Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

My 5th birthday was a big one. I can classify it by saying that it was both my best and worst birthday all rolled into one. It's one of the few birthdays that I have a vivid recollection of. I can remember having cake and ice cream in our dark kitchen and I remember my dad sent me a bouquet to school had a little cabbage patch doll head mixed in with the flowers. (Yeah, that totally sounds weird, but it was freaking awesome). It was 1985, the year of the cabbage patch dolls and not only did I get a cabbage patch doll for my birthday, I got to go to toys r us and pick my own out! That was all the good stuff. Now, for the bad. I woke up in the middle of the night, that night of my birthday and I threw up. Multiple times.

My 5 year old mind couldn't grasp the concept of a stomach virus. So, I immediately chalked it up as the icing on the cake's fault. And from that moment on, I swore off icings and frostings of any kind. This lasted for a good 7-8 years or so. I'd always scrape the frosting off of all birthday cakes, cupcakes, brownies, etc. I was convinced that I was somehow "allergic" to frosting.

Ahhhh... the good ole days, when throwing something up would scare me off of ever having it again. By the time I was 12 or so, I was back to trying frosting and have been devouring it ever since. I love frosting, it's the best part of the cake, right?

My favorite frosting is definitely cream cheese frosting. Yum. After I accepted frosting back into my life, my favorite cake became dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum.

That was until last night.
Last night, I decided to try out another frosting to put on the Amy Sedaris Cupcakes and I whipped up a mini batch of this frosting from the Hershey Website.

I was never really sure what exactly a buttercream frosting was, so I was anxious to try this. Well, you know what buttercream frosting is? Perfection. Absolute perfection.

This was one of the most delicious things I've ever had in my mouth. I scraped the bowl completely clean with my fingers and then licked my fingers completely clean. And don't think that I didn't lick that empty cupcake wrapper completely after I took that picture either.

So, my experimentation with frostings is officially done. This one wins. No need for competition.

Hershey's One Bowl Buttercream Frosting

6 tbsps of butter, softened
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter in medium bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk; beat to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

By the way, I must have celebrities on the brain, because the whole time I was photographing this cupcake, I kept thinking... "wow, if cupcakes could look like people, this one would totally be Suri Cruise."

m&m Cookies

You're smiling right now, aren't you? How can you not look at a plate full of m&m cookies and not smile? I mean, I think it's literally impossible, unless you're a serial killer type or one of those weird people that don't like sweets or something. Instead of those posters with kittens playing with a ball of string or unicorns flying through the air, people should have posters of m&m cookies on their walls. The world would be a happier place.

Ahhh... nostalgia. I hadn't had homemade m&m cookies in 20 years probably. Why? I guess because I very rarely have a huge ass bag of m&ms just lying around. Luckily, a few weeks ago, I bought a bag of m&ms with the intention of making some m&m cookies. I searched around for a recipe for awhile. You would think that you'd just substitute m&ms in place of chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie recipe, right? Well, maybe, but I seemed to remember the cookie part of an m&m cookie tasting a little different than the cookie part of a chocolate chip cookie. And I'm a stickler for the cookie part, folks.

So, I found this recipe and decided to swap the butter for butter flavored shortening. Next time, I think I'll use half butter, half shortening. These cookies turned out just how I remembered, chewy and a little crispy and buttery and sweet. These cookies could quite possibly be the happiest cookies around.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting

I love cake. I know I've mentioned that a few times before, but seriously... cake is the ultimate tongue pleaser. It's moist (if you're lucky), it's sweet, and it's topped off with an even sweeter, creamy topping.

Now, as much as I love cake, I'm not a huge cupcake fan. For a couple of reasons... mainly, I find cupcakes hard to eat. I could probably fix this problem, by breaking out a plate and a fork, but it's cupcake... it's supposed to be portable, right?? I'm supposed to be able to pick it up and chow into it. And that's exactly what I do. And I wind up with frosting all over my face, chin, and down the front of my shirt. Brilliant. I also find cupcakes to usually be duller than their big cake counterparts. They are usually drier and there isn't that nice center layer of icing that permeates into the cake layers... thats my favorite part of the cake, the parts around the center layer of icing. Yum.

But, since I don't have a cavalry of kids (yet) or co-workers to dole out slices of cake to, the cupcake is a good option for me to test out cake recipes and icing recipes. So, in the coming weeks, I plan to teach myself about the different types of frostings out there.

Friday night was my first venture. I decided to go for a very basic cupcake recipe and then try multiple types of frosting to go with it. The recipe I chose was Amy Sedaris' Vanilla Cupcakes. I love Amy Sedaris, too, so it was fun to test one of her recipes!

When the cupcakes first came out of the oven, they were terrible! Seriously, they tasted like crap (I snuck some crumbs off one of the cupcakes) and I was so disappointed. But, after they completely cooled (till the next day) they turned out to be really delicious. A really excellent vanilla cupcake.

I went ahead and first tried the icing with the cupcake recipe. It's basically a vanilla icing made of powdered sugar, half and half and vanilla and I was not a fan. Too sweet, too grainy, not creamy enough. Luckily, I only made enough for 2 cupcakes, so the rest of my cupcakes sit in my kitchen awaiting further frosting experimentation. Yay!

Puppy Chow

I grew up in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was a time of microwaves and convenient health foods. And Bartle & James. Remember those commercials? Whatever happened to those guys? Hmm.
It was also a time of American Gladiators and with all the talk of the new series this week, it got me thinking about those days of growing up. Now, when I was growing up, my mom was a bit of a health food junkie. We didn't eat a lot of processed foods (except the occasional bag of wedding cookies), if we wanted something sweet... she'd make us some Grandma Cookies. We also didn't have any types of sugary cereal. Only cornflakes or regular cheerios for us. She always added brown sugar to it for us, but no fruit loops or cocoa puffs. To this day, I've never had captain crunch or lucky charms.

