Thanks Hilary

Almost Cake Mix Vanilla Cupcakes
from Nosh With Me

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup Crisco shortening, room temperature
2 cups sugar, ground in the processor until fine (measure before processing) I used superfine sugar
4 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract I used more
1/8 teaspoon almond extract or lemon extract I didn't use this
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups cake flour or all-purpose flour (or combined together) I used all cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup warm half-and-half cream or full-fat milk (this is important, warm the milk!) I used half-and-half

Preparation

1. Set oven to 375 degrees (will reduce oven temperature just before baking cupcakes).
2. Line 24 muffin pans with paper cupcake liners.
3. In an electric mixer, cream butter and shortening until fluffy.
4. Add in the eggs (one at a time) and the extracts and beat about 3-4 minutes on high speed (the mixture will seem to be a bit lumpy but will even out when you add in the sugar).
5. Add in the sugar; beat well (another 3 minutes) until sugar is COMPLETELY combined.
6. In a bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder.
7. Blend into the creamed ingredients, along with the warm milk until smooth (about 3 minutes).
8. Fill the prepared pans about two-thirds full.
9. IMMEDIATELY, reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.
10. Place the cupcakes in oven, and bake for about 20-24 minutes, or until the cupcakes test done.

Makes 24 cupcakes. (Hilary said she got about 30 which I can believe. I got 24 and a pie pan full of batter than I baked off in the toaster oven.)
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I saw this recipe some time ago on Hilary's blog, Nosh With Me. I've made them before but I didn't blog about them because I try to stick to cookbook recipes. However, since recipes are slim around here these days and because I don't think anyone should miss this recipe, I'm telling you about them this time.

I have the worst luck with cupcakes. They're so easy to overbake. My older oven doesn't bake them very easily. They never turn out as cute as I want them to. I keep trying though.

This recipe is a winner, good enough that I don't feel the need to find another vanilla cupcake recipe. I did have some problems with them cooking evenly but that's because my oven is horrible, I used two different types of cupcake pans (silicone and metal) that gave two very different results, and I think I might have forgotten to turn down the oven to 350.

I still got a moist, great tasting cupcake, they just browned a little more on top than I would have liked (which I covered with frosting) and as usual, the liners looked horrible. The liners always look horrible. I could have doubled these liners (added another one after baking) but I didn't have extra. I've never had luck doubling cupcake liners since the ones I usually buy sort of fan out but these were straighter and doubling would have worked, had I had access to more of the liners.

I usually can't manage to pipe on the frosting using a piping bag but with my new Pampered Chef decorator, it was so fast and easy. I bought that months ago but this is the first time I used it. It worked great. Hopefully the frosting and sprinkles took everyone's eyes off of the yucky liners.

Question of the Day: Did you ever have any character cakes for your birthday? I never did that I can remember. It was always standard Carvel ice cream cakes. For my sister's 16th birthday, she had a Carvel Cake with John Travolta on it (Grease was the rage at the time) but that's the closest thing to a character cake our house ever saw.

I'm alive

Aunt Nancy's Coleslaw
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives Copyright 2008

1 (8-ounce) can chunk unsweetened pineapple, in juices, strained
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1½ pounds green cabbage, shredded
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the pineapple and carrots into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.
2. Stir together the mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, and celery seeds in a large bowl.
3. Add the cabbage and the pineapple-carrot mixture, and toss until evenly coated. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. This slaw is best if made several hours or the day before so the flavors can come together. Keep covered in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
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Sorry that I've been MIA but it was a crazy week. My son caught a nasty stomach bug, my computer was sick, I had to postpone my son's birthday party due to bad weather. I'm just ready to relax and get back into my regular groove now.

This was one of the few new recipes I've made lately. I wasn't going to blog about another coleslaw recipe, after making several of them here, but this one was so good I couldn't possibly not share it with you. The flavors were so nicely balanced. It was sweet of course but I like my coleslaw sweet. I will without a doubt be making this recipe again.

I love watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I expected the book to be similar to the Deen Bros. Roadtrip book, which didn't include the recipes of the businesses they visited, but it included recipes 'inspired by' their travels. The Deen Bros. book has good recipes but some were more loosely inspired than others. The recipes in Guy's book are pretty close to the recipes I've seen on the show. I'm sure they're not exact and there aren't as many as I would like but I love that they did try to give a close approximation of the restaurant recipes.

Well I'm back but not quite 100% yet. I was busy with my son's party all weekend since we moved it to Sunday so I still haven't had the recuperation time that I need to get back into the swing of things but I'm getting there.

Question of the Day: How are you?

Nothing to post today

I'm suffering from severe sleep deprivation. I am too old to be getting up every couple of hours all through the night. We must have hit a growth spurt last week but I think it's over. It will take me a few days to recover though. I was too tired to work on a post last night.

My busy holiday season really doesn't end until after my son's birthday this weekend. Then, things should be back to normal around here.

On a side note, I finally tossed the last of the Christmas cookies. My son burst into tears when I told him what I did!

Soup night is back

Souper Spaghetti
Better Homes and Gardens Anyone Can Cook Copyright 2007

1 pound lean ground beef I used a little more
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small green sweet pepper, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 14-1/2-ounce cans diced tomatoes, undrained
2-1/2 cups water
1 13- to 15-ounce jar spaghetti sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Dash crushed red pepper
2 ounces spaghetti, broken into 2-inch pieces

In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, cook meat, onion, sweet pepper, celery, carrot, and garlic over medium heat until vegetables are tender and meat is no longer pink, stirring frequently. Drain excess fat.

