Cinnamon Mini Cupcakes

Hey Folks!  Last night Joe and I went over to our dear friends the Haley's house and of course I brought along some sweet treats.  This week at the grocery store I spotted some "cinnamon chips" which sounded pretty tasty, and I thought they would make a fun little cupcake dessert for our dinner date.  Here's what I came up with:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, added one at a time
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour
pinch sat
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 cup cinnamon chips

Cinnamon Buttercream:
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2-4 table spoons milk
1 tsp cinnamon

Wednesday night after dinner I enlisted Joe's mixing assistance and we whipped up the batter, butter and sugar first, followed by the eggs and vanilla, and then the dry ingredients.  I meant to get a photo of Joe the magical mixing husband but, I was too busy telling him what to do ;)

Into a 375F degree oven for 15 minutes.

Tada!  Let the cupcakes cool completely, then whip up your buttercream.

Pipe onto cupcakes, and decorate as desired.  I just dotted mine with some extra cinnamon chips.

These were very tasty!  Kind of coffee cake-ish, but definitely fit in for the fall.  And of course buttercream frosting makes anything delicious.

Happy Baking!

Strawberry Macarons

In the culmination of my self proclaimed Macaron Month, I finally achieved a (almost) fully successful Macaron endeavor!  Hooray for me!  I only had about 15-20% crackage on this go around, which is far better than the 50% crackage rate of my previous attempts.  I followed some helpful tips from my fellow food blogger and KKG Kirsten, tried out a new flavor, and all and all had a successful baking afternoon.  Huzzah.

Ingredients:
115 grams blanched almond flour
230 grams powdered sugar
144 grams egg whites
72 grams sugar
2 tsp Strawberry Flavoring
1/2 tsp salt
a smidgen of pink gel coloring

Following the same process for the most part as the First Round of Macarons this month, I worked on my meringue, and then folded in my measure almond flour and powder sugar.

 

 

 

Ah.  Lovely.  I think some of the cracking issue may have been a mixing issue.  As in I was undermixing before.  So I made sure I got everything well incorporated.

 

 

Very focused pregnant baker. Haha. More after the jump.

Brown Sugar Stars with Maple Buttercream Filling

 

Hey blog friends!  I hope you are all having a good weekend.  Today I am cranky.  I tried napping, walking, cleaning and nothing could snap me out of my pregnant crankiness despite my efforts, so I resorted to making myself some tasty treats.

I pretty much decided to wing it, based on my ingredients on hand, and I'm happy with these results.  The brown sugar cookie stars are very buttery and delicious, and the maple filling seems to fit in with the beginning of fall.

Ingredients:
Cookies:
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup brown sugar
dash salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour

Maple buttercream:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/12 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Mix together, your butter, shortening and sugar until well blended, add in the rest of your ingredients except for the flour, and blend.  Finally add in the flour a little at a time, until you have a nice even dough.  Form into 2 balls, and pop it in the freezer for a couple of minutes.

Roll out your dough and cut out your cookies into your desired shape.  I obviously went for a star to switch things up, though for sandwiching purposes, a simple circle would probably be easier.

Bake at 375F for 8 minutes. The bake time on these was perfect.  Let the cookies cool and prepare your frosting.

Homemade frosting is so easy to make. And so very delish.  First off, mix together your softened butter and flavoring (in this case maple syrup).  Then slowly add in your powdered sugar on low speed, in order to avoid powdered sugar explosions.  Finally mix in your milk a little at a time until you reach the desired consistancy.  I used a hand held mixer for all of this.

 

Yum.  Pipe your frosting onto the bottom side of half of your cooled cookies.  You could also just spread it with a knife, but I was trying to keep things neat.

 



Then sandwich :) And refrigerate.  I think I should have thickened up my frosting a little bit more, as it was pretty gooey.  Tasty for sure, but gooey.

Ta Da!  I'm happy with these, very yummy.  You could even do a little sprinkle of cinnamon and powdered sugar on top.  Definitely worth a try.  As for my pregnant grumpiness, they didn't really help that much, save for the few moments of blissful cookie eating.  But it was worth a shot.

oh yeah.... Munch helped :)

Happy Baking!