I know I’ve been on a bit of a Pumpkin-kick lately (even that’s an understatement), so last week I made it a point to bake something that had nothing to do with my favorite orange squash.  As I’ve been doing so often lately, I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Banana Bread on Pinterest, and its “over-the-top”-ness is what made me pick it. Not only does this bread include regular peanut butter, but it’s also chock-full of an entire bag of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups. 

It’s funny because I’m very much like my Mom in a lot of ways, but definitely not when it comes to baking.  She likes very simple, classic flavors, while to me more is better.  One of the recipes that she always made when I was growing up was a really delicious, really moist banana bread, so when she came home from work and saw that I had made this, she didn’t really understand it.  In fact, when I made a second loaf to take to work, she went so far as to say “Why don’t you just use my recipe?”

She may not understand it, but to me it makes perfect sense.  Bananas, peanut butter, and chocolate is an unbeatable combination.  The smell when I was mixing it was heavenly and the taste of the completed version was even better. 

Plus, her aversion to this new version of an old classic didn’t stop her from trying a couple pieces!

Recipe

I have two other culinary creations that I made before these that I still have yet to share, but I can’t let this weekend end without writing about these beauties: Pumpkin Cupcakes with a Salted Caramel Buttercream frosting.  Have you ever heard a more amazing title? I must have recited that phrase over 20 times this weekend, and every time I got the same stupefied reaction, complete with a little drool.

As soon as I saw these on Made in Melissa’s Kitchen, I knew I’d be making them.  I didn’t know, however, that it would be in the two hours before a dinner reservation I had with my two best friends, or that I’d have to re-make the caramel sauce because I burnt it the first time.  Or that I’d have to switch the frosting tip because the first one just wasn’t right.  Or that I’d be frantically scrubbing the BUTTERcream off the pastry bags and mixer bowl in time to get ready to go.  But even with so many hiccups, these were probably the best baked goods I have EVER made.

I shared these with three different groups of people this weekend— my friends Amanda and Elyse, my family, and my South Plainfield favorites— and their reactions all reaffirmed why I love to cook and bake for the people I love.

I know I’ve told you to make many things in the past, but ignore all those suggestions and take this one: MAKE THESE.  You’ll love its moist, spicy Pumpkin base and the sweet and salty combo that the caramel icing provides.  Perfection.  These might be my contribution to Thanksgiving this year!

Recipe

I’m feeling a little down right now, as this October Snowstorm and the impending power outages across New Jersey have managed to put a huge damper on my Halloween plans.  Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that Halloween is my favorite holiday, and one of the things that I love to do every year is cook a Halloween dinner for my family.  Since the power has been out in my house since Saturday afternoon, I’m going to have to scratch the plans I had for tonight.  No Witch Hat Calzones, no Halloween Oreo Cupcakes.  Sigh!

Not too be too much of a Debbie Downer, I luckily did get the chance to do some Halloween baking last weekend for Brendan and Christine’s Halloween Party. I had been dying to try out Bakerella’s Eyeball Cakepops ever since I saw them on her blog, and I also had a special request from Christine for the Pumpkin Monkey Bread I blogged about previously.  I cleared my Friday night and dedicated hours to getting these babies ready for the Saturday night party.

These Eyeball Cakepops were the HARDEST baking project I have ever taken on.  Nothing seemed to go right, from the size of the cakepops to running out of the candy coating.  One word of advice for anyone who wants to take these (or any cakepop) on: DO NOT USE THE EDIBLE PENS.  I don’t know what Bakerella uses in her photos, but they are not edible pens (Sharpies?).  I got through one pop before they stopped writing on the pops altogether.  Instead, go with some red gel and colored icing.  Worked like a charm.  I’m glad I stuck it out and finished these, because they were a huge hit.

I won’t say too much about this, as I just blogged about it.  I used the same exact recipe, but made it “spooky” by adding some Halloween sprinkles and witches fingers.

I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! Spend it making some tasty treats, since I can’t ;)

Eyeball Cakepops Recipe

Pumpkin Monkey Bread Recipe

I don’t fully understand where or how monkey bread got its name, but I do know that I’m in love with the concept.  I’ve been wanting to make monkey bread for a while now, and I wouldn’t be me if the thought of adding pumpkin didn’t push me over the edge.  

