Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok, Thanksgiving's not until tomorrow, but I bet that a lot of us are baking/cooking today! I am attempting to make mini pumpkin cheesecakes. I combined recipes from the Pioneer Woman and Pinch My Salt to make these. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I have been cooking them long enough... they just came out of the oven. BTW: If you use Pioneer Woman's recipe, it makes enough filling for about 832847893724 cheesecakes, just so ya know.

My kitchen is a MESS right now. Stuff EVERYWHERE. Crumbs and cream cheese FLYING. Stuff stuck all over the counters.




Ok, so here's the filling all blended. 4 blocks of cream cheese - 4 whole eggs - really, how could you not expect this to make enough to feed an entire army?


Pressed crusts in the bottom of the mini cheesecake pan.


Filling before the bake:


And after the bake:


Right now they're cooling, so I'll let you know how they come out. Or IF they come out. Of the pan. Cross your fingers.



Couple hours later....

OMG they turned out so cute! The crust is gooey and crunchy and the little cheesecakes set up perfectly. Topped with cinnamon whipped cream and they'll be awesome. Someone just stop me from popping them into my mouth! LOL






Hope you have a WONDERFUL holiday!

Long Time No Post!

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while! With all of the wedding planning and just work in general, things have been crazy around here.
We chose a date! Sept 17, 2010. Right now a friend of mine (who happens to be a graphic designer) is planning out invitations and Save-the-Dates. We'll be sending out the STDs (haha) with our Christmas cards. We had our engagement pics taken on Oct 25th and will hopefully be getting those back soon. As soon as we do, I can start putting together the cards! We chose our venue, colors, photographer, dj, and cake. I am planning a lot right now - there's way more to do that I could have ever imagined.

As far as baking goes, I've tried to stuff in a bit here and there when I have a chance. I made spider cupcakes for our Halloween party:



and Ghoul Aid:



I LOVE Halloween! Here's the pumpkins we did. We did them ridiculously far in advance, so by Halloween they were mush. LOL





And for the various tailgaiting functions, Football Cupcakes!





I also figured out a new layout so that I can show you the ENTIRE pics! Thanks to the anonymous poster who left me that message!

Gotta get back to work - but I'll update again SOON!

24Karat Birthday

My boyfriend and I got engaged this week, AND it's his birthday!!! I got this easy-peasy recipe from my mom. It turns out *very* moist... almost a bit too oily. Might change it up next time. I got these cute little 6 inch round pans to bake the cake in. They turned out to be a HUGE pain w/ sticking and such, but so worth it b/c it's sooooo cute. :)

Best Ever Carrot Cake
4 eggs
2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
1 ½ c. oil
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3 c. grated or chopped carrots
1 c. coconut
1 c. walnuts

Frosting:
18 oz cream cheese
1 pkg confectioner’s sugar
¼ c. butter
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix all ingredients for cake together. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
Cool & frost

I omitted the coconut (he hates it) and only put 2 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting instead of an entire package. And 1 tsp of vanilla vs. 2 tsp. - it just sounded like too much.

I cut the layers in half to make a 4 layer cake. I actually RAN OUT of frosting, which seems insane seeing how much this recipe makes. I think if it were a normal 2 layer cake or cupcakes I wouldn't have had this issue.

4 layers being iced together:


Finished cake. I LOVE the candles! Got them @ Walmart of all places:



And here's a quick one of the ring... hehe

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Pictures Off-center

Anyone have any ideas as to why all of my pics are off-center and leaning to the right? I load them from Photobucket and they look fine there!

Peanut, Peanut Butter... and Chocolate

Decided to do a spin on the Oreo cupcakes and try them out with Reeses Peanut Butter cups instead of cookies. YUM. I still prefer the Oreo... but these were a big hit as well! I used Martha Stewart's Fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting and it was awesome.

For the Cupcakes
1 box Chocolate Cake Mix
1 cup sour cream
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
Bag of Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
A few pb cups set aside for topping

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine above ingredients, beat on high speed for 2 mins. If the batter is a little thick (like mine was) add 1/2 cup water. Put a tablespoon of batter in the bottom of each liner. Press in a pb cup. Top the pb cup with another layer of cake batter. Bake for 18 mins at 350 or until firm to the touch.

