Baking thru the Holidays . . .

To make PB&J, first bake PB cupcakes, then carve out a little hole. 

Pipe a little jam into the hole. 

Plug the jam-filled hole back up. 

And top with a chocolate buttercream rosette! 

Mint chocolate cupcakes. :-) Yum! 

The book that started the latest baking binge . . .

I've spent the last couple of days baking!  (Surprise!)  My friend Terri Blackstock sent me a book called "500 Cupcakes" for my birthday, so of course I've been busy making cupcakes!  I made delicious chocolate mint cupcakes the first day, peanut-butter-and-jelly cupcakes last night, and banana chocolate this morning!  Plus, I think I made my best batch of macarons ever--Tiramasu!  :-)  

I really love the 500 cupcakes cookbook because not only are their great (from scratch, of course) recipes, but the author gives you practical variations of each recipe, in case you want to try something different or if you don't happen to have a certain exotic ingredient on hand.

Last night the peanut butter cupcakes were supposed to stand alone, but I got the idea to scoop out a plug at the top of the cupcake, fill it with about a teaspoon of raspberry preserves, plug it back up, and then frost with chocolate buttercream.  It's almost like a gigantic Reese's cup!  I took some across the street to my neighbors, then today I sent the hubby out with little gift boxes to several other family friends.  I figured it was after lunch so they were bound to be ready for some homemade  Christmas cupcakes.  :-)

So all is well here in the Hunt kitchen.  I did some re-organizing over the holiday--marked some dishes and things for the Daughter, some to sell on eBay, and some to use more often.  Picked up a few kitchen gadgets and exotic ingredients  at a Sur La Table store in Miami--fun!  Spent way too much time trying to track down kirsch--apparently it's a cherry brandy that you cook with.  My grocery didn't have it, and neither did the nearby liquor store, so I had to order it online.   It had better make my desserts heavenly!

I spent most of today baking while watching "The Greatest Story Ever Told."  Love that old film. And last night I saw a new British movie called "Nativity!" Simple and sweet and quite different.

And it's back to work soon, so I'm trying to get a lot of my baking out of my system.  Though I don't think that will every be completely possible, hmmm?  Plus, there are those extra pounds I packed on over the holiday.  Time to start counting the calories and putting in time on the treadmill . . .

Hope your holiday was heavenly!

Best,

Angie