Wedding and Dessert Buffet

Commentary and Recipes to Follow...

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcakes

Stuffed with a mini cheesecake and topped with cream cheese frosting and a mini cake ball

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Stuffed with a mini cheesecake drizzled in strawberry sauce, topped with cream cheese frosting and a fondant rose

Traditional Sugar Cookies

With Butter Cream Frosting and a Monogrammed B

Mini Scotcharoo's 

Drizzled with butterscotch and chocolate

White Chocolate Covered Red Velvet Cake Truffles

and

Milk Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Truffles

Mini Turtle Cheesecakes

Topped with dark chocolate ganache, pecans and caramel

Vanilla Bean Cheesecakes

Topped with whipped cream and white chocolate

Strawberry Cheesecakes

Drizzled with White chocolate 

Football Truffle Cupcakes

On a weekend where I made a large and somewhat complicated birthday cake, you'd think I'd get done, immediately relax and possibly go for a run due to all of the excess frosting that ended up in my belly.

Instead I made 100 cupcakes topped with cookie dough truffle footballs for a graduation party.  Which led to even more frosting.  Belly hurty.

Thank goodness for my husband - without him, I would have been up until midnight getting these done... and the kitchen would still be a disaster.  

The flavors: 

- Strawberry cake filled cake with raspberry butter cream (add seedless raspberry jam to taste)

- White cake filled with dulce de leche butter cream (add duche de leche to taste)

- Chocolate cake filled with cookies and cream cheese frosting 

- Red velvet cake filled with cream cheese frosting

... all piped with green butter cream "grass" 

The truffles:

- Form cookie dough truffles into football shapes and pipe on accents with white chocolae. 

Laser Tag Birthday Cake

My obsession with fondant is becoming a bit unreasonable.  So when my good friend at work, Sue, asked me to make her son a "laser tag" themed birthday cake, my brain was just overflowing with ideas.  A cake with a laser tag gun on it?  No- lame.  How about a cake shaped like a laser tag gun?  Closer... 

I settled on making edible little fondant kids playing laser tag on top of a two tiered birthday cake.  Why the heck not!  I made a fish- how much harder can people be?

Hint- the answer is A LOT.

Each of these guys didn't take all that long to complete- the hard part is waiting for the body parts to harden (heh heh) before you go on to the next step.  Also- dying the fondant took a whole evening in itself.  I'm so glad I did it, though.  I planned out every color I possible could have, so that way as I'm molding my little guys, I don't have to stop and color fondant.  That would have been annoying.  

So here's how they came together (using a lot of water as "glue"):

   - I started with a lollipop stick that I formed one of the legs around.  I left a little hanging out the bottom to stick into the cake.  While you are molding, you can stick this down into some styrofoam so the figure can stand on its own. Make some shoes and stick them to the bottom (I liked to stamp a hole in the shoe going on the lollipop leg before I tried to put it on.

   - Form the body around the top two nubs of the legs.  It should look kind of like a triangle leading up to where you will put the neck. 

   - Add arms to your t-shirt.  If the arm will be sticking straight up in the air, add a toothpick for support.

   - Form cylinders for arms and stick them on.  Add hands... in my case, hands that look like mittens.

   - Make a vest and gun and deck the little guy out!

   - Stick on your neck and form a head.  Add eyes, ears hair and any other accents!

Is this the correct way to build fondant people?  Probably not.  But it got the job done.

So here they are!

And here's the final product...

The top tier was chocolate cake with "cookies and cream" butter cream (I just added ground up cookies.)

The bottom tier was white cake with vanilla butter cream and butterscotch ganache.  

Easter Cake

So here's how I logiced my way into bringing a wedding cake as my contribution to Easter dinner:

1. I typically host holidays at my house, but instead of having to make everything, I was charged with bringing a sole dessert.  I had ample time and crazy holiday fueled energy available.
2.  My friend Michelle and I have wanted to test our red velvet cake recipes to see which one we like best prior to an event we are helping cater.  (I made both my chocolate cake and white cake recipe using a red velvet cake mix.  The chocolate was the best.)
3. I am going to be making a two tiered cake for my friends kids birthday in a few weeks, and I've never done it before.  I needed to practice.
4. I have a mild obsession with making fondant flowers.
5. I'm insane.

