Chocolate Peanut Butter Layered Cupcakes

Joel found this recipe on the Pillsbury site somewhere.  I made it for our class Christmas party, and there were none to take home.  I only got to eat half of the last one.  It makes 18 and I only took 15 along because Jayne and the girls each got to have one.  We had like 30 people at the party so it is understandable that they disappeared. 

1.5 c flour
1/3 c cocoa
1 c brown sugar
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/3 c veg oil
1 c water
1 T white vinegar
1/2 t vanilla
1 egg
1 8 oz pkg softened cream cheese
3/4 c peanut butter (Reese's is my favorite!)
1/3 c sugar
1/3 c 10x sugar
1/4 c PB chips
1/4 c chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 350 and line 18 muffin cups
2.  In a large bowl, mix flour, cocoa, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt.  Add oil, water, vinegar, and vanilla, stir until smooth.  Don't overbeat!
3.  In a mixing bowl, beat egg, cream cheese, peanut butter, and granulated sugar on medium speed until smooth.  Make sure to scrape down sides.  Add 10x sugar, beat until creamy.
4.  Spoon one level tablespoon choc batter into each cup, evenly spread one tablespoon peanut butter filling on top.  Repeat layers.  Sprinkle with two kinds of chips.
5.  Bake 25-30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  Cook in pan 15 minutes, remove and cool 15 more minutes on wire rack (or in pie taker if you are going to be late to the party).

These are best to make if you have someone else, like a conveniently placed mother-in-law, to watch your children.  They are pretty involved.  Spreading the PB filling on top of the chocolate is lots of fun!  It is not nearly as runny as the chocolate.  PB chips are the bomb!


I should make my friend Jackie guest post her cake recipe that she brought because it was awesome!  It was a chocolate cake with a Ganache, and it was so moist and wonderful.  My husband brought a huge slice home.  He says she is the best baker he knows!

French Bread

I also received the Bread! cookbook for Christmas, and these recipes are all done with your bread machine, but I think it would be easy to adapt them to not having a bread machine, just let it rise once or twice. 

This is from page 109.

Makes 2 baguettes

Scant 1.5 c water

4.5 c white bread flour

1.5 t salt

1.5 t instant or fast acting dried yeast

Fine cornmeal or extra flour, to dust

Place ingredients in bread pan as you usually would.  For mine it is wet first, then flour and salt with a well for the yeast on top.  Insert pan and set to dough setting.  When cycle is complete, dump out dough and form into a smooth ball.  Divide dough in half and form into two baguettes about 12 inches long.  Place on baking sheet scattered with cornmeal.  Set aside for five minutes.  Boil water and put it in a cake pan.  Put this on the bottom rack of your cold oven.  Slash the tops of your baguettes with a sharp knife and brush with cold water.  Put the baking sheet in the oven and preheat temperature to 400.  Bake the loaves for about 40 minutes until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped.

Would you believe, I actually followed the instructions on this one!!  This bread is really good warm with butter.  It has a slightly sour taste, like a sourdough would without having to prepare a starter, and I have been banned from making it into French toast.  I will definitely be making this again.  It would also be easy to cut in half and only get one loaf. 

I love bread.

Ham and Potato Chowder

This week will be the week of recipes.  I do love to cook and bake!

The girls and I had this soup last week when Joel went out for wing's.  I'll give you the recipe, and then tell you how I did it.  :)

This is from the book Soup!, which I am really enjoying.  It comes from page 41.

Serves 4

3/4 stick unsalted butter

1 onion, finely chopped

1 lb 5 oz red potatoes, chopped into 1/2-in cubes

3 T flour

4.5 c vegetable stock

1 c grated mature cheddar cheese

10 oz cooked ham, cut into 1/2-in cubes

2 T chopped chives

salt and pepper to taste.

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan and add the onion.  Saute until translucent but not browned.  Add the potato and stir to coat with butter and onion.  Add the flour and stir for one minute, don't move away!  Add the stock slowly and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and add cheese and stir until melted.  Simmer for 8-10 minutes or more until potatoes are tender.  Add ham and chives and cook for further 2-3 minutes. 

The best idea before starting this soup is to make sure, double check, that you have all of the ingredients.  It really is.  Because that may not turn out to be cheddar cheese in your fridge.  It could be mozzarella, which, while wonderful, does not sound appetizing in this soup.  You may not be lucky enough to have Feta in your drawer to cover up your mistake!  I only had about a 1/3 cup of cheddar cheese, but I did have a large hunk of Feta, so I crumbled it and tossed it in.  I think I probably ended up with more than a cup of cheese, but that is all right.  I also had no onion or chives, but that is okay because I don't think the girls would have gone for that.  I also used chicken stock instead of vegetable.  I only used half the amount of recommended and added water for the rest.  Sometimes I think chicken stock can be very strong, and I wasn't sure how that would go in this!  I guesstimated on the potatoes.  Mine had to boil for at least five minutes more than it said until my little chunks were tender.  Undercooked potatoes are the worst! 

