Week 13 - Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate (Did I mention CHOCOLATE?) Cake!

Wow - I feel like it's been weeks since I made this cake.  Oh, wait - it has!  

 
My friend Natalie invited us over for dinner one night and this was the dessert that I brought.  The inside contained two layers of chocolate cake and tons of chocolate buttercream.  Then I smothered the outside with more chocolate buttercream. 

I wasn't 100% pleased with that so I had to call another friend to find out if I was losing my mind.  The phone call more or less went like this: "Hey Leigh, should I cover my chocolate cake that already has chocolate buttercream all over it with a layer of ganache? ... Yeah, that's what I thought.  Thanks, See you tonight!"

 
There you have it.  A massive chocolate overdose.  While I am getting a little tired of making this particular cake recipe - adding both the buttercream and ganache was definitely worth it.  

This picture looks a little lopsided - sorry!

Week 12 - Pumpkin - Chocolate Chip Bars

I know - I know...It's been over a month since my last post and I was already very behind.  Not to worry - I've been keeping up with the baking side of things...it's the blogging side that's somewhat slacking. 

It's been a busy few months.  My husband returned from Afghanistan in one piece and then ended up breaking his hand the night before our little one's Baptism.  It's been all downhill ever since!  Alas, I am back.  Hopefully I will have a couple posts up in the next day or so. 

In the meantime...here's week 12's yummy creation.  Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars.  I stumbled on this recipe last year when we were living in the Netherlands. The first time I made them was for Thanksgiving 2009.  Matt was away in Norway (I think) leaving Aidan and me to spend Turkey Day alone.  I made these as a special treat and we polished off half a batch!  They have since found their way into my "go-to" pile of recipes when I need something quick and delicious. 

This particular batch I whipped up for my super cool new neighbor.  We were invited over for a play date and I thought that these would be a fun snack.

Note to self: In the future...gift the ENTIRE batch and LEAVE with host. I selfishly saved some for me and ate the remaining bars that night.  Sometimes I simply can't help myself!

Week 11 - Chocolate Guinness Cake

Rest assured that while my blog posts have fallen slightly behind that my baking has not!  We've been very busy over the past couple of weeks and I just haven't been able to get my act together to post the yummy things that I've been working on. 

We look forward to St. Patrick's Day in our household because it's the one time of year that we make corned beef and cabbage.  We should make it more often...and I'm not really sure why we don't.  Two years ago, prior to our move to the Netherlands, our friends Brian and Rachel came over to help us celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.  They had never had corned beef before and truth be told, I think they were a little skeptical.  I’m fairly certain that they enjoyed it because this year I received a message from Brian via Rachel that they were hoping for a corned beef dinner invite.  How could we say no??!!

Now, let me tell you a little something about me.  I love to bake.  (But you knew that already.)  I really do like trying new things, but many times I am afraid to try new things without having a test run.  Enter Brian.  Brian loves to tease me about my trial runs – so for week 11 – Brian got to be the guinea pig.  I decided to make Nigella’s Chocolate Guinness Cake.  I figured that if we were going to have corned beef and cabbage boiled in beer – why not have cake that is made with beer.  

 Guinness

 Guinness and Butter

 Guinness and melted butter

 Guinness, Butter, Sour Cream, Eggs and Vanilla

This cake was good, different, but good.  I’m not sure that I will try to make this exact one again next year, but I’m glad that I tried it nonetheless.  The biggest obstacle that I endured was that the recipe was all in grams.  Ever tried converting a recipe from grams to cups?  It’s slightly annoying.  I actually had a scale from the Netherlands and I weighed out the ingredients.  That was an extra step that I could have done without.  Live and learn I suppose.  The worst part is that I get super stressed when I try completely new recipes.  My husband gets irritated at me because I get snippy…but I strive for perfection – what can I say!

 (We had Irish Soda Bread too!)

Week 10 - OREO CheeseCAKE/CupCAKES

Seeing as my husband was returning from yet another trip to Afghanistan, I thought it would be nice to bake something for him.  His idea of a good home-baked cake is one from a box (preferably chocolate) with frosting from a can (preferably vanilla.) Seeing as I love to bake - his lack of cake-adventure truly drives me crazy!!

When I stumbled on this Oreo Cookie Cheesecake Cupcake (Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes) recipe I simply had to make them for him.  He likes Oreos, cheesecake and most "pop-able" foods. (READ: can POP into mouth in one bite!) How could I go wrong.  My son helped line the cupcake tin and ensured that all of the cupcake liners contained one Oreo.  He was very happy to help make cupcakes for his daddy!

This recipe was SO outrageously easy that I will be sure to make them again in the future.  I mean really...who can turn down individual sized cheesecakes?

Here's the recipe:

Martha Stewart's Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes Recipe
Makes 30

Ingredients:
42 cream-filled sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
Pinch of salt


1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I made some Irish Soda Bread and some Shamrock cookies for my son's special helper day at Pre-School.  I wasn't going for works-of-art with these cookies... Just some yummy treats to share with his class.  They tasted YUMMY - but didn't look the way I would normally want them too.  I'm pretty sure that none of the kids noticed!!  Hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day! And...by the way - Chocolate Stout Cake is next...

Week 9 - Sports Cupcakes

 
Week 9 presented a new challenge for me...bake and decorate 40 cupcakes for a friend to take to a birthday party.  A little stressful - but TONS OF FUN!  My friend Natalie asked me to bake some sports themed cupcakes for her nephew's 2nd birthday party and I simply couldn't refuse! She even offered to watch one of my kids so that I could devote more time to cupcake decorating...how could I go wrong??!!  I had a blast putting these together for her.  Of course there was a little anxiety over whether people were going to like them...but it turns out that they were a hit.  (Even tasted good too!!)

 The request was for some Baseballs...

 

And for some Soccer Balls...

And for some Basketballs...

Natalie told me that her nephew really liked footballs the best, so I made this just for him...

So...Any more requests??

More from Week 8 - My Nephew's Birthday!

Well...I'm going to cheat a little and send you over to check out Two Cupcakes in my Kitchen because Emily already did a great job discussing our little baking get-together (disguised as a 2nd Birthday Party!) We had such great plans - some were successful and others we simply just didn't get around to.  All in all we had a lot of fun and enjoyed WAY TOO MANY cupcakes!  (We were even treated to some homemade ice cream - but I don't have any pictures of that!)

One of the things that we wanted to check out this past weekend was how to get the cupcake wrappers to look all pretty and fun once the cupcakes were baked.  I ran into this dilemma a few weeks ago when I baked my Valentine's Day cupcakes.  It seems that while the cupcakes are baking, the wrappers get all soaked up with cake and you can't see the pretty designs.  I had decided to just pop them into fresh wrappers so that they looked pretty.  This time around we doubled the cupcake wrappers and that seemed to do the trick.  I guess there's a professional answer out there somewhere - but in the meantime...we'll just keep trying!

*Cupcakes on the left have only one wrapper and look bleh.

*Cupcakes on the right look pretty with the double wrappers. Bingo!

Again - check out this link for more details on the fun Safari Cupcakes.  I actually did do some of the baking and decorating...it was fun messing up someone else's kitchen.  (Especially when that someone else has such a great husband who kept cleaning up after us!)