It's Snowing Again + Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes

I passed my Wintermester class with a B!

 I decided to work most of the days this week before my Spring classes start next Tuesday. I got a message from my mom saying that if I decided to bake something and bring it to work that her coworkers would happily dispose of them. 

hint taken.

 The only rule was whatever I made could not contain nuts of any kind since a few people were allergic. Plus the dessert had to travel well and didn't need refrigeration since the fridge at work is always packed full.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

   I love pinterest, but it's kind of being a pain. My most popular board is my food board and the other day my number of followers went down by a few hundred, but after i logged back in it went back to the correct number. Well, this last night the number went form over 1,000 down to 667...not cool. Well I found that if you went through to the help section that you can send them your username so they will look into it. The only problem is that this apparently is happening to a lot of members and it's taking time to fix the error.

 The kittens are getting bigger by the day. Their personalities are very different yet similar. Charlie is the leader and is fearless when it comes to the other cats, she is still smaller than her brother, but can gives as good as she gets. Gus Gus is still a big cuddle bug, is a little more cautious when it comes to doing new things, and likes to chew on my school books. Their new favorite thing to play with are straws and they like to try to steal them from my drinks .

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

    Its time again for me to make something for church. My mom's class usually has a small breakfast of coffee with a sweet store bought item. People take turns bringing breakfast and when it's my mom's turn, I volunteer to bake something. I've made pumpkin muffins, lemon blueberry yogurt bread, and Sunday morning muffins (pumpkin cream cheese muffins).

    I wanted to do something different, but something that everyone would like. For a while I have found recipe that I wanted to make, but didn't because they contained nuts. I like baking with nuts (especially pecans), but I was always worried to make something for Sunday with nuts if anyone had a nut allergy because I didn't want someone to have a reaction or not have breakfast because they don't like nuts. Well, this week I decided to make a recipe with nuts; I chose walnuts since my mom hates pecans.

Pumpkin Cake

  A few months ago, I decided to try  find serveral different pumpkin recipes to make during the fall and winter months. I found pumpkin recipes for cookies, pumpkin chip granola bars, a pumpkin roll cake ,muffins and many more that I still haven't tried yet.
I'm a pumpkin addict, I admit it.
 
  A family friend who travels for work recently came home for a short vacation. Dennis (the friend) has a huge sweet tooth- I think that is one reason we get along so well. Well I decided that if we were going to visit them, then I would want to make Dennis a treat. From my search of recipes involving pumpkin, I came across a recipe for Pumpkin Bars with a Cream Cheese Frosting from Sweet Pea's Kitchen. This recipe is called Pumpkin Bars, but it is more of a pumpkin cake than anything else. No matter the name, this recipe is a winner! The batter took only minutes to make and the frosting is addictive without being tooth-rotting sweet like some frostings. Plus, if you make the frosting by hand (which is what I did) it makes wanting another peice of cake less of a bad thing.

I added some orange, red, & yellow sugar sprinkles to make it look pretty

Cheesecake Thumbprint Cookies

Do you like cookies? Yes.
Do you like cheesecake? Yep.
Do you like suprises?
Well if your answers were "yes" then this recipe for Cheesecake Thumbprint Cookies is for you.

Actually the recipe is for simple cheesecake thumbprint cookies, but I add some blackberry preserves and mini chocolate chips into some of the cookies to give it something extra.
These cookies are buttery, crumbly, and melt in your mouth. 
The cheesecake filling is rich and creamy.
In some of the cookies, after making the impression, I added some mini chocolate chips before covering it with the cheesecake mix.
In other cookies, (and my personal favorite) I added a tiny bit of blackberry preserves before covering it up with the cheesecake mix. Also with the cheesecake covering the jam, its a surprise when you bite into a seemingly plain cookie and get a sweet bite of jam.

Stuffed Strawberries

 

This summer, my mom has gone alittle strawberry crazy- she buys them ALL of the time! When we go to the farmers' markets, she will buy the biggest container and then buy another in 2 weeks. Don't get me wrong, I love strawberries, but I am gonna get burnt out of them soon. We froze most of the strawberries for