Holiday Cookies

I've been super busy this holiday season.. I usually make something during the holidays and package them all nice and pretty to give as gifts. Last year I made peppermint bark. This year I decided to make cookies! As a result, my kitchen transformed into a cookie factory the week before Christmas. All of the cookie recipes came from Martha Stewart's Cookies book. I found lots of cute pails and tins to package my cookies at Target and the Dollar Tree.

I made:
Snickerdoodles
Cranberry Pistachio Cornmeal Biscotti
Milk Chocolate Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies
Applesauce Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Maple Glaze
Chocolate Crackles
Thumbprint Cookies

I don't think I took a picture of all the cookies I made, but here are some!

 - Cranberry Pistachio Cornmeal Biscotti -

- Jam Thumbprints -

- Chocolate Crackles -

 - the spread -

 - my cookies all packaged -

(I found these cute felt pails at Target)

Merry Christmas!!!

Thanksgiving Desserts

Boy, oh, boy have I been busy baking... I was in charge of baking desserts this year for my family's Thanksgiving feast. I made pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting, pecan bars, apple pie, sweet potato pie, cornbread muffins, and a cornucopia out of Pillsbury breadsticks!

- breadsticks cornucopia -

- pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting -

- pecan bars -

- sweet potato pie -

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Apple Pie Time!!!

I loooooooove autumn! I love the brisk, nippy weather, the crunching of the leaves under my feet, but most of all the FOOD! I love how you can get everything pumpkin flavored (which is my favorite!) and apple-related things everywhere! Yes, I love fall. This week truly felt like autumn was finally here, so in honor of this I baked my first apple pie of the season.

I'm tweaking the recipe a bit, so I'll post that later! Happy Fall!!!

Bridal Shower*

So a friend asked me if I could cater the desserts for her sister's bridal shower. Of course I said yes! She gave me a list of things that she wanted and the color theme (red and aqua), which made my life way easier. I hope that the bride likes them, and CONGRATULATIONS! I couldn't take the best pictures of them before I had to package them up and send them away, but here's what I have!

- red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting -

- brownie squares with chocolate drizzle -

- chocolate covered pretzels -

- mini carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting -

Feeling Neglected?

I'm a horrible excuse of a blogger... I have recently started a full time job, and therefore my time has been limited to watching this fall's returns of Hawaii 5-0 and DWTS (weirdly entertaining). I have a biiiiig project coming up this weekend, so I'll make sure to blog about that soon!!!

Beer and Cupcakes?

One of my closest friends had a birthday recently. Being the beer lover that she is, I thought it was only appropriate to bake her some cupcakes with her favorite beverage. BEER! So, off to the liquor store I went to get my beer. My plan was to make some cupcakes with Guinness Stout and then whip up a frosting with Bailey's Irish Creme in it. So when I got to the checkout counter with my liter bottle of Guinness and asked for a Bailey's nip, the guy looked at me with a pitiful face. "Having an Irish night in, tonight," he asked, showing off his multiple Irish-themed tattoos at the same time. I wanted to make it very clear that I wasn't going to be drinking by myself at home, so I told him I was making cupcakes for a friend. Not sure if he believed me.... haha! Anyway, here's my recipe for Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Frosting. 

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 ½ cups of Guinness Stout

½ cup of Unsalted Butter (4 oz. or 1 stick)
¾ cup of Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 cups of All Purpose Flour
2 cups of Granulated Sugar1½ teaspoons of Baking Soda
Pinch of Salt

2 Large Eggs
⅔ cup of Sour Cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

2. Put the butter and beer in a pot and bring to a simmer. 

3. Whisk in cocoa powder until smooth and let it cool slightly.

4. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. 

5. In a mixer bowl, beat the eggs and the sour cream together. Then, add the beer/butter/cocoa mixture and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat until just combined. You don't want to over mix. 

6. Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way and bake for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely to room temperature.

Bailey's Irish Creme Frosting

2 cups of Confectioner's Sugar

1 cup of Unsalted Butter (8 oz. or 2 sticks)
3 tablespoons of Bailey's

Preparing the frosting: In a large bowl, beat the butter for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar until incorporated. Slowly drizzle in the Irish Cream and beat until combined. 

sorry the pictures are so yellow..... darn artificial lighting!

Sprinkles NYC*

YES, it's true! Sprinkles, the first cupcakery ever, has arrived in NYC. OK, so it's been a couple of months since they opened, but I finally got around to it a couple of weeks ago. As expected, the place was busy busy. My Californian friends have been telling me, "you have to try Sprinkles" and "Sprinkles is the best" for years now, so I was extremely excited to see what the big deal was about these specific cupcakes. With over 20 different cupcake flavors, it was really hard for me to choose just a couple to sample. Believe me, if I could, I would have bought all of them right then and there, but these babies are expensive! At $3.50 a pop, it was quite a purchase just getting 4 of them.

- my first Sprinkles experience -

Yes... I got 4. 4!!! All for myself... The first one I decided to dive into was the red velvet. o...m...g... The cake was so moist and the frosting was so cream cheesy. The cake was also such a beautiful deep red color. The next one I tried was the carrot. There were strips of carrot all throughout the cake and it was topped with cream cheese frosting with vanilla bean in it. I also tried the cherry. The cake part was white, which confused me a little. So I thought all the cherry flavor would be in the frosting alone, but I was so wrong. That was totally a cherry cake topped with perfectly pink frosting. At this point, I was waaaay too sugar high to try another, so I passed on the black and white. All of the cakes were incredibly moist and the frosting was deliciously sweet (although borderline too sweet). These cupcakes are totally not for those who want to watch their weight. You could taste the yummy buttery-ness in the cakes. One would have been more than enough, but as you can see I had at least 2.5. My calorie counter was not pleased with me that day, with each cupcake weighing in at over 400 calories. Were they worth the 1,000 calories and $14? Thumbs UP! Will I be visiting here often? Not every day...  :)

from top left, clockwise: cherry, black and white, carrot, red velvet

Baking Catch-Up!

