Margarita Buttercream Frosting

Ok first off, I think this may be my best picture yet! I may be biased as I love frosting so very much, but this looks uber yummy. 

Today was Emily's birthday and she didn't have any particular birthday dessert requests so I decided to try out a new recipe for margarita buttercream frosting. 

I used the key lime cupcake recipe I tried out last year (see post from August 31st, 2012) for the base cake and it seemed to go really well together with the frosting. I was worried it might end up just too much lime but it actually turned to just a very unified flavor grouping. I'm not sure what other cakes would go well with this frosting, but it could be very fun to play with. 

The frosting was very flavorful. The only trouble I had with it was that it contains a lot of liquid ingredients (tequila, lime juice, milk) so I had to add a lot of powdered sugar to get it to thicken up. It was also really overly tangy when it was loose; adding more powdered sugar really helped to mellow it down to a more pleasantly citrus flavor. 

I might want to cut the hole in my piping bag a bit smaller next time. Some of the cupcakes were pretty well loaded with frosting while a few got left out entirely. Made me wish mom was here because I bet she would know what to do with those. Anyway, definitely a keeper frosting recipe. So Happy Birthday Emily! 

Chocolate Chip Mini Cheesecakes

This recipe was already cheesecake miniaturized into cupcake size, but I took it one step farther into mini cupcakes! So very cute! And bite-sized!! I took these to a party and they went over really well. Everyone seemed to like them and they're just the right size that you can't keep your hands away from them. The only thing I'd change if taking it to another party in the future is that I would peel the wrappers off in advance. It ended up being a bit of a pain after eating a bunch of them and made for a small trash pile for the hostess. 

Creamy Grilled Chicken Piccata

Ok so clearly not my photo. I got halfway through eating my plate when I realized that I hadn't taken a picture. There was no stopping at that point so I decided to snag a picture from the original website: http://www.plainchicken.com It was actually a pretty good recipe. I wish it had some fiber in it, but the capers were better than I've had previously. My end complaint was that it was overly citrus-y, but that's an easy fix for next time. Otherwise I just need to plan ahead a bit more since step one is marinate chicken overnight. Oops, that made for a pizza for dinner tonight type delay. But that was yummy too, so I'm pretty ok with it. 

Creamy Lime Squares

These were fairly easy and fun to make. I'm not sure I'm in love with the recipe itself. The crust was delicious but I found the lime section to be a bit overly tart for me, and it also had a strange "skin" on top that I found to be an odd texture. James really liked them though, so they at least won the vote of a citrus dessert lover.

Fudge

An incomplete pan of fudge; not nearly as rare of a photo as a complete pan of fudge would be, at least in my house. Not a whole lot to say here. It's Grandpa Poplawski's good old spoon fudge recipe. It becomes normal fudge if you keep it in the fridge, but I happen to not like it as well that way, so low and behold it sits on the counter top. Not a good friend to the out of site out of mind dieting concept though. Great for my personal yum-happiness rating.

Beefy Beer Mac and Cheese

Ok so I totally forgot to take a photo of this one. It did actually look semi-good at one point. The recipe however I decided was kind of a bust. It was a recipe for beer mac that I found on pinterest and then I added the beef because I had a separate pinterest recipe for beefy mac and cheese so I sort of improvised and combined the two. The end result was that it was really bland. I used a Schlafly's summer ale that wouldn't be as much flavor as a different beer could have been, but it also didn't taste like cheese either. I did substitute a Mexican cheese blend for the cheddar and an Italian cheese blend for the parmesean, but I wouldn't have thought that would make it taste less cheesy. Also I should have just learned by now that I do not like bread crumbs on my pasta, but it was in the recipe. I'm not saying this recipe couldn't be good with a little bit of tweaking, but I doubt I'm going to give it the second chance. 

Italian Lemon Drop Cookies

These were a definite hit. James loved them; which really, what more could you ask for when making a lemon dessert for one specific person. My personal opinion is that they were surprisingly biscuit-y in texture, I prefer frosting made with butter instead of Crisco but that's an easy fix, and they weren't that hard to make, even with the lack of a kitchen aid mixer. 

