Happy Birthday Ed Sheeran!

Today is extra extra special. Guess why? No, not because it snowed six inches (ugh), no not because the new Once Upon A Time episode is on tonight (but good guess), and no, it does not have anything to do with the fact that my mom bought cinnamon extract (also exciting :)). this is way more exciting!

Today is Ed Sheeran's

Birthday!

For those of you who don't know who Ed Sheeran is, well I have no words for you. Ed Sheeran was born on this very day. Today, February 17th, 2013, was the day Edward Christopher Sheeran was made and without him my life would not be complete. Soooo what better way to celebrate but... (*druummmm rolllll*)

MAKE CUPCAKES!

I may have also gotten a little carried away with the frosting... and piped it all over myself  and piped the plate all pretty like. And of course there are only 2. Because he's turning 22. hehe get it....

I got to use some new tips from my piping bag :) Although the basket weave was hard it turned out pretty. Obviously the right hand cupcake was my first try... it's a little awkward. 

Happyyy birthdayyy to ed, haaapppy birthdayyy to ed, happy birthday ed sheerraaann. Happy birthday to youuuu :)

Blow out the candle and make a wish!

I used my new favorite recipe for two vanilla cupcakes and put a few Ed Sheeran variations in it. Then I used some leftover lemon butter cream I had made earlier today and added orange zest (Ed's favorite color) and dyed it orange (I only had yellow food dye because I used all my red dye for red velvet cupcakes. I literally have 3 containers of food dyes without the red bottle in them. Ugh my life.) but it looks more orange not on the pictures. I suggest adding some drops of red food dye if you're going to dye the frosting orange. The cake is also a variation and it's ginger (because Ed Sheeran is a ginger!!!).

So this was basically my afternoon, singing happy birthday over + and pipintg little paw prints all over the place (I may or may not have piped 7 or 8 on my hand and immediately eaten them... shame.) The orange frosting is sooooo good though! I actually made this recipe by accident and added wayyy to little flour. I didn't realize what I did until I baked them and they turned out sooo good! Moister, fluffier, butterier, and just fabulous! So, of course, I used them in this recipe and just added a little spice. As for the frosting, although I used leftover frosting I'll put a recipe for a frosting for 2 cupcakes that should work just as well.

These cupcakes have a delicious (and weirdly, for me, sophisticated) amazing taste that, even if for what ever horrible reason your not making them to honor Ed Sheeran, are still very much worth making. The frosting is amazing and the ginger in the cake is like a good warm feeling at the end. Sooo worth making for me, myself, I, and Ed Sheeran. :)

Recipe

Oven preheated: 350 degrees Fahrenheit 

Cake

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ heaping teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 ½ tablespoons milk

1. In a soup bowl, add egg white and sugar and whisk until combined.
2. Add in vanilla and melted butter and whisk until mixed.
3. Add flour, baking powder, ground ginger, and salt and whisk until smooth.
4. Divide batter equally between the 2 cupcake liners.
5. Bake for 12 minutes, or until cake is set.

Frosting

2 tablespoons butter, softened

7 tablespoons confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons milk

1- 2 teaspoons orange zest

1/4 teaspoon lemon zest

1/8 teaspoon lemon extract

red and yellow food dye (optional)

1. In a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment, (or beat by hand or with a hand mixer, it's just more work, it depends if you don't mind lots of dirty dishes or tired arms: your pick ;)) beat butter on medium-high for around 4 minutes.

2. Stop mixer and add in 3 1/2 tablespoons of the confectioners sugar (1/2) and continue to beat until incorporated. Add in 1 teaspoon of the milk while mixing (1/2) and stop mixer when incorporated. Add in the rest of the confectioners sugar, mix. Add in rest of milk, mix until a good consistency has formed. (If too thin, add more confectioners sugar, one teaspoon at a time until consistency is right. If too thick add more milk, one 1/4 teaspoon at a time.)

3. Add in lemon extract and food dye (optional) and beat for another 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat in any extra sugar from the sides. Scrape don sides again.

