Blueberry Cobbler & Tiramisu Cupcakes

The other day I wanted to make a few things that I had never ever made before. It's really easy to do the same things over and over again. Chocolate Peanut Butter is my ultimate go to cupcake. I make them for everything. And I love them. But I'm sure my boss would like to see something different from time to time.

As I was on Pinterest I came across these delightful looking blackberry cobbler cupcakes. I was pretty sure tho that it wasn't blackberry season (like I have any idea) so I swapped it out for blueberries.  By the way, pinterest is a total addiction and if I don't get my sh*t together soon Justin is going to send me to counselling.

I started by going to the grocery store. I think fresh fruit is so much better than the frozen cop out stuff. You can seriously taste the difference. I feel like the only time it's acceptable to use frozen fruit is in smoothies. Hmmm..... now I want a smoothie. BRB.    

Yes, that really just happened. Thank goodness I work next door to a place that provides me coffee and smoothies on a regular basis. Bonus: it's like 40 degrees out today. Bam! Heatwave! 

Back to you're regularly scheduled blog:

CUPCAKES

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1‑3/4 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

3/4 cup milk

1‑1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs    

3 cups fresh or frozen (unthawed) blueberries

STREUSEL

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup uncooked old-fashioned or quick oats

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Start by whipping the butter & sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time, mixing well in between each egg. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl mix all of your dry ingredients then slowly add them into your butter mix. Real cooks say you should alternate the flour mix and milk until all ingredients are incorporated. Not me. Oh no she didn't. I pour my flour in and immediately follow it with the milk. It's like those people that don't like their food to touch. It's all going to the same place anyways. sheesh.
Ok, so mix all ingredients well, scraping the bowl to make sure you don't have any sneaky flour chunks hiding out in the bottom. It's always so annoying to come across those as you are putting the batter into the liners.
Oh yeah! The blueberries!! Dump 'em in when everything else is well mixed. If you put them in too early or mix them too much your batter will turn this weird green gray very unappetizing color. Not that I've ever done that before.........
Once your blueberries are incorporated grab your ice cream scoop and put the batter in the liners. 3/4 of the way full. It seems silly to use an ice cream scoop but if you have one of them that has the push button wiper blade thingy in it they work like a gem!

This is what it should look like at this stage:

Bake for 20ish minutes at 325 for the small ones. The larger ones take a bit longer - once you pull the small ones out check your larger ones every 5 minutes until finished. 

Once out of the oven they should look like this: 

(Side note: Just heard the best pick up line ever!! "I bet I can guess your weight, if I hug you".)

So there they are in all their golden brown glory. Another positive for using fresh fruit - they don't sink to the bottom and get all soggy like frozen fruit. 

On to the streusel : Take all of those ingredients and mix them well. I'm pretty darn sure I did that part wrong. My mix was really moist. Haha to you if you are one of those people that hates the word moist. So I added another half cup of flour & then baked it at 350 for about 20 minutes. I would say if you are going to do this add 1/4 cup flour & 1/4 cup brown sugar. Mine turned out alright but it wasn't as sweet as I wanted it to be. Once the streusel was ready I let it cool. Duh. :)

Frosting - 

I had some left over cinnamon butter cream from some other cupcakes I made and I thought it would work out perfect on these cupcakes. I piped it on, cupped the streusel in my hand and very strategically, and mushed it onto the side on the frosting. 

They turned out a little something like this: 

Not bad right?

I also made some Tiramisu Cupcakes. 

I made a tiramisu once and it turned out like a hot sloppy mess. I was so disappointed. We used to do what we called "Sweet Sunday" with Tiffiney and Mike. It was very exclusive and basically one of us would make a desert and we would meet at Tim's for some coffee & baileys. Well I had it in my head that tiramisu always looked so fancy and they would be so impressed with me. That was not the case. I figured if it called for 2 tablespoons of kahlua and I put 1/2 cup it would only get better. Nope, it only got really soggy. Ick.    

Anyways, I'm happy to report my Tiramisu Cupcakes turned out much much better. 

