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Peanut Butter Sheet Cake
When I worked at my previous job, I would occasionally ‘treat’ myself to a trip to a little bakery down the road from my office. They have a MAGNIFICENT, seasonal cranberry chicken salad on cranberry nut bread. Oh my goodness, it is the best thing ever, in fact it’s so good that I must find a recipe and replicate it. Soon. And then I’ll post it. But, even better, they also have a wonderful assortment of desserts to choose from. My favorite is a peanut…
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Oatmeal Cream Pies
I am embarrassed to say that I have eaten an entire box of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies in one sitting. It was a long time ago, but it was not one of my finer moments. These days, I won’t even buy them because they’re full of preservatives, high fructose corn syrup and sugar…I won’t keep them in the house in hopes of keeping that junk away from my girls as long as I can. Instead, I like to make treats at home so I can…
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Cream Puffs (Pâte à Choux)
This is one of those recipes that I stumbled upon and automatically thought would be incredibly difficult and way out of my realm. But, once I really took time to read the recipe I found it was really very simple. Choux pastry is used to make cream puffs, eclairs and profiteroles. It’s a very light, dry pastry and usually offset by some sort of decadent cream-type filling. I used the traditional pastry cream to fill these and topped them with a liberal dollop of dark…
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Peanut Butter Cupcakes
It’s funny where my cupcake inspiration comes from sometimes. These particular cupcakes were born when I found a bag of mini Reece’s Peanut Butter cups at the grocery store last week. I thought, “Oh – those are cute, they’d be a good cupcake garnish!” I then spent all of last week trying to find the perfect peanut butter cupcake recipe to hold my cute little garnish. I’m sick, I know. I decided on this recipe for a couple of reasons. First, it’s easy. The chocolate cake starts with a…
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Versatile Chocolate Cake
Just a quick update to add pictures of the Birthday/St. Patrick’s Day cake I made for my Mother-In-Law’s belated birthday party. She loves this chocolate cake, but my 5 year old wanted a green cake. So – we compromised. A four-layer chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache filling, frosted with green vanilla buttercream and decorated with green M&M’s. I definitely prefer the chocolate frosting over the vanilla frosting, but this was still yummy. Recipe and more details to follow.
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Apple Pie Cupcakes
One of my favorite things to make in the summertime is my skillet apple pie – the apple pie filling is made on the stove top in a skillet, then covered with pie crust and baked in the oven. I had some frozen pie crust in the freezer that I needed to use, so a little brainstorming brought me to this recipe – and voila! Apple Pie Cupcakes! Perfect portion sizes for everyone without the hassle of cutting into and trying to serve a pie…and…
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Wedding Cupcakes
I made two versions of this cupcake – the plain, unfilled cupcake with buttercream, and the same cake with a whipped lemon filling. The plain cakes are for my mom, who LOVES wedding cake. The filled cakes are for me, because I like to fill cupcakes. =) This cake actually uses a box mix as the base for the ingredient list – I wasn’t a big fan of that idea and I could really taste the “boxed cake taste” when they first came out of the…
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Black Tie Cupcakes
This cupcake was a creation of mine that was born out of the need to clean out my pantry. I had several almost-empty boxes, bags and bottles of pantry items, and their replacements were crowding things. So, what to do but make some goodies? I didn’t really have an excuse for these except that Mom made Sunday dinner and my brother and his girlfriend were going to be there – which means more people to eat and fewer leftovers! I knew I needed to…
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Chocolate Lava Cupcakes
These cupcakes were the result of a little color coordination. My little sister is expecting a baby boy so I needed a favor for her baby shower. Our color scheme was brown and blue, so of course I needed brown and blue cupcakes! These were good cupcakes, but next time I might switch the cake out to a firmer, taller cake so it will stand up to the filling a little better. These were actually better after they sat overnight in the refrigerator, so if…
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Cookie Dough Cupcakes
Yes, that’s right. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes. I’ve heard nothing but good things about these cupcakes so I jumped on the opportunity to make these for my sister’s baby shower. These and my Chocolate Ganache Filled Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream will go into the favor boxes and holy cow, I hope our guests are ready for a sugar high! These cupcakes are a little time consuming – you’ll need a couple of hours to make them. The base is a chocolate-chip, brown-sugar based batter, with…
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Strawberry Fudge Cupcakes
Happy Valentines Day! This is just a quick update to post one of the goodies I sent with my husband to work today. I made the Fauxstess Cupcakes again, and some Red Velvet Whoopee Pies (which I’ll post next time I make them, I didn’t get any pictures) but these were a creation of mine that I felt deserving of a blog post. So, here we go! These are a fudgy chocolate cake, filled with a silky strawberry filling and topped with a basic cream…
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Key Lime Pie Cupcakes
Today is my sister Megan’s 32nd birthday. Since I’m using birthdays and special occasions as an outlet for my recently stifled baking habit, I asked her what kind of cupcakes she wanted…and after a week’s worth of deliberation (seriously) we narrowed it down to two things. The first one is Key Lime Pie Cupcakes. The second will be posted as soon as I can get to it! I couldn’t find a recipe that matched exactly what I wanted, so I did a lot of research…
