Fluffernutter cupcakes, chocolate cake pops and oatmeal scotchies

If you read this on a regular basis or know me, you know my family history is pretty darn important to me. That, and I love spending time with my 91-year-old grandmother, from whom a lot of of that history comes. So a couple weekends ago, I went back to Salina to spend some quality time with her. That Saturday, I took her on a little drive south of Salina to a pretty awesome place: Coronado Heights.

This is out an opening of the structure on top of the hill, which is close to Lindsborg. Legends has it, Coronado himself stopped on this hill and surveyed the land around him. Now there's this castle-like thing on top and lots of picnic tables and hiking. But what's especially cool is that my grandpa proposed to my grandma here, about 70 years ago. Sometimes I forget how much life my grandma has seen until I stop and do the math and realize that seven decades have passed since then. Wow.

One of my good friends from college recently got a new job that required him to move to the West Coast. As sad as it makes me that he's leaving, I'm excited he got the opportunity (and that it's a new place to visit!) So two of this week's desserts were made for various times I got to see him before leaving. First, naturally, are cake pops. He's a lover of these treats, as are all his roommates. So he requested chocolate cake pops.

And then the next weekend, I got to hang out with him and a bunch of other friends to watch the KU-Mizzou game. (Side note: for those who aren't familiar, it's one of the oldest rivalries in college sports that saw its last regular-season game a couple weeks ago. As a lifelong Jayhawk, I was raised to hate the Tigers, and this game was one of the most intense I've ever watched, right up there with our 2008 National Championship win. But we won! And it was glorious.) For that, I made one of my favorite childhood cookies, the oatmeal scotchie. My mom and I would make them all the time when I was a kid; they're basically an oatmeal butterscotch cookie. They can easily get too thin and crispy, but I think I've worked out that problem.

And last but not least, my latest cupcake. I've been slacking a bit on the cupcakes lately, but these looked too good to pass up: fluffernutter cupcakes. They're peanut butter cupcakes with a Nutella filling and a marshmallow frosting. Can't forget the Nutter Butter cookie on top! That frosting is one of my new favorite things. It pipes wonderfully and it sure tastes good. (Posting these on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)

Butterbeer cupcakes, fruit pie and red velvet holiday cupcakes

In the last few weeks, I've been to the lake for the Fourth of July, packed up my entire house and moved. I took a couple days off of work, and with the help of my dad, stepmom, aunt and uncle, moved to a city about an hour from where I lived. My mom and her boyfriend stayed behind to clean my old house while the rest of us loaded stuff into what looked like far too small an apartment. In fact, it is not. There's lots of nice nooks and crannies for my stuff. It's not quite put together yet, but apparently this stuff takes time. And now my commute has been cut down from one hour to about five minutes! So yes, I've been absent from here for a bit, but I promise it was for a good reason!

So that means a couple of my desserts this week were for Fourth of July celebrating, like this fruit pie. I've never made it before, but Aunt Betty suggested it. It was a basic sugar cookie dough with a topping made with cream cheese, whipped cream and sugar. Pretty basic, but very tasty, and an excellent way to use fresh fruit from the summer.

For the Fourth, I wanted to make red velvet cupcakes, but lemme tell you, these were not easy cupcakes. The thing about camp is that it's relaxed, and you don't stay there full time, so you don't have all the ingredients needed for things. We have a neighbor, Eddie Mae, who cooks a lot, and thank goodness for her. I think I went to her house three separate times for these cupcakes. I needed a cupcake tin, and then buttermilk and corn starch (to make my own cake flour!), and then more vegetable oil. Luckily, after all that, they turned out quite well!

These I made as my first cupcakes in my new apartment! I'm still learning the oven, so it's going to take lots of practice. They're butterbeer cupcakes, in honor of Harry Potter. No, I haven't seen the new movie yet. I'm rereading the whole series so I can remember the story better first, and I'm on book three. So just give me some time :) These cupcakes were wonderful, and even the non-butterscotch lovers liked them! The cake was a mix of cream soda (mmmmmm!) with vanilla and butter flavoring, and a nice butterscotch icing and butterscotch ganache.

(Posting these cupcakes on Cupcake Tuesday!)

Summer sweets: margarita cupcakes, oatmeal scotchies and chocolate coconut no-bakes

Wedding season has started! I've got three this summer, and already another for next year. Each one this year is someone my age getting hitched, which makes me feel strangely old, even though I'm only 23.

