Still More Bunco Treats!

by penji1

And one last post about Bunco and then I promise I’ll be done!  I made some Oreo Truffles for prizes (recipe already on the blog) and

I had some extra Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes from Noah’s Muppet cupcakes and some extra purple frosting from Emmy’s Justin Bieber cupcakes so I combined them with some pearl sprinkles and I thought they just looked so cute, the purple and the chocolate went together so well!

And I had some vanilla cupcakes left over from Emmy’s Justin Bieber cupcakes so I decorated those with the cute grass and eggs sprinkles and the lamb and bunny picks and

here is the Bunco prize table with all the fun dishes and treats.  It smelled like a bakery!  And now I am done!  🙂

Stacy’s Mini Chocolate Chip Loaves

by penji1

I liked this recipe from Anne Byrn’s “Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor” but decided to make cupcakes and some other shapes instead of loaves.  I made regular shaped cupcakes (pictured above) and iced some with my buttercream icing in purple and white and then topped the others with the chocolate frosting from the “Rocky Road Cupcakes” recipe (without the marshmallows and nuts) and topped them all with little Easter shapes cut out in fondant.  I also made some egg shaped cupcakes and some flower shaped cupcakes (pictured at the end of the post).  I topped half of the eggs with frosting thinned out and microwaved and the other half with melted candy melts which I had leftover from making some truffles and then I topped the flower shaped cupcakes with drizzled frosting and more fondant Easter shapes.  I was just having fun and experimenting, as I’m sure you can tell.

1 (4 oz) bar German chocolate

1 (18.25 oz) yellow cake mix (I left out the German chocolate and yellow cake mix and used a German chocolate cake mix instead)

1 (3.4 oz) vanilla instant pudding mix

1 cup milk

3/4 – 1 cup oil

4 eggs

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1  Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly mist six 6″ loaf pans with cooking spray then dust with flour or line cupcake pans with paper liners.

2  Grate chocolate until finely grated.

3  Blend cake mix, pudding mix, milk, oil and eggs on low for 1 minute.  Fold in grated chocolate.  Beat for 2 more minutes on medium.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Batter should be well combined with chocolate chips evenly distributed.  Pour batter into prepared pans, distributing evenly.

4  Bake loaves until they spring back when lightly touched with finger, 35 – 40 minutes (I baked the cupcakes about 15 – 20 minutes).  Cool 10 minutes in pans before removing.

Orange Poppy Seed Cupcakes

by penji1

I also made these cupcakes for some Bunco prizes.  I made regular shaped cupcakes (pictured here) and then I made some in the shape of bunnies (pictured at the end of the post).  This recipe comes from Wendy Paul’s “101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 Minutes”.  I baked these cupcakes in Easter liners and topped them with my favorite buttercream icing and then sprinkles that looked like grass and eggs and then stuck either a lamb or bunny pick in each one (liners, sprinkles and picks all from Hobby Lobby).  The little pink bunny in the middle cupcake is cut out of fondant with tiny Easter shaped cookie cutters that I also found at Hobby Lobby.  For the bunny shaped cupcakes, I just drizzled them with frosting so that you could clearly see that they were bunny shaped.

1 box yellow cake mix

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1 medium orange, juiced

2 tablespoons orange zest

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Mix all ingredients in large bowl.  Pour or scoop batter into paper liners, filling 3/4 full.  Bake at 350 for 15 – 18 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.

Buttermilk Cinnamon Bread

by penji1

(Sorry about the picture, I had already wrapped the bread up before I took a pic and didn’t want to unwrap it and wrap it up again.)  So for last night’s Bunco prizes, I decided to have a little fun (the way we play Bunco is that everyone goes home with a prize, if you win then you get to pick first!).  I went to Hobby Lobby and hit it at just the right time as all their Easter and Spring products were on sale for 40% off and I was looking for Easter and Spring dishes or plates or trays, things like that so I was able to get all my prizes for 40% off, yippee!  Then I started baking a few days ahead of time and made some sort of treat to go on each of the dishes (as you can see from the pic, this loaf of bread is on a round lemon tray and in the pic at the end of the post, the other loaf of bread is on a pink rose sort of vintage looking tray).  So here is post #1 about the Bunco prizes! (This recipe is a “Taste of Home” recipe.)

