Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red Velvet is sort of a family tradition for me. I had never even heard of red velvet until I met my husband, and I have to be honest...the first time I ever had it I thought it was awful. I think, though, it was because I was expecting it to taste like a chocolate cake or vanilla cake, and it doesn't. It definitely has it's own flavor!

After my husband and I got married, and I knew it was his favorite cake, I tried several time to find a recipe that was 1) easy 2) moist (nothing is worse than a dry red velvet!) and 3) husband approved. My first attempt was a three-layer cake with buttercream frosting for Valentine's Day one year. While the cake was okay, it was a little dry and I didn't love the pairing with the buttercream.

My next attempt was also a cake, and still dry. I used (gasp - don't judge me) canned cream cheese frosting. Still, not amazing, and I learned that day that I was never going to use canned frosting again.

After all this, cupcakes became all the rage in Foodie land. So I found a few red velvet cupcake recipes and after several attempts at each, I combined elements of each that I liked and created what my family thinks is the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe!! It is so easy to make and very elegant for any occasion. We make it for Valentine's Day every year and Christmas too. You could also substitute the red food coloring for green and make green velvet cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day!

**If you don't have buttermilk you can make your own! Place 1 1/2 Tablespoons white vinegar in a measuring cup. Pour milk into cup until it reaches 1 1/2 cups total. Let sit for about 5 minutes. Ta-da! Buttermilk!!

 LOVE the ruby red color!

I frost mine with a large star tip

Red Velvet Cupcakes
by Girls in Aprons

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cocoa powder
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
3 T red food coloring
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Line two 12-cup muffin pans with cupcake papers. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. (Sifting is important here because it helps the texture to be more fluffy). In a large bowl gently beat the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the went and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake papers, about 2/3 full. (I find it really easy and lots cleaner to pour the batter in a gallon-size baggie and snip of a corner. Then I can just squeeze the amount of batter in the cupcake liner without dripping all over the pan like I do when I fill with a spoon.) Bake in oven 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once halfway through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and let cool completely before frosting.

FROSTING:

1 cube unsalted butter, softened
1 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
3 3/4 to 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I use a little more because I like my frosting stiffer)
1 tsp vanilla

Beat the butter and cream cheese together. Add powdered sugar a cup at a time and vanilla.

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread

I'm a Pinterest addict. And that's not an exaggeration. At last count I had over 3,000 pins and I've only been on Pinterest maybe 6 months. And I've only actually used about a dozen of those pins for projects and recipes. I have a long way to go. I'd probably do more Pinterest-inspired projects if I actually owned a home AND learned how to sew. And developed a case of insomnia that allowed me several hours of nothing to do.

One of the latest things I Pinterested was a list of Christmas cookies from Better Homes and Gardens. I chose these cookies based on the picture alone. I think I thought they were white chocolate peppermint cookies, so I was a bit surprised to find they were cherry. I'm not a fan of marashino cherries. I don't understand why they have to come on every milkshake I order. But, I put judgement aside and judged a book by its cover...or in this case, a cookie by its picture. The picture was gorgeous, I just had to try it out. I just made a few tiny adjustments.

I don't even like maraschino cherries, but in this cookie they are amazing!

I drained my cherries first in a colander before laying them on the paper towels to drain again. Love the color!

Cutting the butter in. When a recipe asks for cold butter, they really means COLD. I chop up my butter into small cubes and then put it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes before cutting it in. You can also use your Kitchenaid mixer for this.

The batter. It's shortbread, so it's going to be dry. If it's too dry and you can't seem to knead it in a ball, add a little water or cherry juice, but only a little. You want the shortbread to be flaky.

I didn't dip my cookies. I really wanted the cherries to shine through and thought if the cookies were dipped the white chocolate might overshadow the cherries. A drizzle and a sprinkling of white sprinkles turned out beautifully. A great balance of cherry and white chocolate.

