Amy Butler's Style Stitches Sew Along

One of my blog friends, Bree over at My Crafty Crap, is hosting a year-long sew along following Amy Butler's Style Stitches book. I've wanted to get my hands on one of Amy's books for some time now so what better excuse than this? Even better is that Bree's currently hosting a giveaway of a copy of the book on her blog so head on over to enter and join in the sew along. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Chocolate Fudge Pomegranate Cookies

Left with some pomegranate seeds after I made Bobby Flay's roasted Brussels sprouts with pomegranate and vanilla-pecan butter (yes, that is a real dish and the recipe can be found here) I hunted down an appealing-sounding recipe to use up the remainder. I was hoping to restrain myself from baking for at least another week since we're still working our way through leftover Christmas desserts but I wasn't about to let such a precious commodity go bad.

After a quick poke around The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen I settled on some chocolate cookies with chocolate chips and pomegranate seeds baked right in. The flavor combination seemed sensible enough that it wouldn't alienate any of my taste testers but adventurous enough to raise it above your standard drop cookie.

The recipe's simple, quick to whip up, and after setting in the fridge for a few hours bakes into delicious chocolate-y cookies with a surprising burst of fruit flavor from the pomegranate arils and an equally surprising crunch from the seed at the center. I plan to take these to work tomorrow since that's the only way I can think to stop myself from eating the entire batch!

Chocolate Fudge Pomegranate Cookies
Recipe from Tasty Kitchen

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice
1 cup chocolate chips (I used chunks)
3/4 cups pomegranate arils

Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt, then pomegranate juice and mix until combined.

Fold in chocolate chips and arils. Refrigerate dough for 2-4 hours (or more). When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F, roll into balls and set on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350F for 8-12 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

French Toast Cupcakes With Browned Butter Frosting

If I'm not mistaken, we've finally reached the end of the posts about my holiday baking. I'll admit that I went a little overboard, as I seem to do every year, but I get so excited to have a captive audience when my family visits that I want to spoil them. Now excuse me while I go into a sugar coma and, once recovered from that, spend the rest of my life working off these calories.

When my Spekulatius cupcake recipe made a paltry nine cupcakes I knew I had to scramble and come up with more cupcakes for my family. While a ratio of four people to nine cupcakes might seem fine to you, rest assured that in my family such a dire situation could result in bloodshed. I handed my little brother my trusty copy of 125 Best Cupcake Recipes and told him to pick one. My kitchen's pretty well stocked so when he landed on the French toast cupcakes I knew I already had everything on hand to whip up a batch.

I'd made these before and have always gotten positive reviews, so if you're looking for another universally popular flavor here's a good choice. The maple and cinnamon flavors shine through nicely. Topped with my new favorite, browned butter frosting, these were a hit with my family. My mom nicely decorated them for me using some festive sprinkles. She's enough like me that she went for the minimalist look with a few red balls and one tiny Christmas tree on each. So nice to have some help in the kitchen!

French Toast Cupcakes
Recipe from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted then cooled
2 eggs
1 tsp. maple extract
1/2 c. whole milk

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with 12 baking liners.
2) Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a mixing bowl.
3) In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar, and eggs until combined; add maple extract.
4) Alternate between whisking in flour mixture and milk into your liquid mixture. Make 3 additions of flour and 2 of milk. Beat until smooth.
5) Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes, remove from pan and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Browned Butter Frosting
Recipe adapted from The Sister's Cafe

1/3 cup unsalted butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2+ Tb heavy cream

1) Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking, stirring constantly and watching closely, until butter just starts to turn golden (4 to 6 minutes). Butter will get foamy and bubble and you will see black flecks start to form toward the end. Remove from heat. Cool to room temperature.
2) Beat butter and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until combined. Add vanilla and gradually add cream until frosting reaches the desired consistency. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

A Photo A Day [Day 123]

This photo's not in keeping with this week's theme but it was too cute to not share. The cats snuck outside when I had the door open to take a different picture so I snapped this one of Bunsen encountering the snow with trepidation. He was quite alarmed by the unexpected cold sensation on his paws.

German Spekulatius Cupcakes

All mine! My preciousssssssss

Every year my mom and I treat ourselves to an order of fresh lebkuchen imported from Germany. Pricey? Hell yes. But oh so worth it to hang on to a little of our German heritage and celebrate Christmas in style. I always make sure my selection includes a box of my favorites: Spekulatius, a flat, crisp spiced cookie baked with cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, and white pepper. The bottom is lined with slivered almonds for a hint of flavor and some added crunch. Not surprisingly, there are popular Dutch and Belgian versions that go by the names Speculaas and Speculoos. You can even get them here in the States, sometimes advertised as windmill cookies due to their design.


