cream of corn
2 Tbsp of granulated Sugar
1/3 stick of Butter
Dash of Salt

Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Mix together the wet ingredients from the box and the cream of corn and butter. Mix in the wet ingredients into the dry gradually, let rest then bake as directed in a round or squared baking pan, and Enjoy!

My Cookie Cutters!

Mrs.Cookie Cutters

As my passion grew for baking, and experimenting with different recipes, I started collecting cookie cutters. My favorite stores are Marshall's, Ross, Burlington and T.J. Max, where I find great cookbooks and baking items such as many different cookie cutters. I look for and buy all sizes, shapes, and designs. Usually every holiday, there's new cutters to look for. Currently, I have Valentines day, Halloween, and Christmas themes. I use my cutters for sugar cookie recipes. One day I was surfing the home decor isles of Ross, and found this huge gingerbread cookie cutter, I immediately secured it in my shopping kart. The best way to find either the same, different or even the matching piece to an already existing item is to go to all the same stores in different areas, close by. You would find me at almost all the locations closes to me, searching for cutters, dishes for display, and much more. Right now, I am on the search for some vintage cutters, I hope to find a great collection of vintage cutters. You can collect these cookie cutters and others like I have on My Amazon Shopping .

Today's Grocery list & Baking Ideas

Today, I had the idea to make some brownies or chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, I am planning to take a trip to my local grocery store here in Miami,Fl. My pantry is more or less full, but I would like to get in on some Labor Day sales. However I always end up thinking of new or old favorite things to bake and cook. With the exception of a sale, my weekly shopping budget is only $60-$80 usually it consist of meat and poultry, vegetables,cooking oil, rice and etc. And then when theres a sale I buy in bulk so the rest of the weeks, I am only spending money on important items that run out very quickly.

Heres what I plan to buy;
Orange juice (gallon) only $2.49
Cranberry juice (gallon) $5.19 buy 1 get one free
Pepsi/Mountain Dew 4 12pk cans for $10.00 plus get one free
Cereal $4.09 buy 1 get one free ( am a huge cereal fan)
Milk$3.79 (gallon)
Eggs $1.79
Brownie Mix 2 for $4.00 ( this is only for storage, because I love to make my famous brownies from scratch)
Cherries
Walnuts
Chocolate chip morsels
Cocoa powder
Water 24pk $4.00