Tried and True-Pumpkin Cupcakes

Today's Sunday afternoon project: pumpkin cupcakes! The original recipe calls for salted caramel frosting (which, by the way, I will be making eventually!), but I still had some leftover frosting from last week's apple pie cupcakes (which refrigerates really well, actually), so I used that up and then made some of our family friend's recipe for vanilla buttercream (recipe follows). The results? Great!

The recipe said that it would make about 18 cupcakes, but I actually got 28 out of it! Practically a record for me, since I'm known for making jumbo baked goods that only yield about 1/2 of what the recipe is supposed to! Anyways, they baked about 20 minutes and came out great! I frosted some with cinnamon and some with vanilla frostings and topped them with fall colored nonpareils for some extra color. Take a look!

Not the best pictures, I know, but I took them with my phone since I can't find my camera. Anyways, they came out great and were a perfect fall treat! You can find the recipe here!

Vanilla Buttercream Recipe:

1 cup butter (softened)

3 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

1 Tbsp. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. salt

Beat to combine, adding more milk to thin as needed and more sugar to taste (if necessary).

Stay Tuned for New Recipes and Reviews!!

On my baking list for today? Pumpkin cupcakes and then Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes! I'll post pictures and reviews of the finished products once I have them, so stay tuned!!

Tried and True-Apple Pie Cupcakes

After a family day of apple picking, Lindsay and I made apple pie cupcakes. They're a cinnamon-like cupcake with sugar/butter cooked apples and a cinnamon frosting. I had a hard time getting the image on here, so click here for a picture and the recipe!
Note: They were a little dry, but tasted JUST LIKE apple pie!! Also, when making the frosting, add about 1/2 cup more sugar, 1/8 tsp cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla so that it has less of a straight butter flavor (you could even cut the frosting recipe in half, since we had a TON of leftover frosting...). But great recipe!!

Tried and True-Brown Sugar Cookies

I've seen this recipe and always wanted to try it, so last weekend, my siblings and I had a baking day and tried it out (along with the baguettes and spekuloos cookies that I've also posted about). Let me just say that these are absolutely delicious. They have almost a cake-like texture to them and the icing is delicious!

Here's the picture on the blog that I found them on and they came out looking exactly the same :)

Here's the recipe link! (Scroll down a little on the page to find it)

Tried and True-Baguettes

There's really nothing much better than a freshly made loaf of good bread. And trust me when I say I've found a keeper recipe. I'll admit that when we made them they looked kind of weird (meaning if they came out like that I probably couldn't serve them) but they sure taste GREAT! They're soft on the inside and just crispy enough on the outside. This is the picture that the website I found the recipe on had:

They look a lot better on this picture than they did when we tried, but they tasted absolutely fantastic!! Check out the recipe here.

Tried and True-Spekuloos Cookies

Spekuloos. A great Belgian treat :) A great company, Waffles and Dinges, has this spread which they call spekuloos. It's a cross between gingerbread and graham cracker. It's so good, that we decided to make cookies that we found that were flavored like it! We made them with Christmas cookie cutters since it's what we had, but hey? When is it ever too early for Christmas?

 

 Rolling out the dough and choosing cookie cutters

The finished product

They taste like gingerbread cookies, but stay soft on the inside if you make them a little thicker. I've never found a fantastic recipe for gingerbread cookies to use during Christmastime, so we're thinking of using this recipe! Check out the recipe here.

Tried and True-Mini Condiment Cupcakes

Tried and true. Well, sort of. More like two great recipe ideas combined! I saw a recipe for cupcakes for two, which I thought was a fantastic idea! Then, I saw another idea about making cupcakes in condiment cups so that they're mini! Since you'd need like a million condiment cups for a whole batch of cupcakes, I thought combining these two ideas would be perfect! So, the Mini Condiment Cupcakes were born! I started with this recipe: click here, for cupcakes for two (which I'm sure would also make a great recipe on it's own). I grabbed some extra condiment cups from a fast food restaurant (I used 12...). I put the condiment cups in a mini muffin tin to give them some extra support (even though they weren't quite the right size). They're in the oven now, take a look:

You have to admit those look amazing!! They cooked for about 13 minutes and now need to cool. Here's a few pictures of how they came out (pre-frosting...)

I think I'm just going to use store-bought frosting, but you could also just make a smaller portion of homemade frosting (AllRecipes has a great feature where it will adjust the ingredient measurements to fit the number of servings you want to make...). Enjoy!

Reader Contest!

This never-ending contest is just for my blog readers! Invite friends to my blog and you'll win a special PDF version of some of my favorite recipes that I've posted (and maybe even a couple I haven't posted yet!), along with some of my baking tips and favorite kitchen tools. If you invite a friend who becomes a member of the blog, let me know which friend of yours has joined and let me know your email, and you'll get the special PDF! So, GO! And happy baking!
P.S. If you're a regular reader and haven't become a member yet, PLEASE DO SO! It really helps the blog :)

Tried and True-"Panera-Like Mac and Cheese"

For those of you who don't know, Panera Bread is a FABULOUS restaurant with homemade breads, soups, sandwiches, and even mac and cheese! It's absolutely to die for! This is a knock-off recipe for the mac and cheese that we tried out for my brother's 12th birthday. We added an extra 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese because the mustard was a little overpowering for our taste, and it was PERFECT! My sister and I made this and it was a simple recipe with common ingredients too! Great find!! Click here for the recipe!

Tried and True-PB Cup Brownies

Made these for my brother's 12th birthday, they're pretty good! The baking time on the recipe is a little too long, but otherwise they're easy and tasty! Click here for the recipe!