Lesson #153: German Chocolate Cupcakes

A little over a week ago I made these multiple component cupcakes for my grandpa's birthday. As long as I can remember, German Chocolate cake is one of his favorite desserts. I was excited to make these because I have never made German Chocolate cake from scratch before. Sure, I have opened up a cake mix box and canned frosting, but I wanted to see if I could make it completely homemade. I believe the last time I tried was about 10 years ago as an entry for the county fair. If I remember correctly, my recipe did not work out well and I ended up scraping the project and using a boxed cake mix........

Well, this time I was successful! The cake was extra light and fluffy due to whipping egg white and folding them into the batter. BTW, this makes the raw cake batter INCREDIBLY silky and makes you want to eat spoonfuls of it! I guess that's the benefit of cooking by yourself, you can do things like this with absolutely no shame. :)

The filling is a cooked custard with toasted pecans and coconut. Piped along the side is a dark chocolate ganache. It was around 95 degrees the day I made these, so they started to get a little soft from the heat. I ended up placing some cupcakes in 1/2 pint jam jars (the same jars I used for these desserts). It worked perfectly!

LESSON LEARNED: I froze some of these cupcakes (assembled with frosting) after I made these so the filling/frosting wouldn't melt. They were just as good to eat when I pulled them out of the freezer.

Recipe for German Chocolate Cupcakes

Lesson #129: Sticky Buns

I was craving sticky buns the other day, so I decided to try a new recipe for raised sweet bread. I really like the base recipe (which is the bread part), but the cinnamon/sugar/pecan ratio was a little off in this recipe. I decided to post it to share the bread recipe and to document this first attempt at sticky buns.

I'm looking for sticky buns which are soft and pillow-y, but not too sweet and sugary. I want to taste the cinnamon in every bite! This will be a good challenge for myself to try new sticky bun recipes.

LESSON LEARNED: These sticky buns are pretty sweet. Cut them into small pieces to serve.

Recipe for Sticky Buns

Lesson #98: Triple Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Happy Friday! A few days ago I had a chocolate craving and these TRIPLE chocolate cookies fit the bill. Since it's pretty close to Valentine's Day - which is a big holiday for chocolate consumption - it's a perfect time to post this recipe.

The cookie dough has a very thick, rich consistency which reminded me of a brownie batter. The cookies contain cocoa powder, melted semi-sweet chocolate, and chocolate chips. In addition, chopped pecans are added to the dough. The end result is a LUXURIOUS deep chocolate bite. YUMMY!

LESSON LEARNED: Make these cookies on the smaller side since they are pretty rich.


Recipe for Triple Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Lesson #47: Peanuty Pecan Oatmeal Cookies

This week I was hungry for a peanut butter oatmeal cookie that, well, tasted a little more interesting than a typical peanut butter oatmeal cookie. I saw a recipe in a food magazine that used toasted pecans in the cookie batter and I was sold!

The neat thing about this batter is that you combine the toasted pecans and peanut butter in a food processor to make a smooth paste. So, in essence, you taste the pecans, but there are no chunks of pecans. If you don't know that there are pecans in the cookies, it makes you wonder why they taste different (and a little better, in my opinion!) than typical peanut butter cookies. I was a little skeptical about how other people would like these cookies, so I took them to my 8am class this week. Only 10 students wanted cookies, but they finished 2 dozen cookies in 5 minutes! I would say these were a SUCCESS.

LESSON LEARNED: Pecans make a good addition to peanut butter oatmeal cookies!

Recipe for Peanuty Pecan Oatmeal Cookies