Pink-Lemonade Thumbprints & Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes!

Jas and I have two great recipes that are a must for your summer list of things to bake! Last weekend, Jas and Kevin had their open house and engagement party with huge crowd of 30 people! Dessert is always a must so Jas and I made Pink-Lemonade Thumbprints that taste light and buttery with a fresh shortbread flavor that crumbles in your mouth. The glaze is equally good and sweet, and is perfect summer dessert! The recipe is listed below:

Pink-Lemonade Thumbprints

Active Time: 35 min.

Total Time: 2 hr.

Makes: About 2 dozen

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 cups confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting

1 tsp coarse salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

2 tbsp. finely grated lemon zest, plus ¼ cup fresh lemon juice

1 raspberry

Preheat oven to 325*. Whisk together flour, ½ cup confectioners’ sugar, and salt in a bowl. In a large bowl, beat butter with ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar, zest, and 2 tbsp. lemon juice on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in flour mixture on low speed.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Freeze 10 minutes.

Bake 10 minutes. Remove sheets one at a time and press the end of a wooden-spoon handle into center of each ball to indent. Continue to bake until golden on bottoms, 16 to 18 minutes more. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

Whisk together remaining 1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar and 2 tbsp. lemon juice with raspberry in a bowl, breaking up berry. Dust cookies with sugar, spoon glaze into indents, and let set, 10 minutes. Cookies can be store in a single layer at room temperature up to 1 week.

http://www.marthastewart.com/1114953/pink-lemonade-thumbprints

We also made Martha Stewart’s Strawberry Cupcakes with her Strawberry Cream Cheese frosting. The frosting is so addicting, I challenge you to try and not eat a cup of it plus the cupcake. Both were equally delicious and the strawberries gave it a gorgeous presentation and taste! Due to space, the direct links are provided below for your convenience! We hope you enjoy these recipes and try them out this week! J

http://www.marthastewart.com/349933/strawberry-cupcakes

http://www.marthastewart.com/257030/strawberry-cream-cheese-filling

Chocolate Raspberry Icebox Cake

You never know when you'll stumble across a recipe that is a must try! I was at the mechanics getting a safety inspection done on my car, and he has a very limited variety of magazines to browse through. Field & Stream, Popular Mechanics, Good Housekeeping, & Redbook were the top picks. I went with Redbook & found this decadent Chocolate Raspberry Icebox cake recipe! The presentation is beautiful with the layers of raspberries, and with the cream cheese and heavy whipping cream it's sure to satisfy anyone's sweet tooth! I couldn't find a direct link with this recipe to Redbook; however, I took a pic of the page & it's also featured on one Pinterest link. For space purposes I will attach the link below, but I hope this recipe makes it on your list of desserts to try this week! Enjoy!:)

 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/407505466256563277/?no_auto_redirect_or_interstitial=1

Kit Kat Mega Cake!!

I was asked to make a birthday cake for my good friend Megan son's 2nd birthday party! The beauty of Kit Kat cakes is that once you make the cake layers you can form a Kit Kat border around them for added structural support. Add some bright fun ribbon, and once chilled the cake can hold its own when the ribbon is removed.

To make a cake this large I would encourage a test run. I did a test one a week before and it greatly helped with figuring out layer size, coloring of cake, and how much frosting to incorporate. This cake was 3 boxes of Betty Crocker White Cake, almost 2 cups of egg whites and close to 6 cans of frosting ( 3 being white & 3 being milk chocolate). The ribbon I purchased at Michaels, and the fondant lettering I was able to pick up at Hy-Vee's bakery since when I tried frosting the name it wasn't thick enough to stand out.

This cake ended up being 9 layers with four (9 inch layers) on bottom and five (6 inch layers) on top. Each layer of cake was really cool to see once you cut into them, with each layer a different burst of vibrant color!

This is the link I loosely worked off of, and then put my spin on the rest of the cake. Hope you enjoy!:)

https://micakela.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/kit-kat-and-mm-rainbow-cake-15/

Christmas Feast in CO!

Christmas isn't complete without a feast! This year I had the opportunity to fly out to CO, and it was such a great time! Jason and Kevin just bought a beautiful new house, and the kitchen is way spacious, perfect for baking and cooking! Jason and I spent numerous hours in the kitchen getting all the recipes made. On the dinner menu was the following: Honey Glazed Ham, homemade mashed potatoes, brown gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, Martha Stewart's Herb and Cheese hot rolls, and Martha Stewart Pumpkin Spice Bundt cake. It was a pretty impressive lineup of recipes, and a lot of fun to make. 