Cake

1 box Vanilla Bean Cake Mix

2 egg whites

1 egg

1/3 cup oil

3/4 cup buttermilk

3/4 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup strong coffee (I used instant coffee) 

Filling / Frosting:

8 oz mascarpone

1 tablespoon strong coffee

2 1/2 cup powdered sugar

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Milk to thin

For this recipe I just dumped all of my ingredients into the kitchenade and mixed them well. Scooped and baked, (325 for 20 minutes) then let cool. The cupcakes came out so light and fluffy. It was awesome. Sometime I surprise myself  when things I haven't made before turn out really good. 

For the frosting I whipped the mascarpone (which is really hard to find in stores. Glen's carries it tho) until it was soft and smooth. Then I added the cream cheese and mixed some more. After that I put in the powdered sugar until it was a thick frosting. I added the coffee, and vanilla. That helped lighten it up but it was still pretty thick. I added a little splash of milk at a time until it was the consistency I wanted. 

From there I piped the frosting on. Oh, also on the large cupcakes I cut a cone out of the center & filled it with the frosting. 

I thought I would try a new technique on these because they were so light and delicate. This is how it turned out: 

See it looks like a rose, sort of. The trick to this is instead of starting from the outside and working in you start from the inside and work your way out. Then a little sprinkle of cocoa powder and it was good to go. 

These might be my new favorites. Although Justin and I started a diet and I brought one home to eat and it ended up sitting on my table until I threw it away. I was so sad. But I have lost 5 lbs. so that's good I guess? I'm kind of in that stage where I'm like do I want to look good in a wedding dress or do I want to be able to eat all the cupcake? Ugh. Decisions, decisions. Also, Justin hasn't proposed or anything but I'm sure he'll get around to it eventually so I'm planning ahead. Sometimes I talk to him like he already has and I go on planning my imaginary wedding. LOL awkward. 

TagLine*WhatEverColorWillMyBridesmaidsWear?

Song lyrics about a train witty post title I think my brain just turned off

Hi Cupcake Friends!!

I had the most amazing (or amazeballs as Kelly puts it) weekend ever!!!

Friday we had a wedding gig in Flint for an old high school friend of mine. It was great, got to catch up with some old friends, show off the photo booth, spend time with Mr. Justin and eat yummy food  psych we missed dinner :( but we survived.

Oh and did I mention that Friday Justin and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary? How amazing is that?!? Not going to lie there was a moment in time that I didn't think there was any way in the world it would work out. I mean I lived in Seattle and Justin lived in Gaylord. It was exactly 2,143 miles from his front door to mine. Trust me I did the math several times. And the longer I stared at this map the more it felt like an unbeatable feat.

Being the amazing man that he is Justin was calm and confident in the ability we had to make it work. Every time I would have a melt down he would just smile and say it would all be ok. He was right. I flew back to Seattle and we skyped the minute I got home. We spent 3 days skyping and texting and chatting. I felt helpless. He was soooooooo far away. It almost made me more sad to talk to him. On the 4th day he called me at 7 am my time. Yeah, we had a 3 hour time differance on top of it. He worked at Fed Ex really early in the morning and I worked at the bar really late at night. Anyways, he called at 7 am, I answered, and then he tells me that he wants to come out and visit. Of course, was my answer as we had talked about it several times. He then starts to tell me that he had been looking at flights, and really missed me and he would be there tomorrow. Still very sleepy I agreed to everything and told him I was going back to bed. It wasn't until after I hung up that it hit me. TOMORROW!!!!! Justin would be in Seattle the very next day! What! There was no way I was going back to sleep after that. It worked out just like that. He flew out of Flint at 6 am and I was waiting for him at the airport at 10:30 am. How exciting! Little did I know when he arrived that he wasn't planning on going home. He purchased a one way ticket and would leave when he was ready. He never left. It took about 2 months and then we decided he should get a job and stat paying rent. My roommates were huge jerks that hated the fact that he was living with us. They 'didn't want to live with a couple' they said. Mind you THEY were a couple for a while. Give me a break. There are so many things I could say about those two unbelievably selfish and ridiculous girls but I think you've just about got it. Oops off on a tangent. :) Bring it back now. SO yeah, Justin stayed, got a job, we did lots of adventuring and eventually decided to move home to be closer to our families. LOL How did that story get so off topic?? 

Friday, back to Friday. We celebrated 2 years together at Nic and Kayla's wedding. 

