Welp. It’s 2015! WOO to the HOO.
Let’s make this year amazing. Live in the moment. Set goals. Achieve them. Do awesome things. It’ll be fun!
Happy new year to all of you!
Almond Champagne Cupcakes
I hope you all had a lovely holiday and spent lots of time with loved ones eating cookies and laughing! I did. That’s fo sho.
Now that Christmas has passed 2015 is just around the corner. I made you these almond champagne cupcakes to celebrate!
Ok, if you want to get technical (Megan) they are actually almond sparkling wine cupcakes. We’ll just pretend that they are legit and from Champagne in France.
Anyways, New Year’s Eve! Do you love it? Do you hate it?
Personally, I love it. The idea of a new year is always very exciting to me. I enjoy reflecting on memories and great things from the passing year and looking forward to the new one to come. I get butterflies just thinking about all the amazing things that I want to make happen in 2015!
New Year’s Eve itself is never a particularly extraordinary night or anything; however, I love drinking champagne while wearing something sparkly and singing Auld Lang Syne (also this song & this song) with some fabulous people. It’s amazing.
Have you ever tried the almond champagne from Trader Joe’s? If not, I recommend you buy a bottle (or five) right now, because it is delicious. It is also the inspiration behind these cupcakes (along with this recipe), so you’re going to want to buy at least one bottle to make them.
These almond champagne cupcakes are light and fluffy. The almond flavor comes from the use of almond meal, almond extract, and almond champagne. Don’t worry though, it’s not too almondy, but rather just almondy enough to take a bite and think, “Hey, these are almond flavored! Yum!”
Side note: I’ve never talked about almonds so much in one paragraph before.
To amp up the champagne flavor, champagne is reduced down to a syrup and then brushed onto the tops of the cupcakes and also used in the frosting.
The batter comes together like most cupcake batter does: cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, and then alternate between adding in the dry and wet ingredients. Easy. While the cupcakes bake and cool you’ll have the perfect amount of time to reduce the champagne, make the frosting, and do the dishes.
After frosting the cupcakes, add some sprinkles. Never, ever forget the sprinkles. Especially on New Year’s Eve.
So there you have it: almond champagne cupcakes.
Almond Champagne Cupcakes
These almond champagne cupcakes are light and fluffy. Almond flavor comes from the use of almond meal, almond extract, and almond champagne (which is used in the batter and as a syrup to brush on the cupcakes and use in the frosting). These are the perfect treat to say goodbye to 2014 and hello to 2015! Also, don't forget the sprinkles!
Author: Adapted from Sprinkle Bakes
Serves: 15 cupcakes
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ¾ cup almond meal
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup almond champagne
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 2 eggs
For the frosting & champagne syrup:
- 1 ½ cup + 1 tablespoon almond champagne
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- 4-6 cups sugar
Instructions
For the cupcakes:
- Preheat the oven for 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with cupcake papers.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine the almond champagne, buttermilk, and almond extract. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium, 3-5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
- Alternate between adding the flour and champagne mixture to the batter, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
- Pour ¼ cup of batter into each liner and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
For the frosting & champagne syrup:
- Add 1 ½ cups champagne to saucepan and heat on medium-high until reduced to 3 tablespoons. Let cool.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the butter, 1 tablespoon of champagne, 2 tablespoon of the reduced champagne, and 3 cups of the powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. Add the remaining powdered sugar ½ cup at a time until the frosting reaches your desired consistency.
To assemble:
- Poke a few holes in the cupcake with a fork. Brush cupcake tops with the remaining tablespoon of reduced champagne.
- Top the cupcakes with the frosting. Add sprinkles and enjoy!
Notes
I didn't have buttermilk on hand, so I made my own by squeezing some lemon juice into a ¼ cup of milk and then let it sit for 5 minutes.
I hope the rest of 2014 treats you well and that you welcome in 2015 with lots of champagne and sparkles and singing and dancing (and cupcakes)!
Merry Christmas!
Orange-Cranberry Pound Cake
Orange-cranberry pound cake. In my kitchen. It’s happening.
Or rather, it happened.
Know what also happened? Rain. RAIN! In December. In Minnesota. Just a few short days before Christmas. What.The.Heck. Why is this happening? Where is the snow?
The forecast says 70% of snow for Tuesday. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a Christmas miracle. I hope you do the same.