And here's the result of my madness...


Red Velvet "Easter" Cake

Baseball Truffle Topped Cupcakes

My friend Michelle and I are the baking dream team for our coworkers and friends.  Not only are we both mildly obsessed with trying new and unbelievably unhealthy recipes, we are both a smidgen anal and compulsive when it comes to planning.  When working on a team, you'd think having two chiefs with obsessive compulsive disorder and no Indians would be an inevitable disaster, but for some reason when we bake together we bring out the best in one another.

Part of it is because we both know how to take constructive criticism (and welcome it!) and part of it is because we both have different strengths.  Michelle is the cake and butter cream goddess, having made some of the most beautiful and delicious weddings cakes I've ever seen.  I am more into little details- tiny fondant roses, a million different desserts in a spread, things like that.  

This has been working incredibly well for the wedding dessert buffet we are planning together.  In fact, right after we delivered the following concoction, we spent 4 hours at my house mocking up the dessert buffet table-scape. Yup, we painstakingly placed cupcake wrappers on platters and trays and arranged them on a make-shift 12 foot table in my dining room to make sure we had enough room and platters for all the food.  We didn't.  Then we went to Walmart.  All is good now.

How did I get this far off topic?  So since our friends have realized how much we thrive on adorable baking projects, we occasionally get requests like this.  Michelle was asked to make baseball themed cupcakes for a kids birthday party, and she commissioned me to help.  Her idea was to have a baseball truffle (my part!) on top of a cupcake frosted in butter cream grass (her part!)  What resulted were the cutest darned cupcakes I've ever seen.  Yay us!

Cupcakes topped with Baseball Truffles (Cookie Dough Flavored)

Make a batch of cookie dough truffles (which I've made here) and dip in almond bark.  Make sure that the truffles will be small enough to fit on top of the cupcakes.  Let cool before proceeding.

Melt red candy melts according to package instructions and place it in a plastic bag (if this is too thick to pipe, thin it using shortening.)

Start by drawing the two half circles on the truffle with the red candy melts.  Add stitching.  Work quickly to avoid having the candy harden.

When they are dry, pipe butter cream dyed green onto your favorite flavor of cupcakes so that it looks like grass.  Top with your truffle and serve.  

Enjoy!

Caramel Mocha Cake

For the people I love and care about, birthdays are nearly always preceded with a wide-eyed me desperately and timidly asking "so, do you need a birthday cake?" I try to act like it's no big deal, but I'm really jumping up and down on the inside screaming "LET ME BAKE YOU SOMETHING."  But when one of my besties moved across the Midwest to the desolate, cold, altogether too damn far away land known as "Minneapolis," I hadn't yet formed this obsession with baking.  So I've never really gotten to bake for her!  Except her bridal shower.   And several parties I've thrown and she's attended.  And a few showers we threw together.  Hell, the last time I saw her she was forced into washing dishes for me as I filled heath cupcakes in a fit of baby-shower-themed-food insanity.

But she lives far away and she's never gotten a birthday cake from me, so her spring break visit was my opportunity!  I even spent an evening forming fondant flowers for the top of the cake.  Mainly because I don't think anyone has ever really made fondant decorations for her, and I felt she deserved something extra special.

So the week before she came and I set out for the grocery store on foot, husband/grocery bag carrier by my side.  I had absolutely no idea what I was going to make her, and pinterest is too slow on my phone (Thank you very much, Verizon.) So I had to go back to my roots- brainstorming things up all on my very own without the help of the world wide interwebs.  She and I had pretty much spent half of our friendship across the table from one another at a coffee shop, so I decided to go with a cappuccino themed cake.  With chocolate.  And caramel.  Caramel swirled with ganache. And butter cream- oh god- COFFEE butter cream. 

This is what happens when I have too much time on my hands.

