Happy Birthday, AmazingPhil!

It's been far too long since I made cupcakes.

FAR. TOO. LONG.

So, here I am! Making cupcakes inspired by one of my favorite YouTubers, the one and only AmazingPhil.

Me too, Phil, me too.
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He was one of the first YouTubers, if not THE first, that I actively watched. (Well, him and Danisnotonfire).

Oh, stop. It was the least I could do.
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I spent a good amount of time *cough month or two cough* catching up on all of Phil's past videos. While I was at my old job.

Oops.

(I had nothing else to do, I swear)!

I'll just hide under a blanket too. Don't tell on me!
[Source: amazingphil-gifs.tumblr.com]

Anyway, he's still one of my all time favorite YouTubers! He's quirky, slightly awkward, super down to earth, and British! Great, right? Well, his birthday is today, and I know this is cutting it close, but I wanted to make some Lion Cupcakes in his honor anyway. Because that's how I roll. Or bake, as the case may be.

He's all about the lions.
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These cupcakes are adorable, oh so tasty little treats. I'm really quite happy with how they turned out. I've never been much of a frosting/cake/etc. decorator, so these are a work of art compared to my other experiments. I decided to go with an orange cupcake to get away from the usual, super rich flavors. Granted, the frosting is pretty sweet, but it's all about balance after all. I think the flavors mesh well together (they're like a creamsicle!) so give 'em a go to find out for yourself!

And, no, you don't have to wait another year to make these for Phil. Make them anytime you'd like. I don't think he'd mind. ;-D

Oh, I might be mistaken!
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Cupcake Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
Zest of 2 oranges
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup fresh orange juice

Directions

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2) Cream together the butter and sugar.

There's only so many times I can show you guys a picture of butter and sugar.

3) Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Raw egg or alien embryo?
[The truth is out there. Cue X-Files theme].

4) Add orange zest and combine.

Zesting powers, ACTIVATE!

5) In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

6) Add the dry ingredients alternately with the orange juice to the butter mixture.

Look at how delicious that looks! Fresh squeezed juice is the way to go.

Action shot. BOOM.

** The cupcakes already have a slight orange tint to them with the addition of the orange zest and juice, but if you'd like them to be more vibrant, add some orange food coloring to the batter. **

7) Divide the batter into a lined cupcake pan. I ended up having enough batter for 15 cupcakes.

They smelled so good. I wish we had smell-o-vision for you.

8) Bake the cupcakes for 18 to 22 minutes, or until the tops are golden. My oven baked them in 14 minutes.

9) Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for a minute or two before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting Ingredients
3/4 cup butter
1 pound powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
Milk
Orange food coloring

Frosting Directions

Mix together the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add a small amount of milk at a time to get your desired frosting consistency. Don't forget to add orange food coloring to keep with the lion theme!

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Once all of your cupcakes are cooled, add a layer of orange frosting to the top of them. I just used the tried and true "spreading with a knife" method.

It's that homemade look.

Lion Decorations

- Airheads, cut up into triangular pieces (I was a goof and ended up getting Strawberry instead of Cherry, so the mane is more pink than red. Oops).
- Chocolate Chips
- Licorice strips (Mine were of the sour variety. The sugar granules give the lion a little more texture).
- Black gel frosting

Assembly is pretty straight forward. And you can always tailor the decoration choices to your tastes. Remember to let your imaginations run wild!

...Badum tsh.

Almost too cute to eat!
... ALMOST ...

If someone made you birthday cupcakes, what would you want them to look like? Or what flavor would you want them to be? Let me know below! And if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below as well!

Thanks for reading and, as always, bake on with your bad selves!

Love,
Jackie

Leftover Cookies

I have a confession to make - I had no idea what I really wanted to bake for this blog post. I knew that I wanted to bake cookies, but that was about as far as my inspiration took me. Did I wanna make big cookies? Small cookies? Stuffed cookies? Super complex, decorated cookies? I didn't know! All I had in my head was ...

Cookies.

Spongebob gets me.
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I mean, let's face it, cookies are pretty much amazing. They're one of my favorite sweets to bake ... eat ... share ... You name the reason and I'll usually say yes to cookies.

OMNOMNOM
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Now, when I finally set off on my baking adventure, I went in with the intention of making Malteser cookies. The finished product wasn't what I had expected (I'll attempt those again one day), but it was too delicious not to share with you. I've ended up calling these "Leftover Cookies" because the basic recipe would be great with any leftover candy that you have lying around. Even my Maltesers were leftovers from a date I went on recently!

(I requested them with the full intention of eating them [they're one of my favorite candies], but I ended up being too nervous to actually consume any. Thanks to that special guy for getting them for me and for not minding that I didn't eat them right away. You're the best).

