Cheesecake Bites

Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake Bites
(adapted from Mom on Timeout's Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Mini Cheesecakes)

Ingredients - Graham Cracker Crust

1.5 cups graham crackers, crushed
6 T sugar
6 T butter, melted
1 bag mini Peanut Butter Cups

Preparation - Graham Cracker Crust
1. Spray a mini cupcake or bar baking pan with butter flavored cooking spray. Use a paper towel to soak up excess spray and make sure bottom and sides of pan are covered. 
2. In a medium sized bowl, stir the melted butter and sugar together until well blended.
3. Add the graham cracker crumbs and stir until combined.
4. Press the graham cracker mixture into the bottom of the pan. Top mixture with 1 (for mini cupcake pan) or 2 (for bar pan) mini peanut butter cups. Mixture makes enough crust for about 40 rounds or 24 bars.

Graham Cracker Crust with Mini Peanut Butter Cups

Ingredients - Cheesecake Filling
2 packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

Preparation - Cheesecake Filling
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. In a stand mixer, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed for approximately 5 minutes, or until fluffy.
3. Add sugar, flour, and vanilla and mix until incorporated.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well.
5. Fill cupcake or bar pan 3/4 of the way full.
6. Bake approximately 20 minutes for a bar pan, or 12 minutes for a mini cupcake pan, or until cheesecake is set. Allow to cool completely in pan.

Cheesecake Filling

Cheesecake Bars awaiting their topping

Ingredients - Toppings
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
2 T shortening, divided
Mini peanut butter cups, chopped (optional)

Preparation - Toppings
1. Place peanut butter chips and 1 T shortening in a ziplock baggie. Microwave for 30 seconds, then knead together. Repeat. Snip small corner off baggie and squeeze over cheesecake.
2. Repeat step one with milk chocolate chips.
3. If desired, press chopped peanut butter cups into topping.

          

 Milky Way Dark Cheesecake Bites

Milky Way Dark Cheesecake Bite

If peanut butter cups aren't your thing, Milky Way Dark Cheesecake Bites are a good alternative! Simply replace the graham cracker crumbs in the recipe above with chocolate graham cracker crumbs and omit the peanut butter cups. In the cheesecake filling, after Step 4, stir in 1.5 cups (about 4 candy bars) of Milky Way Dark candy bars.Instead of the peanut butter and milk chocolate topping, I like to melt 1 cup Jif Mocha Hazelnut spread in a ziplock baggie (no shortening needed) for about 20 seconds in the microwave.  Snip off a small corner of the baggie and drizzle over the cheesecake bites. Top with chopped Milky Way Dark candy.

Enjoy!

Mini Irish Stout Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

Mini Irish Stout Cupcakes 

(From My Baking Addiction's Guinness Cupcakes)

Ingredients - Mini Irish Stout Cupcakes
1 bottle Guinness or other dark stout beer
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 T vanilla
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa
2 cups sugar
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking soda

Preparation - Mini Irish Stout Cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper cupcake liners in a mini cupcake baking pan.
2. Mix the Guinness, milk, oil, and vanilla together.  Beat in each egg and then the sour cream, mixing well after each addition.  
3. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, and baking soda.
4. Add the cocoa mixture to the Guinness mixture by the cupful, mixing until just combined after each addition.
5. Fill each cupcake liner 3/4 of the way full with batter and bake for 12 minutes. 
6. Let cupcakes sit in the pan for several minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Recipe makes about 48 mini cupcakes.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

Ingredients - Vanilla Buttercream Icing
1 stick butter, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 T clear vanilla
5.5 cups powdered sugar

Preparation - Vanilla Buttercream Icing
1. Cream the butter, unsalted butter, and shortening until well mixed, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Mix in the vanilla, and then add the sugar by the cupful, mixing thoroughly. If the icing is too thick, add milk by the tablespoonful until the desired consistency is reached.

Strawberry Dream Cupcakes

Crazy week. Just....crazy. It was like I didn't have a single minute to breathe. But somehow I found time to play around in the kitchen and make up a batch of to-die-for strawberry cupcakes!  I have been craving strawberries for weeks now, which is not good when you live in Michigan and it's the middle of winter. Michigan grows the absolute best strawberries you've ever tasted and there is nothing better than stopping by some little roadside fruit stand to get some just picked berries.  However, it's January.  So I settled for some barely passable California strawberries from the grocery store and pulled together my Strawberry Dream Cupcakes!

