Rolo Stuffed Pretzel Blondie Bites

I have been on a huge chocolate and pretzel fix lately, so this recipe obviously had to be made! 

These bite size muffins? cupcakes? blondies? (not sure what to call them) were very easy and fun to make! I had a baker's assistant for this one, as Kelly came over and hung out with me while I made them!


The trick to these little bites was that first, you stuck a rolo into the batter (which was really hard not to just eat by itself...)

 

but then, right when they came out of the oven you put a pretzel waffle in the warm dough so that it stuck! Some of them were hard to take out of the mini muffin pan...

and they got stuck but the diva was nice enough to model it for me...

But, other than that they turned out really good! the little bit of caramel in the middle was amazing!

yummmm


recipe: cookiesandcups

Randoms!

So a couple weeks ago, Coco and our friend Kelly came over and we had a bit of a baking extravaganza. Kelly was making cupcakes to ask a friend to a prom party while Coco and I were both making our friend Laura some 21st birthday treats as well as other activities!

As you can see it was all really organized and neat..



Kelly made mini funfetti cupcakes and we iced them and decorated them with sprinkles!

 

I decided to make Laura a mini yellow cake using this recipe I had found that used ramekins instead of cake pans!

So you can guage how small this cake turned out...

it was small and Laura sized :] Happy birthday Laura!!


and she was nice enough to send me a picture of how it looked when she cut into it...

so cute!




While everything was baking, I decided to make these Reese's stuffed oreo bites that Coco and I had seen online! All you had to do was break open an Oreo and put a Reese's in the middle.. and then cover it in more chocolate so they stuck together. Can't be bad right?

They turned out super good and they were very easy to make, no baking required!

And, as usual, we decorated them with sprinkles :)




Yellow cake: paninihappy
Oreo bites: cookiesandcups

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting

So this baking venture started as many of them do..

Coco and I were bored.
After browsing one of my new favorite blogs for a while, Coco finally made the decision to make these peanut butter cookie cupcakes with a white chocolate buttercream frosting.


For some reason we failed a little bit at the cupcake portion...

They sunk a little in the middle, but it kind of just made a cup that could fit more frosting?
And that's not a bad thing...

So we did just that and created an entire cave of frosting in the middle of these cupcakes!

And see the bottom? Yea, that's a Reese's peanut putter cup.



Boredom can be so productive!


recipe: cookiesandcups

Chubby Hubby Bars!

 

so, that is a bowl full of pretzels and peanut butter cups.
and those are the ingredients to the next recipe. Can't go wrong with that right?

A couple weeks ago, Coco and I made these delicious bars and I knew that my brother would love them! My brother was notorious in my family for loving the Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor of Chubby Hubby. I remember when I was little I hated it and thought it was disgusting just because he liked it and the sibling rivalry ran deep. But, when I finally gave up my grudge I realized how amazing it was. His birthday was coming up so I made these again to send to him!




You just bake together all of the ingredients and then layer on some chocolate for the top!

 Unfortunately for me, it got a little hard in the fridge and was quite a struggle to cut up. So after a good half an hour of sawing with various kitchen knives..

I had a couple of bags to send to my brother!

He finally got them a couple days later and he said that they were good, so I guess it was a successful birthday present!

recipe: cookiesandcups

More Halloween Festivities!

Before Halloween, Katie decided we should do more Halloween themed baking so we had a baking extravaganza at her house! I haven't had time to post in a while because of the death that is midterms and papers, but here it is!

so yea... this happened.




we made a chocolate bark and put candy corn, pretzels, oreos, and swirls of peanut butter in it.

obviously some of it got eaten before we were done...

Katie really wanted to take an outdoor picture on the patio, but seeing as all of these lovely pictures come from my iPhone, it didn't turn out as artsy and nice as we'd tried...

But it was delicious!

While that was cooling, we made brownies!


Originally the plan was to make those little ghosts on top with marshmallows and frosting, but then we also decided to make some monsters and pumpkins!

Everything was obviously amazing and it was fun to bake with a ton of people!




I'm sad that Halloween is over but this means its time for Thanksgiving and then CHRISTMAS



so many themed recipes are awaiting...

HALLOWEENNNN

Halloween spirit is officially here! With my house all decorated..

 it was of course time to bake some Halloween treats to give away to friends!

click to read more!

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

Whenever we're bored.. the first question is always "What should we make?" Then, we decide who has the ingredients needed and we get to work! So, clearly, the other day we were quite bored and decided to make these cinnamon roll cupcakes. They were really fun to make and had a glaze and a frosting! We made the batter and then you alternate putting a dollop of batter and covering it with the cinnamon/ butter/ sugar mixture and swirling together!

you can see the whole process in this picture...

then we baked them.. and they came out all crackly and delicious with baked sugar (which is always great). It was hard not to eat them while they cooled..

and when they were finally cool enough we put a coffee glaze on top..

and finally finished them off with a cream cheese frosting!

It really did taste like a cinnamon roll, they were so good! We topped half with the coffee/ sugar/ chocolate grinder (which I really feel like would go with about anything), and half with cinnamon. Yum! (obviously, these were gone by the morning)


(obligatory balcony picture)




recipe: bakingdom

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake Squares

Attempting to continue with the Halloween/ fall theme, Coco found this recipe for pumpkin cheesecake squares! After a day at the library, we decided to quickly put these together. Quick was an overestimation of our organizational skills because we soon learned we didn't have half the ingredients. After a quick trip to the Isla Vista Market for some overpriced pumpkin filling and sour cream, we finally put it all together!

After dropping pieces of the pumpkin fixture on top of the nilla wafer crust topped with the cheesecake batter, we got to swirl it around in whatever fashion we wanted!

And then we baked it and had to wait way too long for it to cool in the refridgerator...

4 hours later... we finally got to eat them!

recipe: jessicaburns

Mini Pancake Muffins!

When I finally decide to buy random baking ingredients that I don't already have lying around, I really feel like I need to use every last drop. Having buttermilk sitting in my fridge was becoming bothersome, so I found a recipe that looked good and made it!

Coco and I decided to make these little chocolate chip pancake muffins for breakfast :]

They were so small and had puffy little tops and fit perfectly in this bowl

So we had this cute little bowl o' muffins! But then we dipped them straight into maple syrup so they had a glaze on top...

So they were warm, straight out of the oven, and dripping in maple syrup. Great breakfast, huh?
They were so mini that we decided that you didn't even need to have a glass of milk, but something smaller...

like a shot?


So I had a morning shot of milk and a muffin!

Great start to the day :]

recipe: bakerella

Halloween! Rice crispy treats!

So Isla Vista's favorite holiday is fast approaching, so we decided to make a Halloween themed post to start the festivities! Coco came up with the idea for these rice crispy treats filled with cinnamon cereal, wafer cookies, and candy corn! We chopped everything up,

(ignore the menacing butcher knives..)
while we seperately melted all of the marshmallows together...

and then mushed it all together!!

We put it into the pan when it was all done and had to wait for it to cool before we could cut them up!

It was kind of difficult to wait when it looked this good...

Once we had waited long enough, we used some Halloween cookie cutters and made them into fun shapes!

In case you can't tell.. thats a pumpkin on the left, then going clockwise, its a ghost, cat, and a bat!
We melted white chocolate and milk chocolate and used dye to make them all into fun colors!

(I of course made one ginger cat instead of all black cats!)
The chocolate was just frosted on the top, so you can still see how pretty the actual crispy still is!

They turned out so cute!