Chocolate Coffee Cake

Recipe adapted from: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/too-much-chocolate-cake/Detail.aspx

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 ounce) package instant devils food (or chocolate of any kind) pudding mix

1 (8 oz) container of Daisy sour cream (full fat)

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp coffee extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees  

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, or your trusty stand mixer. 
Pour batter into two nine inch rounds.

Bake as directed on your box mix.

When completely cool, you may wrap and freeze the layers until you are ready.

Coffee Butter Cream

Make a double recipe of my favorite butter cream but replace the vanilla with coffee extract. If you want to decorate the cake with a different color, make sure to set aside a cup of frosting before you add the coffee.

Caramel Mocha Cake Assemble

Ingredients 

2 nine inch rounds Chocolate Coffee Cake, ideally frozen, recipe above

Double Recipe Coffee Butter ream, recipe above

1 can dulce de leche (I used nestle)

1 recipe dark chocolate ganache, prepared fresh, recipe found here 

Directions

Split 9 inch rounds in half and place the three bottom layers on plates.

Make your ganache.

Pipe a large bead of butter cream around the diameter of these three layers.

Place 1/3 of the dulce de leche in the middle of each cake layer.  Carefully spread the caramel over the cake.  You may not cover the entire surface and that is ok.

Pour 1/3 of the hot ganache over each of the cakes, on top of the caramel.

Set the cakes in the fridge until the ganache is set. 

When the layers are ready, stack the cake and frost with the remaining butter cream (a double recipe is enough for a crumb coat, a final coat, and all accents.

Boston Cream Pie

So for my last entry, I told you all about how for my in-laws, I'm the official birthday cake maker.  I apparently neglected to mention that I also hold this title for my family.  And my friends.  Thus this entry, and the next one to come.

To celebrate my fathers birthday, we went out for Italian food and followed it up with this Boston cream pie.  I noted the changes I would make- I made a very traditional cake recipe, but it wasn't as moist as my usual "doctor up a box mix" method, so in lieu of being fancy, in the future I'll cut corners and end up with something more delicious.

The Cake
I used this recipe but I didn't think it was worth it.  I suggest you make a yellow cake using these directions, but prepare in two 9 inch rounds.

Pastry Cream
Recipe adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pastry-cream-2/

Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup white sugar
2 egg yolks, room temperature
1 egg, room temperature
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt

Directions
If your eggs are not at room temperature, place in a warm water bath.

Place 2 tbsp of butter (chopped into pea sized pieces) in a small bowl with vanilla and salt.  Set aside.

Line a 9 inch round (or whatever size round you baked your cakes in) with saran wrap.  Cut yourself an extra piece to place on top when you are complete.  Set aside.

Whisk milk and 1/4 cup sugar in to a medium saucepan. Set aside.

When eggs are warm, put them in your food processor and process for a few moments.  Add your cornstarch and remaining sugar.  Process until combined.

Now that you have your station ready, place your milk mixture on your stove and heat until boiling over medium head.

Once boiling, turn on your food processor.  Slowly drizzle the boiling milk into the egg mixture, being careful not to scramble the eggs by pouring too fast. Once combined, return mixture to saucepan.

Heat over medium heat until it boils and thickens, whisking constantly. Once it reaches the proper thickness, add the butter mixture and whisk until combined. 

Pour your pastry cream into your prepared pan and top with saran wrap to avoid a film from forming.  Store in the fridge until firm, overnight if possible.

The Ganache and Assembly
First, unwrap your pastry cream exposing the top but leave it in the 9 inch round.  Place the bottom layer of your cake on top of the pastry cream, upside down.  Flip out onto your serving tray, and top with the final cake layer.

Prepare your ganache, use the following recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/chocolate-ganache/Detail.aspx

Drizzle over your cake slowly, starting in the middle and working your way out in a circular pattern.  Let some of the ganache drip over the edge.  Stop when you reach the desired look- do not feel like you have to use all the ganache.