Add undrained tomatoes, the water, spaghetti sauce, sugar, Italian seasoning, salt, black pepper, and red pepper. Bring mixture to boiling. Add broken spaghetti. Return to boiling. Reduce heat and boil gently, uncovered, for 12 to 15 minutes or until spaghetti is tender. Serve immediately.
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Now that I'm easing my way back into cooking regularly, I reintroduced Sunday night soup. This recipe had the basics that my guys like, meat and pasta, but the addition of spaghetti sauce really revved up the flavor. I would have liked it to have a little more pasta but it would need more liquid to handle any more pasta. It was quite thick as it was.

It was similar to American Meatball Soup but this was much easier and faster to make since it doesn't require making tiny meatballs. I used my mini-food chopper and had this made in less time than a trip to the McDonald's drive-thru.

I was going to use frozen ground beef but I was in the grocery store just before making this and decided to pick up a pound of fresh ground beef, so I wouldn't have to deal with the frozen meat that I had forgotten to take out of the freezer. Why don't they sell ground beef in one-pound packages? They had one pile of .80 pound packages and the rest were well over a pound, almost reaching 1.5 pounds. Most recipes call for one pound of ground beef so I guess they figure customers will pick up the larger package (which I did and I really didn't need to do for this recipe - I should have gone with the .80 pound package of meat).

I heard a rumor than my main grocery store might be closing. I hope not but it would save me some driving. They can't compete with the other major chain, a small independent store, and, the real trouble, Wal-Mart. I haven't heard anything official yet. That chain is touting price 'freezes' right now. Mighty nice of them to freeze prices after all the prices have been raised LOL.

Question of the Day: Do you use any sort of chopping device, besides a knife? I do enjoy using a knife but it's so much easier to toss things in the mini-chopper and I can get the veggies more finely chopped, so the guys can't avoid them.

A tale of two cookies

Mocha Cookies
From Red Dirt Mummy

150g butter, softened I forget, I think that was about 2/3 cup
3/4 cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons instant coffee granules
1 tablespoon hot water
1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
20 dark chocolate Melts

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (about 350 degrees F). Grease and line two oven trays with baking paper.
2. Beat butter, sugar, egg yolk and combined coffee and water in small bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Transfer mixture to large bowl; stir in sifted flour and cocoa in two batches, Knead dough on floured surface until smooth.
3. Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls; place 5cm apart on trays, flatten slightly. Press 1 chocolate Melt into centre of each cookie; bake about 12 minutes (mine took closer to 15-20 minutes). Cool cookies on tray.
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These Mocha Cookies come from Red Dirt Mummy. Oddly enough, she doesn't care for coffee flavored sweets yet she liked these yet I love coffee and coffee flavored sweets and I didn't care for these. The problem was not the recipe but the espresso powder that I used which was too strong (and not very good actually) and I shouldn't have used as much or used that particular powder at all. I loved the texture, the look and the ease of these cookies and I'm going to try the recipe again someday.

So I put that recipe aside since I didn't have a different coffee powder on hand and I decided to use the rest of the melts in place of the chocolate filling in this recipe:



Chocolate Thumbprints
Martha Stewart’s Cookies Copyright 2008

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrupI used candy melts instead of the chocolate filling

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together 1 stick butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla on medium-high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Beat in flour, beginning on low speed and increasing to medium high.
2. Roll dough by teaspoonfuls into balls, and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. I stuck the melts in at this point. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven, and press thumb into tops of cookies to make indentations. Return to oven, and bake until light brown on the edges, 7 to 9 minutes more. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
3. Combine chocolate, 4 tablespoons butter, and corn syrup in a small heat-proof bowl. Set over a pot of simmering water; stir occasionally until melted and smooth. Allow to cool slightly. When cookies are cool, fill the thumbprints with the chocolate mixture.
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While these cookies were sort of pretty, they were difficult to work with (the dough is very dry) and they didn't thrill me. I'm not a huge shortbread fan. I might have liked them better with the chocolate filling since I used to love Stella D'oro Swiss Fudge Cookies.

Okay that's it for the holiday posts. This year I made:

Mocha Cookies

Chocolate Thumbprints

Fruit and Cheese Bread

Snickerdoodles
Welsh Cookies
Sugar Cookies
Elfin Bites
Gingerbread Men
Five Minute Fudge (with mini marshmallows)
Chocolate Dipped Caramels
Oreo Truffles
Peppermint Bark
Rum Balls
Chocolate Chip Brownies
Spritz Trees
Raspberry and Apricot Kisses (my favorite this year - I LOVE these cookies)

I felt as if I could have kept on baking and baking if I hadn't run out of time. I think holiday baking might be a form of escapism for me around the holidays. I was very pleased with everything besides these two recipes I posted today. If I had tested the mocha cookies ahead of time, I would have been adjusted the recipe and been pleased with those as well. It's really not the best idea to be trying new recipes when I was in the middle of so much baking and in a time crunch.

I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hopefully things will be a bit lighter around here while we recover from the holiday excesses.