.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

So, today is the very happy birthday of the SF. She turned 50 I heard. In honor of this joyous occassion I made rootbeer float cupcakes! With green frosting!

Washington finally decided it was summer and got hot!  Like, for real hot, like today we might see triple digits hot!  At first I made fun of these Washingtonians and their inability to handle the heat, 75 degrees is no reason for air conditioning and bikinis in the city, but people were dying left and right of heat stroke.  Now though, it’s actually hot.  I know you Kansans are thinking “we reach triple digits almost every day!” but just remember, we don’t have air conditioning, so when we get to the triple digits we’re just stuck in it.  The Boyfriend and I have actually been escaping at night to places with AC, Monday night the mall, last night the bowling alley, and tonight I am going to a thing at REI to hopefully win some fantastic prizes.

This explains my lack of cooking, it’s just too hot to turn on the oven.   But today, the hottest day of the whole week, I’ve got to bake some birthday cupcakes, all because we love Trace.

WISH ME LUCK!

So, I did not originally plan to share this recipe.  I guess part of me thought it wasn’t good enough, even though the boyfriend loved these brownies.  I don’t know, they seemed so basic, so easy, so not that pretty.  But then, then! THEN! I gave a container of them to The Coworker (keeping in tradition of not naming people their real names, I could go “The Mormon” but, I don’t know, I know she’s fine with it, but do I really need a mormon argument on my blog? NAH.) to share with her hubby and inlaws.  Turns out her mother in law LOVED THEM AND WANTED THE RECIPE! Holla!  Not everyone loves my cooking, so when someone does, I’m pumped to share.  Now, The Boyfriend was supposed to take these to work, and he didn’t, so between The Coworker, The Boyfriend, and Myself we have downed an entire pan of brownies.  I’m sure those went straight to my thighs without asking.  

So, the recipe!

First, make the brownies:

3/4 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup butter (melted and divided)

1/2 cup boiling water

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 1/3 cup flour

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  It’s a good temperature.

Next: I highly recommend one of your larger bowls for this, it’s a very sloshy mixture.

Sift your cocoa and baking soda in a bowl, add 1/3 cup butter, stir.  add boiling water, stir until starts to cool, this may take a few minutes.  If you’re in a massive hurry you can get away with stirring this with a whisk about 2-3 minutes and be fine.  

Next stir in the sugar, eggs, and remaining 1/3 cup butter.  Stir and stir and stir until this is smooth.  Sift your flour and salt into the mixture, add vanilla, and stir until smooth and dreamy, kind of like Cary Grant.  (Please forgive me, I spent the day in the sun, I’m feeling a little loopy)  Stir in your semi sweet chips, pour into greased 9×13 and bake for 40 minutes (or until brownies are pulling away from the edges of the pan.)  Now, don’t be decieved, I stuck a fork in the middle of these and thought “OH MAN THESE ARE STILL SO GOOEY INSIDE!” and left them in longer, they are actually still going to be gooey inside even when they’re officially done.  They don’t have that many dry ingredients and it leaves them pretty gooey and delicious.

Now, after these have baked and cooled you’re going to want to top them with some delicious ganache.  I used:

2 cups chocolate chips*

1 cup whipping cream (not to be confused with whipped cream)

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla 

*I used the leftover semi-sweet chips from the brownie recipe, when I did this I decided it was way too bitter and had to play around with the powdered sugar and vanilla to get a taste I liked.  To save some time and energy I think it would be safe to say if you used milk chocolate chips instead and just added the whipping cream you would be fine, but as usual, taste and add and make it delicious.

Use your microwave or a double-broiler (someone buy me a double broiler, please!) and melt the chips and the whipping cream, mix carefully and thoroughly.  Before you add the powdered sugar and vanilla give it a taste. Add what you feel is necessary.  Those are the measurements I used, so you can copy me if you want.

Since these went over so well and so quickly…this is all I have of photographic evidence

So, I know you’ve all been enduring my endless whining about my computer situation for months now, but just imagine where the boyfriend is coming from.  He has to actually hear the whining all the time.  Every day, every time something won’t work, every time I try to blog, every time I try to…anything.  So today, something magical happened…

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!!!

The Boyfriend didn’t want to be left out and got himself a twin!

But on to what you really care about/what really matters…

Caramel Latte CuppyCakes.

These are super cutesy Tall Latte CuppyCakes.  I’ll be honest, I haven’t even tried one, but they did have some rave reviews at the ol’ office today.  In fact, I took them in at about 4 and by 5 there was only 1 left.  I guess B. Massie and Conan O’Brien Boss will have to duke it out tomorrow over who gets the leftovers.