I had a lot to get done yesterday, but I knew I had to bake since I spent all last weekend at Justin and Genevieve’s wedding. I woke up early to make this because I loved both the idea of starting my day by making the house smell amazing and the idea of giving my family something sweet to snack on all weekend.  I definitely made them happy with this one!

For those of you that have never made Monkey Bread before, it can be a time-consuming process.  As with any yeast-based dough, it needs at least two hours to rise twice.  But it’s worth it because it’s SO fun! You basically cut the dough into little balls, rolls each one in butter and cinnamon sugar, and layer them in a bundt pan. When the dough rises for a second time, the pieces come together and form the cake (see above). After you bake it, you flip it upside down, and you’re left with a perfect pull-apart cake! When finished, this cake was absolutely gorgeous and the best word to describe its taste would be ADDICTIVE.  Each piece is almost like a pumpkin donut hole.

A word of advice: the maple glaze in this recipe definitely needs a little milk to thin it out, and the cake only needs a drizzle of it to enhance it. 

Have fun making this one, and then watch your family devour it over the course of a day!

Recipe

In a move that probably comes as a surprise to no one, I’ve fallen slightly behind on my blog.  I made these beauties last weekend, but never got around to posting about them.  However, these are COMPLETELY worth the wait! I have to be honest that, to date, I’ve played it a little safe in my baking.  Besides my masterpiece Pumpkin Cheesecake from last fall, I’ve mostly stuck to muffins, breads, and cookies— things that I knew I could pull off.  I wanted to step it up a notch and go slightly outside of my comfort zone, so stumbling upon this recipe for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls proved to be perfect timing.  Besides that, my sister took one look at these and BEGGED me to make them.  When someone asks me to make something, I usually oblige.

Luckily, I had zero slip-ups in putting these together.  While they were pretty time consuming, a lot of that time was spent waiting for the dough to rise, so I had plenty of time to use Sunday for its other purpose- watching football.  Also, the actual steps that I had to take were relatively straight forward and easy.  

To say these were a huge hit is an understatement! They were gone by the next day, which meant that I didn’t get to share the love with my co-workers.  That’s probably for the best, because these were at their best when fresh and warm from the oven.  I’m glad I took the advice of Lindsey from Gingerbread Bagels (where I got this recipe from) and went all out by making a cream cheese frosting to spread on top.  Without it, they would have really fallen short.  And who wants to be healthy when they’re eating a cinnamon roll anyways?

Recipe

Being that I woke up in South Jersey this morning, and the first Giants game of the season was on in the afternoon,  I didn’t think I’d be baking anything at all this weekend.  I had grand plans to go a little outside of my comfort zone with a recipe I’ve been dying to try, but it just wasn’t in the cards.  However, I knew I had to make SOMETHING or I’d be breaking my promise to myself the second week in, so I decided it would probably be a good idea to use up the canned pumpkin that I had leftover from the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.  A quick search on one of my favorite food blogs, Pinch My Salt, and voila — I found this Pumpkin Spice Cake, which I just so happened to have all of the ingredients for.

It’s hard to beat a classic like this.  The sour cream made the cake amazingly moist, and it tasted perfect with a cup of Pumpkin coffee. My co-workers will be a bunch of happy ladies tomorrow morning…

Recipe

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s actually fall again! Time for hot coffee, full Friday’s at work, and everything pumpkin. Also time for me to start blogging again, I’ve (once again) decided. It wasn’t so much the blogging that I stopped this summer, it was sort of the cooking all together.  I was busier than I’ve ever been, and when I cooked I tended to stick to light, uninspired meals.  Now that the weather is getting cool again, I’m busting out my KitchenAid Mixer and bringing back my quest to bake something every week.  And let’s be honest, most of them will be of the pumpkin variety.

My challenge with baking is that sometimes I’ll make something and it will sit in the kitchen until it gets thrown out.  Not because it’s bad, but because my family will decide that they’re back to “low carb” or watching what they eat.  Yes, we’re all very much alike.  That’s why I decided to ease back into my culinary groove by making something that I know everyone will be OK with eating.  I could have gone with sugary Spiced Pumpkin Bars (and those will come, promise), but I decided that everyone, especially my sister, would love Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins.  Relatively simple, but definitely something that brings excitement about Fall being here.

