Victory Never Tasted So Sweet

This past weekend was the kickball tournament for Corporate Challenge. Good news, guys - Fossil took gold for the third year in a row! The last two games were hard fought, we came out of it bruised and battered but on top.

The team!

Winning gold gave me a good excuse to make some victory cupcakes for the team and try out two new recipes. On the menu? Maple buttermilk pancake and bacon cupcakes and churro cupcakes. Overall, I'm happy with the outcome of these two. There are some tweaks I'll make the next time I whip these up, but figured they're good enough to share as is.

The sweet beginnings of the batters

The finished product! Left to Right: Maple Buttermilk Pancake - Churrrrrrro

Let's start with the maple pancake and bacon cupcakes. The flavor was alllll there. The sweetness from the maple and brown sugar, along with the saltiness of the bacon and the crunch of the pecans? Too good to say no to. Here's the recipe I followed via The Extraordinary Art of Cake. I've added some notes at the end of the recipe.

Maple Buttermilk Pancake Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 stick or 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup light-brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups maple syrup

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, finely chopped

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat your oven 350 degrees F.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ginger together. Set aside.

Then beat the butter and sugar on medium speed in a large bowl until they are fluffy. (Your butter must be soft!) Add in eggs, syrup and vanilla. Mix until blended.

Then mix in the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk. Do about one-third of the flour and then one-third of the buttermilk, and so on.

Add the nuts if using.

Fill muffin or cupcake tins, either lined or buttered, according to your preference.

Cook for approximately 20 minutes or until your tester comes out clean. I use a steak knife.

Cool totally and then ice with Maple-Butter Frosting.

Makes about 18 cupcakes.

Maple-Butter Frosting Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of softened, unsalted butter

3 ounces of cream cheese, also softened

2/3 cup of dark-brown sugar (I use golden)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup of maple syrup

3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 cup of confectioners' (icing) sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Beat the softened butter, cream cheese, brown sugar and salt in a medium-sized bowl until fluffy. Once again, it is critical that your ingredients be softened.

While you keep beating, add both the maple syrup and the vanilla.

Slowly add the confectioners' sugar and gradually increase the speed to high. Continue beating until the icing is fluffy.

Chill the maple-butter frosting for one hour before using.

**MY NOTES:

• I kept the pecans out of the batter and instead mixed that with the chopped bacon to top the cupcakes
• My butter got too soft when I was making the frosting so it didn't hold up as well, once I added in the maple syrup it turned into more of a glaze. I will play more with this frosting and make an update when I'm 100% happy with it

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Now for the churro cupackes! I LOVE churros - and that's an understatement. Anywhere churros are sold, I need at least one two.But really, I'm a sucker for anything covered in cinnamon and sugar. When I saw these on Pinterest I knew I had to make them. Here's the recipe I followed courtesy of The Novice Chef. I made some notes at the end of the recipe.

Churro Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Yields 18 cupcakes

Recipe note: When it says to only fill your cupcake tins half way, I mean it. These cupcakes do not make a dome on top. Instead they are flat. If they rise over the tin, they are not pretty!

INGREDIENTS

For the cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 (1 stick) cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk

For the frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

To make the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners; set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, until just combined then stir in the vanilla and oil. Sprinkle 1/3 of the flour mixture over the butter mixture and gently stir in until barely combined. Add half of the milk, mixing until just combined. Repeat these steps with the remaining flour mixture and milk, ending with the flour. Do not over mix.

Fill each cupcake tin with 2 tablespoons of batter, or until the cupcake tin is filled half way. Bake the cupcakes for 14 to 16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with one or two crumbs clinging to it. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting:

Cream the butter and cream cheese together in a large bowl. Add the sugar, one cup at a time, beating well between each addition. Stir in the cinnamon until thoroughly combined. Then stir in the vanilla. Beat the mixture well, until light and fluffy.

Pipe onto cupcakes, sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar and top with a drizzle of Dulce De Leche if desired.

**MY NOTES:

• She noted that the cupcakes bake flat, but I sifted my dry ingredients together and they domed up just fine
• When the cupcakes come out of the oven, wait about a minute or two and sprinkle a cinnamon-sugar mixture on top. This replicates the deliciousness of the cinnamon-sugar on the churrrrrrro
• I didn't follow the exact measurements of the cinnamon in the frosting, I wanted more of a cinnamon flavor so I kept adding cinnamon till I was happy with the flavor
• I piped the frosting with a 1M Wilton frosting tip and then drizzled some dulce de leche on top

Hope you enjoy these as much as I do! They were a hit at work. I'll be sure to post my updates with the changes I make next time! 

