A sneak peek!

So I just finished frosting my cupcakes and they look amazing so I thought I'd share a little sneak peek!

Hope you love it!

I found it…

 

I found it.  The best chocolate cupcake recipe ever.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have found it.  It’s incredible and I’m not sure how I only ate one so far.

More info and some pictures of the decorated cupcakes soon (hopefully tomorrow)!

YAY! My boyfriend is going to be so impressed.

Frozen Peppermint Cheesecake–update!

Hey all!  Okay, so I stand by my frozen peppermint cheesecake.  It was delicious and honestly, I kinda think (with some tweaks to the recipe) it would be a fantastic ice cream base.  Anyway, here’s my update on this recipe: line the spring form pan with foil.  I saw that line in the recipe, but I never do that with a regular cheesecake, so I skipped it thinking that whoever wrote the recipe was writing for dummies and didn’t realize the extra step was unnecessary.  Silly Smucker’s. (Cue menacing music.) 

Cut to me slicing into the frozen peppermint cheesecake, scooping out a piece, and realizing that absolutely every little bit of crust was stuck to the bottom of the spring form.  Yes, folks.  My cheesecake was on my plate effectively bottomless.  That’s a problem. 

So don’t make the same mistake I made!  Take the time to line your pan with foil because otherwise, you’re never getting that crust off the bottom.  And it’s just too delicious to waste that way.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with love and joy and family!

xo

One Minute Peanut Butter Cake (in the MICROWAVE!)

Yes, you read that correctly – one minute peanut butter cake that you make in the microwave.  Yes, I was confused as well, just keep reading and I promise it’ll all come full circle.

Okay, so here’s a funny story.  I’m reading through the millions of blogs that I follow on Google Reader and I come across a post by Cassie from Back To Her Roots called “Sweet Saturday: One Minute Peanut Butter Cake.”

Ummm, whaaatttt?!

So I’m immediately intrigued, right?  Because for a no frills cook, what is better than a cake you can make in ONE MINUTE?!  I keep reading and find out that this cake gets cooked in the microwave. 

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttt?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Okay, so now I’m hooked.  I have to try this.  However, while intrigued, I was also EXTREMELY skeptical.  Cakes take forever.  You have to turn on the oven to make one!  It makes the kitchen so HOT.  It’s like 86 degrees outside with 100% humidity.  There is NO way this works.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me be the first to tell you: THIS WORKS.  And it’s DELICIOUS.  Check out Cassie’s post for the recipe.  Just a side note, I’m still eating this and I can’t stop.  I may have to make another one.  AND I added about a tablespoon of dried cranberries into mine as well – amazingggg.  Cassie’s post tells you to cook this in the microwave for 30 seconds, but mine took about a minute, so just use your judgment depending on the power of your microwave. 

I LOVE no frills recipes like this.  Thank you, Cassie!

Updates #1 and 2: Cranberry Lemon Mint Granita

Hey all - just a quick update on the granita making!  I tasted the granita when it started to get a little ice crystaly (yes, it's a word) and it was still a little too sour for me, so I added another healthy squirt of light corn syrup and now everything is sweet and lovely.  Here's what it looks like three hours into the freezing and scraping process!

Hellooooo gorgeous.

It tastes as good as it looks, I promise.

Happy Independence Day! <3

Update #2:  Granita is GORGEOUS.  Check it out after 5 hours:

Yum.

Yes, I ate it.  It's DELICIOUS.  It tastes like a pink lemonade snow cone with a side of awesome.  I will absolutely make this again, and I suggest that you make it as well!

<3

Cranberry Lemon Mint Granita

Hellooooo long lost blog friends, can you hear me out there?  Well, yet again, I'm sorry for my prolonged absence, but finishing up a Master's degree and taking three more graduate classes over the summer does not leave me with a ton of time to blog about my feasts and foodasters (yes, another word smash, the man sure does love those).

Well, in celebration of tomorrow's delightful holiday - my favorite one of the whole year, in fact! - I have created the simplest, no frills, stress relieving summer dessert: my Cranberry Lemon Mint Granita.  Okay, first things first, if you don't know what a granita is, it's basically shaved ice.  Second, I know Cranberry Lemon Mint Granita sounds like quite a mouthful, but I promise you it's WAY easier than a flag cake or any other frilly dessert that's just waiting for a culinary mishap.  No thank you, I would not like to end up in the ER on the Fourth of July with third degree burns from fireworks or anything else (much less caramelized sugar that is 200 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun that I'm trying to use to make icing for a stupid flag cake).

So here's what I did.  I went in my fridge and found store brand cranberry juice cocktail and had an epiphany.  This will totally work to make one of those granitas I've been seeing millions of on food blogs and the Food Network lately!  So I poured four cups of the cranberry juice into a large measuring cup with the juice and zest of three lemons.  I unceremoniously dumped in 1/4 cup-ish of sugar and 1/4 cup of light corn syrup (more of both if you like it sweeter).  Then, I walked out into the garden, barefoot in the rain, and picked like 25 to 30 leaves of mint.  I came back, wiped off my feet, and chopped up the mint and dropped it in.  I poured the whole magenta mess into a pot and stuck it on the stove to melt the sugar (literally 2 minutes tops, it doesn't need to boil or anything).

