Homemade Yellow Cupcakes

Lauren and Dominic LOVE cupcakes.  What kid doesn't??  I don't even know how many dozens of cupcakes I have baked in my lifetime - let's just say ALOT :) I have always thought that making homemade cupcakes took longer than making them from a box of cake mix, so that's what I have always done in the past. Today, I decided to do a little experiment and see how quickly I could make cupcakes from scratch. Believe it or not, I think I ended up spending less time making them myself than using a box of cake mix!! This recipe came from a Amish/Dutch cookbook from 1961. It's actually a recipe for yellow cake, but I decided to make it into cupcakes.  I thought it would make about 12 cupcakes -  it made 18.  I decided to take a little help from the store by using canned frosting I had leftover from last weekend. I had just barely enough to cover the cupcakes!

Ingredients:

2 cups white flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup margarine, softened
2 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Fill muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside.  In large bowl, put all ingredients in the order above.  Mix on medium speed with electric mixer for one minute or by hand with large spoon until smooth. Distribute the batter evenly between 18 paper liners.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.  Frost and decorate with sprinkles if desired.  Makes 18 cupcakes.

Coffee and Honey Muffins

I am always on the lookout for new muffin recipes.  Earlier this week, I was going through the stack of recipes that my mother-in-law had collected over the course of several years and stumbled across an old newspaper clipping for a recipe that used leftover coffee and honey. I've heard of using instant coffee granules to make muffins and putting honey into a cup of tea, but I've never seen a recipe that uses leftover coffee and honey together in baking breads. Since I always love a good challenge, I adapted the recipe slightly and whipped up a batch of muffins this morning.  They turned out great! Who knew honey and coffee would make such a delicious duo??  If you're worried about a strong coffee flavor, don't be. Since this recipe only uses a 1/2 cup of coffee distributed between the 12 muffins, the coffee flavor isn't super strong.  The next time you have a little bit of coffee leftover from breakfast, instead of pouring it down the sink, try using it in this recipe! 

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups white flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup cold coffee


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place paper liners into a 12-cup muffin tin. Set aside.  Place all ingredients together in large bowl and stir, by hand, with large spoon until well combined.  Batter will be stiff.  Distribute evenly into the muffin tins.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.  Cool about 5-10 minutes and then remove to wire rack.

Oatmeal Muffins

This recipe was given to me by an old office mate over 20 years ago.  When I moved on to my next job, and was reheating one of these muffins in the microwave one day at work, I had one of my new bosses offer to pay me if I would bake her these muffins!! That is how good they smell :)  Yesterday morning, I was telling Lauren that story and she was like, "how come you've never made them for us?!?!?!"  I guess it's been a while, if she doesn't ever remember eating them and she's almost 17! I whipped up a batch of these yesterday afternoon - they still taste as yummy as I remember! 

Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup white flour
1/3 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oatmeal

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and place paper liners into a 12-cup muffin tin.  Put all ingredients into a large bowl and mix until well combined with large spoon. If desired, add 1/2 cup - 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips to batter. Pour evenly into paper liners.  Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.  To reheat, pop into microwave for 20-30 seconds. This recipe can easily be doubled. 

Sugar Cookie Fruit Dessert

If you are looking for something to wow your significant other this Valentine's Day, here is an easy dessert that uses only three ingredients, all of which can be found at your local grocery store! It's also an alternative to a rich and gooey chocolate dessert, though that would be good too :)  I used Cool Whip Lite in this recipe.  I didn't use the entire 8-ounce container (only half). I bought Cool Whip because it was on sale at Meijer, you can certainly buy the generic version of whipped topping from your favorite grocery store.  Since you're only using half of the container, you can toss the remaining whipped topping into the fridge or freezer to use at a later date.  Meijer also had a good deal going on fresh strawberries, so that was my fruit of choice to put on top.  Use whatever fresh fruit you want, such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries or a combination of all or some. You could also use canned fruit, like pineapple tidbits, just drain all the juice out and pat dry with a paper towel.  Feel free to design the fruit into whatever shape your "heart" desires!

Ingredients:

16.5 ounce roll refrigerated sugar cookie dough (any brand)
4 ounces whipped topping (like Cool Whip)
Fruit of choice, rinsed and patted dry

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In an ungreased 9-inch pie pan, press sugar cookie dough evenly into pan with your fingertips.  Bake for 25-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cookie is starting to get golden brown.  Cool completely.  Spoon half of whipped topping package (4 ounces) on top and spread evenly.  Add desired fruit  - I used about 5-6 medium sized strawberries and sliced them.  Enjoy immediately or cover with plastic wrap and store in fridge until ready to eat.