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup oil

2 1/2 cups sugar, divided

2 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 – 2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts (I topped 1 loaf with walnuts, pic at end of post, and 1 loaf with almonds, pic at beginning of post)

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  Combine oil and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a small bowl.  Add buttermilk and eggs to oil and sugar and mix well.  Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.  Fill 2 greased 8 x 4 x 2″ loaf pans about 1/3 full with batter.  Combine cinnamon and remaining sugar and sprinkle half over batter.  Top with remaining batter and cinnamon sugar.  Swirl batter with a knife.  (A tip from me, the batter is really thick so don’t swirl all the way out to the edge of the pan as it will make the bread a little unstable after it has baked.)  Sprinkle with nuts.  Bake at 350 for 45 – 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing.

 

Chocolate Almond Pastries

by penji1

I hosted Bunco last night at my house and these were the treats I made to serve for dessert.  The recipe comes from “Martha Stewart Living”, the December 2009 issue.  I felt a little like Martha yesterday as I made these treats and then I made treats for everyone to take home as part of their prize (more on that in another post).  These are super easy to make and they are so delicious!  Bob and I have been trying to eat better and count calories for the past 10 weeks (I’ve lost 20 pounds and Bob has lost 40!) but I cheated for the first time last night and had a piece of this and it was worth every bite and the half pound I gained when I stepped on the scale this morning!  The recipe said it serves 4 but those were huge pieces so I think 6 servings is probably a better amount.

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (from a 17.3 oz package), thawed (according to package directions)

1 egg, lightly beaten, for egg wash

sanding sugar, for sprinkling (you can usually find sanding sugar at craft stores like Michaels or Hobby Lobby)

1 1/2 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used chocolate chips, which worked out great and I’m pretty sure I used more than 1 1/2 ounces)

honey, for drizzling

sea salt, for sprinkling

2 tablespoons whole almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped (I had a bag of sliced almonds from Costco so I used those and I also made 1 tart with walnuts, see pic at end of post)

vanilla ice cream (I went with Cool Whip)

1  Preheat oven to 450 (this seemed a little hot so I might take it down to 425 – 400).  Arrange puff pastry on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Trim edges if needed to form a 10″ square (I didn’t bother trimming, just went with whatever size it ended up being), and fold each edge in to form a 1″ crust.  Prick middle of dough all over with a fork.  Brush edges with egg wash, and sprinkle with sanding sugar.  Freeze for 15 minutes.

2  Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake until pastry is puffed and golden brown, 15 – 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and cover center evenly with chocolate.  (My pastry had puffed quite a bit so I took a fork and pushed it down in the center only so that I had a flat surface to work with, I also had to prick it again with the fork several times to get it to lay flat.)  Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with salt.  Return to oven and bake until chocolate melts, about 2 minutes.  (I had to take a knife here after I took it out of the oven and spread the chocolate around carefully so that I had a nice even layer of chocolate on my pastry.)  Sprinkle with almonds and cut into 4 (or 6) squares.  Serve with ice cream or Cool Whip and drizzle with more honey.

Purple Justin Bieber Mini Fondant Birthday Cake and Microphone Cupcakes/Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

by penji1

So this weekend was a mini cake and cupcake weekend.  Here is the second round for our cute little neighbor, Emmy, who is turning 7 and thinks Justin Bieber is all that!  🙂  I ended up doing these on my own which was actually really fun!  The mini cake is a 6″ chocolate (from the WASC cake recipe) covered in our buttercream icing tinted purple and then Duff’s purple fondant from Michaels.  The cupcakes are all vanilla cupcakes (new recipe to follow at end of post) also covered with our purple buttercream icing.  I cut out the hearts and stars with cookie cutters and also the “JB’s” a few days ago so that they would dry and stand up straight in the frosting.  (Just a tip – 1 day isn’t enough for the fondant shapes to dry all the way so 2 days or longer is best.)  The idea for the microphone cupcakes came from Alan Richardson and Karen Tack’s cookbook, “What’s New, Cupcake?” and were very easy to do.  They used mini or child size cake ice cream cones which I couldn’t find so I bought the regular size and carefully (with a serrated knife) cut them down to the proper size.  The antennae at the base of the cone is a purple Mike and Ike’s.  The ball of the microphone is a doughnut hole dipped in frosting and then rolled in silver dragees which I found at Zurchers party supply store.  Happy Birthday Emmy!

Vanilla Cupcakes (recipe from http://www.cupcakerecipes.com)

2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 egg whites

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1  Preheat oven to 350 (or 325 for dark pans).  Line cupcake pans with paper liners (for these I bought the silver liners).

2  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening, milk and vanilla and mix on low for 2 minutes.  Scrape bowl.  Add egg whites and mix on high until fluffy and smooth, about 2 minutes.

3  Fill liners 1/2 – 2/3 full.  Do not overfill.  Bake 20 – 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

4  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan.

