Tuesdays with Dorie Post Number 19: Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

Eat more chocolate! Save a pumpkin! Thankfully, this week's recipe Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes was chosen by Clara of IHeartFood4Thought and is a recipe that has no pumpkin! Imagine the horror that we pumpkins feel each year as millions of us are consumed in pies, cakes, bread and other seasonal travesties.

What a wonderful fall treat. Seasonal cupcake paper, festive orange sprinkles....please...enjoy a chocolate cupcake this fall. Pumpkins everywhere thank you for your understanding during this difficult time of the year.

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 18: Pumpkin Muffins

This week's baking adventure brought to you by Tuesdays with Dorie is Pumpkin Muffins. The recipe was chosen by Kelly at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp, and if you would like the recipe, it will be posted there.

Frodo was supposed to be here to share some insights on pumpkin muffins, but he ran into some trouble with chocolate a few posts back, and couldn't be here to share.
Shelob is here in his stead.
She loves the pumpkin muffins, and I wouldn't argue with her!

Homemade Oreos

Oh my goodness! This was not the recipe for me to find! The cookie is crunchy and chocolate-ey, the frosting is sweet and vanilla-ey! Dip them in milk and pure heaven!

The recipe comes from Smitten Kingdom and is wonderful! I cut the recipe in half, subbing egg white for the full egg in the cookie dough. Butterbur and Juniper were very interested in the cookie process, especially the icing. I'm not sharing these either!

Cakespy Cat

Well, do you see the resemblance? Butterbur is posing with my latest acquisition: a beautiful watercolor courtesy of Cakespy's talented artist: Jessie Oleson. If you are interested in checking out all of the fun cupcake themed art, check out Cakespy or the Etsy Store.

Juniper is a little jealous, so I may need to order one for her to pose with.

Tuesdays with Dorie Post Number 17: Lenox Almond Biscotti

Greetings all, Juniper here. This week's Tuesday with Dorie will not feature a lovable plastic character, but instead will be narrated by none other then the sweetest small white cat ever. I have been falsely portrayed on other occasions, but I'm here to tell you that I am not a hindrance to Rigby's activities. This week I stayed under the kitchen table in order to observe the process that went into making Lenox Almond Biscotti, a recipe chosen by Gretchen of Canela and Comino.
C3PO tried to take notes on the biscotti making, but I eat guys like him for lunch.
Anyway, the view from under the table was interesting. First, Rigby measured out all of her ingredients. I kept hoping that she would spill something so I could help clean it up, but nothing ended up where it didn't belong. The mixer was put to work, and I could hear the sounds of cookie dough coming together. Rigby then plopped dough onto baking sheets. She pulled out a ruler and kept measuring something. Evidently this didn't work out the way she thought because when she pulled the baking sheet out of the oven later, she looked a little surprised by what she saw. I kept hoping she might let me see....but, no.
I fell asleep for awhile, so I missed what was going on in the kitchen, but when I opened my eyes Rigby was putting slices of Biscotti on the cooling rack. She put on a pot of coffee and sampled the cookies. I came out from under the table hoping to get a taste, but I was steered back to the cat food. Next week Rigby is going to make Pumpkin Muffins and I am determined to taste them!

The Sweet 100

This is one of those lists that you don't want to admit to having too high of a score...however after tabulating my results, I don't think that will be a problem!

Sweet 100:
1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you’ve eaten!
3) Cross out any of them that you’d never ever eat.
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your “To Do” List.
5) Italic the ones you have made

I'm adding a sixth step:
For any items experienced on the "To Do" list after posting the list, change the font to red. Hopefully I'll keep coming back to this and adding to it.

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars) and a non dairy version
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca “pearls”)
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies
22. Croquembouche
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe
62. An “upside down” dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S’mores
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire’s Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

Hmmm....33%....I have some eating to do :)

Tuesdays with Dorie Post Number 16: Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Greetings, I am C-3PO, human cyborg relations. I am afraid I am not much of a story teller, but I have been summoned from the far corners of the galaxy to share with you the tale of a Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake and how it came to be.
The cake was born of chocolate and butter and flour, and its creator referred to the great book of culinary reference: Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Truly, Dorie Greenspan is a Master Jedi of baking. The recipe was chosen by Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy, and has been created by the many Jedi apprentice bakers of the Tuesdays with Dorie clan.

Creating a chocolate cake worthy of space travel is no easy task. In order to achieve light speed, a cake must be small and aerodynamic, and so the cakes were made miniature by way of muffin pans. Nurtured by the warmth of the oven, the cakes grew to gargantuan size, and when they came from the oven, they had baked onto the top of the pan. And so the chocolate cakes separated, the saucer sections destined for space travel without the burden of the bulky cargo bottoms.

Those who enjoy chocolate must have room for cargo, so the separation was not destined to last.
And so the delightful but ominous caramel sauce was harvested. Caramel sauce hails from the seventh moon of Napecuas, and must be collected when it is deep and amber in color. The trip to Napecuas is treacherous as the Empire is ever watchful of caramel traders. The caramel was not quite ready to be collected, and turned to a thick crusty glaze. It did its job well though, as it served as an adhesive between the saucer and cargo sections of the chocolate cake space ships.
Crusted with peanuts and blazoned with the thick layer of Napecuas caramel, the chocolate cake craft will provide many in the Rebellion a reliable way to travel the galaxy. And that is the tale of the Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake. If you will excuse me now, I believe that I hear the faint call of Ewoks and they can be ever so demanding.