The recipe said to roll the dough into balls, but I found it was way too sticky to really end up with any sort of smooth ball so I ended up dropping them on the sheet with spoons. Much cleaner. I also would beef up the frosting recipe a bit as far as volume. I ended up running out before I finished frosting the cookies and then had to go back and make them share. I suppose the other option would be to budget your frosting better, but I pretty much always vote for making more frosting. 

Stuffed Peppers

I was too hungry to bother to take a good picture. We're just lucky I remembered a picture at all. These were pretty good. Not exactly my favorite, but a nice change of pace. I started with a recipe, but its mostly just simple cooking concepts so I opted not to keep it. I'm pretty sure I'll remember enough to wing it, and if not, there's always the internet. There's a lot of room to experiment with this recipe, so to anyone who likes peppers a bit better than I do, I highly recommend having some fun. Also this was baked, but I bet you could grill them to keep house temps down during Summer.

Vanilla Peach Piecakes

These were a giant pain to make, but they turned out both cute and tasty, so somehow that makes it worth it. And of course I knew that they would be a pain before I even started. That being said, next time I try to make something that requires a 425 degree oven in the middle of July, somebody please stop me!

 These actually don't have much downtime while baking which is nice, it's just the assembly that really takes up time. I'm sure I would get better and faster at construction if I keep making these. There were some problems with the recipe/instructions that caused me to only end up with about eight piecakes and about four regular cupcakes, but I've since made adjustments to the directions and I think that could be corrected for next time. The end result regardless is that I'm just not sure these piecakes are for me. My favorite thing about pie is the filling, and my favorite thing about cupcakes is the frosting, so to have something that is mostly crust and cake with only some filling and no frosting is just not going to make it to my favorites list. However, I think my mom would really like these, so that's a definite thought. I do really love baking for other people.

 I'm not sure I'll make these again but I'm keeping the recipe since it was a success and they do make for a both impressive and cute display should I someday feel the need to be a baking show off. 

Fruit Parfait

So I had extra compote laying around. A very versatile recipe as it turns out. I already used it on pancakes and ice cream, so I decided to try something new. You can't really tell from the picture but there is vanilla yogurt under the compote. I wanted a toasted granola topping so I just kind of made one up based on what I remember from Mom's cobbler recipe. I can't really remember what all went in it, but I think it was basically oatmeal, butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar broiled in the oven. Turned out ok, definitely could use some perfecting.

Sparky

This was so delicious! Pretty good for my first unsupervised attempt. I'm still not much of  fan of making bread, but for this recipe it's totally worth it. I need to get a better kneading technique. I'm guessing its just a practice makes perfect thing. 

Whoopie Pies

Happy Valentine's Day! (btw Monk would absolutely hate making these.)

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

I should start off my mentioning that it's not really a cheesecake filling. I kinda knew that going in though, and it is certainly a worthwhile trade considering all the time and effort saved. The filling is more or less just a sweetened cream cheese. Overall these were pretty tasty and not too hard to make. The longest step was prepping the strawberries and even then it still didn't take all that long. It would have helped if I had a narrower paring knife to work with. I'd vote this as a good party recipe but perhaps not a family favorite. They make for really good finger food: it's relatively fast and easy, can be prepped ahead (so I'm told), and is visually appealing (as opposed to chocolate oatmeal cookies which seem always to fail at this last requirement, at least when I make them). For a family recipe it's not bad but I just think you could find a better use for fresh strawberries.

White Chocolate Liqueur with Whipped Cream and Caramel Drizzle

This was another case where I wish someone else had been around to give an opinion. In general I don't like drinking alcohol straight, even if it is yummy white chocolate liqueur. So adding the sweet whipped cream was a nice way to cut the edge and the caramel flavor was wonderful with the liqueur. Next time I might try frothing the whipped cream into it and see how that goes. Or I could just mix in ice cream as I've done before; always a good choice. The caramel will definitely be a regular addition I'm thinking though. Tasty.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

This definitely suffered from first time with new recipe syndrome as far as how long it took me to make it. It was pretty yummy. I may not make it all that often, but it was a nice change of pace. Also I got the recipe from a skinny food website so I get to feel good about it! (Ignoring the ranch dipping sauce and cake)

Peasant Pasta Stew

I need to remember to start this earlier in the day. It takes so long to properly stew! But it's so delicious. Completely lovely during some of these colder winter weeks. I'm not sure why all my shells decided to nestle. I guess I will need to figure that out for next time.