Anyway, I think I seem to remember having chex cereal a few times, but we never made puppy chow or muddy buddies or whatever you want to call it with it. No, I only had puppy chow when I went to slumber parties. I never really even knew what it was or how to make it. I just knew that it was covered in powdered sugar (my favorite) and that it was crunchy and chocolatey. In other words, Heaven in a Bag.

Recently, I bought some chex cereal after seeing a recipe on tv for making faux fried chicken with chex cereal. You can read about the chicken here. So, since I have a huge box of chex lying around and with the nostalgia that American Gladiators brought back... I decided to finally give these a try.

I didn't make a full batch. I actually just kind of eyeballed everything. I melted some hershey chocolate bars with a spoonful of peanut butter and some butter in the microwave, poured it over some chex cereal and then shook it in a bag with the powdered sugar. I let it harden on a piece of parchment paper and then this morning, I decided to shake it with some more powdered sugar (have I mentioned how much I love powdered sugar?). It is just how I remembered. So sweet and crunchy. The perfect pop in your mouth snack.

Chex Puppy Chow

Before the second coating of powdered sugar.

Banana Muffins

So, apparently, having very ripe bananas is a huge factor when making banana muffins.

I bought bananas that were fairly green at the grocery and then tried to make muffins out of them that night. I even tried microwaving them (something I saw Rachael Ray do on tv once). But, these muffins just aren't sweet enough. And I know it's because my bananas weren't anywhere near overripe.

The banana slices on top were pretty gross, too. Not sure if that had something to do with the bananas not being ripe enough, or what.

Anyway, I will try this recipe again with bananas that I've had lying around for awhile. I do love muffins and will hopefully be making more in the near future.

Banana Muffins

Meringues with Chocolate Chips & Nuts

I don’t like meringue. I love coconut cream pie, chocolate pie, etc… but I always, always remove the meringue. It’s gross. My Aunt Peggy always calls it “calf slobber” and I think that's the perfect way to describe it. I always leave the calf slobber lying in my plate.

So, since I don’t like meringue as a topping, I never ever tried meringue cookies. I mean… egg whites and sugar? Baked? How can that be tasty, right??

Well… I was wrong.. egg whites and sugar are tasty! Very tasty in fact.

On a whim, I decided to try this recipe … (another Smitten Kitchen recipe, yes… I know, I have a very small repertoire of blogs from which I pull recipes from). The reason I was drawn to trying meringues, is that I recently saw someone eating one… and I thought to myself.. hmmm.. that texture seems crunchy and chewy all at the same time…. I like that idea.

So, I baked these. And they were freaking delicious! Chewy and crunchy and the chocolate chips in them are so sweet and kind of like grouped together in a wonderful little explosion when you bite into the cookie! I added a little coconut to mine, too. I love me some coconut.

So, now, I’m wondering.. does everyone love meringues? Or are they as exotic and strange sounding to everyone else as they are to me?

Blueberry Muffins

It’s funny how your tastes change as you get older. When I was growing up, I always thought I hated blueberries. I never liked blueberry flavored candy, blueberry muffins, blueberry pie. Nothing. I wouldn’t even try anything with blueberries in it. And, we never had blueberries around the house, either, so, the unknown factor was definitely in play there.

About 3-4 years ago, my mom started buying fresh blueberries to eat with my parent’s breakfast. And for some reason one day, I opened the carton, popped a couple in my mouth and was in love. They were sweet, but also tart and a perfectly semi-firm texture. They were delicious! Where had they been all my life?

Now, I love blueberries and try to eat them as much as possible (they apparently have all kinds of healthy antioxidants in them).

Last night, I went on a bit of a baking spree. I am sick of making regular cookies and my palate was sick of cookies, as well. I wanted something rich and different. So, I looked around for some good muffin recipes. I found a few and even a cookie recipe that sounded good and I headed off to the grocery store list in hand.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before… but the grocery store I go to is prime guy territory. There are always lots of attractive single guys milling around in the grocery store. Last night was no exception… in fact, I actually had a fairly embarrassing encounter with a crush of mine. There is a guy that comes into my work sometimes (maybe once a month) and I’ve always had a huge crush on him.. he’s really nice, cute, has an incredibly sexy deep voice and striking blue eyes. Definitely drool-worthy. I’ve even gone so far as asking my brother (who I work with) to give me the scoop on this Adonis (ok, Adonis might be a stretch, but he is hot), but he didn’t really cooperate, he just told me he was too young for me. Hmph. Well, anyway.. who did I bump into in the baking aisle last night??? Yes, him. There was no ducking out of the situation, as we basically met each other head on. So, we exchanged pleasantries (I wasn’t sure if he really recognized me or not) and there was a girl on the other side of the aisle, that I was afraid might be his girlfriend, so I totally stiffed up and kind of skirted by him after a few moments. Come to find out, they weren’t together. Arrrg.. I’m always screwing up situations like that. I am so not a slick flirter.

Anyway, I got home and whipped up these blueberry muffins. They turned out really pretty! And very tasty! And I used half white whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. They could actually be a little sweeter for me, but still a good muffin. Good texture and flavor. I’ll make these again!

On a side note… I got a kitchen scale for Christmas:
And I absolutely love it! I’ve been using it some and I’m realizing that I’ve been using too much flour and not enough brown sugar, etc… so fun to measure things out precisely! I highly recommend a kitchen scale if you are kind of anal about measurements!