Two of the recipes we would like to highlight to try are Martha Stewarts Herb and Cheese hot rolls and Martha's Pumpkin Spiced Bundt cake. We have a picture of the rolls, but unfortunately the bundt cake was so popular that we didn't get a picture captured in time. The Herb and Cheese hot rolls were featured in Martha's Dec/Jan double issue that should still be out at the news stands; both links are copied below to maximize space. Enjoy and have a great New Years!:)

http://www.marthastewart.com/1093615/herb-and-cheese-rolls

http://www.marthastewart.com/315295/spicy-pumpkin-bundt-cake

German Chocolate Cake

October 30th marked my Grandfathers 90th birthday.  Sadly, this great man passed away last January. In honer of his birthday I made my Grandmother one of her favorite cakes. German Chocolate Cake, this is a layered chocolate cake from the United States that is filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. The name of the cake comes from the creator of the baking chocolate used in the recipe.  Sam German developed the dark backing chocolate for the American Baker's Chocolate Company in 1852. The cake recipe was created by Mrs. George Clay in 1957 and then was distributed by various news papers through out the United States.  The cake became so popular that it increased Baker's Chocolate sales by 73%.

For this classic recipe I turned to Better Homes and Gardens and due to its length I will not post it. However, I encourage you all to try this cake out as it so soft and delightful.

Mama Owl Cupcakes & Acorn Cookies!

One of my best girl friends from college had her baby shower this past weekend, and I was so excited to have the opportunity to make the dessert! The theme was “Owls” and was perfect being in the fall season. I decided on Mama Owl Cupcakes and Acorn cookies because of the presentation. For the chocolate cupcakes I used Martha Stewarts, “Chocolate Cupcakes” recipe.

http://www.marthastewart.com/337010/chocolate-cupcakes

 

For the vanilla cupcakes I utilized Betty Crocker Vanilla cake box for time purposes, and Betty Crocker’s Vanilla Whipped Frosting. I had purchased some neon food coloring, and was able to blend some blues and green to reach the desired blue hue. Here’s a list of topping materials I bought to decorate the Mama Owl:

1. Circus Peanuts- cut to mold her beak and talons
2. Junior Mints- for the pupil of her eyes
3. Jelly Rings- for her eye color
4. Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers- these were super hard to find since they are a seasonal item. The only place I could locate them was at Schnucks grocery store. These were cut for eyebrows and layered for wing depth
5. Sweetened coconut (1 cup used for texturized front of her chest)
6. Mini chocolate chips- used to give speckled chest
7. Long Pretzel Rods for tree branches at the end of her feet
8. White board to place her on-purchased from Hy-Vee bakery
9. 3 plastic cupcake containers to transport cupcakes, highly recommended to assemble at location J

 

http://cuteeverything.com/autumn/owl-cupcakes/

 

The cupcakes were a big hit, and the Acorn cookies were also really popular. Ingredient wise the Acorn cookies were really simple to assemble. There are close to 70 mini Nutter Butter cookies in a package, so make sure to allocate back some time back because you will have to do it in batches.

 

Acorn Cookies:

• Package  of mini Nutter Butter cookies
• Dark Chocolate Hershey Kisses
• Caramel Hershey Kisses
• Mini chocolate chips
• Almond Bark (melted) to “glue” the cookies, kisses and mini chocolate chip together

 

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/acorn-treats

 

Enjoy!

The not so green Green Chili and homemade Tortillas

If your from Colorado you would know how important green chili is. So I have been on the hunt for the perfect chili. This recipe was republished by the Denver Post as it was loved thorough out the city.  The chili its self was good however it was not very green. This is a problem and therefor not a good green chili recipe. But since the chili was good I will publish the dish. I also made tortillas that rocked!

Ingredients
1 pound diced pork (whichever cut you like — shoulder, chops, loin)
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 1/2 tablespoons dark chile powder
1 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon garlic powder or 2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, diced
3 cans (10 ounces each) chicken broth
1 can (32 ounces) whole tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3-4 fresh roasted green chiles or 1 can (8 ounces) diced green chiles
3-5 jalapeño peppers, diced with seeds (remove seeds to bring down the heat factor)
Tortillas
Shredded cheese

Directions
Brown pork on all sides in oil over medium high heat. Add cumin, chile powder, oregano, garlic powder, onion and broth.
Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1 hour. Crush tomatoes with potato masher in another pan. To tomatoes and their juice, add tomato paste, green chiles and jalapeños. Combine tomato and pork mixtures.

Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 2 hours (or place in a slow cooker up to 8 hours), until pork is very tender. Serve with warm tortillas and shredded cheese.

Tortillas Recipe 

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup water

3 tablesppons olive oil 

Directions

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Stir in water and oil. Turn onto a clouded surface; knead 10-12 times, adding a little flour or water if needed to achieve a smooth coach. Let rest for 10 minutes. 

Divide dough into eight portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 7-in. circle. 

In a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook tortillas over medium heat for 1 minute on each side or until lightly browned. Keep warm. yield: 8.