Cookies n Cream Cupcakes Round 2

I know I haven't blogged since leaving Japan but I've never stopped wanting to continue sharing my passion for baking and creating delicious treats to put a smile on someones face.  Some big changes occurred in those two years.  The biggest, we moved to Germany and we had a baby! She was born in late December of 2015 and I absolutely adore her.  Lately I've had that itch again to resume my blog and decided to give it a go.  Though I needed to make some minor changes to help me not only be able to blog, but work full time, take online classes, earn my next rank and of course spend as much time as possible with my daughter.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and checking out my blog!

Heres the latest Cupcake, for some reason just this month alone everyone in my work center has a birthday in September.  I have literally made 4 different kinds of Oreo Cupcakes in 3 weeks.  I look like I'm the one with an Oreo addiction.  These are pretty awesome though, by the way did you know they make Cinnamon Bun Oreos??  I had a friend give me a package of them and hinted (not very subtlety) that I should make cupcakes.  Well I did and will be sharing those soon as well.

This is the site and link for the recipe I used to make the cake portion of the cupcake.

http://www.baked-in.com/2014/06/16/cookies-n-cream-cupcakes/

I just lessen the sugar from 2 cups to 1.5 cups.


Oishii Treats Original 

Cookies n Cream Buttercream 

1 cup milk, with 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons flour
1 cup butter, at room temp
1 cup sugar (not powdered)
leftover cookie wafers, crushed (from recipe above)

Directions

- Using a small stove top pot add in your milk and place heat on high, add in your flour and whisk until the mixture starts to thicken, about 2-3 minutes.

- Keep whisking the mixture for another 1-2 minutes until its thick and has the consistency of pancake batter or cake batter. Remove from heat and immediately transfer the mixture to a ramekin or bowl and let cool to room temp. 

- In a electric mixture beat the butter and sugar together for 7-8 minutes on high, the mixture should be white and fluffy. Beating the butter and sugar together for this amount of time will help the sugar dissolve better.

- Add in your cooled milk mixture and whip on high for another 4-5 minutes, the sugar should almost if not be basically dissolved. If it is still slightly grainy the sugar should still dissolve the rest of the way when you pipe it on the cupcake.

- Fold in your crushed cookies and use a pipping bag and a large tip to pipe onto your cupcakes 

Hot Fudge! Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Hot Fudge

You know what goes great with every scoop of ice cream?  A huge dollop of homemade hot fudge.  I like to think of myself as a pro when it comes to ice cream.  I know ice cream is awesome by itself but when paired with toppings of all kind it just gets better.  So tonight I'm going to have me a nice big bowl of ice cream with dark chocolate peanut butter hot fudge, oh yeah you betta believe it peanut butter hot fudge.  This will for sure help ease the pain of tomorrow, cause I'm already prepared for a hell of a day at work, the life of an AF paralegal is diffidently not a boring job.  

Now hot fudge is pretty spectacular, but when I decided to raid my pantry and found reeses peanut butter chips and incorporate them into the mix it totally blew my mind. Who doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter together, they wear meant to be.  This fudge recipe is a keeper in our fridge, I try to come up with ideas to use this sauce on anything and everything...cookies done, fruit dip yes! mixed into coffee sure why not. 

 By the way I wont judge if you want to eat this hot fudge by the spoonful cause secretly if there is no ice cream around who's to say you can't eat this straight from the jar..I do :)

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Hot Fudge
Adapted from Averie Cooks

Yields about 16 ounces

Ingredients

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder (I used Hersey's special Dark)
pinch of salt
4 ounces bittersweet dark chocolate
1/3 cup reeses peanut butter chips
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Using a medium heavy sauce pan over medium heat bring together the cream, corn syrup, brown sugar, cocoa powder and half of the dark chocolate to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon until the chocolate is melted and all the ingredients are combined, Reduce the heat and continue cooking at a low boil for 5 minutes, keep stirring with your wooden spoon to avoid burning the chocolate.

