PhDCupcaker

We have been having some technical difficulties that resulted in a change in hosting  companies, so this post has been sitting around waiting for us to get up and running again.

Yep… you read that right Cupcake Cookies. Not cupcakes… although I do have to make cupcakes soon… it has been way to long. Anyway, I have been wanting to make some royal iced cookies for a while and when we were in Chicago in January we went into Crate and Barrel and I found these cute cupcake cookie cutters for under $3.00! I had to have them! I thought these were perfect for making some royal-iced cookies.

So, fast forward 2 months later and finally… since it was my mom’s birthday I thought I would make some cookies and send them to her.  One of the sites I really enjoy for all things royal-iced cookie is Sweetopia! I used a sugar cookie recipe from the site and the royal icing recipe that they recommend, which is originally from antonia74. Even though the sugar cookie dough recipe contains baking powder, Marion suggests not using any baking powder so the cookies don’t spread when they bake. I left it out and I was pretty happy with how my cookies came out (and tasted!) so I will never include baking powder in my sugar cookies. I also placed the cut-outs in the frdige for a while before placing them in the oven and I think that helps as well!

I made one batch of royal icing. I wasn’t sure if this would be enough, but I figured I could always make a second batch if I needed to. I figured I’d do the icing part of my cupcake cookie in white since I usually ice my cupcakes with cream cheese icing and then I would die the rest of the royal icing pink and brown. Not sure why I decided on pink, but I wanted an additional color and I think I had seen it on cookies similar to these somewhere and thought it looked good. I’m glad I only made one batch of icing because it was more than enough. I didn’t do anything too fancy. I did pipe some lines on the liner part of the cupcake after the main flooded section had dried, but that was the extent of my fanciness on these. I also sprinkled a variety of sugars and sprinkles on the white “icing.” Once again, sweetopia has some great tutorials on decorating with royal icing. I followed the direction there and didn’t use two different icing consistencies. I used the same icing for piping my outing and for flooding the inside. It made it much easier than trying to worry about having two consistencies of each color. That would have taken forever! I used a Wilton #3 tip for the piping and the flooding.

All in all, I think these came out pretty good. I was pretty happy with them. Once thing I am not good at though (and don’t know if I ever will be) if keeping my work area (or myself) very clean while working. I really want to get better at this. I feel like things get so messy and there is so much to clean up that when I am all done I sort of regret the whole process because it takes me just as long to clean as it did to make all the cookies! This time around I even ended up with royal icing on my lucky hat. I suppose maybe that makes it even luckier.

Luckily I was able to clean my lucky hat without to much trouble. I then decided to package up my cookies. Not only was I goign to send them to my mom, it was also a freind’s birthday and a few of us had a plan to go to a movie. So, I figure I would bring along some birthday cookies. I packed them up and secured them with some curling ribbon.

When I talked to my mom she said that they made it to NY okay. They didn’t break too much. We had a few of them around for a few days and I actually think they actually tasted better as the days went on. I thougth they might start getting stale, but to my surprise they didn’t. I   will definitely make cookies like this again. I was thinking I might do some shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m not sure if I will have time…. Next week is a little busy since it is the first week back after Spring Break and I am leaving for a conference on Friday. So, we’ll see.

Ahh… Nutella….. my alternative to peanut butter.  Although I do like peanut butter with chocolate, I have never been a huge fan. I do like peanuts, but didn’t grow up on peanut butter and jelly like a lot of kids. In the last few years though I have become a fan of Nutella! Although I don’t find myself eating it too much, I am a big fan! Josh seems to think it is weird… not sure why… I kind of see it like peanut butter (which he really likes). I just think he likes to give me a hard time!  I am so excited to be hosting the Club BAKED pic this time around – Nutella Scones and since I am the host I have posted the recipe for these which you will find at the bottom of this post. I have never made scones and so I was a little worried by all the “don’ts” in the recipe – Don’t over-knead, don’t over-bake… In the end I think these came out just right! First step was to mix all the dry ingredients.

