Korean BBQ, Farmers Market, and Roasted Chilies OH MY!

This weekend was jammed pack full of fun for us! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend also. We filled our time with going to a local farmers market Saturday morning, there are a ton of them all over Denver but this was the first one we've gone to since the move back. I was able to get all of my vegetables for the week and more for all under $20. It is so awesome having access to fresh food and I thank my lucky stars everyday that we live in a city that promotes healthy living. 

After the farmers market we went to a local Hatch, New Mexico chili vendor, if you're unfamiliar, Hatch has some of the worlds most famous Anaheim peppers. Ed and I drove through Hatch about 7 years ago when we were first married but never actually stopped to get any peppers (Rookies!). The smell of fresh roasted peppers is amazing and I highly recommend experiencing it once in your life. We were able to get our hands on two bushels for $35! I thought it was a bargain and I have a coupon for next year to get $5 off my bushel. I can't help myself from couponing. Once we got home the real fun began, I stemmed, seeded, and skinned almost all of the peppers and got them ready to go into the freezer. We are now set for the winter, in fact, we may turn green from how many peppers we will actually be eating.
On Sunday we were invited to our friends, the Lee's, for Korean BBQ. Which gets to the point of this blog. They cooked all the main courses since, well, we have no idea how to make Korean BBQ, and one half of them is from South Korea. Instead I was tasked with making dessert, and boy did I make dessert!! I had a few different ideas I was throwing around this weekend, I wasn't sure if I wanted to make Green Tea cupcakes with Pomegranate Frosting or Sesame Cupcakes, I was really trying to stick with the Korean BBQ theme but in the end I couldn't find a lot of ingredients so I opted for Cherry Limeade Cupcakes that I saw online earlier last week. 

This recipe is relatively simple and only took me about an hour and a half from start to finishing frosting. They were an absolute hit at dinner and today at work. Anyhow, here is the recipe and some pictures, I hope you enjoy! 

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes
(Makes about 24 cupcakes)

The Best White Cake Recipe Ever
1 jar of Maraschino cherries (no stems)

Follow the recipe for white cake but instead of buttermilk I used the juice from 2 jars of cherries to make a full cup. I also chopped up the cherries, coated them in flour and added them into the batter right before dividing into cupcake liners.

Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Lime juice to taste
Green food coloring to desired level 

1 Jar of Maraschino cherries w/ stems for topping

Make the frosting! Combine cream cheese and 1/4 butter with electric mixer until smooth. Add in the confectioners’ sugar a little at a time until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract. Beat until fluffy. Pipe however you desire and top with a cherry! 

The Comeback Kid...er Cake

HELLO!!!! I can't believe I'm actually able to sit down and write! It has been WAY too long and actually, I lied to you all and said I would be back in July and here it is almost September. I am truly sorry but in all honesty I haven't be able to bake any cupcakes since my last post! It has been such a crazy summer of transitions for me and my whole family.

We left Germany at the end of June not knowing where we'd land and now we find ourselves in Denver, Colorado. We bid Erik goodbye as he entered a new phase of his life, college! Ed and I are both so excited for his future and know that he is going to succeed and do wonderful things for this world. Ed and I now find ourselves trying to make it through the transition of active duty military life to civilian world. You mean I have to buy my own dental insurance!? For those that know how challenging this transition can be, we've hit just about every road block that "they" tell you might happen.

We arrived in Denver on August 23rd just a few days before I started my new job, after driving cross country from Elverson, PA to Denver, CO, I don't know how many miles it is except that it was a lot! Stopping in Columbus to visit family, St. Louis to visit a close friend, Kansas at one of the worst hotel's imaginable, to finally making it to Denver. Luckily, we still have quite a few friends in the area and were able to stay a week at our dear friends Jae and Julie's house. They have two gorgeous children, Jacob and Lilly and let me just say, we are so lucky to have such great friends so close.

Now that you're a little more caught up on our crazy life, let's get to the good part, the cupcakes! I decided since we had just moved back to Denver, I needed to dedicate my first post none other than the state of Colorado. If anyone has ever visited, you can instantly see the majestic Rocky Mountains with their snow capped mountains, almost all year round. I will admit up front that I did cheat on these cupcakes. I used a box mix, mainly because I made these after work and I was just so anxious to bake something that I didn't want to waste time measuring all the ingredients I needed, but I did add my own touch to them of course. I hope you enjoy the recipe and the deliciousness of my Rocky Road Cupcakes!

