Peanut Butter Pie For Mikey

After reading around on some blogs this week, I noticed a lot of people were baking things 'for mikey.' Things like a peanut butter cheesecake cupcake, peanut butter cupcake, and peanut butter cookies 'for mikey.' I finally saw a blog that posted the link to what all of this was about. There is a lady named Jennie who is asking everyone to bake a peanut butter pie in rememberance of her husband mikey. Mikey died very sudden and from what I gather, he died from a heart attack. He left behind a wife who he was married to for sixteen years, and a very young daughter. She had posted on her food blog a longer story of what had happend, but recently cut half of it out. Mikey died a little over three weeks ago. I was very touched by this story and wanted to honor her wishes by baking a peanut butter pie for Friday night. It is very tasty and I recommend this for anyone! Chris hates cream cheese and even thought it was good! Feel free to read Jennie's post at http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/for-mikey.html.

Ingredients:

* 8 ounces (1 cup) chocolate cookies (it took me about 15-17 oreo's to get one cup)
* 4 tablespoons butter, melted
* 4 ounces (1/2 cup) finely chopped chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
* 1/4 cup chopped peanuts
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 8 ounces cream cheese
* 1 cup creamy-style peanut butter
* 1 cup confectioner's sugar
* 1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
*1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice


Directions:
1. Add the cookies to the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. (I added 1/4 cup more cookie crumbs and 2 tablespoon's more butter to have a little more crust)

2. Combine melted butter and cookie crumbs in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to mix well. Press mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

3. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. (I would've liked a little more chocolate, so if you're like me and always like a little more, I'd add about 1/4 cup more chocolate chips)

4. Pour over bottom of cookie crust and spread to the edges using an off-set spatula.

5. Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the melted chocolate. Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

I took a handful of peanuts and grinded them in a blender.

6. Pour the heavy cream into a bowl and beat using a stand mixer or hand mixer until stiff peaks form.

7. Transfer to a small bowl and store in refrigerator until ready to use.

8.  Place the cream cheese and peanut butter in a deep bowl. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.

9. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in the confectioner's sugar.

10. Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Increase speed to medium and beat until all the ingredients are combined and filling is smooth.

11. Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the filling mixture (helps lighten the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whipped cream). Fold in the remaining whipped cream.

12. Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan. Drizzle the melted chocolate on top, if using, and refrigerate for three hours or overnight before serving.

I then went to drizzle on some chocolate...I melted some more instead of trying to take some from the prior steps. I got a little carried away drizzling it on top, but the letter's ended up turning out nice. I just wrote out 'for mikey' on top of parchment paper and let it set for about 10 minutes and then transferred it over.

*courtesy to In Jennie's Kitchen







Mini Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago, my parents came back from visiting Kentucky. They helped my grandma and aunt go through a bunch of storate items from my grandma's old house. My parents surprised me by bringing me a bunch of my great-grandma's baking supplies. Two mini cupcake pans came with it all. I've made mini cupcakes before and didn't have much luck with them. My small scoop wasn't the proper size to make the perfect amount of batter in the paper wrappers and neither was my moms. I've been itching to use the pans though. More and more on Cupcake Wars I've seen some of the people pipe their batter into the cupcakes. In my head I can't figure out why--because I know my scoop for normal sized cupcakes makes them come out perfect everytime. Well, I finally decided to try their technique with the mini cupcakes today. IT WORKED! The cupcakes came out to the perfect size. I did this out of boredom and wanting to use my pans. Since I'm in a wedding this weekend, I figured I'd just send these cupcakes with my husband to work. They turned out much better than expected. Also, I've been wanting to draw with ganache on top of cupcakes for a while, and now seemed like the perfect time to do so. These are a great snack to freeze and put into your child's lunch for school. You can get 72 mini cupcakes out of one boxed cake mix.

Ingredients:

Cupcake:

* 1 boxed yellow cake mix (you can use any type of cake mix, I just happend to have a yellow one and didn't feel like making my own batter!)

* ingredients needed to make cake

Vanilla Frosting:

* 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

* 1/8 teaspoon salt

* 3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

* 1/2 teaspoon milk

Chocolate Ganache:

* 1/4 cup heavy cream

* 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Make the cake according to the box.