About a week ago, my friend Haley (Jones) Williams got married. We lived in the same dorm freshman year, took classes together and went through the journalism school together, ending up at the Kansan. Her wedding was so Haley, as my friend Lauren and I put it. Haley looked unbelievable in her dress, and she walked down to a song from "Pride and Prejudice," which I LOVED. Her main color was pale yellow, which was the theme in the candy bar on the right. The cake was simple and perfect. Such a lovely day.

What is not lovely (in my mind) is this cookie, for one reason and one reason only: coconut. I HATE coconut. It is one of my least favorite foods. However, if someone requests something specific, I will usually make it. Even if it's like this no-bake chocolate coconut cookie...which burnt my finger. Apparently these were pretty good...I wouldn't know, because I didn't try them.

So, to offset my dislike of coconut, I made these oatmeal scotchies to take to work as well. I've had issues with them in the past, becoming too crunchy and thin. So I added slightly more oats and slightly more flour, and they turned out perfectly. Except for, you know, that tray I overbaked to a crisp. The others were excellent though :)

Last weekend was a yearly party a photographer at the LJ throws every year, and that photog, Richard, loves tequila. So I had to make margarita cupcakes for his party. I made a couple of edits to this recipe: 1) I subbed a tablespoon of tequila for lime juice in the cupcake batter, 2) brushed a lot more than a tablespoon of tequila over the tops, 3) added quite a bit more powdered sugar to the icing to make it pipeable and 4) topped it with coarse salt. Lemme tell you, they tasted a lot like margaritas, and they were a hit at the party. They were gone pretty darn quick, and I had a few people ask for the recipe. I will put those on my to-make-again list (and they're going on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday and Tasty Tuesdays)!

Pride and Prejudice and sweets: Cannolis, butterscotch cupcakes and lime pie

My senior year of high school, I had to do a book report on a book on the AP list. I chose "Pride and Prejudice" because I'd always heard so much about it. I still have the copy I read; it looks like it's sprouted sticky notes. I marked all these different themes in it for my paper, but I remember I also had to read it with a dictionary in the other hand. I'd never seen the word condescend used as a verb, among many other older words. The other day, I found out my new phone has a Kindle on it, and decided to read the book again. I'd forgotten how wonderful the story is! Elizabeth kicks ass, Miss Bingley is truly despicable, Mr. Darcy grows on you, Mr. Wickham's favor recedes. It bears mentioning that "Pride and Prejudice" is one of my top 3 movies, too, and it's funny that I pick up when quotes were moved to different characters. But the feeling of the story stayed the same. But I'm proud of myself; this time I don't need a dictionary! I'd forgotten why I loved the story, but I'm happy to say it's a top 3 book as well. Very satisfying.

One of my baking goals was a cannoli. After having one with my mom in NYC, and having her say she'd never seen one before (totally not true, as proven by her friend Merilee), Aunt Betty and I decided to make them soon after I got back. For these, we used a cinnamon cannoli shell recipe that we made in my pizzelle maker. It was kind of assembly-line style, with me cooking the shells and Aunt Betty holding them in the circular shape. Inside we did a ricotta-sugar mixture, with chocolate chips and pecans. They were excellent. Also, this completed one of my baking goals for this year. Woo hoo!


Another NYC-inspired dessert, one of the best sweets I had up there was a butterscotch cupcake from Crumbs. The cake was vanilla but the icing itself was flavored with butterscotch. That can be a pretty overpowering flavor, but just in the icing was perfect. For this one I used my favorite yellow cake recipe with the butterscotch icing from this cupcake recipe. It meant making butterscotch from scratch, like browned butter plus brown sugar and cream and all that. I think I might have a new frosting! (P.S. - submitted this over at Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)


Then a few days ago Aunt Betty sent me a recipe for this lime pie. It was a little different, because the crust had toasted pecans in it. The filling was super easy: lime juice, lime zest, cream cheese and sugar. Lemme tell you though, I found all my hangnails squeezing those limes. Ouch! It took a while for this to set, but it was a great citrus-y pie. Even though it's cold and rainy outside, I refuse to think it's almost spring!

A New York minute

Last week, I spent a few days in NYC with my mom. That is, after I got past my almost 5-hour delay on Frontier that was caused by weather but then airline error. Whatever. I got a voucher, so that's nice.


We had a couple days there, days we spent walking/cabbing all over the city seeing cool stuff. A lot of it was food-related, but a lot wasn't. Like this awesome Barbie foosball table at FAO Schwarz. Price tag? $25K. Supposedly because there were only 10 name. I think some scissors and glue could do relatively the same thing.