A wink from me through Scott Pilgrim.
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And while these cookies are far from healthy (all that butter and sugar), they'd be great with some healthy, leftover ingredients too! Nuts, dried fruit, seeds, oats, you name it. Whatever sounds good to you probably sounds good to me! Let your pantry lead the way. (And be sure to keep this recipe on hand near Valentine's Day ... Easter ... Halloween. Think of all that cheap, leftover candy you can buy at the supermarket)!

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking power
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
Leftover candy/ingredient of your choice!

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) In a mixing bowl, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy.

Look at how pretty it was before I mixed it all together.

3) Add eggs and vanilla. Combine.

I love this stand mixer so much. You have no idea.

4) Add all of the dry ingredients, except your leftovers, and mix until combined.

I'm usually lazy and skip sifting the ingredients. Oops.
I should probably work on that.

5) Add your leftover ingredient(s) and mix again until just combined.

I'd eat that right off the beater. 

6) Make 1 inch balls of dough.

Or get distracted by your cat. Either one. 

7) Place your dough on a cookie sheet a few inches apart. (I was able to make roughly 30 cookies).

All da cookies!

8) Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown.

They look so good, guys!

9) Let the cookies stand on the cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Such a photogenic set of cookies.

And there you have it! These are super easy to make and so, so good! Although, the only leftover candy that I can't vouch for is any type of gummy. I've never tried it myself, and probably never will, but if you like that sort of thing in a cookie, more power to ya!

What type of candy or other ingredient would you put in these? Let me know in the comments below! If you have any other questions or comments, leave those below as well.

And, as always, bake on with your bad selves!

Love,
Jackie

Insert Clever Name for Baked Apples Here

HAPPY NEW YEAR, dear readers!

ALL THE CONFETTI!
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It's already 2016. Way to make me feel old, world, way to make me feel OLD.

And growing a beard, apparently.
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Anywho, it's that time of the year again when a large majority of the population makes resolutions to better their lives and better themselves. Some people are great at keep their resolutions and these are people I both admire and envy. But, if you're anything like me, you have good intentions - you'll set your goals, you'll make attempts to keep your resolution for as long as you - but they never end up working out right.

Gold stars all around!

So, instead of listing resolutions that I know I'll never keep, I decided to bake something in the spirit of the new year.

My lovely friend, Amanda L., helped me decide on some good, ol' fashioned baked apples. They're delicious. They're filling. They're pretty easy to make. They're even sort of healthy, as long as you don't go too crazy with the fillings! And, hey, this is probably the healthiest recipe I've posted here thus far, so that counts for something, right? Right!

(I ended up only making 2 baked apples since I live and alone and can't get through food that quickly, but doubling/tripling/etc the recipe is easy. Feel free to make as many as you like)!

Here we go!

Just like Mario!
(I've been watching Game Grumps go through Mario 64. Thanks, guys).
[Source: telltalegames.com]

Ingredients

2 apples (I used gala - partly because they're good baking apples and partly because I already had some in my kitchen. I'm all about using leftover ingredients).

3 tbsp peanut butter
1.5 tbsp oats

1.5 tbsp mini chocolate chips (Or whichever size you want. I had these lying around my kitchen too).

Honey (You can either mix this in with your other ingredients or drizzle it on top of your apples. I'll leave that up to you).

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2) Core out each apple and scrape out a 1 inch wide opening with a metal spoon. Keep scraping out your apples until you have roughly 1 inch of apple left at the bottom.

I had tiny apples, I swear the opening isn't really that big!

3) Mix together your filling ingredients.

I'd just eat this to be quite honest.

4) Divide the mixture between your apples.

5) Place the apples in a baking pan. (I'm still acquiring different size pans, so I used my 9x13 cake pan. Instead of getting the whole pan dirty, though, I made a smaller baking vessel in the middle of it out of aluminum foil).

They look so lonely.

6) Pour enough water on the bottom of your pan to cover the bottom of your apples.

7) Bake your apples for 40 to 50 minutes. It depends on how soft you want your apples to be. OR if you have a possessed oven that bakes things oddly, you'll probably only have to bake them for 30 minutes. Thanks, apartment oven.

They end up looking like stuffed grapes. They're tastier than they look.

And there you have it! You can dive right into one of those bad boys as soon as it comes out of the oven if you want. And if you're feeling a little less healthy, you can always top the apples with whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream. Anyway you eat 'em, they're delicious.

We won't judge.

No judgment here!
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So, cheers to everyone who makes resolutions and cheers to everyone who doesn't! Let's have a kick-ass 2016!

If you have any questions, comments, or random GIFs you'd like to share, leave them down in the comment section below! Be sure to share this post if you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading! :-)

And, as always, bake on with your bad selves!

Love,
Jackie