Red Velvet Cake Brownies

I enjoy baking and try to make something to take to my rotation at least once during the month.  I usually try something new because it is nice to have people to share the goodies with.  I have been reading PBFingers back from when she started to see how she has progressed with her blog and to hopefully get some ideas for mine!  I saw Julie had posted a recipe for Red Velvet Cake Brownies and being the serious lover of Red Velvet that I am I just knew I had to try them--plus the recipe seemed easy enough!

While making the recipe I used mini chocolate chips because that is what I had at home and I thought they added a little hint of chocolate goodness throughout the brownies.  I also had to cook them for about 35 minutes until the middle was set.  I kind of failed on my icing because for some reason I thought it would be a better idea to cut the brownies before icing.  Next time I make these brownies I think I will let them cool completely, ice, then cut and serve!  I received good reviews so I think this is a recipe I will definitely be making again :)

New Find: Hermitage Bakery

I have a serious sweet tooth I am not going to lie.  I have really tried to work on not eating so much junk food, especially crappy sweets.  I feel like if I really want something sweet I need to get something legitimate.  Like Friday I got a delicious cupcake from Hermitage Bakery, which I have passed on an almost daily basis, but have never gone in.  I did have a cupcake from there one day during my 1st rotation because one of the pharmacist had them leftover from a party and they were yummy!  It is probably a good thing I never stopped there before because I have a feeling I will be going back.  I was getting my oil changed right beside the bakery so I decided to walk over and see what they have to offer.  It is a serious bakery with all kinds of wonderful looking goodies, but of course I gravitated to the cupcake display and promptly chose a red velvet cupcake. 

This was a real home baked cupcake that was normal size and not topped with mounds of icing like a Gigi's cupcake (which I love, but am kind of over). 

If you're in the area definitely check them out!!

Girl's Night

I had a much needed girl’s night with some of my girlfriends Saturday night.  We kicked back, relaxed, watched Bridesmaids, ate some yummy sweets, and celebrated one of the girl’s birthday!!

My friend Allison and I ventured out to Panera to have a light dinner so we would have lots of room for treats.  I love Panera and have become sort of a creature of habit getting a Greek salad and Mediterranean veggie sandwich.   It was my friend Amber’s birthday so we wanted to stop and get her a cake (even though we had plenty of goodies back home) because who doesn’t love birthday cake?  Well all the birthday themed cakes were HUGE so we finally found a few smaller sized round cakes, but they were a fall harvest theme.  We did the best we could with it and Allison decorated it once we got back to my house:

 It was definitely the thought that counts here!!

Bridesmaids was good, but not in a what I expected kind of way.  I am a die hard fan of The Hangover and it was a little weird to me to see this kind of crude humor coming from girls.

I tried a new recipe I found on SkinnyTaste for meringue cookies and they turned out to be delicious! More on the chewy side verses crunchy, which I really liked!

Black and White Chocolate Chip Clouds:

3 large egg whites (room temperature)

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Heat oven to 300°F. Cover cookie sheet with nonstick silicone pad or parchment paper (I used a silicone pad and it worked wonderfully)

Using a mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together in large bowl at high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar a little at a time, then vanilla, beating well after each addition until you get stiff peaks, the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is glossy.

Fold in chocolate chips. Drop mixture by tablespoons onto cookie sheet:

Bake 35 to 45 minutes or just until dry:

Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool completely on wire rack. Store covered, at room temperature.

Makes about 30 cookies

My friend Allison brought something she called pumpkin fluff (which I would personally call pumpkin crack because it was so yummy).  I recreated it last night--I haven’t tried it yet, but I brought it for a snack today with graham crackers.

Pumpkin Fluff:

1 can pure pumpkin puree

1 container fat free coolwhip

1 box sugar free/fat free cheesecake pudding mix.

Defrost the coolwhip in the refrigerator then mix all the ingredients together until well combined.  This made a little over 5 1/2 cup servings.

And since I am on a pumpkin kick I thought I would mention that Betty Crocker has a new seasonal cookie mix called Pumpkin Spice (Allison brought these over too and they were awfully good with the pumpkin fluff).  I picked up a bag at Target the other day after work to have on hand. 

