Mississippi Mud Cupcakes

This months theme for Cupcake Hero is marshmallow. You could use marshmallows or marshmallow fluff, either in the batter, topping, or icing. This cake is my son, Blake's, favorite cake. He asks for this cake for his birthday. My one favorite thing to make is marshmallows. I make them for every occasion that I can. There is just something about sticking the white fluff in the fridge overnight, and then when you go to cut them, that they really did turn into marshmallows that makes me giddy!

This recipe normally makes a 9x13 inch cake, and you leave it in the pan, so you can pour the icing on while it is warm...I had a little trouble with that on these cupcakes. So, I waited until they cooled before I iced them.

Mississippi Mud Cupcakes:

1 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup cocoa

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 all-purpose flour

Dash of salt

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups chopped pecan

4 cups miniature marshmallows**

**Again, I made marshmallows and cut them into 1/2 inch squares

Chocolate Frosting:

1 (16oz.) package powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

Combine butter and coca in a medium saucepan. cook over medium heat until butter melts. Remove from heat; transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and eggs; beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until blended. Add flour, salt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Stir in pecans. Spoon batter into greased 9x13 inch pan, or a cupcake pan lined with cupcake liners.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes for the cake, or about 15 minutes for cupcakes. Remove from oven and sprinkle marshmallows over hot cake, or top cupcake with marshmallows. If making the cake, immediately spread frosting over marshmallows. If making cupcakes, I would let the cupcakes and marshmallows cool before frosting.

This recipe made 2 dozen cupcakes.

To make the chocolate frosting:

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl; beat at medium speed until smooth, adding an additional tablespoon of milk if frosting is too stiff.

Makes 2 cups.

My day has been made!

Laurie from Quirky Cupcake awarded me with this award today. She completely made my day. Thanks Laurie for reading! After a day like today, battling these little demons (not my kids..) called the chicken pox. I am shocked that people do read my little baking blog, and I am thankful for the friends that I have made!

So, now, I am to pass this along to 10 people....Ley, Marye, Megan, Natalie, Amy, Jaime, Dorit, Erin, Caitlin, and Clara. Please pass this award on to 10 people who make your day!

We have been blessed with the chicken Pox!!!

My daughter came home from school yesterday covered in the chicken pox...now, I had them when I was in the 4th grade..a long time ago. This morning, she got up and has more on her face, legs, and on the bottom of her feet!!

Do any of you reading this, if there are any, know any little tricks to get these to go away faster? I would love to hear them if you do!

TWD-Snickery Squares

So, today is Tuesday, and if you have been visiting me for the last few weeks, you know that I am posting about this weeks edition of Tuesdays with Dorie. This weeks recipe was chosen by Erin of Dinner and Dessert. I am so glad that she chose this recipe, because it had been calling my name for the last few weeks.


This bar is really sinful! You have a shortbread crust, layered with dulce de leche (store bought or homemade) mixed with candied peanuts. And then layered with a chocolate glaze. Dulce de leche is not something that you can find just anywhere here, so I opted to make my own. I have made it before when I made millionaire shortbread tartletts. It is easy, it just takes a while to for it to cook.


I have to confess, that I skipped the part of the recipe where it said to make this in n 8x8 square pan, because, I just naturally reached for my 9x13 pan. With that said, and as you can see in the picture, mine are flat...not tall. But really, that is fine with me, because you can only eat a small bite of this dessert.


As always, go and check out the TWD chicks, we now have over 50 members and grow bigger each week!

Snickery Squares

For the Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
2 TBSP powdered sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten

For the Filling:
½ cup sugar
3 TBSP water
1 ½ cups salted peanuts
About 1 ½ cups store-bought dulce de leche

For the Topping:
7 ounces bittersweet, coarsely chopped
½ stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature

Getting Ready:
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 8 inch square pan and put it on a baking sheet.

To Make the Crust:
Toss the flour, sugar, powdered sugar and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Toss in the pieces of cold butter and pulse about 12 times, until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Pour the yolk over the ingredients and pulse until the dough forms clumps and curds-stop before the dough comes together in a ball.Turn the dough into the buttered pan and gently press it evenly across the bottom of the pan. Prick the dough with a fork and slide the sheet into the oven.Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, or until it takes on just a little color around the edges. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature before filling.

