Cookies and Cream Cake

Most people love Oreo's don't they?  "Cookies and cream" brings me back to when I was a little kid because I used to love the ice cream flavor more than anything. 

It was two of my friends at school, Rachelle and Jordan's, birthdays over Thanksgiving break so I figured that when we came back to school I could make them something scrumptious! 

Believe it or not, this is a Cookies and Cream birthday cake and it was quite delicious if I may say so myself. 

The recipe entails the following: dark chocolate cake, Oreo cream cheese frosting filling, a buttercream coating, as well as chocolate whipped cream and Oreo's for decor. 

I have been so busy lately with school work and finals are coming up in about a week and a half so even having time to make this cake was a miracle.  I'm so happy I did though!  It's amazing how just sitting in the common room for an hour with a cake can make it vanish so quickly. 

My amazing boyfriends mom, Sharon, gave me a cute apron a few months ago with a cupcake pattern on it... 

Isn't it adorable? Thanks Sharon!

The decoration of this cake can be done in any way you like but I will explain what I did. After the buttercream frosting had set I chopped up a bunch of Oreos into fine crumbs and coated just the top of the cake with them.  Then with the remaining Oreos I had a cut them eat into half circles and placed them around the base of the cake.  Lastly, I piped the chocolate whipped cream both around the perimeter of the face of the cake and between the Oreos around the base.  I also added a heart on the top with my left over buttercream.  There are many ways that you could go about decorating this so be creative and have fun with it! 

Ok now that your mouth is watering I can give you the recipe... and I would like to acknowledge The Dainty Chef and Cooking Classy for inspiring me to make this wonderful creation.

Ingredients:

This recipe makes a regular sized 2-layer cake.

For the chocolate cake:
1¾ cup all-purpose flour
⅔ cup cocoa powder
1½ tsps. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup butter (this is one and a half sticks)
1½ cups granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs at room temperature
1¼ cups buttermilk

For the Oreo cream cheese filling:
4 ounces soft whipped cream 
1/2 cup soft unsalted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
5-7 chopped Oreos

For the buttercream:
3 sticks salted butter
4 cups powdered sugar
3-4 tbsp. heavy whipping cream
1½ tsp. vanilla 

For the chocolate whipped cream (This recipe makes a lot):
Approximately 1 cup of heavy whipping cream
Chocolate chips

*Note: Also need Oreo's for decoration (1 package is enough for the whole recipe)

Directions:

For the chocolate cake: 

Preheat the oven to 350.  Pre-grease and flour 2 8-inch round cake pans.  Make sure that you put a good amount of flour because I had a hard time getting my cake out. 
In a medium bowl combine dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. 
In a larger bowl, using an electric mixer, combine butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs (1 at a time).  
On low speed, mix in the flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk (start and end with flour mixture). 
Divide batter amongst the 2 pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool completely before attempting to remove from the pans. 

         

              

For the Oreo cream cheese filling: 
Beat, with an electric mixer, the cream cheese and butter until smooth.
Gradually add powdered sugar and mix until very well combined.  
Stir in chopped Oreo's (not finely chopped). 
Once cake layers have cooled, spread the filling on top of one of the layers, and place the second layer over. 

For the buttercream frosting: 

Beat butter with an electric mixer until it turns a white color (at least 5 minutes). 
Slowly add in powdered sugar, heavy whipping cream, and vanilla until well combined and retains a thick consistency. 
I decided to use salted butter because it makes the sweetness not as intense and creates a perfect balance. 
Spread over the sides and top of the cake. 

For the chocolate whipped cream (optional):

Take a generous amount of heavy whipping cream and whip with an electric mixer.  

Slowly add in about a half cup of melted chocolate chips (this will be up to you on how much you want to add).  Keep whipping until it is thick enough to pipe. 

This recipe makes a lot of whipped cream so you can use it to put in hot chocolate or anything you want!

Putting it all together: 

As described above, I put crumbled Oreo's on the top, half-Oreo's around the base, and piped the whipped cream all around.  Get inspired by these pictures or come up with ideas of your own! 

Here is a picture of one of the pieces of cake... mmmm I miss it already.

Happy Birthday Jordy and Shelly! Love you guys!

This cake does have a lot of moving parts but they all come together very nicely and it is well worth all the work! 

Happy Christmas season and Happy Baking!

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!