While I wait and hope, hope, hope for the snow I will be enjoying this orange-cranberry pound cake.
I haven’t used my bundt pan in what seems like forever and ever and ever, so I decided to take a quick break from the cookie baking and whip up a pound cake.
This pound cake recipe comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible (which is full of some killer recipes and awesome baking tips) and is dubbed the “perfect pound cake”. Traditionally pound cakes are equal parts butter, sugar, flour, and eggs; however, this recipe has just a little extra butter giving the cake more of that delicious buttery flavor and some nice, tender crumbs. This pound cake is so moist (I don’t care if you hate that word) and has just the right level of sweetness.
To add a little festive twist, I threw in some orange zest and cranberries. The orange flavor is just barely there in the background and the cranberries give little bursts of tart juices in each bite, along with some beautiful color.
The only thing that would make this cake more delicious is a drizzle of some glaze, because as I mentioned before, it’s not very sweet. Unfortunately I was fresh out of powdered sugar. I am the worst. So please bake this, stir up some powdered sugar and orange juice, drizzle it all over the pound cake, and tell me how it is. Thank you. You’re the best.
Now I am going to go spend the rest of the evening wrapping presents and eating pound cake and watching Christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate and wishing for snow.
I hope you are all ready for Christmas and are able to spend lots of quality time with friends and family over the next few days!
Orange-Cranberry Pound Cake
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Perfect moist and tender pound cake with hints of orange and pops of cranberry.
Author: slightly adapted from "The Cake Bible"
Serves: 12 pieces
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 3 eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
- zest for one orange
- 1 ½ cups cake flour
- ¾ cups sugar
- ¾ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 13 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 ½ cups fresh cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a bundt pan and dust with flour.
- In a medium bowl, combine the milk, eggs, vanilla, and orange juice.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix on low for 30 seconds.
- Add the orange zest, butter and half of the egg mixture. Mix on low until all the dry ingredients are moistened. Beat for 1 minute on medium.
- Add the remaining egg mixture and beat for 30 seconds.
- Stir in the cranberries.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
- Let the cake sit in the pan for about 10 minutes before inverting on a rack to cool completely. This is the time you would ideally add the glaze.
Notes
If you don't have cake flour and don't want to buy any, use all-purpose flour, but take out 1½ tablespoons of the flour and replace it with 1½ tablespoons corn starch.
PS – Remember when I made these awesome cookies and talked about The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap? Well here are the recipe roundups: part 1 and part 2. Check them out and get baking! So many amazing cookiessss!!!!!
Thursday Things 12.18.14
You guys. I took the day off of work today. Best idea ever. I slept in and then went for a nice, leisurely run. There was even a little bit of snow! So perfect. I went about 6 miles, which is the longest I’ve run since the marathon. I just took it easy and wore my heart rate monitor to make sure I was staying in my “Zone 2”. Lately running has really been spiking my heart rate up too high – not good. Gotta keep that in check.
For the rest of the day I’m going to relax, drink a lot of coffee, get a massage (!!!!), finish my Christmas shopping, wrap presents, and bake. Ohemgeeeeeeiamsoexcitedddddd.
I’m excited about these fun links too. Check them out.
- Text Me Merry Christmas came on as I was listening to Songza this week and I thought it was super silly. Plus, I’m a sucker for some a cappella and I love Kristen Bell.
- Soooo… can we go to Cuba now? I want to.
- Spruce up your clear iPhone case with some floral tattoos. I’m gonna.
- Set goals and make them happen. What do you want to accomplish in 2015? I am in the middle of making my list.
- Completely obsessed with ginger and molasses-y things. Like these ginger snap cookies, gingerbread scones, gingerbread waffles, gingerbread muffins, ginger biscotti, chocolate gingerbread cookies, and gingerbread ornaments. Oh, and can’t forget about these molasses creams with ginger cream cheese frosting that I posted last week!
I hope your day is amazing as mine has been so far!
xojd
Christmas Treasure Drop Cookies
I need to tell you about these Christmas treasure drop cookies, because I think you need them in your life.
Two years ago my mom and I started entering the Star Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest. We brainstorm. We bake. We taste test. By the end of the day the kitchen is covered in flour and we have sugar pulsing through our veins. It is always so much fun.
