Chocolate-Fudge Cookie Bites

Hi, my name is Deanna and I'm a sugaraholic.

Hi Deanna.

Yes, it's true. What? You didn't guess by the fact that I started a BLOG ABOUT BAKING that I have a serious sweet tooth? Well, I do. Baking makes me happy. Trying new sugar-coated sweets makes me happy. Filling up on cake instead of steamed broccoli makes me happy. But you know what doesn't make me happy? The fact that I woke up one day and none of my pants fit. Winter is fast approaching and I had to go out and buy new pants. I hadn't really noticed this gradual expansion of my middle because it didn't just happen all of a sudden like that horrible Freshman 15 I experienced years back. It was slow, one day at a time, or maybe I should say one cupcake at a time.

Do you remember this post? The one were I announced my engagement? I'm pretty sure that gaining weight is the last thing I want to be doing, if I plan on walking down the isle in a white dress. So, to all my fellow sugar lovers, I'm happy to announce that I've decided to join Weight Watchers (WW) in order to gain some control over my sweet tooth. WW is wonderful for those of us who still want to indulge. Before, if I baked cupcakes, I'd eat at least two of them and probably after dim sum for lunch and pizza for dinner. Now, I can still have a cupcake, but I better eat healthy for the rest of the day in order to have enough points left over for that oh-so-mouth-watering reward. I started almost a month ago and am happy to report that I've been doing pretty well. I definitely recommend WW for anyone looking to make a life-style change with healthier eating habits. The accountability factor is what works best for me. The fact that I have to go to a meeting every week and own up to my decisions, keeps me on track.

So what does all this mean for Occasional Sugar? Pretty much nothing. I'll continue to bake but I'll be making healthier choices with some of my recipes. Trying out some of the desserts on the WW.com and delving more deeply into my favorite magazine, Cooking Light. The recipe I'm going to share with you today came from the WW website. Each cookie is worth 1 point. They were pretty tasty. They substitute apple sauce for the majority of the fat which I've heard about before but have never tried. I couldn't tell the difference really. I'm sure they would have tasted better with more butter but these were still moist and delicious. Chocolaty. Best right out of the oven. They were received well by my softball team and they were super easy to bake.

Chocolate-Fudge

Cookie Bites

from weightwatchers.com

1 spray cooking spray, or more if needed

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/4 cup margarine, softened

3/4 cup sugar

4 oz unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp table salt

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Coat two nonstick cookie sheets with cooking spray.

Place cocoa, margarine and sugar in a medium bowl; beat with an electric mixer. Add applesauce and vanilla; beat to blend. In another small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into cocoa batter with a wooden spoon.

Shape batter into 48 marble-sized balls. Arrange balls 1 inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake until set, about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow cookies to stand for 1 minute. Remove to wire rack and cool; sprinkle with powdered sugar. Makes about 50 cookies.

Spooky Sweets at Disneyland

Those of you who know me well, know I have a slight obsession with The Happiest Place on Earth. Lucky for me, Eric loves going there too. We probably average about 3 trips a year and our absolute FAVORITE time to go is around the holidays when it's all decorated for Christmas. This year, we decided that it would be fun to check out the Halloween festivities. Disney has really been pushing the television ads on us, promoting the new Halloween fireworks show and the spooky remodel of Space Mountain. It was so much fun! Here are some pics of the decorations.

Main Street

Haunted Mansion

Candy Corn Corn at California Adventure

We stopped at the Blue Ribbon Bakery on Main Street for some espresso and sweet treats. Look at how cute everything is! We split the Pumpkin Muffin (lower right). It was very moist with a cream cheese frosting and a candy Mickey Mouse Pumpkin on top. I was a good girl and said "no" to the cupcakes even though they were so adorable. I think my favorite were the candy apples decorated like Mickey Jack-O-Lanterns.

We stayed late so we could watch the fireworks which were amazing as usual. I'm already planning a trip back for the holidays!

Happy Halloween!!

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

I cheated.

I'm sad to admit that this post will not contain a recipe. Why? Because I cheated. I baked cupcakes for a softball game and I used a box for the cake batter. A box, people! I am so ashamed.

Although no excuse is going to be good enough, let me explain anyway. For my softball team last week I REALLY wanted to bake cupcakes (kind of a trend considering my last post was also about cupcakes) because the day before our game was my sister's birthday. For me, cupcakes and birthdays go together like peanut butter and jelly - a perfect combination. However, I didn't have the time or ingredients to bake a scratch recipe in time for the game. We had just driven back from a trip to Southern California that day and only had a couple hours until game time. After some pondering and cabinet searching, I came across a box of chocolate cake mix. I promptly threw the mix in my mixer along with the eggs, oil, and water. SO easy! Why don't I do this all the time? Well, because I feel like I'm cheating. For me, using the box takes about half the fun out of the whole baking process. I can taste the difference when I opt for more high-quality ingredients. I'd like to say that I'll never cheat again but I'm only human and never is a very long time.

To add a personal touch to these cupcakes, I decided to add a filling and scratch buttercream. For the filling, I just used some raspberry preserves. I used a small round fondant cutter to remove a cylinder of cake from the top center of each cooled cupcake. I spooned in the preserves and then replaced the removed cake piece.

For the buttercream, I just mixed up my usual concoction of a stick of softened butter, about 1 lb of powdered sugar, a small amount of milk, and this time I substituted about a 1/2 cup or raspberry preserves for the vanilla. Then, just continue to add more and more powdered sugar (almost up to 2 lbs total by the end) until it reaches the consistency I like for piping. One of these days, I'll get around to doing a whole post just on buttercream, complete with step-by-step photos. One of these days.

