During Christmas My Feelings Taste Like Cookies

Well to be exact - my friends are the ones who are really tasting the cookies/feelings since i bake to give away.

I made five kinds of cookies last week.

1. Chocolate Chocolate Chip


2. Chocolate Chip Walnut


3. Sugar Cookies


4. Peanut Butter


5. Chocolate Chip Mint ( recipe #2 minus the walnuts, add 6 drops of green food coloring and mint chips)
I think my favorite were the chocolate chip walunts and the chocolate chocolate chip. Unluckily/luckily - depending on how you look at it - i didn't keep too many for myself. Maybe next year i will. Most of them got packed up in tupper wear or zip locks bags and distributed about the Bay, Philly and Wisconsin.



If you're wondering, I ended up making over 140 cookies. o.O Yeah i know. That's a lot of cookies!


I spent almost an entire day baking. Around hour three of preparing the dough, i came to the realization that the next boy in my life will have to find a girl wearing cheetah pajamas and a cupcake apron dirtied with sugar and chocolate extremely sexy. Cuz that's how I roll way too often. Feel free to pimp me out if you know of any boy (with abs) who has expressed this fetish. Thanks.

xoxo,
Anna

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Take a look below. This is how many spices go into making pumpkin spice cupcakes. They aren't lying about the spice part, right?

A co worker brought in pumpkin spice bread last week and since then i had the urge to make them into cupcakes. Since my plans got canceled today and it was raining cats and dogs i decided to stay home all day and bake. For no one. Anyone want cupcakes? No, really.

Recipe here. I actually followed it step by step and am 95% happy with them. I just need to find a way to make all of my cupcakes more... moist? I need an official tasting team too. I don't know if thats possible though. ALL MY FRIENDS DON'T EVEN WANT MY CUPCAKES ANYMORE! whatever.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
Makes 24. Exactly.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup milk

1 cup pumpkin puree

Sift together the flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, allspice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.

(Use an actual sifter. This is what it looks like.)


(Why do you need one? To mix it all together, but also to catch bigger pieces in the ground spices. Cuz who wants to eat a little piece of clove?)

Beat the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until fluffy. Then add eggs one at a time.

Now time for the pumpking! Which kinda looks like baby food...



I mixed the milk and pumpkin together in one (big) cup. Then i added the 1/4 of the flour mixture and mixed, then 1/3 of the milk/pumpkin , then 1/4 of the flour... alternating until i ended with the last of the flour.

The batter smelled soooo good and pumpkin spicy. It was actually really thick, thicker than expected and made EXACTLY 24 cupcakes.

Cooked at 350* for about 21 minutes.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese,

softened

1/4 cup butter, softened

3 cups confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the confectioners' sugar a little at a time until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; beat until fluffy.

It's a very pretty frosting. The cinnamon makes it look fancier :) And it makes JUST enough to frost all 24 cupcakes.


I had my mom and brother try them. My brother ate three. My mom ate two.. sans frosting. And reminded me that she hated the chocolate peanut butter ones that i had made... lol

I'll be dropping off another 16 later today.... If they receive good enough reviews, i might remake it just as pumpkin bread for Thanksgiving.



xoxo,
Anna

Halloween Skull Cupcakes

In case you ever find your self with a frosted cup cake, good & plentys, m&m's and chocolate licorice, as well as a Halloween party to attend then i have a cute little cupcake for you. Super easy too.

Didn't have time to bake from scratch, so its out of the box. But i spent time decorating so i say that makes up for it.


xoxo,
Anna

P.S. I did lose my camera... so all the awesome pictures of the peanut butter cupcakes are gone. :( Le sigh. That in itself might hurt more than the money i had to spend for a new one.

Magnolia Bakery Review

Two weeks ago I went to the East Coast for the first time. I was in New York City for a day and took the opportunity to go to "Magnolias Cupcakes" since they're so famous face. So we made the trek across the city (although the neighborhood was admittedly adorable so i can't complain). And waited in their huge line.

But... Why are they so famous face? I really don't get it.

My friend Rochelle and I bought one vanilla and one chocolate cupcake and split them in half.


For the record, they got MESSY when they got cut in half. Which was not too cool when they got all over our fingers. Anyhoo, back to the review of the actual cupcake. The taste. Rochelle's chocolate cupcake frosting was good. The cake tasted out of the box though. My vanilla frosting was so ridiculously sweet that i scraped 99% of it off. Pure sugar. In a bad way. But the cake it self was pretty good. So... if her frosting was on my cupcake it would have been delicious, lol!

All in all, it didn't taste terribley gourmet and mouth watering enough to pay $2.75 for it. But at least they were pretty?



xoxo,
Anna

P.S. I baked yesterday. But i am having camera problems. As in i can't find it... lol. So not sure when (if ever) that will be up. =x