Christmas Cupcakes!

Tomorrow I have a Christmas party with my lab mates at my boss' house, so I decided I would make some chocolate and vanilla Christmas cupcakes. I had made the chocolate cupcakes a couple of times already so I knew they would be delicious, but I never made the vanilla cupcakes so I was excited to try them. I took the recipe for the chocolate cupcakes from Bostonist, and the recipes for the vanilla cupcakes and the buttercream frosting from Joy of Baking.

The vanilla cupcakes came out perfect, but as always, when I baked the chocolate cupcakes they did not raise as they should but rather overflowed... They always do that and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the recipe should call for more baking powder, so next time I will add more to see if that makes a difference. I would love for them to raise and become all round like the vanilla cupcakes did. To make them more Christmas-y, I added red or green food coloring to the buttercream frosting so that I could have red, green and white frosted cupcakes. Well, that was the plan at least. I ran out of red food coloring so those came out rather pink, and the green frosting did not come out as intense as I wanted, but I thought they still looked good. I also added Christmas candies on top and sparkles to complete the look. My favorite part about making cupcakes is always decorating them, so I had a lot of fun doing so.

I think I will do some more during the holidays! So cute and so delicious!

Recipe for chocolate cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, RT

1 1/4 cups granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Recipe for vanilla cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, RT

2/3 cup granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

Recipe for Buttercream Frosting:

2 cups confectioners sugar (aka icing sugar), sifted

1/2 cup unsalted butter, RT

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

It had been a couple of days that I realized that the bananas on my counter were not going to be eaten. Since I hate wasting food, I decided to make a banana bread with chocolate chips. I love bananas and I love chocolate (who doesn't ?!), so the combination could only be successful in my opinion.

The recipe I followed came from the website Recettes du Québec, from a certain person named Boubouu, and it was oh so delicious. The recipe was easy to follow and quite straight forward, and at the end of it all the bread was moist, delicious and tasted just the right amount of chocolate and bananas.

Recipe:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cups butter

3/4 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

3 or 4 over-ripe bananas

Chocolate chips, to taste (optional)

Definitely try it out if you love banana bread, or bananas and chocolate!

Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo with Broccoli

Today I tried something new but quite simple: shrimp fettuccine alfredo with broccoli. I had seen it in a magazine and thought I would try it out. Obviously, it is just your normal fettuccine alfredo plus the added bonus of huge delicious shrimps and broccoli. I had a long day so I was excited to come home and cook this excellent meal.

Although it was quite excellent and tasty, I had one disappointment: the alfredo sauce. I didn't feel like buying the pre-made sauce so I made it from the Knorr Alfredo sauce envelope. Albeit their sauce envelopes are usually very good, this one was a miss. I followed the directions exactly but the result was a liquidy sauce at best. It think the recipe on the back calls for too much milk, thus the reason for the very liquid texture of the "alfredo sauce". It was quite a disappointment since it's what ties the whole dish together, but I was still able to appreciate the goodness of the shrimp-broccoli-fettuccine. Next time I make this dish, I will definitely buy the real stuff for the Alfredo sauce. It will be a much better outcome, of that I am sure.

Recipe:

Fettuccine pasta

Alfredo sauce

Shrimps of preference

Broccoli

Salt