Pineapple Upside-Down Cupcakes!

       Once upon a time, there was me in my kitchen at school, wanting to recreate something I saw on the internet: mini versions of pineapple upside down cake! I was equipped with a box of cake and a few other random ingredients, and this Betty Crocker Super Moist looked pretty delicious, which was all perfect because I was craving some delicious fluff after going to see The Vagina Monologues. I was ready to attempt a pinterest-inspired version of mini pineapple upside down cake! Because the only thing better than food is MINI-FOOD! Right?

Whoa, dude, you're using strawberry cake for this pineapple dessert? YES

       The box of cake only called for a cup of water, half a cup of vegetable oil, and a few stupid eggs. Make sure you actually have eggs, because I had to go ALL THE WAY to the market to get them and then they didn't have those nice little packages of six eggs so I had to get twelve eggs and now they're just sitting here. Maybe I can cook the rest of them up with some bacon! Oh wait we ate the bacon. Ehh.

DAT PINK AND BLUE. DAT CONTRAST

       At least the cake mix is beautifully vibrant! I couldn't stop tasting it only because it was faaaahbulously pink. And I have this bacon in the picture because I almost cooked bacon into some of the cakes, except again, we ate the bacon.

       I wasn't sure how well bacon would go with the pineapple flavor, anyway, since I had poured some of the pineapple juice into the cake batter. I continued to get out my muffin tin, a tiny one because I live in a dorm and have a toaster oven! Shh, I'm not really supposed to have a toaster oven. Anyway, I lined the tin with some butter, created these pretty little flowers out of some pineapple chunks, and cinnamon-sugared them. I saw this done on pinterest with pineapple rings instead, but that's okay, not everyone's food is as pretty as mine. But actually though, rings might give your cakes more leverage when it comes to getting them out of the pan; I would try it out!

EAT YO FRUIT

       I proceeded to coat the pineapple in cake mix to prepare for baking. I filled them up about 3/4 of the way full. I would usually only fill them halfway because cake rises so much, but think about it, pineapple doesn't expand or rise.

       Lo and behold, they rose just the perfect amount! Getting them out was easy since the pineapple juice lubricates the pan, AND the chunky fruit is baked into the cake so it all comes out in one nice little package!

Don't they look like plain strawberry cupcakes? Haha, joke on you

       I'm glad they were so easy to take out and didn't fall apart! I had to wait for them to cool off completely, though, so everything could solidify together. Look how pretty they turned out! They look like cute little individual tiki festivities! It's like I want to serve them on an island inside a coconut.

I ended up taking the cakes over to my friend Lauren's, (SHOUTOUT! GO LAUREN! SHE GOT ME INTO PINTEREST!) and my old high school friends and I devoured them like true inebriates. Because of all the sugar we had been eating, of course.

Let's have a Tiki Kiki!!!

       Stay tuned for more baking adventures with the College Kitchenettes!

       Share the yummy with friends on Facebook, Reddit, or Pinterest! See you soon!

Royal Icing: Take 1!

Since we have been offline so long (blame college), we decided to give you all a treat:

A front-row seat to our first Royal Icing attempt.

The sugar cookies themselves were relatively simple (see recipe below), although they took quite a while to make before we even got to the icing.

Oven ready and almost perfectly spherical!

Our recipe:

1 cup butter, almost completely melted
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar, egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour. Mix until smooth. Chill dough until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, or butter sheets, and set aside.

Roll out dough on a well floured surface until it is 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters and carefully transfer them to the prepared cookie sheets. I used a spatula to try to maintain the spherical shape as much as possible. 

Bake cookies for 7-9 minutes. Cookies should be slightly brown on bottom. Let cool completely before frosting.

Relax, it's on wax paper...

For the frosting, we sort of cheated. I had been shopping early that day, and lost all willpower at one of my favorite cooking supply stores. Long story short, I ended up buying the royal icing in a bottle. At least it was good icing, okay?

Look how pretty!

It took about ten to fifteen minutes to ice all the cookies, and then they had to dry for about 45 minutes to an hour. Luckily, my parents weren't home so nobody tried to eat them while they were drying. By the time they were finished, I almost wished I had bought one of those frosting pens.

Smooth and dry... perfect for writing if I had a frosting pen!

Apparently the cookies were really tasty because they were gone in, like, ten minutes. I kid you not. I had 24 cookies, and they are gone. I think I had about 3. The really exciting part is that my mom was able to enjoy them as much as the rest of the family - and they aren't even gluten-free! They were delicious and simple, although time consuming.

Stay tuned this week for lunch and dinner recipes! Also, watch this weekend for an awesome St. Patty's recipe - for you, kids, and the leprechauns!

Don't forget to share the yummy! Like us on facebook, or share on Reddit, Pinterest or via email!

Valentine Cake Pops: Red Velvet? Check!

For Valentine's Day, Natalie and I chose cake pops. Not only were they cake pops, they were red velvet cake pops!

Fabulously delicious...

She managed to come in from school in San Francisco and we basically made a mess of my kitchen. This was my first attempt at cake pops, though Natalie has made them before.

Primary necessaries: mix, pudding, sticks, bowl, special pan

We worked with a mix, added pudding mix, eggs, water, and oil. Once we had the batter thoroughly mixed and smoothed, we brought out the cake pop pan. My cake pop pan read as nonstick but we sprayed with Pam anyway.

A open pastry bag is so much easier than a spoon!

We used a pastry bag to distribute the batter, instead of a spoon, and found it much more efficient. We were able to fill the pan quickly and with very little mess.

Finished batter result for Batch #1!