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread
by Better Homes and Gardens

1/2 cup maraschino cherries, drained and finely chopped (about a 10 oz jar)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup cold butter

12 ounce white chocolate baking squares with cocoa butter, finely chopped (I used white chocolate chips instead of baking squares. Saved me a ton of money and chopping time)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 drops red food coloring (optional) (I didn't use red food coloring. My son is allergic to it so we don't even have it in the home. You are welcome to use that or add juice from the cherry jar for extra cherry taste and to give the cookies a red tint)

2 teaspoons shortening

White nonpareils and/or red edible glitter (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spread cherries on paper towels to drain well.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour and sugar. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in drained cherries and 4 ounces (2/3 cup) of the chopped chocolate. Stir in almond extract and, if desired, food coloring. Knead mixture until it forms a smooth ball.

3. Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Using the bottom of a drinking glass dipped in sugar, flatten balls to 1-1/2-inch rounds.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until centers are set. Cool for 1 minute on cookie sheet. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool.

5. In a small saucepan, combine remaining 8 ounces white chocolate and the shortening. Cook and stir over low heat until melted. Dip half of each cookie into chocolate, allowing excess to drip off. If desired, roll dipped edge in nonpareils and/or edible glitter. Place cookies on waxed paper until chocolate is set. Makes about 60.

Cinnamon Pull-Aparts

Really, I'm all about traditions. Since my family is so young it's easy to still start new ones while incorporating some of the traditions both my husband and I grew up with. I love reading about other people's traditions for birthdays, Christmas, back to school, etc and often times I totally steal their ideas (copying is the best form of flattery, right??). For example, one tradition I really love (and I came up with it all on my own - no stealing here!) is our "Week-O-Fun" that we do the week before school starts. We do something fun everyday (the spray park, picking out a new school outfit, bowling) to celebrate the end of summer and the start of a new school year.

This is usually a Christmas morning tradition for us. We love cinnamon pull-aparts in our house! And this recipe makes so much that, after we all eat for breakfast, there is still enough to snack on throughout the day! They are easy to make and kid friendly. Seriously, most of our family traditions revolve around food!

You need the package of biscuits that comes in a 4-pack (they will be packaged together) and ice cream for your sauce. Yes, that's right. ICE CREAM! You already know this is going to be good!

In a small sauce pan mix butter, sugar, brown sugar, and ice cream on low until combined and sugars dissolve.

Take the biscuits and cut them in quarters. Drop each quarter in the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat and place in the 9x13 pan.

This is what your sauce looks like. Don't try it though. You'll eat the whole thing before you get to use it on your biscuits!

Your cinnamon sugared biscuits. Just chilling, waiting for their caramel sauce.

Pour your sauce over the biscuits, trying to cover them all. (They all want to sauce dang it!)

Spread the sauce over the poor biscuits that didn't get any.

Bake at 400 for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling. Invert pan carefully onto a large cookie sheet or serving tray. Let it cool slightly (it is like molten lava when it comes out!) and serve warm. (It's good cold too!)

Cinnamon Pull-Aparts

submitted by Celeste Pearson

4 (7.5 oz each) buttermilk canned biscuits (total of 40 biscuits)

Caramel Sauce:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vanilla ice cream
1/2 (1 stick) cup butter

Cinnamon and sugar mix

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

 Butter (for the pan) or cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter or spray a 9x13 pan and set aside.

Mix sugars, ice cream and butter in a sauce pan on low. Stir frequently until sugars dissolve and mixture is slightly bubbling. Remove from heat. With scissors, cut biscuits into quarters and roll each quarter in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and put into buttered 9x13 pan. Pour the sauce on top evenly.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Carefully invert pan on serving platter.

Optional: Place biscuit quarters into sprayed bundt pan.



Lemon Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

I know I'm not the only one who has waited until the last possible moment to make cookie plates for friends and family. I normally have this done a week or so before Christmas, yet here we are FOUR days before Christmas and I've only made one of the four treats I am planning to give out. Tomorrow I need to get my bake on, and hope that my mother-in-law will willingly help with the dishes and/or the kiddos.

I usually find a good reason to be in the kitchen, whether it's because I can blast the music and dance while I bake, or whether it's because I can eat the raw dough (you know you do it, too!), or because mixing and chopping and stirring is my own personal stress-reliever...just not the dishes!

Anyone who loves to bake needs a good shortbread cookie dough recipe. Once you know this recipe you can let creativity take over. You can add different flavorings and extracts, nuts, chocolate, fruit, roll it around in ground nuts, coconut, or powdered sugar, create new shapes...really, the possibilities are many.

