Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I always buy carrots and think I'm going to eat them... and then I never do... and they go bad... but this last time before I let that happen I decided to do something with them... no I didn't just eat them... I made dessert out of them. I mean you might as well use them in something you'll enjoy right ;)

Carrot cake can be seriously dry, BLEH, no thank you. These are super duper moist, and not an ounce of butter. Please believe me, these things taste so moist and decadent, you'd never know they are made with no oil or butter. Add a little cream cheese frosting on top, and you are good to go!

I pretty much pulled this recipe out of thin air, and was very excited they came out well. I mean that is the worst when you try something random and it's a big *whomp whomp* Next time you need a quick dessert to bring along somewhere just print this out and you wont be sorry :)

Oh and the pumpkin puree... you don't taste it at all... it just adds an amazing moistness and tenderness to the cake!


steph chows carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
for cupcakes you will need:
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup splenda granulated (or 1/2 cup white sugar)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups carrots (gratted)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2-3 Tbs skim milk

In a large bowl beat together:
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup splenda granulated (or 1/2 cup white sugar)
2 eggs

Then fold in:
1 1/2 cups carrots (grated)
1 tsp vanilla

In a small bowl whisk together:
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Gentry stir dry into wet. Add in 2-3 Tbs fat free milk as you stir. Fill 12 cupcake lined pans. Bake for 20 minutes at 350.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Beat together the following:
4 oz room temp cream cheese 1/3 less fat variety
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Spread on top of cooled cupcakes and refrigerate if not eating right away.

These stay moist for days... so no worries about storing them in a sealed container in the refrigerator overnight or for a few days.

AND don't forget to sign up for the jam exchange if you haven't already :)

Baby Shower Cupcakes

First don't forget to sign up for the jam exchange!
And if you didn't see it, take a look at John's guest blog :)


I'm a big fan of all things home made, so when I found out a few friends were expecting I had to get the move on and start crocheting some cute little things!

First was Zoe and Geoff, for there little boy/girl I made a set of cute puppies.


Next was Josh and Chris, for their little boy I made a ring rattle and a little dinosaur!


Now we can't forget about some chow right? When I think of baby showers I think of very scary situations filled with many many woman and stupid stupid horrible games... this was not going to be the case for this baby shower though *phew* cause me, I can't handle that crap...

Even though one baby was a going to be a boy for sure... I made the cupcakes pink anyway... why? because I had strawberry foam... and I wasn't about to waste it :)

Fudgy Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 12)
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup splenda blend for baking (or 1/2 cup white sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup Hershey's 100% Cocoa Special Dark
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
dash salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (i used semi-sweet chips)

Preheat oven to 350 F
Mix apple sauce, splenda, vanilla, beat in egg
In a separate bowl mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon.
Add flour mixture to wet mixture a little at a time, stir in chocolate chips.
Spoon batter into 12 silicon muffin cups (or lightly greased cupcake tins or use cupcake liners!)
Bake for about 20 minutes or until tops are firm to touch.

Strawberry cream cheese frosting
4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbs strawberry foam (I'm sure jam would work too... just lumpier)

Beat all the ingredients together until smooth, spread on top of cooled cupcakes.

This little pink dino is on its way to one Joel and Jennifer who gave birth to a little girl named Olivia... man I'm going to stop drinking the water... everyone is pregnant!!! Yes Neva, Anjali, plus more, I'm looking over at all of you too! Pregnant ladies are everywhere!!!!

Speaking of Anjali... I made her this cute little bear who's wearing a red sweater!


Hey Neva... what kind of fun animal might your little bun in the oven like???

Boston Cream Pie - lightened up

John's favorite dessert is Boston Cream Pie...
*bleh*

Sorry to all of you who like this pie, everyone who had a slice loved it, I just chose not to partake... I don't know, it's something about vanilla custardy pudding stuff, totally skeeves me out! Anyone else out there like me?? Or am I just the weirdo of the bunch?

*crickets*

Alright then! Last weekend was John's birthday (thanks everyone for all the well wishes!!). We were supposed to have a birthday dinner with some peeps, but said peeps were a bit under the weather... hence the postponing making the cake until this weekend. I'm not sure if it was me, or what the recipe was supposed to look like... (this is WHY all recipes should be required to have pictures!), but my cake came out... how do I say... WICKED THIN! I mean yes it's a lightened up cake, but that doesn't mean IT has to be skinny along with the eaters!! The recipe has you make 1 9" cake and slice it in half. I have a 8.5" spring form pan so used that... and let me tell you, I'm so happy I didn't have a 9" because it would have been even THINNER!!!

John came out to the kitchen while the cake was cooling, took one look and said, "so... where's the other layer?"
"that's it, I have to cut it in half"
"seriously?? It kinda looks like a big cookie, not a cake"
"oh thanks! what should I do?? Should I make another cake so it's thicker?"
"you could just cut this one in half across and then pile it ontop... so we'll just have half a somewhat tall cake"
"we can not show up with half a cake"
This went back and forth for awhile haha and in the end I said screw it! I'm going to try to slice it in half and make it like the recipe says!

So here it is...


My very thin, kinda sad looking cake. It really is more of a large sandwich cookie with frosting than anything else. I was told it tasted delicious though so that's at least good :) The cake was a bit dry, but the custard helped that out, and the frosting was wicked good. Ahhh chocolate how I love you!

The cake and custard recipe came from Cooking Light. The only thing I changes was I took half the cake batter and added some cocoa and then swirled that back into the white cake. John couldn't decide if he wanted a chocoalte or vanilla cake. So swirl it was! The other change was I used whole wheat pastry flour, which I know had some to do with the lack of big thick cake... but seriously it shouldn't have been THIS THIN!

