Father's Day Cupcakes

For Father's Day my husband requested the Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes. I tried in vain to convince him to let me make another one, something we had never tried before but he insisted on the peanut butter ones. Being the softy I am I gave in and made him his favorite, how could I say no on Father's Day?

I started off with a Devil's Food cake mix, made it to the box specifications. When I pulled them out I put them on a wire rack to cool. I just bought a few cupcake books and one of them says to cool the cupcakes on wire racks so they cool evenly. Something I hadn't thought of before.

After the cupcakes were cooled I took a steak knife and hollowed out the middles. I know some people take apple corers and take out a middle but I haven't reached that stage yet. So for now the steak knife works fine.

For the filling I mixed 1 cup of peanut butter with 1/2 cup powdered sugar and then 1/4 cup milk. I have to admit when I poured the milk in and started to mix it I started to worry. It just didn't seem like it was going to come together. Slowly it started to mix and look much better. The end result looked great but after eating the cupcake I wished I had made the filling a little thinner. The next time I make them I'll increase the milk.

I then took the filling and put it into the cupcakes. This part you might get messy on. I had to use my fingers to get the filling off the spoon, here's where having the filling a little thinner would have been nice. You could use two spoons, one to dish out the filling and the other to scrap it off the first spoon, if you don't want to get messy.

The next stage is to frost! The frosting I used was the basic buttercream frosting with 1 cup of peanut butter mixed in.

I designed the cupcake topper.

Nacho's are American?

They are when you make them with blue chips and add a festive American flag on top. For flag day I decided to have red, white and blue nacho's. Who knew nacho's could be patriotic? I found some blue tortilla chips at Fred Meyer in there organic section, the brand is Naturally Preferred. I saw that tortilla chips come in blue on a website but I'm not sure where they sell them. I did see on the internet that Tostito's makes them as well. Not sure where to get them though. I have to say these Naturally Preferred chips were the first organic chips I've had. I had my reservations about them but after trying one, my reservations went away. These chips were actually good! They're more of a purple than a blue but what can you do? On the back of the package it says that they get they're color from the blue corn. Wait, what? Blue corn? I've never heard of blue corn before but it exists and I must say it makes some great chips. They weren't too expensive either, only $1.99 for a 9 oz. bag.

I grated two types of cheese, Cheddar and Monterey Jack, you can use whatever kind you want. I had some taco meat left over from taco's so I threw that on top. Then I put the dish in the oven and turned on the broiler let it heat in there until the cheese was nice and melted. I added guacamole, sour cream and tomatoes for the top. I also used some avocado's. This was a fun way to celebrate Flag Day. Also, I did like to pretend that these were healthy, it hit all the main food groups, dairy, grain, vegetable, fruit, and meats. Like chocolate cake for breakfast, healthy right?

Ingredients:
1 bag blue tortilla chips
2 cups shredded cheese
1 cup taco meat
1 pkg. guacamole
1 tomato
sour cream
chopped onions (optional)
avocado (optional)

I would like to say that I appreciate the sacrifices those in the military make for our country. Not only those in the military but also their families and the sacrifices they make.

Flag Day

I wanted to make a cupcake for America's Flag Day. I wanted something light and a little different from the regular cupcake. I turned to one of my favorite cakes, Waky cake. I'm not sure where my mom came up with this cake, probably a church function, but I have always enjoyed it. I can remember it from my childhood and the only thing I really changed was that I used a box cake mix instead of making the cake from scratch. So let's get into how this patriotic cupcake came to be.

I started with a basic yellow cake mix and followed the directions on the box.
After the cupcakes cooled I took a tooth pick and picked holes in the cupcake for the jello. My daughter loved this part and it was fun to have her work with me.

I took a small package strawberry jello, sugar free (.44oz). I wanted to use sugar free because I cut the water in half and was a little worried it wouldn't dissolve completely with the regular sugar kind. Plus who needs more sugar? (I say this as I make cupcakes, a little hypocritical, I realize this.) I put one cup of water in the jello, made sure it dissolved completely then spooned the jello on the cupcakes. Here's where you'll appreciate the work you put into those holes. I missed a couple of the cupcakes and had to go back poke them. The jello has a hard time soaking into the cupcakes without the holes.

