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

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!

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

Breakfast with Sophie!

My mom was a nurse, and she took care of a sweet but tough little old lady name sophie. Her name may sound soft, but she was far from it. But, from time to time I would visit and help out. My real interest in baking came from visiting sophie, (because I was more of a cook since I was 10 years old, rather then baking).

I got the idea that it would be nice to bake something for her.. she loved sweets and trying new things. So I first began with breakfast, where I baked Almond stuffed Pastry Pretzels. It was in the shape of a pretzel and lightly stuffed with a mixture of sugar, almonds, and almond paste. As they were baking the house filled with a sweet aroma, and she could not wait. She enjoyed it, for the next couple of mornings.

Then I made semi sweet cinnamon buns, with her heath in mind and for christmas I made cookies. Sophie really enjoyed the treats, and she wanted to help so bad sometimes. It was more of a treat to see her face when she started to smell different things baking.