#5 -Jack Daniel's Cupcakes

Jack Daniel's Dark Chocolate Cupcakes 

What they're supposed to look like.

Original Source: Fields of Cake

As I said in THIS recipe, I'm not a chocolate lover. Neither is my father, really. So why then did I feel the need to make these for Father's Day? Well because it contains strong coffee and Jack Daniel's. It was certainly worth a shot!

Let me say upfront, this is NO simple recipe. It's not horribly hard, either. But if you don't like following several steps (some painstaking) then this may not be the recipe for you. But I'll let you decide that.

Here's what you'll need:

(I'm breaking this down into each step because the original site was a bit confusing)

For the cupcakes:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp kosher salt (I used regular salt because I was out of Kosher!)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup super strong coffee (Note: The original recipe didn't specify, but I let mine cool for fear of cooking the eggs. This may not have been necessary, but the cooled coffee worked fine.)
• 1/2 Cup Jack Daniel's Whiskey
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

In another bowl, combine eggs, coffee,  whiskey, buttermilk and oil.

Pour egg mixture into flour mixture and whisk until blended.

Spoon into prepared cupcake cups, about half full.

Bake 18-20 minutes until tops spring back slightly when touched and let cool completely.

While those are baking:

Dark Chocolate Whiskey Ganache:

What you'll need:

• 16 oz good quality chocolate chopped into small pieces
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 TBSP unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup Jack Daniel's Whiskey

Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set aside

Heat heavy cream until just boiling, then pour over chocolate.

Cover chocolate and cream for 2 minutes so chocolate can soften.

Uncover and stir until smooth.

Stir in butter and mix completely.

Stir in Whiskey and mix completely.

Cool.

Last Bit:

Dark Chocolate Whiskey Buttercream

What you'll need:

• 1 lb unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3 oz package vanilla, white chocolate, or cheesecake instant pudding mix (I used cheesecake)
• 2 cups Dark Chocolate Whiskey Ganache (See above)
• 1/2 cup sifted cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• more Whiskey to taste

Mix butter and pudding mix on medium high for several minutes.

Add ganache, cocoa powder and cream.

Beat for several more minutes.

Add powdered sugar a bit at a time, tasting till it becomes as sweet as you want it, then beat for several more minutes.

Add whiskey by the tablespoon until its as strong as you want it.

** Note: I made part of the ganache and the icing without using additional whiskey so my kids could eat it. The rest, I used quite a bit to give my dad a treat.

**** Second note: The original source for this recipe had no easy to find instructions on filling the cupcake with the ganache, so I had to figure it out on my own. It came out just fine, so I'm putting those instructions here.

FILLING THE CUPCAKES WITH THE GANACHE:

I simply took a butter knife and cut a small hole in the center of each cupcake, lifting the bottom of the hole with my finger to keep the removed chunk in tact. Spooned in a bit of ganache, and placed the chunk of cupcake back to cover it. Worked great!

Ice the cupcakes to your liking. As for me, I didn't have any fancy baking tools, so i filled a ziplock bag with the icing, clipped the corner, and used that to ooze the thick icing onto the cupcakes in a pretty fashion. I also topped with a few chocolate chips.

That's it! Have a great meal and express your saucy side!

Heather

#4 -Bacon Appetizers

What we're making

I was looking for something simple yet tasting to make when I came across these little beauties. They only have three ingredients, so it doesn't get much simpler than that. And, it has bacon so tasty is definitely covered with that one!

What you'll need:

Club crackers

bacon (cut in half)

grated Parmesan and Romano cheese

(Yes, that's really all the requirements)

First, line up some crackers tops up, then sprinkle them with a teaspoon of the cheese. (One of the suggestions was to use brown sugar, and since i love maple bacon, i thought I'd give this a try, too.)

Once all the crackers are covered with your choice of topping, wrap each carefully with half a strip of bacon. You want this to be snug, but don't pull it too tight, and make sure both ends of the crackers are covered with bacon. Place on a baking sheet with a wire rack (mine wasn't wired, but it worked just as well I think since it allowed the bacon grease to drain away.)

