If you look, the Oreo is smiling at you. After everyone ate these, they were smiling, too. This is a really well-balanced cupcake – just enough vanilla and just enough chocolate. The cookie becomes soft inside the vanilla cupcake. To top it off, is a chocolate buttercream with crushed Oreos for decoration.
Thanks again to my daughter for photographing the cupcakes!
photo taken by my daughter – 
Bailey’s Irish Creme is a fantastic compliment to desserts. This is a mocha flavored cupcake with a Bailey’s buttercream. To get the perfect buttercream you need have the right balance of liquid to powdered sugar and must whip the buttercream for a sufficient period of time. A good buttercream will be fluffy. If you add too much liquid, the buttercream will not hold its shape. If you do not add enough liquid, the buttercream will be stiff and difficult to pipe. Do not stress – just keep taste testing your batch until it is perfect. Taste testing – one of the perks of baking!
Blueberry Cake and Blueberry Cake 10 minutes later. My teenage son doesn’t even like blueberries and he ate three pieces of cake.
Here’s the back story on tonight’s cake. It was snowing, I didn’t feel like going to the grocery store to get anything for dinner. After looking in my refrigerator, I decided that I would make a breakfast dinner. If you’re not familiar, that’s when you eat breakfast foods for dinner. My kids are convinced that breakfast foods taste better at dinnertime. I decided to make scrambled eggs and sausage. I considered starch options: toast, bagels, or biscuits. Then I thought to myself, if I make muffins or a coffee cake it’s like a combination of a breakfast starch and a dinner dessert. Hence, I chose blueberry cake – it was like killing two birds with one stone. Looking at the empty plate above, it’s more like my family killed-off the cake.
Did you know that January 8 is National English Toffee Day? http://baking.about.com/od/seasonaldesserts/tp/January-National-Dessert-Days.htm
This is a great combo – toffee, chocolate, and walnuts. It’s like a hat trick of desserts.
Cold days require comfort foods. The windchill today is -22. Nothing says comfort food more than warm chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. No, they are not fancy, but not all desserts have to be a culinary masterpiece. Sometimes, just good old traditional cookies do the trick. It’s all about the love in the tummy.
I just baked macaroons. No, they are not the French kind, which are a meringue-based cookie with almond flour (sometimes spelled Macaron).
The above is the typical kind of macaroon and is made of coconut, egg, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. I usually make them during Easter in multiple pastel colors. For Passover, I will make both vanilla and chocolate. (I believe in equal opportunity celebrating and eating) These are a lot easier to make than French macaroons.
I don’t believe either Macaroons or French macaroons are a substitute for one another. While the name might be confusing, the tastes are distinct. Both are delicious!
These are not brownies for the faint-hearted. These are extremely rich brownies! I usually add macadamia nuts, but I was adding these to holiday trays and I have a no nut policy when I make treat trays. (too many people with nut allergies). Instead, I added green and red chips for a little holiday spirit.
It’s Christmas time – so here’s some red, green, and white whoopie pies (although the cookies would be good for Italian holidays as well :). Even if you’re tired of the red and green theme of the holidays, these are still great little cookies.
Have you ever wondered what’s the difference between a whoopie pie, moon pie, and a macaroon?
A whoopie pie is a cake-like cookie sandwich filled with buttercream.
Whereas, a moon pie has a marshmallow filling between two circular chocolate-coated graham crackers.
A French macaroon is a sandwich style cookie made of light meringue-textured cookie (usually made with ground almonds) with a buttercream filling.
Never heard of gooey butter cake? Well, it is a St. Louis tradition. The name says it all. It rich, dense, and of course gooey. It is typically served like a coffee cake. Supposedly, Walmart sells a version of gooey butter cake and calls it Paula Deen Baked Goods Original Gooey Butter Cake. Since Paula Deen is the queen of butter, I would hope her cake is good.
In the photo, it is chocolate gooey butter cake on the left and a vanilla version on the right.
It’s a Cherry Bombshell
It’s a cocktail and cupcake. A chocolate cupcake with rum buttercream inside with Bailey’s Chocolate Cherry frosting. Cupcakes aren’t just for kids anymore.
Indulge in Life's Guilty Pleasures 