The cupcakes came out wonderfully! They were beautiful and the filling added some extra moisture to that light and boring box cake. The day-old ones were even better as the filling had more time to permeate more of the cake. Adding the preserves to the frosting also gave them a cute, natural pink color. Happy birthday, Sis!

Another Game, Another Tailgate, Another Cupcake

Another tailgate, toasting the end of another humdrum A's baseball season. Hey, at least we got 3 big tailgates out of it. Those are a lot more fun than the games, in my option. It was closing weekend for the A's a few weeks ago and we had a couple friends attending their very first tailgate with us. They are Occasional Sugar readers so I figured cupcakes were expected. For these I used what is currently my favorite cupcake recipe and I topped them with regular-old buttercream. To make them a bit more festive, I used yellow wrappers and my absolute favorite in my color collection, Kelly Green, for the frosting. I think they came out pretty cute.

The game was pretty boring. The A's lost.

On the bright side, for the very first time in all my years of going to A's games, I actually got a picture with Stomper!!

Do you think he did this on purpose?

Butterscotch Cashew Bars

I think I've mentioned this before, but I subscribe to about 100 blogs and about 95% of said blogs are about baking. My usual routine is to log into my Google Reader each morning and scroll through every post I haven't read yet. If I see a recipe that strikes my fancy, I'll label it with a category (cookies, pies, cupcakes, etc...) so it gets organized into category folders I can reference later when I can't come up with something to bake. Since returning from my trip, I've gotten about 3 weeks behind on my reading. This equals over 500 unread posts just sitting there, waiting for me to discover all the delicious photography that will most definitely make my stomach growl and my mouth salivate all over my desk. I'll catch up some day, I promise.

I think I saw this photo of Butterscotch Cashew Bars back when I first started my little Occasional Sugar baking blog. I could NOT get them out of my head. Every time I would search for a recipe to try, I would click on this one first, ogle it for a minute, and then decide against it because I didn't want to go to the store and buy cashews AND butterscotch chips. But as soon as I got back from my trip, I had these on the brain. I had some ingredient replenishing to do anyway so I finally bought the cashews and butterscotch chips and I baked these up for my softball team last week. They were a hit! So yummy and received many compliments from my teammates. After biting into the first one, I thought they were too sweet and that the butterscotch was overpowering the the cashews - after all I am big on the salty sweet combo thing. But these just kept getting better and better. The crust is so buttery. They are a bit messy but they just melt in your mouth. I must have eaten at least four. Actually I lied, I probably had five (six).

Butterscotch Cashew Bars

from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, Melissa Murphy

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 & 1/4 tsps salt

2 & 1/2 cups AP flour

11 ounces butterscotch chips

3/4 cup light corn syrup

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon water

2 cups roasted salted whole cashews

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9x 13 pan. Using two sheets of parchment paper, line the pan’s width and length, creating a parchment “sling.” Grease parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter, brown sugar, and salt for 1 to 1 & 1/2 minutes on medium speed. Decrease mixer speed to low and add the flour. Mix just until combined. Lightly press dough evenly into the prepared pan. Poke holes in the dough with a fork. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the crust is a golden color. Remove to wire rack to cool.

In a heavy saucepan over low heat, stir together butterscotch chips, corn syrup, and water. Stir until mixture comes to a simmer and butterscotch chips are melted. Pour over crust.

Sprinkle cashews over the butterscotch caramel. Bake for 5 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. After cooling, remove from pan and use a very sharp knife to cut into bars.

Makes 2 dozen 2-inch bars.

Germany and London - 2009

I wanted to share some of my favorite photographs and experiences from my recent trip to Europe. I've always wanted to go to Oktoberfest ever since a good friend of mine went a few years ago and said it was her favorite experience she had in Europe. I went with my fiancé, Eric and two of my girlfriends, Monica and Megan. We had a blast! We also added on a few days in London to round out the trip.

Here I am with Eric in my Dirndl (traditional German dress). Those are the beers they serve at the fest. These things bruised my hands!

German food is excellent. My favorites were the 1/2 Rotisserie Chicken, the potato dumplings, and the spätzle (a cheesy pasta). During the festival, servers would carry around these giant pretzels. We would share one four ways.

And of course there were the desserts! I didn't get a chance to sample as many as I would have liked but I definitely got my hands on some apple strudel. It was amazing, light pastry crust and stuffed to the gills with gooey apple filling.

We took a break from beerfest one day to go see Neuschwanstein Castle, commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria. This castle inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle seen in the animated film as well as at Disneyland Park.

During the long trek up to the castle, you get an awesome view of Castle HohenScwangau and Forggensee Lake which inspired Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

After 5 very full days of bier drinking, we were ready for our tour of London.

We saw the sights...

Enjoyed some theater...

And made sure there was time left over for dessert!

We liked the pastry selection at this small Italian restaurant and each ordered a different slice of cake and an espresso drink. I had the carrot cake (after making sure there were no raisins included!) and it was quite good. The frosting was closer to a buttercream than cream cheese but it still complimented the cake nicely.

I sampled everyone's and decided that my favorite was Monica's chocolate-chip cheesecake. The cake was the dryer form of cheesecake, not like the recipe I use, but it was very good and it just looked so pretty loaded up with all that chocolate.

AND, we happened to come across a cupcakery in Convent Garden called Candy Cakes. I guess they are chain and have four locations throughout London. These little cupcakes may not have been my favorite I've ever tasted, but check out the colors! They were hypnotic.

Monica and Megan split the Double Chocolate and the cake was a bit dry. Eric and I split the Berry Blast. It was more like a blueberry muffin than a cupcake, with a very sweet sugar glaze on the top. This cake, however was very moist and enjoyable.

So that's about it for my trip. If you have an opportunity to visit either of these two countries, I would highly recommend it. We had so much fun and are already planning our next trip abroad!