Helpful hands make light work!

As I said in my first post, my grandmothers and my mom love to cook, which is something I hope that I am passing on to my daughter. She seems to be taking after me in this area (and in loving to read, something else that thrills me!). She has always loved helping me cook, but when she was younger I used to have to say "help, don't hinder!" as she poured the flour on the floor, or took the recipe and tried to make a paper hat out of it. But now that she's older she is turning out to be a huge help when we are cooking.

One of our favorite things to do is make cupcakes. I had promised some co-workers that I'd bring some to a meeting tomorrow, so I asked my little sous chef to help me. She did all the egg cracking, ingredient pouring and batter stirring of the cupcakes (I still maintain control over the electric mixer). Then she was in charge of filling the cupcakes and putting the toppings on. Not only is is great to have an extra set of hands, she's a heck of a lot of fun to work with.

I was looking for a cupcake recipe with chocolate and some kind of filling, so I decided to try these Snickers Cupcakes. I love love love snickers candy bars, so I figured I couldn't go wrong!

So what was good? They were really easy to make, fill and frost. The chocolate cupcake had a good texture and good chocolate taste, but wasn't overpoweringly chocolate.

And the bad? Nothing bad here, but I think that when I make them again I will tweak the filling to make it more ... I don't know... filling? The caramel sauce tastes good, but it's so thin it just seeps into the cupcake. Maybe I'll try a ganache, or a creamy caramel filling instead.

Snickers Cupcakes

Adapted from Homemade by Holman

Recipe yields about 30 cupcakes.

Cake:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.  Combine sugar through salt in a large bowl.  Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and beat on low until just incorporated.  Increase speed to medium and beat two minutes.  Stir in boiling water, the batter will be thin.  Transfer batter to prepared pans, filling each liner about 2/3 of the way full, approximately 1/4 cup of batter.  Bake approximately 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pans about five minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

When cool, use a paring knife to cut a small cone shape out of the top of each cupcake.  Add caramel sauce as desired.  You can cut the point off the cone and add it back to the cupcake if desired. 

Frosting:
½  cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 crisco
1/4 cup caramel sauce
3 tbs caramel macchiato flavored coffee creamer
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb powdered sugar
8 mini Snickers bar for garnish

Beat butter and Crisco together on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about two minutes.  Add caramel sauce and vanilla and mix to incorporate.  Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating on low speed until incorporated to reach the right consistency. Add creamer, 1 tbs at a time until the right consistency is reached. Increase speed to medium-high and whip about one minute until light and fluffy.  Fill a piping bag and pipe onto cupcakes or frost as desired.

Coarsely chop candy bars and sprinkle over the top of cupcakes.

Well, that took a while...

Before I got married, I used to say I operated on "Sarlo Time" (Sarlo being my maiden name). I was typically late for everything. But my husband's number one pet peeve is being late, so I had to adjust. I've done really well over the past 9 years! But it looks like I'm updating this blog on "Sarlo Time" since here it is the end of September, and my last update was in February.

The issue isn't that I haven't been cooking, but that I haven't been taking pictures while I cook. By the time I get home from work it's almost 6pm, and I'm scrambling to get dinner on the table so we can do homework, read, and have some time for fun and games. So pausing in the middle of cooking dinner to get good pictures is not even on my radar. I think I'll have to bring my camera downstairs and leave it there so I can at least take a few snapshots along the way.

One thing that I usually do is take pictures of my cupcakes with my iPhone. It's always right next to me and it takes pretty good pictures. Like this one of the White Russian Cupcakes I made for a Christmas party at work last December (Sarlo time!):

 

 

Once upon a time before I had a child, I played ice hockey with a group of great men and women, and we became fast friends and drinking buddies. Often our drink of choice was White Russians, and these cupcakes came very close to the original!

 

So, here's the good: this scratch recipe is so easy to make, and the frosting is so good you want to eat it with a spoon - forget the cupcakes!

 

And the bad: they needed more Kahlua brushed on top. The cupcakes were good, but didn't really have as much Kahlua taste as the frosting.

 

White Russian Cupcakes

adapted from Baked Perfection

makes 24 cupcakes

 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used 1 ½ cups of all purpose and 1 cup of cake flour, both sifted)

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup sugar

12 tablespoons butter, softened

2 large eggs and 2 egg whites

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

1/4 cup Vodka

1/2 cup Kahlua, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl or in a stand mixer, beat together the sugar and butter until combined. Add egg and egg white, one at a time. Then add the vanilla, Vodka, and 1/4 cup of Kahlua. Gradually add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions, ending with the flour mixture.

Bake 17 -20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean. While the cupcakes are still warm, brush the tops with the remaining 1/4 cup Kahlua. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Superbowl Snack Party

For the past few years we have either gone to a Superbowl Party or just ordered pizza while watching the game. This year my daughter had school the next day, so going to a party was out, and I just didn't feel like ordering pizza. So we decided to have a Superbowl Snack party for just the three of us! Of course, I made way too much food, but I do that with any party... It worked out really well - I had all the snacks ready by kick-off and cleaned up at half time!

Our menu consisted of chips and onion dip, pigs in a blanket, mini meatball sliders and pizza puffs. I found the pizza puff recipe on Pinterest, and thought it fit the snack party theme while tying into our previous year's pizza tradition.

So the good: the pizza puffs were really easy to make. My 7 year old actually did most of the heavy lifting. These would be great for a party as you could make the batter up ahead of time and then just put them into the mini muffin cups and bake when guests arrive.

The bad: they were a little bland. Next time they need oregano and parmesan cheese, and maybe even a bit of red pepper to spice them up a bit.

Sausage & Pepperoni Pizza Puffs
adapted from Plain Chicken

3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tbs grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
2 oz mini pepperoni, (about 1/2 cup)
4 oz sausage, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup pizza sauce

Pre-heat oven to 375°. Grease a 24-cup mini-muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, garlic powder and baking powder; whisk in the milk and egg. Add oregano and parmesan cheese. Stir in the mozzarella, cooled sausage and pepperoni. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Stir the batter and divide among the mini-muffin cups. Bake until puffed and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, microwave the pizza sauce until warmed through. Serve the puffs with the pizza sauce for dipping.

Welcome!

You'd think with my Italian ancestry, descending from a fantastic line of cooks, that I'd have the makings to be a great chef. Both my grandmothers were wizards in the kitchen. My mom is a fantastic cook, always having the perfect recipe for a holiday meal. My dad makes the very best pizza. Ever.

I guess I'm pretty good at cooking. But I've got a few problems. I mess things up. Alot. Sometimes I cut myself trying to slice or chop like I see the chefs on TV. Often I get halfway through a recipe and realize that I should have read it through before I started, because who saves the pasta liquid after you drain the pasta? And occasionaly what I cook is just plain yucky (my daughter keeps reminding me of the nasty oven baked fish I served once).

But... I love to cook. So I'm going to keep working at it. I know I'll never be a chef (hence the blog name), but maybe I'll get good enough to ditch the day job and open a dessert catering business. Or maybe I'll just teach my daughter to love food and cooking like my mom and my grandmothers taught me.

Either way, I'll win.

So welcome to my blog, where I'll share what I'm cooking - good and bad. And I'll try not to make too many dumb jokes along the way.