This crazy dessert started with an email from one of my taste testing boys titled "Challenge for Tor" and had a link to a chocolate cupcake stuffed with an oreo & peanut butter cup. The body of the email read "think you can recreate?" -- either my darling taste testers are getting smarter & are intentionally playing into my need to please & to be able to do everything or they just got lucky. Either way, the end result was delicious.
I don't like cupcakes in general but definitely not chocolate ones so I thought I'd change it up a bit. A few months ago I made blondies with toffee & reese cups & I really liked the batter so I decided to use that instead of the cupcakes. Very good choice on my part!
Let me just start the photographs with this thing of beauty. A friend from work lent me her KitchenAid -- oh. my. gosh. I absolutely NEED one of these. Just look at her:
I'm in love.
So, I don't know if it was the KitchenAid or just my normally crazy behavior but my thought process was as follows: I initially made 12 cookie cups. Then I thought I should take them over to a friend's house for his birthday. Then I thought that they were too aggressive to pair with the cake that another friend made. Then I thought that they were too delicious not to share. Then I thought I could use my mini muffin tin to make smaller, less aggressive versions. Then I did. Crazy, I know. Between my newfound love affair with the Kitchen Aid & the fact that Amanda wasn't here to balance out the crazy, I just couldn't control myself.
The recipe that I'm going to give you is the for the big cookie cups. I halved the batter for the minis & eliminated the oreo crust.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks of butter (healthy, huh?!), melted & cooled
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
12 mini candy bars (I used reeses & snickers)
12 oreos, halved & with cream remaining
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
You are going to get really good at halving the oreos. I wasn't as good as I normally am so I had to use a knife to scrape the cream from one side to the other. Place the oreo halves, cream-side up, into a well-greased cupcake tins.
Cream the butter, sugars & vanilla until light & fluffy. Add the eggs & beat well.
Whisk together the flour & baking soda. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until just incorporated.
Check out that batter! YUM.
Scoop the batter into the oreo-lined cupcake tin until about halfway full.
Press the candy bar into the batter.
Scoop the remaining batter onto the filled tins. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn golden.
They will sink considerably once they've cooled which is fine since we heated them up and put vanilla ice cream on them. Why not add more calories?! ;)
I didn't try one until today but they've been getting rave reviews. After trying one, let me just say... yowsa! Sooo delicious!
These are the mini muffins before they've been cooked. Because they're smaller, I placed the cookie in the bottom, the candy bar on top & didn't place any more cookie over top.
They cooked for 12-15 minutes. They, too, sunk a bit but not as much as the big ones.
With the big ones, I forgot to mark which were Snickers & which were Reese's so it was a surprise every time! Oops! With the minis, I put crushed Oreos over the Reese's ones...and then I forgot what the Oreos meant when I was serving them. Fail.
I wasn't a big fan of the frosting. I tried to cover the sunken-ness with the frosting but next time I would just deal with that without the frosting. It was just too sweet.
Check these out though. Soo good.
This is another pinterest find.
I've obviously been a little behind on my posts (not like anyone noticed because, let's be honest, very few people read this blog!) since this recipe is from the Super Bowl. I really like making desserts in cupcake liners, mostly because I enjoy looking for seasonally and/or event appropriate liners. But they're also nice because they're smaller portions and don't need a plate and fork.
These were delicious. A friend of mine who doesn't like cheesecake liked these -- that's the mark of a tasty treat! And also made my night... yes, I have problems.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
6 oz. raspberries
2 tbsp. sugar
2 lbs. cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 c. sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs, room temperature
Event-appropriate cupcake liners
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees & line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. I was making these for the Super Bowl so, of course, I had to find event-appropriate cupcake liners. How perfect are these?!
Line a muffin tin with the cupcake liners. Melt the butter then combine with the graham cracker crumbs. Put about a tablespoon of the mixture in the bottom of each tin. I used a meat mallet to press the crumbs down. Place in the oven & bake for 5-8 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.
To make the raspberry puree, combine the raspberries & sugar in a food processor & blend.
Set it aside to use once the cheesecake is made.
To make the cheesecake, beat the softened cream cheese until it's fairly fluffy. Add the sugar & beat until it's smooth. Mix in the salt, vanilla & eggs -- add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition.
Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full with the cheesecake mixture.
I added about a teaspoon of the raspberry puree to each cheesecake but in hindsight, I would've done more. I placed the raspberry puree in dots so that I could swirl it but shockingly enough I was running super late & the swirling turned to quickly mixing it with no regard for aesthetics.
In my rush, I took no photos of the finished product. All I can say is that everyone at our party loved them. They are definitely going to be made again!
I saw this recipe on Pinterest & made them the same night I was making stuffed peppers. I've decided that I need more counter space and a double oven... in my rented apartment. While I don't have the money or ability to have a double oven, I had to improvise by cooking the peppers in the boys' apartment upstairs. Consequently, I was running around between apartments, cleaning up the dirty dishes & cooking millions of things at once. My point in all of this is that the pictures are lacking because I was a crazy busy person while I was cooking & cleaning ;)
The title of this blog is "Grate Expectations... with the possibility of epic failure." In my opinion, this was a failure -- not "epic" but a failure nonetheless. That being said, some of my friends have eaten several cupcakes and have enjoyed them so I suppose you can be the judge. I thought they were wayy too sweet. And quite honestly, had wayy to many steps to be worth it!
Ingredients:
24 Oreos, halved (with cream filling) -- I got VERY good at twisting!
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup sugar (probably why they tasted so sweet!)
