The Eternal Optimist

I did a little baking for a co-worker’s birthday tonight. And I had an actual baking fail (which luckily doesn’t seem to happen too often). Thankfully, I recovered and was able to make a successful batch of treats. (I had bought enough for two batches, but I ended up being able to make only one because of the failed batch.)

What did I make? These cake batter truffles, which have some definite cake batter flavor, from Bakers Royale. They’re actually pretty simple to make, too, as long as you don’t do what I did. (However, anything that involves dipping is going to take a little bit of time.)

How did I fail? The recipe calls for heating the sweetened condensed milk over low heat for 10-15 minutes. I did that and it wasn’t reaching the right consistency. I noticed in the comments section that someone else had the same problem, and the blogger had suggested raising the heat to medium. So I did that. But I raised it a tad too high and stepped away for a second, and when I returned my milk had started forming a film and had little burnt brown bits in it, which I couldn’t get rid of. I didn’t think they’d look so appetizing in the truffles, so I ditched that can and started a new batch. This time, I did more of a medium-low heat and made sure to stir constantly. Success!

I used melted semi-sweet chocolate for the coating, but it turned out a little too thick, I think. Next time I would either try a thinner chocolate (such as the glaze perhaps) or make the truffles themselves a bit bigger so they could handle the amount of chocolate in the coating. All in all, though, I think my co-workers will be happy to eat these. And they might even wish I had made the double-batch I planned to.

I’m on a huge pumpkin kick right now, and I had some fall decorations I want to use before the holiday season begins, so I made pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

The recipe is from my friend Erin’s blog. I considered trying a cinnamon cream cheese frosting I had with it, but the cupcakes have a good amount of spice in them already, so I thought that might be too overwhelming. (I actually improvised some of the spices because I didn’t have quite everything that I thought I did. The results were good, though.)

I don’t have proper cupcake frosting tips, so my options were to pipe really thick or really thin frosting. I opted for some huge, thick topping because this cream cheese frosting is amazing. (I actually think most cream cheese frosting is amazing, but this one surely doesn’t disappoint.)

I topped the cupcakes with candy-coated chocolate sunflower seeds (in fall colors), which I won/bought as part of a Missouri prize package at an alumni event recently.

(I realized after the fact that I used the same cupcake wrappers as Erin. From the stock I had, these seemed to match the best. I guess great minds think alike!)

I should have posted these Sunday when I finished them. Instead, you’ll just have to save the idea for next year. I ran into this post on Sweet Simple Stuff just last week and decided I wanted to try these Halloween Black Bottom Cupcakes. Mostly, I just wanted to make the spiderwebs, but then I figured they fit well with these non-frosted cupcakes so I made the whole thing.

First of all, if you haven’t made black-bottom cupcakes, you’re missing out. My co-worker Katie often bakes them, and they’re among my favorites. It’s basically half cheesecake and half chocolate cupcake. How can you not love that?

This version adds orange food coloring and tops them off with webs made of white chocolate. The webs were fairly simple to make, although my decorating tip was a little thinner than I would have liked.

I’ve been in a pumpkin baking mood from the time the weather turned cooler last week. I resurrected the pumpkin cheesecake brownies from Red Kitchen Project for my co-workers last week.

And for a co-worker’s birthday this week, I made these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from my friend Erin at A Perfect Pairing. They were super easy to make — and super delicious. I tend to not eat too much while I bake, but this time I had a couple of cookies fresh from the oven and (perhaps) a little leftover batter, too.

A long time ago, the Cupcake Project posted a recipe for Ferrero Rocher cupcakes. They mimicked the flavors of the candy (chocolate and hazelnut) and sounded amazing. I discovered the recipe last year and planned to make them for my co-worker’s birthday last year, but when I tried to find hazelnut extract at three separate grocery stores, I failed.

Fast-forward to this year. Shortly after moving into my new apartment, I was exploring the organic market near my place and ran across … hazelnut extract! So I immediately bought some and waited for a good time to tackle these.

I finally did so when my co-worker’s birthday came around again last week. They’re chocolate and hazelnut through and through. And they’re filled with one type of ganache and topped with another type. I’ll admit that I ate one and was pretty excited.

A couple of notes on the recipe:

• Stef of the Cupcake Project noted in the comments section of her post that she couldn’t remember if the cupcake recipe listed was for 12 or 24 cupcakes (whether she doubled it before or after typing it). I used what’s listed and ended up with about 18 cupcakes.
• Also, I highly recommend NOT buying hazelnuts in the shells (to add to the ganache topping). I bought those because it’s all I could find, but cracking them open was a huge pain. (It probably didn’t help that I don’t have a nut cracker so had to use pliers.) I would either find them de-shelled or skip them altogether, unless a nut cracker makes it MUCH easier.

You can’t go wrong with this combo. And the recipe I made tonight had plenty of each: peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting in a chocolate shell (think of a Dairy Queen dipped cone).

The recipe was from the Cupcake Project blog. It took a bit of time, but none of it was very complicated. I ended up with leftover peanut butter frosting, though, so I made a quick batch of brownies (from a box) and topped them with the frosting and then the leftover chocolate shell. Twice the treats for my co-workers tomorrow!

(When I noted the leftover frosting on Facebook, everyone suggested eating it. There was enough to thoroughly frost an 8X8 pan of brownies … more than I could eat. Also, I tend to taste little bits as I bake but am usually in no mood to down any of it once it’s done. Work with the sweets kills the craving — at least for a bit.)