White Chocolate Snickerdoodle Mug Cake

Hello loves! It's me Kelsey, I'm still alive! I truly, madly, deeply want to get back into the whole blogging thing because it's such a great creative outlet for me and allows me to cook and bake as much as I want.... Jake you don't mind right?

I was having my time of the month cravings last night and really just wanted something yummy and I wanted it fast.  I found a recipe from Five Heart Home for a Snickerdoodle mug cake that inspired me to create my own, so thanks for that! 

Unfortunately my photos may not do this justice since they were taken on my iPhone but you just have to trust me on this one- I would eat it every night if I was allowed to.  Even though it's made in the microwave I was shocked at how moist and cakey it came out!  One important note is to make sure to use a big enough mug with straight edges for best cooking, though mine honestly did not rise very much. 

I hope that I can continue making deliciousness but I am starting adult real person work life soon so we shall see.  At least now I will have coworkers to bring yummy gifts to!  I just moved to Denver about a month ago and Jake and I are loving it.  The restaurants are delicious and all over the place, there's friendly people everywhere, and the mountains and outdoor activities are awesome!  I don't think we will be leaving anytime soon. 

Thanks to everyone who is reading- you're all wonderful! Alright to the recipe!

Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp. sugar 
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon (at least)
• 1/4 cup almond milk (you can use any kind)
• 2 tbsp. salted butter (melted in microwave first)
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/8-1/4 cup white chocolate chips 

  For garnish: 

• 1/2 tbsp. sugar
• 1/8 tsp. cinnamon 

Directions: 

1.  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon in a medium bowl.
2.  Combine almond milk, butter, and vanilla in a separate medium bowl.  Combine dry ingredients into wet until you reach a smooth consistency. 
3.  Fold in white chocolate chips.
4.  Pour 1/3 of batter into mug, sprinkle some cinnamon sugar and repeat layering process making sure to finish the top off with some cinnamon sugar. 
5.  Place in the microwave for 1 min 30 seconds-2 minutes.*

*For me it finished around 1 minute and 45 seconds but it depends on the strength of your appliance! 

Happy Baking!

Baked Churros

Hola señores y señoras! Buenas tardes!

These are authentic spanish churros, made by your one and only Kelsey.  Although traditionally in Spain they are baked plain and dipped in chocolate, I decided to go the American route and coat them with cinnamon and sugar instead. 

I have many fond memories of going to San Francisco Giants game when I was little and always making sure I got a nice warm churro before I left.  I never realized how easy they were to make!  It is true that most places probably are deep frying their churros but I wanted to make them healthier and easier for myself to make. 

I made these a few weeks ago for my spanish class at school for some end of the semester extra credit.  Because of this I made about 20 churros that were much smaller than normal (maybe 3 inches long) because I needed more, instead of your typical foot long churro.  

These do tend to cool off pretty quick though so you are going to want to try and serve them right away or keep them on a low warm setting in the oven.  I had to make these the night before I served them so I broiled them for a few minutes in the oven the next morning, but they were definitely not as good as they were right after they had finished baking. Make sure you store them in a dry air tight container if you are not serving right away.

I am officially on summer and can't wait to share a wide range of recipes with you all.  Up next are butterscotch caramel Smores bars!

Also want to make sure I give a shout out to Sprinkle Bakes, one of my favorite blogs, for the inspiration for this recipe!

Ingredients: 

This recipe makes about 10, 7 inch churros. 

2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup Earth Balance (or butter)
1 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Optional: olive oil

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and pre-grease baking sheets. 
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the water, brown sugar, and salt and stir until dissolved (on no heat).
3. Add in margarine or butter over medium heat until melted and it starts to boil.  Remove from heat and add flour.  Mix thoroughly.
4. In a small bowl combine the eggs and vanilla.  Add this mixture to the dough and combine until completely incorporated using a fork or a wooden spoon.
5. Let the dough cool, refrigerate if needed.  This is necessary to pipe the churros and have a ridges pattern.

6. Once the dough has cooled, pipe the churros using a very wide star tip onto a baking pan that is greased or lined with parchment.  For each churro that is piped. you will probably need to use scissors to cut the end of the dough as it will not stop coming out without doing this. 

My churros were very small you can make yours as big or as small as you would like. 

7. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the sides are a very light brown color and have slightly puffed up.  Then turn on the broiler and watch for a minute or 2 while they turn more crispy. 

8. Immediately after they have been removed from the oven you are going to need to roll each churro in a cinnamon sugar mixture.  If you find that it is not sticking well enough, you can brush each churro with a small amount of olive oil and then roll it in the cinnamon sugar. 

Serve and eat as soon as possible!

                                                

Definitely a very short prep time and cooking time as well which make these much easier than I ever imagined!

Thanks for tuning in! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! Happy Baking everyone!

Pumpkin Spiced Ginger Cheesecake Bars

Yes, another cheesecake item!  I'm not really even sure what to call them because they were baked in a 9 inch round pan and could easily be called a normal cheesecake, but on the other hand I kind of cut them into square shapes so I decided to call them bars but be what they will (aka delicious).

