MS Cupcake Club (Bonus Recipe): Banana Pecan Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon Frosting

Made these delicious cupcakes in August, recipe is from Martha Stewart. More info will follow later!

Taste & Create XXIII: Chocolate Peanutbutter Bars

This month I was paired with Chaya of Sweet and Savoury Says it All for Taste and Create.
Chaya's blog is filled with delicious recipes. I wanted to surprise my coworkers with something sweet and was torn between the Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars, the Apple Streusel Topped Muffin and the Chocolate Butterscotch Bars.



Since it was that time of the month the choice was quickly made and Chocolate Butterscotch Bars it was. But then I found out that I hadn't brought home butterscotch chips from my trip to Canada but peanutbutter chips, so I subbed them. The other thing I changed was using butter instead of margarine and I left out the mocha extract. Yummy! This was gone in no time!!


Chocolate Peanutbutter Bars

1 1/8 cup all-purpouse flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanutbutter chips (I used 3/4 cup peanutbutter chips and 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips because I ran out of peanutbutter chips...)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I used pecans)

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
• Grease a 9-inch square baking pan
• Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
• In another bowl beat the sugar, butter and vanilla until creamy
• Beat in egg
• Gradually beat in the flour mixture
• Stir in 1 1/4 cups of chocolate chips and all of the nuts
• Spread into prepared pan
• Bake 20 - 23 minutes
• Remove pan to wire rack
• Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips
• Let stand for 5 minutes or until morsels are shiny; spread evenly
• Cool in pan on wire rack
• Refrigerate 5 - 10 minutes or until chocolate is set.

CEiMB: Black Bean Mexican Pizza

This weeks CEiMB has sent me looking all over town for one special ingredient... Black beans! Joanne of Apple Crumbles picked Black Bean Mexican Pizza, since I love both Mexican food and Pizza I knew I was in for a treat!

Apparently black beans are not eaten a lot in the Northern European cuisine. I wasn't able to track these down at the regular supermarket and even the Turkish supermarket that I go to for 'special ingredients' didn't have any canned black beans, just dried black beans so that's what I bought. I soaked about 200 grams of beans in some water overnight and cooked them for about 30 to 40 minutes the next day after which I made the black bean dip.

I topped each tortilla with black bean dip, tomato pieces and some grated cheese and popped them into the oven. When they were done I topped them with cilantro and lettuce and servedthem with sour cream. Yum!! Absolutely delicious, I will absolutely be making these again!!!

Go here to check out what the other Ellie-istas thought of this recipe!

P.S. I just now found out that I screwed up the dates for the recipes, this was actually last weeks recipe... Oops....

MS Cupcake Club: Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes

TWD: Cottage Cheese Puffs

Welcome! You came here today to find this weeks recipe for TWD, picked by the lovely Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes. Jacque chose Cottage Cheese Pufflets, which caused the first problem for me: what the **** is Cottage Cheese? I wasn't able to find this in the supermarket, my options were Ricotta or Hüttenkäse so I turned to the P&Q section to check if I could use any one of them. I soon found out either would be a good option so I picked up some Ricotta.

After a weekend of postponing I decided to start making the Pufflets yesterday evening. Well, I have learned an important lesson: don't put off making the TWD-recipes!!! Why not? The sticky dough drove me crazy to the point where I just gave up.....

So, no pictures of the Cottage Chees Puffs as they are not done yet, I will try again later today so stay tuned!

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

I'm a slacker, what can I say?? Lots of stuff on my mind and things I need to decide, mostly job-orientated..... All the ingredients are ready to go, I just have to get myself together and start making the dough.... These will follow!