success?

i think i may have a winner. that or the thrill of making a healthy cupcake has completely left me:) this is a carrot cupcake with a greek yogurt based frosting. i made slight changes to this carrot cupcake recipe and used this frosting recipe.
it was a whirlwind afternoon. i searched at work for a recipe and then raced home to get started on this thing. i divided the recipe in half so i would only have to figure out how to get rid of 6 cupcakes instead of 12 (thank gosh for google and it's online calculator). i took out the oil and put in greek yogurt instead (i think it took away a lot of the potential moist/fluff factor) but the cupcake is overall good. oh, and i also decreased the sugar amount b/c i'm using regular mott's applesauce and that has sugar added into it. i only had baby carrots in the house, let me tell you, trying to grate those little suckers on the shredder do-dad is dangerous business. and i have two band-aids on my fingers now to prove it. i think they came out pretty nice looking, but i think i will try to chop up the carrots some more so they aren't so noticeable.

as for the frosting, i didn't have any powdered sugar so i took some granulated sugar and pounded it w/ a wooden pestle (or is it the mortar part, whichever part you smash things with). so that was more interesting times. then threw in a spoonful of yogurt and a dash of vanilla extract (i was only trying to ice one since no one in my family digs the greek yogurt). the frosting is a bit runny and tart, not quite the "cream cheese" frosting that usually shows up on top of carrot cake/cupcakes. and just to make my picture look cuter i threw a blueberry on top. i will have to fiddle with the frosting, any suggestions?

when healthy is too healthy...and my love affair w/ greek yogurt

hello hello! it's not as humid today! 3 cheers for that. so i don't think i got to tell you but i'm giving a one hour little talk on healthier sweets to a group of kids at an at-risk summer camp. the goal is to give them a healthy cupcake and this is becoming a major difficulty! i figured the diet cola cupcakes just didn't have enough nutrients to make it worth it to give the kids so i took a regular chocolate cupcake recipe and substituted in some whole wheat flour, applesauce instead of oil and got this weird thing. they're pretty (it helps that i stuck some reese's cups in the middle, just to kill the "healthy" factor) but they just taste too...

healthy.

which i guess was the point, but if they don't taste almost as good as the real thing, personally, i would just go for the real thing. why have dessert (in moderation) if you can't enjoy it to it's full buttery, oily potential. phew. i just needed to get that off my chest. but yes, this is my sad attempt at a healthy cupcake. i'll try again tonight or tomorrow. i might just mess with a cake mix box since i like the fluffiness i usually get from those.

this lovely cup is a bowl of greek yogurt, a chopped peach, handful of raspberries and sunflower seeds. i've had this for dinner in some combination of this (bananas, blackberries, strawberries, walnuts, etc.) for at least the past month and i still haven't gotten tired of it. amazing how much i love this stuff. especially now that it's so hot outside, nothing like yogurt with a bunch of fresh fixings to make my day. yum yum

oh, and i swam my 900 yds this morning in less than 30 minutes (but i probably still look like a drowning rat, but that's a work in progress)

not studying for orgo= baking!!!

wow, it's been a very dessert productive morning and i have to thank organic chemistry for such good times. have my first exam on monday and to avoid at all costs looking at compounds i went a little overboard on the baking.first up: a little experiment, cola cupcakes. this is about the easiest and cheapest thing to ever make. just a box of chocolate cake mix with a 12 oz. can of diet cola. although trying to find a 12 oz. can made this not so easy. stopped by the grocery store, only 12 oz. and their soda machine was broken, at cvs they only also sold the 20 oz, so i just caved and bought the darn bottle. who wants 8 oz of diet coke:)

2nd one up is peanut butter cookies straight from simply recipes. also very easy and they come out so pretty! although it was a bit difficult to press the cookie w/ the fork and get the dough to let go of the tines. i ended up mushing a couple. i also need to figure out how to make the cross marks deeper. anyone know why pb cookies get the cross hatches? i baked them at the higher temp for shorter and they still seem soft in the middle but it has that great brown crisp outside. they have a nice crispy texture, although i may have to try the softer chewier cookie next time. my first ever cookie stacks!
and last but not least reese's peanut butter chip cookies (recipe from the bag). these have sooo much sugar and butter in them, but hey, they're cookies, live a little. for the last batch i had i threw in some chopped minature reese's cups.* just tasted these. way too sugary for my liking, however, when i tried the one w/ the minature reese's cup it was much better, mebbe the mini gives it some extra salt flavor. but these are def a can't finish a whole cookie kind of recipe. will need to fiddle w/ the proportions next time, that or just take a regular chocolate cookie recipe and throw in some reese's cups.

return of the cakebites (and me)

i know i know! it's been forever since i've posted anything up here, but aren't you glad i saved something beautiful to share??? it was my "lil sis's" grad party so made her some lavendar and white cake bites. the circular ones were funfetti cake and the square ones were oreo with a piece of cookies and cream candy inside! i thought that making something that didn't require using the oven (minus baking the funfetti cake) would make this less of a sweaty job in almost 90 degree weather but i was wrong. without a/c, i was sweating up a storm just crushing the oreo cookies! but i persevered! but i have to say the heat does not like forming pretty cake bites. especially the round ones, i shaped them once and then let them hang out in the fridge overnight and then re-rolled them so they would be smooth. but the lavendar color is gorgeous and the yellow bow (look how pretty i made it!) pops so nicely against it. i'm just glad i finished making them, this is definitely at least a two person adventure. so who's with me next:)