Category Archives: cute

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cakes in a Jar

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Want to show someone you love them this Christmas (or any time of year)?

Make them these chocolate cakes + peanut butter frosting in a jar a la Forgiving Martha.  Girlfriend KNOWS her chocolate cake.  I followed her cake recipe (substituting greek yogurt for the sour cream) and it was one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve had.  So moist and fluffy.  And you bake it right in the mason jar!

Then you top those cute little jar cakes with peanut butter buttercream (recipe below).  I’m telling you.  If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be peanut butter buttercream.  I want to bathe in that stuff.  As did all 6 of the coworkers I gave these cakes to.  Seriiiiously.  Heaven.  Leave one of these cakes in a jar for Santa and I bet you’ll get EVERYTHING on your wish list.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
  • 2-3 tablespoons milk (I used soy)
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • pinch of salt
  • chocolate chips, for garnish

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, beat butter and shortening on medium high until smooth.  Scrape down the bowl and add the peanut butter.  Beat on medium high until fully incorporated.
  2. Scrape down the bowl and add the confectioners sugar.  Start with the mixer on low, and as the sugar becomes incorporated, turn it up to medium.  Beat for about a minute.
  3. Add 2 tablespoons milk, vanilla, and salt.  Beat on high for 2 minutes, or until frosting is light and fluffy.  If the frosting seems too thick, add another tablespoon of milk. Pipe onto the cakes and garnish with chocolate chips.

Pumpkin Cake Balls

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Did you ever play “Momma had a baby and her head popped off“? You know, that totally weird and random game where you decapitate dandelions and sing a little song about it?

I invented that. Except I originally called it “Barbie had a baby and her head popped off”.

Seriously! Google it. You won’t find my name (or anyone else’s), but that’s because this is the first time I’m coming forward as “anonymous inventor of Momma had a baby and her head popped off”.

I invented it when I was playing Barbies with my bestie one day and my {faulty} Barbie was in labor and her head fell off. Clever, eh?

Mike (and my mom, and pretty much anyone I tell this story to) thinks I *might* be remembering this event a bit incorrectly and it’s *possible* that I heard “Momma had a baby and her head popped off” from someone else and simply incorporated it into my play.  But to them I say, pooh pooh!

Similar to my innovative dandelion decapitation song, I’m also 99.99% sure I am the first person to invent pumpkin cake balls and they will soon overtake the world. I haven’t bothered to Google-check this fact as I feel that discovering someone else had the idea of combining pumpkin and cake balls first would be a pretty serious blow to my ego.

Regardless of origin, these are the nummiest cake balls I’ve ever encountered. The only thing better than mixing cake and frosting is mixing cake and PUMPKIN and frosting. SoooooooooooO good.

You can even make these if you are on a diet because pumpkin replaces half the usual amount of frosting in the recipe, so technically these are a health food.

Pumpkin Cake Balls (yield: ~30 cake balls)

Ingredients

  • 1 box white or yellow cake mix
  • 3 tablespoons + 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup oil
  • 1 cup water
  • 3/4 cup canned vanilla frosting
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
  • candy corn

Directions

  1. Mix cake according to directions on box (with eggs, water, and oil), but replace one egg with 3 tablespoons of pumpkin and a teaspoon of baking powder. Stir in pumpkin pie spice. Bake as directed.
  2. Allow the cake to cool completely, then crumble until there are no large pieces of cake left. Stir in 3/4 cup frosting and 1/2 cup pumpkin until incorporated.
  3. Form the mix into small balls, then dip in white chocolate candy melts.
  4. Decorate with candy corn. Store in refrigerator.

Chocolate Marie Biscuit Bars

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A few weird things happened this week:

I ate an entire head of cauliflower. By myself. And by ate I mean shoveled into my face at top speed because it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. More on that later.

I made these better-than-crack Marie Biscuit Bars despite the fact that they have a raw egg in them. Which is weird because I always learned never to eat raw eggs but not weird because I have no problem eating 75 tablespoons of unbaked cookie dough.

And, the most beautiful newborn baby in the world was born. Usually newborns look like… aliens? Not so cute? Too small and wrinkly? In my belief system babies don’t get cute until they are one week old. But then I met baby Chloe on her one-day-old birthday and my belief system changed and now I’m worried that when I have a newborn baby (in ten years, relax Mom) it won’t be as cute as Chloe. This thought keeps me up at night.

