Cookie dough cupcakes, peanut butter chocolate cookies and cake pops

It seems like the farther I get away from college (and the more free time I have...there's a connection), the more I get into movies. Which is why Oscar season is exciting. I saw The Artist a couple days after the Best Picture nominees were announced, and I have to say, it's totally great. For a silent film, it uses sound masterfully. Another favorite so far is Midnight in Paris. To be honest, I've never seen a Woody Allen film before this, but I love historical fiction, and this was throwing a lot of great characters (both Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali are fantastic) into one story. I've gotta admit, though, there are a couple I have no desire to see. The Tree of Life? No thanks.

I've been really into basic cookies lately. Maybe because they're simple, quick and always a hit...I've been crazy busy lately but still want to bake, so they're a good solution. And these are my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen. A few hours in the office and they were all gone.

A few friends who will remain nameless (but who LOVE cake pops) requested these a couple weekends ago, and for the first time I enlisted my dad and stepmom's help making them. Thank goodness, too, because we made three different flavors, which means about 150 pops. So my dad helped roll them out and manned the sprinkle station. The red ones were red velvet, the orange were chocolate and the yellow were yellow cake. It was great making them with Dad and Cathie, because it was so hilarious watching them. They loved testing the mixtures and tasting the frosting.

And with another classic, I made these chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes from Annie's Eats. These were always a hit at the Journal-World but I'd never taken them into the Biz Journal. They take a few more steps than normal cupcakes, but it's worth it. They're chocolate chip cupcakes that are stuffed with an eggless cookie dough. What I think makes them, though, is the cookie dough-flavored icing. SO tasty.

Chicago cupcake crawl

This weekend was my trip to Chicago with Kelly to visit Megan. It was a great time, and actually the weather wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, Kansas had prepared me for freezing temperatures, and even snow flurries wasn't going to stop us from going on Michigan Ave. Also, we did a cupcake crawl, visiting five different cupcake bakeries. Originally we planned for eight, but after a certain point, they're too darn far apart! Here is my trip in pictures.

First, we went to Sprinkles Bakery, which was made famous in California (and whose founder is a judge on Cupcake Wars!). We got a black and white, which was a chocolate cake with white frosting (left), a chai latte cupcake (back) and chocolate marshmallow, which is also the first picture up top. The cupcakes were excellent! The chai one was very fall-y. The marshmallow filling in the chocolate marshmallow was great too.


Next we visited More Cupcakes, which Megan gets to her office all the time. We got a "flight" of these mini cupcakes, which were all alcohol-based. From the bottom, they were margarita, pina colada, pomegranate mojito, lemon drop, gin and juice and white russian.


They were very creative and tasty, although you couldn't really taste the alcohol in them. I think the pomegranate mojito one was my favorite, because it had a little bit of pomegranate filling.


Kelly also got a chocolate hazelnut one here, with a hazelnut bark. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, but it was pretty good, especially with its filling.


The next day we went to Swirlz Cupcakes. They had a very pretty spread, as you can see.


There we got vanilla with chocolate icing, red velvet and the surprise cupcake (top), which was a chocolate cupcake with a raspberry icing. Megan got the gluten-free version, which was surprisingly good. The icing on the vanilla cake was unbelievable. I liked my red velvet, but I like my cream cheese icing colder.


Next was Molly's Cupcakes, which wins the award for most interesting bakery we visited. Inside, there were swings for sitting at the counter. Yes, swings. The tables were awesomely bright colors, and the music was Taylor Swift and Ke$ha. Needless to say, we liked it.


The variety of flavors was amazing too. They had basic flavors, but we went for the interesting stuff. Starting at top left and going clockwise, we got the "Ron Bennington," chocolate peanut butter Butterfinger, which had completely ganache-based frosting and a peanut butter filling. Next was the cake batter cupcake, which had a cake batter filling as well (picture above). Then the "Cookie Monster," the cookie dough cupcake, with cookie dough filling. Then the peanut butter Nutella, with a light frosting and Nutella filling.


I think this bakery was my favorite of the trip. The atmosphere was so fun, and the choices in cupcakes were just crazy. And everything tasted wonderful.