Once that's done, I popped it into my trusty Temptations dish from QVC - seriously, a must have in my kitchen - to cool off.  (Seriously, Temptations!  It's freezer safe, oven safe, dishwasher safe, microwave safe... and GORGEOUS!  What's not to love?!)  Once it was cooled off, I had a fight with some frozen chicken and finally found a spot in the freezer for the granita (finding a place in the freezer to put this was the hardest part by far).

Here's what it looked like once it was in the freezer:

It's ready for its close-up...

Delicious.  Now, every hour or so, I'm going to open that freezer and scrape that little darling with a fork to break up the ice crystals (this will be my stress relief for the day, attacking unsuspecting ice crystals with a fork haha).  Tomorrow, it will be a fluffy mess of refreshing icy goodness.  So excited!




Cranberry Lemon Mint Granita

4 cups cranberry juice (any kind you like)
1 cup water
A handful of mint, chopped
Zest and juice of three lemons
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup

Mix all ingredients together and put in a pot on the stove to melt the sugar.  Then place in a shallow freezer safe dish and scrape once an hour with a fork.  Serve in small ice cream cups or other such simple and cute serving dishes and enjoy!


Happy Fourth of July, everyone! I'll let you know what the man thinks of this dish after tomorrow is over.  :) <3

No Frills Apple Crumble (sans recipe!)

Hello darling blog friends!

The other night, my mom and I were hanging out and we were both craving some serious dessert.  We had plenty of ingredients in the house to use, but my eyes automatically went to the four Golden Delicious apples that were sitting in a bowl on the counter.  I can always turn those babies into something yummy - I mean, come on, they're so sweet and crisp - what's not to like?  My only issue was that I didn't have a recipe to modify to my tastes.  After hemming and hawing over whether or not to go look up some random recipe, I decided I could make one up on the spot that was just as good.  Ladies and gentlemen, it was then officially time to improvise. 

So I peeled them and cut the cheeks from the core (just like I would with a mango to avoid the pit).  I used to slice straight through the core and then cut it away from each piece of apple, but I find that takes much  more effort and as you all know, I am a minimal effort, no frills kind of girl.  I cannot be bothered with that extra step.  Peeling apples is almost too much for me as it is, I find it deeply angravating (yes friends, this is my newest favorite word smash - something the man is absolutely obsessed with doing - it's angry and aggravated slammed together into one mega-word. LOVE).

Okay, apples are peeled, cut away from the core, and diced up.  I throw them in a bowl with the juice of one lemon and toss them around.  Yes, even the no frills girl does this step - as Alton Brown would say, brown apples are not good eats, whether you're covering them with crumbly deliciousness and baking them or not.  Then, I toss in some brown sugar (I used dark the first time and light the second time, I didn't taste a difference so use what you've got), pumpkin pie spice, cloves (which I love and was not included in my specific brand of pumpkin pie spice) and some flour to ensure that my apple crumble got all gooey in the middle.  Take it from me, the flour is the one step here that you do not want to forget.  I forgot last time and it was all runny and good for nothing except drizzling over vanilla ice cream... which now that I think about it, wasn't all that bad to eat.  However, this time I wanted apple crumble, not gooey apple drizzle (if you happen to want the gooey apple drizzle, leave out the flour in the recipe below.  Like I said, awfully good over vanilla bean ice cream).  I stirred a bit and then threw in a couple handfuls of dried cranberries that I had hiding in a cabinet.  Stir again and dump into a gorgeous Temptations baking dish from QVC - check it out:

Love it.  Seriously, they're my baking dishes of choice - I reach for them every time I'm sticking something in the oven and honestly, I haven't found anything that sticks to them yet.  QVC.com.  Go.  It's worth it, I promise.

Time for crumbly goodness to go on top.  I threw half a stick of butter in a bowl with some more brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and flour, but I needed something with some texture so I immediately rummaged in the pantry for the container of rolled oats and threw half a cup of those in there too.  I started to mix it all together with a fork, decided it was taking far too long and just mushed it all together with my hands and then crumbled it as evenly as my patience would allow over the top of the apples.

Once in the oven, my crumbly goodness looked like this:

Super cute.  425 degrees for 15 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and the apples are bubbling happily.

It was SO GOOD.  My mom and I were beyond happy with my lack of a recipe and about half an hour later, this is what was left:

Deciding to cook this way might have been the best idea I ever had.


No Frills Apple Crumble

For the filling:

4 Golden Delicious apples, peeled and diced
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
Pinch of salt
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup of dried cranberries

For the topping:

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour

Place the diced apples in a bowl and coat with the lemon juice.  Add the rest of the ingredients for the filling and stir until the flour is completely mixed in.  Pour into a buttered baking dish.  Mix all of the topping ingredients together in a bowl with a fork or your fingers and crumble evenly over the top of the filling.  Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes or until the topping is golden and the filling is bubbling at the edges. 

Enjoy!