I'll be honest with you all, when I found out that the new GYCO challenge from White Lights on Wednesday and Four Marrs and One Venus was all about cranberries, I was a little nervous. Cranberries aren't really my thing. In fact I can't even remember the last time I ate something with cranberries in it. But since I don't like to turn down a challenge, I decided to do a little research and try out a muffin recipe. I feel like you can't go wrong with muffins, they're just one of those things you can't mess up. So I adapted a recipe, whipped it up and popped a pan into the oven. I was a bit nervous about the wet looking texture of them, but once they cooled and I glazed them, they turned out just fine! These muffins have a subtle orange flavor to them with flecks of zest and peel from the marmalade. The cranberries add a pop of tartness and zing. They're perfect for the season and will definitely brighten up your day!

 
This recipe is brought to you by yet another Willow Bird Baking challenge! This time we had to come up with a stuffed and frosted cupcake. Since it's fall and the husband and I both love pie but baking an entire one is just too much for us, I thought I'd make a cupcake version of an apple pie! Perfect, right?! I started off by using a cinnamon spiced cake, filling it with soft apples and topping it with some vanilla ice cream frosting and a crust crisp. These cupcakes are absolutely to die for! I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. I love love love the snickerdoodle cupcakes I made a while back, and these are just a new and improved version of them! If you're curious about the vanilla ice cream frosting, I just melted a little bit of our favorite french vanilla bean ice cream and used it in place of heavy cream or milk. It adds a little something extra to it! Enjoy!

Apple Pie Cupcakes

Ingredients

¾ c. all-purpose flour

¾ c. cake flour
¾ c. + 2 tbsp. sugar

½ c. (1 stick) butter, room temperature

⅔ c. whole milk

2 eggs

1½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1¼ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. allspice

1¼ tsp. vanilla extract

For the filling:

2 apples, peeled and diced

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. butter

¼ tsp. lemon juice

¼ tsp. cinnamon

For the vanilla ice cream frosting:

3 c. powdered sugar

½ c. (1½ sticks) butter, room temperature

¼ c. vanilla ice cream, melted (just let it sit at room temperature)

½ of a vanilla bean, scraped (or ½ tsp. vanilla bean paste)

pinch of salt

For the pie crisps:

Packaged pastry crust (not puff pastry), thawed

Turbinado sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Combine flours, baking powder, salt, allspice, and cinnamon in a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in the vanilla.
4. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat each addition just until incorporated.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 16-18 minutes (do not over-bake or your cupcakes will be dry). Remove from oven and place tin on a wire rack. Allow to cool in tin for 5 minutes before transferring cupcakes to the wire rack.
6. Cut out circles from pastry, place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake for 8-12 minutes or until golden brown in color. Remove from oven and let cool on sheet.
7. Meanwhile, combine all filling ingredients into a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook apples until soft, about 6-8 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
8. To prepare buttercream, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together butter, vanilla, ice cream, and salt until smooth. With mixing speed on low, gradually add powdered sugar. Once the all of the powdered sugar has been added, turn the speed up to high and beat for 4-5 minutes until fluffy.
9. To assemble, using a cupcake corer or a knife, remove a chunk from the center of each cupcake- enough to put a generous amount of filling in there. Fill cupcakes with cooled apple mixture, then using a large ice cream scoop, place a scoop of frosting on top. Garnish with a pie crisp.
Adapted from Recipe Girl, Snickerdoodle Cupcakes | Makes 12 cupcakes

The other night I had a dream. Nothing visionary, just kind of odd. It was about cinnamon rolls. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing weird about dreaming of food, I do it all of the time... but I woke up craving them. Then that afternoon when I was browsing the blogosphere I stumbled across Willow Bird Baking. Julie had just announced her first baking challenge and lo and behold it was all about using her sweet roll recipe! I immediately started brainstorming ideas and eventually decided on these raspberry lemon curd rolls. Stephen and I have been loving all of the fresh berries we've been eating and since I had a couple of lemons sitting around it just seemed like the natural choice. In order to create a "filling" I decided on curd, something that would make them nice and gooey inside. You can either use a store-bought curd, or cook it over the stove-top, but I opted for the fast and easy method... I microwaved it! Add some sugar to the raspberries, cook them down and roll it all up into a nice log. All that's left to do is cut them up, bake them and slather them in some zesty cream cheese frosting. These sweet rolls are absolutely perfect in every way! Enjoy! Also thanks Julie for such a fun challenge, I'm already looking forward to the next one!