I took a shortbread recipe I learned a long time ago from Barefoot Contessa and made my own version of thumbprint cookies. They are bright and delicious and make me very happy when I eat one.

You start with the basics, and I'm not sure why, but the vanilla is stealing the spotlight and hiding the raspberry jam, but it's there. Promise.

Mix, mix, mix. If my picture was better you'd see little yellow bits from the lemon zest. So. Good!

After everything is mixed, roll out the dough into a flat disk and let chill for about 30 minutes. If you chill it longer than that, you'll need to let it thaw slightly otherwise it won't be pliable...and yes, I know this from experience.

What? My picture is a little off-center? That's because my handy 7-year-old took it for me. But you get the basic idea. After rolling the dough into 1 1/2" balls, use one hand to hold it together slightly (it's prone to cracking) and press down a 1/4 teaspoon into the center.

Using the same 1/4 teaspoon, fill the holes with raspberry jam. Pretty, right?

All finished!

Lemon Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
submitted by Kelli Lafranca, adapted from Ina Garten

3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
Zest from 1 lemon
Raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until they are just combined and then add the vanilla. Separately, sift together the flour and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a floured board and roll together into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll dough into 1 1/2-inch balls. Place the balls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and, using a 1/4 teaspoon, make an indent in the top of each ball. Fill each indentation with 1/4 teaspoon raspberry jam. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until the bottoms are lightly golden. Let cool on a wire rack.

Candy Cane Kiss Cookie Bites

These little bites were super easy to make and so yummy! I love peppermint and chocolate together. I've been known to drop a candy cane into my hot chocolate and I recently discovered chocolate-covered mini candy canes. Love it! Around December-ish, Hershey's comes out with Candy Cane Kisses and they are so good. White chocolate and a peppermint ribbon- they are speaking my language! I could eat an entire bag (I said could, not did) and love to find ways to use these babies up. On the back of the bag they had a peppermint swirled cheesecake recipe that I need to make sometime too.

A couple of years ago, I made these cookies, but I made them into regular sized cookies. They were a huge hit at a ward Christmas dinner, but I didn't like how I had to take a huge bite in order to get to the center where the Candy Cane Kiss was (because we all know that's the best part), so this year I made them with my mini muffin tins and I love the way they turned out. So much easier to fit on a holiday treat plate, and I was able to get chocolate cookie and peppermint in each bite. Plus, anything is cuter when it's mini, right?

Adorable, right? I love the little bite-sized cookie!

Fill your lightly-sprayed mini muffin tins a little more than half way.

While the cookies are baking, unwrap a bag of these bad boys.

After your cookies have cooled a few minutes, press in the Kisses.

Press them in pretty good, and then let them do their thing. The bottom will melt a little and stick to the cookie.

Add to your treat plate, take to a potluck, or just eat them up yourself. Super easy, right?

Candy Cane Kiss Cookie Bites

submitted by Carissa @ Girls in Aprons

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 bag Candy Cane Kisses, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and vanilla and mix until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Add gradually to your butter mixture until well blended. Add your chocolate chips and stir until combined.

Lightly spray your mini muffin tins and drop batter into each hole, filling it a little more than half way. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until done (it will look dry on top). Let cool for a couple of minutes, then press the Candy Cane Kisses into the center of each cookie. Transfer to wire racks until completely cooled.

Cinnamon Almonds

As I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite things to do at Christmas is sit on a bench at the mall and just people-watch. It may sound boring, but I love seeing all the different people with all their packages and just daydream a litle. Do you want to know what makes people-watching even better? Some Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate (duh) and a package of fresh roasted cinnamon almonds. Just as soon as I enter the mall, I smell the cinnamon almonds and I have to have some. They just smell like Christmas to me.

I was perusing some of my fave food blogs last Christmas and found a recipe from The Sisters Cafe. They got this recipe from someone (who probably got in from someone, etc) and I made it right away. It was so super easy and the smell in my house was just like the mall! It smells heavenly while baking. These make the perfect addition to any Christmas treat plate, or make up a batch for New Years Eve to munch on while playing games (but I warn you, you won't be able to stop!) I had to promise to make a batch (or two!) for my family this New Years' because my kids wouldn't stop eating them :)

Aren't these so cute?