4. On low speed, beat in lemon and orange zest.

5. Scoop into a piping bag and decorate your cupcakes with all Ed related things! Enjoy!

The Most Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe EVER

I have a problem. A perfectly Chewy, Crunchy, Chocolaty problem....

These are my problem...

I'm a mind reader, here's what your thinking: "wowwww..... a chocolate chip cookie. great." (you say in your mind flatly and unexcitedly) Well guess what? You should be excited. Because, if you're like me, you have issues with cookie recipes and when they aren't perfect, you cry yourself to sleep get upset. You don't do that, you say? Oops, I guess that's just me...  

The thing is cookies are sooooo easy and I always feel that when I make them they have to be perfect. But alas, I haven't found a recipe with a chewy, gooey, chocolaty center and a crispy, crunchy, buttery outside. Until I found these.

They are literally all I think about. All. The. Time. Is that bad? But here's the thing. I will NEVER go back to another cookie recipe again. Ever.

And really, you shouldn't either. Because nothing compares to these. Nothing.

Drop your great-grandmother's recipe right now! Convert to perfectness every time. Trust me. And don't be scared of the added salt. It makes everything better. It enhances the chocolate flavor. It's like salted caramel. If you like that then you have no excuse whatsoever to not put in the salt. And they're good the next day, still soft on the inside... sighhhh. Oh, and one last fabulous thing: It only makes 17 cookies (or so) so you can devour them all by yourself and not feel like a blimp  bring some to your elderly neighbors.

Please make them, eat them unguiltily by yourself, warm and beautiful. 

Recipe:

Oven Preheated: 375 degrees Fahrenheit

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
6 tablespoons brown sugar, firmly packed
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup flour, plus 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips (or a little more than 1/2 the bag)

1. Cream butter and sugars at medium speed of a stand mixer (with the paddle attachment).
2. Add vanilla and egg while mixing.
3. Turn off mixer and add flour, salt and baking soda.
4. Beat at slow/medium speed just until flour is incorporated into butter and sugar mixture.
5. Stir in chocolate chips.
6. Using an ice cream or cookie scoop, form balls of dough and drop on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or if you have a really good baking sheet like I do you can use that too.)
7. Bake for exactly nine minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes on cookie sheet (or they will fall apart. It's reaaaallly hard to do but so worth it just trust me.)

8. Transfer to a wire cooling rack or eat right away. 
9. Enjoy the best cookie of your life!

The Sweet Life of a RI Red

Hi! I just wanted to say that my friend has a really great blog called The Sweet Life of a RI Red and you should really check it out and take the time to make some of her recipes.

Also; look I made the blog all Christmas-y! Merry Christmas to all! (Or Hanukkah that works too!!)

Get in the spirit and make my chocolate candy cane cupcakes for santa! hohoho!

Bread Pudding

Sounds kinda gross right? Doesn't really look that great either but really if you haven't tried it...
YOU NEED TO IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!

It's so good and rich and it's an excuse for a ton of sugar in fancy french toast. Which makes it ok to eat it for breakfast right? Too late.

It's like nutmeg-y cinnamon-y it's just like happiness in your mouth. It feels like the holidays.

So I used this 3/4 eaten loaf of leftover french baguette. It just needed to be used used and it was stale so it couldn't be eaten! And so I made bread pudding. Yummm. Plus It's crazy easy to make!

It just looked so lonely!

 Bread is reaalllly hard to cut when its stale :(

 Before...

 AFTER!!! Yay ready to be eaten!

SOOO YUMMY!!!

Recipe

Oven Preheated: 325 degrees

3/4 to 1 Loaf of French Bread
1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter
1/2 cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans
1 cup Half-and-Half
1 1/4 cup Milk
3 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

1. Preheat oven. Chop up bread into one inch cubes. Pour the bread onto a cookie sheet with wax paper on it. Sprinkle nuts on bread. Melt butter. Drizzle on bread. Toast lightly until just crispy.
2. While bread and nuts are toasting, blend together half-and-half, milk, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Use any leftover melted butter to lightly grease a 7x11in casserole dish.
3. Pour bread and nuts into casserole dish. Pour egg mixture over bread evenly so all pieces of bread have been covered with egg. (If you use a 3/4 of a loaf of bread, you don't have to use all the egg mixture).
4. Bake for 60 minutes or until tops are golden brown and a butter knife come out clean.
5. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and enjoy!  