Lemon Curd Filling:

1 c. sugar

8 tbsp. (1 stick) butter, melted
2 eggs
1 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 2 lemons

Filling:
4 c. fresh raspberries

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:
2 c. powdered sugar
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. lemon extract or oil
Zest of 1 lemon

Raspberry Drizzle:
½ c. sugar
Raspberry juice

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a small bowl, combine warm water and yeast. Whisk to combine and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes until the mixture becomes foamy.
2. Meanwhile, combine vinegar and milk in a 2 c. measuring cup. Allow to sit while preparing the remaining ingredients.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in yeast and milk mixture, using the pastry hook mix (knead) until a ball begins to form. Place ball of dough in a large lightly greased bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight.
4. To prepare lemon curd, combine all ingredients in a large microwave-safe bowl. Whisk until smooth. Place in microwave and heat on HIGH for (5) 1 minute increments, mixing in between each heating.
Let mixture cool on counter for 10 minutes. Transfer to an air-tight container and refrigerate overnight.
5. In the morning, place raspberries into a skillet. Over low heat, simmer with ¼ c. water and ½ c. sugar for 5-6 minutes. Remove raspberries and place in a small bowl. Continue heating the juices for 4-5 more minutes until it begins to thicken. Place drizzle into a bottle and set aside.
6. Remove dough from refrigerator and divide into two equal balls. Roll out one ball on a lightly floured surface. Spread ⅔ c. of lemon curd over the rectangular slab of dough. Place ½ of the raspberries on top. Roll up and cut into 12 rolls. Place in a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish. Repeat with the second ball of dough. Cover pans with a dish cloth and set in a draft-free area for 1½ hours or until rolls have doubled in size.
7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place rolls into oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops are golden brown in color. Remove rolls and place pan on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, to prepare the frosting, combine all ingredients in a medium size mixing bowl. Beat until smooth. Spread over warm rolls and drizzle with raspberry sauce. Serve immediately.
Sweet Roll Dough recipe from Willow Bird Baking | Makes 24 standard size rolls

My Andes Mint Chocolate Chip Cake won the Unique Sweets Challenge over at White Lights on Wednesday and My Happy Place! I'm completely shocked but very honored! Thank you so much Julie & Sophie for inviting me to enter, thank you judges for picking my cake, and thank you sponsors for all of the lovely prizes!!! You guys made my day!

To see more about the challenge and to see the other tasty winners, click on the image below:

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Julie over at White Lights on Wednesday. She invited me to enter her Unique Sweets baking challenge along with several other bloggers. At first I had a hard time thinking of something unique to bake, you know, something that required some skill and that wasn't very common. That's when I thought about making this cake.

Growing up I remember my mom taking me to my dad's work at the car dealership. He and my grandfather worked alongside one another so it was always fun to go see the two of them. I'd always leave with a few Andes mints in hand, a chocolate candy I still love today- yes, I get excited about getting them after eating at Olive Garden... what can I say? I'm not sure why there was always an excess of them, but it was definitely something I loved about visiting their work. The chocolate mint obsession is certainly something that has carried over to every member of my family. Our freezer is always stocked with a half gallon of mint ice cream and around Christmas my mom makes these amazing chocolate mint cookies that everyone we know craves. So I thought to myself, what haven't we tried/made with mint in it? Cake. I'm not particularly confident when it comes to baking cakes, especially multi-layered cakes. It seems like the cake always ends up sticking to the pan, or the levels are uneven and need to be cut down to look right. Regardless of my anxieties, I got to baking.
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I started off by slightly adapting one of my mother-in-law's chocolate cake recipes. I baked it in three 9x2" round pans, there was no cutting or leveling required. I followed some very good advice to place buttered and floured parchment paper at the bottom of each pan. The cakes came out clean and crumb-free.

Next I whipped up a batch of peppermint buttercream. I tinted it with some AmeriColor soft gel paste (Avocado 129 + a few drops of Wilton green) and then added a fair amount of peppermint oil to give it that refreshing minty flavor. Because I was unable to find Andes Mint Baking Pieces, I bought a few sleeves of the whole candies and chopped them finely. I folded them into the buttercream and frosted the cake. I followed this tutorial over at Whisk Kid, it's full of good tips and tricks!

Then came the topping. I'm a huge fan of ganache, especially when it's paired with mint! So I made a batch of a thick and silky ganache and poured it over the top of the cake. To give it a little extra shine, I sprinkled it with luster dust.

Lastly I wanted something eye-catching in the middle. I thought about just piping some frosting and placing some Andes in the center, but instead I made mint bark. It only took a few minutes to prep, make and chill, but it tastes excellent and gives the cake a more dramatic look. Overall I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out. Not only does it look fantastic, but it tastes absolutely delicious! If a novice cake-baker like me can put this cake together in less than an hour and have it turn out perfectly, you can do it too!

DIRECTIONS:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter for 1-2 minutes. Add peppermint oil, vanilla and salt. With mixing speed on low, gradually add powdered sugar. Then add heavy cream and food coloring. Beat until fluffy (3-4 minutes). Remove bowl from stand and fold in chopped Andes pieces.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Over a double broiler melt butter, heavy cream and chocolate. Once mixture has reached a smooth and silky consistency, remove from heat and add vanilla. Allow to cool for 5-7 minutes before pouring over frosting.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Over a double broiler melt dark chocolate until smooth. Remove from bowl and pour into a parchment-lined 8X8 square pan. Refrigerate for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt white chocolate. Remove from heat when smooth and add in food coloring and mint extract. Pour over cooled dark chocolate. Smooth out and top with chopped Andes. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes before cutting.