3 large egg whites, room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup milk
20 Oreos chopped in fairly big pieces
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
3 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 c. confectioners' sugar
1 tbsp. heavy cream
Oreo cookie crumbs (because crazy people like to garnish their cupcakes at 11:45 PM when they're finishing cooking)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners -- seriously, how cute are these?!
Place one of the Oreo halves with cream filling in the bottom of the cupcake liners. I'll tell ya what, the surprise Oreo crust is a fan favorite!
In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder & salt & mix together with a fork.
In a large bowl combine the butter & sugar and beat until light & fluffy. Blend in the egg whites one at a time. Make sure to scrape the edges of the bowl between each egg addition. Blend in the vanilla extract. Beat in half of the dry ingredients. Add the milk & beat in the rest of the dry ingredients until just combined. Gently fold in the oreos to the batter.
Bet you believe me now that there are too many steps!
Fill the cupcakes about 3/4 of the way & bake for about 20 minutes. You should be able to insert a toothpick into the center & have it come out clean. Let them sit in the pan for about 5 minutes between moving to a wire rack.
To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter and beat on high for 2-3 minutes. Blend in the vanilla extract. Beat in the confectioners' sugar & blend until smooth. Add the heavy cream & blend until combined. Then increase the speed & whip for 2-3 minutes.
Frost the cupcakes & sprinkle the crumbled Oreos on top. I also garnished them with the leftover cookies that had been halved to make the surprise Oreo crust.
While they look tasty, I don't really think they're worth the time -- they do LOOK good though!
We had an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party at our apartment so I wanted to come up with a few little Christmasy desserts to have out. I decided on cake balls & Santa hat brownies. After all, nothing compliments Bud Light like a cake ball.
Let me preface all of these directions with the fact that I did not do a good job photographing my steps. Some of the time there are good pictures; some of the time the pictures are pointless; and some of the time the pictures are missing altogether. I apologize. I'm still new at this blogging stuff!
So... cake balls. You will bake a cake according to the directions on the box. I used holiday funfetti. Once the cake has cooled, put it into a bowl & mash it up. You can use a spoon but I've found that using my hands is a whole lot more effective. Mix the mashed up cake with about 3/4 of the container of frosting. I used cream cheese frosting. You want the mixture to be moist enough that they can be rolled into balls without falling apart. Here are my finished balls:
Once they're all finished, place them in the freezer. Next, you will work on the chocolate topping. You'll need to use melting chocolate for this otherwise it'll be thick & lumpy. I got red and green melting chocolate & Christmas sprinkles. You will probably want to do all of one color first. If you're crazy like me, you will make the same number of each so that they can be symmetrically placed on the plate. Problems, I know.
I have zero pictures of the next steps so I'll have to just type the directions. Time to frost your balls. Once the chocolate is melted, get the balls out of the freezer and dip them one by one into the chocolate. I just used by fingers because I was able to get a much thinner coating of chocolate on them than when I used a lollipop stick.
[I made snowmen cake pops that I'll write about next & I'll talk about tips for using lollipop sticks].
If you're going to be putting sprinkles on the cake balls, you'll need to do it right after you dip them in the chocolate because it hardens fairly quickly. Michael's carries every color imaginable but you can also get white & dye it your own color. The decorating possibilities are endless!
In November, I made turkey cake pops:
The turkey cake pops were a big hit... and by big hit I mean that my friends didn't make fun of me as much as I had anticipated. So, instead of stopping there, I decided to make snowmen cake pops for our Christmas party. If one was good, two must be better!
Here are the supplies for the snowmen:
I wanted the snowman heads to be smoother than the red & green ones I had just done so I decided to use lollipop sticks to dip them, even though it meant a thicker chocolate coating. Here is a tip I've learned: if you put a bit of chocolate on the stick, place it in the cake ball (about half way through the ball) then pop them in the freezer for 5 minutes, the stick doesn't pull through the cake ball. It's a lot more stable and easy to handle this way.
I also like to use a coffee mug to melf the chocolate so that the area is deep and narrow. It makes the dipping much easier. One by one, dip the cake pops into the chocolate. You may need to wait a bit, let the excess chocolate drip off & then let the chocolate harden before putting it back onto the plate.
Once they are all dipped & are hardening on the plate, you can assemble the hats. First I split the oreos & scraped the cream from the middle. One half of the oreo is the brim of his hat. Then I took the mini oreos & used a toothpick to scrape around the edges because the cream gets brown from the cookie crumbs... and because I have problems. I used a little bit of the melted chocolate to "glue" them together.
Next, take the sticks out of the cake balls so that you can attach the hats. Spread some of the melted chocolate on the top of the cake ball and press the hat into it. Place it back on the plate and it'll harden together within minutes.
Next comes his carrot nose. For this, I used rainbow chip sprinkles but you can really use anything that is small and orange. Just take put some of the melted chocolate on the tip of a toothpick then press the nose into the hardened shell. You'll want to hold it on there for a few seconds to make sure it attaches.
For the eyes I used an edible pen. But you could certainly dip a toothpick into brown or black chocolate and make his eyes & mouth that way as well. I think they turned out to be pretty cute!
Lastly, I made Santa hat brownies. I found this idea on Pinterest & I must say, they looked much cuter there than they did when I made them!
For these I just baked brownies from a box, cut them with a tiny circle cookie cutter, attached a strawberry and decorated them to look like Santa's hat. They were kind of wilty looking at the beginning and were veryyy wilty looking by the end of the night. But they tasted delicious. And how cute is that plate?! :)