Happy baking everyone!

...and I'm Back!

Well, it looks as if it's been just over a year since my last post. Apologies. I will be making better efforts going forward.

Timeout - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOMZ! :) What a wonderful lady, I'm so thankful/lucky/grateful to be blessed with such a great mom who loves me for who I am and supports me in what I do. I wish I were able to celebrate with her, alas, I am here...in Texas. But I love her dearly and hope this is her best birthday yet.

Seester, me and mom! (Yes I got hitched!)

Ok. Time in.

This may be a lengthy post - don't say I didn't warn you. I haven't baked in a while, as you may have noticed. Though a couple months ago, I made these cute thannngs. Thank you Instagram for making my pictures look 'cool' while the fancy schmancy camera is on hiatus, guess we all need a break sometimes.

Whipped up some Strawberry, Reese's, Cookies 'n Cream, and Pink Lemonade cupcakes for an order. Felt good to get back to baking. I've been getting the itch as of late, I'm sure I'll be making a post of some baked goods shortly! Fall needs to hurry on up cause I have a craving for all things pumpkin.

In the mean time, I've been cooking up a storm! My kitchen hates me cause I'm always in there making a mess of it, cleaning it, and going right back in and messing it up. But I say a messy kitchen is a happy kitchen! I'm not the only one who thinks that, I have proof via this sign that I saw at the Dallas Farmer's Market...

Such wisdom

I try to cook our dinners at home a majority of the days in the week. This allows us to save money and I can control sodium/sugar/fat and all that. What I make may not be the healthiest thing, but at the same time, it's not unhealthy either. I feel I find the happy medium and gear towards healthy 90% of the time I'm cooking. I watch the amount of salt I put in - I use other things for flavor, such as spices and other aromatics. I feel like I've become good at making healthy meals for Spencer and I without going to the extreme. Portion control? That's a work in progress and another story.

So I feel that this blog will slowly become a hybrid of my baking and cooking adventures. :)

When I plan out our menu for the week, I like to go off of leftovers from previous nights or whatever I know I have on hand. I feel like this week has been one of my most successful uses of leftovers.

What's been cooked this week?

Enchiladas Verde filled with carnitas

Brisket melts with potato patties

Pineapple fried rice

Curried sweet potato/potato soup with brisket and rib meat

What did it all come from?

• Sunday we stuffed ourselves silly at Spencer's parents' house. His mom sent us home with a bag of ribs, cheesy-garlic-mashed-potatoes, corn off the cob
• Brisket from a trip to Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell to see my cousin off before she flew back home to the Bay
• Brown rice and quinoa that I had in the freezer from the week prior. Also on hand in the freezer - carnitas, grilled chicken, and mashed sweet potatoes.

I freeze whatever leftovers I think are worth saving if we're not going to finish it in the next day or two - veggies, meat, broth - anything. Heck, I've even thrown chicken bones from a rotisserie chicken I bought and celery leaves, onion skins/scrap, and carrot scraps in the freezer to save for when I make a stock.

I'll make posts about each of the above in the near future. But I'll share the quick recipe for the potato patties. They're great to make and use up any leftover mashed potatoes (hello Thanksgiving leftovers!).

Potato Patties

Ingredients:

• Leftover mashed potatoes
• Shredded cheese/parmesan
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (if you plan to make a lot, may want to use two eggs or just add some milk or water to the egg wash)
• Panko bread crumbs
• Flour
• Salt
• Whatever seasoning you'd like to put in the panko/flour mixture (spices, herbs, etc)

If there's no cheese in your taters, go ahead and add some shredded cheese. The mashed potatoes I had made had a good creamy, garlic, cheesy flavor to it so I didn't feel the need to add anything else to it.

Combine the panko and flour - season as you wish.

I used approximately heaping tablespoonfuls of the potatoes and formed them into patties. Make them as thin as you can without them falling apart.

Then I brushed one side with the egg wash, put that side down into the panko mixture. Bushed the other side and kinda pushed the coating onto the other side. Patted it down to make sure it really sticks to to the patty.

Then pan fry them in a heated skillet (med to med-high) til they're golden and crispy! 

Serve as a side or as a snack or app! 

Note:

I was thinking about baking these but decided not to. If I do, I'll use regular bread crumbs because I feel those bake better than panko does.

That's about all I've got for now - happy eating everyone!