Chocolate Bailys Cupcakes

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...And I love it!

Nothing screams Christmas more to me than a decorated, lit up tree, wrapping presents and hot cocoa with a little Baily's mixed in. I figured if Baily's Irish Cream tastes good in cocoa, why not a cupcake?

So I searched and found a recipe for a Chocolate Kahlua Cupcake @ Annie's Eats.

They looked good, and I very much wanted to make these with my Baily's so I could sit around my tree and eat a tasty treat as I watched Christmas movie after Christmas movie. Sue me :)

Here is what you will need:
(Makes approximately 20 cupcakes)

For the cupcakes:

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp. instant espresso powder
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups sugar
1½ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
2 large eggs
¾ cup warm water
¾ cup buttermilk
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract


For the frosting:

12 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
7-8 tbsp. Baily's Irish Cream

2 tbsp. heavy cream

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.   Line standard cupcake pans with paper liners.  

2. In a large mixing bowl combine the cocoa powder, espresso powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt; whisk well to blend.  Add the eggs, warm water, buttermilk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract to the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high speed until smooth, 2-3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

3. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners, filling about 2/3 full.  Bake until the tops spring back when pressed lightly, about 18-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. 
4. Let cool in the pan 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.  Poke a few holes in the top of each cupcake with the tines of a fork and brush with Kahlua while still warm.  Allow to cool completely.
To make the frosting:
1. Beat the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. 
2. Mix in the confectioners’ sugar until incorporated.  Add in the Kahlua and beat on medium speed until well blended. 
3. Add in the heavy cream and beat on medium-high speed for about 4 minutes, until light and fluffy.  Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

 Stick a fork in the middles and pour the Baily's on top with a spoon...

Makes them shiny!

YUM! Now time to go indulge. What a wonderful time of the year :)

I partied @

Crazy Sweet Tuesday!

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Sweet Treats Thursday!

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Frugal Friday!

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Sweets for a Saturday!

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Tea Time Tuesday!

Frosty Paws for your doggy!

Is it possible to be too in love with your pet? Let me tell you, my puppy has everything and when I am in the kitchen baking cupcakes and he stares up at me with this little brown eyes, I feel so bad cuz he won't get to enjoy them! I just had to make him something, I mean, I don't think he would ever expect what I am making to actually be for him! I got a recipe for frosty paws, an ice cream like treat for dogs and it was so easy that he might be eating frosty paws for the rest of his life! :)

Waiting ever so patiently while his mama mixes up:

32 ounces of plain yogurt

1 mashed ripe banana

2 tablespoons peanut butter

&

2 tablespoons honey

Doesn't sound that bad does it? hmm..

I put all the ingredients in a blender and mixed away. Then pour the "batter" into ice cube trays, or get real crazy and get some molds! Next time I make these I will find some bone molds...if those are even real, and make them in a little more fun shapes than just cubes.

Now put in the freezer and wait until frozen. Then give to your pup and cross your fingers they think its delicious! Let's see how I did...

Looks like I did good! I would advise you to give these treats outside, or on a non-carpeted floor. All though..my pup did drag his cube into the living room and you couldn't even tell he did after he got done with it :) ENJOY!

I partied @

Frugal Friday

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Shine on Fridays!

Brownie Pie

Hello! I am back. I have not been posting very much due to not baking very much, BUT, I do have a good excuse. I have been doing low carb in order to lose some weight before a Christmas party I attended. I got to wear a cute dress and everything, and I wanted to look smokin'! Therefore I needed to lay off the sweets for awhile, but I am back!

I made a brownie pie over Thanksgiving. Recipe was found over at: Crazy For Crust, which I must thank because this recipe was AWESOME!

I was a little bit nervous, I mean brownie inside of a pie shell, just doesn't seem to jive does it? But let me tell you, oh sooo good together!

Here is what you will need to get you makin' your pie:

½ cup butter, softened

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

1 ¼ cups flour

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 ounce red food coloring

2/3 cup chocolate chips

1 pie crust, packaged or from scratch

And here is the low down on how to make this bad boy ;)

1.       Preheat oven to 350°. Unroll your pie crust and place in a 9” pie plate. Chill until ready to fill.

2.       Combine cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and food coloring in a small bowl. Stir to form a paste.

