Homemade Funfetti

I will not make cakes/cupcakes/anything really from the box. I find it to be too easy and without all the love thrown into the cake. My friend Stephanie's 21st birthday is tomorrow, and like I said yesterday I am going to be baking birthday cakes for everyone this year. Stephanie requested a funfetti cake and I just could not cave and buy the boxed mix. So instead I made a basic white cake and mixed in sprinkles. It's not even really worth leaving a recipe, because honestly any white cake will work for this recipe.



And I had a ton of fun decorating the cake! The frosting, I messed up a little, but hopefully it isn't too blatantly obvious (to the taste buds, not to the eyes).



Now I just need to figure out when I'm going to play in the kitchen next.














The cake itself!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake

Cheesecake isn't my favorite flavor. But it really is one of my favorite things to bake. How that makes sense, I really don't know. The first cheesecake I ever made was a pumpkin cheesecake, and ironically I enjoyed it, despite my HATING cheesecake and pumpkin pie. However, the taste of the pumpkin balanced out the taste of the cheese and the taste of the cheese balanced out the taste of the pumpkin. The reason I initially decided to try to bake the cheesecake was solely to challenge myself. I never imagined how much fun I would find cheesecakes to be.

I have also began the habit of making birthday cakes for my friends (be looking for a homemade funfetti cake either tomorrow or Wednesday). Eric's 21st birthday was yesterday and had requested me to bake him a "Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake". I was a little nervous since I could only find one recipe (thank you allrecipes.com) and I really didn't want it to suck. I would have been so sad. But of course, once again, I have made a cheesecake Iwill eat! I actually think this is the best one I've had/made thus far. The cookie dough chunks in the cake are so good, oh my gosh, I'm literally eating a piece right now.

Now, the picture really sucks, but that's because I forgot to take a picture till most of the cake was gobbled up!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups finely crushed chocolate wafer cookies
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, diced
2 cups sour cream
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons white sugar

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Mix the chocolate wafer cookie crumbs with 2 tablespoons of the white sugar, and the melted butter. Press firmly into the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of one 9 inch springform pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 8 minutes.

3. To Make Cookie Dough: In a bowl beat 1/4 cup butter or margarine with the brown sugar and 1/4 cup of the white sugar. Stir in the water and 1 teaspoon of the vanilla. Beat in the flour and the semisweet chocolate chips. Stir until combined.

4. To Make Cheesecake: In a food processor or with a mixer beat 1 cup of the white sugar, and all the cream cheese. Add 1 cup of the sour cream, the eggs, and 1 teaspoon of the vanilla. Mix well and pour into prepared crust.

5. Drop cookie dough in 2 tablespoon portions evenly over the top of the cake, pushing dough beneath the surface. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 40 minutes. Cake will jiggle slightly in center. Spread topping over hot cake. Let cake cool than chill in a refrigerator until cold, at least 4 hours.

6. To Make Topping: Mix the remaining 1 cup sour cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and the 2 teaspoons white sugar until smooth. Spread over hot cake.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Santa Cruz is really warm during late August and September. It's absolutely beautiful outside, however, sometimes it can get a little unbearable during the day. Nighttimes of course are pleasant, but sometimes during the day hours I want to rip off my clothes and run naked through some pond. It's really just hot.

So since I moved into my new house I've been taking much advantage of the kitchen. I haven't taken pictures of the food I've cooked thus far, but I have been quite enjoying the gas stove and the fancy oven. And the kitchen is beautiful! There's stainless steal appliances, light wood cabinets, and granite counters. And since I'm obsessed with red kitchen supplies, I've decorated the kitchen with countless red items, my prized being my KitchenAid mixer.

This of course brings me to what I made today. Last year I bought myself the ice cream attachment for the mixer, but I hadn't made much of a use of it. So the other day I popped the bowl in the freezer and today I decided to make the mint chocolate chip ice cream, which I found via allrecipes.com. It tastes like something you could buy in the store - only better.

If anyone's reading this, do you have any flavors of ice cream you suggest I try?

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 cups 2% milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
3 drops green food coloring (optional)
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Recipe

1. In a large bowl, stir together the milk, cream, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and peppermint extract until the sugar has dissolved. Color to your liking with the green food coloring.

2. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. After about 10 minutes into the freezing, add the chocolate chips. After the ice cream has thickened, about 30 minutes later, spoon into a container, and freeze for 2 hours.

Potato Breakfast

Living in the house I was in was sad. The kitchen was a room of vile. There was old food everywhere - molding food, stinky food, no where I wanted o be near. At first I felt the need to clean the kitchen, so I could use it. But it got to the point where I was so sick and tired of being the personal maid for 4 boys that I didn't know. So I stopped. And I also stopped cooking and began eating out a lot. Life was sad, those two months in filth. But finally I have moved into an amazing house with an amazing kitchen. The oven is so high-tech and I'm SO excited to use it!

However, this weekend I'm home visiting the parents. And lucky for me, they went to the farmers' market this past weekend. I decided to use the potatoes to make myself some breakfast. It isn't worth giving a recipe for, but if you're interested, it's onions, garlic, potatoes (yellow and purple), eggs, salt, pepper, and onion powder. It was all cooked together in a skillet for the first homemade breakfast I've eaten in two months!

SHF: Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

All week I've been trying to make Sprinkles' Strawberry Cupcakes. I've had the ingredients, but I haven't had the time for the life of me, between school and work. But today my break finally came! After getting some shopping done at Victoria's Secret, my friend Beth and Icame home and decided to whip these bad boys up. As we were standing there in the kitchen, Beth announces she wishes the cupcaks had chocolate in them. So we did a little altering of the recipe, to come up with chocolate strawberry cupcakes, rather than just strawberry. They were VERY successful and VERY tasty. The frosting and the cake are really sweet, so one is all you need. And since the frosting is clearly pink and every girls' dream, I dedicate these today to shopping at Victoria's Secret.

Also, I am participating in a fun fun blog event. This time I'm participating in Sugar High Friday created by Jennifer at Domestic Goddess. This month's theme over at SHF is berries. Yum yum. What girl doesn't love sweets?!

Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Cupcake Ingredients

2/3 cup whole fres or frozen strawberries, thawed

1 1/4 cups all purpose-baking flour, sifted

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp coarse salt

1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

2 large egg whites, room temperature

Cupcake Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners; set aside.

2. Place strawberries in a small food processor; process until pureed.

3. In a medium bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix together with milk, vanilla, and strawberry puree; set aside.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy. Reduct the mixer speed to medium and slowly add egg and egg whites until just blended.

5. With the mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add the milk mixture; mix until just blended. Slowly add remaining flour mixture, scraping sides of the bowl as necessary, until just blended.

6. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Transfer muffin tin to oven and bake until tops are just dry to the touch, 22 to 25 minutes. Transfer muffin tin to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool completely before icing.

Icing Ingredients

1/2 cup whole frozen straberries, thawed

1 cup unsalted butter, firm and slightly cold

Pinch of coarse salt

3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Icing Directions

1. Place strawberries in the bowl of a small food process; process until pureed. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add confectioners' sugar; beat until well combined. Add vanilla and 3 tbsp strawberry pureer; mix until just blended. Do not overmix or frosting will incorporate too much air. Frosting consistency should be dense and creamy, like ice cream.

bakebakebake: My Take On Indian Food

On livejournal I'm part of a community called bakebakebake. It's actually what prompted me to get back in the kitchen again, despite being busy with school work and whatnot. And when I got my mixer for Christmas, it was useful for making delights I could take pictures of and put online. One of the things that this community has is monthly themes. This month's theme was red because of 4th of July and whatnot. I've been stumped all month on what to make. Of course, cupcakes are easy, red velvet cake, something with strawberries. It was all so cliche though and I wanted to do something that I didn't think anyone else would be doing.

So two days ago it hit me: tandoori chicken! So I found a recipe from India Curry Recipes. When I was younger my family had these friends from India, and the lady, Eva, made and sold packets of spice mixtures for many different foods, tandoori chicken, curried rice, etc. Growing up whenever my mom would make tandoori chicken I'd get so excited for the red chicken, as I called it. It was one of those treats that I didn't get very often, because to make it takes more than a day, as the chicken needs to marinate. So being a working mom, making dishes that took lots of prep time didn't happen often.

Now, comes the frustration of making this dish. When I went to the grocery store yesterday to collect the spices I needed to make the tandoori I couldn't find the garam masala anywhere. Oh woe me, Safeway had sold out. So instead I got some curry spice and decided to deviate from tandoori chicken and make some chicken replacing the garam masala with curry powder. Of course, this makes the chicken taste different than had I used the garam masala (and why I can't call this tandoori chicken). But it still has the red tint (haha, food coloring?) that made the red chicken so special to me growing up.

Indian Spiced Chicken

Ingredients
2 pounds of chicken, cut into pieces
1 tsp salt
1 lemon, juiced
1 1/4 cups plain yogurt
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp grated resh ginger root
2 tsp curry
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp yellow food coloring
1 tsp red food coloring

Directions
1. Cut slits into chicken pieces lengthwise.2. Place in a shallow dish, sprinkle both sides of chicken with salt and lemon juice. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, combine yogurt, onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, and cayenne pepper. Mix until smoot. Stir in food coloring. Spread yogurt mixture over chicken. Cover and refrigerate over night.
4. Preheat oven to 450. Place chicken in a baking dish and bake 25 to 30 minutes (or until done).

And then I also made spiced potatoes and rice to go along with the meal. I made the rice as one normally makes rice, however, in the water I added some shakes of garlic salt and curry powder.

For the potatoes I cut them up into bite size pieces. In a skillet I melted some butter and added some water. I seasoned them with curry powder and paprika. I put the potatoes in and when boiling, I brought the heat down and covered them up and cooked until soft.

The Ultimate Chocolate Brownie Muffin

I've been wanting to make muffins, for some reason that's all I really wanted to bake. I didn't want a blog reason to do it, I just wanted the satisfaction of having a delicious muffin sitting in front of me when all is said and done. I am however going to start participating in the blog events like I had, because it's fun. But this is just my muffin.

I moved recently, so my baking has dwindled significantly, as someone broke into my car the first day in the new house and stole my bag of dried goods (the flour, sugar, etc.). So I was dreading starting my baking ingredient collection again, but finally I've gotten around to starting. So since I wanted to make muffins, I wanted to make something people would eat. So I asked my boyfriend what kind of muffin he wantd.

Alan: Chocolate brownie muffin.
Me: What do you mean by chocolate brownie muffin?
Alan: If you can't figure it out you shouldn't bake!
Me: OK, I'll find something to do.

To be quite honest, it's basically a brownie shaped like a muffin. But the boyfriend was happy. I found this recipe on recipezaar.com.

The Ultimate Chocolate Brownie Muffin

Ingredients:

3/4 cup good quality baking cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup boiling water

1 tbsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Line 1 muffin tins with muffin liners.

3. In a medum bowl combine cocoa and baking powder; mix to combibe.

4. Add in boiling water; mix well with a wooden spoon to combine.

5. Add in the melted butter and vanilla; mix well.

6. Add in the sugar, mix well with a wooden spoon.

7. Stir in eggs with a wooden spoon; mix until combined

8. Mix the flour with salt; add in the chocolate mixture; mix well to combine.

9. Add in chocolate chips.

10. Using an ice cream scoop fill each of the muffin tins almost to the top.

11. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until muffins are done.