Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

I wanted to come up with a healthy dessert option for Mother's Day. We all know where the majority of the calories come from when you eat a cupcake...the frosting. This recipe is already low-calorie and low-fat because some of the butter has been replaced with sour cream (so it is still super moist) and the frosting has been replaced with fruit-based icing and a dollop of fat-free Cool Whip. Making these changes allows this bad-boy to ring in with a calorie count of only 230. So that being said, let's dive in!

The Grocery List:

• 1 stick of salted butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 (8 oz) container of fat-free sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of egg substitute
• 2 cups all purpose flout
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 1 lb strawberries
• 1 lemon
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• Cool Whip Free
• Cupcake liners

The Prep: 

Start by melting the stick of butter and set aside to let cool. 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and salt) in a medium-sized bowl with a whisk. Also, while the butter is cooling, now would be a good time to slice up some strawberries for garnish. I only used one slice per cupcake, which came to only about 8-9 small strawberries. Make sure you reserve at least 4 medium-large strawberries for the glaze. 

The Batter:

Now that your butter is cooled (or at least, not HOT), it's time to make some batter! Using an electric mixer, whisk the sour cream and melted butter until well combined. Add the sugar and vanilla. Whisk for an additional 2-3 minutes at medium speed. Add the egg substitute and blend for another 2 minutes on medium. 

Valentine’s Day Dessert: Chocolate Lava Cake

With all of this love in the air, I figured what better time is there to make a seriously decadent, delicious desert to share with my sweetie. I have actually wanted to tackle a molten chocolate lava cake for some time and haven’t had the excuse to do it. Enter Valentine’s Day!! This is a variation of a Ghirardelli recipe. I made a couple of changes for both taste and convenience that worked well for me.

Ingredients

• 6 oz 60% cocao bittersweet baking chocolate bars
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 8 Tablespoons butter (1 stick)
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yokes
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup cake flour
• 12 ounces of unsweetened frozen raspberries, thawed
• 1/2 cup simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water melted)
• Fresh raspberries and mint leaves for garnish

Let’s get baking:

1. Melt 2 ounces of chocolate and cream in a double boiler. Whisk until smooth. Put the melted mixture in the refrigerator for about 2 hours or until firm. After the chocolate mixture has set form into 6 balls.

To make these little beauties with ease, I used a wet teaspoon (wetting in between each scoop) to drag across the bottom of my double boiler until the ball was formed. The water helped release the chocolate from the spoon without any messy sticking. After portioning out the chocolate, refrigerate until needed.
2. Prep for the cakes: preheat the oven to 400 degrees and spray six 6 ounce ramekins with baking spray. For cakes that I need to release cleanly from their baking vessel, I always use cooking spray with flour such as Baker’s Joy.

Inspiration from Crate & Barrel

One of my new favorite things is CrateandBarrel.com! I'm not just talking about the ease of online shopping, that's REALLY old news. Crate and Barrel has a ton of online freebies on the website.....and who isn't a sucker for free stuff?? In their Inspiration menu on their website, you will find some really cool tools that you can use for decorating and entertaining in your home.  In particular I love their Get the Download section. If you have an Apple product of any sort then you will love this! Check out what they have to download for FREE:

An ENTIRE playlist of 10 songs:

The songs are primarily Indie Rock or Pop-Rock, which for the most part is my kind of thing, so I really liked most of these songs, but even if you like one....it's freaking FREE!

An ENTIRE book (not just the sample):

I'm really excited to read this book. The author is the lead singer of the Decemberists, a really great folksy Rock band. I'm curious to see how the lyrics he writes translate to story. Crate and Barrel also has a list of additional recommended reads that are available for purchase that look great. 

Several Free Apps:

Between mixing drinks (with a little bit of a history lesson thrown in) and playing a game of Scrabble they have you hooked up!

Yummy Recipes:

Pomegranate Yogurt Dip

Grapefruit-Rosemary Martini 

If you like free downloads and entertaining inspiration, you should definitely check it out! Do you know of any awesome freebies that I am missing out on??

Christmas Eve: Healthy Appetizers

I'm not sure how it started (sorry Mom!), but my family has always opened Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. It was weird to think of it any other way when Tony and I got married, but it did work out when it came to the obligatory splitting up of family time during the Christmas season. Our family would gather every year right around dinner time to open all of our presents, which ended up making dinner a challenge. We (the kids) wanted to get strait to opening presents and would hardly touch our food or if we waited until after the presents to eat we rushed through opening presents because we were all starving.

My mom decided the solution to this predicament was to do a ton of finger foods to put out in the living room to snack on during the present opening. Now every year that is our Christmas Eve meal... a TON of appetizers (and a couple of cocktails). There are so many great appetizer recipes that our eyes always end up being bigger than our stomachs (or some of us just keep eating until we explode). This year I am hosting Christmas Eve at our house and I am having a terrible time narrowing down the options. I have decided that we are going to try some more healthy options (but still kid friendly) than we normally do because we are the ones that are going to be stuck with the leftovers and I am not interested in buying bigger jeans this year! These are 10 of the yummy recipes that I am considering:

Crabmeat Fondue

Harvest Sweet Potato Pecan Pie Tarts

Top 10 Ingredient Substitutions

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! If you're hosting Thanksgiving this year and you're anything like me, you have forgotten some ingredient that you thought you had or skimmed over in the recipe when you were making your grocery list. You can't very well leave all of the other things that you have started cooking and, well-intended as they may be, if your guy isn't the one who regularly cooks or does the grocery shopping, whatever he comes back with has roughly a 20% chance of being exactly what you need. One of my favorite cook books, especially around the holidays, is the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. It has a ton of product recommendations and pictures so that  you know you are getting the desired results. One of the awesome things this book has to offer is a list of emergency substitutions for ingredients that you may not have on hand, check out the top ten below. I wish you all happy, safe, and sane cooking!

To Replace	Amount	Substitution
Baking Powder	1 tsp.	1/4 tsp baking soda + 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (use right away)
Heavy Cream	1 Cup	1 cup evaporated milk (only use this for soups and sauces)
Fresh Herbs	1 Tbsp	1 teaspoon of dried herbs
Sour Cream	1 Cup	1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (and visa-versa if you forgot yogurt)
Buttermilk	1 Cup	1 cup milk + 1 Tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar (Let stand to thicken, about 10 minutes. Not suitable for raw applications such as buttermilk dressing) Also - this really makes you think twice about cooking with butter milk - no?
Wine	1/2 cup	1/2 cup broth + 1 teaspoon wine vinegar (added just befor serving) 1/2 cup broth + 1 teaspoon lemon juice (added just before serving) Vermouth makes a good substitute for white wine (But really, if you forgot wine just give up now!!)
Confectioners' Sugar	1 Cup	1 cup granulated sugar + 1 teaspoon cornstarch, ground in a blender (not a food processor) - Works well for dusting over cakes, less so in frostings and glazes.
Cake Flour	1 Cup	7/8 cup all-purpose flour + 2 Tablespoons cornstartch
Dark Brown Sugar	1 Cup	1 cup granulated sugar + 2 Tablespoon molasses (pulse together in a food processor)
Unsweetened Chocolate	1 Oz.	3 Tablespoons cocoa powder + 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil 1 1/2 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (remove 1 Tablespoon sugar from the recipe)