3.       Cream butter and sugar in an electric mixer until fluffy. Mix in eggs, one at a time, then add remaining 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add cocoa powder mixture and beat until completely incorporated. Mix in flour and salt. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into prepared crust.

4.       Bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool completely.

Now do not be like me and just assume you have enough red food coloring for this because I assumed, and I was dead wronge, so mine did not turn out as red and pretty as Crazy for Crusts' did, but I bet it still tasted as delicious!

I also took the advice of covering the edges of the pie crust with tinfoil before baking because I also do not like my crust very brown. I'd do anything to protect my crust! :)

You would think that somebody who always takes pictures of their food would have their camera on them at all times right? Yeah, well I don't know if it was the holiday that was getting me all confused or what but I forgot the camera so my pictures are taken with my trusty ol' cell phone. Thank goodness for those smart phones! Hope the pictures are not too terrible to make out!

Gettin' all mixed!

The pie crust with tinfoil, and then the pie all baked

All done! What is that white stuff on top you ask?

It's whipped cream topping! Ta Da!

To make this cream cheese whipped cream topping:

Beat 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream with 1 tablespoon sugar about 5 minutes until soft peaks form. Chill until ready to use. Mix 4 ounces softened cream cheese with ½ cup sugar and ½ teaspoon vanilla using a hand-held mixer. Fold into whipped cream.

Very good stuff I tell you, everyone @ Thanksgiving loved this pie. It might have even beaten the french silk...and in my opinion, french silk is the bomb!

I partied @

Sweets for A Saturday!
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Frugal Friday!

EASY Homemade Beer Bread

Beer Bread! Yum! That is all I have to say.

I have never made beer bread homemade before, I have always gotten mixes to make it so I decided to give it a shot. I found an extremely easy recipe and I was thinking that "this is wayyy too good to be true". Guess what? It wasn't, the bread was awesomely delicious! I think next time I make it I might add some cheese or some spices.

I found this recipe at My Baking Addiction. Love this site!

For 1 loaf this is what you will need:
3 cups self-rising flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
12 ounces beer (I used Leinenkugals Red Lager)
2 tablespoons melted butter

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Butter an 8×4 inch loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and beer; mix well. The mixture will be sticky. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about 55 minutes.
3. At the last three minutes of baking, remove from oven, brush the top of the loaf with the melted butter and return to oven for the final three minutes of baking.

The mix, you can see how sticky it is.

mmmm, getting ready to go into the oven.

Fresh out of the oven! I put a little garlic salt with the butter that went on top.

Look how good that looks!

Melted butter. So good.

Use whatever type of beer you want, switch it up, whatever you do, just make this bread if you want an easy bread making day :)

I partied @

Frugal Friday!

Salted Caramel Butter Bars & Gooey Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars!

I am venturing away from cupcakes for awhile because I wanted to try out some of these good looking bar recipes I have been seeing everywhere. As a matter of fact, I made two bars, two days in a row. The first one was a gooey chocolate peanut butter bar (was really craving peanut butter that day!) and the second one was a salted caramel butter bar (amazing!).

The peanut butter bars recipe was found in a 'Karo Best Cookies & Bars' recipe book that I have had forever. These bars are truly ooey and gooey!

Here is what you will need:
For the crust:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

For the filling:
2 eggs
1/2 cup Karo light corn syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 semi-sweet chocolate chips

*I left out the coconut because honestly, I hate coconut! I substituted in some toffee bits, yum!

Here is what you do:
To make the crust:
Combine the flour, sugar and corn starch in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter until mixture is crumbly. Press into greased 13x9-inch pan.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 15 to 18 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.

To make the filling:
Beat eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in coconut (toffee bits) and chocolate chips. Pour over crust. Return to oven.
Bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes, or until mixture is golden. Cool on wire rack and cut into bars.

Now let me tell you first that I had a 9x9-inch pan only so this is what I used. You are supposed to be able to see the chocolate chips peeking out of the top but since I had more filling due to a smaller pan, you could not see my chocolate chips. They were still to die for!



Seriously, doesn't that look so gooey? Oh, trust me, it was!

Ok, lets move on to the salted caramel butter bars. These were my favorite of the two bars and I only got good reviews on them!