College Football....Cheering for UT?!?

One of my good friends from a previous job invited me over this past Saturday to watch the University of Tennessee game.  I am not really a UT fan, not because I don't like them, but just in general.  I am a NC State fan through and through (GO PACK!!)  In an effort to spread some team cheer I found a super cute UT shirt at Target Friday afternoon:

And for your viewing pleasure here I am wearing it Saturday afternoon:

I also told my friend that I would make some sort of goodie and bring it over to have during the game!  I tried to think of a cute way to incorporate football and UT so I decided to make orange cupcakes with white frosting and an orange T.

Slightly healthier cupcakes:

1 box of moist style yellow cupcakes
1c no sugar added applesauce
1c water

Mix all the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.  The batter was slightly yellowish at this point.  I decided to mix red and yellow gel food coloring together to achieve the orange color batter I was thinking about....it ended up more peach:

I filled each muffin tin up pretty full (the box says it makes 24 cupcakes and this version online said 12) and made 12 cupcakes that were quite large.  Next time I may make them smaller and see how many I come up with.  Bake at 350 degrees for the time suggested on the box.  I was actually impressed with the color once they were cooked:

They definitely turned out more orange than peach which was a good thing.  Using applesauce in place of eggs and oil makes the cupcakes extra moist!  I frosted each cupcake with a little whipped vanilla frosting and drew a T on each with some orange decorating gel (which I found in the Halloween section of Target):

I think they turned out really cute and everyone seemed to enjoy them during the game Saturday!

Easter Goodies

I decided to use my great baking skills to make some cupcakes for my Sunday School class this past Sunday.  Since it was Palm Sunday and that means Easter is this coming Sunday I decided to go with an Easter theme.  I have recently gotten several different cupcake decorating books so I looked through them and got several ideas to try.  I’ve never used any kind of tools for decorating purposes, but some of these cupcakes looked a little intricate so before I made any I took a little field trip to Hobby Lobby.  I got a couple different decorating tips and a few pastry bags and decided to give it a try.  I decided to make yellow cupcakes since most of the different decorations either used white icing or white icing that has been tinted another color.   Of course I tried to make the cupcakes semi-healthy. 

Lightened Up Cupcakes

1 box moist style yellow cupcake mix

1 cup no sugar added applesauce

1 cup water

Mix everything together, but don’t add any other ingredients listed on the box of cake mix.  The box I got said it would make 24 cupcakes and when I saw this swap for cupcakes online it listed 12 cupcakes.  I filled each cupcake with about ¼ cup of batter and made a total of 19 cupcakes.  

 Bake as directed on the box.  

I attempted 2 different types of cupcakes: a bunny face and an Easter basket.   

For the bunny face I used plain vanilla frosting to pipe the icing to look like fur all over the cupcake.  I used a heart sprinkle for a nose and drew whiskers and a mouth with brown gel icing.   

For the Easter basket I tinted the vanilla icing green and piped it to look like grass on top of each cupcake.  I then topped the grass with 3 jellybeans to look kind of like Easter eggs hidden in an egg hunt.  Note to self: don’t get spiced jelly beans by accident 

Shamrock Shake Swap

So I have never had a Shamrock Shake from McDonald’s, but I received an email from Hungry Girl with a Shamrock Shake swap.  Her description of the shake plus reviews I found online make it sound enticingly delicious, but not at all worth the insane amount of calories and fat.  Basically, a shamrock shake is a mint flavored vanilla shake tinted green.  I decided to come up with my own version to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day.  I used the Hungry Girl email as inspiration, but mainly did a plain vanilla shake with a little extra add-ins. 

For my shake I used:

1 cup Breyers Smooth and Dreamy Fat Free Creamy Vanilla Ice Cream

1 cup skim milk

1 Splenda packet

¼ tsp peppermint extract

Green food coloring

I blended everything together with my immersion blender and topped it with a little fat free Reddi Whip

My shake had about 270 calories and no fat and when I googled the nutritional information for a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake a 12oz shake has 420 calories and 10 grams of fat (6g are saturated fat).  For a treat I am pretty impressed with what I came up with!!