Our last bakery was Sweet Mandy B's, Megan's favorite bakery close to her place in Lincoln Park. I went there last time I was in town, but they didn't have a whole lot of variety that time. This time, they had a crazy amount of sweets, going way beyond cupcakes.


They had chocolate-covered pretzels, cookies, all kinds of sweets and various cupcakes, obviously. Kelly got a snickerdoodle cupcake. I got the lemon and white with purple frosting. Megan got chocolate.


This was my favorite basic cupcake. The cake was moist, and the frosting was unbelievable. I can see why it's so popular.


We definitely ate our fair share of cupcakes, but with the amount of walking we did around the city, I think it was fair to eat that many :) Now here's the rest of the trip in pictures, starting with this one, which was our view when landing in Chi-town.

Kelly and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago. These were some of our favorite pieces, which played on words. The one on the right is named 4 1/2 oxen. So cool.


We visited Shedd Aquarium, one of my favorite places in the city. The hour+ wait, however, was not fun. Worth it though.


They have a pretty awesome variety of animals.


My favorites, of course, are the otters, which are hard to get a decent picture of because they're always moving!


And of course, we definitely hit up Michigan Avenue, a must for Chicago shopping. We went twice. All in all, this was a great trip with great friends. Definitely a nice break from life in a gorgeous city.

The last of holiday baking: Cookie dough truffles, chocolate spice cupcakes, a gingerbread house and a maple nutmeg tart

It's funny how fast the holidays fly by. There's a month of build-up, of Christmas trees, decorations, holiday music and then suddenly Christmas is here and gone. Then everyone asks how the holidays went, and this year I'm not really sure how to answer. Last Monday I got a call from my mom that I'd been expecting for a while, but was still shocking: my Grandma Hofmeister died after battling Alzheimer's for years. That same night, my Grandma Hawley (the one I baked 90th birthday treats for) went to the hospital. It was a bad day for grandmas. Strangely enough, these two less-than-happy events led to me seeing more family during the holidays than I have in years. On my mom's side, cousins, aunts, uncles and other extended family. On dad's side, I spent a bunch of time at the house, more than I would have been able to previously. Funny how those things work out. And it also meant I've spent more time at home with my parents and grandmother in the last month or so than probably the last whole year. So, I guess the holidays teach us there is good and bad, but you just have to try to see the good.


I had a couple baking dates in the weeks before the holidays, the first with a couple of my friends from work, Sarah and Christy. We decorated sugar cookies, I made cookie dough truffles and Sarah made healthy(ish) buckeyes. It was nice to spend time with them, and watch Sarah's son create masterpieces on his easel. Plus, I made these truffles, which while crazy good, were suuuper rich. Somehow my friend Nick managed to eat four at work that night. I'm not quite sure how.


Another treat I brought into work were these chocolate spice cupcakes a la Martha Stewart. The icing was my own creation, a swiss meringue buttercream that I added a few spices to (nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger). It had a really subtle flavor but made the cupcakes really tasty. On top were Christmas light cupcake toppers from Bake it Pretty, which were also rings. I ordered them a while ago and was so excited to use them! These disappeared pretty fast at work, and a small crowd gathered when I brought them in :)


The day after Grandma died, I was supposed to bake with Aunt Betty. I wasn't sure we would still bake, but it turned out we both needed a stress reliever, so we kept our date. It was actually incredibly therapeutic, although I'm sure baking is anything but that for some people. But Aunt Betty is one of the easiest people to talk to in my family, and it was nice to be around someone else who was sad Grandma was gone, but also knew it was for the best and that Grandma was better off where she was now. Funny enough, we'd both done stress baking the night before to calm down. Mine was homemade marshmallows, to go with my Grandma Hawley's classic hot chocolate for some Christmas gifts.


Hers was the gingerbread dough we used to make this gingerbread house. No kits for us, although that led to a fairly lopsided house. We called it the tornado house, because parts of it looked like it had gone through a fairly substantial storm (notice the roof that looks caved in). Non-kit gingerbread doesn't always bake through right and create perfect corners, so we had to do some patching with royal icing. It was fun though, even though by the time we got to decorating, we were fairly tired.


