Psychedelic Rainbow Cupcakes

Posted on February 29, 2012 by lizzieekong

The boyfriend and I went on the Parade of Homes last week and it was wonderful. If you don’t have a homes parade in your area it is a showing of designer custom houses and builder/ model homes. You purchase a ticket and drive around visiting the houses that look the most interesting to you or all of them if you have a lot of time to spare. We usually make a day of it and pack a lunch in our travel cooler for the drive. Once you get to a house on the tour you go on a self guided tour of the house (fully finished and decorated) and property before the owner moves in or the house goes on the market. I love it! We can see what all the new builders are doing in their houses, what’s trendy, and just see some amazing places!

This year one builder went all out and decided to recreate the house from the Disney movie UP for their show home. They built this thing to exact replica of the one in the film (right down to the photographs on the walls and the bright blue retro kitchen appliances). We talked to one of the guys from Bangerter Homes the company that built this adorable house, and he said Disney didn’t even charge them for rites to the house. All they wanted was a copy of the blueprints so they could build it too if they wanted. How awesome is that?! Yet again Disney makes me love them more and more. I am absolutely in love with this house. It was so novel and cute that I just had to continue the happy vibe with some extra happy cupcakes. So, Psychedelic Rainbow Cupcakes must be shared! These are extra cute and super bright! Make them in the colors of the rainbow or in your favorite colors for a personalized treat.

These cupcakes are easy to make, but to get the best colors use gel coloring it doesn’t thin the batter and the colors are way more vibrant!

What you need…

Food coloring (3- 5 colors)

Alright now separate your batter in to separate bowls (one for each of your colors). You can use your kitchen scale or just eyeball it… that’s what I did. Now in your lined cupcake tin start blobbing spoonfuls of color one at a time. Thanks to the cream cheese (or sour cream) the batter is nice and thick and won’t run together when you put one color on top of the other. Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way full with the different batters and then put them in the oven. Then let them bake for about

I had made a coconut cream cheese frosting for these, but they looked so good I couldn’t wait to frost them and we ended up eating them immediately without any frosting at all haha. The cake is a simple white cake and most frostings will taste good with it. So, pick your favorite flavor and frost them up or eat them without like us!

They were so moist and delicious just looking at my silly pictures makes me want to make them all over again, but we must be constantly moving forward… so to my next culinary adventure: Cinnamon Burst Bread. Yum!

Peanut Butter Dog Treats

Posted on August 19, 2011 by lizzieekong

I love my dogs so much I can barely express it. Everyday I look at those little monsters and just want to snuggle them all over! When I’m sad they make me happy and when I’m happy, well they make me even happier! Ok so having dogs means lots of cleaning, tons of pawprints on sparkling floors, and unintentionally eating dog hairs, but they’re well worth the extra work and the added seasoning.

I don’t know if everyone’s pups are like this, but mine LOVE it when I cook. They attach themselves to my heels and sit expectantly under foot as I try to put something together. My dogs know me really well and they know that if I’m cooking something then I will eventually drop something on the floor that they can immediately snatch up.

Vacuum # 1

and

Vacuum # 2

Don’t you just love their expectant little faces.

What exactly are they expecting? Dog treats of course! Some delicious home made dog treats. I love to bake treats for my dogs, especially because they almost always love everything I make them. One way to make sure they definitely like whatever I whip up is to include peanut butter in the mix. Much like every other creature in the universe my dogs

peanut butter. Coat rocks in the stuff and they’d down them in seconds… hey even I might for the right PB. Enough about me and back to the pups. These cookies are probably their favorites and if your dogs are anything like mine soon they’ll be their favorites too!

What you need…

2 cups Whole wheat flour
1 TBSP Baking powder
1 cup Smooth peanut butter
1 cup Milk
1/2 cup Oatmeal
Banana chips or Bacon bits (optional)

Start by preheating your oven to 375 F and prepping your cookie sheet (ie silpat, parchment paper, light grease whatever you like). Next mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl. Slowly stir in peanut butter and milk until a dough forms. Turn the dough out on a flowered surface roll it flat and cut in to desired shapes. I love to use a heart or dog bone shaped cookie cutter, but circles or squares are cool too. If you want to add something extra to your dog cookies then press a few banana chips or bacon bits on top of them before baking. Transfer the shapes to your prepared pan and just pop them in the oven! Bake until golden (about 20 minutes), cool, and serve. Your dogs will thank you!