To Make the Filling:
Have a parchment or silicone mat-lined baking sheet at the ready, as well as a long-handled wooden spoon and a medium heavy bottomed saucepan.Put the sugar and water in the saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Keeping the heat fairly high, continue to cook the sugar, without stirring, until it just starts to color. Toss the peanuts and immediately start stirring. Keep stirring, to coat the peanuts with sugar. Within a few minutes, they will be covered with sugar and turn white—keep stirring until the sugar turns back into caramel. When the peanuts are coated with a nice deep amber caramel, remove the pan from the heat and turn the nuts out onto the baking sheet., using the wooden spoon to spread them out as best you can. Cool the nuts to room temperature.When they are cool enough to handle, separate the nuts or break them into small pieces. Divide the nuts in half. Keep half of the nuts whole or in biggish pieces for the filling, and finely chop the other half for the topping.Spread the dulce de leche over the shortbread base and sprinkle over the whole candied nuts.

To Make the Topping:
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove chocolate from the heat and gently stir in the butter, stirring until it is fully blended into the chocolate.Pour the chocolate over the dulce de leche, smoothing it with a long metal icing spatula, then sprinkle over the rest of the peanuts. Slide the pan into the fridge to set the topping, about 20 minutes; if you’d like to serve the squares cold, keep them refrigerated for at least 3 hours before cutting.
Cut into 16 bars.

Tangerine Bars

Laurie from Quirky Cupcake received a box of blood oranges from Joy the Baker in the mail last week as a gift...so, Laurie made blood orange bars. She adapted the recipe from her go to lemon bar recipe, instead of lemons using the blood oranges. Now, living in Tennessee...you can NEVER find blood oranges. So, in the conversations of how good those blood orange bars must taste..the question was raised if regular oranges would work for this. I would suppose so. But then, the Lemon Tartlett suggested tangerines. I love tangerines...I hate that they have seeds, so I normally don't eat them. I had a bag of tangerines just sitting in the fridge, wondering what would become of their fate. I can tell you what happened to them, they were looked at, squished, juiced to their deaths. It is a bittersweet thing actually...more sweet than bitter!

I liked this recipe a lot. I love the crust with the gooey center...delicious! I will probably keep this recipe on hand and substitute any citrus fruit that I may have. Thanks for sharing Laurie!

Tangerine Bars

Crust:
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
a pinch of salt

Toss all the ingredients into your stand mixer or food processor. Mix until combined and crumbly. Press lightly into 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes and cool slightly.

Filling:
4 beaten eggs
2/3 cup tangerine juice
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 C flour stirred together
Optional powdered sugar for dusting.

In the bowl of your standing mixer, blend the eggs and sugar together until smooth. Add the tangerine juice and again blend until smooth. Add the flour, mix on low-medium until incorporated. Pour the filling into the warm crust. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, or until the center of the bars no longer jiggles.
Cool to room temperature, or refrigerate if you like your citrus bars chilled. Gently dust with powdered sugar when about to serve.

It's a giveaway!!

My friend Megan over at Megan's cookin is having a contest to win this very cute basket! Want a chance to win it? Just hop on over and let her know that I sent ya!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

This morning I woke up hungry, and the usual bowl of cereal was just not doing it for me today. So, I decided to make these muffins. They are quick to put together and bake, so within 30 minutes, you can have hot chocolate chip muffins. Now, Abby (my daughter) does not like sweet stuff at all for breakfast...pancakes, pop tarts, Krispy Kreme doughnuts...notta....so, no surprise that she didn't like these. My boys on the other hand, LOVED them. I think that they both eat 3 a piece.

These will definitely be made again in my house. This recipe also will make 2 dozen.

Chocolate Chip Muffins:
3 1/2 all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 Cups granulated sugar
10 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 Cup milk
1 Cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 Cups chocolate chips, I used semi-sweet
3/4 Cup coarsely chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts (optional)

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin tin.

In a large bowl, soft together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar, butter, milk, sour cream, eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla, until well combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and fold gently with a rubber spatula just until the dry ingredients are mostly moistened; the batter will be lumpy, and there should still be quite a few streaks of dry flour. Fold in the chocolate chips, and the nuts, if using, just until combined. don't over mix; the batter will still be lumpy.

Fill muffin cups about 3/4 of the way up to the top and bake for 20-25 minutes.