Lets get to it, heres what you will need:

For the crust:

1 lb salted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons vanilla

4 cups all purpose flour

For the filling:

1 bag caramel candies (about 50)

1/3 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon coarse sea salt

Directions:

For the crust:

In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugars. Using a mixer on medium speed, beat together until creamy. Add the vanilla and beat until combined. Sift the flour into the butter mixture and beat on low speed until a smooth, soft dough forms.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Spray a 9x13-inch pan (once again, I used a 9x9) lightly with non-stick cooking spray. Press one-third of the dough evenly into the pan to form a bottom crust.

Bake until firm and the edges are a pale golden brown, approximately 20 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool about 15 minutes.

Cover remaining dough and put into fridge to chill.

While the bottom crust is baking and the remaining dough is chilling, make the caramel filling.

To make the filling:

Place the caramels into a microwave safe bowl and add the milk. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Remove and stir until smooth. If caramels are not completely melted, return to microwave and heat for 30 seconds. Repeat until completely melted and smooth. Add vanilla and mix well.

Pour the caramel filling over the baked crust. Sprinkle sea salt over caramel. Take the dough out of the fridge and crumble it evenly over the caramel. Return the pan to the oven and bake until the filling is bubbly and the crumbled shortbread topping is lightly brown, about 25-30 minutes. Let cool before cutting into squares.

Beautiful, browned crust!

Salted caramel layer.

Crumble the chilled dough on top of caramel layer.

I thought that I waited long enough before cutting the first square, but was I wrong! Oh how I would love to have another one of these in front of me!

These bars would be great to bring to any event, just don't expect to have any left over ;)

I partied @

Crazy for Crust!
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Sweet Treats Thursday!
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Sweets for A Saturday!
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Frugal Friday!
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Shine on Fridays!

Cupcake fail, but still pretty :)

A couple weeks ago I just wanted to make about 4 cupcakes, because it was the weekend, didn't have anyone to share the cupcakes with and I didn't want to have to eat them all myself so I searched for a recipe that would only make this many cupcakes.

I ended up coming across a recipe that makes 2 cupcakes, so I tripled it. BAD MISTAKE!

I added some peanut butter M&M's, thinking that these would turn out so delicious, but was I terribly wronge. They came out of the oven smelling soooo good, but let me tell you, I have no idea if it was the M&M's or the recipe but they were not tasty...at all.

I will still share the pictures because they did turn out pretty neat. I made some chocolate leaves to put on top!

Above is where I put M&M's in the batter, then i pushed some down farther so they were all spread out. In the end needless to say, they all went to the bottom.

All to the bottom. They don't look too bad huh?

The chocolate leaves getting ready to go into the refridgerator!

Even though these cupcakes could not be enjoyed by eating, I still enjoyed making them! Just shows that experimenting is not all a bad thing.

Mini Pumpkin Pies!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 

Well, only a few days late but better now than never right?

I would like to share what I made for a Halloween party. I wanted something little, but still tasty so I made mini pumpkin pies that I found on Bakerella. Very cute and delicious!

I am not a big pumpkin pie fan, but surprisingly, I really liked these little guys :)

Here is the low down on what you will need:

• 2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• pumpkin shaped cookie cutter
• 1/2 cup chocolate morsels
• vegetable oil
• re-sealable plastic bags

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Use cookie cutter to cut pumpkin shapes from each pie crust. You will need to roll the dough a little thiner than how it comes out of the box.

3. Press dough shapes into a 24 mini muffin tray, alternating cups to make sure they do not run into each other.

4. Apply eggs white from one egg to the top edges of each pie.

5. Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, remaining 2 eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until completely combined.

6. Spoon mixture into each pumpkin shaped crust.

7. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

8. Remove pies to cool.

9. To decorate, melt chocolate and add a little vegetable oil to make the chocolate more fluid. Trasfer to a re-sealable plastic bag and cut off tip to drizzle over pies, or draw faces.

My first batch did not turn out the greatest as you can see...

I needed to rethink what I did and decided I would use more dough and make bigger pumpkins. It worked great for the second batch!

Decorating time!! I drizzled my chocolate!

I even had a guest ;)

Oh how I love the holiday's!

I partied @
Sweet Treats Thursday!
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Sweets for A Saturday!
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Frugal Friday!