                                        

Little did Justin know I had a surprise planned for him. After the wedding was over we drove to Kalamazoo to catch up with Nick, a college friend of mine. Then on Saturday we got up and Nick 'took us to breakfast'. AKA Dropped us off at the train station. Justin was so confused. Nick and I got out of the car and Justin stayed in it. Nick told him he had to get out of the car because he was 'going away now'. Thank goodness that poor guy trusts me. He could have been really freaked out about what was going on. Even when we got inside the train station he wasn't really grasping the situation. I told him we were going on an adventure, on a train, to Chicago. He said 'for the day??'. I said nope, the weekend He panicked.  Justin was supposed to start work on Sunday so he immediately thought he was in big trouble. I cleared it with his boss before I even bought the tickets. He read my email to Jen (THANKS JEN!!!! You're the best!) and finally got excited about the trip.  

This is his confused face -------------------------------> Poor guy.

We got on the way. YAY!!! I should also mention that my best friend Kelly lives in Chicago so it would be perfect to spend it with 2 of my favorite people!! 

Those are a few of the pictures I took along the way. The train! I love trains. And traveling by train is awesome. Justin also loves trains but had never been on one. The middle picture is the station in Niles, MI. I thought it was so pretty. The third pic is the screen shot I sent to Kelly of our whereabouts. Our train had some engine problems on the way there so we were about an hour late. Kelly, of course, made friends at the station so she didn't mind waiting for us. 

               

This is Union Station in Chicago. Happy happy happy to be there! Then there is Justin and Kelly. And another shot of the grand hall. It was beautiful. More people should just hang out there. I think I would. If I lived in Chicago I would just go and read or people watch or drink coffee in the grand hall. 

After we arrived we took a quick trip to Kelly's apartment to drop off our things and then we went back out to adventure. Kelly lives in Old Town which as I bet you guessed is the oldest part of Chicago. It was adorable! Reminded me more of a little town in Europe than Chicago. We wandered around her neighborhood, stopped in the little shops and had some lunch. They had a spice shop. Which is basically any spice you could ever need in these cute little packages. I bought some lavender. I had been looking for some for quite awhile now. Lavender Honey cupcakes will be in the works soon. :) Our lunch was very yummy. Our server swore more than and server I've ever met before. Caught me a little off guard but we all laughed about it later. 

After lunch we went somewhere because Kelly had a surprise for me. It was this -                        

A CUPCAKE VENDING MACHINE!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS??? Brenda, if you are reading this can I have one please please please please please?!?!? I bet it would go over so great downtown. I got a chocolate peanut butter (because for some reason I just can't have enough peanut butter in my life), Justin got a chocolate marshmallow and Kelly got a black & white. They were delicious!! And still warm. MMMmmmmmmm......cupcakes. :) 

We were doing that just for the picture but right after Kelly took it I took a huge bite of Justin's cupcake and pulled mine away. I'm so quick! :) 

After the cupcakes we wandered around, shopped more, and had our palms read. Turns out Justin is my soul mate, I'm going to have a famous child, and my job is where I should be. Cool! 

We walked to the Hancock building and Kelly had free tickets to get up to the top viewing deck. It was beautiful!! It had just gotten dark and all the lights were on around the city. How romaaaaaaaaantic!

 I'm full of pictures today. Hope that's ok :) 

                           

Then we walked down to Navy Pier to see what was going on with Snowfest. There were lots of snow sculptures. The hand was my favorite. It was done by a group of high school kids. You go Glen Coco! There was also a lot of shopping inside plus a dance party! Dance, dance, dance, dance!!! Well I mostly watched but I did spin around and jump up and down as we were cutting through the dance party to get to the other side. :) 

We left Navy Pier and headed towards the Aragon Ballroom where none other that Flogging Molly was playing!! Awesome. The venue was beautiful. It looked like a little village on the inside with little balconies everywhere and a giant mural of the galaxy painted on the ceiling. I couldn't get any pictures of the mural but I did get these: 

                                    

 

When the concert was over we went to Bellview? Beachwood?, Bubawallys? Ok, so I don't have any idea what it's called but we went to a bar and got to see Matt, Amy, Brock and Cheryl. That was fun. Haven't seen those guys in awhile. Not going to lie though, by that point we were pretty darn tuckered. Not too tired for tacos tho! Yum! Real, homemade, authentic tacos. Nom Nom Nom! 