2. Remove from heat and add the butter and the rest of the dark chocolate, peanut butter chips, vanilla and salt. Stir until smooth. Let cool for a couple of minutes and drizzle over ice cream.

3.  This keeps very well in the fridge with a tight fitting lid for a few weeks, but will harden, just stick in the microwave for 20 second intervals until melted again. Warning, super addicting and easy to eat by the spoonful.

Coconut & Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I can't wait, one more week and me and the hubby will be off to the east coast for a much needed vacation.  I think its been about 2 years since we've been on a vacation.  Our last one was in 2011 after we came back from a 8 month deployment in Iraq.

In the military we earn 30 days of leave a year and when you dont use that leave up they just roll over to the next year. Basically we earn about 2.5 days of leave every month.  

Some people dont normally have issues with taking leave from their work centers. But then if you are one of those unlucky people who have jobs where its very hard to coordinate leave, you can end up not taking leave for several years and have about 70-80 in the books to use. But it doesn't help to save that much leave because you are only authorized to use 30 days at anyone given time, you can never go over 30 days without commander approval.  When I was a mechanic it was extremely hard to take leave beause of low manning and workload so I only took a vacation about every other year.  My new job as a paralegal is pretty much the same, only because we dont have many people in the office and we can get pretty busy with court-martials.  Im fortunate enough that I was able to coordinate some leave for about 3 weeks and now we are off to a family reunion in New York plus a Dave Matthews concert in Hersey PA! Plus I'm pretty excited to go back to the states and shop.

These cookies were a big hit at work the combination of chocolate and coconut combined within a oatmeal cookie seemed like the perfect match. Plus it helps when you just overload the batter with chocolate chips so every cookie and every bite took you got come chocolate chips and coconut. 

Coconut & Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from the Messy Baker

Yields: 25-30 cookies depending on size

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old fashinoned rolled oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips (your favorited kind)
3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a medium sized bowl, whisk togehter the flour, baking soda, salt and oats, set aside.

3. In a electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy about 3 minutes, add in the eggs and vanilla extract until completely combined.

4. Switch the mixer to low speed and gradually add in the flour mixture until combined, making sure the scrape down the sides of the bowl to incorportate everything together.

5. Fold in the chocolate chips and coconut into the batter and depending on how big you want to make your cookies roll a 1 to 2 inch ball together slightly flatting it and place it on the parchment paper 2 inch apart from each other  Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Remove cookies from oven and cool on a wire rack. Enjoy with a giant glass of milk!

*This cookie dough can be made ahead and kept in the fridge up to 5 days in an air tight container.

Chocolate Chiffon Cupcakes w/Raspberry Buttercream

Military Life: EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE.....I will hear this sentence at least 50 times in the course of an military exercise/drill that we do on base every few months.  It's expesically not fun when you're sleeping in the middle of the day and over the base intercom system you hear someone shouting the word exercise 3 times, along with a command, every hour or so.  Unfortunately I'm a light sleeper :/ but I love working night shift, and I'm prepared to never get any sleep since I live on base and hear every alarm, warning and the "big voice" come over the base intercom system.  Exercise's mean wearing chem gear and performing certain training injects for about an week.  It makes you appreciate your normal job you do in the military every day, after you've sweated through your chem gear for 12 hours a day for a week. If you want to know what it looks like to wear chem gear I have pics here the last time I made my portobello mushroom chili. 

During a break this weekend we had a baby shower for one of the captains and his wife, and there was a ton of delicious food there.  I always like to bring the dessert.  So for the baby shower I had asked the mommy to be what her favorite flavors were and she mentioned chocolate & raspberry or chocolate & peanut butter, I knew I liked her!  That right there is like the perfect combo for any baker, who doesnt like chocolate & peanut butter or chocolate & raspberry together....if  you dont, well then you must be crazy.  I found the worlds fluffiest cake recipe, I've heard of chiffon cake before but never gave it a shot till today.  This recipe turned out to be one of the truly fluffiest and lightest chocolate cakes I've ever had and paired with a raspberry buttercream topped with ganche drizzle, how can you say no to this tasty creation.  Sadly I made a peanut butter version with this same chiffon cake because I had so much batter leftover, but I didn't have anytime to take pictures before we had to leave for the party, expect for this pic taken with my ipod which clearly shows that the cake vanished fast...

the 8 inch Chocolate Chiffon Cake w/ Peanut Butter Frosting & ganache

oh well...looks like i'll have to make it again :)  FYI this is a lot of batter so if you have a big party or a lot of mouths to feed this is perfect.

