So as some of you may or may not know, I'm not much of a baker. It requires precise measuring, which I never bother with, and it just takes too damn long. If I want to make cookies, I want them in like five minutes. Not 40. But our annual Friends Thanksgiving (or Friendsgiving) potluck party was this past weekend, and I felt like being adventurous. So I signed Matt and I both up for desserts, and told him not to worry about making anything because I'm just that awesome. (Ok, so maybe I didn't say it quite like that, but you get the picture.)
Anyway, I scoured Pinterest for about an hour (that is not a joke), looking for recipes and narrowing them down. And this is what I came up with (click the Pins to get the actual recipes):
That sweet deliciousness you see before you is a cinnamon apple braid. It looked kind of complex, but the blogger swore it was super easy, so I thought I'd give it a shot. (I had a little snafu as I was making the dough...apparently, when the blogger over at Eat Live Run said to "mix the dough using an electric mixer on medium high speed," she must have forgotten to finish the sentence with "using a dough hook." Because I'll tell you, using a regular pair of eggbeater attachments did. not. cut it. The dough — which is fairly like bread dough — actually climbed up the mixer attachment and into the machine itself. Which was kind of like watching something out of a horror movie. So after a lot of yelling and Matt having to dump flour all over my hands and the mixer so I could continue, I somehow managed to produce this:
Sweet baby cheebus, that is hands down the most beautiful-looking baked good I've ever made. Usually my stuff tastes ok, but it's not very pretty. Because of the whole "I don't need to measure" thing. But this...this had me so excited, I had to take a picture before I baked it. And it looked even better after I took it out of the oven and glazed it:
My mouth is seriously watering. Luckily, I made two and there were leftovers (a lot of people brought a lot of food...and not many people made it all the way to dessert, haha), so I've been munching on this stuff for breakfast, after lunch and as a before-bed snack. An apple a day, right?
I also attempted to make mini-muffins using this recipe for snickerdoodle muffins:
They tasted pretty good, but didn't really look like the photo. I think that maybe because I made small versions, I should have changed the baking temperature and/or length from the original recipe. Ah, well. They're really good bite-sized snacks. In fact, while I was editing these photos, I was pretty much compelled to run to the kitchen and pop one (yay leftoevers!) in my mouth before settling in to do the post part of this post. Yummm.
You read that correctly. As a little birthday treat to four of my friends (who all have a birthday within one week of each other), I made maple-bacon cupcakes and took them to the joint birthday party. And they. were. phenom.
These are pretty easy, but a little time-consuming, especially if you don't have a griddle to cook all the bacon at once. But boy, are they worth it. This recipe makes 15 to 24 bacon-y bits of goodness, depending on how full you fill the cupcake liners.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temperature
- 1 1/3 cups brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2/3 cup buttermilk
- 2/3 cup maple sugar
- 1 pound bacon
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line your muffin trays with cupcake liners. Cook the bacon until it's nice and crispy, and set over paper towels to drain. While it's draining, grab a large bowl and whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt until well-combined. Set aside about three or four pieces of bacon; chop the rest into very small pieces.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then beat in the vanilla. With the mixer on a slow setting, stir in the buttermilk and syrup. Then gradually add the dry ingredients, using the mixer to incorporate. About halfway through, I had to switch to a wooden spoon because the batter got too thick for my crappy hand mixer. Finally, mix in the finely chopped bacon pieces.
Carefully spoon the batter into your cupcake liners. I filled mine too full and had fewer cupcakes; I'd recommend filling them 1/2- to 3/4 full for more, smaller cupcakes. Or you know, fill them all the way for fewer, giant cupcakes. Anyway, bake 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick pushed into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
After the cupcakes are done, remove from the pan and set on the counter or a cookie rack to cool. While they're cooling, you can make the icing. The icing I made didn't turn out too well, so I'm not going to include it. (Unless, you know, you guys want that recipe. For what it's worth, I didn't like it...it was just powdered sugar, butter, milk and maple syrup.)
After the cupcakes are fully cooled, top them with frosting. Grab those last three or four whole pieces of bacon and chop them into large pieces, to garnish the top of the frosting. Try not to drool.
(Pro-tip/fat-kid-tip: One of my friends said he ate a few cupcakes for breakfast the next morning because they tasted like pancakes...he toasted them and slathered them in butter. Oh. My. God. Why didn't I think of that?!)
Well, the madness is in full swing. In the last two weekends, I've hosted/gone to two bachelorette parties and attended a quadruple-birthday party. Sadly, I didn't have time for outfit photos for any of these events, so I'll have to reshoot them later this week. Before Friday, when I head out of town for Abby's wedding (!!!)
Anyway, here are some pics of what I've been up to:
Cassie, Anna, Katie, Ellen, Sarah, me, Abby, Chelsea and Courtney at Abby's bachelorette. Photo taken by my mom, edited by Sarah.
Me, Abby and Ellen...sisters are fun! Photo taken by Chelsea. (Rudely-shaped straw blurred for propriety's sake by me, haha.)
Tiffany, Amy, Emily, me, Theresa and Jessica at Tiffany's bachelorette. Photo by the waitress at Bar Louie.
Bacon-y goodness.
Needless to say, it's been a lot of fun so far. And don't worry, I will be posting the recipe for those maple-bacon cupcakes for Food Friday. I made them for the quadruple-birthday party last night. (Four of our friends have birthdays within a week of each other, so we celebrate them all at once for the sakes of our livers, haha.) Those cupcakes tasted like breakfast :)
I suppose this dessert really isn't epic, but it was part of the awesome summer feast I made last Friday, and it is really delicious, so I thought I'd keep it in the same theme! It's one of my favorite desserts, and it's pretty easy to make (which is probably why it's one of my favorites, haha). You can use any fruit you like, really; it doesn't have to be Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. In fact, when I got this recipe from my mom, it was originally apple crisp. But you can make it with pears, peaches, any combination of fruit really (though the firmer fruits seem to hold up a teeny bit better).
I figured I'd go uber food-blog on you guys and post pictures of all the steps. Cause that's fun.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup oatmeal
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- dash of salt
- 1 stick butter, cubed
- 1 pint of strawberries, washed and cut into quarters (or halves if they're small)
- about 5-6 stalks of rhubarb, leaves discarded, roughly chopped
Hey, no one said the butter had to be pretty. Just chunky.
Mix the flour, oatmeal, brown sugar and cinnamon, along with just a teeny bit of salt to enhance the flavor. I'm not kidding, just a small amount. Then cut in the butter cubes. I usually use a whisk, above, but this one is too widely spaced, so all the butter got stuck inside it. Then I tried a potato masher. Big mistake.
I wound up kind of cutting it up with a knife...long, slicing strokes until everything was combined and still a bit chunky.
Spray a small baking pan with cooking spray and spread the fruit evenly along the bottom. (I used my Magic Brownie pan because my other was dirty, but it doesn't really seal along the bottom, so I had to put it on a cookie sheet to prevent leakage.)
Spread the crisp mixture evenly over the fruit, making sure to get in the corners and sides. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until the crisp part is, well...crispy.
Drool. (Told you the pan leaks, by the way.) I served mine with french vanilla ice cream. You'll want to let it set up a few minutes before you serve it, otherwise the fruit will run all over the place. I actually like it better if it's been refrigerated overnight.
Yum. I think I'll go have some of the leftovers for breakfast...
