OMGSNAX!

val texted me this afternoon while sarah & i were off frolicking in forest park (frolicking WITH PURPOSE, of course) — she wanted to know if we were doing dinner, &, if so, if cupcakes could be arranged. i knew EXACTLY where to go for a recipe — the cupcake blog that i’d bookmarked some time ago.

now i’m not much of a cupcake fan — frosting squicks me out on principle & it’s just not my thing. i like cookies. but the idea took root that maybe i’d just only had gross store-bought cupcakes or ones made from a mix (never good), so i didn’t want to give the cupcake family short shrift in toto without trying it for myself.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs

METHOD
preheat oven to 350 degrees.

measure out everything but the eggs directly into your mixer bowl. mix on low speed just until incorporated. beat on high speed for 2 minutes. add eggs, beat on high speed again for 2 minutes.

measure out into cupcake pan lined with cupcake papers. a 2″ ice cream scoop works great for this. bake for about 15-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. let cool slightly in the pan then transfer to a rack to cool completely before frosting.

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING INGREDIENTS
1 stick butter
1/2 cup cocoa
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
~1/4 cup milk

METHOD
beat butter on high for about 30 seconds until soft. add cocoa & 1 cup of sugar & beat until incorporated. add half of the milk & the remainder of sugar & beat until incorporated. continue to add milk until you get to the consistency you want.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
well, if you ignore the part where i got chocolate cupcake batter all over my shirt, the toaster, the counter, the floor, & my neck, i’d say this went pretty smoothly. (stupid handmixer. if i’d been at home we could’ve used my kitchenaid!) i forgot to get liners when i went to the store so that was a little bit annoying, but the cupcakes came out fine for the most part. the first batch was filled a little full, so they overflowed, but the second batch came out beautifully round & pillowy.

the buttercream was a little stiff — we actually added a little more milk than the recipe called for in an attempt to make it squishier, but ultimately i think it came down to a combination of thick frosting & poor tools — we used ziploc baggies with the tips cut off to “pipe” the frosting onto the cupcakes, but this was uneven & overly thick, resulting in cupcakes with entirely too much frosting on top.

also, & maybe this is just a function of cupcakes, i thought they were a little dry. dave agreed with me, though val & sarah & daniel thought they were just fine. i guess what i’m saying is that i’d be willing to try cupcakes again, but maybe not this recipe. i think something denser would make my mouth happier.

“Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream” from cupcake bake shop by chockylit.

my dear friend (the ever-inventive thaumata) posted this recipe recently & i decided that if she could stay up all night making delicious desserts, well, so could i. i’d last-minuted my way to a house show at MapleHood World Headquarters (aka my house) & felt the urge to provide snacks (especially in light of my new NO BOOZE NO DRUGS NO JERKS rule).

she posted them as Oreo Truffles, but when i told my mom about the recipe, she said that it sounded like a white trash dip one of her co-workers made for a holiday party & i thought that maybe i’d appropriate the name for this dessert as well.

INGREDIENTS
1 8-oz pkg cream cheese
1 pkg oreos
2 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
in a blender, grind up 9 oreos & set aside.

grind remaining oreos. combine with softened cream cheese. roll into bite-sized balls, dip into chocolate, sprinkle with reserved oreo crumbs, & drizzle with white chocolate.

refrigerate.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
here’s how to combine the oreos & cream cheese: use a pastry blender! so much easier. other options, in descending order of preference: potato masher, large serving fork, fingers, spoon.

this makes about fifty two-bite truffles — any smaller & they’d get lost in the chocolate. which, speaking of, i still haven’t figured out a good way to dip them in the melted chocolate without burning my fingers in some way, b/c they’re too soft to stay on a fork (even a customized “dipping fork,” aka a plastic fork with the center tines broken out) — but here’s a tip about melting chocolate: use a double boiler. either that, or melt VERY SLOWLY on low heat, b/c the trouble with melting chocolate is that you can make it angry by heating it too much or too quickly & it’ll clump up instead of staying smooth. the double boiler is really best, though — you can just bring the water to a boil in the bottom pot & then remove it from the heat once the chocolate is melted & it should stay exactly how you want it.

i wound up dipping the truffles by hand into the chocolate, then spooning more over the tops to cover up — i just couldn’t come up with an effective enrobing technique. it was a little bit frustrating, but so totally worth it.

the white chocolate drizzling part was my favorite — just melt the white chocolate using the same method, then spoon it into a ziploc bag. make a tiny cut on one of the corner of the bag, & pipe it through over the top of the truffles. very festive!

the best part about this was that i thought enough ahead to line the cookie sheet with parchment paper for easy clean-up — then i just refrigerated the truffles on the cookie sheet for a couple hours till they were set. they were really easy to pull off the parchment paper once the chocolate had hardened, & there was very little mess!

as far as how they tasted: i’ll admit i was a little wary (cream cheese + oreos = ???) but they were SO GOOD. val said that they tasted like love.

“White Trash Truffles” from thaumata

an OMGSNAX! special edition

when i was a little kid — i’m talking little, like before kindergarten little — my best friend was a girl who lived in our neighborhood named emily. we spent a lot of time playing together & generally being weird; we made up songs about spelling, including our favorite word: “that’s B-U-T-T BUTT!”

emily’s mom passed this recipe along to my mom around this time, & it’s been a christmas cookie staple in my family ever since. my initial plan was to make these thursday night after my family’s thanksgiving dinner so i could bring them to daniel’s grandparents’ house when i left town first thing friday morning — but now he’s staying here, & i was really feeling the need for some quality baking time with cookie impresario valeriebee, so the plan changed.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
48 maraschino cherries (1 10-oz jar)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
4 teaspoons cherry juice

DIRECTIONS
preheat oven to 350 degrees. in a small bowl, combine flour & cocoa powder. set aside. in a large mixing bowl, cream butter & sugar. add baking soda, baking powder, & salt. beat in egg & vanilla. gradually add remaining dry ingredients.

shape dough into balls & place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. make an indentation in the center of each ball with your thumb, & place a cherry in the indentation.

for the icing, combine chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, & cherry juice in a small saucepan over low heat, & then spoon over the top of each cherry. bake for 8 to 10 minutes. yield: 48 cookies.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
val did most of the work on these while i washed the dinner dishes, so i can’t say for sure that there weren’t any deviations — & the dough was slightly drier than usual which was a little suspicious — but they turned out just fine so who’s complaining? they weren’t as pretty as usual (my fault — i’m used to applying the icing with a small spatula instead of a soup spoon, which is what was available in daniel’s kitchen, so the icing ran a little), but they tasted the same as they always do!

“Chocolate Cherry Cookies” from joanne nilges.