The Feta actually turned out to be a wonderful addition, but I love Feta.  I like to just crumble it and eat it!  I am not sure how I will feel about this soup when I make it the correct way because it will taste so different.  I'm sure it is good though, and the girls both did like it.  Pnut only likes the broth, she isn't a fan of potatoes.  Pilly liked it all:)

Update on our family status:  No, we are not pregnant.  But apparently Pnut thinks we should be.  But, there is a condition.  She told me the other day that she wanted us to have another baby because she wanted to play with her.  I asked her what if it was a boy baby?  She said we would just give it away and get another one.  We aren't planning on having any more children.

Christmas Crafts-Lunchbox

This project turned out to be my favorite.  I am probably going to put a couple of these in my Etsy store soon.  They are unique and really cute.

This was for my sister Kacy.  She is difficult to make something for.  She doesn't need an apron.  She doesn't carry a purse.  I was going to make her a checkbook cover, but that wouldn't have been very exciting to only open that!  So I saw this in my repurposing pillowcases book, and since Kacy is getting ready to start her internship and then stay on at this company, I thought this would be perfect!  It is too expensive to eat out every day so this should help:)

I didn't use pillowcases because I don't have colored ones as mentioned  yesterday.  Kacy likes green, and I have loved this fabric for a while but didn't have anything to use it for.

I just adored this little flower embellishment.  Sometimes the small touches make all the difference!

I am hoping to get two of these made soon to put in the Etsy.  I thought they might be fun for high schoolers who are too cool for little kid lunchboxes or for adults.  They are much more trendy than a brown paper bag!

This is the last of my Christmas crafts.  I am working on Laine's birthday gift right now.  Actually, I hope it is done by the time this is published.  I wrote all of this week's posts on Sunday night and just scheduled them to publish.  What did you make for Christmas???

Christmas Crafts-Purses

I made two purses this year, one for my sister and one for Joel's brother's girlfriend.  I like purses, they are pretty quick!  They always seem to come out cute as well.

Randa's outer shell was made out of a pillowcase that I re-purposed.  She told me she likes that pillowcase one time that she was here.  It is reversible too, so that is fun!  I did have to buy the material for the inside because I only have white embroidered pillowcases other than this one.

Corey's was interesting.  She likes zombies and skulls and things like that.  We were able to find two cute skull fabrics at Joann's (if you can call skull fabric cute) and Joel thought this one was more unique than the other one.  The handle was an idea we got from the store, it is chain-links.  For $9 from Joann's, you got one handle.  For $3 at Lowes, you can get enough chain link for two handles and have it pre-cut!  I thought it turned out cute and was unique.

Christmas Crafts-Mom and MIL Gift

For my mom and Joel's mom Jayne, I made pillows.  Heart pillows with the girls' handprints on them that is.  I debated about the pillows, how to do them and such.  I started out on linen embroidering the hands on, but they looked too plain.  Thank heavens I did start this project early (this is the only one!) so I could change how I was going to do it.  I like the way they turned out:)

Jayne was very excited to receive hers.  She is always enthusiastic about anything we give her:)

Pnut's hand is to the left and Pilly's to the right, but they are just about the same size.  Pilly's hand was a little chubbier yet, but not too much shorter!  I liked the polka dots on the white fabric, they gave it texture.

Rather randomly, I will also share pictures of these cupcakes:

They are snickerdoodle cupcakes.  I thought they turned out really pretty!  Note:  Carefully read and comprehend instructions.  The icing made 8 cups, I wasn't thinking and thought it would ice eight of the cupcakes, but I was determined to stretch it to do all 12!  I threw a lot of icing away that day...

Christmas Crafts-Kids Gifts

Well hello!  We have had a wonderful break, and I am glad to be back.  This coming week is going to be full of craft posts of the things I made for Christmas, and I am excited to share them with you.  

Today, I will show the kids gifts.  They were well received!

I made capes for all of the kids: 

Anthony was very excited when he saw his, and he said, "I hope I can really fly with this now!"  So Randa and Eric will have to watch him pretty closely!

Anthony's was the hardest to make because he had two silky fabrics that didn't have sparkles on.  The girls's fabrics were all silky, but they had sparkles so they didn't slide around so much.  Anthony's was the worst.  Silky fabrics are definitely not my favorite!  I don't know how my mom made our prom dresses!  

I also made them these mailboxes with envelopes that have removable names and stamps.  Now they can send each other mail.  My brother-in-law suggested I put chore lists in there for them:)  Since I made them for my niece and nephew as well, he will now have the opportunity to do that!

The kids gifts were fun because they were so excited about everything once they opened them!  

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!