I decided to try a new cocoa powder. They suggest Valrhona, but I haven’t been able to find that around here. I decided to try this Rodelle baking cocoa.  I whisked all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt) together.

Another thing – I didn’t use unbleached flour. At least, I don’t think so because I just used whatever I had and I am pretty sure it wasn’t unbleached. I am not sure if it made a difference or not. After getting the dry ingredients together I whisked my egg and heavy cream and then added that to the dry mix.

I mixed that until just combined and then it was time to  add the butter. I had already cut the butter into cubes and it was waiting for me in the fridge. Once I got that in there I tried the best I could to use my fingertips to get the butter into the flour forming pea-sized bits. I think it was pretty coarse when I moved onto the next step, but I am wondering if it was a little too grainy still. I had a hard time getting it to stick together, as you can see in the next picture… lots of dough crumbs!  It took a little work, but I finally got it shaped into a 6 by 12 in. and started spreading my Nutella on! Yum!

Then it was time to roll. I was worried the whole thing was just going to crumble, but it wasn’t too bad. I did it pretty slow and it actually rolled up pretty easily. As you can see I did leave a little trail of crumbs, but for the most part things came together well.

Up the little cylinder went so that it could then be smushed back down into a 1 3/4 in high disk. Here , we were reminded not to overwork the dough! I think I was definitely stressing about making sure to not overwork the dough.

I then decided to use my pizza cutter to cut the wedges. I was only able to get 6. I probably made them a tad bigger than they needed to be though because they are pretty dense. Once I had these cut I put them on my parchment lined cookie sheet.

I baked them for 18 minutes – after 9 minutes I rotated the cookie sheet. Once the time was up I checked and thought they could use a few more minutes so I put them back in for two more minutes before taking them out.

Not too bad, if I do say so myself…I thought they actually looked like scones! Yay! I let them cool completely like the directions said. Once I went back to check out the next part I noticed that it said to put the microwaved Nutella on hot scones. So, I am not sure if I was supposed to let them cool or not. I think it was fine. I poured the Nutella on and let them set in the fridge for about 5 minutes. Here’s the one I decided to eat.

I was actually surprised that it wasn’t too hard. I guess I thought it would be rather crunchy for some reason. I think the only scones I have ever had might have been sitting in the coffee shop for a little bit too long. These were actually a bit soft, but I am not sure they had the flaky texture I have heard scones described as having. I also think I would have liked them to be a bit sweeter. Maybe more Nutella… the Nutella on top definitely helped! That said, these were good in the morning with a cup of tea and in the afternoon with a cup of hot chocolate. I put the ones we didn’t eat into an airtight container and ended up having one in the morning the next day. I actually think I liked them even better on day 2! Thanks everyone for baking along with me! To see all the blog posts go over to Club: BAKED and to bake your own follow the recipe below! Next up on the Club: BAKED docket – Mississippi Mud Pie (B) hosted by Alexis.

Nutella Scones [Printer-Friendly Version]
Yield: 6-8 scones

Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder (like Valrhona)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 large egg
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup toasted hazelnuts,coarsely chopped
1/2 cup Nutella

*Baked Note*
Matt & Renato’s advice: Do Not Knead Too Much. Stop working the dough the minute it comes together and don’t worry if there are a few dry bits scattered throughout.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place the rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt until combined.

Add the butter. Use your fingertips to rub it into the flour until the butter is pea size and the mixture is coarse.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and cream. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until the dough just comes together. Gently and briefly knead the dough with your hands. Add the toasted hazelnuts and knead gently to incorporate. Flatten the dough into a rectangle approximately 6 by 12 inches. ( it doesn’t need to precise) and spread 1/4 cup of the Nutella on top in a criss cross pattern. Roll the dough up to make a cylinder about 6 inches long, turn it on its end, and gently flatten it into a disk about 1 3/4 inches high. Do not overwork the dough.

