Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes

This was a tasty little treat I made for my job's Christmas party. Rich chocolate, sweet red wine... mmm.

Cupcake ingredients:
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
5 oz chocolate chips
1/2 cup boiling water
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup red wine (I used a shiraz)

In heat-proof bowl, combine cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Pour in the boiling water and stir with a whisk until chocolate is all melted. In larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until all mixed. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly add the dry mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture until well combined. Add some of the liquid chocolate, followed by some of the wine, alternating until all of it is blended. Pour into lined muffin tins, a little more full than normal because they don't rise much. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, then let cool before frosting.

For the frosting, I just made a basic cream cheese (8 oz cream cheese, 1/2 cup butter, tablespoon vanilla, and enough powdered sugar to get it to the right consistency). Decorate with some red sprinkles.

These were dense and rich and you could definitely taste the wine. A unique taste, but really good!

Egg Nog Cheesecake

Two of my favorite holiday treats... egg nog and cheesecake (well okay I love cheesecake year round). Why have I never before thought to combine them?!? I found this recipe online around Christmas time and it was delicious!!

Crust:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

2 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons butter, melted

Cheesecake Filling:

3 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup egg nog

1/2 teaspoon rum extract

dash ground nutmeg

Directions:

Grease a 9-inch springform pan and place 2 layers of aluminum foil around the outside base. Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter and press into the bottom of the pan. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Allow to cool on wire rack while you make the filling.

In large bowl beat cream cheese, sugar, and flour until smooth. Add eggs and beat on low speed until just combined. Gradually stir in the egg nog, rum extract, and nutmeg. Pour filling over the crust.

Place the foil-wrapped pan on a deep baking sheet and add 1 inch of hot water to surround it (this prevents it from burning). Bake at 325 for 60 minutes (I had to bake it longer, more like 75 minutes or so because it took awhile to set up). When done, remove from water bath and allow to cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen, then cool for an hour longer. When no longer warm, stick in the refrigerator to cool overnight.

I sprinkled some leftover crumbs and a little nutmeg on top as a garnish.

I served this at my parents' traditional Christmas Eve lasagna dinner. My brother added caramel and chocolate sauce to his, I liked mine plain with a little whipped cream. Either way - the perfect Christmas Eve dessert!

Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream

So I know it's been for-ev-er since I've posted anything, but I have been baking so I have a lot to catch up on. Even though it is now February, I'll start with where I left off back in the fall with these super-rich sweet potato cupcakes that I made for Thanksgiving. I got the inspiration from one of my favorite cupcakes from Sara Sara in OKC. This recipe doesn't quite match theirs, but it was pretty good and a good finish to a wonderful meal.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 can (17 oz) sweet potato puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine flour, baking bowder, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda. Whisk together and set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla and sweet potato puree.

Slowly stir in the dry ingredients. Add to lined muffin tins and bake at 350 for 18 minutes.

Once cooled, add frosting.

Maple buttercream frosting:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon maple extract (this made it really maple-y, so you could cut down on this if you don't want such a strong flavor)

Beat cream cheese and butter until well combined. Add powdered sugar in portions. Stir in vanilla and maple extract.

After frosting, I topped mine with a sprinkling of cinnamon. Yum yummy!

Pumpkin Cookies

Nothing says fall like my favorite fall baking ingredient.... pumpkin!! Love love love. I've made pumpkin breads, pancakes, muffins, cupcakes, but this is the first recipe I've found for cookies so I had to try it out. Credit goes to another blogger at http://sweetpeaskitchen.com/2010/09/30/pumpkin-cookies-with-cream-cheese-frosting/ because I only changed one little thing from her recipe. Happy Halloween!

Cookies:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 can pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix dry ingredients together in small bowl. In separate larger bowl, blend butter and sugars until smooth, then add egg, vanilla, and pumpkin and mix completely. Gradually add dry ingredient mixture to the wet mix. The dough is pretty sticky so this next step can be tricky, but form the dough into small balls and roll in sugar to coat. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, then gently flatten each with a thumb so they're not too thick. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or so.

When cooled, mix up the frosting:
4 oz cream cheese
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2-1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Blend until smooth, then add to a ziploc baggie. Cut off a tip of the bag and use to pipe frosting on each cookie in desired pattern. Pumpkin-y goodness!! Nice and chewy in the middle with a little bit of a crust from the sugar coating, and the frosting is the perfect little accent.

And although I didn't use it in the cookies, I couldn't resist sipping on a little pumpkin beer while I made these, just to enhance my little pumpkin mood!

S'mores Cupcakes

The first annual Cochran family get-together was this year in the Arbuckle wilderness area in nowhere Oklahoma. All 20 something of us lived in one big lodge for the weekend. Being all campy-feeling, I though s'mores would be appropriate, but there was a burn ban in Oklahoma so that meant no camp fires. So.... I came up with s'mores cupcakes! I googled a few recipes, and turns out there are lots of different ways of doing this. So, I combined a few recipes and my own ideas. They turned out okay, but I think I'll try a few things different if I make them again.

For the cake:
Mix up a yellow cake mix per the package directions. Separately, crush up graham crackers until you have about 1 cup of crumbs. Fold these into the cake batter for a graham cracker cake, put into cups, and bake according to the mix directions. When cooled, dig out a little hole in the center of each cupcake.

For the chocolate middle:
Melt down some Hershey chocolate bars in the microwave, and fill up the holes in the cupcakes with the melted chocolate, letting it run out the top so you can spread a layer over the top of the cupcake. This is something that needs some work because while it turned out great right afterwards to have a gooey chocolate center, the next day the chocolate hardened in the center and left a little chocolate turd in the middle of the cupcakes. Good, but not quite what I was going for.

For the marshmallow frosting:
Blend a jar of marshmallow fluff with a stick of softened butter. Then gradually add in about 2-3 cups powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Dollop a spoonful onto the tops of each chocolate-filled cupcake. This frosting was a little thin, so it ended up running down the side instead of staying nice and perky. And, it tasted a little to sugary sweet instead of marshmallow-y, but not sure what I could have done about it other than using more fluff and less powdered sugar?

Finally, a garnish of a graham cracker! I wanted to toast these in the broiler to give the marshmallow a toasty look, but the oven at this lodge didn't have a broiler.

Have one, then have s'more!