Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I love me some veggies in my cupcakes, who doesn't!  Its a great way to sneak in some vegetables and not feel so guilty eating a delicious cupcake or 2 ;)....okay who am I kidding, there's not that much veggies in a carrot cake cupcake, it would be better if you just ate a carrot.  But at least you dont feel as guilty eating carrot cake as you would say a chocolate cupcake :)  

I made these moist and delicious cupcakes for a birthday party last night, paired with a slightly tangy lemon cream cheese frosting it was the perfect addition that put these cupcakes over the top and made them a huge hit at the party.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Adapted from Paula Deen

Yields 24-28 cupcakes

Ingredients 

2 cups flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups canola oil

3 cups grated carrots

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line your cupcake pans with 24 liners

- In a electric mixer combined your flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix together on low for 30 seconds.

- Add in your oil and eggs and mix until completely combined

- Mix in your grated carrot and mix until fully combined into the batter.

- Using a ice cream scoop, fill your cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 17 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

6 tablespoons butter, at room temp 

12 tablespoons cream cheese, cold

1 tablespoon lemon juice

4 cups powdered sugar

Directions

- In a electric mixer beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

- Add in the lemon juice and slowly 1/4 cup at a time add in the powdered sugar until all of the powdered sugar is completely incorporated. 

- Beat the frosting for another 2-3 minutes and pipe onto your cupcakes.

Triple Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies

Chocolate lovers unite! this cookie will satisfy any chocolate lovers craving. These cookies are chewy, soft, chocolaty and delicious. The marshmallow in the middle gives it that extra gooey component. 

I will admit the frist couple of batches were trail and error, I thought that I would just add the marshmallows to the batter and let them bake....big mistake not only did it create a huge mess  but the marshmallows that oozed out of the cookie started to burn and turned hard and crunchy. So on the third batch i decided to take all the marshmallows out of the batter, by hand :/  and once the baked cookies came out of the oven I pushed a marshmallow into the middle and SUCCESS!  The marshmallow slowly melted into the middle of the cookie and I finally had my triple chocolate marshmallow cookie. 

Triple Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies
Oishii Treat Original
Yields: 30 cookies

1 cup butter at room temp
2/3 cups white sugar
2/3 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 3/4 cups dark chocolate chips (one 8 oz bag)
1 cup marshmallows (you can use regular small marshmallows if you dont have chocolate ones and add as many to the middle of the cookie as you like, I added about 2 marshmallows in the middle of each hot cookie)

Directions

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Cream together the butter and sugars until full incorporated  add in your eggs and vanilla extract and beat until combined.
- Add in the cocoa mixture, baking soda and salt once fully combined add in the flour and mix until fully incorporated
- Hand mix in your chocolate chips.
- Roll a 1 inch ball of cookie dough and place on a cookie sheet 1 inch apart from the other.
- Bake for 10 minutes, once you remove the cookies from the oven push a marshmallow into the middle of the cookie and place on a wire rack to cool.

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake

I've had a nice short vacation this week, just what I needed to recharge for the next couple of months of courts, school and volunteer work. We spent the first 3 days in Sapporo Japan experiencing the extreme cold and the snow/ice festival. 

I gotta say you know the one thing that's a little unnerving about living in Japan? the amount of earthquakes and tsunami warnings we get.  Try being on a ferry off the coast of Japan for 8 hours with a tsunami warning flashing on the t.v constantly.  In Japan the minute there's an earthquake there will usually be a tsunami warning that follows, so they will put a small map of japan on the lower corner of every t.v. channel flashing either yellow or red with what areas are in potential danger for a tsunami.  Totally didn't calm me nerves while I was on the ferry for 8 hours, so i decided to turn off the tv and sleep until we reached our destination.   Thank goodness the boat ride was smooth and uneventful. The last few days this week have been spent at home unwinding and making some delicious recipes. I also wanted to share some pictures from Saporro Ice Festival, this is the biggest ice and snow festival in Japan.

Those are real fish and crabs in the ice

The snowboarding ramp was built right in the middle of the city in Odori Park

My Favorite snow sculpture and you can even see the guy on top still working on it

Back to the food, this is a nice healthy banana cake with coconut oil replacing the butter, some rolled oats added to the batter for fiber and of course gotta have some mini chocolate chips for a little indulgence. 

I had some extremely rippen bananas that needed to be put to good use, I also wanted an excuse to use a cake pan and test my new cloth baking strips to see if they actually work, they are supposed to go around the outside of your cake pan and they help the cake bake even with a flat surface instead of a dome shape.  I was pleasantly surprised that the cake came out pretty even, the strip prevented the sides from becoming to overly cooked and hard and for the most part the cake came out flat, with just a very slight dome.  If I didn't use the strips I know the cake would have came out with a larger dome. 

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake
Oishii Treat Original

Ingredients 

1 1/4 flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 ripe bananas mashed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line a 8 inch cake pan with parchment or wax paper and spray with baking or cooking oil on the sides of the pan. (to prevent the cake to sticking to the sides)
- In a small bowl combined your dry ingredients flour, baking soda, spices and oats and whisk until mixed together.
- In a electric mixer cream together the coconut oil and brown sugar, add in your egg, vanilla extract and mashed bananas. Mix until combined.
- Add half the dry ingredients + 1 tablespoon milk to your wet mixture and mix till combined. Add in the rest of the dry ingredients with the other tablespoon of milk and mix until the batter is fully combined.
- Hand stir in your chocolate chips and pour the batter into the cake pan and level in out with a spatula.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes and remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, remove cake from pan and let cool to room temp. or serve warm with some whipped cream and a tall glass of milk.

I link up to these fun parties 

Vegetarian Dippin Dogs

The Super Bowl game will air on Monday in Japan and even vegetarians like to have tail gate snackage and super bowl party food.  I thought this was a cool, easy, and fun way to make dippin dogs with the vegetarian links, paired with a jalapeno ketchup and mustard.  Plus the hot dogs are so tasty I doubt your meat eating friends will even care or know they're not beef or whatever mixture of animals are usually made with hotdogs.

We had to eat these dogs on Sunday (sat. stateside) because while the big game is going on Monday, we'll be on a ferry on our way to Sapporo to see the ice festival.  Can't wait to share some great pics from the ice festival and stuff myself with some delicious Japanese ramen. 

Vegetarian Dippin Dogs
Oishii Treat Original

Ingredients

1 Pkg pillsbury crescent rolls, 8 count
1 Pkg Smart Dogs
1 egg white






Directions

- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
- Open your package of crescent rolls and along the pre-made dotted line separate your triangles.
- Place 1 dog on the skinny corner of the dough and roll towards the wider end of the triangle

                    

- place on a greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet and brush to tops with egg white and sprinkle with your favorite type of seasoning. I used garlic salt, red pepper flakes and italian seasoning

- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the crescent rolls are nice and golden brown.

Jalapeno Pepper Ketchup

Ingredients

1/3 cup ketchup
1-2 tablespoons pickled jalapeno, diced small
1 tablespoon of the juice from the jar of pickled jalapenos.

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.