LOOK:

This cutie patootie little doll belongs to one of my co-teachers, Michaela, and she was born this past Sunday. Tell me she isn’t the cutest baby you’ve ever seen. I dare you.

What. A. Bean.

So – Michaela is from South Africa and sometimes brings in these Chocolate Marie Biscuit Bars. The first time I tried one I was all like “Huh? What is a Marie biscuit? And why does this taste like it was sent down from heaven? Can I move to South Africa?” They are like chocolate fudge with crispy chunks of biscuit mixed throughout. The bars are also 0% good for you, which is a pre-req to most things I make.

I immediately got the recipe and vowed to make Marie Biscuit Bars ASAP, but inevitably forgot until Michaela brought them in on her last day before maternity leave.  I then remembered that they are made of sugarplum fairy dust and I finally made them myself and despite the raw(ish) egg I ate the entire batch.*

Not only are these bars addicting and incredibly tasty, they are SO easy to make. Here is the recipe for your eating pleasure.

Chocolate Marie Biscuit Bars (yield: ~20 bars)

Ingredients

  • 1 stick unsalted butter
  • 1 box confectioner’s sugar, or about 3 1/2 cups
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 1 large egg (I’m thinking you could probably substitute 1/4 cup milk for the egg if you wanted), slightly beaten
  • 1 package Marie biscuits (made by Goya, these can be found in the international foods section of your grocery store), roughly crushed
Directions
  1. Melt butter in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stove. While the butter is melting, sift confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder into a large bowl.
  2. Pour the melted butter into the sugar/cocoa mixture; stir until fully incorporated.
  3. Add the beaten egg (or milk) to the butter and sugar. Mix thoroughly. It should be somewhat runny – add milk if necessary to thin it out.
  4. Stir in the crushed biscuits until all pieces are coated with chocolate.
  5. Coat a 9×9 inch pan with cooking spray. Press the fudge into the pan and allow to set in the refrigerator for at least an hour, or until firm. Cut into squares and serve. Store in a cold place.

*Exaggeration. I ate half the batch. The other half is sitting in my freezer “for when I need a little treat”. Aka tomorrow.

Hippity Hoppity…

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Easter’s on its wayyyy!

I made these Easter egg cake balls (eggs?) for you. Easter egg cake eggs. Easter egg cake ball eggs.

Let’s just call them delicious.

AND! I used strawberry cake mix because things taste just better when they’re strawberry and/0r pink.

Just follow this cake ball recipe, form the mix into egg shapes, dip in pastel candy melts and add sprinkles!

Here comes Peter Cottontail…

Petit Fours

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I’ve been wanting to make petit fours for a loooong time. They are so cute and dainty and I picture myself wearing white lace gloves and eating them with my pinky up (not that I own white lace gloves or ever eat with my pinky up). Recently I finally found an excuse to try them out: one of my coworkers was having a baby shower this past weekend, and I was in charge of the baking. Lightbulb! Baby pink and blue petit fours. They would be perfect! I decided to give these little cakes a trial run the weekend before the shower to make sure they would come out okay.

Boy am I glad I did.

As it turns out, petit fours take roughly 800 hours to make. There are 700 steps and 500 of those steps involve whisking 85 pounds of powdered sugar and corn syrup over a giant pot of simmering water.

Exaggerate I do not.

First you have to make the pound cake. I used Martha’s recipe.

Then cut it into a million tiny squares.

Here’s the best part. Driippppppp.

Glaze recipe here.

Finally, trust me when I say: clean-up is no fun.

But eating sure is!

Now if only I could find those white lace gloves…

Cake Pops Volume II

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When I heard about snow day #2, I had one thought: CAKE POPS. It just so happens that my sister’s birthday is today, so I knew these would be a perfect gift to send to her.

I started with some funfetti cake, frosting, and rainbow sprinkles to get in the birthday spirit.

Dipped in pink!

I also got inspired by all that snow…

SNOWMEN!!!

SOOOOOooooOOooooooOOOO cute!

Halfway there…

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I know that many of you were *quite* concerned that Mike did not look as fancy as me in the cookie-version of ourselves. It is REALLY hard to compete with the prom dress and pearls.

Luckily, I have a super nice roomie who takes me to AC Moore for things like black tuxedo sprinkles and candy wafers.

{More on these later}

Are you ready??

TA-DA!!!

We are ready for the opera.

And Mike’s frowny face has turned into a smile because by the time he reads this he will be done with his final final of the semester and therefore officially halfway through law school.

WAHOOOOO!