We just stumbled on a Crumbs Cupcakes on our way to Fifth Avenue. There were SO many choices, like cookie dough, Irish cream and the whopping blackbottom cheesecake brownie, complete with 1090 calories. Yikes! I got that butterscotch one right at the front, which was a vanilla cake with butterscotch frosting and chips. Definitely tasty, and not overwhelming.


I ate it in Bryant Park, where Fashion Week used to be. It had beautiful trees, a great juxtaposition to the skyscrapers behind it.



We spent a fair amount of time on Fifth Avenue, and like I said, spent some time in FAO Schwarz. If I were a child, I would be in heaven. Three floors of toys, ranging from Sesame Street stuffed animals dressed in New York outfits (I may or may not have gotten Cookie Monster dressed in an NYPD uniform) to Harry Potter toys to the giant piano from "Big." On my way out, I saw this wall of Muppets near a station where you can make your own Muppet. If only I had $100 to just waste on this sort of thing. It made me think of my friend Spencer, though, who does puppetry as a profession. So neat. I think I might go watch Muppet Treasure Island now...


We eventually made our way to Dylan's Candy Bar, which has the coolest stairs ever. It's kind of like a little slice of heaven. Every candy imaginable is in this store...I could spend a long time there.


Then we headed down to Serendipity 3 on Lauren's recommendation. The place was very hole-in-the-wall, with lots of Tiffany-style lamps hanging up. The place is famous for its frozen hot chocolate, but we went for the sundae, New York-style, instead: the Forbidden Broadway Sundae. Chocolate blackout cake, vanilla ice cream and yummy hot fudge. No, we did not finish it. Later that day we met Mary down in Soho for dinner and Asher for drinks. Great time seeing both.


We visited Jackie O the next day at the Met. I love me some Warhol.


Then we headed down to Little Italy per on my boss's suggestion. Dennis said to go to this place, Positano, in the heart of Little Italy. It was legitimately the best pasta I'd ever had. Vodka penne? Awesome. Finished the whole plate, and I NEVER do that when I eat.


Then on down the street, after a quick shop at a street vendor, to La Bella Ferrara, another place Dennis said to go. He said the cannoli was the best he'd ever tasted, but the whole spread was pretty darn impressive.


But I followed Dennis's suggestion and got the cannoli (which, I'd like to point out, is a dessert my mother had never heard of. Really). It was also amazing. Perfectly fried outer part, great pastry cream inside. Mmmmm.


Then we walked a few blocks north to Papabubble, a place I saw on Food Network's "Kid in a Candy Store." It was so worth the walk. Look at all those different kinds of candies!


They were making candy when we were there. They combine the different stripes into one big log, which they keep on the reddish table, which is warmed to keep the candy malleable. They were putting it through that machine to cut it, which if I remember correctly is the only machine they use for candy.


This is what they ended up with: strawberry-flavored candy. I got a container of various flavors, and it's already gone. Now if only they had one of these in Kansas.


While we were walking in Little Italy, we saw some observant kitties. Had to take a photo, of course.


We also made the trek to Mood Fabrics, which is a place "Project Runway" devotees know well. It's where designers on the show shop, and it was three floors of fabric goodness. Definitely amazing.

Last on the list was Broadway, and we went to see "Wicked." I'd seen it before in Chicago, but nothing beats Broadway, and this show held true to form. This is the stage before the show, which is easily one of the best I've ever seen. No one makes mistakes on Broadway.

All in all, it was a pretty fun trip. We covered a lot of ground in a couple days, and ended up with very sore feet at the end!

Comfort baking: Butterfinger cupcakes, homemade Oreos, red velvet cheesecake cake, stuffed bread and stuffed pretzels

Does anyone watch the show "American Pickers" on the History Channel? I think I'm hooked. Dad turned it on one day when we were visiting my grandma in the hospital after her vertigo spell during the holidays. My dad loves the History Channel, but I'd always seen him watching shows about the war and that sort of thing. This seems a slightly different take on history. What they "pick" is historical items found all over the country, mostly in those places you see on the side of road that have stuff just piled in the lots. They find some crazy stuff...in the episode I just watched, they bought a motorcycle motor from "Hobo Jack" that ended up being more than 100 years old. In case you haven't noticed, I'm fascinated by this sort of history and Americana, as evidenced by all I write about my family history on here. Also by the stories I like writing best, most recently about a local man who restores pinball machines. So cool!. I know what show is going to fill up my DVR for the next few months!


