Mango Cupcakes

These mango cupcakes were on my to do list since my friend Maverick wanted me to make them for him. Since I was not able to see him during the summer when I was at home in Brea, I decided to make these for Mimi. The last post was about her midnight surprise, but this one is for her surprise birthday party. Although I did not have to bake for both of them, I like to bake so I decided to do so and it's the summer, and my one of my classes had gotten canceled, so it was perfect. These were really simple to make. [Number 9 out of 10!]

Recipe for the cupcake:
[taken from here]
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup self rising flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
2 eggs
2 tbsp. milk (if the mixture is a bit dry)
2/3 cup diced mangos or you can use mango puree [I used 1/3 c of mango juice from the mango, and then put a piece of mango in the middle of the cupcake]
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners
Cream the butter and slowly add the sugar and cream until the sugar are dissolved.
Add the egg, one at a time into the mixture and beat well.
In another bowl, measure the flour and the baking powder.
Slowly pour into the wet mixture and mix well. Then add the diced mangos.
Pour into pan and bake for about 20 min. or depends on your oven temperature. [Mine took 15 minutes.]

Recipe for the mango buttercream:
[taken from here]
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup mango puree
Zest and juice of 1 lime [I subbed it with 2 Tablespoons of OJ]
2 tablespoons honey (any mild-flavored honey will do)
4-5 cups of powdered sugar
Directions:
In a mixing bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy.
Add mango puree, zest and juice (or OJ) and honey. Mix well.
Add powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until desired spreading consistency is reached.

Apple Crisp [mbs]

MSB - Midnight Birthday Surprise. I know too many acronyms, but that's how I live my life.
So at Berkeley, normally we go at midnight and surprise the birthday person. Sometimes we make the birthday person wait for a couple of minutes before we go and surprise them with song and something made by me. This time it was Mimi's turn.
This is Mimi.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The crisp was nice and crispy but the apples at the bottom were nice and tender. YUM!\

recipe for the apple crisp
(inspired by the one found here)
Ingredients
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon [I used 1 teaspoon]
1/3 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cups KELLOGG'S* RICE KRISPIES* cereal
6 cups sliced, peeled cooking apples
Directions:
In large bowl mix together sugar, flour and cinnamon. Using pastry blender, cut in margarine until resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in cereal.
Spread apple slices evenly in 23 cm (9-inch) square baking pan. Sprinkle cereal topping over apples. [I used a 9in circle baking pan and added more cereal on top of the topping already made.]
Bake at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) about 30 minutes or until apples are tender. Serve with frozen yogurt or whipped topping, if desired.

*I would have more pictures, but I only had my phone on me when they cut open the crisp, so no good pictures*

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies [sms]

So I decided to tackle this as I normally do, on Tuesday nights before the Circle K meeting on Wednesday. This week's SMS was chosen by Stephanie of Ice Cream Before Dinner. The funny thing is that she is actually the one that got me into sms. I was following her blog on google reader, and she had this new thing that she was in. I knew that a lot of people were into TWD (Tuesdays with Dorie), but I saw that she was in something new and they were still accepting members so that's when I joined. I've loved everything so far. It's been a challenge, but in a good way.

Anyways, these peanut butter cookies were easy. I had doubled the recipe because I knew that I wanted both peanut butter cookies without chocolate chips, but since I love chocolate chips, I decided to do a batch with some.

Whilst making the recipe, I decided to add two pinches of cinnamon and two dashes of vanilla which would equal out to one of each per recipe.

I don't think it had made too much of a difference, but they definitely smelled really good. My crosshatch didn't work out as much as I had hoped, but that's okay.

The chocolate chip ones were the friend favorite since those were gone in like 10 minutes. I had made my two into an ice cream sandwich.

recipe for the chewy peanut butter cookies here.

Strawberry Cupcakes with Kiwi Frosting and Rice Krispies Sushi

So one of my friends, Kat, who I just met a couple week ago. She's apparently part of the Circle K at her school which makes all friends! Anyways, so she's leaving for Alabama for ICON (International Convention) and then she's going back to Ohio. =[. It was great hanging out with her and everything. So Friday night, before she leave, good bye dinner - at Minami Sushi. Seriously, we get sushi from there all the time. Only 8 bucks for sushi. YUMMY

Anyways, being that it is HER going away party, I asked her what type of cupcakes she wanted. She said that she loves strawberries and likes kiwi too, so I decided to look at my list of things that I wanted to make, and there it was - Strawberry Cupcakes and Kiwi Frosting. (8 out of 10!)

These were very simple to make even with strawberry yogurt. I had subbed out the yogurt for half a cup of buttermilk and half a cup of sour cream. I also added a little more than a cup of strawberries. It was really good. The frosting was easy enough to make.

I also created some rice krispies sushi for her. They are so cute and really simple to make. She knows that she doesnt get really nice sushi when she goes back to Ohio, so this is an homage to that.

recipe for the strawberry cupcake with kiwi frosting here . recipe rice krispies sushi here.

Creme Brulee

So I ended up with lots of extra egg yolks from making milan cookies so I needed a recipe to use it. I had found a creme brulee recipe during my searching for recipes with egg yolks. It's super yummy and I think it tastes really good after a light meal and you just want something yummy to eat.

The whole caramelization thing was really hard for me since I have no torch. I've been using broil and it doesnt do the top evenly. Oh well, it was fun and yummy regardless!