Reece's Cupcakes

Reece's Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by Cup O'Cake Designs

A few weekends ago my husband and I had a small birthday gathering to go to out of state. One of the birthday people (there were multiple persons celebrating) has been seeing photographs of my baked goods from afar for quite some time. I thought it would be a nice birthday surprise (for all birthday persons) to bring along cupcakes.

I decided to try out a Reece's cupcake as I knew that peanut butter and chocolate were a favorite flavor combination of at least one of the birthday celebrants.

I started by freezing mini Reece's cups for four days. My goal was to have the Reece's cups so frozen that they wouldn't melt completely while the cupcakes were baking.

I used Martha's one-bowl chocolate cake recipe as the base for the cupcake. While making this batch, I figured out what went wrong with the Cookie Monster cupcakes. I'd forgotten to add the baking soda. Duh- but let this be a lesson that even people who have baked for quite some time make mistakes. At any rate, this batch of chocolate cupcakes came out perfectly. I topped them off with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream- not wanting the frosting to overwhelm the hidden Reece's cup.

My only comments are that I did not care for the way the Reece's cups cooked inside the cupcakes. I'm not sure if it is because I used mini Reece's or not, but while they did not burn they kind of crystalized or something (the peanut butter). Everyone else who had one thought they tasted great, but something about it didn't come together for me. I'm going to try again, and fiddle with the recipe a bit and see how they come out.

Visit my flickr to see a picture of the cupcake's innards.

Candy Corn Cupcakes

I love Halloween. I love the costumes and the decorations. I love the haunted houses and the jack o'lanterns. But most of all, I love candy corn.

I wanted to combine my favorite Halloween candy with my favorite baked good- viola! Candy corn cupcake.

Candy corn has a tendency to be overly sugary sweet and I know that a lot of people don't like it for that very reason. I wanted the cupcakes to give a hint of candy corn flavor that wasn't over powering or too sweet.

I scoured the internet to see if I could find any candy corn cupcake recipes, but no luck. Maybe my google-fu isn't as good as it should be, but as far as I know there isn't a recipe for candy corn cupcakes out on the old interwebs.

I decided to use a recipe for White Velvet cupcakes (from Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman) which includes mini marshmallows baked in. Then I chose to make Swiss Meringue Buttercream as the frosting, adding some honey to enhance the candy corn flavors.

As you can see from the picture below, my attempt to layer the colored batters didn't come out exactly as I planned. The marshmallows prevented the batter layers from settling evenly. But, I'm ok with that.


The cake tasted more like a sugar cookie to me, but the frosting was amazing. I just took the regular SMBC recipe and added about two teaspoons of honey (to taste). Mmmm....

Happy Halloween (a little early)!

(Brutus) Buckeyes

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Making candy doesn't have to be hard. It is, usually, time consuming and you typically end up with a lot more candy than you think you want to eat. That's why it's perfect for giving to friends and family.

Over the last two nights, I made Buckeyes. For anyone not from Ohio, a Buckeye is a nut that comes from the Buckeye tree (Ohio's state tree, by the way). They're poisonous, but they're also a symbol used frequently in reference to The Ohio State University (where I received my MA in 2005) and OSU Football. Even the OSU Mascot is a buckeye- Brutus Buckeye to be specific.

Buckeye candy has a peanut buttery center that is coated in chocolate- with a section of the peanut butter exposed at the top to resemble a buckeye.

We like to have buckeye candy on hand during the college football season in my house. We usually eat at least one buckeye each on game day. Tomorrow's game against USC will be no exception. We're having company over, company who will be rooting for USC, so you know our house will be decked out with everything OSU we can find (believe me, we have plenty of that at our house)- food included.

These took two nights to make, only because I forgot just how many the recipe makes. I have over 80 of these sitting in my fridge (so the chocolate doesn't melt) just waiting to be eaten. I know they'll be eaten, I have no concerns there- but I'll also be giving them away.

Why do I have little mini buckeyes? You'll just have to stay tuned to find out!

Ok, you're saying, enough with the babbling- how do I make these!? Alright relax, here's the recipe- I recommend halving it though, unless you want to have 80 of these things sitting in your fridge tempting you:

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Buckeye Candy

1 1/2 cups Peanut Butter

1 cup Butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

6 cups Confectioner's Sugar

4 cups Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, butter, vanilla and confectioner's sugar. The dough will look dry. Roll into 1 inch (or whatever size your heart desires) balls, and place on a waxed paper lined cookie sheet.

Press a toothpick into the top of each ball (to be used later for dipping the candies) and chill in the freezer until firm- approximately 30 minutes.

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler, or in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water (you can also melt the chips in the microwave using a microwave safe bowl- using the stove is preferrable as you can keep the chocolate heated and melted). Stir frequently until smooth.

Dip the frozen peanut butter balls in the chocolate, holding onto the toothpick. Leave a small circle portion of peanut butter showing at the top of the candy to give the appearance of buckeyes. Place back on the cookie sheet and refridgerate until serving.

Yeilds: 60-80 (depending on the size of your rolled peanut butter balls)

Gold Medal Winner!

A few weeks ago I participated in a cook-off at a friend's BBQ. There were several categories, but it should be no surprise to anyone that I chose the dessert category.

When I think BBQ, summer, and outdoors- I think fruity drinks, of the alcoholic variety. I'd had my eye on the Margarita Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for quite some time now, and thought this was the perfect occasion.

If you've ever cooked with a Vegan recipe or tried Vegan desserts before they can have a grainy texture that might turn off non-Vegans. I was a little worried about this, but the recipe (and the book for that matter) has great reviews all over the internet. So, I went for it.

Both the cupcakes and the frosting have lime and tequila in them. My frosting wasn't strictly vegan as I used butter (but you can definitely make it vegan frosting).

The cupcakes were a huge hit at the BBQ and as you can see- I won the dessert category. I don't have photographs of the cupcakes because they were a melty divided mess (having had to be cut into pieces to allow everyone to taste them). Just picture a light green frosting with a "rim" of green sugar sprinkles and a candy lime wedge (also not vegan) as a garnish. Mmmmm.

There were only five dessert entries, but given that the rest of them were chocolate, I'm pretty proud of myself for finishing first. My medal is hanging up in my kitchen as inspiration during all future baking sessions.

Give yourself a Hand

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I co-hosted a Jewelry party this weekend at my place. I wanted to come up with some fun and creative snacks. I love a good cheese and cracker plate as much as anyone, but since I love to bake I wanted to make something fun.

I saw these adorable hand cookies in a book (I'll find the source later), and thought they would be just perfect. The cookie cutter I got (from cookiecutter.com) was smaller than the size in the book, so I had to improvies a bit with the candies. I used Spice Drops (cut in half) for the rings and Hershey Mini Kissables for the bracelets. The candies were secured on the cookie using Royal Icing.

I want to get some dragees to use as accents, but unfortunately that did not happen in time. I don't think anyone noticed but me, as usual.

Here's a shot of all the cookies lined up on the counter, after being decorated.