After all the stress of my holiday season, I needed some serious baking with Aunt Betty. I'm still not completely on my A-game, but I'm getting closer. This stuff helped. Like these Butterfinger cupcakes from my Food Network magazine. Unfortunately, there's no recipe online, and it's from my year-old magazine...I've been wanting to make them for a while. That being said, I'm going to make some serious changes next time I try them. The chocolate cake was good, but too light a crumb for a cupcake. The frosting was actually a ganache, and waaaay too thick for piping like I wanted to. Next time: a light peanut butter frosting. The killer was the brittle on top, which was just sugar, peanut butter and butterscotch chips and tasted exactly like the inside of a Butterfinger. I'm going to make just that sometime soon, dip it in chocolate and make homemade candy. All those went with my Uncle David for his retirement party.


Next on our list was something that reminded me of one of my favorite places to get dessert, the Cheesecake Factory (mainly because there are so many options). Who doesn't love red velvet cake? Who doesn't love cheesecake (besides Kelly)? Put them together, and you get red velvet cheesecake cake. Pretty tasty, although once again, I'd prefer a cake with heavier crumb. It's modeled on the coolest cake spatula thingy my stepmom Cathie got me. It's a high heel with a magnetic heel! Neato. I brought this cake to work and I'd say it was a hit. A few minutes after I brought it in, I told someone upstairs it was there. He said he already knew it was there because he saw a Twitpic. Ah, the joys of journalism and technology.


Our last project for the day was to make a bread I've been wanting to make for a while from Flour Girl. It's a stuffed braided bread, and actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. The dough was basic pizza dough made in the food processor and didn't even need to rise. The recipe called for bacon, but anyone who knows my eating habits knows that I don't eat any pork products, including bacon, and no, I'm not Jewish. I just don't eat it. So we used turkey bacon. Also inside was spinach we cooked down with some olive oil, provolone cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. Dip it in marinara and it made a pretty tasty dinner.


When my newest Food Network Magazine magazine came, on the front it talked about pretzels, which is one of my favorite things to make. What caught my eye especially was pesto-stuffed pretzels. I loooove pesto, especially when it's extra garlicy and cheesy. I think I'm going to need some more practice stuffing pretzels, because you can't taste the flavor of the pesto and the cream cheese that's inside them too much. But the dip I made with the extra pesto and cream cheese is excellent. I will definitely make that again. Also, this was the christening voyage for my new food processor. Verdict: amazing.


Last, I wanted to make some sort of sweet for the night, and Kelly suggested homemade Oreos. I had all the stuff to make them, so I did it. The cookie dough looked like dirt, and was a really strange consistency. The middle is supposed to be white chocolate ganache, which I edited a bit to be more frosting-like. All-in-all, very tasty, especially when dipped in milk. Mmmmm. Next up? Tiramisu cake for a girls' dinner. I get to try out my new cake stand on that one!

Homecoming, cookies and an alcoholic-ish cupcake

This weekend was my first homecoming where I wasn't a student. I'm not sure it counts as homecoming, really, when I still live here, but whatever. I never realized how many people came back for the game, but it's actually a fairly big deal for some. My friend Megan came back from Chicago, and downtown was just packed with people. Thing is, we completely suck at football this year, so there didn't seem to be a point to go to the game. We've been outscored something crazy so far, like in the last three games: 159 from the other teams, 24 from KU. Apparently by the fourth quarter, there was hardly anyone in the stands. That's why I didn't go to begin with :) Is it basketball season yet? Anyway, by the time I move away, I hope we've improved at least a teeny bit so that I can enjoy coming back to Lawrence and going to the game.


I've had a fairly low-key week, baking-wise. My name was in the paper a little while ago, and for once it wasn't for a story I wrote. Every week the sports guys pick six games, and then have some silly question they answer too. For the K-State game, the question was what was their favorite cookie. One said chocolate chip cookies made by me and sports copy editor Nikki. I felt famous :) So I had to make some! Nothing glamorous, but I can tell that I've gotten better even at things as simple as chocolate chip cookies.


Then, I was going through Foodgawker and found mudslide cupcakes. It's been a while since I've seen a recipe on it and wanted to make it immediately, but these fit the bill. I sort of suck at following recipes, though, so I deviated from this a bit. I made Martha Stewart's devil's food cupcakes instead of the chocolate ones in this recipe...mainly because I forgot to buy coffee. When they were finished, I poked holes in them and soaked them in Kahlua. Then Kelly helped me with the icing, which was almost a disaster. It's based off egg whites and cooking them over a bowl of simmering water...point is, it can be tricky. And hot. But it came out yummy. The brown icing was chocolate Kahlua and the white was Bailey's. The alcohol didn't really come through, in the end. But I think people still liked them :)


Then, for some reason, I was craving a classic. These aren't the prettiest cookies you'll ever see. But they're something I made with my mom when I was younger and they are unbelievable, if you like butterscotch. And they're pretty much solid sugar. Where can you go wrong? :) I have no idea where this recipe came from, but they're super easy (and no-bake!).

