Christmas Nutcracker cupcakes

It's less than a week till Christmas, but it still feels forever away; probably because it was in the 50s today. But this weekend, I got to do my perennial Christmas tradition: go to the Kansas City Ballet's production of the Nutcracker.

I've been going to this ballet since I was a kid and go every year. I've seen it so many times, when I hear the music, I can see the ballet's choreography in my head. Yup, that many times.

This year was the first time the production was at the new Kauffman Center downtown, and my friends Brianne and Lauren came to town to go to the ballet with me.

So to celebrate this tradition, I made Nutcracker cupcakes! Because honestly, when I saw these wrappers and toppers, who could pass them up? Well, I couldn't. I took these into work for our holiday dessert bar.

By the way, I have the BEST coworkers. My cupcake carrier has been broken for a long time, and my newsroom came together to buy me a new one because I bring them sweets all the time. Yeah, I love my job.

These are chai tea cupcakes with honey cinnamon buttercream. I have to admit, I didn't quite follow the frosting recipe. I made my favorite swiss meringue buttercream recipe and then just put honey and cinnamon in till it tasted good, which ended up being one of my favorite icings ever. And combined with the cupcakes, they really did taste like a chai latte. Definitely recommend them!

(Posting to Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday.)

Daring Bakers' Challenge: Baklava

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly daring by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

I can honestly say I've never had the desire to make baklava homemade. I guess Greek is just not a type of cuisine I often run across. But when challenged to make my own phyllo dough, I was definitely interested (I skipped last month's Daring Baker because it was crazy intricate and I didn't have the time).

Aunt Betty looked up a way to roll out phyllo dough on a pasta maker, which made it turn out perfectly: nice and thin. The recipe called for multiple layers of phyllo dough sandwiched around a couple layers of nuts (pistachios, walnuts and almonds, in our case) cooked in a simple syrup, then with a honey mixture drizzled over the top of it all.

It was definitely super rich, and to me tasted just an awful lot like honey. Lots of layers and stacking and lots of time. Not too difficult, though. Just time-consuming. Next time I make it, it will need to be for a picnic or something, because it's too darn messy to take to work and now I have lots of baklava left over in my fridge!

Two pops + two cupcakes = three desserts

I'm in the middle of a three-day weekend, which was definitely needed. The good news is I can finally drive myself places, so that's nice. It's the weekend of seeing people I haven't seen in forever. I had lunch with my friend Anne yesterday, who has been busy with school for a while. Friends are in town from Colorado, who we haven't seen in months. And then my aunt comes through town on her way up to see my mom. It's nice to see everyone, because it's been sort of strange finishing school. I'm sure this is how everyone who stays in their college town feels. Everyone I spent a lot of time with has moved away, save a few who I'm very grateful are still around. I know it's just a part of growing up, and now it's time to make new friends and try hard to stay in touch with old ones. But it's still strange. So here's to keeping in touch with people. I definitely intend to.


I went for a second go at cake pops this week. They are easily one of the most fun desserts to eat. I mean, come on, who doesn't love cake+frosting+candy+sprinkles in a bite-sized dessert? I have an ultimate football season goal though. I want to take these Sesame Street Big Bird cake pops by Bakerella and edit them into Jayhawks for tailgating. Doable? I have no idea. But I'm going to try. First, though, I had to make manageable plain pops, so that was my goal this time. I'm getting better at dipping them, which definitely takes a technique. I made these smaller than my last ones, which were larger than bite-size and incredibly hard to manage. I'm definitely getting better. We'll see if I get to Jayhawk-level, though.


I took a little break from baking through the beginning of the week, mostly because I was pretty much sleeping any time I wasn't at work. But then I decided to make another cereal-style cupcake. This time? Honeycomb. I didn't eat it regularly as a kid, but I got it the other day at the store, and it's soooo tasty! I thought it would be great to try. I made a honey cupcake featured in Martha's Cupcake book (which I got spiral bound this week...best decision EVER). Then some cream cheese icing on top, flavored with a tiny bit of honey, and one honeycomb on top. The cakes were REALLY honey-y, so I'm glad I didn't use honey buttercream on top too. I brought them to work on election night, which is apparently a night full of treats. It was fun though, and strange to walk into a newsroom full of people. It will be interesting when it's not the primaries anymore and the real deal.


A couple nights ago Drew and I went to four different grocery stores to find ingredients for these cupcakes I saw on the Confessions of a Cookbook Queen blog: bomb pop cupcakes. How great an idea is that? Definitely perfect for these 100-degree days. Anyway, the recipe called for cherry and raspberry extracts, which were not easy to find. A trip to Target, Wal-Mart (they have a surprisingly large supply of extracts), Dillons and Hy-Vee later, I had my ingredients and was ready to go. I used my favorite lemon cupcake recipe, edited with a little lime juice and lime zest like the bomb pop recipe said to do. When they're done, the recipe said to pour a mix of raspberry Jello powder and boiling water over the top, so you end up with a sort of lemon-lime-raspberry cupcakes. Then, for the frosting, you do three different flavors, just like normal Bomb Pops. The blue was raspberry, the white was lime (flavored with lime juice) and the red was cherry. A popsicle stick on top and they're done!

I made these cupcakes for Matt and Sarah getting here from Colorado. They were good friends on the Kansan and we don't see them hardly ever. Today, Sarah and I are getting pedicures — it's my first one! I can't wait. And then, I go from being a super girly girl to not...as in, I'm covering the demolition derby. I cannot even articulate how excited I am about this! The demo derby is one of my favorite things to go to during the summer. You skip the whole racing cars part and just see the crashes. I'm going to put a new spin on the story, I hope. We'll see how it turns out!