Guest Post: Sarah’s Red Velvet Puppy Chow Cupcakes

I am so excited to share my first “guest post” from none-other-than my childhood friend Sarah Beth Taylor!

Although constantly being engaged with social media can sometimes be exhausting, it can also be very rewarding! Last month Sarah found me on Instagram through a mutual friend!

I was so excited when she reached out to me as I have not seen her in at least 12 years!  We grew up taking dance classes together in Oklahoma, but lost touch in high school.

Funny enough, Sarah and I have led quite similar paths since high school.  I moved to Southern California, while she moved to New York, we both studied and worked in fashion design for some time, then both completely jumped the ship and went in another direction… food!

Sarah is about to graduate from culinary school as a pastry chef.  I was so impressed with her delicious looking baked goods on Instagram that I immediately asked her to guest blog for me!  If you would like to follow her delicious baked creations on Instagram her screenname is 5thavest or contact her by e-mail at sarahbeth.taylor3@gmail.com with any of your baking or pastry questions!

Check out how Sarah came up with the idea for her first LLB recipe!

This cupcake idea is the fusion of two of my favorite deserts, puppy chow and cupcakes. I drew my inspiration from many of the deserts I’ve sampled from a bakery in New York called Momofuku Milk Bar. They have the most deliciously innovative deserts I’ve ever tasted and are constantly combining textures and flavors you might not expect. My challenge to you in making this desert is try not to eat all the puppy chow before you finish making the cupcake!

Ingredients – Chocolate Cake

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ¼ cups dark cocoa powder
• 2 ½ cups sugar
• 2 ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
• 1 ¼ tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 ¼ cups milk
• ½ c + 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 ¼ tsp vanilla
• 1 ¼ cup warm water

This is a dump cake style recipe meaning all the ingredients go in at the same time. Sift your dry ingredients together first then add the remaining wet ingredients. Careful not to over mix the batter! Also, remember to always use room temperature eggs/butter/milk unless the recipe tells you otherwise. Pour into cupcake tins and bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• ½ cup peanut butter

Start by cubing the room temperature butter into the mixer. Cream the butter until it is light and fluffy and white in color, this should take approximately 5-10 minutes depending on the mixers speed. Then turn the mixer to its slowest speed and add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Finally add the vanilla and peanut butter.

Red Velvet Puppy Chow

• 1 bag milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup peanut butter
• ¼ cup unsalted butter (melted)
• 3-4 cup powdered sugar
• 3-4 tbsp red powdered food coloring
• 8-9 cups rice chex cereal

Begin by placing all of  the powdered sugar in a large bowl then add the red powdered food coloring with a whisk. It is somewhat tricky to find powdered food coloring but any baking supply store will most likely sell it. (Do not try to use any type of gel or liquid food coloring it must be the dry.) The powdered sugar will appear pink but will turn red as soon as the chocolate mixture comes in contact with it. Place the red sugar mixture into a freezer size baggie along with the cereal. Next temper the chocolate slowly over a double broiler or in a microwave. Finally add the melted butter and peanut butter to the chocolate and stir thoroughly. Pour the chocolate mixture into the cereal a little at a time and begin to shake the bag until all the cereal is covered completely.

Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes, then top with the red velvet puppy chow!

These are so adorably cute for Valentine’s Day!

Thank you Sarah for the deliciously sweet and adorable recipe!

I look forward to catching up with Sarah next time I’m in Oklahoma and photographing some more of her delicious baked goods for LLB!

Tiramisu Tart

This recipe was inspired by my original plan to make a layered Tiramisu dip for my Housewarming Party.  That never happened. I’ve learned after throwing dozens upon dozens of parties that sometimes I just have to throw in the towel on a couple planned menu items. Sometimes it all comes together and sometimes it doesn’t.

I always start with the party “must haves” and then leave the rest up to fate. As fate would have it, the Tiramisu dip was not made, but two days later this delicious Tiramisu Tart came into my life!

I knew I had to use the Mascarpone and Ricotta Cheese before they went bad but I scratched my original dip recipe. I felt like a dip was more party dessert then “have a slice after work/school” kind of dessert. I decided on a Tart simply because I had an unused Longaberger tart dish sitting on a shelf begging to be used!  I had originally planned to use Ginger Snap cookies for dipping, so I simply ground them up in my food processor and made them into the crust, then filled it with the dip. This made for a great evening treat all week!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups ginger snap crumbs
• 4 tbsp butter (melted)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup mascarpone cheese
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup coffee syrup
• 2 tbsp marsala wine
• 1 tsbp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp chocolate shavings

Start making the crust by combining the ginger snap crumbs, butter and sugar in a small mixing bowl. Next, press the mixture into a tart pan.