Cook in a 250* oven for two hours.

What it looked like

Suggested changes? Nothing. These things are awesome! The cheese ones are slightly salty (to me because I don't eat salt) and the brown sugar ones are a little chewy and slightly sweet (but not too much so because I don't eat sugary stuff either and I liked them).

Will I make these again? You bet'cha! They are so easy to make that really the hardest thing you'll have to do is find a way to keep your stomach from gnawing away at your backbone as your house fills with the wonderful aroma of bacon.

That's it! Have a great meal and express your saucy side!

Laura

#3 -Puffy Vanilla and Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

What they were supposed to look like:         

(Original Source: Six Sisters' Stuff)

As a chocolate non-lover, I LOVE finding good desserts that leave out cocoa. Especially peanut butter cookies, which is strange because I'm not even particularly fond of peanut butter in other recipes. Just cookies.

The recipe calls for chilling the dough for thirty minutes, and I decided to chill half of it, and cook the other half fresh just to see if there was any difference. If there was, no one in my family could tell.

So, here's what you need:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Crisco (or vegetable shortening)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt, optional
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup peanut butter chips (Husband helped make these and after adding the chips, he said "That's not crap," and threw in some extras)

What to do: 

Preheat oven to 375 F and  spray cookie sheet with cooking spray. 

Beat together Crisco, sugars, egg, water, and vanilla, until batter is creamy. 

Add the cinnamon, salt, baking soda, flour and mix until just combined. 

Fold in peanut butter chips by hand. Cover and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes or freeze for 15 if you’re rushed. Do not skip chilling the dough if you want puffy cookies because cold dough results in puffier cookies. (See above for my thoughts on this.)

Using a cookie scoop, form 1 inch balls (or roll balls by hand) and place on prepared cookie sheets, allowing for adequate spacing (these cookies do not spread much, but like all cookies, they spread some; and the colder the dough, the less they will spread). Bake for 8-10 minutes or until barely brown. Remove cookies from oven when they look slightly under-baked and allow cookies to cool and firm up on cookie sheets for at least 5 minutes before moving to cooling racks. Store cookies in an airtight container on the counter top or freeze for up to 3 months.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Thoughts: YUM! Everyone liked them, though again, no one could tell a difference between the chilled dough version and cooking right away. Also, the peanut butter chips don't melt and get all gooey like chocolate chips. They were soft and creamy, but if you didn't get one in the bite, then you couldn't really tell it was a peanut butter cookie. It tasted more like a cinnamon sugar cookie or a mild snickerdoodle. Maybe putting some actual peanut butter in the mix or adding alot more chips might be more peanut buttery goodness.

Will definitely put this in my keeper box, however, and tweak it every now and then till I find what we like best.

That's it! Have a great meal and express your saucy side!

Heather

#2-Bake-In-Apples Pie

Idea came from Domestic Dilettante

When four-year-old Girl Child calls and says, "Mom, I'm coming to your house and we're making apple pie." any mom would do what I did, run out to buy the stuff to make her apple pie! Since this is my first post, and I've been eyeballing these little beauties for months now, I thought this would be the perfect apple pie for us to make.

What you'll need:
                 4 large Granny Smith apples that can stand on their own
                 ¼ Cup sugar
                                  1 Tablespoon brown sugar
                                  1 Teaspoon cinnamon
                                 










  (Four year old Girl Child Optional)

Steps:

Preheat oven to 375

Cut tops off apples and scoop out the insides. Because Girl Child has an unnatural fear of seeds ending up in her pie, we opted to discard the scooped apples for three medium Granny Smith apples instead.

Add the sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon to the bowl and fold ingredients together until combined.

Optional Step:

Have Girl Child taste apple mixture and add additional cinnamon and sugar if needed. (We got an, It’s Perfect!, with the suggested amounts so we’re good.) Once you have the mixture to your liking, fill hollowed apples.

