Pumpkin, Flan, Tres Leches!

Sooo after months and months of procrastinating I'm FINALLY posting a response to my challenge of incorporating pumpkin into one of my baking recipes. But to make up for my lateness, I'll also through in a little blogging about two other baking tasks I took on over the winter break: Cheese Flan and Tres Leches!

For my pumpkin challenge I actually did two recipes: I made Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread (a choice inspired by my professor, who is a wonderful baker and makes the bread with extra large chocolate chunks) as well as Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream, I recipe I found on this website called My Kitchen Addiction. I sadly forgot to take pictures of the cupcakes but they were amazing, especially if you like the texture of the brown sugar in the icing. I made these for the girls in my classes and they were a hit! I'll include some pictures of the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread, the recipe found on My Baking Addiction. I think the bread was especially great to make during the cold weather season because the combination of the pumpking and chocolate chips is divine, and it makes for an easy treat to heat up in the microwave with some coffee or milk. Best idea ever!

So as an added extra I'll share some pictures of two other treats that I made over winter break: The Cheese Flan that my boyfriend's mother showed us how to make while I was in college, and that is my go to dessert ever since, as well as my first attempt at making Tres Leches Cake.

Okay, so the Cheese Flan has become a pretty easy dessert for me to make after having made it so many times...but the Tres Leches was a very different story. I followed a recipe found at Sazon Boricua, which is a great resource for authentic Puerto Rican dishes. Tres Leches has always carried the reputation of begin a difficult cake to make, and I finally understand why. If you don't take the cake out of the oven, poke holes evenly in the cake and pour the milk mixture immediately while the cake is still warm, the cake won't soak up the liquid and will only be moist on the surface. This is exactly what happened to me! So remember that this cake is known for being super moist and thus you need to be prepared to add the milk mixture as soon as it's done baking. Another issue was with the icing; despite asking my boyfriend to use his superhuman strength to beat the egg whites into a creamy frosting, you could still taste too much of the sugar. The cake did taste pretty good, but this challenge isn't over yet! Now that I know what to be particularly watch out for I can't wait to try it again.

Rach, your next challenge is simply to make something green for St. Patrick's Day! I sent you some options, so let me know what you pick and I can't wait to see what you turn out!

Ooey Gooey Rocky Road Cookies

My most recent challenge was to make something rocky road inspired. I searched many recipes and found quite a few ideas that looked tasty but I could not get the recipe that Lu suggested out of my head. So I made them.

I used this recipe from the always excellent Fifteen Spatulas  as a guideline and subsituted the almonds for hazelnuts. I also chopped up regular sized marshmallows instead of buying minis.

However, I forgot that I was out of parchment paper until after I baked the cookies. The first pan went on the Silipat and on the second pan I absentmindedly put down wax paper. I didn't realize my mistake until after I had baked the cookies and had to try prying them off the pan! Whoops.

I ended up with glob shaped cookies but they tasted great!

Put Some Pumpkin In It!

Lu!

Your next challenge is to combine pumpkin with one of your favorite flavors.....coffee, chocolate, peanutbutter.....what will it be?

Candy Inspired Cupcakes!

So this post is very much overdue, and I especially know this because I made these cupcakes back when I was still wearing tank tops and shorts in the 90 degree weather back home, and am posting about it while snow sits on the streets and trees around my apartment up in MA. So many changes!

I had a great time making these cupcakes-there are so many decoration possibilities and flexibility which is what I really loved about this challenge. My family is also slightly obsessed with Almond Joys, which is why I find them tucked into all these random corners in our kitchen-we hide them from each other because otherwise you'd never get any! So my parents loved the cupcakes, I loved making them=winning!! ;)

I found this recipe on a great blog that did a series of candy bar inspired cupcakes. Definitely go check it out!

**Rachel's Next Challenge: Who doesn't love Rocky Road ice cream?! You're challenge is to bake something Rocky Road Inspired (cookies, cupcakes, anything!) Heres a recipe a friend of mine put on her own cooking blog if you want to try this.

