A Cooking and Baking Day!

I was one busy mom today.  I made our dinner (Hamburger, Rice and Potatoes) plus vanilla and chocolate cupcakes as well as chocolate frosting all from scratch!  Believe me, I've used my fair share of boxed cakes, but there is definitely a difference between cake made from scratch and cake out of a box.  For today's cupcakes, I used a recipe I found here for Vanilla Cupcakes and here for Chocolate Cupcakes.  I also used the recipe for Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting and let me tell you--it's a keeper!

I will post the recipes here so that they are available for reference if the links don't work; however, the Glorious Treats Blog is a good one for tips, tricks and recipes!

My cupcakes turned out good--although I am not the best decorator.  I made these for my cousin, Danielle's funeral luncheon.  She was a 38 year old mom of 3 who battled ovarian cancer for 3 1/2 years.  Unfortunately, she lost her fight on Thursday.  I decorated the cupcakes with teal sprinkles (the color that represents ovarian cancer) and a pink "D" for Danielle.  This woman was seriously the strongest person I've ever known.  And in all the years that she fought, she remained incredibly positive!  I love her and will miss her dearly. 

Vanilla Cupcakes:

Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes

Recipe by Glorious Treats

Yields- 15-16 cupcakes

1 1/4 cups cake flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup oil (vegetable, canola or extra light olive oil)

1/2 cup buttermilk

(or 1/2 cup milk plus 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar or lemon juice- add acid to the milk then set aside for 5 minutes before using)

Directions-

* Preheat oven to 350*F.

* In a medium bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together with whisk, and set aside.

* In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds. Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds. Add vanilla and oil, beat.

* Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture. Add half of the milk, then the rest of the flour and the rest of the milk. Beat until just combined. Scrap down the side of the bowl.

* The batter will be thin. Pour batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners. Fill liners about 2/3 full.

* Bake cupcakes in pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes.

* Cool in pan 1-2 minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan (carefully) and finish cooling on a wire rack.

* Frost as desired when fully cool. I love to use my favorite Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting recipe.

* Feel free to use this recipe for a cake as well. The recipe above will work for a 6″ cake. Double the recipe for an 8″ or 9″ cake.

* A note about Cake Flour- Cake Flour has a lower protein content than traditional all-purpose flour, which results in a more tender, delicate crumb in the finished product. If you can not find or access cake flour, feel free to substitute as necessary, but your results will vary from the original recipe.

Chocolate Cupcakes:

Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes

by Hershey's

(makes 24-27 standard sized cupcakes)

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (best quality available)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (best quality available)

1 cup boiling water

Directions-

Line muffin tin with paper liners. Heat oven to 350*F.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute.

Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin, don’t worry, this is right).

Fill liners 2/3 full with batter. (I usually put the batter into a large measuring cup with a pour spout, and then pour the batter into the liners.)

Bake cupcakes for approximately 18-22 minutes.

Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.

Vanilla (Chocolate) Cream Cheese Frosting:

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
½ cup (1 stick/8 Tablespoons) butter (set at room temp about 10 minutes, but should still be cool)
8 oz. cream cheese (directly from fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (always use pure vanilla extract if possible)
4 cups powdered confectioners sugar
1 to 4 Tablespoons heavy cream, heavy whipping cream (or milk- although I do like the richness that cream adds)
Directions:
*Place butter in a large mixing bowl and blend slightly. Add cream cheese and blend until combined, about 30 seconds.
*Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and blend on low speed until combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy.
*Slowly add the heavy cream, a little bit at a time until desired consistency is met. (Don’t add too much if you want the frosting to stay in place when piped on cupcakes.)
*Beat until fluffy, about 1 minute.
*Use at once or keep refrigerated. (This frosting will keep well in the refrigerator for several days, but you may need to re-beat it for the best texture.)
The recipe above will produce a delicious VANILLA flavored frosting, here are a couple of other options to try…
For a Stronger Cream Cheese Flavor: Use an additional 4 oz. (½ block) of cream cheese. This is good for any cake/cupcake recipe that is traditionally topped with Cream Cheese Frosting, like Carrot Cake, or Red Velvet Cake.
For Chocolate Frosting: (my favorite!) add ½ cup unsweetened cocoa (I use Ghirardelli brand, it’s really good). Add the cocoa powder before adding the powdered sugar, so it gets fully incorporated into the butter and cream cheese.
Strawberry, Blackberry, etc: Add 2-4 tablespoons of preserves. Depending on how chunky or seedy the preserves are, you may want to blend it in the food processor, and/or strain it through a fine strainer before adding it to the frosting. Add the preserves to the frosting mixture before adding the heavy cream. Depending on the amount of preserves you add you may need very little or no cream, especially if you want the frosting thick enough to pipe. A final option would be to add a drop of food coloring to add to the color of the preserves (for example, pink coloring for the Strawberry flavor).
* This recipe will frost about 22-24 cupcakes if you are piping a nice swirl, or even more if you just spread it on. If you’re making a cake, this will frost and fill a two layer 9″ cake.
Recipe Source: Glorious Treats

Easy Chicken Dinner

Tonight's dinner was adapted from a Mr. Food Recipe for Baked Cheesy Chicken.  I do like that recipe, but I didn't have any of the ingredients so I just made my own version.  This recipe is one of those recipes that you can pretty much use any dressing you like and any type of crunch that you like. Tonight I used this recipe:

2 Boneless-Skinless Chicken breasts (sliced in half and pounded flat)

3/4 c. Creamy Italian Dressing

2 c. Rice Chex (crushed)

1/4 c. Parmesan Cheese

2 T. melted butter

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking sheet. Mix the crushed Chex and Parmesan cheese together and set aside.  Dip the chicken in the ranch dressing and then dip in the crushed Chex mixture. Place the chicken on to the baking sheet and drizzle with the melted butter.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.

You can use a combination of any of the dressings or crunch substitutions below:

Dressing Substitutions:

Thousand Island

Honey Mustard

Creamy Caesar

Ranch

Blue Cheese

Crunch Substitutions:

Corn Flakes

Pretzels

Cornflakes

French Fried Onions

Croutons

Chicken & Biscuits

Today was such a fun day!  My little sister, Amanda, is getting married in May of 2013 so today we spent the day dress shopping!  It was such a fun time to spend together and see how beautiful she looks in her dress.  Amanda moved to Mississippi last year with her fiance, Julian who she met in Boot Camp.

I typically cook dinner for our family at least once when they are in town so I decided to make Chicken and Biscuits for dinner tonight.  I wanted to make sure I had everything prepared ahead of time since we'd be gone all day today.  I tweaked the recipe that Barefoot Contessa uses (Chicken Stew with Biscuits) to fit our tastes.  I also made almost a double recipe so that we had enough for our family--I have three siblings who all have a significant other plus my family of four, my niece and my little cousin that my parents are raising.  We have a small army to feed when I cook so I always have to make double!
The link for Barefoot Contessa's actual recipe is above, but here is what I actually did:

Ingredients:

• 4 split chicken breasts, skin on and bone in
• 6 chicken thighs, skin on and bone in
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 cups chicken stock --2 of the store bought cartons
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups chopped yellow onions
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups medium-diced carrots, blanched for 2 minutes
• 2 10-ounce packages frozen peas (2 cups)
• 3 cups diced redskin potatoes, blanched for 2 minutes
• 1 cup minced fresh parsley

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place the chicken breasts and thighs on a sheet pan and rub them with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. I roasted the chicken for about 60 minutes, but just make sure that it's cooked through. Set aside until cool enough to handle, and then remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin. Dice the chicken into medium-sized pieces. You will have about 8-10 cups of chicken.  The original recipe calls for Chicken Breasts, but I am a bigger fan of dark meat so I chose thighs.  My husband likes white meat so I compromised and had a bit of both :) 