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 box Chocolate fudge cake mix

3 Eggs

1 1/4 cups Milk (I used milk instead of water, which was on the box mix)

1/4 vegetable oil 

3/4 cups chocolate chips

3/4 cup  pecans (set 1/4 cup aside for topping) 

15-24 large marshmallows

Preheat oven according to box instructions, I believe mine said 350° F. Mix cake mix, eggs, milk and oil together until completely combined. Fold chocolate chips and candied pecans into the mix. Line a cupcake pan with liners and fill 3/4 full with cupcake batter. Bake 15-18 minutes or until when a tooth pick is inserted it comes out clean. 

One cupcakes come out of oven, set oven to broil at 425° F. Top each cupcake with 1 marshmallow and broil until marshmallows are toasted. Remove from oven and top with pecans. Let cool or bite in and enjoy the toasty chocolateyness! 

This is how I ended the comeback cupcake baking session! 

Putting on the Brakes

As many of you all know my family and I are getting ready to move back to the United States from Germany. With that in mind, I am going to be taking a bit of a cupcake break until we get back into the US. If however I decide to bake something between now and July I will absolutely be posting it! Moving an entire household overseas and back again is such a large task and I am in the process of paring our household down so we do not have too many boxes to go through. Thank you all for keeping up with me the last couple of months, I will miss baking and writing this blog but trust that I will be back at it again in July! 

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!!!

Hey everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the first weekend in May as much as I am. The weather here is perfect and there is no better weekend to have a fiesta than right now. It finally feels like late spring here and all the flowers are blooming throughout our village and it makes me yearn for a garden of my own. Today was perfect for mowing the lawn and getting  things planted in the garden. For me, it's time to introduce to the world my Margarita cupcakes. It is a super simple recipes with a delicious lime margarita buttercream frosting, sprinkled with a touch of salt, and garnished with a tortilla chip. 

Let's talk a little bit more about what Cinco de Mayo means, for many Americans and Mexicans it is a celebration of culture and really pride in being of Mexican descent. In the state of Puebla, Mexico it is a celebration commemorating the victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. This is not Mexico's independence day which happens on September 16. 

Okay, enough history back to the cakes! This week's recipe has created one of the most beautiful cupcakes that I've ever baked. It even looks perfect without any frosting, in fact, I didn't even know if I wanted to frost it. Here is a picture of the most perfect cupcake ever baked by my dinky German oven. (Please ignore the messy kitchen in the background!)

Margarita Cupcakes
(Makes about 20 cupcakes)

1 box Betty Crocker Super Moist White Cake Mix

1 1/4 cups pre-made Margarita mix instead of water

3 egg whites

1/3 cup vegetable oil 


Follow box instructions for baking. It is pretty simple just make sure you don't add any water to it since you're substituting the Margarita mix. 

Lime Margarita Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup room temperature butter

1/2 lb confectioners sugar 

2-3 tablespoons Margarita Mix

Whip the butter and sugar together and slowly add margarita mix until it is light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes and sprinkle with salt and garnish with your favorite brand of tortilla chips! 

Review

My husband informed me that ever since starting this blog, these are by far the best cupcakes I have made. He has had 3 and it's only been an hour. These are especially fluffy almost like an angel food cake. For more fluffyness you could always whip the batter longer allowing more air into the mix. 

I hope you enjoy them and Feliz Cinco de Mayo! 

The Submission

This weekend I finally gave in, after weeks and week of requests from those living with me (husband and stepson) I submitted to their will and baked my caramel pecan fudge brownies. I had thought about making them into individual cupcakes but for the sake of time and the requester's I made a huge pan. I am not a huge fan of making caramel so I rarely do it, and I never follow instructions, I just kind of made it all up as I went along. The caramel itself turned out wonderfully and I couldn't have asked for better flavor. 

My fellow sweet tooth's out there BEWARE, this is so decadent, I had to take a break halfway through my square. The pecans offered the crunch, the fudge brownies offered well, fudge and the caramel topping really pulled everything together in a love nest of nutty, buttery, chocolate goodness! 

Fudge Brownies
(Makes 24 Servings)

2 cups unsalted butter

8 (1 ounce) squares of unsweetened chocolate

4 cups white sugar

8 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1-2 tbsp coffee (optional and to your liking)

5 3/4 cups Pecans or Walnuts or a nut of your liking (optional) (I only added Pecans to the topping but you can add it in the batter if you really love them)


Preheat oven to 350° F and grease a 9 x 13 baking pan. 

Slice butter into 1/2 inch squares and combine with unsweetened chocolate squares. Micro wave in 20 second increments, stirring after each reset, until butter and chocolate is melted together. Remove from microwave and combine sugar immediately. Allow the mixture to cool for a bit, add vanilla extract, salt and eggs one at a time. Slowly stir flour into the mixture until all is combined, add chocolate chips, coffee if using and nuts at this point. Pour batter into baking pan. 