Cut the dough into 6 or 8 wedges and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Bake the scones for 18-20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean. Do not overbake.
Transfer the scones to a wire rack to cool completely. Place the baking sheet with the parchment still on it underneath the rack.

Assemble the Nutella Scones:

Heat the remaining 1/4 cup Nutella in a microwave until pourable, about 10 seconds on high. Pierce the tops of the scones a few times with a fork. Use a spoon ( or two spoons-one to scoop, one to scrape) to drip the warm Nutella in a zigzag pattern over the tops of the hot scones. Transfer them to a refrigerator to set for 5 minutes, then serve immediately.

Most scones have a lifespan of 24hours or less; however, these scones taste pretty darn good on day two provided you wrap them tightly and store them at room temperature.

*Baked Note*
Matt & Renato’s advice: Do Not Knead Too Much. Stop working the dough the minute it comes together and don’t worry if there are a few dry bits scattered throughout.

Okay… I know… I was supposed to post these on Feb 15. I actually made them before that. I even asked Josh to upload the pictures so that I could post before the Feb 15 date, but alas…. my blog post never came to fruition. I thought that after defending my dissertation I would have all the time in the world to bake and blog. Well, that was all just a huge fantasy I suppose. Anyway, so here I am… having accomplished a fair bit of schoolwork and housework, so I figured even though it is way late, I should post about those delicious caramels. Caramel has been my flavor of choice lately – I love anything caramel, particularly salted caramel. One of my favorite cupcakes of all time were those Martha Stewart Chocolate Salted Caramel Mini Cupcakes and I love that super rich Sallted Caramel Chocolate Layer Cake that I have made three times, despite it’s difficulty! So, when it came to making these soft candy caramels I was definitely in! What a great pic by by Teri of The Freshman Cook!

I have made caramels before, but for some reason I always seem to have a hard time cutting them and usually completely give up, despite having gone through all the work of actually making them. This recipe was completely different… maybe it was the soft texture, or the fact that I actually followed their directions for using some cooking spray on the knife before slicing. Whatever it was…. these were so easy to cut and wrap.

These caramels had 1 cup of light brown sugar in them. Maybe this is what made these so tasty. I don’t remember using brown sugar in the caramels I have made before… maybe I am just forgetting those disasters though! It didn’t bubble up as much as usual when I added the cream and condensed milk. I was a little worried that my thermometer wasn’t working. I haven’t had much success with recipes that required certain temperatures recently and so I have been blaming that on my thermometer, but this time… things seemed to go okay.

Once it was it was back up to 250 or so I removed it, added the vanilla and salt (oh how I love the salty-sweet combo). I think I added a little more than the requested 1 tsp.

It took all my will-power to resist just eating this with a spoon…. Now that I think of it, this might have been a good recipe to use for the scoopable caramel I tried to make around the holidays. A friend of mine had brought me some salted caramel from Paris. It came in a little jar with a spoon and boy was it tasty. It may have been the reason why I was actually able to finish my dissertation I tried replicating it and it just did not work… this recipe might have worked though… Next time I am going to try it.. pour this right into a little jar and see if I can eat it with a spoon. Yum!!!! Anyway, the next morning I dumped the block out to cut it. I did have a bit of a problem getting the foil off, but it wasn’t too bad.

That big peak near the center was the result of sticking to the foil. It wasn’t too bad. Since it was Valentine’s Day I thought I might bring these to my class. I bought some red and silver wrappers and began cutting and wrapping.

My students (and colleagues) really liked these. And of course… I loved them. This recipe is definitely a keeper! Next time I think I might try to wrap these in clear wrap so you can see the caramel goodness!

