Dulce de Leche Stuffed Cupcakes.

I made some cupcakes again. Seems to be the story of my life lately.

Hey, I'm not complaining. I like doing it.

These ones were stuffed with Dulce de Leche.

What is that, you might ask? Well, it sort of tastes like caramel.

I used a Crockpot and made some from condensed milk, not evaporated milk.

Confusing, yes, I know. They both end in "milk" and come in small little cans.

I wouldn't know what would happen if I used evaporated milk... I suppose it wouldn't taste as good.

Dulce de Leche Stuffed Cupcakes

Each cupcake was bursting with that ooey gooey dulce goodness.

Roast them nuts.

If you didn't know that I'm crazy for nuts, I guess I'm hiding it well. I'm talking about the culinary kind...

Anyways... I eat them everyday and I will probably continue to. I mix them into my oatmeal, add them into my trail mixes, or cover them with chocolate... I could go on.

In grad school, I had a jar of peanut butter by my desk and I practically spread that butter on everything so it's not surprising that if it came down to it, I would eat a peanut butter and jam sandwich everyday to satisfy my craving.

Maybe that is a little extreme. I would probably stop after the first year or so, but to avoid that weird situation from happening, I roasted some almonds and pecans.

I dry roasted some, made some salty, and also made some sweet.

Salted Almonds

Honey Cinnamon Candied Pecans

Oh, did you know that nuts are actually fruit? Apparently walnuts are fruit, but almonds, cashews, and peanuts are seeds.

I know I reference Wiki a lot, but I suppose that it's fine since they give a shout out to epidemiological studies in the Nutritional Benefit section. Isn't epi soo cool? ;)

Chocolate cupcakes with the best frosting ever.

People like looking at food pictures, especially instagram-ish, filtered-added photos.

So here you go... feast your eyes on some cupcakes that I made.

Chocolate cupcakes with a flour frosting

Yup... I added flour to the frosting and it is the best frosting ever.

The flour stabilizes the frosting without adding a ton of sugar... in fact, I usually lower the sugar content so I'm not abusing my little Islets of Langerhans. Yes, sometimes I'm health conscious.

Since you have to beat the crap out of it, it takes a little more time and effort than your average Joe buttercream frosting.

It is super light and fluffy... like whipped cream and it's totally worth the extra effort.

This just might be my go-to-frosting-recipe. Trust me.... it's awesome.

Dried plum and banana muffins.

Well, hello there. It seems that I've been on a little hiatus from this blog.

Don't worry, I have still been baking away ;) .... I just haven't been taking pictures of these adventures. Who wants to read a blog post with only text? Not this girl, at least... and that is why I haven't been blogging.

I should take more pictures. My brother takes a ton of pictures and documents practically everything in photo form. He has a cool fisheye lens that he uses to make cool-looking pictures. Maybe I should get one too... but then I would have to carry it around and I already carry enough things... like lip balm. So maybe I won't get one.

Anyways... I made some muffins and took some pictures today. Yay...

Dried plum and banana ones.

Dried plum? yeah. Totally out of this world.

Never tried one? Well, I'm sure you have if I told you they are prunes... haha..

By the way, I read that the "European Food Safety Agency has ruled that prunes are not a laxative and can't be sold as such". Well.. that is good to hear I guess, but I'll think twice about reaching for that second muffin... even if it isn't a laxative...

Care for a cup of hot coco?

The problem with hot chocolate is that it can spill everywhere.

My solution: turn it into a cookie.

Yeah... I pretty much turn everything into cookie form. I like cookies.

Meringue Cookies.

I had to use up a few egg whites so I made Meringues.

I had a minor freak out because I thought I had messed up.

The egg whites weren't whipping up/holding their shape.

But everything worked out. It just took a while.... LIKE FOREVER. 

Luckily, I have a stand mixture so I walked around the kitchen as the egg mixture whipped, and whipped and... whipped some more.

I got fancy and added skor bits on top.

I also didn't leave them in the oven over night (like the recipe says to) so it wasn't "airy" through out the cookie. I baked them for the 20 minutes and then took them out. They were chewy and more fun to eat.

WOOOOT!!

Revamping

It's hard not to notice, but just in case you didn't... I'm revamping the site. :)

Piña Colada Egg Tarts.

I just realized that I forgot to post this a long time ago. Ooops.

I modified a recipe to make some Piña Colada Egg Tarts.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ellen, one of my baking buds, and I made some cupcakes for Guts on Ice, a fundraiser for crohn's and colitis.

They were having a bake sale. It was for a good cause and who could say no to skating with hockey players?

We topped the cupcakes with stuff in attempt to make them look cute and irresistible.

I must say that we were successful in making a mess of Ellen's kitchen.

I took a few pictures with my phone. It's proof that I'm not making this up.

Chocolate cupcakes with a Jackson Pollock inspired caramel drizzle.
Total art.

These ones were topped with crushed candy cane.
We have to get people in the festive mood with only 36 days til Christmas.

Gum balls. Plenty of balls. Red, yellow, green, blue too...

Cinnamon Rolls

I've never made cinnamon buns before... until now.

It's not too difficult.

It just takes time... and love.

Mostly just time... and maybe some cinnamon.

 Cinnamon rolls

And yes, I took a picture of the ugly one that doesn't look like a roll. 

Just use your imagination and pretend it looks pretty.

At least it was very tasty.

Remember, "looks aren't everything".