Almond Joy Cake with Coconut Ice Cream

I feel that everyone has their place in their family- and my place is firmly plopped in front of the stove.  Before I came along, homemade cakes simply didn't exist at my in-laws.  Birthdays were celebrated with a grocery store sheet cake and store bought ice cream.  I'm not sure when it began, but early in my relationship with my husband, I showed up to a birthday with a homemade cake.  Because that's what I do.  Cake is wonderful and every opportunity to make one should be capitalized on.  Not making a birthday cake would be like letting summer go by without a barbecue- or Christmas wrap up without getting sloshed on eggnog.  Sure- it's still technically Christmas- but you just threw away an opportunity that you will never get back.

Birthday means cake.  Cake is not purchased from a grocery store.  It's just not.

And when my father in laws 50th rolled around, I knew I had to do something special.  I have been on a streak of candy bar themed caked for this side of the family for awhile, so I decided to continue the trend with an Almond Joy cake.  Layers of Almond Joy filling and chocolate cake, topped with the richest fudge frosting you'll ever taste.  Serve with a side of coconut ice cream and almond slivers, and you are good to go.

The extra-specialness of this cake comes to fruition in the topper.  I got my fondant molding skills on and make a fishy cake topper.  It's not perfect- but it was definitely fun to make and a crowd pleaser.  I used Duff's fondant to make it, which I strongly recommend.  

Here we go! 

Almond Joy Cake

Chocolate Cake
Recipe adapted from:http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/too-much-chocolate-cake/Detail.aspx

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 ounce) package instant devils food (or chocolate of any kind) pudding mix

1 (8 oz) container of sour cream (full fat, I use Daisy brand)

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp pure vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees 

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, or your trusty stand mixer.

Pour batter into two round cake pans.

Bake as directed on your box mix.

Coconut Filling
Recipe adapted from: http://candy.about.com/od/nutcandy/r/almond_delights.htm

Ingredients

10 ounces sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups powdered sugar

14 ounces shredded sweetened coconut

Directions 

Combine ingredients in large bowl, set aside. 

Fudge Frosting
Recipe from: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chocolate-cakes/chocolate-sour-cream-cake-with-fudgy-frosting/

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) package semisweet chocolate pieces (I used Ghirardelli)

1 stick butter

1 8 ounce carton sour cream (full fat, I used Daisy)

1 lb sifted powdered sugar

Directions

Pour chocolate chips into a large glass mixing bowl (your glass stand mixer bowl if you have it.)  Cut butter into small pieces and add to the chocolate chips.  Microwave in 20 sec intervals until chocolate and butter are completely melted.  Let cool for 10 minutes.

Stir in sour cream and mix until combined.  Stir in powdered sugar and mix until combined.  Frost cake immediately.

Cake Assembly

Bake your two round cakes and let them cool.  (If you are doing this in advance, package cakes in saran wrap and foil and freeze until you are ready.  If working from frozen, defrost cakes so you can cut into them.)

Prepare your coconut filling.

Split both layers evenly.  Lay down your bottom cake layer and top with 1/3 of your coconut mixture.  you may have to use your hands to flatten out sections of the filling and piece them together to cover the cake.  Repeat this until you have three layers of coconut filling alternating between your four layers of work.

Place the cake in a cool location while you prepare your frosting.  Immediately frost and keep cake covered until ready to serve.  Serve with a scoop of coconut ice cream and top with almond pieces.

Coconut Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Jenis-Ice-Cream-Base

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk, divided

4 tsp. cornstarch

3 tbsp. cream cheese, softened (full fat, I use Philadelphia) 

1.5 tsp coconut extract 

1 cup coconut milk

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp. light corn syrup (1.5 ounces if weighing)

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

Directions

Mix 1/4 cup of milk with 4 tsp of cornstarch into a slurry in a small bowl, set aside.

Place softened cream cheese in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.   Blend with coconut extract and set aside.

In a 4 quart saucepan, add the remainder of your milk, coconut milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup and salt.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Mix cornstarch slurry into your saucepan and return mixture to boil (increasing heat to medium high until it boils, reducing again once it boils.)  Cook for 2 minutes while stirring.  

Pour 1/4 of your milk mixture over your cream cheese and whisk until smooth.  Add the rest of the milk mixture and blend until combined.  Pour your ice cream base into a gallon sized ziplock bag and place in an ice water bath until completely cool.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Here's the final product- I got a little crazy with the fondant work!