Chocolate Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Natasha's Kitchen 

Yields: 24 cupcakes and 1 (8 inch 2/12 inch tall cake pan) or over 48 cupcakes or 1 cake using a 10" springform pan

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsweetned cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
7 egg yolk at room temp, keep the egg whites! you will use them later

1 3/4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

7 egg whites at room temp
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar

Directions

- Preheat oven to 325 degrees, and line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners and set aside, if making a cake too  in a 8inch cake pan line the bottom with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl combine the cocoa powder and boiling water together and stir until smooth, add in the oil, buttermilk, vanilla extract and egg yolks and whisk until combined and smooth.
- In a separate large bowl combined your flour, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar together and whisk until the ingredients are blended together breaking up any large pieces of brown sugar lumps.
- Now combine your wet mixture into the large bowl with your dry mixture and mix until the ingredients are wet, be careful to not over mix.
- In a electric mixer add your egg whites and mix on medium speed for 2 min. till frothy, add in the cream of tartar and beat for another 2 minutes on medium-high speed till whites start forming small peaks, Turn the mixer to high and slowly add in the sugar, continue mixing on high speed for 2 more minutes till stiff peaks form.

Soft peaks

Stiff peaks

- Using a spatula fold in the whites into your chocolate batter 1/3 of the whites at a time until all is completely incorporated.

- Using a ice cream scoop fill your paper-lines up 3/4 full and bake for about 10-13 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  For the 8 inch cake bake for about 45 minutes.
- Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack, once cool decorate with your buttercream
*Note: when the cupcakes come out they will shrink a little so dont be alarmed.

Raspberry Buttercream
Adapted from Grandbaby Cakes 

Ingredients

1 cup butter at room temp
3/4 cup raspberry jam
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons whipping cream or milk

Directions

- In a electric mixer beat or butter on medium-high speed till light and fluffy about 3 minutes, add in the jam and continue beating on medium high until fluffy about 3 more minutes.
- Gradually add in your powdered sugar, using the milk or cream to help thin it out. Mix until all is combined and smooth about another 2-3 minutes. Pipe your buttercream onto the cooled cupcakes

Chocolate Ganche
Adapted from Grandbaby Cakes 

Ingredients

8 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

- Place your chocolate chips into a medium bowl and set aside
- In a small saucepan heat your whipping cream on medium heat on the stove until just boiling
- Pour the hot cream on top of your chocolate chips and let sit for 2 minutes.
- Add in the corn syrup and vanilla and whisk till smooth.
- Place your frosted cupcakes into the freezer for or refrigerated for 30 minutes and then dip into the cooled ganche, place back in the fridge or freezer (if your short on time) to set the ganche.

I link up to these great parties!

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.

Baked Donuts w/ Pumpkin Spice glaze and Dark Chocolate

 I love bringing treats into work, usually its in the form of a cupcake, but today I was feeling frisky and wanted to bring something special in for Friday.  People usually like to bring donuts to work, I mean who doesn't like donuts? they go great with coffee and milk.  Usually I would buy the donuts from the nearest dunken and pick up a dozen.  

  Unfortunately in Misawa the closest place is Mister Donut, same thing like duken here in Japan. very tasty but its about 25 minutes away.  Way too far to get some donuts and the ones they sell on base at the shoppette are terrible.  That is why I decided to make homemade donuts, and even better their not fried, which means they're healthier and you can at least have two without feeling guilty ;)  oh and because of Halloween they have these pumpkin spice Hersey kisses at the store (amazing!) and I used those delicious kisses to make an wonderful pumpkin spice glaze on the donuts.

