Holiday Wrap Up.

I wanted to share some of my holiday highlights with you all in hopes that it will inspire you for next year or even for any other holiday throughout the year!

I want to start off with my favorite gifts of the season. These are my top gifts I received this year. They're gifts that are really desirable and make great presents that a lot of girls will love. Valentine's Day is coming up, so these might be good things to keep in mind! Shop the items via links below...

Living Royal Emoji Socks
Martha Stewart's Appetizers Cook Book
Starbucks Los Angeles Ceramic Tumbler
Umbra Prisma Frame
Paper Source Iphone Case
Tory Burch Wristlet 

Next, I want to inspire you all to give baking a try and cultivate holiday flavors into your baked goods. I love making oatmeal walnut cranberry cookies! As you know, I always happily share my recipes, but this recipe is my little holiday secret :X

I loved seeing holiday lights at the LA Zoo this year too. It was very festive and my favorite part was the twinkling LED light canopy above a long, beautiful walkway.

Finally, I hope you all had fun celebrating the beginning of the New Year and I hope this year for everyone that all your pain be champagne!

Valentine Mocha Cupcakes.

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays out of the year. Most people associate Valentine's Day with romantic relationships, boyfriends, girlfriends, but I like to associate it with a day to express love to people you love most...not solely restricted to a romantic interest or spouse. For that reason, I wanted to do something special for not only my boyfriend, but for a few loved ones, so I made some delicious Valentine's cupcakes!

I tried something new and added some coffee to my cakemix to create a mocha cupcake. I also took a crack at making chocolate buttercream frosting from scratch and it turned out great. Recipe follows...

It is imperative to sift all the dry ingredients to insure there are no lumps in the mix.

Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant espresso granules to 1 cup of brewed coffee to get a mocha flavor.

The finished cupcakes decorated with candy heart and chocolate chip X's and O's.

I bought some pretty pastry packaging from Michael's and gave a box each to my boyfriend, my best friend, Natalie, and my mom.

MOCHA CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups of flour
• 2 cups of sugar
• 3/4 cups of cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup of freshly brewed coffee
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant espresso granules 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and mix until combined with a spoon, a hand mixer, or electric mixer.
3. In another bowl, mix buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.
4. With a mixer on low speed, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
5. Add the 1 1/2 teaspoons of espresso granules to a cup of hot coffee and stir to combine. With the mixer still on low, add the coffee mixture to the batter and stir to combine.
6. Distribute the batter into prepared cupcake tins.
7. Bake for 18-22 minutes until cake tester comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes then remove from the tin and let cool completely on a cooling rack. 

*Note that the batter will be a bit runny, but this is perfectly fine.

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a pound of bittersweet chocolate
• 6 ounces of semisweet chocolate
• 2-3 egg whites, at room temperature 
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 3/4 pound of unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant espresso powder dissolved in 1/2 teaspoon of water

Directions:

1. Chop the chocolates and place in a heat proof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature.
2. Place the bowl of egg whites over the pan of simmering water and heat until warm to the touch, about 5 minutes.
3. Mix the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt in an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed for 5 minutes, until the mixture holds a stiff peak. 
4. Add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time, while beating on medium speed.
5. Scrape down the bowl and add the melted chocolate, vanilla, and espresso and mix for 1 minute until the chocolate in completely blended in. If the buttercream seems very soft, allow it to cool and beat again.

Voila!

Cakemix.

So it was my best friend, Natalie's, birthday this month and when thinking of where to take her out, I thought, yeah we could go to a nice dinner and be ordinary OR we could do something that is fun that we both love. Now, Natalie and I love to bake and decorate and we often share recipes with each other, so I found this place, Duff's Cakemix in West Hollywood that let's people use their creativity and love of baking to decorate their own cakes!

Chef Duff is from the TV show Ace of Cakes and he is the owner of this cake making studio, so you know there were tons of cool and professional tools to use to decorate the cakes. He often tapes his show in the studio, in fact we missed him and tapings by one hour! You start with a pre-made cake...we chose their flavor of the month, pumpkin chocolate chip! Then we chose fondant as the topping in our favorite colors and used dye to make additional colors of fondant. Lastly, we added some toppings like edible glitter and candies. These are the cake and designs we created...a very happy birthday to Natalie! :)

Our starting cake.

Some designs we created.

Our final product!

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

The other day, I was feeling like I hadn't baked anything in a long time so I decided to make my favorite dessert...cupcakes! Now, like many others, I am guilty of taking the shortcut at times and using boxed cake mix. However, I thought some aspects of the cupcakes should have my own twist to them so I added some mini Reese's cups to the bottom of the cupcake and I made my own peanut butter frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup heavy cream

1. Mix confectioner's sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt on medium low speed until creamy.

2. Add the cream and mix on high speed until mixture is light and smooth.

(recipe courtesy of Ina Garten)