Place the crust in the refrigerator while making the filling.

Start the filling by creaming together the mascarpone, ricotta and sour cream.

Next, add in the brown sugar, coffee syrup and marsala wine.

Blend together well, 2-3 minutes, then place the mixture in the crust.

Dust the cocoa powder on top using a sifter (hopefully yours is less ghetto than mine, haha).

Then, shave the chocolate on top. I used a vegetable peeler and it worked just fine!

And voila, one delicious Tiramisu tart is complete!

This is a quick and simple dessert that can be made in 15 minutes or less with no need to bake!

There’s no excuse not to take this to your next dinner party! No one else will know how simple it is because it looks so decadent

I love the combination of the rich cheese,  sweet chocolate and coffee flavor!

Torani Syrups can be purchased a lot of places such as World Market or Smart and Final, to find the closest retailer to you, visit their website and they will locate the nearest store to you!  Pretty nifty!

If you prefer not to use the syrup, you can replace it with 2 shots of espresso.

♣ Vegetarian Option: This recipe is vegetarian.

♦ Gluten Free Option: My man Trader Joe sells delicious gluten free Ginger Snaps which

when used in this dish makes it gluten-free.

♥ All pottery seen on the littleleopardbook can be purchased by visiting www.longaberger.com/muffetbond or e-mailing keepsakebl@sbcglobal.net.

Italian Baked Potato Soup

For my Housewarming party last weekend  I went with a new menu planning approach.  I went to the grocery store with no list, no ideas and simply let the ingredients do the planning for me.

I arrived home with two giant bags of potatoes. Potatoes are an excellent way to feed a lot of people on a budget. One three-pound bag of potatoes was $.99.  You just don’t see those kind of prices anymore!

Then it was time to decide what I was going to do with those potatoes! I knew I wanted to make a couple of crockpot recipes for the party as they’re easy to put on in the morning and ready when guests arrive. That was when I got the idea for baked potato soup.  Of course it had to be Italian style as that was the theme of the party!

The result was a creamy, rich, flavorful soup that would be perfect for upcoming fall evenings and cold winter weekends!

Ingredients

• 3 lbs potatoes
• 1 onion (chopped)
• 10 cloves garlic (minced)
• 8 cups chicken stock
• 1 tbsp rosemary
• 1 tbsp thyme
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup sour cream
• 4 tbsp butter
• ½ cup diced pancetta
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese
• ½ cup parmesan cheese

Start by dicing the potatoes into cubes.

Next, add the potatoes, onions and garlic into the crock pot.

Then pour in the chicken stock.  There should be just enough chicken stock to cover the potatoes.

Next add in the thyme and rosemary.

Cook on high for 4-5 hours or until potatoes are soft when poked with a fork.

Ladle out 2 cups of the chicken stock.

Pour in the milk, sour cream and butter and blend with an immersion blender or hand mixer.

Stir in the mozzarella, parmesan and pancetta.

Cook on low for an additional 2 hours.

This is one of those recipes that makes the whole house smell like rosemary thyme amazingness!

Lets zoom in…

… then dig in!

♣ Vegetarian Option: Omit the pancetta and replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock to make this recipe vegetarian.

♦ Gluten Free Option: This recipe is gluten-free.

♥ All pottery seen on the littleleopardbook can be purchased by visiting www.longaberger.com/muffetbond or e-mailing keepsakebl@sbcglobal.net.

Chocolate Bell Pepper Chorizo Tostadas with Quail Egg

So far there are a lot of things I love about my new condo in San Diego, but the one thing that tops the list is my neighborhoods weekly farmers market, also known as the Little Italy Mercato! With more than 150 booths there is something for everyone, including many items I’ve never eaten before, much less cooked with… kind of like that escargot, but less scary!

This week I picked up some squash blossoms, chocolate bell peppers and quail eggs.  While I’ve eaten squash blossoms and quail eggs before, I’ve never cooked with them and I’d never even heard of a chocolate bell pepper until this weekend! So what exactly is a chocolate bell pepper? It’s simply a hybrid bell pepper that spends 75 days turning from a green pepper into a chocolate-brown pepper.  The taste is a little sweeter than a green bell pepper, but very slight.