Annnnnnnndddddddd Sleep! 

Sunday AM:

We headed to brunch at Peasentry to meet up with Jenni and Matt! Jenni is another friend of mine from high school. Matt is her husband. They are wonderful people and it was so great to catch up with them. Jenni and Matt are expecting their first little baby in 24 day! It's coming up so quickly. Jenni is adorable as always. And they are so so excited to be parents. You guys are going to be wonderful parents!! 

We hit up a couple record stores after brunch and then went to Millennium Park to see the Bean. That was Justins only request for the whole trip.  It's always so cool to see. We got to watch the people ice skating too. 

 

After the bean, and narrating every fall that happened on the ice skating rink, we went and got coffee, hit up downtown, bought a record and then headed back to the train station. I owe Kelly a million thank you's for being such a wonderful host, tour guide and secret keeper! Thank you, thank you, thank you Kell!! :) 

Our train home was packed!! There must have been hundreds of people on the train. Once everyone got on we were off. It only took about 2 hours to get back to Kalamazoo. Then Greg came and picked us up (thanks again Greg!), dropped us off at our car and we headed north. Once we were on 131 we hit freezing rain. It stayed with us the entire way home. What should have been a 4 hour trip (max) turned into a stressful 6 hour trip. Slow and steady. The ice stuck to the car so every hour of so we had to pull over and break it all off so we could see again. It was nuts. 

That was one of 4 pit stops. The ice on the hood was about an inch thick and slid off in one solid sheet. Oy! 

Our poor antenna ducky was frozen solid. In between Big Rapids and Kalkaska he doubled in size. 

Very thankful and sleepy we got home at about 2:15 am. I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning! We did pass this on the way home and Justin turned around so I could take a picture of it. A Giant Trout! And santa & the reindeer. What the heck?? Believe it or not I didn't corner the market on #rockerduck or #gianttrout on Instagram. I thought for sure I'd be the only one. There are 5 other #rockerduck pictures and 9 other #gianttrout pics. Only 1 is of an actual fish tho. Huh. 

This morning I got a wake up call from the most adorable thing in the whole wide world.........

Mom got a puppy!!! She's the cutest, most adorable, sleepiest, most snuggley puppy ever! She doesn't have a name yet tho. We came up with Maggie, Lady, Agatha and Ebony. None of those really fit tho. Any suggestions?

Thanks for dropping by today. It was a long one I know. If you made it all the way to the bottom tho let me know and I'll give you a cupcake or something Lol!

TagLine*MostEpicWeekendEver

A quick pick me up! Hey!

Some days I feel like no matter how hard I try I can't seem to put on my happy face. Not that I'm grumpy about anything in particular but I just can't get into the groove. Today was that way because I was supposed to get up early to go make cupcakes and when I woke up it was 8 am and my alarm didn't go off.  :( Not that I like mornings by any means but I do like cupcakes :) 

Every once in a while we need someone to grab us by the shoulders and say "Pipe Down and get over it!!" but since I don't think Justin is brave enough to do that (he knows better lol) I like to turn to Imagine Dragons instead. I'm not sure how to describe them so why don't you just listen instead. 

This is Top of the World by Imagine Dragons.....enjoy! 

Also, another thing I've come across recently is Songza.com. LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! I got sick of Pandora. Seems like I was listening to the same stuff all the time and it got repetitive. Songza is really cool because it basically says "It's Tuesday Afternoon: What are you doing?" then it gives me options like working, lunch break dance party, new music, and energy boost. I'm currently playing the Sunshine Indie Pop station. It's fun, upbeat, and new. Check it out. Follow the link below. 

Songza Sunshine Indie

There you have it folks, your Tuesday afternoon mood picker-upper. :) Enjoy your day! 

TagLine*OMGThisIsMySong!!

Andes Mint & Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes

With everything going on lately I haven't posted much or done much for that matter. Justin and I are working hard on getting in shape and counting calories. He, of course, gets to eat double what I do so most of the time I feel like I'm slowly shriveling away. But all in all I feel great. Glad to finally be putting that gym membership to use!