As for the "frosting" It's melted milk chocolate with a little honey and milk mixed in.

Chow!

Mocha Cake with Mocha Cream Cheese Frosting

Another Ellie, The Food You Crave! Page 282. Don't they just look delicious? If you are looking for a super sticky sweet dessert though... this isn't for you. It's described as the chocolate cupcake from your childhood all grown up. The frosting is really not sweet at all, it has a nice intense espresso flavor, almost a bit bitter, so if you like coffee, you'll like these... if you want total sweet... I'd skip the frosting for sure. The cupcake was ok... but nothing amazing, unfortunately, ... but they sure do look pretty :)

Luscious Four-Layer Pumpkin Cake

So for those purist out there... stop reading... cause this uses a cake mix. *gasp*! You know what, I'm all about doing it from scratch, but sometimes, like when it's thanksgiving and you are already making 4 other desserts, a little shortcut is a nice thing. This comes straight from Kraft... who I really don't like as a company... but they did have a tasty recipe so... oh well. Oh I did change a few things to lighten it up a bit (not as much as usual since Mom was watching over my shoulder saying "oh just follow the recipe and put the oil in!" haha), you'll see my slight changes below.

This cake looked amazing, so pretty! And it wasn't bad at all to make. I made the cakes the day before Thanksgiving, then whipped up the topping the day of and assembled it. The cake was a hit with everyone and I would totally make it again. However I may try my own homemade cake recipe next time.

Enjoy!

Luscious Four-Layer Pumpkin Cake
1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow cake mix
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin, divided
1/2 cup skim milk
1/3 cup oil (I used 1/4 since Mom looked away)
4 eggs
1-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, divided
1 pkg. (8 oz.) 1/3 less fat Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP fat free Whipped Topping, thawed
1/4 cup Chopped Pecans

HEAT oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) round baking pans. Beat cake mix, 1 cup pumpkin, milk, oil, eggs and 1 tsp. spice in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Pour into prepared pans.

BAKE 28 to 30 min. or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 min. Remove from pans to wire racks; cool completely. Beat cream cheese in small bowl with mixer until creamy. Add sugar, remaining pumpkin and spice; mix well. Gently stir in COOL WHIP.

CUT each cake layer horizontally in half with serrated knife; stack on serving plate, spreading cream cheese filling between layers. (Do not frost top layer - I totally frosted the top... yum.) Sprinkle with nuts. Refrigerate leftovers.

MMMMM now I want some cake...

Chocolate cake... mmmmm chocolate cake

Have you noticed that stores are going out of business like crazy? I was over in Old Navy looking for christmas gifts for my little cousins walked out and noticed Pfaltzgraff was closing next door. I've been in need of a good 9" square pan so in I went. Everything in the store was 50-80% off, that's my kind of sale :) Anyway I left with an adorable stoneware baking dish, totally retro in style (it's orange!) and I LOVE it!

Now that I had the new pan I needed to bake something! While at Blueberry Hill Fran managed to get the self saucing cake recipe out of Tim and it called for a square pan... however when I described this cake to John he wasn't sounding like much of a fan... needless to say I made something else instead and will be making the self saucing cake at my house :)

I decided to make a chocolate cake batter that I normally use for cupcakes. I finally found whole wheat pastry flour at the store so I used that this time! It came out delicious!!!

As for the frosting... it comes with a story. I had an exciting Friday night, John was at the gym playing basketball after work and I had gone for a run in the morning so I was alone to cause mischief! So what do I do you may ask??... walk over to the library. How exciting am I!?

I wanted to pick up "The Food You Crave" There is a new group who cooks from it every week and their recipes look amazing!! Clara over at I heart Food 4 Thought is in the group and I love love love reading about all the yummy things she's been cooking up! I haven't made anything yet but oh I'm going to don't you worry!

Back to the frosting... of course I forgot the piece of paper with the call number of the book on it... so I decide to just look through the cook book section and find it... Yeahhhhh the cook book section is much MUCH larger then I ever expected, seriously thousands of books WOW, and this is just the library by John's house not the big downtown library!!! While searching for said book I came across three others that I decided to check out as well. One that caught my eye was Baking without fat. As you know I use things like prune purees and apple sauce to cut out fat... so I was totally excited to see what this book had to offer. This book also doesn't use white sugar they use honey and maple syrup so anyone who wants to cut out refined sugar go check out this book! Ok I'm babbling now... anyway the book has a frosting recipe... frosting without fat or white sugar... seriously?? Oh yes, and it was good! Next time I'll use milk chocolate cocoa instead of dark chocolate to cut on the boldness in taste, other then that... bring it on!



Fudgy Chocolate Cake
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup splenda blend for baking (or 1/2 cup white sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup Hershey's 100% Cocoa Special Dark
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
dash salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (i used semi-sweet chips)

Preheat over to 350 F
Mix apple sauce, splenda, vanilla, beat in egg
In a separate bowl mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon.
Add flour mixture to wet mixture a little at a time, stir in chocolate chips.
Spoon batter into 9x9" pan
Bake for about 25-28 minutes or until top is firm to touch.

Fat free Chocolate Frosting
1/4 cup fat free dry milk solids (found them above the cans of evaporated milk in the baking aisle)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbs honey
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

In a medium sauce pan dissolve dry milk solids into water. Turn heat to medium and add cocoa and honey, stir until thickened (about 15-20 minutes). Take off heat and stir in vanilla, let set for 10 minutes, spread onto cake or cupcakes, makes enough for one 9" cake.

Chow!