Cajun Sour Cream Dip

The Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday in New Orleans.  As a nod to the type of food you would find there, I made a dip that includes the "holy trinity" of Cajun cooking.  Those three ingredients are green pepper, celery and onions. I love sour cream and onion dip (mixing sour cream and onion soup mix together), but this goes a step above that.  Even though I have never been to New Orleans, I love the foods that are popular in Louisiana - jambalaya, shrimp creole, red beans and rice, beignets, just to name a few.  They are many more, but those are my top favorites!!  If you are hosting or going to a Super Bowl Party, think about making this. Even though I'm a Washington Redskins fan,  I'll be rooting for the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.  I kind of  have to, they're from my home state of Maryland!!!

Ingredients:

16-ounce container sour cream (any brand)
1 cup green pepper (seeds and membranes removed), chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients together in small bowl with large spoon until well combined.  Eat immediately or cover with plastic wrap and put in fridge until ready to eat. Serve with your choice of crackers.

"Unstuffed" Pepper Soup

I've had a craving lately for stuffed peppers, but it's been so busy since the kids went back to school after the holiday break, that it's taken me this long to do something about it! I think I've maybe made stuffed peppers once or twice in my entire life (and I didn't save the recipe)! Two of the grocery stores around here had good deals on peppers last week, so I stocked up.  Raw red peppers are one of my favorite veggies -  I can easily eat an entire pepper in one sitting.  Since I had so many peppers (I think I bought 7 or 8 total), I decided to use a couple of them along with some other ingredients that you would typically find in baked stuffed peppers, but made it into soup.  One word - YUMMY!  I didn't use green peppers in this soup (you can if you want). I personally like the taste of a red, yellow or orange pepper instead  in a soup - I think they taste sweeter. This soup turned out pretty thick (which I prefer), so feel free to add additional water if you like a thinner soup. If you close your eyes when you are eating this, you would think you were eating a "stuffed" pepper that just came out of the oven!!

Ingredients:

2 cups peppers (red, green, yellow or orange),
  seeds and membranes removed, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
2 tablespoons margarine
1 1/4 pound ground chuck
2 cups cooked white rice
6 cups water
28-ounce can stewed tomatoes, undrained
1 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
Mozzarella cheese, shredded

In small saucepan, brown ground chuck into small pieces until no longer pink.  Drain off fat and set aside. In large stockpot, melt the two tablespoons of margarine and add the peppers and onion. Saute until the peppers and onions are just starting to get soft.  If you don't have leftover white rice, you can make it while you are browning the meat or while you are sauteing the peppers and onions.  Add the ground chuck, white rice, water, tomatoes, paprika, salt and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Pour into soup bowls and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

Cereal Bars

These bars are made with Cheerios cereal, but you don't need a spoon (or milk) to eat them!!  I made a variation of my "breakfast cookie" recipe - a new ingredient (honey) was added and instead of semisweet chocolate chips, I used milk chocolate chips.  My original breakfast cookie recipe used crushed cereal - I just decided to put the Cheerios in whole. I also changed the measurements of some of the other ingredients.  I wanted to make them into bars instead of cookies yesterday afternoon, because I was trying to get some last minute things done before Dominic got home from school while these bars were baking.  Everybody has their favorite kind of breakfast cereal, but I thought since Cheerios are pretty popular across many age ranges, hopefully a large portion of my readers will have at least one box in their pantry!! A bit of trivia - what year did Cheerios originally come out?? Answer - 1941!! General Mills called them "Cheerioats." They changed the name to Cheerios in 1945 :)  I'm calling these "cereal bars" because they're not just for breakfast.  I had one of these shortly before Dominic came home yesterday afternoon from school and gave another one that was still warm to his bus driver.  He is my new "taste" tester! I like him because he says everything I bake is good (well, isn't it?)!?!?!?! You could even put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top when it's still warm and serve it as dessert.

Ingredients:

2 cups white flour
1 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups Cheerios
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oatmeal

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray a 13 x 9 x 2- inch pan with non-stick cooking spray. In large bowl, put flour, margarine, white sugar, brown sugar, honey, peanut butter, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract and eggs.  Mix well by hand with large spoon or with electric mixer until smooth and creamy.  Stir in chocolate chips, Cheerios and oatmeal by hand with large spoon until well combined.  Spread in pan evenly and bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly brown and a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack 15 minutes.