Strawberry Banana Smoothie!

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 Just sharing my most favorite smoothie recipe. No biggie. I drink this pretty much every day for lunch.

(makes about 2)

- 2 cups strawberries
- 2 bananas
- 1 cup vanilla yogurt
- 1 cup of ice
- pineapple juice (I just eye ball it...I probably use a 1/2 cup though)

Blend..enjoy!

Easter Carrot Cakes Balls/Pops

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  These are so freaking cute!!! I used a carrot cake box mix, and made homemade cream cheese frosting. Food colored some white melts and sprinkled coconut on top!!!

 -Make carrot cake as directed on box

Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 4 oz soft unsalted butter
- 4 oz soft cream cheese
- 2 cups confect. sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla

- Mix cream cheese and butter, add sugar, then vanilla


You make these the same as the chocolate cake pops I posted last week. I am being lazy and don't feel like retyping it! Ha...it's one of those days!

I would recommend keeping these in the fridge after making until enjoying because of the cream cheese...mine were pretty soft and needed to be..

Can't wait to be back in Austin!

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Cotton Candy Cupcakes

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 First let's start of with the fact that I want this

I think it is going to be added to my wishlist...I am already hinting around the fact that I NEED a red old fashion pop corn maker for my kitchen..hint hint...so maybe once I get that, I can then get a cotton candy maker...it would be heaven, really.

 Cotton candy makes me really happy. It's fluffy, cute,and pink! (Although I had forgotten how gross and annoying it gets on your fingers after eating a few bites...I hate being sticky,blah)..Anyway, so I made cotton candy cupcakes! I used my go-to buttercream cake and frosting recipe...it's seriously the best cupcake in the world, in my opinion. I added cotton candy to the icing and then on top of the cupcakes. If you are SUPER serious about cotton candy, it would also be quite delicious to add cotton candy flavoring to it! I had only thought of that AFTER I started making them, and I don't have cotton candy flavoring just laying around...although I probably should?

 I became very irritated while making these cupcakes. I bought these cute liners from Michael's Craft store, I was thinking to myself, WOW these would be perfect for my cotton candy cupcakes! WELL, they weren't. Upon opening them, I noticed they were very thin, and I questioned whether or not to put a liner inside these cute pink liners. I read the box and it said just to fill with batter-BIG mistake. After taking the cupcakes out, they looked greasy :( wah wah. Cupcake aesthetics is more important to me than actual taste sometimes, so that really put me in a nasty mood. The SECOND thing to piss me off is that the cupcakes look way darker in my photos than they did in real life. I feel like the cotton candy-ness was not captured, haa. We can blame that on my location, "Dreary Erie". I usually take my photos in daylight because they look best, but since it was dark and snowing when it should have been pretty and sunny, my photos paid the price.

 So other than my two complaints, they tasted delicious, and I knew they would. It' not my favorite recipe for nothing.

Buttercream Cupcake
Ingredients:
-1 3/4 cup cake flour
-1 1/4 cup flour
-2 cups sugar
-1 TBL bkg powder
-3/4 tsp salt
-1 cup (2 sticks unsalted butter,room temp)
-4 large eggs(room temp)
-1 cup milk
-1 tsp vanilla (i use a little more)

350 degrees,20 to 25 min.
 A mixer with a paddle attachment really does wonders with this recipe, it makes them perfect!
-Combine all dry ingredients
-Add cubed butter to dry ingredients and mix until covered
-Whisk eggs,milk and vanilla separately,add in 3 parts to butter/flour mixture, mix well
-Bake!

Since I use this recipe a lot, I have really figured out how it bakes..I like giant cupcakes, so I fill them 2/3 full...if you do not want them so big, only fill about half way!