After the jello was soaked in I put them in the refrigerator so they could firm up a little. Another reason I put them in the refrigerator, I was out of milk so I couldn't make the frosting. When I finally borrowed some milk I was ready for the frosting. I wanted the frosting to be light so I took a small box of vanilla pudding, also sugar free, made it according to the directions on the box. When the pudding was solid I mixed in an 8 oz. tub of cool whip, lite.

I pulled the cupcakes out of the refrigerator took out a steak knife and cut the tops of the cupcakes off. This part was fun because I was able to see how the jello soaked in.

After the cupcakes were stripped of their tops I put my frosting in a bag and piped some of it on top of the bottom piece. I put the tops back on and piped another layer of frosting on the top of the cupcake.

Warning: these cupcakes are fragile. I did achieve my goal of being light. They were light, fluffy and wonderful. You might need a fork for this one.

Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water

1 small pkg. strawberry jello (cherry could work as well)
1 cup boiling water

1 small pkg. vanilla pudding
2 cups milk
1 cool whip 8 oz.

Buttercream Frosting

Buttercream frosting is in my opinion a basic frosting, besides the poor man's frosting but we'll visit that type of frosting in another post. You can make a chocolate buttercream or just leave it plain. I use this frosting a lot and I have to say that it has taken me a while to figure out the right consistency.

Ingredients:
1 cup solid white vegetable shortening
1 teaspoon Wilton flavor (vanilla, almond, butter)
2 tablespoons milk or water
1 pound powder sugar (4 cups)
1 tablespoon Wilton meringue powder

Directions:
Cream shortening, flavoring and water. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed.

Tips:
1. Even though this recipe says 2 tablespoons milk or water I end up adding a lot more. I usually end up around eight. You need the frosting to stick to the cake. I usually check by seeing if it easily sticks to my finger. It also depends on what you want your buttercream to do. If you're making flowers or just frosting a cake.
2. Tempted to use a regular vanilla? That's probably going to work unless you want the frosting to be white. If you're wanting the frosting to be white you'll have to get the Wilton vanilla since it has no color.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing:
Ingredients:
3/4 cup cocoa powder for baking or 3 1-oz. unsweetened chocolate squares for baking, melted
Aditional 1-2 Tablespoons milk

Directions:
Add the above ingredients to a regular buttercream icing.

Root Beer BBQ Pulled Pork

One day I decided to make pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. I only had a ham roast to work with but figured it would work. The root beer makes this recipe fantastic. I normally don't have root beer on hand but I'm thinking I might just start keeping it on stock just for this recipe. Next time I'm going to try this with chicken. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did.

Ingredients:

1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
3 cups root beer
1 (18 ounce) bottle your favorite barbecue sauce
8 hamburger buns, split and lightly toasted

Directions:

Place the pork tenderloin in a slow cooker; pour 2 cups root beer over the meat. Reserve the remaining root beer for later. Cover and cook on low until well cooked and the pork shreds easily, 6 to 7 hours. The actual length of time may vary according to your slow cooker. An hour before serving drain the root beer from the meat and shred the meat. Return meat to crock pot, stir in barbecue sauce and the remaining root beer. Serve over hamburger buns.

Adapted from slow cooker pulled pork at allrecipes.com

Tips:
1. Our favorite barbecue sauce is Kraft's Honey but when I made this recipe I had Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Barbecue Sauce. I'm sure whatever kind you use will be delicious.
2. Before putting it in the crock pot you may want to rub it down with salt and pepper and garlic salt.