First add your cinnamon, sugar and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl whisk your egg white and vanilla until frothy (but not stiff, that's another dessert!). Just get your whisk out and we're going to be old-fashioned here and whisk by hand.

After you've coated your almonds in the egg, add your cinnamon mixture. And stir, stir, stir! Make sure all the almonds are coated in the yumminess!

Bake them low and slow. Seriously, so easy and delicious!

Cinnamon Almonds

submitted by Carissa (from The Sisters Cafe)

 

1 cup white sugar

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 egg white

1 tsp. vanilla

4 cups almonds

 

Preheat oven to 250. Cover a 13×17” baking sheet with parchment paper, or grease well. In small bowl combine sugar, salt and cinnamon. Set aside. In a large bowl slightly beat the egg white. Add vanilla and beat until very frothy, but not stiff. Add the almonds and stir until well coated. Add the cinnamon sugar mixture and toss until evenly coated. Spread evenly on the prepared pan. Bake for one hour, stirring half way through. Allow to cool, then store in an airtight container.

Christmas Gift Idea: Hot Cocoa Stirrers

I loooove Christmas. There is something about the hustle and bustle that just makes me happy. I could sit on a bench in the mall for hours just people-watching and call it a great day. I love the spirit of giving that is in the air and the festivities that surround the holiday, all the parties and get-togethers. I love the food (of course) that is usually only made for Christmas (cinnamon almonds anyone? That will be up on the blog soon too!). I don't loooove the cold weather, but the best part about cold weather is hot chocolate. When the weather dips down low, I get to finally break out my Cocomotion and go to my happy place (which is somewhere warm and tropical).

This year, we put together these fun gifts for our kids' teachers- hot cocoa stirrers! They are fun ways to stir your hot cocoa and flavor it all at once! They were super simple to make and we just used things we already had in our pantry. You can doctor these babies up any way you want, and you can give them to anyone you want (neighbors, friends, teachers, yourself...). They were easy and fun to put together and would be a fun addition to your treat plate too! We are putting ours in a fun mug with some hot chocolate packets and wrapping in cellophane.

Marshmallow, peppermint and peanut butter hot cocoa stirrers.

For the marshmallow (and peanut butter), mound some marshmallow cream or peanut butter onto your plastic spoons. Then pop them in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

Mmm... peanut butter on a spoon. I could just eat them like that!

After the peanut butter has set for about 10 minutes in the freezer, dip the spoons into your melted chocolate. You can do them halfway like we did, or however you like. If you've never had peanut butter in your cocoa, you are missing out!

For the marshmallow cream, drizzle on some of your melted chocolate. Very pretty and easy!

Fancy, huh?

For the peppermint, dip your spoon in the chocolate and let the excess drip off.

Sprinkle on some crushed candy cane and pop these into the freezer immediately (the weight of the candy canes will make the chocolate fall off the spoon if you don't!)

Wrap them in lollipop bags (found at Michaels for a couple bucks) and tie with a festive ribbon. Easy, cheap and so fun!

Hot Cocoa Stirrers

submitted by Carissa @ Girls in Aprons

Chocolate for melting (we used milk chocolate, but dark or white chocolate would be great!)

Creamy peanut butter

Marshmallow cream

Candy canes

Plastic Spoons

Lollipop bags and ribbon

Melt your chocolate in a double boiler, stirring constantly (or in a microwave in 20 second intervals, stirring after each one, until smooth).

For the peanut butter spoons: Spoon some peanut butter onto your spoons and chill in freezer for 10 minutes. Dip into the melted chocolate and let set before you wrap them up.

For the marshmallow spoons: Spoon some marshmallow cream onto your spoons and chill in freezer for 10 minutes. Drizzle melted chocolate over the marshmallow cream and let set before you wrap them up.

For the peppermint spoons: Spoon some melted chocolate on the spoons (front and back) and sprinkle with crushed candy canes. Immediately place in the freezer until set. Wrap in lollipop bags.

Please, be creative! If you want to drizzle the peanut butter spoons instead of dipping them in chocoalte, go for it! Use white chocolate to drizzle over your peppermint spoons (after they've set in the freezer!) to fancy them up. Use what you have and have fun!