sugar and spice

apple spice cupcakes with honey cream cheese frosting,

topped with cinnamon-sugar dusted apple hearts

Cupcake recipe comes from one of my fave recipe books "Cupcakes" by Shelly Kaldunski,
the frosting recipe is inspired from the same book,
and the apple hearts were a Sigi-on-the-spot original : )

cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

3 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch chunks

2 tbsp plus 3/4 cup sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground allspice

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup sour cream

1. Melt 2 tbsp butter, add apple chunks and 2 tbsp sugar. Cook for 5-7 minutes. Take off heat to cool.

2. In one bowl, wisk together dry ingredients. 

3. In another bowl, beat the remaining 3/4 cup sugar with remaining butter (6 tablespoons). Beat until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. 

4. Slowly add dry ingredients mixture to wet ingredients. Mix until combined.

5. Add sour cream and apple chunks. 

6. Bake in 350 F preheated oven, for 18-20 minutes! 

honey cream cheese frosting:

cream cheese, honey, powdered sugar, vanilla

apple hearts: 
slice apples, dip in lemon juice. Using a small cookie cutter, create little hearts! Make sure the apples hang out in the lemon juice until you use them. Before serving, dust cinnamon sugar on top! For a colorful spin, brush on a food color/water mix onto the apple hearts!

These were made for my sister's 24th birthday :)

funfetti flowers.

The most photographed cupcakes, by far. If I do say so myself... these were a beautiful success.

It all started with a homemade funfetti recipe and a cupcake book. 

The flower petals are made by cutting mini marshmallows in half (diagonally) and dipping them in sanding sugar. The dipping and assembling would be a fun activity for kids to take part in (helloooo fine motor skills) !! 

Add a thin layer of cream cheese frosting (or whatever your heart desires, but please for the love of cupcakes, don't ruin these baked beauties with a layer of store-bought frosting!!!!) After adding the layer, begin assembling the petals! It's a tedious process, but obviously worth it :) 

These cupcakes were a special treat for my 3rd graders at Lithuanian Saturday school. I found it particularly entertaining to watch my students eat them. The boys instantly devoured the topping first, while the girls sat staring at the cupcakes with wide, sympathetic eyes... "they're too pretty to eat!" 

..... but that didn't last long :) 

oh my sprinkles 

ready, set, bake

so festive 

. . . then the fun begins . . . 

mini marshmallow flower petals 

assembling 

all dressed up and ready to go :) 

success!! 

juicy couture

...no, not the passe jump suits! The real deal. 

Juice is the new coffee....except with health benefits. For people on the go, or just people in general, juice is an excellent way to consume your daily dose of veggies and fruits. 

I've tried juicing everything... cucumbers, kale, spinach, apples, carrots, beets, beet greens, oh my! And the fun doesn't stop there - you can blend these juices with frozen yogurt for a store-bought-smoothie taste, or freeze the juices in popsicle molds for quick, healthy desserts. When making carrot juice, the leftover pulp can be added to carrot pancakes, carrot muffins, carrot...cake. 

My favorite produce comes from the Beverly Hills Farmer's Market. Rows of fresh, beautiful, colorful fruits, veggies, flowers, treats - it's hard not to take one of each! 

This time I bought carrots and beets. My fave. The beautiful thing is that you can add the beet greens to the juice as well. They are packed with nutrients and produce this deep burgundy juice. For a little sweetness, I added an apple. One bunch of carrots, one beet, a few beet greens and half an apple were enough for 2-3 drinks. 

Enjoy! 

fresh from the farmer's market!

apple, carrot, beet+beet greens = phenomenal colors 

tie dye foam 

oh, fudge!

The best way to get me to bake is by saying... "I need a cake/cupcakes/cookies, I guess I'll just go buy some..." or worse "I'll just buy cake mix..." FALSE. I'll do it. 

My sister needed a cake for a friend. I needed an excuse to bake. Bada bing, bada bake. 

The cake is actually my vanilla cupcake recipe, just...as a cake. The product was dense and delish.

As for frosting - it's an on-the-spot recipe: peanut butter chocolate fudge 

3/4 stick butter, softned

1-2 cups powdered sugar

peanut butter baking chips

chocolate chips 

a pinch of salt 

Soften butter with mixer, sift powdered sugar, plus pinch of salt and add to butter. Melt peanut butter chips with chocolate chips, add to butter/sugar. If the frosting looks a little dry, add melted butter or a dollop of corn syrup to add shine. 

With the left over fudge frosting I made fudge buttons and actual fudge. 

perfect for birthdays :-) 

fudge buttons 

no eggs(cuses)

When life hands you lemons? Make lemonade! When life takes away your eggs? Make eggless cookies!

Upon finding not a single egg in the fridge, I panicked. Kinda. What kind of baker am I? No eggs in my fridge? Martha Stewart would scowl at me - she has her own chicken coop, for crying out loud. But seriously, Martha...I live in a city...and I'm normal...so sometimes I run out of eggs. Get over it.

Rather than forfeiting my baking assignment (house full of guests tomorrow), I searched for eggless recipes. Eggless is the new egg...ful. Everything these days is eggless, vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, taste-free. However, this simple recipe was exactly what I needed! It goes without saying, that I tweaked the recipe a bit. The recipe was totally vegan (vegan margarine, non-dairy milk, no eggs) but I wasn't interested in converting to veganism, I just wanted an eggless solution. I used regular butter, 2% milk and cinnamon rather than all spice.

For variation (and to clean out the pantry) I added cranberries, dried fruit nibs, almond slivers and oats.

Simple. Healthy. Easy. and o(ats) soo delicious! 

dried cranberries and fruit, almond slivers and oats 

perfect balance of chewy + crisp

all dressed up!

what's scone'in on?

Scones. Love em. Not too sweet and ENDLESS possibilities. As most of us are experiencing holiday-treat hangovers, these little bits of baked goods serve as a perfect transition back to normal life. 

The recipe comes from the February edition of Martha Stewart Living magazine. (duh!)

As usual, I tweaked the recipe to make it Sigi-fied. Less butter and sugar, more cinnamon and oats, low fat milk instead of buttermilk. One batch was apple and oat, the other was dark chocolate and clementine. Once you've created the basic dough, you can add anything! Anything at all! Nuts, seeds, dried fruit, chocolate, orange zest, anything! 

For the clementine and dark chocolate, I added the juice of 2 lil' cuties and the zest of one, and then a generous handful of my fave baking chocolate - Ghirardelli's. Seriously guys, go big or go home. Sure, you can buy the store-brand chocolate chips and save a couple dollars, but blech! Splurge. Live a little. 

apple and oat

clementine and dark chocolate

vintage Lithuanian doilies :) 

2012: Year of the Cupcake

Happy 2012! 

I'm easy to shop for.