This time around the BAKED  choice was some cookies, speculaas to be exact and it was co-hosted with Baked Sunday Mornings, another  group of bakers baking through BAKED Explorations. I wasn’t sure if I was going to bake along this time because I wasn’t too excited about these cookies, but I figured… why not, especially since I had all of the ingredients on hand (except for the orange zest which I ended up leaving out). I do agree that these made the perfect snack to enjoy with a cup of tea. My husband and I are big tea drinkers and not only was this a great snack while I finished re-reading the Hunger Games (can’t wait for the movie!), we were able to enjoy a few of these with our afternoon cup of NYC Breakfast yesterday. This recipe was super easy. I didn’t have a pastry cutter (should probably get one of those one day), so I just used a large fork to get all of that  butter into my dry mix. I guess this was the hardest part. I didn’t seem to matter too much. Once I got it into a ball and wrapped I put in the fridge for a little over 60 minutes. After that it was time to roll, literally!  I’m not sure that these were a 1/4 in. thick as suggested. I think they may have been a little on the thin side since I got more cookies than what the recipe said I would. I’ve thought about buying those cookie slats because I feel like I never get the dough the right thickness. I guess if I start making more cookies I might invest in those. I ended up just using my round cookie cutter. I think the cookies were a pretty good size. After they were on the cookie sheet I sprinkled each one with some William-Sonoma White Sanding Sugar . We enjoyed some of these a few minutes after taking these out of the oven. I think I actually liked them the best when they were a little warm. I have always been more of a soft, rather than hard, cookie fan.  If you are intrigued by these speculaas and want to make them yourself, you can find the recipe here. Or, if you just want to check out the other baker’s links go to Club: BAKED!

 

So, I thought it would only be right to drink my semi-homemade root beer float in my Yankees mug in honor of Jorge. Today Jorge Posada officially announced his retirement. So, while his teammates and friends chose to honor him with kind words, I figured what better way than to celebrate his career than to drink my semi-homemade root beer float in the Yankees mug that I got from my friend Wendy (BTW, it was a wedding party gift and her husband is a Red Sox fans…. I’m surprised he even allowed this in their apartment!).

Anyway, the other day I made some homemade vanilla ice cream for a party we had at my office. It has become somewhat of a tradition to have root beer floats and so I made a cake (a 6-layer version of the same cake I made a few months ago) and I made some homemade vanilla bean ice cream for our floats. I got the recipe right from the recipe book that came with my Cuisinart ice cream maker. I did not make the root beer, hence the “semi-homemade.” These were actually quite tasty! I love the vanilla bean (although it is somewhat expensive,  I think it really does add to the flavor).

So, here’s to Jorge! Hip-Hip-Jorge! Hip-Hip-Jorge!

Wow! It has been a LONG time since my last post. Since I officially defended my dissertation (yay #1) and landed a job at the University of Nebraska for the fall (yay #2), I am hoping I will have more time to bake and blog…I know I am a little late with my CLUB: Baked post, but better late then never. I actually made this last week, but then we went to Chicago and I forgot to bring my photos. Thanks to Jess from the Saucy Kitchen for picking this recipe – Mississippi Mud Pie (A) also known as the coffee ice cream tart! There are actually two versions of this in the BAKED book, hence the A.  You can find the recipe on the Saucy Kitchen blog right here.

I thoroughly enjoyed this pie! I have never been a huge coffeee ice cream fan, but this was really tasty. I probably could have eaten the whole thing myself, but luckily I had a meeting that I could take this to, so that didn’t happen! Like many others I could not find chocolate wafers (I have looked for these for other recipes and can never find them). So, I also used oreos with the cream scraped off.

I have always been a fan of those oreo ice cream cakes so I was pretty sure this would taste good and it did not disappoint. The next layer was probably my favorite. That chocolate fudge layer between the cookie crust and the ice cream. It added a lot of flavor.