Ooooh and Aaaah!

For the Cake:

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup very strong coffee or espresso

1 Tbsp milk

1 Tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

Very easy, very basic cake.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together dry ingredients.  Combine milk, coffee, oil, and vanilla in small bowl.  In mixer bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes.)  Add the eggs 1 at a time mixing well between each egg.  Then just add alternatively the wet mixture and the dry mixer to the batter. until everything is mixed.  Then just put it into those popover, cupcake, or cake pan.  Bake about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on top.

The caramel buttercream:

*note:  I searched and searched for a recipe I liked the sound of and never found one.  If you think you’ve got a better recipe I think you should use it!

2 cups powdered sugar

1 stick of very soft butter

3 Tbsp caramel (the stuff you put on top of ice cream)

1 Tbsp milk

Put the butter and powdered sugar in a medium bowl first, it is going to look VERY dry.  Just keep mixing for a couple minutes, okay?!  Then, when it looks pretty mixed, add the caramel and the milk.  I did a lot of taste and add, taste and add.  I wanted it to taste pretty caramel-y, since the cake had no caramel flavor to add to the latte.  Just spread that stuff atop the cooled cakes and top with some fancy swirls or drizzles of the unused caramel.  Absolutely gorgeous!

Hopefully this will be my triumphant return to the blogging world.  Amen.

I know, I know, there has been no blogging for a long time. I’ve been having computer problems (still) and now we’re both thinking about making the big (gasp) switch to Macs. It’s scary, but we’ll see what happens…

Anyway, I’ve had a real obsession with babycakes now-a-days and The Boyfriend and The Boyfriend’s Work Boyfriends have done a bang up job of eating all these babycakes. Today’s adventure leads us to…Chocolate Chip Babycakes!!!

Mmmmm

They are good mix of wayyy too sweet frosting and not that sweet cakes. I really only recommend these when they’re coming as a boxed set, alone I think each would be too much.

For the cakes:

1 2/3 cup Cake Flour*

3/4 Tbsp Baking Powder

1/8 tsp. Salt

7 Tbsp Butter

3/4 C. Sugar

1/2 C. + 1 Tbsp Milk

1 Tbsp Vanilla

3 Egg Whites (beat until stiff)

1 C. Chocolate Chips

*I never ever ever have cake flour on hand, you can make your very own cake flour by removing 2 Tbsps of flour from each cup you’ve measured out and replacing it with 2 Tbsps of corn starch.  Then just sift it about 10 ten times to make sure it’s mixed well.

Okay, Mix all of the ingredients but the egg whites and the chocolate chips in your mixer for about 3 minutes on a medium speed.  Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks and then fold them into the batter.  Once it is all mixed go ahead and mix in those chocolate chips.  Preheat your oven to 350.  I baked mine into baby cakes, but you are more than welcome to make yours into regular old cupcakes. The babycakes needed to bake about 20 minutes, so your regular cakes will need a little bit more time.  Just watch for them to turn golden brown.

For the Frosting:

1/2 c. butter (1 stick)

3-4 c. powdered sugar

1/4 c. milk

1 Tbsp. vanilla

Chocolate chips (or chocolate flakes, shavings, whatever)

Put butter in the bowl, add 2 cups of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed until mixed well.  At this point you have all the power, is your frosting too thick? Too Thin? Too buttery? Not buttery enough?  When I tasted my frosting I thought it tasted too sugary, so I added another 2 Tbsps of butter before I settled on the flavor.  Mine was also very thick with all the extra butter, so I didn’t need the extra sugar.  Now, I used chocolate chunks I had left over in the freezer, I most definitely suggest these chips come from the freezer because they will probably just mush up if you pull them from the cabinet (on a side note I ALWAYS keep my chocolate chips and other chocolate items in the freezer so they don’t get all melty and gross)  If you have a food processor (which I do not) this would be a good time to pull it out and pulse the chips a few times til they are flaky, I used a baggie and a hammer to crush mine up, but do whatever you feel is right.  Follow your heart, that’s what I do.

Once your chips are crushed just go ahead and add them to the frosting.  I also suggest you pop this frosting in the fridge for about 20 minutes to solidify just a little more before you try to use a pastry bag with those cupcakes, if you’re going to spread them on there, go right ahead though without the fridge, it’s perfect for you at that point.  I always choose the pastry bag method because it seems like a lot less work than frosting each individual baby cake, but again, do whatever your heart tells you to do.

I don’t know the official opinion on these tasty little cakes because The Boyfriend will be taking them to work tomorrow for the final vote, so we’ll see!

Until then…