Mini Kermit Fondant Cake and Cupcakes/Chocolate Velvet Cupcake Recipe

by penji1

My little great nephew Noah is turning 4 and his mom, my niece Amber, asked if Cort and I would make Muppet cupcakes for his party.  The Muppets turned out to be pretty hard to make so we opted to make him a mini bday cake with Kermit on it (his favorite Muppet) and then cupcakes for Noah’s friends in Muppet colors.  Cort made the mini cake which is a 6″ red velvet topsy turvy cake covered in our buttercream icing and then the blue and green fondants are Duff’s fondant from Michaels and the chocolate log that Kermie is sitting on is the Pettinice chocolate fondant from Funfinity.  Here is a closer pic of that cake:

I was in charge of the cupcakes so I used cookie cutters to cut out the letters, number, stars and presents from various colors of fondant and let them dry overnight (they probably should have dried over two nights as some of them were still a bit sticky when I was putting them on the cupcakes).  I frosted them with our buttercream icing, stuck the shapes into the frosting and then added various colored sprinkles to the tops.  The cupcakes are a new recipe, Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes which I got from http://www.bettycrocker.com.

1 box devil’s food cake mix

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup oil

3 eggs

1 – 2 teaspoons butter flavor or vanilla (I used vanilla)

2 heaping tablespoons unsweetened baking cocoa

1 cup chocolate chips

1  Heat oven to 350 (or 325 if your muffin pans are dark in color).  Place paper baking cups in each of 24 regular size muffin cups.

2  Beat all cupcake ingredients except chocolate chips on medium about 2 minutes, or until well blended.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

3  Bake 18 – 24 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes then remove from pans.

Candy Covered Chocolate Fondant Birthday Cake

by penji1

Courtney’s 20th birthday was on Thursday and I have been waiting for her to be gone for a long enough time for me to make her birthday cake.  She had to go to work on Friday from 4:00 in the afternoon until 2:30 in the morning so I finally had my chance to do it.  Cort and I have seen these candy themed cakes on the internet and have always wanted to try one so I decided I would do it for her bday because it didn’t look too hard and I had to do it on my own.  I wanted to cover it in white so that the colors would really stand out but the white Pettinice fondant I had was so sticky (perhaps because it’s been so warm lately) that I couldn’t use it so I went with the Satin Ice Dark Chocolate fondant which actually worked out well for the candy cake to be covered in chocolate.  The cake is also dark chocolate based on the White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe and the frosting is my standby buttercream icing.  I made little cake balls for the top but didn’t have any candy melts to dip them in so I just dipped them in melted frosting which is part of the reason they don’t look as good as regular cake balls which are all smooth and shiney.  The balls lining the layers are actually gum balls that I got in the bulk food section at Winco.  Then I made a couple of lollipops out of fondant for either large end of the topsy turvy layers and then finished it off with some multicolored circles cut out of fondant to keep with my circle themed cake.  The cake platter was given to me for my birthday by my friend Barbara and went so well with this cake (thanks Barb!).  Happy Birthday to my baby, who is no longer a teenager which means I’m old!  I love you Cort!

Hunger Games Fondant Birthday Cake

by penji1

And finally our last food project from yesterday, a Hunger Games birthday cake for our dear, sweet friend, Kaylee!  We are pretty happy with this one, except for a few minor imperfections, it came out great!  And, it is a tall cake which I was able to cover smoothly for the first time!  In the past, the tall ones have given me a nervous breakdown because I just couldn’t cover them smoothly but this one came together great!  The cake is chocolate based on the “White Almond Sour Cream Cake” recipe, our favorite buttercream icing and then covered with Satin Ice dark chocolate fondant.  The Mockingjay pin on the top and the flames on the bottom were all made out of Wilton white fondant that we colored.  Happy Birthday KK, we love you!

Caramel Candy Bars

by penji1

And bar cookie #3.

1 (14 oz) bag caramels

1/3 cup milk

2 cups flour

2 cups quick cooking or old fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 cup butter, softened

1 (6 oz) package semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)

1 cup chopped walnuts or dry roasted peanuts (left the nuts out of this one in case anyone was allergic)

1  Heat oven to 350.  Grease 9 x 13″ pan.

2  Heat caramels and milk over low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth.

3  Stir together flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, salt and egg in large bowl.  Stir in butter with fork (I used my pastry blender) until mixture is crumbly.  Press half of the mixture in pan.

4  Bake 10 minutes.  Sprinkle chocolate chips and walnuts over baked layer.  Drizzle with caramel.  Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture.  Bake 20 – 25 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool completely and cut into bars.