2. Pipe the batter into the cupcake wrappers. I piped them a little less than half full.

3. Bale the mini cupcakes for 11 minutes.

4. Once removed from oven, let the cupcakes sit in the pan for about 3-5 minutes. Remove and then put onto a cooling rack.

Frosting:

1. Beat butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Aprox. two minutes.

2. Reduce speed to low, gradually add confectioners sugar. Beat until incorporated.

3. Add vanilla and milk and beat until smooth and creamy.

*Add additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, if frosting doesn't have spreadable consistency

4. Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. I tried out three different tips and was short frosting for about 10 of the cupcakes. I just put some extra ganache on top of those and it worked out fine!

Ganache:

1. On a double boiler, pour heavy cream into a pan (mine was dirty so I opted for a sauce pan) and bring to a boil. if you notice the cream to start to harden on the top--take it off imediatley.

2. Once the heavy cream is removed from the heat, pour chocolate chips into the cream and let sit for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

3. Stir the chocolate and cream until you get to a smooth consistency. If there are some lumps you can't get out you can just put the pan back onto the double boiler and stir until the lumps come out.

4. Let the chocolate cool for about 10 minutes and then let the fun begin!

5. I added a dot that was apart of a sprinkle set I had..I got tired of messing with them after about ten cupcakes though.

*courtesy of Georgetown Cupcake, Sprinkles



Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Happy Monday everyone! Sorry for not posting much lately. My husband and I were given a months notice that he'll be deploying--so you can only imagine how hectic everything is around here. Due to him deploying, I thought now would be a great time to make one of his favorite cupcakes. I've never messed with caramel before and wasn't very excited about it going into it. Chocolate is my choice of ingredient, but not today! My thoughts were correct though--I hate working with caramel! The cake is delicious and so is the frosting, but it took many attempts to get the caramel for the frosting. I burnt the first three batches of it. Luckily, the fourth one came out. I also tried to make a caramel filling. Well, all was going well until I went to fill the cupcakes. I tasted the filling and it tasted burnt. I ended up just filling the cupcakes with Hershey's Caramel Syrup for ice cream. It gave the cake a nice boost of flavor! The cake recipe would go great with other frostings. I'd make the frosting again...just not anytime soon! This cupcake was the PERFECT mixture of sweet and salty!

Ingredients:

Caramel Cupcake:

* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
* 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
* 2 large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

Salted Caramel Frosting:

* 1/4 cup granulated sugar
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1/4 cup heavy cream
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 stick salted butter
* 1 stick unsalted butter
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

Cupcake:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift  flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

2. Cream butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until pale fluffy.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. 

4. Add vanilla. Mix and scrape down sides of bowl as needed.

5.  Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combined after each.

6. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about halfway full. Bake for about 25 minutes. When done, transfer tins to cooling racks to cool 10 minutes.

Frosting: (If you want to pipe the icing, make sure you make a batch and a half of frosting. I didn't feel  like using a bunch of ingredients so I just piped some and then frosted the rest with a knife.)

1. In a saucepan, stir together granulated sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Cook without stirring until you notice the mixture turning an amber color--then start to stir.. Remove from heat when you notice the amber color turning a darker yellow/brown. I removed it sooner than later because I didn't want my fourth batch to burn.

2. After you remove from heat, slowly add in cream and vanilla, stirring until very smooth. Let caramel cool for about 20 minutes, until it is just barely warm and still pourable.

3. In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter and salt together until lightened and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add powdered sugar. Mix until thoroughly combined.

4. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the caramel. Beat on medium high speed until light and airy, and completely mixed . If you think it is too salty, add 1/2 cup more sifted powder sugar (that's what I had to do).  Mixture should be ready to use without refrigeration. If your caramel was too hot when added, it will cause your icing to be runny. If this happens refrigerate for 15-20 minutes.

5. Top caramel-filled cupcakes with frosting. I added the Hershey's Caramel Sauce due to I was sick of messing with caramel by this point!

*cupcakes adapted from Sprinkle Bakes