2010 Recapped

I was MIA around the holidays. I kinda stopped posting all the Reverb10 prompts, only doing the ones that really spoke to me and wouldn't repeat something I’d already talked about. I haven’t posted the gluten free dessert I made for Christmas Eve yet… etc. I’ve decided to do a recap post for 2010 a little later than most. Let’s be honest though, it’s only the 3th, so I’m not that behind.

I really liked the way KJPugs did her 2010 review, so I’ve decided to copy her. Don’t worry, I asked… although, I didn’t really wait for her to respond and say it’s cool. Anyway, here we go…

January we upgraded our TV stand and general appearance of our  living room.   

February I discovered two of my favorite “go to” recipes: Dark Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes with Mascarpone Icing & Enchilada Casserole.
March Hubs and I went to Vegas for meet-up with the Bees and celebrate my bestie from college’s 30th Birthday. Of course, a trip to Vegas would not be complete without eating at Battista's Hole in the Wall.

April Joy from How Joyful redesigned my blog and created those adorable little birdies.

 
May I started making recipe cards for my recipe posts. The first two I made were for the salad I recreated from a local French restaurant & Margarita Cupcakes.

June I made several desserts using fruit from our local CSA, my favorite was the fruit pizza I invented with the help of Amy from Dandelion Paperweight.

 
July I turned 30 and made a kick-ass flag cake!

 
August Hubs and I celebrated our one year Anniversary and played travel roulette with some friends and ended up in Austin, TX.

September was a pretty busy month: I hosted a Giveaway from one of my favorite artists, I discovered  my local food truck meet-up and I took an allergy test and discovered I cannot eat gluten,

 
October I did my first guest post and rattled on about the wonder that is Jazzercise.

 
November I blogged every single day… errr, posted every single day. Let’s be honest sometime we blog more than once a day but schedule those posts out. I also discovered Chipotle,

 
tried Gluten Free Bisquick,

 
hosted a beautiful necklace giveaway from Honey My Heart 

 
and finally finished my wedding recaps.


And lastly, in December, I attempted Reverb10, made Potato Latkes and guest posted for Forty Twenty Four about my on-the-cheap/modern Christmas table setting.

  
Happy New Year everyone! I hope I have even more to recap for you at the end of 2011 :)

Bake-N-Blog: Ming’s Cupcake No. 1

A couple weeks ago I signed up to participate in my friend Jessica (aka Jesstagirl), of Jessica Lynn Writes, Bake-N-Blog. Idea was to get a bunch of blogger to bake a cupcake from Ming Makes Cupcakes and all blog about it on the same day.

I signed up to make Cupcake No. 1…


And, I planned on baking it this past Sunday. The same weekend I also volunteered to make my sister’s birthday cake, a post for another day. Needless to say, there was a LOT of baking going down in my kitchen this weekend.

I signed up for the Bake-N-Blog because A) it sounded fun and B) I promised my CAD class I’d bring cupcakes on the first day of class. “A” keep me honest for “B” and vice versa.

Confession: I didn’t take pictures of my cupcake baking process, a la Pioneer Woman, as instructed by Jessica. Honestly, I forgot. Even more honestly, I had a cake baking disaster the day before with my sister’s birthday cake and I was afraid of any distractions.

If you read my blog regularly, you’ve probably noticed I can never follow a recipe exactly. I always need to switch it up somehow. So, here is a picture of my cupcakes right before I added my own twist…


Here’s the thing, the cake I baked the day before for my sister called for Mascarpone icing. WAY more mascarpone icing than I ended up needing. I felt badly wasting all that mascarpone cheese and sugar AND using cream cheese and more sugar to make Ming’s icing. You see where this is going, huh? Yes, I used the icing from the other cake. It was equally tasty AND kinda “green” of me. Also, instead of adding cocoa powder I grated dark chocolate into the icing and mixed it in. It gave the icing a bit of texture and added flavor.


On top of each cupcake as placed 3 Espresso Pillows from Trader Joe's.

Are you interested in the cupcakes the other bloggers baked? Check out Jessica’s blog for links to their posts.

Thank you Jessica for hosting this Bake-N-Blog!

P.S. These cupcake were a BIG hit with my class. They are super moist (may have helped that I used heavy cream instead of milk) and not too chocolatey.

Cinco de Mayo: Margarita Cupcakes

This past Saturday Hubs and I went to an “Uno de Mayo Fiesta”. I’d seen a recipe for Margarita Cupcakes on Confessions of a Foodie Bride and thought this was the perfect opportunity to make them. I mean really, is there a better time for Margarita Cupcakes than a Cinco de Mayo party? I think not.

This was my best pic :( I'm definitely asking for a new camera for my 30th Birthday!

Her recipes if based on Martha Stewart’s lemon cupcake recipe, just swapping the lemon for lime. I used a different icing recipe based on Sprinkle’s Cupcakes’ Lemon Buttercream Frosting, only I substituted tequila for the vanilla to make them more Margarita like… Olé!

(Click recipe to enlarge)

What is your favorite Cinco de Mayo Recipe?

Dark Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes with Mascarpone Icing

The last time Hubs and I went to my parent's house for dinner, we were supposed to bring a dessert... to be honest it didn't seem like it was mandatory, but when we decided we had eaten enough crap over the holidays and we didn't think we needed dessert... let's just say we haven't heard the end of it.

For Super Bowl were told to bring an appetizer and a dessert. I wanted to make something fabulous, to hopefully, make up for the last time. I thought I'd seen a recipe in my reader for something with mascarpone icing, but it turned out to be for Italian meringue icing... Oops. I had my heart set on making something with mascarpone icing and thought for sure there had to be a way to make mascarpone into icing... I mean, you can do it with cream cheese, right? So, I Googled and found this recipe by Silvana Nardone on Rachel Ray's website.

Dark Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes w/ Mascarpone Icing

very, very, very slightly adapted from this recipe by Silvana Nardone on Rachel Ray's website

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 ounces dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1/2 cup boiling water
2 sticks (8 ounces) butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1-1/4 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup medium- to full-bodied red wine
Two 8-ounce containers mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners' sugar
Red grapes, halved, for garnish

DIRECTIONS:
1- Preheat the oven to 350°. Line 2 muffin pans with baking liners.

2 - In a medium, metal bowl, combine the cocoa powder and chocolate pieces. Whisk in the boiling water until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is combined.

3 - In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until blended.

4 - Mix flour, baking powder and salt in separate bowl.

5 - Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until just combined.

6 - Alternating, add the chocolate mixture and wine in batches, mixing well between each addition, until the batter is smooth.

7 - Divide among the muffin cups, filling each about three-quarters full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in the pan.

8 - Lightly beat the mascarpone, then add the confectioners' sugar and beat until creamy. Remove the cooled cupcakes from the pan, spread each with icing and top with a grape half.

P.S. This is DELISH!! The icing is the perfect light mascarpone topping to the rich chocolaty cakes.