The other day I posted on my facebook asking for requests and ideas. One of these came from these, the other is one of my bosses favorites so I decided to go with that. I didn't take any during pictures because I was too busy talking and catching up with the gals at the store.

Andes Mint Cupcake:

Use the standard chocolate cupcake recipe (under the recipes tab). I doubled mine because I wanted to make more.
Make the recipe as usual and add 2 Tbs of creme de minthe. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
For the frosting just add more creme de minthe until your desired flavor is achieved. Don't go overboard tho, too much mint isn't always a good thing. After they were frosted I topped them with chocolate drizzle and half of an andes mint. I only used half because when you break them they green color shows more.

Orange Creamsicle:

Start with the standard vanilla cucpake recipe. (Aging I double this). Add 1 box jello instant pudding cheesecaek flavor and 1 box orange jello. Don't mix them or do anything silly. Just dump them in.

mix mix mix, bake bake bake. and cool. Frost them with a good ole vanilla buttercream and top with some pretty orange sprinkles. KaBlam! Orange Creamsicle cupcakes.

TagLine*It'sSnowingOutside

Little Miss Muffin...

is looking like she's on the mend. The vet called the other day with the results of her blood work - thyroid levels are normal cortisol (or however you spell it) is elevated. She is still stiff and sore until she gets moving but then she seems to move a lot easier. I think she's sick of being hurt, every once and awhile she flings her head around and gets sassy. She was able to go outside for part of the day the other day because it was so nice out and the ground had thawed out a bit.

It's going to take 9 months for her feet to grow out and this funk to be gone for good. We'll have our ups and downs but I can accept that. Thank God we caught it early.

This is Dream when she was outside the other day. You can see the sparkle in her eye. Or hunger.....maybe it's hunger :)

TagLine*SunshineAndHappiness 

Beatles Love

It's days like this I need prayers and The Beatles. 

About Muffin...

I haven't posted in several days because I'm heart broken.
My darling Miss Muffin has lamenitis in all 4 feet.

Here is a link that explains it better than I can. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminitis#Rotation.2C_sinking.2C_and_founder

Basically she's having a really hard time walking and moving around on her own. Her tendons are so tight and stiff that sometimes she can't bend her legs at all.
I can't even talk about it without wanting to cry. The other morning we went out to feed her and she literally couldn't move at all. We had to manually pick up one foot at a time to try to get her out of her stall and it took us almost an hour. Even then her leg was straight as a board so she could only go about 3" at a time.
We finally got enough momentum going that she was able to walk around the arena a few times.
You can see how uncomfortable she is but bless her heart she keeps pushing on and trying for us. I can see in her eyes that she is trying so hard but her body isn't doing what her head is telling her to do.

She's also on a blood thinner and metabolism booster to get her circulation moving and help her loose some pounds. The vet also thinks she has something going on with her thyroid so she's on meds for that too.

Mom and Justin built a round pen in the indoor arena so she doesn't have to go back in her stall. That seems to help a little bit because it gives her the ability to move around. Not that she's doing it as often as she should be. I don't blame her tho, why would you force yourself to move when it hurts? Frank, the barn owner also built a round pen outside for her. The snow helps a bit because her feet are so hot. However, when he took the tractor out to clear the snow and make room for the gates they left ruts which have since frozen. They are sharp and hard on her feet. Poor thing.

We've also had to really limit her diet. She's gained some weight and being heavy on sore feet is no good. Now she's on a super strict diet. The weight gain was basically a case of too much love. Giving lessons and being out there every day she got lots of treats. Plus she's everyones favorite horse so whenever she looked hungry or acted like she needed attention someone fed her. UGH!

I feel so helpless. I wish I could carry her home and snuggle her.

This is what her new round pen set up looks like. She moves a bit better in it. 

 She was making silly faces at us. This was after we finally got her out of her stall.

And oh yeah, after a few weeks off I was back at Jan's Deli this morning. It was nice to get in and take my mind off things. I made Raspberry Lemonade and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough because the other day I had a bride come in raving about those being her two favorites. 

So there you have it. My life as of now in a nutshell. 

Tagline*GetWellSoon