For the Frosting
6 tbsp milk (recipe called for 3, I added more to make the consistency right)
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup peanut butter (creamy)
1 stick butter

Beat the sugar, peanut butter, and butter together until crumbled. Add the milk, 1 tbsp at a time, until you get your desired consistency.

And now the pics...

Mmm peanut butter cups.


The batter. You can see it's a bit thicker than regular cake batter. It crawls up the beaters as you're mixing it!


Filling the cupcake liners and then pressing in the pb cups.


A closeup... mmm pb cups again!


Once out of the oven, they look like regular chocolate cupcakes.


Unless of course you run out of batter and fail to top a few, then they look like this. Haha.


The peanut butter frosting. I had to add much more milk to mine than the recipe called for to get the desired consistency. It piped very well!


Chopped pb cups for the top.


M&M checking out the birds outside while I'm putting together the frosting.


The finished product. After the cupcakes cooled, I piped the frosting on, then topped each with some chopped pb cup. I really liked how they looked.


All ready to go to the bbq.


Closeup!


Obligatory 'cupcake stands alone' pics.




Last but not least, the inside. If I were to make these again, I think I'd use full size pb cups. Once you split these guys open, it's just not that exciting to see a little dot of peanut butter. :)

With A Cherry On Top

Mini Cheesecakes! I saw these on Bakerella's blog and wanted to try them.
1) Instead of the foil cups she used I just used plain white ones (they were all that was available).
2) I took step-by-step pictures this time. Not sure if it's worth it or not, or if they're even interesting to look at, but I did it!
3) I'm not sure why all the pics on the blog tend to 'lean' to one side of the screen when posted. When I figure it out I'll try to fix it.

Without further adieu....

The ingredients for this one are very simple.

Ingredients
2 blocks cream cheese
3/4 Cup sugar
1 T vanilla
1 T lemon juice
3 eggs

All the ingredients in the bowl.


After mixing, I thought the batter was *really* thick... then I figured out why. Duh, forgot to add the eggs.


There we go! That's more like it.


Line a mini muffin tin with mini muffin cups, then drop a mini Nilla wafer into each cup. Mini mini mini!!!


Pour a tablespoon of the batter on top


Bake @ 350 degrees for 17 minutes
Crap, I deleted my baking photo. Boo hiss. But here's something really weird that happened! With the second batch, about 8 of the cheesecake's nilla wafer crusts randomly floated to the top. They were dotted all over the pan, so I have no clue what would cause this. Weird!


Marley assessing everything from the top of the cabinets


Mya, 'helping' unpack the groceries while the cheesecake bakes


Let cool, then top each with a dollop of cherry pie filling. Refrigerate.


Pretty!


Wafer crust


They turned out very cute. I'm not big on the taste... the wafer gets a little soggy and the whole thing just tasted like a ball of cheesecake filling. I guess I prefer a graham cracker crust. But for a quick easy treat to bring to a party or something, these would probably be a hit!

Pics from the Past

Over the years I' ve taken pictures of some of the things I've made to share with friends/family who are interested in seeing what I'm baking. Since I have so many, I might as well share them here!

Cupcakes from this past Easter


Regular Chocolate Cupcakes


Pumpkin Cheesecake for last Thanksgiving


Cupcakes for a BBQ




Trying out the Sprinkles Mix


Coconut Cake for a Birthday


Christmas Cracker Candy


Sundried Tomato & Basil Pinwheels


Nana's Recipe Poundcake


Brownies


Haywood Corn Pudding


Cookies from a Take and Bake cookie class


Cupcake Cones


Eggplant Parmesan Bake


My Famous Deviled Eggs


Easter Cake


Spinach Dip


*Whew* That's a lot of food! Also, here's a quick pic of the 'Two Cats' of Two Cats and a Cupcake.

Mya (left) and Marley (right)


:)