Baked Donuts

Adapted from Food.com

Yields: 18 donuts using a donut pan.

Ingredients

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons butter (soften)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 cups flour

4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup Almond milk (or regular milk)

Pumpkin Spice Glaze

1 1/2 cup unwrapped Hersey Pumpkin Spice Kisses

1/3 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

Vanilla Bean Glaze

1/3 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 vanilla bean

4 tablespoons hot water

Dark Chocolate Glaze

use the remaining vanilla bean glaze and add 4 ounces bittersweet dark chocolate

Directions

- preheat the oven for 350 degrees

- Mix the soften butter and sugar together in a large bowl

- add the eggs and mix until blended

- in a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together: flour, baking powdered, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon together

- Add the dry ingredients to the large bowl and blend with the wet mixture

- Add the milk to the batter, the dough should start getting thick and sticky 

- Using a donut pan, Spoon the batter into a pipping bag, snip a hole in the bottom and pipe the batter into each individual donut mold about half way full.
- Bake for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean

Directions for the Glazes

Pumpkin Spice Glaze

- add the kisses and butter to a small glass bowl and microwave for about 30 -60 seconds, make sure to not burn the chocolate.

- add the powdered sugar to the melted butter/kisses and mix well

- add about 3 tablespoons hot water to the mixture and mix until the sugar is dissolved

- dip you cooled donuts half way into the glaze, remove and set on a wire rack, once the glaze starts to hardened dip a second time to add a thicker layer

- sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles

Vanilla Bean Glaze

- Melt the butter in the microwave

- Add powdered sugar and mix well

- add your vanilla extract and vanilla bean (cut lengthwise and scrape out the insides)

- Add your hot water and mix well

- dip your donuts into the glaze and place on a wire rack, dip a second time after the first glaze has hardened if you would like a thicker glaze.

Dark Chocolate Glaze ( I only used the vanilla bean glaze for about 6 donuts and made my chocolate glaze with the remaining left over vanilla glaze)

- Using the left over vanilla bean glaze add chocolate and microwave for about 45 seconds and mix well. dip you donuts half way into the glaze and set on a wire rack. 

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

 There is nothing better than sinking your teeth into a delicious moist cupcake....oh wait there is! just add a little Guinness, whiskey and Baileys.  Hello you beautiful cupcake you.  Now I'm not a huge fan of the actual drink, anything that you have to gulp down in less than 3 seconds before it curdles doesn't sound so appealing to me.  But give it to me in a cupcake form and I'm down.

I made a batch of these bad boys for a house warming party the other night and they turned out great. Plus isn't fun to make cupcakes to share... sharing is caring right?

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
Adapted From Brown Eyed Baker

Yields 24 Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoons salt
2 eggs, room temp
2/3 sour cream

Ganache

Ingredients
8 onces bittersweet dark chocolate
2/3 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
2 table spoons whiskey

Baileys Frosting

Ingredients
2 cups unsalted butter
5 1/2 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons Baileys Liquor 

Directions 

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees 

-Line 2 cupcake pans with liners (24)

-Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

- In a separate large bowl, Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt together and set aside.  Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. 

- Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined. Divide the batter among the cupcake liners. 

Bake for about 18 minutes, or until a tooth inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean

Directions for Ganache 

- chop the chocolate and transfer it to a medium glass bowl. 

- In a small pot, Heat the cream on medium until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then, using a rubber spatula, combine it until smooth. 

- Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined. Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped. putting it in the fridge for about 15 minutes help.

- to fill the cupcakes, make a whole in the middle using a small spoon or apple corer.

- put your ganache into a pipping bag and pipe into your cupcakes

Directions for Frosting

- Using a electric mixer whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. 

- Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the powdered sugar until all of it is incorporated. 

- Add the Baileys, increase the speed to medium-high and whip for another 2 to 3 minutes, until it is light and fluffy.