Baking Party!

So my friend, Tiffany, and I wanted to make cake pops together and she wanted to dip cookies in chocolate...so we did!

What started out with the two of us ended up having 4 people decorating, laughing and overall having a great time!

I can't say too much since we didn't do that much, but I did try out a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe. I really dont know how it tasted because I didnt have any.

PICTURES!

I just realized that we didn't take any pictures of the cake pops! oh well. That means I'll have to make them again HAHAHA.

Anyways, Tiffany [girl in the last picture] has some in her bag if you can see them!

Vanilla Oreo Cupcakes with Oreo Ice Cream

To celebrate my 100th post (this one's number 100!), I decided to make something REALLY special. Vanilla and oreos and ice cream - some of my FAVORITE things.

So I took Magnolia's vanilla cupcake recipe, cut it in half, added 12 oreos crushed. I ended up with 24 cupcakes still. Afterwards, I added cookies and cream ice cream on top and brought them for my friends to try. They liked them enough. I think that it wasnt the best, but it was still pretty good.

I was going to do a giveaway, but it's one of those things where the 100th post just crept up on me so quickly (and being super busy with school and extracurricular activities) and I havent had the time to think about what I wanted to give away. Oh well, 200th post I'll be sure to do something special!

Devils Food [cup]Cake with Peanut Butter [and Nutella] Frosting [sms]

This week's SMS, Devils Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting, was chosen by Holly of Phe/mom/enon.

This recipe was so amazing. It was pretty easy to whip up - at 10pm for the next day. I had made these and brought these to the event last weekend down in Southern California. I put them in nice boxes and in the car with me the whole time.

Nice boxes with cupcakes in them!

I had topped these cupcakes with both a peanut butter frosting as suggested by the book and a nutella frosting.
I just made half of the frosting and 1/4 of it, I put peanut butter in until I felt like it was spreadable and pipable and same with the nutella with the other 3/4. It was pretty easy to make and super sugary and yummy!

The nutella ones I just piped and put sprinkles on. Simple is often best.

The peanut butter ones, I decided to go crazy with. I had promised my friend these Mouse in the House Cupcakes which was just a cute way to decorate cupcakes, so I made them that way. Super simple and super fun!

I think regardless of the decorating technique, both were successes. I really enjoyed this week's SMS and baked them super early meaning that I have more time to bake other things. [aka use up the pumpkin puree that I have]

My friend Danny with his peanut butter cupcake!
Andy and I with his Nutella cupcake

Recipe for the cake here! Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

When I normally have this urge to bake, I just find something and bake it. Typically it'll be something easy since I don't have everything onhand. When I bake for a purpose, I get all the materials and I'll have everything ready for myself. This time, I decided to bake with apples. There were a whole bunch of great apple recipes, but just didn't feel right. Then I decided to just look for a super easy one that also had good reviews. I found one!

This one was super easy to just throw together. The batter was a bit thick, so I added some vanilla extract to give it another dimension to it. Super easy, and super yummy!

I've frozen a whole bunch of them for a quick breakfast for the next couple of weeks. Should be fun!

recipe found here

Spiced Pumpkin Cookies and [cup]Cakes [sms]

This week's SMS, Spiced Pumpkin Cookie Cakes, was chosen by Debbie of Every Day Blessings of The Five Dee’s.

I had the same problem getting the pumpkin, but when I finally did, these were really easy to make.

I feel like the cupcakes were better than the cookies, but all in all, they were really good. I don't really have too much to say since I'm back in Southern California for the weekend, but the cupcakes are up north and actually LONG GONE. haha. I did get a horrible tan this weekend by wearing a spaghetti strapped dress and out in the sun basically from 9-3. STRAIGHT.

Recipe for the cookie cakes here! Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Pumpkin Patch [msc]

So the trouble with living in basically two places is that sometimes on amazon you forget to change your shipping address. That's exactly what happened to me. I had shipped my pumpkin puree that I bought online to home, like in Orange County, California, but currently I'm in Northern California for school.

I had a couple of my friends who came up this past weekend bring some up for me and the cans of pumpkin puree are HUGE. 29 oz. It'll be a lot of pumpkin stuff this fall. Cupcakes, cookies, muffins, bread, pie, and whatever else I can think of.

These are were really easy to put together; I had just made 1/4 of the recipe since I know that I just made another pumpkin recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays.

They were pretty good. This week was just really hard school wise for me. Just a lot of stuff that needs to get done in a short amount of time. I am not really getting the 8 hours suggested, but then again, who does? Back to more homework, club stuff, and sleep later on tonight.

The recipe for this month's Cupcake Club is found on pages 236 of Martha Stewart's Cupcake book. Thanks to Kim of What the Whisk for choosing this.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

These Hummingbird Cupcakes were made for a friend of mine, Kevin. Kevin and I have an interesting relationship. We make fun of each other, but we truly deeply like each other. He's a pretty close friend of mine, but I dont get to see him really often because he goes to school in Long Beach while I'm up here in Berkeley. We are friends, though, through Circle K so I get to see him quite often at various district events.

He had chosen these cupcakes - why? I have no idea, and I dont think he knew what he was getting into either. These fruit and nut filled cupcakes were a burst of flavor.

I feel like they were very good, but the banana in the cupcake was not very obvious. The pineapple and pecans were very obvious, but less so the banana. Maybe because I had browned them in the oven and not naturally. Who knows?

Recipe is from here. I only took 1/3 of the recipe because that was easiest for me! So yummy!

Cinnamon Buns [sms]

This week's SMS, Sticky Buns with Toasted Almonds [I had just made the Cinnamon Bun version], was chosen by Jen of Not Microwave Safe. She's this awesome college student JUST LIKE ME!

Jason Mraz was this Friday. OMG HE WAS SO FREAKIN' AMAZING!

The Beautiful Stage

There were two opening acts for him, and they were pretty good, but I think everyone was just waiting for Jason Mraz! He was so beautiful and sang so nicely! LOVED IT! [btw. I apologize ahead of time for the quality of these pictures. Concert pictures are just so hard to capture!]

First opening act: Robert Francis


Second opening act: Brett Dennen

The most important though! JASON MRAZ!







This is him singing with Brett Dennen. in like the middle of the bleachers area.
Afterwards, he had sang a song with Make Peace Brothers, and one of the brothers while talking about their band, proposed to his girlfriend. It was just so sweet!

Jason was a great distraction from other stuff going on in my life. I guess I've just been super busy with this even that I've been planning for the past couple of months. It's going to be fantastic, if only the stuff will all get done.

Not only that, I guess I've just been super stressed out. I guess I'm not feeling too good about my relationship with my boyfriend right now. Maybe it's just me, but we've been getting into some really petty fights right now. Maybe its just midterm stress, maybe its just neither of us are getting enough sleep. Who knows. This happens a lot it seems. We get into these fights but I forget about them a couple weeks later and everything's okay. I guess being a upperclassman now just puts more stress on me. It's all about getting a job and having a future and I guess this uncertainty with him is kind of weird.

No more about that, I'm sure everything will be fine between the two of us. We have our moments but they always pass.

Recipe for the buns here! Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

ps. I recently just got a twitter. Follow me!