Mocha Cupcakes

And so begins the Valentine's Day desserts. 

I absolutely LOVE Valentine's Day. It's a win-win. I get presents, flowers, chocolates, AND dinner! Sorry to all guys out there, although I am low-maintenance most days of the year, Valentine's Day is definitely not one of them. Luckily, I have a wonderful boyfriend that coooompletely understands ;) These cupcakes are perfect: the icing is fluffy and light and mimics the coffee undertones in the cupcake. Plus, sprinkles make everything more amazing.

Oh, by the way, about a week ago, I applied for a research assistant position offered by the one and only Tucker Max. He's a comedy writer who has written titles such as I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Assholes Finish First. He is absolutely HYSTERICAL, and I jumped at this wonderful opportunity to work for him. I made it to the second cut, and I will hear back (or not) by January 30th. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated!

I didn't have espresso powder or a small sieve, so I used a larger sieve and filtered the coffee-infused milk through 5 times before adding to the sugar mixture. As you can see, there were still coffee granules in the batter, but it didn't make a difference in the end product. This recipe makes 12 perfectly sized cupcakes, but if I made it again, I would definitely double it. 

Champagne Marshmallows

I still had a bottle of champagne left over from the Champagne Cupcakes so I decided to continue the theme of Champagne-flavored desserts! This recipe makes a lot of marshmallows. So be sure that you really like marshmallows or have lots of marshmallow-loving friends! By the way, these marshmallows last two weeks at room temperature, a month in the fridge, or almost indefinitely in the freezer. So you'll have plenty of time to eat all of them! ;) If you aren't too fond of the idea of alcohol-flavored marshmallows, I have some Chocolate-Swirled Marshmallows that maybe you'll like better!

Feel free to use whatever Champagne you like best; this type just happened to be on sale at the time. If you wanted to get creative, I feel like Moscato would be a great substitution. 

One of my really good friends, Stacy, marbled my nails for me! We saw the idea on Pinterest, and it was such a great idea. It's definitely a two person ordeal though unless you're extremely talented.

Champagne Cupcakes

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! I took a little bit of time off to recoup from the stress of finals and my first semester as a nutrition major. Thankfully, I made all As this semester, and I had my first day of classes today. If you have champagne left over from your New Year celebrations, then I have two perfect recipes to use that up for you: champagne cupcakes and champagne marshmallows (which will be up tomorrow)! For Christmas, I received a Bamboo graphic arts tablet so I can begin work on designs for recipe cards and other baking-themed projects! What cooking-related items did y'all get for Christmas?

We brought in the New Year quietly at my house. I was asleep by 12:30! Also, Jeremy and I's 3 year anniversary also landed at midnight, so we went out to eat at a fantastic place in Charlotte called The Cowfish. As their name suggests, they serve both sushi and burgers, and they are AMAZING. We got The Motherload as an appetizer, which features a slice of every fish available on their menu! ! I ate several things I knew (octopus, clam, yellowtail, tuna, salmon, shrimp) and tons of things I didn't. I had no trouble downing everything on the plate except the raw shrimp and the tempura battered prawn-big shrimp-crawfish thing. I took a bite of it, and the legs came off in the mouth and all I could think about what that it looked like I was eating a spider, and I freaked out a little. Before you go though, be aware that they have an extremely large menu. It wouldn't be a bad idea to browse the menu online before you went.

Thanksgiving Bundt Cake

It's the day before Thanksgiving, and I am in the middle of baking five desserts. Yes, five. I kind of went crazy and bought way too many cranberries and sweet potatoes in the spirit of the season. I am making a sweet potato pie for Grandmama's, a red wine chocolate cake (not very Thanksgiving-y I know, but Jeremy's mom really likes red wine) for Jeremy's, a cranberry pie for Nana's, random lemon cranberry muffins and sweet potato cupcakes, and a Thanksgiving bundt cake (above) for my mom's best friend. Although I will have full posts on all desserts I'm making, here are the links to what I am baking for Thanksgiving! What is your go-to Thanksgiving dessert?


Sweet Potato Pie
Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Cream Cheese and Brown Butter Frosting
Thanksgiving Bundt Cake (All I did was change the colors: I didn't dye the chocolate cake black, I dyed the yellow cake yellow and orange, and I dyed the icing yellow and orange)
Nantucket Cranberry Pie
Red Wine Chocolate Cake

Fourth of July Special

Happy Fourth of July Weekend! I bought this awesome, old school United States shaped Jello mold a few weekends ago for fifty cents, and I'm so excited to finally have an opportunity to use it! This recipe was very simple, just time consuming because you have to make sure the different layers set correctly. This was my first experience with an actual Jello mold, and it turned out awesome! I took a photograph of the ingredients, but I accidentally bought 3 more packs of Jello that was necessary, so I didn't want to confuse anyone with too many ingredients.

Lately, I've kind of been obsessed with Jello molds....I bought like, seven in one day.  

I really should've used slightly bigger bowls for this, but all of my glass mixing bowls were in the dish washer from the brownie recipe I'd made the day before. 

Be careful when pouring your liquid jello into the mold (or into shot glasses, bowls, whatever you have) because it tends to splash, especially when you're pouring it with your left hand and looking through the lens of a camera with the other.

Make sure you have a big enough space for it to chill in your fridge, and that you're very careful when placing it in the fridge. It isn't as big of a deal at this stage, but this mold is very flimsy, and I spilled blue jello everywhere trying to get it in the fridge to set.

Be careful while running the knife around the edge of the mold; I might skip this step if I did it again because I did spray it thoroughly with nonstick spray in the beginning anyways, and it made the edges a little raggedy in places.

Flip and pray. 

I literally stared at the mold for about 3 minutes after I flipped it over, hoping that when I took it off the Jello wouldn't break apart everywhere! But thankfully it didn't! 

Perfect! 

Prep time: 30 minutes

Chill time: 5 1/2 hours

INGREDIENTS

• 3 3/4 cups boiling water
• 1 pkg. (8 serving size) or 2 pkg. (4 serving size) Jello, any red flavor (I used strawberry)
• 1 pkg. (8 serving size) or 2 pkg. (4 serving size) Jello, any blue flavor (I used berry blue)
• 2 cups cold water
• 1 pkg. (4 serving size) Jello Lemon Flavor
• 1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened (I used PET Premium)

DIRECTIONS

• Spray USA Mold (or whatever you put your Jello in) with no stick cooking spray
• Stir 1 1/2 cups boiling water into red and blue gelatin in separate bowls at least two minutes until completely dissolved. Stir 1 cup of cold water into each bowl.
• Pour red gelatin into prepared mold (or bowls or whatever). Refrigerate 1 hour until set but not firm. Reserve blue jello at room temperature.
• Stir 3/4 cup boiling water into lemon gelatin in bowl. Stir in ice cream with wire whisk until melted and smooth . Spoon over red gelatin in mold. Refrigerate 30 minutes longer or until set but not firm. Refrigerate blue gelatin 30 minutes or until slightly thickened.
• Spoon blue gelatin over lemon gelatin in mold. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Carefully unmold. Makes 16 servings.

Another easy Fourth of July dessert to make would be to fill individual angel food cakes with whipped cream and top with blueberries and strawberries!