Roll out the pie crust (can use homemade, but to cut down on mess and frustration, we went with a boxed one), and using a pizza cutter, slice into ¼ inch stripes for the lattice pattern to cover tops of apples and place in a backing dish with just enough water to cover bottom. (Note: Stripes are slightly larger than recommended -- Girl Child determined that’s the size they needed to be.)

Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes, then uncover and cook for an additional 20 minutes until crust is golden.

What ours looked like:

Difficulty level:

This gets a 3.5 on the difficulty scale. They’re not hard to make but Granny Smiths are a firm apple and getting them scooped out without breaking the outside is, well, a pain in the . . . hands.

Impressions:

Boy Child was not happy that he couldn’t try this new treat (he’s allergic so can’t have them), 

but a few mini pepperoni perked him right up.

Girl Child devoured her filling and asked for more.

Though we had fun making our Baked-In-Apple Pies, this is something we’ll have to save for special occasions. The filling is fantastic, not too sweet and lots of cinnamon-y flavor, but the texture of the baked apple wasn’t a hit.

That's it! Have a great meal and express your saucy side!

Laura

#1-Cheesy Bacon Oven Chips with Chipotle Ranch Sauce

(Original recipe source: Vittles and Bits)

I think you can see by the picture above why I chose this as my first adventure recipe. Looks completely nomalicious. My fear? My son wouldn't go for it. He doesn't do cheese. But he DOES do bacon. Maybe the bacon would be enough to entice him. So I went for it.

I immediately had to make one change, however. The original recipe serves 2. I have 4 mouths to feed, and though tonight when I made this one, I only had 3, I still had to double to recipe to feed us all. So the ingredients below are for 4 servings, not 2.

WHAT YOU NEED FOR THE POTATOES:

1. 4 medium baking potatoes - sliced to about 1/8 in thick. (I used a food processor for this and it cut them perfectly)
2. cooking spray (Sadly, I was out of this, so I used Crisco for greasing the baking sheet and olive oil on the potatoes)
3. 1 1/2 cup colby jack shredded cheese
4. salt and pepper to taste
5. about 4 slices of crumbled bacon (4 TBSP)
6. chopped parsley or chives for garnish (optional) (I used parsley)

WHAT YOU NEED FOR THE DIP:

1. 4 TBSP Ranch dressing
2. 6 TBSP sour cream
3. 1/4 tsp chipolte chili powder (this stuff was pretty expensive but I'm sure I'll use the heck out of it)
4. 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (less if you don't like spicy food)
5. 1/4 tsp salt
6. 1/4 tsp garlic powder

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  
• Bring sliced potatoes to a boil in enough cold, salted water to just cover the potatoes. Boil for 5 minutes.

• Drain potatoes, then dry by placing in paper towels.
• Pat dry to make sure all water is gone
• Grease a baking sheet with cooking spray --or Crisco if, like me, you didn't realize you were out of cooking spray.

• On the baking sheet, arrange the potatoes so they are overlapping slightly, then spray with cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil. (I think the spray is probably a better method to making the salt stick, but since I was out, I had to make do.)

• Sprinkle potatoes with cheese & bacon.  
• Bake  until cheese is melted, about 13 minutes.  Serve with chipotle ranch sauce (recipe below).
• 
  

RANCH SAUCE

Place all ingredients in a small bowl, and stir to combine.

WHAT IT TURNED OUT TO BE:

Final thoughts:

Taste: All 3 of us liked it. Son didn't even mind the cheese. They looked far creamier, tastier in the original recipe, but these were definitely good. 

Something I'll incorporate into favorite recipes? Probably not.

Difficulty level: Not difficult. Maybe a 5 on a scale of 10. But the prep work (Drying the potatoes and layering them on the pan) were a bit tedious for a hurried dinner.

Recommended changes: Not sure what I would change. Something to make the potatoes a little less dry, but not sure what that would be.

That's it! Have a great meal and express your saucy side!

Heather