Let me just say that there was a lot of tampering and changing of things within this original recipe that I started with but they turned out great! 

I have been a bad blogger lately and I can totally put all of the blame on college!  I've never been so busy in my life and I couldn't even tell you what I've been up to.  Just constant class, homework, labs, meetings, meals, and the very minimal amount of relaxing time is spent catching up on my TV shows or sleeping.  So I know I apologize all the time, but I really am sorry and hope that this summer I can bring you all some smashing new recipes!

I have discovered that in the past year or so heavy dairy makes my digestive system hate me so I usually will buy 1/3 less fat cream cheese and avoid heavy cream but I decided to just go for it with this baby because it is just so much better when its legit cream cheese! 

This recipe I found on A Kitchen Addiction but definitely changed it up.  I did not add cardamom or pepper and instead of using gingersnaps (which I don't doubt would be yummy) I used Newman's Ginger-O's, which I have never had before and was quite pleased!

Ingredients: 

This recipe will make a 9" round pan.

2 cups crushed Ginger-O's
1/4 cup melted butter
16 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or mixture of nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon)
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
3 eggs
2 tbsp milk

Directions:

Buy a box/package of Newman's Ginger-O's and using a food processor or man power crush them into small pieces but they should not be too fine.

             

Combine with melted butter and place this mixture into the base of a 9" round pan or a 9" square pan and bake for 8-10 minutes until it is turning brown.

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, both sugars, and flour until smooth.  Beat in pumpkin spice and cinnamon until well combined.  Remove half of this mixture and place it aside in a spare bowl. 

Add in pumpkin puree and eggs to the other half of the mixture in the mixing bowl.

Stir in milk into the other half of the cream cheese mixture that was set aside.

Pour pumpkin mixture on top of Ginger-O's crust and dollop the cream cheese/milk mixture over it.  Using a knife swirl them together to make a cool design. 

Bake for 30-45 minutes (depending on your oven but you want the center to be set).

Cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before consuming.

Enjoy! Happy Baking and Happy Spring!

Easy Apple Crumb Pie

My aunt kindly invited me over for dinner last Friday night and offered up her kitchen for me to make whatever my heart desired.  It was so unbelievably nice to have a healthy home-cooked meal for the first time in awhile as well.  This is my go-to easy dessert that I make for last minute dinner parties, etc and it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

The apple crumb pie is super simple and I always cheat and buy a pre-made pie crust from the store because I never seem to be able to make the dough far enough in advance.  So sorry to the puritans out there but this was some good old Marie Callendar's frozen pie crust.

It requires 5-6 decent sized apples of your choice.  My aunt Kim had some apples that she was given by a friend from their garden, so they were very organic!  The apples are coated with flour, cinnamon, brown sugar, allspice, vanilla, and lemon juice.  Then, instead of the standard crust topping I used a crumble topping, which I love. 

This pie does not take long at all to make.  Probably about 30-45 minutes to assemble and additional cooking time.  This recipe is from a blog I really enjoy called, Baked by Rachel.

I also apologize because as I was making this at my aunts I did not have my camera and had to use my iPhone so sorry if the picture quality is terrible. 

Ingredients:

For the filling: 

5-6 medium-sized apples

1/2 cup of brown sugar

2 tbsp. flour

1 3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. allspice

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tbsp. lemon juice

For the crumble topping:

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup melted butter

Directions: 

For the pie crust:

I bought a pre-made frozen pie crust that does not need to be pre-baked, but it is smart to poke the crust with a fork to avoid creating air bubbles. 

For the filling: 

Peel the apples, core them, slice into small pieces and place in a large bowl.  

Prepare the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and allspice. 

Pour the dry ingredients in with the apples slices and mix in well so that the mixture is evenly coating the slices. 

                                          

Pour the lemon juice and vanilla over the mixture and stir in well. 

For the crumble topping:

Prepare the oven to 425. 

In a medium-sized bowl combine the dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.  

Melt the butter fully in the microwave, let it cool, and pour it over the dry ingredients.

Mix thoroughly (using hands if necessary) to reach a crumbly consistency.

Assembly:

Pour the apple slices into the pie crust and pile up high! They will shrink down so don't even worry.

Then crumble the topping on top of the apples until you are satisfied with the coverage amount. 

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, covered with foil.  After this amount of time remove the foil, reduce the temperature to 375 and bake for another 30-35 minutes.  When it is done, when you stick a toothpick into the pie, the apples should be soft. 

Enjoy! Again, this is super easy and super delicious and I hope you all try it out! The pictures do not do justice to how amazing this really is, so you will just have to take my word for it.

Happy baking! 

Snickerdoodle Cookie Cupcakes with Caramel Filling

College Cooking Episode #1 has officially begun! I spent this past Saturday night baking these delicious cupcakes for my hall mates as they patiently waited for several hours.  I really missed getting in my "baking zone" and am so grateful that I could finally get back into things.  So be prepared: there is definitely more to come! Suggestions welcome!