Chocolate Candy Cane Cupcakes

My brother and me. Me and my brother. We made cupcakes! Well, he wanted to so I helped him.

These were just really cute and delicious and simple and definetly worth making.The cake was dense but still good. They were super simple to make though and lots of fun!

They couldn't just be regular vanilla cupcakes with choclate frosting!

Of course not! Where's your Christmas cheer?

I just HAD to crush candy canes on top! Yummy!

Recipe

Cake

Oven preheated: 350 degrees
Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners.

1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2/3 cup Cold Milk

1. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl.Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla.
2. In a medium size bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.
3. Add half of dry mixture to butter mixture and blend until incorporated. Add in the rest of mixture and blend until incorporated.
4. Stir in milk.
5. Pour evenly into muffin tin. Bake for 18-24 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of  
a cake.

Frosting

1/2 cup Softened Butter
1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
2 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
3 tablespoons Milk

1. Beat together butter and cocoa powder.Blend in vanilla.
2. Add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. (don't give up just keep blending! at the end it will be a little balled up but hang in the it will get better!)
3. Blend in milk 1 tablespoon at a time until you have a good consistency.
4. Spread or pipe onto vanilla cupcakes.

Topping

3 Candy Canes

1. Put candy canes in a plastic bag and seal it.
2. Pound plastic bag on a cutting board with a metal spoon until it is in small clumps and some is powdery but not all.



3. Sprinkle on top and enjoy!!!

Quiche (Kiesh)!!!!

You say Quiche: I say Kiesh.... tomato; tamato... I really don't understand why it would be spelled that way other than to randomly confuse people and that's just mean :( who would do that?  Anyway after i learned how it was spelled I overlooked how mean it was of the person who named it and actually did end up making a kiesh (yes that's how I'm going to spell it now because it's the only was that makes sense to me)... AND IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!! I'm not actually an egg person but this was just incredible. It was way better than the big ones because I think the little ones soaked up the flavors.

So you're probably wondering why in the world i would be making something savory. Well the simple answer is this; family... female family. My mom and grandma were saying that because it was just thanksgiving and a ton of pie and crap like that. Welllllll personally I really don't thin too making baked goods is really in good sense but honestly I guess it was a well executed break from sweets and I liked the savory...

 

So I made them tiny.... Otherwise they wouldn't be me.  

I thought the pie crust would be hard but I found a really great pie crust with no butter.

And this is all I needed for it. I love small amount of ingredients. It also only used 1 bowl :)

Look how cool the milk and oil looked together! Bubbles!

There's the dough when I thought it was working out...

And there it is when I rolled it out.... As you can see it didn't really work out. So I called in the big guns

MORE MILK.

So if you need to do that it sure did work out for me!

Then comes the eggs in the middle...

They just don't look as pretty as cupcakes or mini pies...

But they are good enough for me!

almost.

Once again cute but not quite as pretty.

But delicious!

Down to every

                                         
                                                                                      Last

Bite <3

I ate so many of those it's probably dangerous... okay only 3 but they are really filling. But in summary, these little guys were pretty good! I satisfied my family and myself by baking the crusts! I guess it was a win win recipe which means I had a good day! Hope you can use this, enjoy! :)

Recipe

Oven preheated at 350 degrees

Crust

1 1/3 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup canola oil

3 tablespoons skim milk

Combine flour and salt in the bowl. Blend milk and oil in a liquid measuring cup (or a small bowl). Add milk and oil to flour and salt. Stir (or play with it like play dough like I did then squish it into a ball ;p) until it forms a ball. (at this point you may need to add like a tablespoon more of milk if it's not forming a ball). Press into a pancake and roll out dough in between two pieces of wax paper. Cut squares of dough and press into a well buttered muffin tin. Cover with plastic wrap and let chill for 10 minutes. Put in oven for a couple minutes or until the dough hardens just slightly. Set aside. (this was really easy don't even worry)