I decided to make the ice cream myself. It took me a while to find the espresso powder, but when I finally found a local heath food store that carried it, the brand they had was the one recommended in the BAKED book. I didn’t include the Kahlua, mostly because I didn’t have any and didn’t want to buy it just for this recipe. Now that I think about it, maybe this was my favorte layer… I don’t know. As I said before, I have never been a coffee ice cream fan, but this was some good ice cream…. This could also be due to the fact that for the week before this I was trying to eat well and hadn’t really had any sugar. So, maybe I was just bound to like this!

I think I overfilled my pie a bit or didn’t have the cookie crust come up on the sides enough because once I added my ice cream I couldn’t see the crust…

Finally – time for the last  layer. The fudgey gooey chocolate on top. I decided not to add the nuts. I am not a big nut fan.

I loved this pie and reading everyone’s posts because it made me think about all the possibilities of ways to change this up. I can’t wait to make a different version of this! If you are interested in seeing the other posts, you can check them out here.

It wasn’t until I met Josh that I had even heard of Buckeyes. I think the idea that us people on the coasts have never heard of these is true! Now that we are in Michigan I hear a lot about Buckeyes – not always in good ways, although I do like the MSU Dairy Store’s Buckeye Blitz ice cream – that is good! Now that I have my own ice cream maker I might need to try my hand at that one. Anyway, Since part of Josh’s family is from Ohio and some still live in the Ohio/Pennsylvania area these little tasty treats get made pretty regularly around the holidays. So, when we asked Josh’s grandmother to gather up some recipes and make us a family cookbook when we got married one of the recipes was his Aunt Amy’s Buckeye recipe – man, oh man – those Buckeyes are SO GOOD! The recipe makes a ton of them – 200 (or 100 in my case because I make them huge). So, when I saw that the CLUB: Baked second Nov pic hosted by none other than Karen the organizer of Club Baked (Check out her post on Karen’s Cookies, Cakes, and More) was Buckeyes, I was both intrigued and worried – I mean, I love the other recipe. I was worried I wouldn’t like this one as much. I must say though, now that I have made both that they are both good, definitely different, but both of them are good. Aunt Amy’s are sweeter than the Baked ones, which I guess makes sense since this was supposed to be a less sweet version that the ones his mom made. Anyway, even though I am in the furies of dissertation writing (I am sending it out to my committee this week!) I had to take the time to post about these. I actually made them a few weeks ago. I decided to freeze them and I am going to bring them to my parents for Thanksgiving.

Okay, so here’s one big difference right here. In this recipe there are graham crackers… definitely makes the texture a little different than the other recipe. Also, there is cream cheese in these ones. Amy’s just have the peanut butter, margarine and sugar, and of course the chocolate.

Yummy! Look at that. Oh yeah, I did end up getting a new Kitchen Aid mixer. So, now I have two. I couldn’t resist the price on this back in October at Sam’s Club and I love the red!

Here they are ready to go. I used a little ice cream scoop to get them to be pretty uniform in size. I still had to roll each one of them after they were all scooped. These were not that easy for me to dip. I used a few different skewers and the peanut butter ball kept sliding off and right into the chocolate. This did not make Lorraine a happy camper! I have this same problem when trying to make cake pops! I am not sure what my problem is! Eventually, I was able to get most of them dipped into the chocolate. Josh and I had a few and then plopped the rest in the freezer.

Okay, now that my mouth is watering… back to the dissertation writing!

Long time…. no post. Sorry about that, but it is dissertation crunch time. Now that I have set the date for my defense I thought I would splurge and post about these cupcakes I made for Halloween. Someone had told me about these neat Martha Stewart Broken Glass cupcakes. Although it a little weird to have broken glass on a cupcake, I saw making the glass a challenge. So, I thought I would give it a shot. I had to make the glass a few times for it to actually look like glass. The first time it was really cloudy. It is like making caramel… you just don’t cook it for as long. The glass isn’t as clear as Martha’s, but I think these came out pretty good if I do say so myself… Now, back to writing…. I’ll see you in January (well, maybe I’ll sneak in a post here or there for the holidays – we’ll see)!