So as the title indicates that these are Snickerdoodle cookie cupcakes.  For those of you who don't know what Snickerdoodle is... you have seriously been missing out!  It's basically just a sugar cookie with cinnamon added to it, but this one ingredient makes a world of difference.  

Anyways, the base of the cupcake is actually made of a snickerdoodle cookie dough, and the cake portion as well as the cream cheese frosting is cinnamon spiked.  Last, but certainly not least the cupcake is filled with a freshly made caramel sauce. Mmmmm.

I have to give a shout out to one of my favorite blogs, How Sweet It Is, for inspiring me to create this masterpiece.  Additionally I got my caramel recipe from The Messy Baker.  This was my first time ever attempting to make caramel and I was surprisingly very successful.  

This was also my first time using a hand mixer instead of a standard kitchen aid mixer which took a little getting used to but it wasn't too shabby- just very loud.

Overall, this was a messy project to do in a tiny dorm kitchen but I still had tons of fun so it was worth it in the end. 

They think so too. 

Ingredients:

This recipe will make about 15 cupcakes.

For the cookie dough base:

1/4 cup softened unsalted butter (half of a stick) 

1/2 cup of packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

For the cake layer:

1/2 cup softened unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/3 cup of milk (I used 1%, but just use whatever you have around)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 heaping tsp. cinnamon 

For the cinnamon cream cheese frosting:

1/2 cup softened butter

8 oz cream cheese at room temp. (I used 1/3 less fat, but any kind works fine)

2.5 cups powdered sugar

2 tsps. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

For the caramel:

Side note: This is something you can easily buy at the grocery store if you want to save some time. Also, this recipe will make a pretty hefty amount of caramel (I probably used half of it for my cupcakes) but it's always nice to have some left over for sundaes, etc).

1.5 cups of sugar

1 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream

1/3 cup tap water

As you can see this recipe has lots of different parts to it but they all come together so nicely!

Directions:

For the cookie dough base: 

Beat (with electric mixer) butter and sugar in a medium sized bowl until creamy and smooth.  Add the 1 egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. 

In a separate small bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 

Combine dry and wet ingredients and mix until the dough comes together nicely.  Cover and put in the fridge while you complete the second step.

For the cake layer:

Preheat the oven to 350. 

Beat (with electric mixer) butter and sugar in a medium sized bowl until creamy and smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until well combined. 

In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 

Add half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients... combine, add milk... combine, and add the second half of the dry ingredients until you reach a smooth and fluffy consistency. 

Assembly of the cupcakes: 

1. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.

2. Add about 1 tablespoon of refrigerated cooke dough to the bottom of the liner and flatten as much as possible (pictured at the left)

3. Drop about 2 tbsp's worth of cake batter on top until it is about 75-80% full (pictured at the right). 

4. Bake for about 14-16 minutes at 350 and when they are done baking, allow to cool completely.

For the caramel:

This should probably be done several hours ahead of time so that it is able to cool off and thicken completely.  I made the stupid mistake of not allowing myself enough time but it still ended up working out for the most part! 

Combine sugar and water in a medium sized pot (no heat yet) and stir.  This is the only chance you will have to stir it- resist the urge to stir it while it is caramelizing, trust me!  Place over medium-high heat and it will eventually come to a boil, and then begin to caramelize (this should take about 10 minutes). Don't touch it for the duration of this time. 

Take it off the heat right as it becomes a familiar light brown/caramel color.  You have to be watchful because it can burn in a split second. 

Once you remove it from heat, immediately yet slowly, add the heavy whipping cream and whisk to combine.  The mixture will bubble violently and it may become clumpy but do not fear!

Place back on low heat for 1-2 minutes to melt the remaining clumps until you reach a smooth consistency.  It will become thicker as it cools so don't be alarmed by its thinness. 

Place in a heat safe container, cover, and let it cool down completely.

For the cinnamon cream cheese frosting:

Cream (with electric mixer) butter and cream cheese together in a medium sized bowl.  Gradually add the powdered sugar and vanilla, alternating back and forth.  

Finally, add cinnamon!

Refrigerate from 10-15 minutes to let it firm up a little more before frosting the cupcakes.  I will warn you that this is one of the thinner frostings I have made but it is oh so delicious.  If you are insistent in having a thicker frosting, add more powdered sugar, but I don't think it really needs it. 

Creating the masterpiece:

1. Take any standard piping bag and fill it with the cooled caramel.  Stick the tip as far you can into the cupcake and squeeze the bag while lifting up to fill the center of the cupcake.  Another way you can do it is by cutting out a portion of the cupcake and filling up the hole you created- either way works fine! 

2. Using another piping bag with any kind of decorating tip (I used a star shaped Wilton- per usual) frost your cupcakes with the cinnamon cream cheese frosting!

3.  If you want, sprinkle some cinnamon or drizzle some of the extra caramel on top!

So I finally completed my first in-college baking experience.  Please continue to keep checking in and see what's new! Hope you are all having a great school year! 

Happy baking!