baking Archives - A Sweet Spot Home

Food: Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

May 9, 2013 By Carrie 1 Comment

Summer is sneaking up on us rather quickly, and to me, summer is the time for strawberries…lots and lots of strawberries! That’s why I threw together these super simple Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes that you’ll definitely want to try. It uses fresh strawberries in a pound cake batter and is topped with an amazing whipped cream frosting, that won’t collapse on you like so many whipped cream frostings. Pin this recipe to your summer baking boards and be sure to give this a try soon!

Pound Cake Cupcake recipe: The Nesting Project
The only change I made was to add 10 medium-large chopped strawberries and increase the baking time by about 5 minutes. After washing your strawberries, make sure to pat them dry so that you don’t add any unnecessary liquid to your batter.
Sturdy Whipped Cream Frosting: allrecipes.com

And, here’s a “pinnable” image to make things simple for you…

Filed Under: Baking, Uncategorized Tagged With: baking, food, recipes, simple, strawberries, strawberry shortcake, strawberry shortcake cupcakes, summer

Tutorial: Simple Fondant Cupcake Toppers

May 2, 2013 By Carrie 1 Comment

As promised, today I’m sharing a tutorial with you on how you can make your own fondant cupcake toppers, similar to those featured in the travel themed table setting that I styled using products from Stampendous. What I love most about using stamps to create the toppers is that you can do many of them all at once. The whole process is really quick and actually fun…this coming from a person who’s known for starting projects and getting sick of them rather quickly!

1. Gather what you’ll need: fondant, your stamps, gel food coloring, paintbrush, pastry cutter (optional), and vodka.

2. In a small bowl, mix together a small drop of gel food coloring and your vodka.

3. Roll out your fondant to 1/8″ thickness and cut off the uneven edges to form a square. If you don’t have a pastry cutter, a sharp knife will do as well.

4. Begin stamping your fondant…hopefully you’ll space yours out a bit better than I did!

5. After you’ve stamped your fondant, use your pastry cutter or knife to cut out the shape of each individual topper. Don’t separate them right now, though.

6. Grab your paintbrush and the food coloring/vodka mixture and start painting! You can use your brush to “pull off” some of the color if you feel the color is a bit too bright. If that still doesn’t give you the look you were after, rub the top of the fondant with a paper towel dipped in a bit of water.

7. Allow to dry on a baking sheet or cooling rack for 24 hours.

Filed Under: Baking Tagged With: baking, cupcake decor, cupcakes, DIY, fondant, fondant toppers, food

{FOOD} Salted Caramel Frozen Hot Chocolate

March 29, 2013 By Carrie 1 Comment

It’s nearly April and that puts me in the mood for all things related to spring. Flowers blooming, the leaves returning to the trees, even the dreaded spring cleaning. While we had an extremely early spring last year, it seems that winter chooses to hang on a bit longer than normal this year. Case in point, this picture from last week:

Not so springy, huh?

So, the other day when my kids and I were digging around the kitchen looking for something to eat, we came across a box of Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. I decided that making frozen hot chocolate would be a good way to bridge the fact that there was 13″+ of snow on the ground, and our desire for warmer temperatures.

So, I found this recipe on Picky Palate, and it took all of about 30 seconds to throw together. Seriously, it took longer to make the whipped cream than it did to make the frozen hot chocolate. The Starbucks mix that I used has little pieces of caramel that would melt if you were to add hot milk. This method, leaves you with tiny pieces of ice AND tiny pieces of caramel…it’s a win.

Since a little caramel is good, a LOT of caramel must be better. So, back to the pantry I went, and grabbed my Trader Joe’s Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce. A little (or big) pool on top of the whipped cream was just was this treat needed. So good.

I absolutely recommend making this with any hot chocolate you have on hand…whether it’s hot outside or cold!

Filed Under: Baking Tagged With: baking, easy, food, frozen hot chocolate, hot chocolate, recipes, simple recipes

{FOOD} Shortbread Cookies with Fig Butter

March 20, 2013 By Carrie Leave a Comment

Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I was able to get into the kitchen and do some baking and it felt so good! (Until it was time to clean up the mess, that never feels good…) After a weekend shopping trip to Trader Joe’s, I discovered two things. 1.) I will NEVER go to Trader Joe’s on a Saturday ever, ever, ever again…hello, madhouse of all-natural, organic shoppers. 2.) Sometimes I buy products because I think I want them, but when I get them home, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with them. Enter Fig Butter.

Why did I want it? I have no idea. But before I knew it, the jar was in my cart and we were rushing (okay, actually not even close to rushing, as I said before…madhouse.) towards the checkout lane. So, when I saw the cute jar sitting in my pantry yesterday, I thought about how I normally eat figs. They’re often used in appetizers during the holidays…not really helpful in the middle of March. Then, it dawned on me, the delicious mixture of fruit and cake that is a Fig Newton! I love reinventing store bought recipes when I can. Knowing exactly what’s gone into the foods I’m making is really important to me, so I decided to create my own version of this tasty treat.

But, I didn’t want to spend all day recipe testing….

So, I decided to go to my old standby recipe for shortbread. (Minus the rosemary, but I think it would actually be really good with the rosemary as well.) Once I had baked the cookies and allowed them to cool a bit, I flipped them over so the flat side was facing up, and spread on a little of the fig butter.

You could absolutely make these like a thumbprint cookie, but yesterday, I was feeling a bit lazy and rolling out cookies like that just wasn’t in the cards. Instead, I allowed my shortbread dough to refrigerate, and then sliced it into slices, and cut each slice so the cookies were square. It was a much faster process and the results were the same. Use whatever method works best for you.

Yum. It was really simple and the results were different from a Fig Newton, but the idea was the same. While the shortbread cookies will keep for a while in an airtight container, I’d advise to wait and spread the fig jam on top until you’re ready to eat them for a fresher taste.

Now, on to figure out what I’m going to do with the 8294 pounds of chocolate I bought this weekend!

Filed Under: Baking Tagged With: baking, cookies, Fig Butter, Fig Newtowns, food, homemade fig newton, shortbread, shortbread cookies, Trader Joe's

{FAMILY RECIPES} Carrot Cake

March 11, 2013 By Carrie 2 Comments

Good morning! I’m dragging a bit on this dreary Monday morning, thanks to “spring forward”, but I’m determined to make it into the kitchen and get some baking done.

Have you started planning your Easter dessert menu yet? If not, may I recommend you try this recipe from the spring issue of A Sweet Spot: Home Magazine?? This recipe came from my husband’s grandmother and is one of my favorite cake recipes of all time. (Not just carrot cake recipes, but one of my favorite CAKE recipes!) Carrot cake is a perfect dessert to serve for Easter, as it will be loved by humans and bunnies alike!

If you haven’t checked out the spring issue of A Sweet Spot: Home Magazine yet, I’d love for you to go give it a look! Click here to view the spring issue.