I have always been a big fan of ice cream cakes. They just seemed more special than other cakes and I think that is because we never had them. I mean, my mom always baked cakes, but who makes their own ice cream cakes? It just seemed to be a weird thing to make your own ice cream cake or something. So, on birthdays we would often have ice cream cakes. I LOVE ice cream cakes. So, I decided to be crazy and actually attempt to make my own ice cream cake. Searching on the Internet I came to realize that a homemade ice cream cake usually does not involve homemade ice cream… well then, I thought, how is that homemade? That seemed to be cheating if you ask me. So, I decided that I would use one of the recipes (this one here from the Food Network site) that includes store-bought ice cream, but just make my own… Then, Josh decided to give me my birthday present a few days early…

Look at those… not only do I love dessert cookbooks one of them had ice cream cakes (he knew I was going to attempt this). I looked through the book and decided on two ice creams I would use and since I wanted a fairly traditional ice cream cake the first time I attempted this I decided to stick with the one from the Food Network site. I mixed up the ice cream batter the day before and this morning started the first batch – the vanilla in my Cuisinart.

While that was mixing I got my springform pan ready for the Oreo Cookie crust – just some crushed Oreos and some butter.

I love Oreo crusts! After getting the crust into the bottom of the pan I created the first layer of vanilla ice cream and put that in the freezer while I made the chocolate ice cream. Once that was ready and chilled for a while I added that to the vanilla layer.

After that was on I added a layer of Oreo crumbs and then let it sit in freezer for a little bit before adding the last layer of vanilla ice cream.

Once that was on, it had to freeze for another two hours. Once it was ready I popped off the outer part of the pan and added  the homemade whipped cream. I coated the whole cake with about 3-4 cups of whipped cream and then piped on some decorative spirals. I decided to sprinkle some multi-colored chocoalte chips and write a little Happy Birthday message for myself. Not bad for a first attempt!

I couldn’t resit having  a piece of my cake with my buddy CC! How nice of him to stop by during Game 3! Go Yankees!

 

I wasn’t sure that I was going to have time to make the Club: BAKED choice, but they sounded so good I had to do it! I know I am a few days late with my post, but I was at a meeting in Illinois and totally forgot to get my post up (even though I made these about a week ago). Thanks to Billie at Chocolate & Chakra for this one because it was so good.  I actually opted to do the opposite of what most people usually do – rather than halving the recipe –  I doubled the recipe this time around! I thought that despite what the book said about these being best eaten right away, that I would freeze these to eat each morning for breakfast.  We did of course each eat one right away, but then I froze the rest – 2 each in small pint-size freezer bags. See that can of pumpkin in the first picture? That was the only pumkin I could find. I’ve heard there is a shortage of pumkins this year with all the bad weather, particularly in the Northeast…. I think I will start stocking up. Here in Michigan I’ve noticed lots of pumkins for sale, but not much canned pumkin on the shelves. We are going to my parents for Thanksgiving this year, but I am sure I will still want to make my own pumkin pie at some point.

Anyway, these cooked up so well… and they smelled amazing when I took them out of the oven. I was debating whether I wanted to use muffin/cupcake liners because I hate when things stick to the pan, but that did not happen to any of these beauties.

Josh and I decided to each have one with a cup of tea. We had just bought a new tin of loose tea… not big fans of the tea, but loved these muffins. I love the cayenne flavor – not too overpowering, but enough so that you can really taste it! SO good!

I am also really glad I decided to do freeze them. In the morning I’ve been taking out one bag and placing the two muffins in the microwave for about 90 seconds. They are so good with a little bit of Earth Balance butter. It also makes me feel better about spending time baking… I should be cutting back so that I can finish that pesky dissertation! These served the purpose of not only feeding my baking addiction, but providing me with quick tasty breakfast for a while!