Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

I love this time of year - the weather, the baking, the holidays. This is when baking is appreciated as everyone wants to know what you are making for Thanksgiving or giving away for Christmas. I also don't think people really diet during this time either, which is good for me.

I am starting the month of November with these delicious pumpkin cream cheese bars. These bars are a cross between a pumpkin muffin and pumpkin bread. Soft delicious cake with a cream cheese swirl, how can these not be great? They could be easily eaten for a snack or for breakfast or for both. My vote is all day personally as I have had a few since baking these

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars
Recipe taken from Let's Dish

Batter:
6 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 can pumpkin  - 15 oz
1/4 cup water

2 cups AP flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 9x13 pan with aluminum foil and spray with non stick cooking spray.
Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and set aside. Using a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until incorporated and smooth. Add the eggs, pumpkin and water. Slowly add the dry ingredients, scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure all of the ingredients are mixed well. Spread about 2/3 of the mixture into the pan.

Cream Cheese Swirl:
8 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar 
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla
1 large egg

Using a stand mixer, cream the cream cheese and sugar together. Add the vanilla and egg, mixing until smooth. Scoop out the cream cheese mixture on top of the pumpkin mixture. I smoothed the cream cheese layer out a little bit before adding the remaining pumpkin mixture on top of the cream cheese layer. Then use a knife or spatula to swirl the mixture together. Bake for 30 minutes or until middle is set. Enjoy!

Be on the lookout for more pumpkin recipes this month...

Halloween Cupcakes

Happy Halloween!! 

I kept it simple for the holiday. I made chocolate cupcakes with purple/orange swirled icing on top. I used the left over batter from my s'more cupcakes that I made previously and frozen. The wrappers are from Target. The buttercream recipe is below.

Buttercream Icing - This made one batch, which is enough to frost 12 cupcakes generously

1 stick of salted butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup of Crisco
4 cups (1 lb) of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of Vanilla extract
2-3 Tablespoons milk or water
Small dash of salt

Using a stand mixer, cream Crisco and the butter together . Make sure to scrap down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla extract and slowly add the powdered sugar. Once the powdered sugar is mixed together add the dash of salt and add as much of the milk/water to get a nice smooth consistency.

Color and frost cupcakes as you desire.

Since this is a crusting buttercream, make sure to cover the bowl with plastic wrap or put in a container with a lid if not using the icing right away.

S'more Cupcakes

For about a week we had nice fall weather and what better way to celebrate the the cooler weather than with some s'mores. I admit that other than the nice cool weather, I wanted to try out my new kitchen torch so these cupcakes were a must. These cupcakes were fun to make and incredibly gooey to eat. Everyone loved them and I can see making these again with some slight changes (see notes section).. Eating them with a fork is totally acceptable, at least in my house to limit getting frosting all over your face and hands.

S'more Cupakes - yields 24 cupcakes

Recipe Adapted from Annie Eats

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare your cupcake pan(s)

Graham Cracker Crust:
1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs (most of one sleeve)
1/4 cup of sugar
5 1/3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
4 oz bittersweet chocolate

Using a food processor or bag/rolling pin method, crush the graha m crackers and put into bowl. Add the sugar, melted butter and mix well. Scoop 1 tablespoons to 1.5 tablespoons of graham cracker mixture into prepared cupcake pan and press the mixture down to form a crust (the bottom of a squeeze bottle works well for this). Chop the bittersweet chocolate very finely and sprinkle a little into each cup, on top of the graham cracker crust. Bake for 5 minutes then put on a cooling rack to cool whole making the cupcake batter.

Cupcakes:
2 cups and 2 tablepoons sugar
1 3/4cups AP flour
 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1.5 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Put all of the dry ingredients into bowl of mixer and mix until incorporated or you can whisk the dry ingredients together if you don't have a stand mixer. Whisk together the wet ingredients except the boiling water together in a separate bowl and slowly add to the dry ingredients. Mix together, stopping once to scrap down the sides of the bowl. Slowly add the boiling water and mix until just combined. Scoop the batter onto the top of the graham cracker crusts, making sure to fill the cups 3/4 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until cupcakes are done.