Wedding Tasting: Various Truffles and Pops

I'm going to file this one under "it seemed like a good idea at the time."

I don't know how or why, but my friends and I always seem to sit around and talk about how freaking cool it would be to do this or that.  Then we talk about it more and more, because really there isn't a lot more to do in Iowa other then sit around and shoot the shit and google pictures of cake.  So slowly, but surely, without ever actually making a decision, whatever it was we were talking about becomes reality.  It's not just baking, either- one minute I'm talking to my running buddies about how fun it would be to train for a marathon, and the next minute I'm on mile 19 of a training run that started at 3:30 am, climbing up a hill, in the rain, certain that my legs must be bleeding because no intact leg could possible emit this much pain.  (This.  Really.  Happened.) 

Well obviously this phenomenon happens with baking quite a bit.  My friends and I dream up some sort of crazy and extravagant cake concoction, and all of a sudden I'm standing in my kitchen with second degree burns from pastry cream all up my arms, filling and ganaching cupcakes until 1:00 am.  

Cut to my dear friend and coworker getting engaged and briefly mentioning that she'd like to do a dessert buffet instead of a traditional tiered cake.  Well my eyes light up like a kid on Christmas morning and I think to myself "I COULD DO THAT" and I start dreaming with my friend about how cool it would be if we did it together.  The next thing I know we are taking the bride to lunch to discuss her likes and dislikes and the schedule a tasting.

What have I gotten myself in to???

Honestly, at this point it's still fun and exciting, but I know after assembling 200 cake pops and monogramming a whole slew of butter cream sugar cookies, I might not be signing the same tune.  But for now, I'm going to continue perusing blogs and recipes sites searching for inspiration while daydreaming about how freaking awesome this will be when done.  I'll keep googling wedding websites galore to see how others have set their buffets up- complete with cupcake wrappers, color coordinated hand made accents and decorations, and elaborate food stands that I somehow have to con my engineer husband into making for me.

So first things first- we hosted a tasting in order for the bride to decide what she wanted to have.  And here are just a few of the things that shall be taking over my kitchen in a few short months.

Oh, and I might have bought an extra fridge to support this event.  Yup, that happened.  

Paula Deens Cookie Dough Truffles turned into candy pops

...pictured with... 

White and Dark Chocolate Coated Shortbread (using this recipe.) 

White Chocolate Coated Red Velvet Cake Pops 

Monogrammed Sugar Cookies with Butter Cream Frosting 

Scotcharoos formed into truffles and dipped in melted chocolate and butterscotch chips 

Cookie Dough Topped Brownies

So last month, Husband got a fancy new job.  He's pretty much the most important person I know, now.  He's been jet-setting around the globe to exotic locations like College Station, Texas and Hotlanta, and quite frankly, I'm shocked that he hasn't completely forgotten us little people.  He has been strutting around in fancy new sport coats and skinny ties, so really it's just a matter of time.  I will, however, tolerate this because I feel that this is just one step closer to him making his millions and thus allowing me to become a trophy wife and open an adorable bakery where I eat my profits.  Literally.  But I'd hire a trainer in order to maintain my trophy wife physique.

Back.  To.  Reality.  So perhaps I'm exaggerating a tad.  And in the interest of honesty, I may have been the one to purchase all the fancy new duds for him.  So, mocking him for wearing them is a little below the belt.  But my husband has a new job and he's a little bit fancier because of it.

So today was the first official fancy new job work pot-luck that my husband neglected to tell me about until the day before.  He claimed that he didn't need to bring anything for the silly reason that "he couldn't even go" which is so not even the point.  Husband almost prevented me from taking advantage of a baking opportunity.  I just... I just don't know.  It's like he doesn't even know me at all.  And then I wonder- what if I hadn't found out on time?  What if I had sat idly by never knowing that I could be using my husbands coworkers to support my borderline unhealthy addition of trying new and completely gluttonous recipes?  ...Shutter.

