CLASSIC BIRTHDAY CAKE

Birthday's=birthday cake. I always come prepared with cake.Yes, cake. Since I could not attend I, of course, offered to make this birthday cake so my presence was felt in every scrumptious bite that was taken. And there were a whole lot of those...

I was informed that she wanted a simple yellow cake with chocolate frosting. That's easy enough, right? I reverted back to my oh-so-favorite Billy's yellow cake recipe and baked 2-8inch pans of batter. Once cooled, I cut each 8inch round in half creating 4 layers.

I cake'd on (no pun intended) LOADS chocolate frosting in between each layer and all around the tops and sides. I decorated with some vanilla buttercream and wallah! A beautiful, simple classic yellow cake with old school chocolate frosting. Enjoy!

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine

2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

TWD: SWEET AND SAVORY CORN MUFFINS

Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake chose this week's TWD recipe: Savory Corn and Pepper

Muffins. These muffins were quite savory, however, I omitted the peppers. Normally

I would have loved to experiment with the peppers but I didn't have any in my apartment

and being that it's negative 100 outside I decided to go with plain, simple corn muffins.

These were as delicious as I thought they would be. My boyfriend is ecstatic to try them.

The only corn muffins I've ever made were from the Jiffy Corn Mix and let me tell you,

that little old school boxed mix better known as Jiffy is officially banned from my kitchen.

These were a cinch to whip up and I loved the corn kernels scattered throughout the

batter. I added an extra few tablespoons of kernels from the recommended 1/4 cup

because, well...er, I heart corn. I also upped the sugar to 1/4 cup for a sweeter taste

since the peppers weren't present. Eat these toasted for breakfast with some jam and I

guarantee you'll be a happy camper =) YUM.

PARTY SWEETS

I had a New Year's eve party in Florida that consisted of fun finger food type of appetizers (i.e. turkey burger sliders and mini steak sandwiches on garlic bread) and crazy amounts of desserts. I displayed all the desserts on this gigantic lazy susan that I found and it truly looked breath-taking! The desserts ranged from cookies to brownies to cupcakes as well as some other fun treats like chocolate covered pretzels and whoopie pies. Rather than creating separate posts for each, just click on the title for their respective recipes. Enjoy!

(1) MINI RED VELVET CUPCAKES WITH BROWN SUGAR CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

(2) CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS

There is no real recipe for these. It's super easy. I bought a mega bar/chunk of white almond bark and melted it according to the package directions. I went on to decorate them with English toffee, chocolate sprinkles, and nonpareils. You can always buy the melting chocolates and change up the colors.

(3) BLACK BOTTOM CUPCAKES

These are too good to be true.

(4) CHOCOLATE WHOOPIE PIES WITH PEANUT BUTTER CREAM FILLING

Peanut butter cream filling recipe found here.

(5) THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, ONCE AGAIN

I went to Walgreen's and bought these great milk chocolate bars on sale. They were literally chocolate bars (about triple the size of regular Hershey bars) filled with a thin milky-type cream. I very coarsely chopped them up and threw them into the dough. They were a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

(6) RED VELVET BLACK AND WHITE COOKIES

Beyond delicious.

(7) MINT CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

An easy chocolate drizzle topped by chocolate mint cream truffle Hershey kisses, these brownies hit the spot.

TWD:FRENCH PEAR TART

Happy New Year everyone! I've been m.i.a. (missing in action) for a couple weeks vacationing in Florida for the holidays. With that said, I have tons and tons of dessert posts to come...
but......
For now, we'll stick to this french pear tart chosen by...wait for it....THE famous Dorie Greenspan herself. Yes, it's true. Our fun-not so little group anymore-is dedicated to Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home To Yours and Dorie made a guest appearance by picking this week's recipe. Listen...Dorie, I love you..I really do. I think you're beyond talented and I totally idolize you; but this tart was not one of my favorites. Not because it wasn't tasty, because it was, but because fruit tarts really aren't my thing. I did, however, love the tart crust. It was sweet and flaky and so much more exciting than regular pie crust. I could have easily just spread raspberry jelly or nutella on this tart shell and been happy. So it goes..

OODLES OF HOLIDAY DESSERTS

Between all the baking and holiday obligations over the last few weeks I've been unable to keep up with the posts/blogging. Therefore I'm just going to post pictures of all the baking I've been doing lately with their respective recipes--click on the title of each for the recipe. Everything was delicious. Happy Holidays!!

First up.....

(1) Chocolate Ganache Tart with Hershey Kissables

(2) Karo's Classic Pecan Pie

(3) Cookie Dough Cheesecake (this was a HUGE hit!)

For the actual cookie dough and the crust I used this recipe

(4) Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie

(5) Black & White Cake

(Baked in a 6inch round pan)

(6) Chocolate Rice Krispy Treats with Mini M&M's

(7) Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

(8) French Breakfast Mini Muffins

(The best muffins I've ever had)