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a large pot, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until translucent. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring, until thick. Add 3 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, and the heavy cream. Add the cubed chicken, carrots, peas, potatoes, and parsley. Mix well. Place the chicken mixture in a large roasting pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

**Since I made this ahead of time, I put mine into an oven set to 200 degrees for about 4 1/2 hours. If you look at the original recipe, you can see I made some changes--some things I doubled, while other things I eliminated.  Most of the time, I make my recipes exact the first time I make them and tweak them from there; however, this recipe called for a lot of onions and my husband is not a fan of onions.  I cut back on the amount of fresh onions and replaced the frozen onions with potatoes.  I don't feel that we lost any flavor with my changes--everyone liked it :)  I also took the easy route on biscuits and used store bought canned ones.

 Hopefully you enjoy it!

Planning a First Birthday Party

I can't believe how fast time flies--at this time last year, I was preparing for the arrival of our second son.  Now he's turning one and I need to plan his first birthday party! I am a December baby so I've always wanted my kids to be born in the summer.  Mikey was born in June, but Cohen was born November 4th.  As much as I wanted my kids to have summer birthdays, I am so excited to plan the menu for this party.  Fall is my favorite season--I love everything about fall especially the food that comes along with it!  The theme for his party is "Little Monsters" so I have scoured the Internet and Pinterest to find the cutest monster ideas.  It's exciting to plan the theme, but the menu is also fun to plan.  We are having soups, salads and baked potatoes--my favorite fall comfort foods!  A friend of mine pinned a recipe for Crock pot Cream Cheese Chicken Chili, which we tried last week and it was pretty tasty so it'll definitely be on the menu!  I love this recipe because it had great flavor and was super easy to make.

Just throw the following things in your crock pot:
2 chicken breasts
1 can of undrained corn
1 can of rotel tomatoes
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 package of dry ranch dressing mix
1 Tablespoon of Cumin
1 teaspoon of Chili Powder (I added about a Tablespoon when I made my version)
1 teaspoon of onion powder
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese

Mix it all up and let it cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours.

A Frozen Meal Kind of Night...

Today was one of those days that I was thankful to have frozen meals!  Whenever I make a meal that makes a large amount, I always freeze the leftovers so we have a quick and easy meal when we need it.  I didn't have the energy to get anything ready last night or this morning so we ended up eating "Baked Spaghetti," which is a Paula Deen recipe.  I will have to say, she is one of my favorite food network stars--I don't think I've tried a recipe of hers that I didn't like!

My loves

As I think back to a few years ago, I remember wondering if I'd ever have kids.  Fast forward five years and I have two beautiful baby boys! I am so blessed to have my two little guys and thank God every day for them.  Unfortunately, we did have pregnancy complications in the past and I take comfort in the fact that my three little angels are in Heaven.  On October 6th, there is an event honoring the babies who have passed away.  The event is called "The Little Balloon Launch" and will be at Fair Park in Canfield, Ohio.  It starts at 10am and all proceeds raised will benefit "Hannah's Oak"--a local organization dedicated to helping families experiencing pregnancy complications, children in intensive care units & child loss.

My First Blog--Apple Cupcakes

Last week, Mikey learned about apples in preschool so it was fitting to have him learn to cook with them too :)  We spent some time at White House Fruit Farms this weekend taking in the beauty of fall!  Mikey loves pumpkins so we had to go play in the pumpkin patch before we got our apples.
We settled on Gala apples, which are one of my favorites--they're sweet and good for baking; Fuji and Honeycrisp are also favorites of ours.
We decided to make this awesome apple cake that I found on one of my favorite cooking sites, Smitten Kitchen (Mom's apple cake).  I've made this cake a few times before and it's always a hit!  Instead of making a cake this time, we decided to make mini-cupcakes that Mikey could take to school to share with his class.  The cake has to back for about 1.5 hours, but the mini cupcakes ended taking about 22 minutes.  We had a good time baking and I'm sure his class will enjoy their treat!