A few months back I won a jar of a product new to the US that incorporates all of the delicious elements of my beloved Spekulatius in a spreadable concoction similar to Nutella. It's called Tamarin Speculoos Spread and features a slightly freaky-looking monkey on the jar. No idea what that has to do with the product itself but I'm almost positive that no monkeys were harmed in the making of it. While I'm not sure how popular this will prove to be on our side of the Atlantic I have hope for it since I remember the dark days of my youth when no one had heard of Nutella and it was difficult to find. And now look at how popular it's become. The Tamarin spread is a nice alternative to peanut butter and I'll admit that I've taken to eating it straight from the jar with a spoon. The best way to describe it is as if they took a spiced cookie, mashed it up, and waved a magic wand to turn it into a paste. I suspect one of the Keebler elves defected and is now working at the Tamarin manufacturing plant.

While brainstorming cupcake ideas for my family this Christmas my mind immediately went to Spekulatius and the gears started churning as to how I could turn that into a cupcake. Inspired by this cupcake I decided to come up with my own spice blend to be baked into the cake, fill each cupcake with some of the Tamarin spread, and top the cupcakes with an almond browned butter frosting for a triple dose of Spekulatius flavor.

My only complaint about the recipe I chose from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes is that it only produced nine cupcakes. I have no idea how that happened since other than omitting the raisins and adding in my spice blend I made no other changes to the recipe that promised to yield 12. Next time I'll probably double the recipe to make a proper amount. The cupcakes are delicious and a nice alternative to the cookie even if they don't taste exactly like the original. The spices are there, the filling is surprising and rich, and the hint of almond in the frosting rounds it out nicely. This is probably one I'll incorporate into our holiday traditions from now on.

Spekulatius Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp fancy molasses
1 egg
2 tsp candied orange peel, finely chopped
2/3 cup buttermilk
Tamarin Speculoos Spread for filling

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Line a muffin pan with 9 paper liners.
2) In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, ginger, cardamom, and salt.
3) In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add molasses and egg, beating well. Stir in the orange peel. Alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of buttermilk, beating until smooth.
4) Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven 20 to 25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack.
5) Once cool, using the cone method fill each cupcake with a small amount of Tamarin spread, approximately one teaspoon per cupcake.

Browned Butter Frosting
Recipe adapted from The Sister's Cafe

1/3 cup unsalted butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp almond extract
2+ tablespoons heavy cream

1) Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking, stirring constantly and watching closely, until butter just starts to turn golden (4 to 6 minutes). Butter will get foamy and bubble and you will see black flecks start to form toward the end. Remove from heat. Cool to room temperature (this will take a while).
2) Beat butter and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until combined. Add almond and gradually add cream until frosting reaches the desired consistency. Pipe generously onto cooled cupcakes.

A Photo A Day [Days 121 & 122]

I was feeling lazy so I just took this one from the back deck:

Day 121

Day 122

"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?"
"I'm not sure that man needs the help."
-Calvin & Hobbes

Theme: Silhouette

Snickers Fudge

I scribbled the recipe down years ago after seeing it on some talk show and it's been a feature of our family Christmas for the better part of ten years. My little brother demands a fresh batch every year and I'm only too happy to oblige. It wouldn't be Christmas without our traditional tray of the stuff. All of the flavors of a Snickers bar are there but somehow they taste fresher, smoother, and better in this version. It's easy to make, produces enough to feed a crowd, and tastes divine.

My only change to the recipe is one I thought of last year after spending what felt like ages hacking away at the finished product trying to liberate the pieces from the pan. My first step is to line the pan with enough parchment paper to cover the bottom, sides, and jut over the top edges so I can lift the entire block of fudge out and cut it on a cutting board. Still not the easiest cutting process but it's easier to get leverage and I don't have to worry about scratching up my baking pan.

Next time you want to impress a crowd give this winner a try!

Snickers Fudge

Bottom Layer:
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan; stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Line the bottom and sides of a 9 x 13 pan with parchment paper leaving some extra over the edge. Spread chocolate onto the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate until set.

Filling:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/marshmallow fluff
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped salted peanuts

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add sugar and milk. Bring to a boil; boil and stir for 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in the marshmallow creme, peanut butter and vanilla extract. Add peanuts. Spread over first layer. Refrigerate until set.

Caramel Layer:
1 14 ounce package caramels
1/4 cup whipping cream

Combine caramels and cream in a saucepan; stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Spread over the filling. Refrigerate until set.

Top Layer:
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

In a saucepan, combine chips and peanut butter; stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Pour over the caramel layer. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Lift entire piece of fudge out of the pan using the parcdment paper. Remove paper and place fudge onto a large cutting board. Cut into 1-inch squares. Store in the refrigerator.