This year for the contest we made these Christmas treasure drop cookies based off of the classic treasure chest bars, one of my mom’s favorite Christmas treats. When my mom first brought up the idea I was a bit skeptical. Maraschino cherries in cookies? Umm… not sure about that, but I said we could try it as long as we used brown butter in the cookie dough. She agreed to my terms and we tried it out.
OH MY GOODNESS. I am not lying to you when I say that these are some of the best Christmas cookies ever. EVERRRR.
Who knew that maraschino cherries, toasted walnuts, chocolate chips, and brown butter would taste so magical together?!?
Not I.
But now I do and I need to share this with you.
The cookie dough itself isn’t overly sweet, but gets a crazy amount of flavor from the brown butter and is packed full of maraschino cherries, toasted walnuts, and chocolate chips. Oh, and love too. There is a lot of love in these cookies. Let the dough sit in the fridge for at least an hour (but overnight is best) so that all these flavors can meld together. I kid you not, the extra time is totally worth it.
After being baked and cooled these cookies are topped with a brown butter frosting. No Christmas cookie is quite complete without some sort of frosting. Right? Yes. Plus, the frosting helps get these cookies up to that perfect level of sweetness and also amplifies the brown butter taste in the dough.
We didn’t win the contest, but in the process we had a blast and discovered our new favorite Christmas cookie (these ones if that wasn’t obvious). Our first two years we made the honorable mention with these and these. This year we just got mentioned – still fun!
This year I was able to join in on The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap hosted by Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen. Hundreds of food bloggers participate each year and help raise money for Cookies For Kid’s Cancer. I was so excited to be a part of it this year!
I instantly knew that these Christmas treasure drop cookies were the ones that I needed to send out. I baked up and bunch and sent out a dozen each to Bree from Baked Bree, Amanda from Fun in the Oven Blog, and Faith from Pixie Dust Kitchen.
I then received some ridiculously amazing cookies in return from Ellen and Aimee (Like Mother Like Daughter), Linda (Food Huntress), and Ashley (Taylors 4 You).
I had such a fun time being a part of this cookie swap! I loved sending out the boxes (I rarely mail things, so it just seemed so exciting). I loved getting all the packages and eating (and sharing) all the cookies. And I loved getting the opportunity to connect with other bloggers. The whole experience was such a treat.
So anyways, these Christmas treasure drop cookies. Please make them! I promise you won’t regret it.
Also, all the other food bloggers that participated in the cookie swap will be posting their cookie recipes today too, so make sure to check out all the links above. A full list of ALL 500+ the cookie submissions will be sent out on Friday. Get excited. But be careful, you may end up drooling all over your keyboard…
Christmas Treasure Drop Cookies
These are my new favorite Christmas cookies! The cookies are packed full of brown butter, maraschino cherries, toasted walnuts, and chocolate chips and topped with a brown butter frosting.
Serves: 4 dozen
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 1 cup walnuts, chopped
- 15 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 ice cube
- 2 cups flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1-10oz jar maraschino cherries, quartered
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips
For the Frosting:
- ¼ cup brown butter (included in butter quantity listed for the cookies)
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- To toast the nuts: spread nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Stir them around occasionally (every 5 minutes or so) to ensure they are not burning. Once toasted, set aside.
- To brown the butter: melt butter in a medium saucepan. Whisk the melted butter until brown specks appear at the bottom, it will froth and foam a bit. Watch closely and be careful not to burn. It should be a light brown color and have a nutty aroma. Place ½ cup of the browned butter into a heatproof bowl and whisk in an ice cube. This will be used for the cookies. Place the remaining ¼ cup aside to use for the frosting.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, add the ½ cup brown butter and the sugars. Mix on medium speed of an electric mixer until smooth and combined, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Stir in the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in the nuts, maraschino cherries, and chocolate chips.
- Let the dough sit in the refrigerated for one hour or overnight.
- Place scoops of cookie dough onto the prepared pans. Bake for 8-11 minutes. Let cool on the sheet for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Make the frosting while the cookies are cooling. Place the remaining ¼ cup brown butter, 1 ½ cup of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla into a mixing bowl. Beat on medium until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add in the remaining sugar ¼ cup at a time until the frosting has reached your desired consistency. It should be thick enough to easily spread.
- Once the cookies are completely cooled, spread a nice layer of frosting on each one. Serve and enjoy!
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