Superbowl Desserts

Somehow I've managed to fit in some baking outside of class this past week. Over 15 hours of my week are devoted to baking in class and then I have a full time job, so it's been tough finding outside baking time. Last week for the Superbowl, I made chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches and cupcakes to bring to a party.

The ice cream sandwiches went over huge, and they were relatively easy to make. The night before, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and put in in the fridge. On Sunday, I scooped out cookies that were approximately the same size and baked them. After they were out of the oven and while they were cooling, I took some ice cream out to soften. My original plan was to make my own ice cream, but I was short on time. Once the ice cream was soft enough, I spooned it onto one cookie and pressed another on top. After they were sandwiched, I rolled the edges in rainbow sprinkles.


The cupcakes were a vanilla base with raspberry jam on the inside. They were all frosted with vanilla and half were rolled in coconut.

Baking Challenge: Whiteout Cupcakes

Prior to yesterday, I hadn't baked in almost two weeks. I was feeling up to a difficult baking challenge, so I cracked open my Baked cookbook. For whatever reason, Baked has the hardest recipes in them. Almost all of them span multiple pages, have countless (and very expensive) ingredients, and utilize baking techniques I've never even contemplated before, much less used. Out of all the recipes in Baked, I've only tackled two of the recipes - the Sweet & Salty cake (twice, the first time was a disaster that produced a frosting flecked with chunks of butter) and the brownies (delicious, but they contained about $15 worth of quality chocolate).

Cupcake with the Baked cookbook

I picked the whiteout cake because it seemed like something that would appeal to a lot of people. We recently moved to a new office and I now work with more people than I used to. Which just means more people to eat my baked goods, an exciting prospect for me.



The first thing that gave me pause with this recipe was that the liquid in the cake batter was ice water. It's usually milk, cream, buttermilk...something more substantial than water. I went along with this, finished the batter and popped the cupcakes in the oven. While the cupcakes were cooling, I started on the frosting. The first step was to melt white chocolate on a double boiler. Easy enough. Then the next step said to combine white sugar, flour, milk and heavy cream on the stove until it thickened and boiled. Flour?? In a frosting? I guess I got distracted by that thought because somehow I let my first attempt at this burn. The second attempt turned out much better. After that mixture cooled, I gradually added an unspeakable amount of butter, small pieces at a time, and then the melted white chocolate. The result was a lighter, smoother frosting than my typical frostings. I liked it a lot and they were a big hit in the office today.

I'm looking forward to trying more Baked recipes this fall; for whatever reason, I feel they're more cool weather desserts. I'm also going to try to make the trek to Baked in Brooklyn this fall...I've been dying to get there for over a year now.

Cupcake Jars from Last Week

The cupcakes in jars idea has solved the whole dilemma of shipping cupcakes. Since my friend Dan's request, I've shipped out several more boxes of cupcakes. Last week a friend of mine asked me to send half a dozen to her friend as a gift. The recipient is the co-chair of 80 Million Strong, a coalition advocating for jobs for millenials. Because of this, my friend wanted rainbow cupcakes in the organization's colors - blue, red, orange and green - with green star sprinkles on top.

Cupcakes fresh out of the oven

I may have mentioned this before, but when it comes to my cupcakes, I'm an obsessive perfectionist. I was able to find multicolored star sprinkles, so I picked out the green ones individually much to the astonishment and dismay of my mom who watched this.

Finished cupcakes, before lids

I really liked the way the rainbow cupcakes looked in the clear jars - very pretty. The rainbow jars are something I'd like to experiment more with in the future.

Carefully selected sprinkles