Frosting:
8 large room temperature egg whites
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Add the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar to your mixer bowl and place on top of a pot of boiling water. Place a candy thermometer into the bowl. Whisk the mixture until the the temperature reads 160 degrees. Using the whisk attachment, mix the mixture until stiff peaks form (several minutes) and add the vanilla extract.

Frost the cupcakes anyway you choose and either use a kitchen torch or your ovens boiler to toast the frosting.

Notes:

Next time, I think I would make the graham cracker crust thicker since there really wasn't a distinct
graham cracker bottom but still delicious.

The chocolate batter didn't rise as much so make sure to fill these up to the recommended 3/4 cup full.

Don't be shy with toasting the frosting. The general consensus was that I could have toasted the frosting a lot more. The cupcakes could have done with less frosting but you know, I personally love a lot of frosting.

Kahlua Red Velvet Cupcakes

These cupcakes are different than the traditional red velvet cakes that most people like but I actually prefer this over others I have tried. I have only tried these with cream cheese frosting but I bet a white chocolate frosting would also be wonderful. This recipe bakes up really well and I always get compliments whenever I make it. It also makes a lot, like tons of cake batter if you stick with the recipe as written, however, you can play with the recipe or just freeze the leftover batter like I do so it is easy to bake up a cake or cupcakes in a hurry.

Kahlua Red Velvet Cupcakes
Adapted from Earlene's Cakes

Cupcakes:
2 white cake mixes
1 devils food cake mix
3/4 cup flour
32 oz or 2 pounds of sour cream
2/3 cup whole eggs
1 1/3 cup egg whites
1 1/2 cup oil
1 Tablespoons Butavan
1 bottle of powdered red food coloring
2/3 cup Kahlua

Mix the first nine ingredients (mixes down to the red food coloring) until incorporated and then add the Kahlua and continue to mix until you can't see any streaks in the batter. Scoop batter into prepared cupcake pans and bake for 12-18 minutes until done.

Cream Cheese Frosting (enough to frost 12 cupcakes):
8 oz cream cheese
6 Tablespoons butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Using a stand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Add the vanilla and mix until smooth.

Notes:

Instead of mixes you can use your favorite white cake recipe and devils food cake recipe.

Butavan is a butter/vanilla emulsion that Earlene loves and uses in all of her recipes. You can substitute 1/2 Tablespoon butter extract and 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract.

If you can't find red powdered food coloring, you can use the gel coloring however, you might want to use 2 bottles. The powdered food coloring works great and I always get a nice rich red.

Earlene has a recipe for Homemade Kahlua but I find it is easier to just buy Kahlua.

The recipe freezes well. I have done this and the cupcakes/cakes taste just like I made the batter the same day.

Breakfast Sweets - Cinnamon Rolls aka Cinnamon Squirls

My husband sent me this article from NPR, Showing Compassion Through the Gift of Food (recipe is at the end of the article) last week and he requested I try homemade cinnamon rolls or as we call them cinnamon squirls. I wasn't sure if I was up for the challenge but it was something new so I thought I would give it a shot plus my husband deserved some sugar since I haven't baked anything for two weeks.

These turned out great and the glaze was a wonderful touch, not heavy for the already rich cinnamon squirls. I will post my recipe after I play with it a little more, however the recipe as is would be great for a Sunday morning.

Guest Post over at Frosting for the Cause

Please take a moment and click over to Frosting for the Cause to see my post for the day. In honor of Anne Tison, a lovely lady who lost her battle with cancer I made apple pie cupcakes.

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PB&J Cupcakes

This is my first time posting a failed dessert. It isn't the first time something didn't turn out great in my kitchen. I have a very temperamental and old oven and sometimes rush and skip over ingredients. What can I say? I am not perfect. Because of this I have had several cupcakes/cakes that have seen the trash can after my first bite. Sometimes, my husband will still eat the so called failures because he loves anything with sugar.

That was the case with these cupcakes. There are still a few in the fridge but at this point I just need to toss them and move on. The cupcake was very dry and crumbly, almost cookie like. That would be great if I was making cookies but I wanted a nice, fluffy cupcake. It made me think of linzer cookies with frosting on top.

I am not even going to post the recipe. I am still on the search for a good peanut butter cupcake recipe. Do you have one? Willing to share? I am sure it exists somewhere.