Once finished, we latched the top half of the pan and put it in the oven at 325 degrees for 22 minutes. After 22 minutes, we checked with a toothpick and happily took it out of the oven.

Fresh out of the oven - and cooling!

The cakes had to cool for about 5 minutes before we could remove them, for maximum together-ness. We were both ecstatic and disappointed; some came out like beautifully spherical Saturns, and others came out like an unfinished Death Star.

Like little Saturns waiting to be feasted upon...

Once we had completed our batches (we had about 2 1/2 total, given baking casualties), we were able to begin on the coating. The coating is fairly simple: chocolate chips. We chose Tollhouse Semi-Sweet. Have one pan of medium-heat water on the stove, and then place another pan over it with your chocolate chips. This works best with a double broiler, but we don't have one. When your chocolate chips are melted to 115 degrees (you can use a thermometer insert to find out), you're ready for dipping. We found that if you dip the pop stick in before inserting it into the cake pop, the process tends to work better overall.

Chocolate and sprinkles! Questions?

Once coated, place them on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie tray and then you may sprinkle or decorate as desired. We had a multitude of sprinkles that made even more of a mess, but were perfect for decorating. We had reds, pinks, multi-colored dots, and multi-colored sprinkles.

Coated and sprinkled!

Once coated and fabulously decorated, put the tray in the fridge for approximately 15 - 20 minutes. When they are set, pull them out and serve.

Even though they didn't look like the fancy store-bought pops, they were absolutely delicious and relatively easy to create. We had a few hiccups with dipping, but if you don't want to mess with melting chocolate you can easily use regular frosting and allow that to set.

First bite - revealing heavenly mix of chocolate and red velvet!

Stay tuned with the College Kitchenettes for more cooking and baking fun! Next weekend: somebody's having a birthday? To the kitchen!

Super Bowl Pizza Rolls

I was originally inspired to make these after having a popular restaurant chain's version. Soon, I had found a nice easy recipe on Pinterest! These are absolutely gorgeous treats for an event like the Super Bowl, if only because it's not just chips and dip.

You start with Pillsbury Crescent rolls and add on five mini pepperonis each. Pepperoni is easy to find, usually near the salami and other lunch meats in your local grocery store. On top of the pepperoni, add shredded mozzarella and just a dash of garlic salt.

Sweet Golden-Pizza!!

Roll them up and put them in a 375-degree preheated oven for about 12 - 15 minutes. At golden-brown, the rolls are done and smell absolutely heavenly.

I think this was definitely one of my favorite easy recipes. It was quick and cheap to accomplish! Not to mention, they tasted extremely amazing and exactly like pizza!

Stay tuned next week for more easy recipes, and next weekend for some Valentine's Day sweetness!

And don't forget to vote on our poll: Where do you find your recipes?

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Our Poll-Winners!

Since chocolate chip won our poll, I decided to play with the classics. Of course, the top of our classic "Chocolate Chip list" is Tollhouse.

The recipe is easy to find and easy to make. My only hiccup was a low stock of brown sugar.

Once you have all the ingredients together and mixed, you add the chips to the blend to make a beautiful dough.

Then, as usual, you plop the cookie dough snowballs on an oven tray and put it in the oven. After about 18 minutes, the result is about two dozen of the most perfectly round cookies!

These cookies were so much fun to make - and even more fun to eat! Don't forget to vote on our new poll: Where do you find your recipes? We'll take a recipe from one of the sources and make it shine on our blog! Stay tuned for Super Bowl treats tomorrow!

Our Poll-Winning Cookie!!

            The votes are in! Our readers' favorite cookie is Chocolate Chip, with Oatmeal in a close second!

            Stay tuned this weekend for a special post with an extra-special Chocolate Chip cookie recipe!

            Also, stay sharp for our next poll: Where do you get your recipes?

            See you this weekend with delicious Chocolate Chip cookies!

Vanilla Cupcakes: Gluten-Free Even!

This weekend, I wanted cupcakes. My mom wanted frosting and cupcakes. However, she eats gluten-free (allergies!). But, that is no match for a girl with a serious CC (Cupcake Craving)! So, I made gluten-free vanilla cupcakes! This specific mix brand, Wholesome Chow, features hardly any extra ingredients - milk, apple cider vinegar, and oil are the only ingredients you have to add.

Look how easy this looks!

The recipe itself is easy enough to carry through; add the wet ingredients to the mix and whisk until it becomes batter. The batter is fairly thin, making it really easy to pour!

Thin, fluffy batter!

Once poured into the cupcake pan, they bake at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes. The package said 18 - 23 minutes, but 18 turned out to be perfect for me. The batter makes about 12 cupcakes that don't rise very much. However, they do turn out to be a beautiful golden-brown!

Golden-Brown Gorgeousness!

For the decorating, I used Betty Crocker  butter cream frosting. No, I didn't make my own frosting. Yes, I'm okay with that. Also, for Christmas, I got this cupcake decorating kit and, trust me, that makes a lot of difference!

The Decorating Kit Saves The Day!

For my cupcakes, I used the star tip because it produces less frosting at once. I prefer a larger cupcake-to-frosting ratio. However, the frosting covered the cupcakes well with about half of the frosting package. After the frosting, I deliberated over what to sprinkle the cupcakes with, since I used green liners. Eventually, I settled on rainbow dots. I think the result was rather nice:

Frosted and Sprinkled!

The recipe was good and the result even better! My mom loved them and so did I! 

Tune in next weekend, when the poll-winning cookies are made spectacular! Which cookie do you think will win our poll as your favorite cookie??