Conquering the Triple Threat

Lu challenged me to make a cake that featured three distinct layers. It took me some time to decide what cake I wanted to make and my ideas ranged from strawberry champagne to a mango pineapple peach conoction. I finally decided on.......

Triple Threat Cake (Peanut Butter, Banana and Chocolate) which I created from a hodgepodge of recipes in my Cupcakes cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens coobook and Hershey's website.

I baked the middle layer first so that by the time the first layer was cool enough to use I could begin cake assembly and by the time I was done with the first two layers the thrid would be cool enough to frost. Here are the recipes:

First Layer: Peanut Butter (adapted from Cupcakes)
Ingredients:

• 4 tbsps softened butter
• 1 1/8 cups packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 lightly beaten eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 5/8 cups all purpouse flour
• 2tsp baking poweder
• 1/3 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a round baking pan.
2. Beat butter, sugar and peanbut butter  together until well mixed and creamy.
3.  Add eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
4. Stir in flour and powder, alternating with the milk.
5. Pour batter into cake pan and bake for 22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.

Second Layer: Banana (BHG)
Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all purpouse flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup ripe mashed bananas (3)
• 3/4 cup sour milk/buttermilk (I used milk and vinegar)
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Let eggs stand at room temp for half an hour. Grease a baking pan and set aside.
2.Stir flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.
3.Add bananas, milk, shortening and vanilla. Beat on low until combined.
4.Beat in eggs
5.Bake at 350 for 22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.

Third Layer: Chocolate (adapted from Hershey's)
Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup all purpouse flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 8 oz sour cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 cup softened butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/8 cup milk

1.Stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
2.Add butter, sour cream, eggs, milk and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 3 minutes.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan.  and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Frosting: PB Cream Cheese
Ingredients:
7 cups powdered sugar
2 softened bricks cream cheese
2/3 cups PB

Beat ingredients until smooth and fluffy.

Filling:
3 bananas, sliced
lemon juice

Thinkly slice bananas. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Place slices between layers.

If desired top with a chocolate ganache made from either cream and chocolate or butter and chocolate (butter will make it thickerr faster)

Rating? The usual bearer of baked goods at my husband's work declared me "Baker of the Month" and told Mike that I should open a bakery.  And the entire cake was eaten that day!

Show me some layers!!!

This is somewhat unrelated...but this July marked the one year anniversary of how long I've been avoiding my hairdresser. I had never met a woman more destructive with a pair of scissors, and I wanted super long hair...so I just never went to get it trimmed. I was so afraid. Sadly, after a scorching summer I could no longer ignore the icky orange dried ends, so I succumbed and I kind of hate the "long layers" that I asked for :/

But hopefully Rachel can come up with layers that I'll love in her next baking challenge! Your task is to make a cake that has AT LEAST 3 separate, distinct layers. It can be any kind of cake you like, just show me the layers!! Good luck!

No-Bake Blueberry Pie

This recipe comes from my dear friend Shelly/Lyric over at Life is a Many Splendored Thing.

I'll share her recipe with you but I have to postpone the picture because I made the pie before I want to bed, and my nephew ate the entire pie by morning so I didn't get the chance to take a picture.

You can subsitute homemade blueberry filling, like I did, since blueberries are in season. Basically you boil blueberries, a tad bit of flour or that clear gel stuff, water and sugar for a few minutes. I found that 2 containers of blueberries made enough for one pie. I think with homemade filling you get the soursweet taste of the fresh berries and I really like that

Makes 2 pies.

Fixins:

blueberry pie filling
tub of  whipped cream (can also make homemade)
2 graham cracker crusts (I always make mine)
1 cream cheese brick
1 bag of powdered sugar

Steps:

Make the crusts. Mix together the softened cream cheese and the sugar. Divide mixture between crusts. Top with berry filling. Chill for at least an hour. Top with half of the whipped cream. Garnish as desired.