Last on the list for that day was this maple nutmeg tart, which I'd had bookmarked on Smitten Kitchen for a while. The crust turned out perfectly, and I honestly wish the filling had been far more maple-y, considering that's my favorite fall flavor. Now I just want to make a bunch more tarts, but need some fillings! Suggestions, anyone?

Homer Simpson would be proud (3 of 8 goals met)

When it starts getting to the end of my work week, I start to get excited. And unable to sleep. So I do things like stay up late to fix my bedside table that's been broken. Or write stories that or due. Or write blog post entries for posting later :) Tonight is my Friday after a very long week. We're just getting into the swing of sports at work, which means lots of posting of game stuff that I'm not totally used to yet. I'll get better at it, but the first few nights are pretty tough. Speaking of sports, though, how about those Jayhawks? Granted, I slept through the whole Georgia Tech game, because that's the middle of the night for me. But it's quite the turnaround from losing 6-3 the week before. Who knows where this season will lead. Plus, sports means fall, which is my favorite season. For one, my birthday is in fall. But I've also discovered a new favorite time of day — driving to and from work. It's dark out, the weather is great and it's perfect for rolling down the windows and turning the music up. It's cathartic and clears my mind, and it's frankly a perfect few minutes. Too bad pretty soon it will be freezing out!


I felt like more cupcakes this week, and for some reason snickerdoodle was at the top of my list. I was flipping through my Martha Stewart Cupcake book and it just popped out at me. I don't even like snickerdoodles that much, but anything is better in cupcake form I think. Plus, I had a new piping tip for icing, so I wanted to try that out. A cinnamony cake, a quick buttercream and then cinnamon sugar on top. Voila! A tasty rainy day cupcake (and we've had plenty of rainy days lately!).


Here's where we get to the Homer Simpson part. I also went to my Aunt Betty's house last week for another baking extravaganza. One thing I made I can't talk about yet, other than saying I joined something called Daring Baker. It's a monthly challenge that a bunch of bloggers do together, but you have to wait till a certain day to reveal it. So that date hasn't come yet. The other thing we made was doughnuts, another of my baking goals. All you die-hard (or even just normal) Simpsons fans know Homer loves his doughnuts, and now I know why. They take a while because it's like normal bread dough with all the rising and such, but believe me, that day I needed some dough to knead to take my anger out on. Anyway, when I was in NYC, I bought a doughnut cutter (of all things, right?). So we made the doughnuts, frying them in a cast-iron pan and everything, then adding a chocolate glaze. Lemme tell you, I will never look at doughnuts the same way again. They were SO good. And I'm not even that much of a doughnut person! Pretty damn tasty though.


Last, I decided to do a repeat of a dessert I made in June. They were cookie dough cupcakes, and every bit as yummy as you can imagine. Kelly helped me make them, and even piped some of the frosting (this is significant because she generally complains that I only let her measure. So there, she frosted!). I just tasted them, and it really is like eating a completely rich chocolate chip cookie, because it's a chocolate chip cookie cupcake filled with eggless cookie dough and topped with a cookie dough-flavored icing. A friend at work said it was in his top 3 cupcakes ever, and he's eaten a lot of different cupcakes. I will take that as a compliment :)

So now I'm off to accomplish other things before my Friday. Can't wait for a couple days off to relax...and take care of everything I haven't had time to before now. Ciao!

CCDCC = Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes + even more cupcakes

Well, I currently sit awake, unable to go to sleep. Working nights really screws with my sleep schedule. It gives me a perspective I've never had before, though. Being awake at 6 a.m. consistently. Before, the only times I'd been up at 6 I had just rolled out of bed and not happily. Now I'm getting off work at that time, and it's a totally different perspective. Not too many people are up and I can run errands if I want to. I stopped by Hy-Vee the other day and there were just a few old men drinking coffee and friendly clerks there. I get to see the sun rise sometimes too, unless it's like today or yesterday (translation=summer storms in Kansas). Yesterday it stormed all day, but I think in a place where it didn't storm I'd get bored. Mom says when it even thunders once up in Michigan, they think it's a storm. Hah!

One of the most exciting things I've done in the last couple weeks is see one of my very oldest friends get married. We lived down the street from each other, and she and her sister and I played together all the time. We danced to Spice Girls songs, went to middle school dances, threw birthday parties for my cats (come on, are you really surprised?) and spent a lot of our childhoods together. She got married and looked unbelievable in her dress. I'm so happy I got to see her. Congratulations Jessica! I guess I'm really growing up.