Sure enough, as I write this, Marissa has already had 2, maybe 2.5.  I’ll be taking these to the office with me for breakfast this week.

Recipe

As promised, I present to you the sweet ending to my Saturday night dinner of home-made gnocchi.  As soon as I saw this recipe in this month’s issue of Bon Appetit, I knew I had to make it.  Not only did they look super simple (while still being over the top gorgeous), but Keenan is a huge fan of the peanut butter & grape jelly combo.  I’m glad I decided to go with my gut, because they were fantastic.  There’s nothing better than a dessert that tastes good, looks good, AND doesn’t take a lot of time to whip together.

These are kind of like a grown-up peanut butter cookie, but it’s obvious that kids would love them too.  Aren’t they pretty?

Recipe

I’ve developed this strange habit lately, of randomly baking when I’m bored or have some down time.  I usually start by digging around the pantry and refrigerator to see what we have on hand, and finding a recipe to fit those ingredients.  On Saturday, which was Keenan’s 24th birthday, we had a few hours to kill before heading out to Bistro 55 for dinner.  While Keenan wanted to spend that time playing with his new gadgets, I decided to play with MY gadget- that beautiful KitchenAid stand mixer that I can’t stop using.

There’s a chance that I was inspired by the case (and I mean CASE) of oranges that my mom ordered from the High School band.  I just had a feeling that she was going to end up having no idea what to do with all of them.  After I discovered a container of Ricotta cheese leftover from my mom’s homemade Manicotti, I instantly remembered a recipe from December’s Food Network Magazine- Giada’s Orange Ricotta Pound Cake (yup, more Giada!). So basically, I ended up stealing everything my mom paid for in order to whip up this wonderfully decadent dessert.  I hope she at least enjoyed her slice!

While the pound cake was simple to put together, I had some more difficulty during the actual baking process.  It took much longer than the specified 50 minutes; I would say it took more like an hour and 15.  Also, the cake ended up falling in the middle after I took it out to test with a toothpick. While it wasn’t the most visually pleasing dessert in the world, the looks certainly didn’t affect the incredible taste or texture.  The ricotta cheese guaranteed a dense, but very moist cake, and the amaretto and orange made the flavor fresh and bright.  

This is a great dessert to make before the weather gets warm and heavy sweets aren’t appealing anymore.  But beware- if you’re entire house is on a diet like mine, you might have to bring this pound cake to work and pawn it off on your unsuspecting co-workers.  Just an idea.

Recipe (*Note* I used the version of this recipe that appeared in Food Network Magazine, not the online one which included a strawberry sauce)

I was lucky enough to have Monday through Wednesday off this week.  I say lucky like these days were given to me, but really I took them out of desperation for some time off! In addition to getting a lot of serious shopping time in, I also had plenty of opportunities to try out some new food projects.  Unfortunately I forgot to snap pictures of the Devilish Sesame Chicken with Scallion Rice that I made for dinner on Tuesday, but this recipe was great for satisfying my Chinese food craving without all of the calories (and the ensuing pain that ALWAYS follows).

However, the food highlight of my long weekend by far was the Cannoli Cupcakes that I made for my good friend Katie Miller’s 26th birthday! I really wanted to do something special for her, since she has been such an amazing friend to me in the past year.  While I originally thought of making pumpkin cupcakes (she’s a fellow fanatic), I randomly had a vision of the cannoli cupcakes I recently saw on Cupcake Wars and KNEW I had to make them. After two minutes of searching, I found the perfect recipe on the blog “What’s Cookin’ Chicago?” I say perfect because unlike other versions, these cupcakes were stuffed with cannoli cream- how could I say no!?

While these were pretty time intensive, they were honestly pretty easy to make.  Maybe that’s because of my beautiful new KitchenAid Stand Mixer though ;) Regardless, these beauties are worth it in both taste and looks.  I shared them with about 12 different co-workers and they were very impressed! Give these a try if you’re looking to do something sweet for someone special in your life.

Recipe