Giveaway Winner Announcement!

Thank you to everyone who entered the first ever Little Leopard Book Giveaway by “liking” Little Leopard Book and  Muffet Bond, Independent Longaberger Manager on Facebook, subscribing to Little Leopard Book and following Little Leopard Book on Twitter and Pinterest! And the winner is…

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Two words for you. Life. Changing. That’s how seriously amazing these cupcakes are! The dense, rich pumpkin texture of the cupcake, topped with the rich, creamy, cream cheese frosting makes for a dynamic duo! I served these cupcakes as part of my “Gameday Grub” menu as mini’s and full-sized cupcakes. I turned the big ones into a mini-football field, yes there are pictures of this super-cute, really-getting-into-the-theme display of cupcakes to come later in the post! A big shout out to my favorite former inmate, Miss Martha Stewart for the majority of this amazing recipe!

Ingredients (makes 48 mini cupcakes or 24 large cupcakes)

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (or 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup applesauce for a healthier version)
• 4 large eggs
• 15 oz pumpkin puree

Pre-heat the oven to 350°. Get your cupcake pans ready by adding the liners. In a medium bowl mix together your dry ingredients, the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.

Next, add together the granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter and eggs.

Then add in your pumpkin puree.

Blend together well then add your dry ingredients.

Next step, quality control.

Yes, this picture is meant to suggest that you lick the beaters to make sure that the cupcake batter is tasting up to par, for quality control purposes only of course. Now it’s time to fill your cupcake liners with this “quality-control-tested” cupcake batter.

Now pop them in the oven for about 15-18 minutes for the minis and 20-25 for the full size guys. Now the next step is very important, make yourself a cup of warm apple cider or hot chocolate and wait for the aroma of fall to fill your house with the smell of pumpkin, flashing visions of leaves changing colors and the sound of football in the background should begin to fill your head. Ding! These little guys are ready to come out into the world!

Little bites of heaven… and they haven’t even been clothed yet!! (That’s what I like to call the frosting, the “clothing” on the cupcakes!) Now for how to assemble the cream cheese “clothing” for these little bites.

Ingredients:

• 2 8 oz packages cream cheese
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend all of the ingredients together until creamy.

Now get to clothing!  There are naked cupcakes sitting around for gosh sakes!!!

And voilà!! Rows of perfectly clothed pumpkin cupcakes dressed in cream cheese frosting! Now add a couple of footballs and they become “Gameday Grub”!

Now for the “really-getting-into-the-theme” cupcake display as promised earlier in the blog! I found these little guys hanging out at a party supply store on Melrose last season and drafted them immediately to my “fantasy cupcake team”. Miraculously I did not lose one team member last season to injuries, trades or garbage disposal’s so the whole team is back for another season!

Gameday Grub

Saturday I had the great honor of hosting more than 20 Oklahoma peeps at my house in LA for the OU vs Florida State game!!!  In case you live under a rock (or aren’t a football fan) OU was victorious 23-13 and celebration was not lacking at my house!

Beverages were spilled, cheerleading uniforms were worn, country music was played and best of all… food was eaten!  Now there are upsides and downsides of being a food blogger!

Upsides: people come to me for recipe ideas (I love giving advice!) and I get to come up with new recipes to put on LLB. Downsides: I put a lot of pressure on myself to come up with an amazing menu for every event or dinner and I must execute it to perfection!

On Thursday I began my search for the perfect menu for Saturday. Trying to feed that many hungry Sooner fans with delicious, amazing food that can be prepared before game time… a little tricky! My food is important, but there was no way I was missing one minute of this game!  So here it is, the perfect “Gameday Grub” menu:

• Taco Soup

• Buffalo Chicken Dip

• Pumpkin Cupcakes

• Sloppy Joe Sliders

Somehow I made all of this happen, while taking pictures along the way and was on the couch, beverage in hand, ready for the game at kick-off!

I hope this post helped you get some great ideas for your “Gameday Grub”!!!

Bedlam Battle Week One

So excited for my first VLOG!!! As some of you already know I am a die-hard Oklahoma Sooner Football Fan, as well as a broadcast journalism major so put the two together and you get me, on camera, talking about the upcoming Sooner Football season which starts TOMORROW!!  I combined forces with a fellow Okie from the other side of the tracks, an Oklahoma State fan, to form a weekly segment for my blog called “Bedlam Battle”. Watch each week to find out whats going on in the world of college sports in the great state of Oklahoma!