I've been baking cupcakes a lot lately, and then taking them to work. The biggest problem has been dragging myself out of bed in time to make them. Good thing I'm not planning them later, because I should have been asleep an hour ago. I am excited for later, though, because I'm about to go on a family tradition trip. Every Memorial Day (or thereabouts), my dad, grandma and I head down to tiny little Lewis, Kansas, a.k.a. where my grandma and grandpa grew up. In the '20s and '30s. Most of my dad's side of the family is buried there, so we load up a car with flowers and water for them, make the hours-long drive and go to the graves. On the way down, we stop in Claflin, which is where my mom grew up and my uncle still has his farm. My maternal grandfather and one of my cousin's daughters is buried there, so we plant flowers there and visit my uncles multitudes of animals. Then we stop in Larned at Pizza Hut for lunch every year. Then Belpre, a tiny town like three miles from Lewis, where my grandpa's sister is buried, then Lewis, where everyone else is. Then we drive around Lewis for a bit and the country, then back to Salina. It might sound boring, but it's time I get to spend just with my dad and grandma. It's a long day, but I'm excited.

So obviously I'm off work the next couple days. Last week at work we had a bake sale, and I decided to try these cookie dough cupcakes I'd been wanting to try. Yes, they're as yummy as they sound. First you make chocolate chip cupcakes, then make an egg-less cookie dough to fill it, then make a cookie dough-flavored frosting and top with mini chocolate chips. They were sooo tasty but so rich too. One and I was good on dessert for the day. They were all gone when I came to pick up my cupcake container, too, so I guess that means everyone liked them! :)



Then I was craving cream cheese icing, and I'd seen a recipe for lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing. I guess summer makes me really want to try more citrus-y desserts. I only made a half batch, and I think next time I'd make them more lemon-y. But the icing was pretty tasty.

Friday night I worked, so I stayed until 7 a.m. so I could go to the Lawrence Farmers' Market. I hadn't been yet this year, but I definitely want to make it back. Veggies seemed to be featured right now, but I can't wait till they have more berries. I really want to try more pies since my rhubarb pie lesson with Aunt Betty. Anyway, they had some really tasty snap peas and some grass-fed beef, which I can't wait to try.

Yesterday I had a really grouchy day, but a baking-related event really helped cheer me up. My friend from college Becka is in town from California and wanted to meet me to give me something. I was meeting another friend downtown for dinner, so Becka stopped by with Beale, her guide dog-in-training. She made me this awesome apron for graduation! It's even got cupcakes on it, how perfect! Turns out my graduation gifts definitely had a cooking theme, but none of the others were homemade like this. I haven't baked with it yet, but I can't wait to!

Yesterday and the day before I wanted to make cupcakes again, but I just kept sleeping later and later. I'm talking waking up at like 5 p.m. or later. Someone described me as a bat a couple days ago, and while I don't hang from the ceiling, I'm definitely sleeping in a dark room during the days. It's weird. I finally got time today, though, to make pomegranate velvet cupcakes. I've made them once before as well, and I found them on IHeartCuppycakes. They're basically like red velvet but with pomegranate flavoring and pomegranate cream cheese icing. I brought them to the newsroom, and the production guys spotted me with them on a camera so I took them over there. It's good, because otherwise I would have had waaay too many left over. Anyway, if you ever make these, pay heed because the frosting recipe kind of sucks. I like using Martha Stewart's cream cheese frosting and then adding the flavoring to that and adjusting the thickness.

So now I've got a couple days off, and we'll see if I bake any more. My guess is yes, but I might just feel like laying on my couch and not getting up!

Vegas Vacation

Well this week was spring break, so not much baking for me. But I did go to Vegas! I made it a goal to get as many creative desserts as possible, and I took pictures. Most of them were amazing! Too bad I got sick during the trip, and am now home, in bed, on antibiotics. Ugh. Oh, and if you've ever wondered, flying with any sort of infection in your head (mine was ear) is a bad, BAD idea. My ear has yet to pop since we landed Thursday at 4. Painful. So anyway, I'll do food first, then other various pictures.