But thankfully that didn't happen, and I got to try out a new recipe.  I had been inspired by these cookie dough topped brownies which I found on Pinterest, but I used my favorite recipe for cookie dough instead.  And then I maybe accidentally made a double batch- because it just seemed wrong not to.  I wonder who could possibly take care of all those left overs?  Guess I'll just have to man up and take on that responsibility myself.  A true martyr, I am.

Cookie Dough Topped Brownies
Cookie Dough recipe from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paulas-best-dishes/cookie-dough-truffles-recipe/index.html

Ingredients
1/4 salted butter, softened
3/8 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
7 ounces sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Ghirardelli double chocolate brownie mix (or your favorite mix)
Eggs, vegetable oil, and water (in amounts designated by the mix)

Extra chocolate for drizzling

Directions
Prepare your brownie mix and bake as directed in an 8x8 greased pan. Be careful not to over bake.

While the brownies are cooling, prepare cookie dough.  Cream butter and brown sugar in a large bowl.  Add vanilla.  Slowly add flour until fully incorporated.  Add in sweetened condensed milk until mixture comes together.  Mix in the chocolate chips.

Working in small chunks, grab about a golf ball sized portions of the cookie dough and flatten in out in your hands.  Place these over the brownies until the entire surface is covered.  Use your hands to flatten out the dough and blend seams.

Chill before cutting.  Drizzle with melted chocolate.

Peanut Butter Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

When it comes to technology, I'm somewhat of an enigma.  At work, my job and therefore my livelihood depends on me being able to learn new programs and create business solutions.  I’m pretty much a stone cold bad ass with Microsoft Excel.

But when it comes to anything popular, hip or “current” in the wild world of technology, I’m freaking pathetic.  I don’t tweet.  Facebook borderline frightens me because I’m convinced my computer will start posting things that I’m doing without my knowledge.  Actually that happened once- all of a sudden it started posting everything I was reading on CNN.com and I had to have my husband turn it off for me.  For a few days, the entire world knew that I read 10,000 articles about why America is still fat.  Gee, whatever could the problem be?  I’m a food blogger who specifically googles “paula deen” before whatever recipe I’m is looking for, and I have legitimately scrapped recipes that call for low fat cream cheese or margarine.  I should go hang my head in shame- I’m the freaking problem.

Ok- I’m completely off track at this point.  Here’s the point: technology frightens me.  And for that reason, I avoided this “pinterest” thing that everyone had been telling me that I needed to get into.  I didn’t understand it.  It’s new and different and that frightens me.  And to add insult to injury, you have to “request” to be “invited” to this damn thing.  Really?  It’s like middle school all over again- pinterest is the cool kids party, and little miss goodie-two-shoes-who-brings-cupcakes-to-teacher isn’t invited.

Well apparently one of my equally goodie two shoed friends somehow got invited to the party, and started showing me all the amazingly delicious recipes she was pinning.  So despite my many “I WILL NOT PINTEREST” rants, I sheepishly asked for an invite and spent the last week going through my bookmarks and creating recipe boards.  This is going nowhere good. 

So pretty much from this point on, I can ditch the lengthy stories prior to my recipes and replace them with one sentence that will describe all of my future baking endeavors: “I found this on pinterest and it had to be in my belly.”

I found this on pinterest and it had to be in my belly.  Peanut butter caramel chocolate chip bar time.    

Peanut Butter Caramel Chocolate Chip Bars

Recipe from: http://thebitesizedbaker.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/chocolate-chip-cookie-and-caramel-peanut-butter-bars/

Ingredients

Original Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies:

2 ¼  cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels

Caramel-Peanut Butter

½ cup Evaporated Milk

60 whole caramels, Unwrapped

½ cup peanut butter, melted

1/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 375° F and grease 9 x 13-inch pan.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spread half of cookie dough into prepared pan and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a double boiler (or a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of boiling water) melt caramels with ½ cup evaporated milk.

When melted and combined, add ½ cup melted peanut butter and pour over cookie base. Sprinkle chocolate chips as evenly as you can over the caramel.

Turn out remaining cookie dough on work surface.  Spray your hands with cooking spray.  Use your hands to press it into a large square a little smaller than the pan. Use a spatula to remove it from the surface, then set it on top of the caramel and chocolate chips.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and edges are set. Cool in pan on wire rack. 

