Last week we had several holiday parties at church that I volunteered to bake cupcakes for. Whenever I temporarily go insane make four dozen at a time, I try and make two different flavor combinations just to have a little variety. The adults at the parties seemed to favor the chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream. The kids, however, made a nose-dive into these babies…

Peppermint Cupcakes with Peppermint White Chocolate Buttercream

As usual, find your favorite (or use a box mix, who cares!) white cake recipe that will make 2 dozen cupcakes. Bake, bake, bakety bake… I almost always use buttermilk in place of regular milk in my recipes and that was true in this case. I also added 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract to the cake batter. While the cupcakes were cooking and cooling, I took a handful of unwrapped peppermint candies (you could use candy canes as well), placed them in a heavy duty zip top plastic bag, grabbed my hammer and then terrified the cats while I slammed away at the mints, pulverizing them – but leaving some bigger chunks in there too. I placed them in a shallow square container and set them in the fridge (do this so they don’t get sticky from humidity or warm kitchen temps) to wait till I was ready for them after frosting the cuppies.

After the cupcakes are baked, but before you begin working on the frosting – take an 11-12 oz bag of white chocolate chips and melt them in a medium sized bowl in the microwave or in a double boiler – according to the melting instructions on the bag of chips. Set aside to cool completely – but not reharden.

My base frosting recipe is this:

2 cups of Crisco (or 4 sticks of butter for you purists)
2 lbs of powdered sugar (I rarely sift it, but knock yourself out if you insist)
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract (if you use regular, your frosting will be off white)
1 teaspoon peppermint extract (added to this recipe only)
(up to) 4 oz. milk

Sometimes I use butter flavor Crisco but when I want my white frostings to remain stark white and not off white, I stick with the solid white Crisco. I start by placing the Crisco in in the bowl of my heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer and cream on low using the whisk attachment, about 2-3 minutes. Add vanilla & peppermint extracts and mix until combined. Pour melted/cooled white chocolate into bowl & mix on low 1-2 minutes until fully incorporated. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, about 2-3 cups at a time (1/4 of the 2 lb bag if you use the Publix brand). After adding in half of the sugar, you may need to begin to drizzle in some of your milk. Add in the remaining sugar and mix until well incorporated, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least twice. Add remaining milk if you need a thinner consistency or add additional powdered sugar if the frosting is too thin. Scrape down the sides of the mixer again and then mix on high speed 3-5 minutes to whip fluffy.

For cupcakes I used frosting bags but if you have gallon sized freezer zip bags you can use those as well. Place about 1/3 of the frosting in your bag of choice (with or without decorating tip inserted into the corner), snip off the corner of your bag and pipe frosting onto completely cooled cupcakes. Top frosted cupcakes with crushed peppermints (you can also gently roll tops in the crused mints for a “snowball” effect).

Serve immediately or refrigerate up to two days before serving at room temperature.

It has been gently suggested many times over the last few months that I post my weekly cupcake creations on my blog. The best response to that has been, “yeah…I’ll put that on my to-do list, it’s now #4,643 on the list.” So the fact that I’m now taking (hopefully only) 10 minutes or so to write this out is surprising even to me. No promises that it’ll happen every week once Cupcake Wednesday is officially back from GCF/vacation, but for today…it’s happening.

Chocolate cupcake with salted caramel buttercream topped with crushed toffee…

I’m not a food blogger or claim to be, so as usual, it’s less of a recipe and more of a story. For me, cupcakes are all about the frosting. Yes, I want a delicious tasting cupcake and that’s always part of the end goal but lets face it, you’re here for the frosting. So having said that, find or use your favorite chocolate cake recipe for the cupcake portion of this combo. I will suggest this – substitute cold coffee for at least a portion of the liquid in your cake recipe. I actually use the LorAnn flavoring oils and had some coffee extract on hand so that’s what I used. Using buttermilk is also a pretty standard trick of mine.

(this is already taking more than 10 minutes…)

For my “buttercream” frostings – I’m going to give away a big secret that’s never been a real secret to begin with if you had asked me… I rarely use butter in my frostings. I use straight up lard. Crisco white and butter flavor Crisco produce outstanding frostings (yeah, I’m still going to call it buttercream, deal with it) and for cupcakes that need to be left out for several hours, it’s a safer choice than butter that could spoil if left out for too long.

For the salted caramel buttercream, I used an entire 17 oz. jar of salted caramel I had picked up earlier this fall at Williams-Sonoma while visiting my sister in Birmingham (hi Cindy!). I’d held onto it for a special occasion and when I’d received a gift of this ginormous block of butter toffee (thanks Coleen!) I knew immediately what I was going to do with both of these delictable items.

My base frosting recipe is this:

2 cups of Crisco (or 4 sticks of butter for you purists)
2 lbs of powdered sugar (I rarely sift it, but knock yourself out if you insist)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract or flavoring of your choice
(up to) 4 oz. water or milk

Whenever I add another solid to the base mixture (peanut butter, biscoff, SALTED CARAMEL, etc.) then I will usually cut in half the amount of Crisco I use. I start by placing the Crisco and caramel in the bowl of my heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer and cream them together on low using the whisk attachment, about 3-5 minutes. Add vanilla extract and mix until combined. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, about 2-3 cups at a time (1/4 of the 2 lb bag if you use the Publix brand). After adding in half of the sugar, you may need to begin to drizzle in some of your water or milk. Add in the remaining sugar and mix until well incorporated, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least twice. Add remaining water or milk if you need a thinner consistence or add additional powdered sugar if the frosting is too thin. Scrape down the sides of the mixer again and then mix on high speed 3-5 minutes to whip fluffy.