I know, I know, I suck.... It's been way too long, and I'm sorry! I have a couple of things I want to update. The pictures are a little bit blurry, so I apologize.

Per request, I baked red velvet cupcakes for my dear friend, Haej's, birthday. Since the cupcake wrapper was so pretty and bright red in itself, I decided to keep the frosting and decorations simple.

- red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting -

I also had tons and tons of oats and raisins around the house, ergo, I made a huge batch of raisin pecan oatmeal cookies. This is Ina Garten's recipe for her favorite oatmeal raisin cookies. Anyone want some? 'cause I have a ton....

                    

    

- raisin pecan oatmeal cookies -

This is what I've been up the past couple of weeks. More to come on my adventure to a special bakery in NYC.

coming soon*

alrighty, friends...

I haven't forgotten my resolution!!! I've been baking at least once a week! I blame it on my lack of a good camera to take the pictures of my edible creations! Once I get the pictures uploaded, I promise I will have a new entry up!

Coo Coo for Coconut Macaroons!

My friend had made a request for coconut macaroons, so I baked up a batch! I used Ina Garten's coconut macaroon recipe. It's really simple and only requires 5 ingredients!

Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:
1 package (14 oz.) sweetened coconut flakes
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 tsp of kosher salt

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine the coconut, condensed milk, and vanilla extract in a bowl.
3. Whip up the egg whites and salt until they make medium firm peaks.
4. Carefully fold the egg whites into the coconut mix.
5. Drop the batter onto parchment-lined cookie trays using 2 teaspoons.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

4th of July!

Hello all! I've been busy looking up some cool baking projects I want to try out. I am in love with Bakerella's blog so I felt inspired to attempt cupcake pops! I conveniently had everything that I need to make some, so I decided to give it a go! These were very time consuming, but I think the end product is worth it... don't you?

props to my lil brother, Andy, for helping me out with these. If it were just me, it would have taken MUCH longer!

Here's some step-by-step pictures that I took:

1. Roll the cake/frosting mix into balls

2. Shape the balls into cupcake shapes using a flower cookie cutter

3. Decorate by dipping in chocolate and putting on sprinkles

Happy Independence Day!

Fruit Tart

My dear blog followers~ I'm sticking to my resolution of updating more often. :P This week, I went to Williams-Sonoma (aka "my favorite store") and bought some tart pans. I got a 10" round one and a 14" x 4" rectangular one. I know, I know... did I really need to buy 2 tart pans? If you know me, then the answer is "you can never have too many baking pans". I actually had picked up 3 tart pans but put the mini individual sized pans down! (T.T) <-- that's a crying face, btw... I'm going to go back for them as soon as I have some money saved up.

So I decided to make a rectangular fruit tart...
I got the recipe out of Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook! Lovely Song took the beautiful pictures!

- berry fruit tart w/ vanilla pastry cream & lemon thyme glaze

I'll be back next week!

Birthday Bash

One of my 2nd grade students had a birthday today. Her mom and dad spent all night making these adorable personalized cupcakes and awesome balloon thingies (which is used like paddle ball)! yeah, they MADE them! Thought I would share the cool goodies I got at school today. The other kids were sooooooo jealous.... :)

New Resolution

Alrighty, so I have been a total slacker and haven't posted nearly as much as I should. For that, I apologize. I have decided to make it up to all of you by making the resolution of posting at least once a week! It's going to be challenging for me, but I hope you all keep me accountable!

I made cupcakes! I think these are slowly rising to be my favorite... I've made them before for a friend's birthday, but I had all the ingredients so I decided to make these again. These are moist, have great flavor, and the walnuts give a nice crunch. Not to mention the cream cheese frosting is deliciously sweet and cheesy at the same time! (pictures pretty-fied with Instagram)

pretty in pink

- Mama and Baby carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting -

I made another batch! I was looking through my Martha cupcake book and came across a vegan chocolate cupcake recipe. I am the type of person who likes my treats with all 100% of the naughty parts (sugar, butter, etc), so I was a bit skeptical about trying it. However, I wanted my vegetarian guest to be able to enjoy dessert! They baked perfect and had a great chocolate-y flavor (considering it had just a bit of cocoa powder), but I wasn't a big fan... I like my chocolate cake rich and moist (aka "fatty") ;)

- vegan chocolate cupcakes with sugar dust -

I'll try not to let you guys down!!! All....2 of you! haha!

I'm reading:

I know I haven't updated in...forever! I've been looking through my many baking books for inspiration. Time to bake!

Cookie Care Package

My baby brother is a freshie at NYU and had his last 1st year finals coming up. I decided to bake up a batch of huge, chewy, chocolatey cookies for him! Aren't I the nicest older sister??

Sweety Pies

So... after months of eyeing this book, I finally found it in the SALE section!!! I'm feeling totally inspired to pull a Julie Powell and bake my way through this book one recipe at a time... hmm, if only I had followers who would donate money to my cause...

Birthday Bash

This past weekend was my good friend Song's birthday! She asked me to create a dessert table for her classy birthday affair. Here's how it turned out! The theme was "Parisian black-white-pink".

white chocolate-covered pretzel sticks

 mini carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting 

(topped with milk chocolate eiffel tower)

french macarons with nutella filling

carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

(decorated with fondant and dragees)

brownie bites with ganache

(front left)

 *the whole spread*

my dessert table