Baby Heath Cupcakes and a Baby Shower

So for some reason I'm still not entirely sure of, my friends and family keep allowing me to take charge of the menu for various baby showers, wedding showers, birthdays and similar events.  Well actually- I can tell you the reason: I'm willing and I have a stand mixer.  These are really the only two important prerequisites one needs in order validate plowing over everyone else's creativity when detailing what will and will not be a part of a buffet.

And for the baby shower I helped host this past weekend, the following was my rule of thumb:

Can the food item in question be given an adorable, baby themed name in order to ensure that not one person forgets they are eating food at a BABY shower and therefore everything must have the word BABY in the name?  No?  Then off the menu it goes to be replaced with some miniature, baby boy themed item that is obviously superior.

Yup, I'm that person that comes up with themed food for a shower.  I also print out food labels with pretentious descriptions, coordinate my serving platters, and elbow anyone who gets in my way in the kitchen.  Want to share the kitchen with me?  Better grab a sponge, because lord knows you're not touching my stand mixer or my new Tahitian vanilla I got for Christmas.  

On an related note: My most sincere apologies to my hostess friend who came over to help.  My kitchen would be a disaster without her.  But hey, I did let her core and fill the cupcakes- a high honor in my book.  

It's amazing I still have friends.  People will tolerate your overbearing attitude and strange affinity for all things ruffly and cutesy if you know your way around a mixing bowl.  This is why bakers are never lonely.  

But moving on- for the baby shower the mom's last name is Heath- so I just couldn't resist capitalizing on that for my first baby shower recipe:  Baby Heath Cupcakes!

Chocolate Cupcakes 

Recipe adapted from: http://paxye.com/blog/the-best-chocolate-cake-i-have-ever-made/
(A half recipe of what is listed below was enough for the buffet!)

If you are feeling too lazy to make the cake from scratch, I recommend the following recipe: http://cheatday.blogspot.com/2011/04/trio-of-oreo-cupcakes.html

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 ½ cups buttermilk
1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp pure vanilla
4 oz unsweetened chocolate squares, melted and slightly cooled

Directions

Combine sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl with a whisk. Set aside.

In your stand mixer or another large bowl, beat eggs for about 3 minutes using paddle attachment, until they have thickened slightly and are lemon-coloured. Add buttermilk, coffee, oil, vanilla and melted chocolate. Mix  until well blended.

Add dry ingredients 1/2 cup at a time to wet ingredients and mix until batter is smooth. Put an ice cream scoop full into muffin tins fitted with liners.  Bake at 350 until a cake tester comes out clean, about 17 minutes.  Cool completely before proceeding.

Butterscotch Filling 
For a half batch of cupcakes I still made all of the following and had tons extra

Ingredients

11 ounces of Butterscotch chips

8 ounces Heavy Whipping Cream

1 Cup of Butterscotch Butter Cream (below)

4 ounces (half bag) of Heath toffee pieces

Directions

Place the chips in your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Heat your cream over medium heat in a small saucepan.  Once the cream just begins to boil, pour over the chips and let set for a few seconds.  Turn your mixer on low until combined.  This is your butterscotch sauce.

Next, make your butter cream (recipe follows).

Butterscotch Butter Cream 
(This is for a double recipe which is needed)

Recipe adapted from: http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Caramel-Buttercream-Icing

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup butter

16 ounce container of ice cream butterscotch topping 

2 tsp vanilla

2 lbs plus 1 cup (or 9 cups) powdered sugar 

4 tbsp milk (I used whole)

Directions

Cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add ice cream topping and vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.


In a new bowl, combine about half of the butterscotch sauce into one cup of prepared butter cream.  Add your Heath pieces.  This is your final filling.  To fill your cupcakes, core with an apple corer once cooled and put a spoonful of filling inside.  Top with the original core if you desire.  Frost with the remaining butter cream.  Finish the cupcake with a drizzle of the remaining butterscotch sauce and sprinkle with remaining Heath pieces.