Butterscotch Cookies
1 pkg. butterscotch chips
1 c. small marshmallows
½ c. peanut butter
small can chow mein noodles

Melt butterscotch chips over low heat. Add peanut butter. Stir. Add marshmallows. Stir together (fast). Add noodles (don’t use entire can) and stir.

So yeah, that easy. They get pretty hot and you have to form the cookies pretty quickly, so that's always a little interesting. Pop them in the fridge when you're done, and you've got a tasty cookie. Edit: I asked my mom where she got the recipe for these cookies. Turns out they're from her high school Spanish teacher in good ol' Claflin, Kansas (you don't know where that is...look it up)! Thought that was pretty cool. :)

That's all I've made this week, so nothing too out there. I've been lacking inspiration lately for what I want to make, so we'll see if this next week brings anything interesting. A last note, I wrote a story this week that I really enjoyed. It was about the restoration of a historic church in town. I did multimedia to go with it too, and it ended up on the front page. It's definitely one I will use as a clip at some point! And it's always nice when sources call and e-mail after the story runs to tell you it was good. That's what happened here. Yippee!

Two days of baking, seven Christmas treats

Ah the holidays. How....uncomfortable you can be.

I drove back to Salina yesterday to beat the weather....that still hasn't hit Salina. It's come to Lawrence though, so I suppose leaving early was actually a good idea. Coming back, though, I'm still not so sure about. For one, I had a completely full car, including seven varieties of baked goods (yup! I said seven), all my Christmas presents for family, two blankets and a pillow, clothes, and the ever-whiny cat. Couple that with rainy/foggy weather, and it's can be an interesting 2-hour drive.

The older I get, though, the more I realize I only like part of the holidays. I love the baking, decorating and gift purchasing. I hate the actual day. Last night I went out to a bar in Salina, and throughout the course of the night there were at least 100 people from my high school there. Some were people I hadn't seen in forever and was happy about, but others were people I sort of recognized but couldn't place their names. I also found out my ex-boyfriend got engaged, which is doubly weird. We dated for four years, and for a while thought we would get married. It could have been me getting that ring last night, although I'm glad it wasn't. There are so many people getting engaged right now that I feel like I should be; after all, Drew and I have been together for as long as my ex and his girlfriend have. But I know I'm not ready for that. Not for a while.

I had nothing to do a couple days ago, and decided to go on a baking extravaganza. Last Christmas I brought cookies home that Drew's mom had made, but I wanted to bring home my own this year. I started with chocolate chunk cookies that I found in the Food Network magazine. They were one of the most labor-intensive cookies I've ever made because the dough isn't very sticky. I had to form each individual cookie, because it was more chunk (chocolate, white chocolate, M&M and cashew) than cookie. They were yummy though.

The next day was my big baking day. First it was pizzelles again to take to my grandma. I had Drew put them on the iron, and I've found he has quite a talent for it. I think I know what his job will be from now on. :)

Then it was my mom's old no-bake butterscotch cookies (essentially these minus the peanuts). We used to make them when I was little. They're super easy and only four ingredients, but get really hard to stir. You melt butterscotch chips in a pan, then add peanut butter and later marshmallows. The marshmallows make it really tough to stir, and then you add chow mein noodles. They're soooo rich but so yummy.

Then came one of my favorite recipes: peanut butter brownies. This is easily one of my favorite recipes, one I found on another baking blog. They go pretty quick too once you set people on them. They're basically brownies with chocolate and peanut butter chips in them. You bake them in muffin tins, then let them fall and fill the void with peanut butter. Top them off with chocolate and peanut butter chips and you're set! I went for the more festive vibe and did Christmas M&Ms.

I made three things I never had before as well. As you can tell, I baked for like a solid five hours. First were pineapple cookies with pineapple glaze from my Golden Book of Cookies. They are super moist from the crushed pineapple in them. Then I made biscotti a la Bobby Flay. It has blue and yellow cornmeal and pistachios. It's supposed to have Sambuca, a licorice-flavored liqueur, but I didn't have any of that and wasn't about to buy it (yuck!) so did Triple Sec instead. Last, I made chocolate-dipped pretzels. Mmmm.

Now I just need to figure out who's going to eat all this food. I'm not sure I'll be here as long as was planned.