Monthly Archives: October 2011

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Frosting

I wanted to make cupcakes to take into work for Halloween but found myself not being satisfied with the chocolate cupcake recipes I was finding. So I decided to combine two recipes, one for the cupcakes and one for the frosting, to come up with these Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Frosting. The cupcake recipe comes from Shape Magazine and is lighter in calories than normal cupcakes but you would never know it. The cake, which includes a wee-bit of coffee, is light and chocolately, just what I wanted. And the frosting (which I colored orange), while not lighter in calories, is thick and sweet. I made these cupcakes while The Rocky Horror Picture Show blared on my television in the background and the whole scenario got me into the Halloween spirit. Happy Halloween!

The cake ingredients:

Cream butter together with the sugars (I forgot brown sugar in my ingredients picture).

Slowly add in the dry ingredients, alternating with buttermilk.

Pour into cupcake pan lines with paper liners and back at 350°F for 20 minutes.

The frosting ingredients:

Cream together the butter and combine with the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.

Drop in food coloring, if desired.

Additions: None

Omissions:

  • Almond extract

Substitutions: None

Overall Rating: Like It

Source: Shape Magazine and Coastal Living Magazine

Candy Corn Cheesecake Mousse

I’m forgoing a Friday cocktail this week and opting instead for this deliciously seasonal Halloween gem, Candy Corn Cheesecake Mousse. You don’t have to like candy corn to like this dessert. In fact, if you like cheesecake or cream cheese frosting, you will be in sweet, fluffy, creamy heaven. Cream cheese is mixed with powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and whipped topping to make a sinful yet light treat. The layers of yellow, orange, and white make for a cute-as-a-button presentation but, like any Halloween costume, this is just a facade: they are all the same flavor. Leave the food coloring out to make these desserts any time of the year. Make these this weekend and you’ll impress kids and adults alike. Get a spoon and dig in!

The ingredients:

Beat cream cheese until smooth and add in powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.

Fold in whipped topping and separate into three different bowls.

Add yellow food coloring to one bowl and orange food coloring to another bowl. Scoop each color of mousse into freezer or storage bags for easy layering into glasses.

Carefully pipe yellow mousse into the bottom of 4 glasses. Tap the bottom of the glass with your palm to help even out the mousse, if necessary. Repeat with the orange mousse and then the white mousse. Refrigerate until ready to serve, then top with a piece of candy corn.

Additions: None

Omissions: None

Substitutions: None

Overall Rating: Love It

Source: Glorious Treats blog

Latin Baked Chicken

Here is a simple recipe for chicken that only has five ingredients: Latin Baked Chicken.  A short marinade of lime juice, honey, soy sauce, and chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, a quick trip to the oven and you’ve got dinner.  If you’ve never had chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, they are nothing more than smoked jalapeno peppers.  These little firecrackers are deliciously smoky in flavor and very spicy.  The lime juice and honey in this marinade cuts the heat of the peppers slightly but if you don’t like spicy food, you probably won’t like this.  I used skinless, boneless chicken breasts instead of bone-in-chicken thighs and used a meat thermometer to tell me when they were done (165°F!).  I served this with a side of spanish rice (Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice Spanish Style to be exact!) as per Cooking Light’s suggestion and had a smokin’ hot dinner!

The ingredients:

Combine lime juice, soy sauce, honey, and chiles in a large bowl. 

Add chicken to the marinade, coating well, and let stand for 10 minutes.

Place chicken on a baking sheet and bake in a 400°F oven.  Reserve marinade.

Meanwhile, place reserved marinade in a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour marinade into a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

Base chicken with marinade half-way through the baking process.  Pull chicken out once it reaches 165°F, approximately 15 minutes.

Additions:  None

Omissions:  None

Substitutions:

  • Chicken breasts for chicken thighs

Overall Rating:  Like It

Source:  Cooking Light Magazine

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