ApplePie Cake

Posted on August 19, 2011 by lizzieekong

How to start a blog? Oh, I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how to get followers, think of cute weekly gimmicks, or really even how to get the facebook link to work, but what I do know is that if you’re only going to have one recipe on the blog, well then you have to start it with something good (amazing even) and nothing is more amazing than ApplePie Cake.

If you’re a friend of mine then you have at some point or another been exposed to my ApplePie Cupcakes. They’re an irresistible combination of moist cake, rich buttercream and fruit (which makes them automatically healthy in my eyes…wink wink).

I had never attempted to turn this cupcake recipe in to a full blown cake until just recently though. We were headed up to Bear Lake for the weekend at a friend’s cabin and when I asked what I could bring the answer was “a yummy dessert”. Of course I knew instantly what I had to bring… something fruity and wonderful. Nothing says summer at a lakeside like this little number, I mean it even looks a little rustic. We had limited packing space in the car and no way to keep the cupcakes from getting smashed so I decided to make a cake. It was an easy transition to cake from cupcakes, because the batter measured perfectly in to two round cake pans with no adjustments. The only thing I really had to change was the time this baby spent in the oven. I started with a twelve minute base time and checked the cake every few minutes from there to get the appropriate time in the oven.

I think it turned out pretty fabulously! The frosting even measured out correctly and I decided to line the base of the cake with a brown sugar and graham cracker mix just for looks and it added a little texture too.

After a long day of sprinkler mishaps (another story for another day), traffic, stir crazy pups, and a parking ticket we finally made it up to the lake and had a fabulous meal finished with this delightful treat.

It’s easy to make and impressive for the flavor alone, so even if you don’t go all out on decorating it will still go over well whenever you serve it.

What you need…

(For the cake)
4 large eggs
1cup milk
½ vanilla
18 tbsp butter (Just over 2 sticks)
2 ¼ cup flour
2 ¼ tsp baking powder
1 ½ cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon (depends on how much you like cinnamon)

(For the topping)
2-3 granny smith apples
1/3 cup sugar
2-3 tbsp butter
Cinnamon for sprinkling

(For the frosting)
24 tbsp butter (3 sticks) room temp
1 ½ – 2 cup confectioner’s sugar
½ – ¾ tsp cinnamon (again depends on your cinnamon likeage… I used ¾ tsp)

Ok, let’s start! Peel, core, and thinly slice your apples. Mix the butter and sugar together in a sauce pan over medium low heat put the apples in the mixture and dust with cinnamon. Stir so the apples are evenly covered in the dissolved sugar, cinnamon, and butter mixture. Cook until softened and slightly caramelized about 6-8 minutes (less depending on thinness of apples – very thin require only about 6 minutes). Set these aside.

Next prepare the batter. Combine all dry ingredients except sugar (flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon). Mix your softened butter and sugar together in a seperate bowl. Add eggs one at a time until fully incorporated in to the butter and sugar. Mix in the vanilla. Next slowly add in the dry mixture stirring until just mixed then add milk and mix until you have a smooth cake batter.

Divide the batter into two cake pans and lightly press the apple topping evenly on to the two cakes. Bake at 325 F for 20-25 minutes (I’m baking at a very high altitude so remember to adjust for that if you aren’t). Run a done test of some sort (spring or toothpick) to make sure it is done. Then let it cool completely before frosting.

I am a notorious early froster for cupcakes and cookies… It’s just that I want to eat it right then and there… I can’t help it. Don’t early frost if you want your cake to look pretty! I luckily don’t early frost too much with cakes because I only make them to be eaten later anyway haha. While this baby is cooling make your frosting. Mix together your butter and sugar (slowly adding until desired consistency) then mix in the cinnamon and ice your cake.

Decorate as desired and enjoy!