Bake in oven 30-35 minutes. Brownies are done when a tooth pick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack. 

Pecan Caramel Topping

20 oz. heavy whipping cream 

1 1/2 cups of sugar

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups 0f Pecans 

Combine all ingredients into a sauce pan. Place on medium-high heat. Stir constantly until mixture thickens and turns to a caramel color. Remove from heat and stir Pecans in immediately and pour mixture over semi cool brownies. 

Cut and enjoy! 

Official Review

YUM! 

I did find that after everything had cooled I had to warm the brownies up in the oven again to cut through the caramel but it was worth it. Who doesn't like warm brownies and caramel anyway? 

The Great Cupcake Disaster of 2013

As you can probably tell from the title of this post,  this weekends cupcake creation didn't exactly turn out as planned. I will get to that in a little bit. Let us first begin with last week. 

Last week school started up again, the hubby returned home from the states, and it was my precious niece's first birthday! I was also working on a group project for school that was due Saturday. As many of you know, we are anticipating a move back to the United States in late June and the closer we get to that moving date the busier we seem to be every day. I am  totally trying  not to complain in this post, it has just been a hectic couple of weeks. 

 I wanted to make something extra sweet because Friday was my niece Sydney's birthday and being in another country has made me quite sad. I figured this was a good way to celebrate her birthday here, even if we couldn't be with her. 

Sydney Rose 1 year old!

Another thing I have noticed is since starting this blog, I have not done a single chocolate cupcake recipe. It's about time we remedy this situation! I love pairing chocolate and fruit together and one thing that I love and the hubby loves is chocolate covered strawberries. This recipe isn't exactly chocolate covered strawberries, it has been a late spring here and I cannot find decent strawberries ANYWHERE. so I improvised. 

I should have known this weekends cupcakes were going to turn out disastrous. My first inkling should have been that I didn't have time Saturday morning to make my cupcakes. My group project for school was due Saturday and I had to combine all of the work into one working document. This weekend turned into Sunday morning cupcakes and apparently the cupcake gods are not happy with my schedule change. 

If you have been following my blog lately, many of you know that my last couple of homemade cakes have been dense. For me, this has been frustrating because I haven't been able to fix the problem. I admittedly wanted a cupcake that was light and fluffy this time around. Also, I haven't made a chocolate cake from scratch since culinary school and I was oddly intimidated. I broke one of my golden rules, I used a box mix. Box mixes are a sure thing for light and fluffy cupcakes so I broke my rule and was punished severely for it. I did change a few things with the suggested ingredients and then I topped these disasters with berry cream cheese icing. 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Berry Cream Cheese Frosting

(Makes about 20 cupcakes)

Chocolate Cake 

1 chocolate box mix 

3 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/4 cup milk (the box called for water but I like using milk whenever I can)

1/4 cup chocolate chips 

Follow box instructions and remember to only fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full. 

Berry Icing 

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened 

1/2 cup butter, softened 

2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1/3 cups raspberry preserves 

1/3 cup strawberry preserves 

This icing is extremely loose! I don't mind it because I like the drippy look. 

So, why do I consider these cupcakes a disaster? They turned out light and fluffy and tasted amazing, not exactly disaster material. I filled the cupcake tins way too full and they popped up so high and they spilled over onto the cupcake pan. They just looked pitiful, I took a few pictures before I cut the tops off. 

After those were messed up, I just pretty much said screw it! I cut the tops off and iced them all. I am going to post the best looking ones because trust me, the ugly ones are UGLY. Other than looks, these cupcakes were delicious! 

Lessons Learned

Buck up and make a chocolate cake from scratch! 

Remember to only fill the cupcake liner 3/4 full!

Bake cupcakes on Saturday morning! 

Relax & Breathe, Breathe, Breathe! 

What is that Smell?

I have a friend that used to live here in Germany that moved almost a year ago to Florida. Her name is Angie, I worked right across the office from his husband Rick who basically became my work husband. When I hear certain songs come on the radio, all I can think is the two of us singing at the top of our lungs in the middle of the office. We were totally professional! Before they moved Angie became a Scensty consultant and so of course I had to support her business. She had a special that was basically, the highest buyer gets free product and if anyone knows me, I am fiercely competitive. A competition for free products on top of that, everyone better watch out! When her special came to an end, I was the lone winner and was given the most perfect gift. Angie knew how much I loved cupcakes and she couldn't have been more spot on.    

This beautiful cupcake warmer joins me every morning as I make breakfast, bake cupcakes, or just drink some coffee. Every time I look at it, I instantly think of two great friends that I sorely miss and hope that one day we can all see each other again!