Best Recipe 2011: S'Mores Cookie Bars.

Recently, my Dad got a fire pit from Costco, so at least once a week, it has been party at his house with of course...alcohol and s'mores. As of late, the weekly get-togethers have increased my love for 1. S'mores 2. My family 3. Alcohol....not necessarily in that order. So, summer life has been great this year and I will shortly be starting my first real nursing job (Yay!). In other news, Tim and I FINALLY bought a new camera so I no longer have to use my iPhone to take pictures of my wonderful baked goods. Anyway, I found this s'mores cookie bar recipe on the Hershey website. They have not just this amazing recipe, but so many others that I want to try out as well. I'm glad I tried this one though because it could be one of my favorite desserts ever. It tastes amazing right out of the oven and in my opinion even better once they are cool, but if you like them warm, you can always toss them in the microwave for a few seconds.

hershey's s'mores cookie bars.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 egg

1 1/3 cup flour *I put a little less flour and a little bit more graham cracker crumbs)

1 tsp baking powder

4 hershey's milk chocolate bars (or miniature, doesn't matter as long as they cover the pan)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract *(I used 2)

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs *(I used about a cup and a little less flour)

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup marshmallow cream (aka marshmallow fluff)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy.

3. Add egg and vanilla. Beat well.

4. Stir together graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter/sugar mixture.

5. Press half of dough into prepared pan.

6. Arrange chocolate bars over dough.

7. Spread with marshmallow cream.

8. Scatter bits of remaining dough over marshmallow and press to spread. I flattened the dough in my hands first and then put in the pan and pieced the dough together. Its not really as hard as it seems.

9. Bake 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned.

10. Cut into bars.

Taylor Swift decorated cupcakes!!

In honor of my (arguably slightly creepy) adoration of Taylor Swift and the recent concert I attended in Pittsburgh, I decided to make Taylor Swift decorated cupcakes.

The cupcakes were inspired by her most recent album "Speak Now". I admit that being 29 years old and being starstruck by Taylor Swift is slightly odd but A.) I can't help it B.) I am ecstatic that my nieces have a positive role model to look up to. I feel much better when they are running around singing "Love Story" instead of Katy Perry's "Let me see your pea

cock cock cock" (yes, they have sung this out loud in public). If you haven't had a chance to see a concert of hers, I would highly recommend forking out the dough for a ticket. It really was such an amazing concert. Taylor is stunning in person and despite her mishaps in a few music award shows where she sounded less than ideal live, she sang flawlessly. The concert was very theatrical with multiple costume changes, acrobatics and play-like skits for specific songs. Here is a shot from the sold out concert in Pittsburgh:

So anyway, the cupcakes were a huge hit with my boyfriend, nieces and sister. I made the decorations using ready-made fondant from Michaels. I have done fondant before but I was too lazy to make it myself. I was also too lazy to make mycupcakes from scratch so I used Pillsbury White Cake mix and Pillsbury Vanilla frosting. The tie-dye appearance was really cool if I do say so myself :). Enjoy!

taylor swift cupcakes.

1. Mix cupcake batter according to box directions. Any type of white cupcake batter will work.

2. Separate into 3 sections in separate bowls.

3. In one bowl add the desired amount of pink dye, in another bowl add the desired amount of purple dye, and leave the third bowl plain batter with no dye.

4. Add one spoonful of white batter to each cupcake paper.

5. Add one spoonful of purple batter on top of the white bat

ter (see below).

6. Add one spoonful of pink batter on top of the purple batter (see below).

7. Swirl the 3 colors together with a toothpick.

8. Thats it! Now just bake according to directions on the box and adore your beautiful results.

9. So from here out, you are on your own. I just used premade frosting from Pillsbury and added some food color. I also dyed the fondant and cut out fondant shapes using cookie cutters or my own non-artistic ability to cut out the numbers and letters.

Nutella Gooey Butter Cake

So do you remember that post I wrote long ago called 'Dear South, What the Heck is Gooey Butter Cake'? I was so baking naive way back in April 2010 wasn't I? Well anyway, I found an upgrade. And while I'm a little upset to part with the original recipe because it was SO good, I had to venture and try this one I found using Nutella. If it involves Nutella, it's gotta be good. The original recipe came from Let's Dish. I kept everything the same except I didn't use Devil's Food Cake for the crust. I just used plain yellow cake mix. I thought the chocolate crust and the Nutella center might be a little too rich for me. Overall, it turned out really good but I think I actually like the original better. I don't know, what do you think?

nutella gooey butter cake.

crust.
1 package yellow cake mix
1 egg
8 tablespoons butter, melted

filling:
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup Nutella (save yourself some time, this is about the contents of 1 13 oz jar)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 (16 oz.) box powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. Mix cake mix, butter and egg together until a light dough forms.
3. Spread dough across bottom of prepared pan.
4. Beat cream cheese until smooth.
5. Add the eggs, vanilla and butter and beat together.
6. Add powdered sugar and beat well.
7. Spread over cake batter and bake for 40-50 minutes (mine took about 38 minutes). Center should not be quite set. Don't cook too long or its not gooey!

Black Bottom - Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cupcakes and Happy Birthday Mom!

So I finally had another free weekend where I've actually had a chance to bake something. I actually spent more time trying to figure out what I want to bake then I actually did baking. My baking time is so scarce these days that I end up wanting to bake everything that I see. As this weekend happened to land on my Mom's birthday, I geared my choice to her taste and ended up with Black Bottom cupcakes. I was really stoked about the way these ended up. They aren't very sweet, not the way you would imagine a chocolate cupcake and while it took me a hot second to get used to, I'm glad I didn't add more sugar because I think these are actually my favorite chocolate cupcakes. I used dark chocolate cocoa instead of dutch processed and I cut out some of the sugar. If you like your cupcakes sweet, I would actually add a little more sugar in addition to what I cut out. As an added bonus, they were surprisingly simple to make and of course, they were a huge hit with the fam.

Enjoy!







black bottom cupcakes: Adapted from Baking Bites

cream cheese filling.
16-oz cream cheese, room temperature (I used 1/3 less fat)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg whites, room temperature
2 tbsp sour cream, room temperature (I used low fat)
1/3 cup miniature chocolate chips

chocolate cupcake.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I used Hershey's dark chocolate cocoa)
1 1/4 cups sugar (I only used 1 cup here. Again, you might want to add more if you prefer sweeter cake)
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup sour cream (low fat)
1 1/3 cups water
1/2 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 tsp vanilla extract
(You know what's awesome? No eggs! Not that i have an issue with eggs but I'm pretty sure that is why these cupcakes were so dense and delicious)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

To make cream cheese filling:
2. Beat together cream cheese, sugar and salt until smooth.
3. Beat in egg whites and sour cream.
4. Stir in chocolate chips and set aside.

To make cupcakes:
5. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, salt, flour, cocoa powder and baking soda.
6. Make a well in the center and add in sour cream, water, butter and vanilla.
7. Stir together until just combined and no streaks of flour remain.

8.Divide cake batter evenly among 24 cupcake liners.
9. Top each portion of batter with 1 rounded tablespoon cream cheese mixture (It is ok to have a little left over).
10. Bake for 20-25 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the side (cake only part) should come out with a few moist crumbs on it. **Rotate pans halfway through baking if you are using two racks.
11. Cool in pans for 5 minutes.** Cream cheese filling should sink slightly in this time.
12. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.