Filling

4 eggs

2/3 cups milk

1 cup (or so) shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 cup chopped sliced ham

2 tablespoons chopped sundried tomatoes

Whisk eggs in a medium size bowl. Add in milk and continue to whisk. Add in ham, tomatoes, and cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into pie crusts about 3/4 of the way from the top. Sprinkle on extra shredded cheese. Bake for 20-23 minutes. Let cool and serve warm. Enjoy! yummmmm =)

Don't be scared of them just try it wasn't that hard don't worry. Enjoy!

Chai Tea Frosted Cupcakes

Yay my first post! I thought I would start off with my most recent creation that I have told my entire extended family and even they are sick about hearing it by now. It was my exuasted topic at the thanksgiving table... Anyway this will be your first time hearing it so it hopefully won't be boring for you!

                                       Here is my new favorite cupcake with my new favorite frosting!


It's like someone wrapped up my favorite kind of cozy sunday afternoon into a cupcake... sighh...

I also didnt want to leave it with just plain frosting (which was a tiinnny bit melty but still delicious) ,so i sprinkled it with cinnamon so the frosting wouldn't be lonely.

                                                                  This cupcake IS my life.

Seriously.

So my idea with this recipe was to make a cupcake (my favorite dessert EVER, because they're just I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E) incorperating the great taste of my favorite tea; chai. I also had to keep in mind that I couldn't make much of a mess and that I didn't want to do dishes. (For me that is the worst part of baking and so I truly love this recipe). So I was looking up cupcakes with a small yield and I come across the most darling recipe by "Baker Girl" for exactly 2 vanilla cupcakes. I used that recipe for the cake and I used a vanilla frosting recipe for 2 and added in the spices in chai tea. Turns out this is like THE EASIEST CUPCAKE EVER '-'!!! Did I mention I'm in love with it?

                                                They are just so darling because there are only 2!
I hope you're a fan of chai tea like me and you can use this recipe as often as I do. It's a kind of dangerous recipe for me because every time I make chai tea I feel as if I just HAVE to bake these cupcakes to go along with it. Hopefully you don't drink as much chai tea as I do.

I'm also going to put in a variation of the frosting recipe in case (for what ever supernatural reason) you didn't like the chai frosting, for a chocolate frosting which will also go well with the vanilla cupcakes.

                                                                              Hope you like it!

Recipe
Cupcakes
1 egg white
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup flour
1/4 heaping teaspoon (don't scrape the top) baking teaspoon
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 tablespoons milk

Oven preheated at 350 degrees F (because I don't know how to make the degree sign ;p)

You only need: ONE medium sized bowl, a whisk, measuring spoons, 1/4 cup, a bowl scraper, (NO ELECTRIC MIXER!!!!)

In the bowl, add egg white and sugar, whisk together. Add in vanilla and melted butter and continue to whisk. Add in flour, baking powder, and salt and continue to whisk until everything is combined. Whisk in milk. Pour batter evenly between 2 cupcake liners.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean out of the cupcake. Let cool on a rack and frost with one of the recipes for frosting below.

Frosting
1 tablespoon melted butter
3 1/2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon half and half or milk
Dash of salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon cardamon
a little less than 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

You only need: ONE small bowl, a whisk, and measuring spoons. (once again, NO ELECTRIC MIXER!= joy '-')

Add all ingredients to melted butter in a small bowl and whisk, adding confectioners sugar slowly and whisking as you go. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and put in refrigerator for 10 minutes to set. Take out and whisk again. Pipe or spread onto cupcake. Eat with a cozy mug of chai tea!

If you don't like the chai frosting, you can use all the same ingredients in the first frosting with no spices and these changes:

Add

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons cocoa powder

Only add

3 tablespoons confectioners sugar

Enjoy your cozy little cupcakes!