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream Cake

Right now you're probably thinking, "Wow, this lady loves peanut butter and chocolate." Well, it's actually my husband. It's his favorite food combination. His birthday was today and so I made him a peanut butter cup ice cream cake. It was the first time I made an ice cream cake and it started out poorly. I over heated the ice cream and so when I went to put it on the cake, it decided to melt all over! I made several layers, one layer of chocolate cake then peanut butter then chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, peanut butter and ice cream. I had to freeze them so the ice cream would stop melting all over but that only meant my freezer now has chocolate ice cream everywhere. Eventually it set up and then the realization that this cake was not going to work out set in.
I put the top layer on a plate to freeze thinking, it will just come right off. Wrong. I didn't think that the ice cream would melt onto the plate and then freeze. Ensuring the cake would then freeze to the plate. I had to let it thaw a little and pry it off the plate.
I tried to put the two together but ended up with hug gaps. This cake was turning out to be my nemesis. My husband told me to throw it away but I had committed to this cake and I didn't have any more ice cream.
The next morning I woke up and decided to tackle this cake. I grabbed the biggest knife I could find and then started shaving off ice cream. After getting a pretty straight surface I was feeling pretty good. The cake was actually looking like a cake! Then I took of the shaved pieces and shoved it into the gaps. Threw it back into the freezer and waited.
I made some chocolate buttercream icing and piped it on. Then took peanut butter cups cut in half put frosting on the cut end and dipped it in crushed Reese's Pieces. Then I put on crushed peanut butter chips on the top.
In the end I'm happy I stuck with this cake. It turned out great and I proved to myself that I could fix a literal melt down. No need to panic in the kitchen, most things can be fixed and if not take my husbands advice, throw it away and start over.

Ingredients:
1 box Devil's food cake mix
Made to box specifications
Cut in half with top cut smooth. I use a cake leveler that helps me a lot.

Peanut Butter Filling:
1 cup peanut butter smooth or chunky
1 cup powdered sugar
5 Tablespoons milk
Mix together spread over chocolate cake layers.

1/2 gallon chocolate ice cream
Put half the ice cream on each layer of chocolate cake. Spread on the peanut butter filling and freeze.

Frost with any chocolate frosting and decorate any way you want.

Brigham Young's Doughnut's

Today is Brigham Young's birthday. I've been trying to celebrate all the LDS Prophet's birthdays this year by finding their favorite food and making it on that day (not an easy task). We talk about what they did when they were alive and discuss their legacy. I'm hoping my children will learn more about the Prophet's and we'll have fun along the way. Turns out that Brigham Young loved doughnuts. He ate them for breakfast frequently. So today's adventure in the kitchen was doughnuts. My daughter thought this was fantastic. This was the first time I've made doughnuts so I had no idea how the dough was supposed to be. They turned out delicious and big! The nutmeg was a fantastic addition to the recipe, just a hint of it.

Brigham Young's Doughnut's
Adapted from Winifred Jardine's Famous Mormon Recipes

5 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter

Directions:
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg and sift together. Set aside.

In large bowl Combine buttermilk, eggs, and sugar.

Beat in dry ingredients until well blended. Stir in butter.

Roll or pat dough on floured board about 1/4 inch thick and cut with 2 1/2 inch doughnut cutter. Fry in hot oil until golden brown on both sides. Drain and sprinkle with powdered sugar or cinnamon and sugar.

Here's my tips for this recipe:
1. Again I don't have buttermilk just sitting around so if I don't know in plenty of time that I need some I don't have it on hand. Instead I use 1 tablespoon vinegar to 1 cup of milk.
2. These were very sticky to make. I'm not sure what doughnut dough is supposed to be like so I'm not sure if this is normal or not. I had to keep adding flour to get it to a point where I could work with it but I didn't want to add so much that they would be heavy and dry. I think the amount I have listed is a good medium.
3. I put some sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and dipped the doughnuts in after they were done cooking but I'm sure powdered sugar would be good as well. Chocolate would be good too if you want to go all out.
4. I made these extra big. I'm not sure why just found the first round cookie cutter and used it. I didn't roll these out enough and they ended up being super fat. Next time I'll roll them out thinner.