Our first night we went to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace. We did this last year and had the most amazing chicken tacos with a peanut butter spicy barbecue sauce. Mmmmm. I even got my favorite prickly pear margarita! For dessert, chocolate corn bread pudding. I was too full to eat too much of it, but it was reallly tasty.


Liz and her friend Alex went to Vegas the same time we did, so we did a lot of walking around. Which meant some pretty monster blisters. We went inside the new Aria casino, part of the new City Center development. I think the theme is as-over-the-top-as-you-can-possibly-get. None of it really goes together, but it's still cool. These awesome cakes are from Jean Phillippe Patisserie and were so pretty!


Then we got crepes there. Liz inspired me to get a Nutella crepe, and it was wonderful! I know the crepe place in the Paris casino used to be the only one, but now everywhere makes crepes! That's definitely on my list of things to learn how to make.


This is a chocolate fountain from the Jean Phillippe store in the Bellagio. Doesn't that look tasty? I'm not even a chocolate person and it looks yummy.


This is an edible toucan also from the store in the Bellagio. I guess all toucans are technically edible by carnivores, but this is a chocolate/pastry one.


We stayed in the Mirage, which is easily my favorite casino. The rooms were amazing (and the beds quite comfy!) and everything we wanted to do was right near us. Drew and I saw the Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil for the second time, and I loved it even more this time. It is my favorite show, hands down. Everyone should go see it! This is some yummy cheesecake frozen yogurt. Maybe that will be on my list of things to learn how to make too.


This is a black and white shake from a place called the Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay. It's done by a chef named Hubert Keller. If you watched Top Chef Masters, he's the French guy. The shake was cookie dough and vanilla ice cream and tasty. The burgers were excellent too, although too much food for me!


For dessert here (after having a shake already!) we got the dessert burger. The bun was a doughnut with a filling of cheesecake, strawberries and pineapple. I know it sounds really heavy, but it was actually pretty light. I'm sure it wasn't in the calories though. This was the day we went to Ka, another Cirque show in MGM Grand. It's based on a lot of martial arts, which is something I'm not as interested in, but the stage was a-maz-ing. As in, the whole thing was on hydraulics and went vertical and spun and everything. It was the most fantastic stage ever (check this out at about the 2:10 point).


The last day I was stuck in our hotel room sick for most of the day. Drew got me this key lime pastry from the Jean Phillippe store. The green disc thing on top is edible and really cool. I'm thinking it was white chocolate. I did go to Lion King this night, which we got free tickets too. A good show, although my least favorite of the bunch.


Now for the non-food photos. This was the Grand Canyon out our plane window. I guess I forget how gigantic it is!


This is the ceiling of the Bellagio. I know it's fairly famous, but still stunning! These are all glass.


This is in the Wynn. So cool and colorful.


We all know by now that I'm an animal person too, which means we definitely had to visit the dolphin and cat exhibit at the Mirage. It's for Siegfried and Roy, so it has some of their tigers and all that kind of thing. Last year we went too, and there were baby dolphins, but this year they were all grown up. These dolphins were 7 years old and the other was in his 30s, which the trainer said is on the upper end of their expected lifespan.


One of my favorite kitties was the big lion down in the right-hand lower corner. He was sleeping with his tongue out :). Top-left was a panther, a.k.a. Melvin's big cousin. Next to that is a white tiger who hated some lady outside his cage. I think it might have been the colors she was wearing (yellow and green). He was pacing his cage and stared at her, then sprayed her multiple times. Yuck. Next to him was a tiger that was a teenage tiger last year, laying in the sun. In the bottom left was one of the two babies they had there. They were eight months old and this guy was chewing on a box. The other one was licking a block of ice that they froze blood into. They were super cute.


On the right is the leopard we saw this time. To the left is him last year as a baby. So cute!

So now I'm home with a giant to-do list unable to do it because either my sickness or medicine is making me sleepy. My final project is due a week from today — eek! But, I did have a really cool story run on the front page of the Journal-World last week. It was super fun to write! I'm going to update my Web site to include it for sure. Anyway, I have Princess and the Frog on repeat now, so hopefully I get better soon and can get some stuff done! Also, it's snowing. Seriously Kansas??