For cupcakes I used frosting bags but if you have gallon sized freezer zip bags you can use those as well. Place about 1/3 of the frosting in your bag of choice (with or without decorating tip inserted into the corner), snip off the corner of your bag and pipe frosting onto completely cooled cupcakes. Top frosted cupcakes with crushed toffee bits.

Serve immediately or refrigerate up to two days before serving at room temperature.

I also made a batch of Peppermint White Chocolate cupcakes and if I get another spare 10 minutes (more like 30 now!) sometime in the next six months, I’ll write up a post about those as well.

In an effort to cram even more activities (i.e. Sleep) into my morning routines, I’ve started making protein smoothies to drink in the car on my drive into the office every morning.  The original recipe I found on Dashing Dish.  Her smoothie recipes are amazing, simple, and packed full of smart nutrition.  This recipe speaks to the heart of my eating plan philosophy: the largest volume of food for the smallest amount of calories, carbs & sugars, with the most protein possible.

Here is Katie’s original recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup  Cottage Cheese* (or 1 Cup Reduced Fat Greek Yogurt)1
1 scoop Protein powder (something that has around 100 calories per scoop – I love Designer Whey™ Protein Powder)
1-4 pkts Stevia or low calorie sweetener of choice
5-10  Ice cubes (depending on how thick you like it, use less for a thinner consistency)
1/2-1 cup Water (alter this according to desired consistency)
Optional 1/2 tsp xanthan gum (you can get this from most grocery stores in the gluten free section! Just a pinch of it makes your shake so thick and creamy)
4-6 WWP+

*1 Cottage cheese may sound strange, but TRUST me… this is what makes the ‘MILKSHAKE’ consistency! Also, if you are sensitive to dairy, you can use tofu to get the same consistency!

Now when I first read Katie’s plea to stick with the cottage cheese, I was one of the skeptics the asterisk was created for.  I’m glad I trusted her because she was right.

Here is my tweaked version of the recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese (80 calories)
1 scoop (32 grams) Trutein Vanilla protein powder (120 calories)
4 pkts Splenda
large “stadium” cup of ice
4 pumps sugar free, fat free flavored syrup (hello Starbucks!)
3/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (40 calories)
1/2 tsp. Xanthan gum (DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!)

Directions:
In base of blender, place 1/2 of the ice, cottage cheese, xanthan gum and top with remaining 1/2 of ice.  In a shaker cup with tight fitting lid, place Splenda and protein powder, add milk & flavored syrup.  Place lid on top TIGHT and shake till combined, add to blender over ice.

Pulse blender on low until just combined, stop blender, break up any air bubbles or chunks with a spoon.  Replace lid and blend on high 30-45 seconds until fully blended smooth.  Add up to 1/4 milk or cold water if needed.

First of all – the Xanthan gum is used as an emulsifier and thickening agent and in my opinion is what gives this shake the “wow” factor.  A little bit goes a long way so don’t let the sticker shock at the grocery store turn you off.  The reason I layer the xanthan gum over the cottage cheese but under some of the ice is strategic – this stuff will GUM UP the sides of your blender if it spatters (pun intended).  Layering in the ice takes care of that for the most part.

Feel free to modify how much ice you use in your smoothie but remember, the more ice you use, the more smoothie you will end up with.

Trutein is my favorite brand of protein right now.  It has a whopping 25 grams of protein for only 120 calories per serving.  It has 1 gram each of sugar, carbs & fat.  That is a hard combination to beat when you start comparing nutrition labels.  Plus, it’s a combination of whey, casein & egg white proteins and for tons of reasons I’ll save for another post, it’s the best for me and my personal needs.  You use what YOU feel best for YOUR needs.

I encourage you to visit Katie’s blog and take a peek at all the varieties she recommends and gives recipes for.  There are so many different ideas out there you could have a different shake every day (and I have!).

I’ve recently become a closet Food Gawker and Pinterest voyeur. I don’t post much on my own but I’ll lay in bed at night and putter around both sites. Mostly looking for inspiration in the kitchen and quite often I find myself getting lost among postings of cupcakes, frosting tip ideas and DIY’s galore.

One night recently I favorited a post on Glazed Doughnut Muffins because seriously, how could you resist this:

I finally had the time today to get in the kitchen and pull it all together. I only made one slight adjustment to the recipe. It calls for “milk” – all I had was skim milk and in my mind, baked goods need some milkfat in them – so I subbed 1/4 cup of the milk for heavy whipping cream. I’m sure they’d have been alright with plain skim milk, but it made me feel better to make them just a bit more fattening than they already were.

I also had to bake them significantly longer than the recipe suggested, so if you try them, test afer 15 minutes then keep a close eye on them and yank them outta the oven once a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the Muffins:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk

For the Glaze:
3 tablespoons butter; melted
1 cup confectioners’ sugar; sifted
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons hot water

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with muffin liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter, vegetable oil, and sugars till smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time. With the mixer on low speed, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and vanilla until just combined. Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined.

Spoon batter into cups, filling the cups, and smooth tops. Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups. Bake until muffin tops are a pale golden and springy to the touch, 15 to 17 minutes, rotating halfway through baking time. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 10 minutes before glazing.

To make the glaze, In a medium bowl mix together the melted butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and water. Whisk until smooth.

When muffins have cooled slightly, dip the muffin crown into the glaze and allow the glaze to harden. Once hardened, dip a second time and allow to harden then serve.

Yields: 12 muffins

Note: Muffins will keep at room temperature for about a day.

Source: Sweet Pea’s Kitchen