Best Buttercream Frosting(with cotton candy added)
Ingredients:
-2 sticks of unsalted butter(room temp)
-6 to 8 cups confectioner's sugar
-1/2 cup milk
-1 tsp vanilla

-start by creaming the butter(mix well)
-once creamed, add sugar, I usually use 7 cups..add gradually
-add vanilla
-then add milk (you can use more or less milk depending on how you want your frosting to be)
-in this case, add a cup or so of broken up cotton candy
-and pipe cupcakes!

*Ok, now I am not implying any of you would do this, BUT I DID..DO NOT add cotton candy to tops until you want to serve, or eat them! I wasn't thinking and put the cotton candy on top right away last night, and was planning on giving them to people today, and the cupcake sucked up all the cotton candy :(( Just a little pointer!*

Cadbury Creme Cupcakes

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 I love Easter time...for two main reasons. #1, I LOVE pastels...and #2, I LOVE candy. My candy taste is equivalent to what a five year old would like. The thought of a cadbury creme cupcake is very exciting to me.
 A few notes about this cupcake though, it is HEAVY, messy and definitely not the prettiest cupcake I have ever made, HOWEVER, they are amazingly delicious(obviously if you even like cadbury creme eggs to begin with).
 I bought 12 cadbury creme treats..The batter recipe makes around 18, so you can either buy more eggs, or just have a few extra plain cupcakes..that's what I did.
 And the ganache frosting, seriously, it's amazing. I made the ganache frosting before I even started the cupcakes, because I chose to use a whipped ganache, which has to be chilled before using.

Ganache Frosting Ingredients:
- 16 ounces chocolate, chopped into small pieces
 -2 cups heavy cream

- Place chocolate in bowl
- Heat heavy cream on stove on medium to high until it boils
- Remove and pour over chocolate, stir
- Cover with foil for 5 minutes
- Uncover, stir well, cover with plastic wrap, and put in fridge for an hour
- After an hour, mix until peaks form, and then decorate!


Cake Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cup flour
1 1/4 cup milk
Cadbury Eggs (frozen overnight)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

- Mix butter until pretty smooth
- Add sugar and beat well
- Add eggs
- Mix in all other ingredients.

Add a little batter to the cupcake liners, then place egg in the middle. Pour more batter on until egg is almost covered.

Bake for 20-25 minutes...I only baked for 20 but, honestly, they could have used a few more minutes.

Take out and let cool them cool completely before adding icing.

Again, not the prettiest, but worth making for sure!

Enjoy!

I need these TOO!!!

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So cute!!!

Cake Pops!

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So cake pops are another one of those treats that I never made because they seemed way too intense! Surprisingly, they were easy. Easy...yet tedious. Tedious, because I am the most impatient person in the world! I'll explain..

All you need is:
Cake mix
Frosting
Candy melts
sticks
any decorations
styrofoam block


I used a devil's food mix, and a fudge frosting.

The first parts are WAY easy...

1) Make the cake mix.
2) Let the cake mix cool for at least an hour
3) When it cools add frosting...use your hands and mix well...The recipe I read said to use 1/3 Cup of frosting...I however, found that I used almost the whole can
4) Mix well, form into a giant ball
5) Refrigerate, I did over night

I didn't get to take pics of the first few steps, bc I forgot! Oh-well. ;)

6) Take mixture and roll into balls
7) Melt some of the coating, dip the stick in coating, then insert into ball (helps keep the stick on the cake)
8) Put back in fridge for about 10 minutes
9) Take out of fridge and let it sit for a few minutes
10) Melt the coating, and dip!

Now here are a few things I ran into....
-I made some of the balls way too big, and some way too small..medium size is best, like an inch and a half
-Some of my balls fell off the stick...probably because they were too big
- Let the coating sit for a few minutes before you start dipping the balls....this was my major problem..I am so impatient and immediately started dipping! When you do this, the coating is too runny and melts everywhere, making a mess and ruining them!(pics..and you should have SEEN my kitchen!)

Next time I will probably use a homemade recipe and make them even better! So for my first try, I say, not bad! For being box mix they taste really good too!!!