recipes i plan to try!

Hershey's Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes
Makes about 30 cupcakes

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting

(I used two batches to frost all my cupcakes generously)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Never Bashful With Butter's easy Caramel recipe

1 Cup heavy cream
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla

In the pan you'll place the butter, half of the cream and half of the sugar. bring mixture to a boil. When the mixture begins to thicken slightly, add the remaining sugar. bring to a full boil. when the mixture starts to thicken and turn a light brown colour, add the remaining cream and sugar.

turn temperature down to a few notches below medium. The mixture should remain boiling. stir constantly and do not allow the bottom to scorch. keep stirring and heating for about 10 minutes. when the mixture starts thickening up like pudding, remove from heat.

Let cool about 5 minutes (caramel will still be hot) or until the cupcakes are out of the oven.

one cookie at a time

So, I decided that it was finally time to start up a blog again partially because I became super fascinated with these other baking blogs I've been reading and also because I'll be leaving in just TWO weeks to disney! I figured, it's a good time to start one of these to keep in touch and just keep everyone in the know of what I'm doing down in Orlando.

Which means this blog is going to be a split between my culinary/baking experiments and other life as well.

Anyway, yesterday was a huge dissapointment in baking. Geez, there were moments when I was like.. I swear I just cannot bake anymore. I was making M&M cookies, and I had to make 3 different batches before I gave up and decided to make up for my bad cookies by making other things. The first batch, was supposedely rated the best on allrecipes.com, although, I'm not sure I agree. It tasted like it was made from scratch back in the days when I was four and my mom was teaching me how to bake. So, I wasn't satisfied with that batch and decided to look up the recipes on M&M.com. The second batch, I completely forgot the 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and almost trashed that batch, before deciding that I had put so many M&M's in it that I couldn't taste the difference. Finally, I had to do myself justice and I made a third batch. This time WITH the 1/2 cup brown sugar...which ended up having the cookie be more moist inside. But...tastewise, nothing else really changed.

So finally, I decided those cookies were an epic fail. Instead I threw some coookie dough that my sorority house had in the freezer onto the baking pan and baked those up. Then I made chocolate cupcakes, with chocolate covered almonds and drizzled with white chocolate and a maraschino cherry to top it off. It looks so pretty! (pictures to come). Finally, the only thing I was actually proud of making last night was a batch of what I actually now believe are THE ultimate brownies. My boyfriend like brownies and only brownies... so as you can guess I was on a search for the best brownie recipe in existence. I'm still searching but I'm definitely holding onto this one! (courtesy of About.com)

The Ultimate Brownie Recipe

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 8- 1 ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate
• 1 cup butter
• 5 eggs
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1-1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2-1/2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 pan.

Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat; set aside. In a mixer, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes**. Blend in chocolate mixture, flour and salt until just mixed. Stir in the nuts. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. (Don't overbake.) Cool and frost if desired, but it's not necessary.

I'll post photos of everything when I get a chance. You might ask why I baked so much last night, and didn't try anything super unusual, which is what I love doing in baking..trying the most challenging things, but it's because I was baking for my boyfriend's swim meet which is today. So I had to bake in bulk and... they really just go for the simple stuff like cookies and brownies. Although, it's been snowing hardcore all night and today...supposed to get to 8 inches outside so the meet might be cancelled! I don't know what I'm going to do with so many cookies... dank.

Ok, so I've been lounging in Jeff's bed forever. I might head home now, clean up, and lounge in my own bed. Haha. I'm really just waiting for word that his meet was cancelled today due to the snow...which if people are reasonable, it totally should be.

and we're going on a date tonight! First date Jeff and I plan to have in... months. So sad. I hate what MIT does to us. Granted...we're not snowed in.