Cakes/Bakes I have made recently series part 3

Hello, Welcome back to The Nook

Todays quote is "People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day" -Winnie the pooh

today I want to share with a part three of my bakes that I have made recently. I am going to share with you 4 bakes. 

The first bake that I what to share with is this cake that I made for a thanksgiving gathering.
the flavour of cake that I had made was my all time favourite (chocolate cake). with buttercream icing. I used thanksgiving colours. yellow, brown, and red. then I covered the top and the sides of the cake with flowers.

The next bake I want to share with you is my favourite chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to see if I could find a different kind of cookie to make,  I can't say no to a chocolate chip cookie! it doesn't matter which chocolate chip cookie recipe is, I'll eat it!

These are my favourite cookies to make, I can't get enough of them! 

chocolate chip cookies

8 TBSP Butter

1/2 Cup sugar

1/4 Cup brown sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

1 Egg

1 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt 

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Microwave the butter for about 40 seconds to melt it.

using a stand mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla and the egg; beat on low speed until just incorporated, about 10 to 15 seconds.

Add the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until crumbles form. Use your hands to press the crumbles 

together into a dough. It should form one large ball that is easy to handle. Add the chocolate chips and mix. Roll out cookies and place on cookie sheets. Bake for  9 to 11 minutes until the cookies look puffy and just golden brown. cool and enjoy.

The next bake I want to share with you is cupcakes. The cupcakes that I made where ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. 

I made these ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes for my friends jack and Jill wedding shower. (a jack and Jill shower is, it is a shower were both the guy and the girl attend the shower.)

I love chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter, so it makes sense to put them together. 

   I have made the cupcakes twice now, because I had so much icing leftover. The second time I made these, I used a different recipe. The original cupcake recipe was a little crumbly, but that could have been because I made them a couple days before the shower. The second time made them I used a recipe that I know tastes good. The peanut butter icing was a little hard to work with, but I managed to make it work.

Ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes

Makes 18 cupcakes 

chocolate cupcakes

3 TBSP coconut OR canola oil

1 stick/ 1/2 cup unsalted butter 

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup & 2 TBSP all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs + 1 egg yolk, room temperature 

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 cup full fat sour cream 

1/2 cup hot water OR hot water

18 peanut butter cups or mini peanut butter cups

Peanut butter frosting 

1 & 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter 

1 cup OR 2 sticks unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

3 cup confectioners sugar

1/4 tsp salt 

3-4 TBSP heavy cream

9 peanut butter cups cut in half or 18 mini peanut butter cups

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Line a 12-cup cupcake/muffin tin with cupcake liners and lightly spray the liners with non-stick spray (optional but it does help them peel right off). Set aside.
Melt the oil, butter, and chocolate together in the microwave, heating in 30 second increments, stirring between. *You can also melt the oil, butter, and chocolate over very low heat on the stove top, but I find the microwave to be much easier. Whisk mixture completely smooth and set aside to cool.In a medium-sized bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt; stir together until thoroughly combined and set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, yolk, sugar and vanilla together; beat until smooth. Add the cooled oil/butter/chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the sour cream. Repeat the process until everything is added, and be sure to mix until JUST combined. Quickly stir in the hot coffee/water. It's important not to over mix, here! Just stir until evenly combined.
Scoop 2 tablespoons of batter into the bottom of each cupcake tin, press a peanut butter cup into the batter, then top with another 3 tablespoons of batter; each cupcake mold should be 3/4 full. You will have leftover batter (enough to make another 6 cupcakes).
Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.
For the Peanut Butter Frosting:

Using an electric mixer, beat the peanut butter and butter on medium-speed until completely smooth. Beat in vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and add in the remaining ingredients, beating until fully incorporated. Increase speed to medium-high and beat the frosting for 1-2 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cooled, spread or pipe the frosting on top then press half of a peanut butter cup on top.

   The next item I want to share with you is my chocolate chip shortbread cookies. 

These shortbread cookies I made for a lady at my church, sargent avenue mennonite church. Of course like always I look on pintrest for recipes, and I found this one. I remember trying shortbread before and not liking it. These shortbread tasted really good, plus they had chocolate chips in it and we dipped in chocolate. I really liked them, I could get enough of them but I could only test one.

If your interested here is the recipe.

chocolate shortbread cookies

1 cup butter

2/3 cup powdered sugar 

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

8 oz chocolate wafers

Instructions

• In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla extract and beat until combined.
  Add in flour and mix just until flour disappears. Fold in mini chocolate chips.
  Transfer dough to a gallon-sized resealable plastic bag, or place between two layers of plastic wrap. Roll until 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate on a flat surface until firm, about 1 to 2 hours.
  Remove dough from plastic and use a butter knife to cut into equal-sized squares or rectangles. Transfer cut pieces to a parchment lined baking sheet.
  Bake at 325 degrees for 18-20 minutes, until edges are just lightly kissed with brown.
  Melt dipping chocolate in a small microwave safe bowl by microwaving on high for 30 seconds at a time, stirring between. Dip cookies in chocolate covering 1/3 or 1/2 of the cookie and transfer to parchment paper to harden.
  
  If you like my blog and don't want to miss a post, hit that subscribe button.
  Have a lovely day,
  Until next time.
  
  
  
  
  here's where you can find me 
  Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
  Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
  Baking instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/
  Twitter:https://twitter.com/MadelineEnns 

Im back- 5 months later

Hello and welcome back to my blog. Todays quote is "What I like doing best is nothing" says Christopher Robin, How do you do nothing says pooh its when people call out , "what are you going to do , Christopher Robin?" And you say, "Oh nothing" and then you go and do it."
sometimes I just like to do nothing myself.

The last blog that I posted was October 10th 2019, 5 months ago. Since then a lot has happened, and not in a particularly good way. It was around April of 2013 when I thought that I needed new glasses. Long story short I went to the optometric and found out that there was something pushing on my optic nerve, which was what we found to be a brain tumour. I didn't know what a brain tumour was, but I knew that it needed to be removed. To be honest I was scared to have surgery, I just wanted to get this over with.  I got a lot of visitors and gifts which distracted me from the fact that I was in the hospital which was good. After spending sometime in the hospital, I got to go home!
so that's the first thing that happened to me.
   After being away from the daycare for a bit, I decided to go back. in December I believe it was, I was in the kitchen making muffins when I started to have a seizure. my head kept shaking and I couldn't form any words. this was scary to me because I didn't know what was going on. I spent a couple days in the hospital. this time when I was in the hospital it was not very enjoyable, because it was very noisy. When I finally got to leave the hospital, I was excited to be home in my own bed!
  since the hospital I have not been doing much. mostly lying on the couch and watching tv/movies. I have been trying to push myself to do yoga and go for walks, but for me its not that easy.  I have been having game nights with my aunties and been doing some painting, so that has kept me busy-ish.

This year has been a little unexpected and I hope everything goes back to normal-ish. By normal for me I mean having a little more energy and maybe not having to take so many pills, also I hope that the corona virus is gone and we can be safe again.
thanks for reading and don't forget to be safe and wash your hands!!!
Leave a comment if you would like.

Heres where you can find me
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
baking instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/

until next time, bye