I started off with the Champagne Cupcake recipe I used a couple of weeks ago.  This cupcake is pretty sturdy, which I needed since I wanted to use a pretty substantial filling in these cupcakes. Plus, strawberries and champagne go so well together!  Next, I added a strawberry creme filling. The filling was so good, it almost didn't make it into the cupcakes! I ended up having to add some vanilla and powdered sugar to sweeten up the filling. I'm blaming this on the California berries...I think when my favorite Michigan berries come into season, I'll be able to leave this step out. Finally, I tried several different types of strawberry frosting and finally settled on one I found over at Pretty Good Food's blog. The taste is amazing, but the overall cupcake turned out very sweet.  Next time, I'll be sticking to the mini cupcake size with this recipe as those were just perfect! Or, if you wanted to cut down on the sweetness for a regular size cupcake, a white chocolate ganache could be a good substitute for the strawberry frosting.

Champagne Cupcakes
(From SprinkleBakes Sparkling Champagne Cupcakes Recipe)

Ingredients - Champagne Cupcakes

1 stick butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp clear vanilla 

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup champagne or sparkling wine 

Preparation - Champagne Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream butter and sugar, 2-3 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat after each addition.

4. Add vanilla and mix until combined.

5. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

6. In another bowl, whisk together the sour cream and sparkling wine.

7. Add flour and wine mixtures to the butter/sugar mixture alternately, beginning and finishing with the flour mixture. Mix until just combined after each addition.

8. Fill each cupcake tin with 3/4 cup of the way full with the batter.

9. Cook 17-22 minutes. (Mine took about 19 minutes for the regular size cupcakes and 12 for the mini cupcakes.) Transfer to wire rack and let cool.  

10. Cut the center out of each cupcake in preparation for the filling. Trim the excess cupcake off the core, and save the top for covering the filling in the next step.

Strawberry Creme Filling

Ingredients - Strawberry Creme Filling
1 quart fresh strawberries, sliced

1 cup whipping cream

2 T cornstarch

1/4 tsp clear vanilla 

1/4 cup powdered sugar     

Preparation - Strawberry Creme Filling

1. Cook strawberries, whipping cream, and cornstarch in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk constantly until thickened, about 8-10 minutes.

2. Remove from heat and let cool.

3. Beat vanilla and powdered sugar into cooled strawberry creme.

4. Spoon into cupcake centers and cover with cupcake lid.

Strawberry Frosting
(From Pretty Good Food's Strawberry Frosting)

Ingredients - Strawberry Frosting

2 sticks butter
Pinch of salt

3.5 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 quart fresh strawberries, sliced and pureed 

Preparation - Strawberry Frosting

1. Cream butter and salt until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

2. Add powdered sugar in several batches, mixing well after each addition.

3. Add vanilla and mix well.

4. Add strawberry puree to taste and mix for 3 minutes.

Finished cupcakes should be kept refrigerated :)

Lazy New Years Day

It's very rare that I have a full on great day. The kind where I'm in a good mood, have all kinds of energy, and am motivated to try new things...but the last 24 hours have been some of the best I've had in a long time. I went out on a limb and tried something new for New Years Eve and I think the high from that carried over into today :)

After deep cleaning the kitchen (is there anything those silly Magic Eraser things can't clean?), pulling everything out of my cabinets to re-organize them, catching up with a good friend, AND doing an hour of Combat, I still had enough energy left to make cookies!  I've been putting this off for about 2 weeks now, but I had all kinds of Christmas-y cookie decoration stuff left and it needed to get used up.  So I pulled out the crushed candy canes, mini m&ms, and colored chocolate chips and got to work on some yummy pudding cookies!

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 package (3.4 oz) pudding mix

2 eggs

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1-2 cups add-ins

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Cream butter and sugars, 1-2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in vanilla and pudding mix, then both eggs. (I used vanilla pudding for the chocolate chip cookies and white chocolate pudding for the candy cane cookies.)

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda.

5. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three section, mixing after each addition until just combined.

6. Stir in 1-2 cups of add-ins. (I used chocolate chips and mini baking m&ms for the first set of cookies and crushed candy canes for the second set.)

7. Drop inch thick balls of dough onto baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.

8. Bake 8-10 minutes. 

9. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Pudding Cookie Dough

Chocolate Chip Cookie

White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookie

White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies