Spice Cake Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Fall is here! Although, in Massachusetts you wouldn't know it with temperatures reaching in to the sixties over the past few days, mid-November has never felt so good.

Although the thermometer is putting my mind in Labor-Day mode, the calendar is telling me it's time to buckle down and embrace some fall flavors.

Spice cake embodies the season's flavors at their best.  Hearty, sensual, comforting ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar come together and put your taste buds in a daze. The cinnamon cream cheese frosting will intensify your daze to the point of a utopian, autumnal coma.


Spice Cake Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

For the cakes:
1/2 C. butter
1 1/2 C. brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 3/4 C. flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 C. butter
3 3/4 C. confectionery sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. cinnamon



Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using an electric  mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add in eggs one at a time & mix well. Add vanilla. Mix all dry ingredients (flour, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda & salt) in a separate bowl.  Slowly add half the dry ingredients to the batter. Mix well. Add in sour cream. Mix well. Add in the rest of the dry mix to the batter. Mix well.

Line two cupcake trays (standard size) with paper liners). Fill each cup only about 1/2 way. This batter grows a lot when baking! Bake for 16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Beat cream cheese & butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Add confectionery sugar a 1/2 cup at a time until mixed well. Add vanilla and cinnamon. Beat until frosting is fluffy. Frost cakes with a piping bag or offset spatula

For an extra touch - make decorative "leaves" by rolling out soft caramel candies and cutting them out with a small leaf cookie cutter. Use the blade of a knife to add details to the leaves.

Sugar Cookies

Now is the time for layers - sweaters & other baggy garments that allow me to eat lots of cookies without feeling guilty because guess why - you can't see me! It's chipmunk season, people! Time to start indulging! Fat = warmth. Bears know whats up! Leave the guilt in your rear-view and don't swing around to pick it up until it's January and your need to feel accomplished by having "resolutions" starts to nag at you.

 

Sugar cookies are pure fall perfection. They are sweet, savory, salty, pretty, and basic...all of the familiar things you love about the fall.  And I'm warning you now - don't taste the batter because by the end of it you'll be cursing me for claiming that this recipe makes three dozen, when unknowingly you ate about a half dozen yourself.

Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Savory Sweet Life's recipe for Drop Cracked Sugar Cookies

1 1/4 C. sugar
1 C. butter
3 egg yolks
1 1/3 tsp. almond extract
2 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt
Colored Sugar Crystals


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using an electric mixer, beat sugar & butter until creamy.  Next, add in the egg yolks, one yolk at a time.  Add in almond extract.

Next add in baking soda, cream of tartar, salt. Mix. Now add flour in a 1/2 C. at a time until all flour is mixed in and a dough is formed.

Roll (or scoop) dough into 3/4" balls. Roll 3/4 of the cookie in the granulated sugar of your choice.  Place the bottom of the cookie (1/4 not covered in sugar) on a silpat on a cookie sheet (or a greased cookie sheet. If you don't have silpat, parchment paper works best). Leave about 2" between each dough ball as cookies will grow in the oven.  Bake for 12-14 minutes or until bottoms are just golden.  If cookies come out dome shaped, pat down top of cookies with a spatula or pie server to flatten.

Yields about three dozen cookies.

Peanut Butter Balls

As I prepared to glue myself to a sofa from the hours of 8-10 pm to shamelessly indulge in part one of the televised Kim Kardashian wedding event, I felt the need for something sweet...and incredibly quick to make.  It was already 7 pm and I needed time to make something, decompress, get comfortable and flick to E! within sixty minutes.

I  knew that even going near the oven would result in minute-hogging cleaning and too much time spent preheating, baking, cooling and all the rest of it. It had to be *gasp* no-bake or it was going to be nothing at all.

Then I remembered this wonderful little twenty minute dessert....peanut butter balls. And almost as quickly as I decided on making them, they were done.  Here's the recipe. They are quick, easy, delicious and although simple, quite fancy looking.

Peanut Butter Balls

3 tsp. room temperature butter
1/2 C. Peanut Butter
1 1/4 C. Confectioners Sugar
3 1/2 tsp. milk

1 C. Chocolate chips or chocolate melting wafers

In a bowl, mix butter & peanut butter with an electric mixer. Slowly add in confectioners sugar - about a half cup at a time until all is mixed well. Add in milk to moisten mixture and mix thoroughly until dough forms.

Roll mixture into 1" balls and place on a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet. Place in the freezer for ten minutes.

Pour chocolate chips (or chocolate melting wafers) into a microwave safe bowl  and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Continue to melt at thirty second increments until chocolate is smooth and completely melted.

Dip peanut butter balls into chocolate and cover completely with spoon. Place on a piece of wax paper to dry. Add sprinkles right away if you desire.

Store in an airtight container either on the counter or in the fridge.  Makes about 1.5 dozen peanut butter balls.

Enjoy...and Congrats Kim & Kris!

Apple Bourdelot en Croute

Nothing gets you in the mood for fall like the fresh, crisp taste of an apple. Whether it be Macintosh, Granny Smith or Golden Delicious, apples emulate all that is fall. They're refreshing, bright, comforting. They match the same soothing colors that are starting to pop up on the trees all around us and when you bite into them it sounds like the crunch of leaves under your favorite pair of boots.

Fall in New England is not a season known for its longevity, but luckily there is no shortage of apple-related recipes to make the warm, fuzzy feeling of the season linger on and on. 

Apple Bourdelot en Croute (which in English translates to Baked Apple in Pastry Crust) is an amazing dessert that allows everyone to have their own piece of fall...and the best part is, you don't have to share! Each apple is cored, stuffed with butter, brown sugar, dried cranberries and maple syrup resulting in the apple pie equivalent of a molten lava cake. And then to top it all off, it gets wrapped up in its own individual pie crust and decorated to resemble the very fruit that the dessert celebrates.

I learned how to make this last year in an Adult Ed Decadent Desserts class and I was enamored. How delicious. How fancy. How....simple. 

Trying to impress someone this fall? Try this one out.....Oh heck, make it for yourself. It's delicious & you'll thank me later.

The quality of the photos aren't that great. Obviously, I was just eager to eat this thing.

Recipe after the break....

For a Great Cause

The summer before my senior year of high school, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember feeling terrified and then completely numb. No one else in my family had had cancer and at that point, I was lucky enough to never have lost someone I was close to. I was scared that I would lose her and I felt helpless. At age seventeen, on the brink of beginning my own life, I was frozen by the thought of losing the very person who had given me life, nurtured me and taught me what it meant to be an incredible woman.

Now, over seven years later, I am so happy to say that my mother is healthy and has been cancer free for years. A diagnosis is not the end, it's the beginning of a journey for these women and for those who love them. There are many wonderful institutions, hospitals, non profits and support groups that help patients and families through this journey through the sunny days and the dark ones, too.

One such organization is the American Cancer Society. For the past six years, I have walked in the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk which brings together thousands of men and women to support an incredible cause, build awareness and share their stories, support and strength. I feel so honored and grateful to have my mother there with me, walking by my side, each year.

If you know someone who has been affected by breast cancer, you know how important it is for the research toward finding a cure to continue and progress.

Please support the American Cancer Society by helping me reach my fundraising goal for this year's walk.

Click here to donate, or if you're in the Boston area, join my team. I'd love to have you!

Moist Mocha Cake

Sunday dinners with my family have always been hearty. Raviolis, meatballs & sausages. Honey-roasted ham, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables. Beef Stew with a hunk of french bread.

Today, after another carbo-load meal, I was craving a sweet, equally rib-sticking, sweet finale. Chocolate. Coffee. More Chocolate. I was aiming to create a Mocha Monstrosity....and create, I did.

 

 

Moist Mocha Cake 

(Adapted from Betty Crocker's Mocha Muffins Recipe )

 

2 C. Flour

2 Tbsp. Unsweetened Baking Cocoa

2 1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1/3 C. Brown Sugar

1 C. Milk

1/3 C. Vegetable Oil

1 Tbsp. Instant Coffee Grains

1/2 C. Plain (or Vanilla) Yogurt

1 Egg

1/2 C.  Semisweet Chocolate Chips

1/2 C. Milk Chocolate Chunks

*Extra 1/2 C. Milk Chocolate for drizzle

Recipe continued after the break...

 

Pesche - Italian Wedding Cookies

Last weekend, I was a bridesmaid in a wedding that joined two wonderful Italian families. From the bridal shower to the rehearsal dinner, to the wedding itself - Italian culinary fare & culture was ever present & ever delicious.

Being an Italian myself, I was familiar with basically all of it - chicken parmigiana, ziti, fish, risotto, eclairs, macaroons, sfogliatelle. But there was one wonderful cookie that I had never had before.  Pesche (Italian for "peaches"). And boy, did I fall hard in amore with this cookie.

It is an Italian cookie typically made for special occasions, weddings in particular, because of its complex & time consuming nature. They are named peaches, because they resemble the fruit when complete. The cookie actually consists of two individual cookies that have been "glued" together with a chocolate filling, and then dipped in peach brandy and sugar.

After much research, I have found that the exact recipe and filling for this cookie varies greatly. Some people fill this cookie with peach preserves or plum jam, but you know I had to go the chocolate route.

Although time consuming, each step in this process is very simple and overall, the ingredients are not complex. They are worth the work (and the calories).

Recipe & more pictures after the break...