Now comes the fun part, what am I going to make with these little “Mercato Treasures”? I went to my dungeon of happiness, also known as my refrigerator, to get some inspiration.  Staring at me in the face was my favorite Trader Joe’s item of all time, Soy Chorizo.  As my friend said at dinner that night “this is the first non-meat item I’ve eaten where I couldn’t tell the difference.”  I think it’s better than most traditional chorizo’s and definitely better for you!

So with my obvious obsession of TJ’s Soy Chorizo, I immediately decided to add that in to the mix. I also wanted to incorporate those quail eggs on top so I knew I had to create something that was “open”  i.e. not a taco, burrito etc.  So I was thinking pizza because where does my mind go at least 50% of the time… you guessed it, pizza!  But keeping with the Mexican theme, I decided to go with tostadas, they’re kind of like mini mexican pizzas after all!

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp avocado (or olive) oil
• 1 chocolate bell pepper (chopped)
• 1/2 onion (chopped)
• 1 garlic clove (minced)
• 12 oz soy (or traditional) chorizo sausage
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 3 large flour tortillas
• 1/4 cup cotija cheese
• 9 fresh, local quail eggs
• 1/4 cup green onions (chopped)
• 2 squash blossoms (chiffonaded)

Start by heating up the avocado oil in a large skillet.  Add the bell pepper and onion. Sauté for 3-5 minutes, then add the garlic clove.

Next, add the chorizo, then top with the cumin and chili powder. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes to combine all the delicious flavors.

In the mean time, make your tostadas.  Pre-heat the oven to 350° and use a 3 inch circle pastry cutter to cut 3 tostadas from each tortilla.

Place the tortilla circles on to a baking stone and into the oven for 10 minutes or until nice and crispy.

Remove from the oven and top with the bell pepper chorizo mixture and the cotija cheese.

Next, top with the green onions and chiffonade (fancy word for cutting herbs into long, thin strips) of squash blossoms.

Finally, poke a hole in the side of the quail egg, then slice it open. Remove the top half of the shell, then transfer the yoke back and forth between the shell halves while discarding the egg white (like you would do with a chicken egg).

Quail eggs are safe to eat raw without worry of salmonella because a quails body temperature is higher than a chickens which makes them resistant to infections and kills any harmful bacteria. The reason I say “fresh, local” quail eggs is because you are eating them raw. Do you really want to eat something raw that you don’t know where it came from or when it was laid? I think not!

Eating quail eggs raw gives you all the amazing nutritional benefits of the egg, rich in good cholesterol with no bad cholesterol, more protein than a chicken egg and over 100% Vitamin B1, just to name a few. It also acts as a “sauce” when you pour it out over the dish.

And voila, my Little Italy Mercato creation has come together!

Knock that little egg over to cover the chorizo in the “yolk sauce” and dig in!

♣ Vegetarian Option: This recipe is vegetarian.  Yay for soy chorizo!

♦ Gluten Free Option: Substitute corn tortillas for flour tortillas to make this a gluten-free meal.

♥ All pottery seen on the littleleopardbook can be purchased by visiting www.longaberger.com/muffetbond or e-mailing keepsakebl@sbcglobal.net.

White Peach Sangria

After taking just one sip of the most perfect “tastes-like-you-stuck-a-straw-in-a-peach” Sangria at Hugo’s Mexican Restaurant in Houston, I knew I had to attempt a recreation of my own!

I found the perfect opportunity when I hosted a BBQ this Saturday. Nothing beats 101° temperatures better than a light, refreshing glass of Peach Sangria!

Ingredients (makes 2 liters)

• 1 lime (sliced thin)
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 liter bottle chenin blanc
• 1/2 cup apricot brandy
• 1/4 cup triple sec
• 1 cup peach nectar*
• 3 nectarines (peeled, cored and pureed)
• 2-3 peaches (peeled and cubed)

Next, add the wine, brandy, triple sec and peach nectar.

Then peel, core and puree the nectarines in a food processor.

Add the puree to the sangria and mix well.

Finally, chop the peaches, add to the sangria and the perfect summer cocktail is complete!

I also chose to freeze watermelon balls to serve with the Sangria instead of using ice cubes

Melon Ballers are sold at Target, Walmart or specialty store such as Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table for around $10.

I ended up making 3 batches for my BBQ, I’d say it was a hit!

♣ Vegetarian Option: This Recipe is Vegetarian.

♦ Gluten Free Option: This Recipe is Gluten-Free.

♥ All pottery seen on the littleleopardbook can be purchased by visiting www.longaberger.com/muffetbond or e-mailing keepsakebl@sbcglobal.net.