Hershey Bar Cupcakes

These are good! Do you remember the depression era recipe for Chocolate Cake, or Wacky Cake as it was sometimes called? I think the base of this cupcake is based on that recipe. There's no egg in the cake and no butter either. The surprise ingredient is white vinegar! It works. Wacky cake is good. It has a good chocolate taste, great color, not overly moist, but definitely not dry either. It's a good cake! This cupcake recipe has two OTHER bonus points. One, filling. All great cupcakes have a filling, right? Two, a no-work, one ingredient frosting! Need I say ANY more?!

Hershey Bar Cupcakes

For the Filling

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 oz. HERSHEY'S Milk Chocolate Bars chopped into 1/4-inch pieces (use any sized bars, get whatever is cheapest at the store. You'll need about 1 cup of chopped Hershey Chocolate for the filling)

For the Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup Hershey's cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups water
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons plain white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the Frosting

2 large (4.4 oz.) bars of Hershey Chocolate (again, you can use any size bar...but I found one section of the 4.4 oz bar to be the right amount of frosting for my preference. Each bar has 12 portions, 2 bars frosts 2 dozen cupcakes)

Directions:
1. Prepare the filling. Beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and salt in small bowl until smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped chocolate bar pieces. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake tins with paper liners.

3. Prepare the cupcake batter. With an electric mixer, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt to combine. Add in water, oil, vinegar and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Fill each cupcake pan 1/3 of the way with batter. Spoon 1 level tablespoon of the reserved filling into the center of each cupcake. Top with more cake batter until cupcake pans are full. (I had some excess batter, but not excess filling or chocolate...so I also made 6 plain cupcakes.)

4. Bake the cupcakes. 18-20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in cake portion comes out clean. Remove from oven to wire rack.

5. Frost the cupcakes. Top each cupcake with one section of the large sized Hershey bar. Let chocolate melt (5-8 minutes) and then spread with spatula to ice the top of the cupcake. (How easy is that?!)

5. Let cupcakes cool completely. Chocolate will harden (You may need to put cupcakes in RF for an hour or so to finish the hardening process).

Yummy! Wonderful cake, creamy filling, and a hard chocolate frosting. One of the best cupcakes in the I've ever tasted, actually. My poor daughter (the one on Weight Watchers) is usually very good about ignoring the baked goods I often have hanging out on the counter...but she's having a very hard time with these....

The original recipe was found here http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=3290&page=5&per=50

Thanks for visiting my kitchen today!

Fresh Blueberry Lemonade

Thought I might like this...and I was right! Loved it. The blueberry taste is not pronounced, but the color they give to the drink is fantastic. Bbbb...b...bbut...the lemonade is pinkish RED, not blue! Surprise! Our delightful 4 year old guest, who was dressed as a doggie AND a superhero (yes, at the same time!) drank 10 cups of this (at least), and she called it Pink Lemonade.  I was going to follow her lead, but that would be even MORE confusing...so Blueberry Lemonade it remains!

I found this concoction to be more refreshing than straight up lemonade. It's not as harsh, not as much acidity, I think. Yep, this recipe is a winner, a keeper. Be sure to make a batch for the July 4th picnic. Make several batches as once, in "concentrate" form, so you can serve it up when it is most needed and wanted without any fuss or bother.

This recipe was pulled together from two sources. My original long-relied upon lemonade recipe from "Too busy to Cook" (from the 80s or 90s) and a recipe from Family Fun Magazine attributed to Anne Coleman.

1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 1/3 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
grated zest of two lemons
1 sliced lemon
extra handful of blueberries (for garnish, if desired)
Additional water, about 6 cups.

Combine blueberries, sugar and water and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat until blueberries soften and release their color, about 5 minutes. Strain liquid and discard solids. Let cool. Stir in lemon juice,lemon zest, and sliced lemon along with enough water to have liquids measure 2 quarts. Flavor from lemons develops over time. Let mixture sit for a few hours or overnight. Serve over ice with a slice of lemon and a float of 5 or 6 blueberries.

Make your own Blueberry Lemonade Concentrate!

Make the sugar-blueberry-water syrup. Strain. Stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest. Freeze. When needed just add 1 sliced lemon and enough water to made 2 quarts of drink, stir briskly to dissolve the concentrate. YUM. How impressive would that be to pull out on a Tuesday night?!

Thanks for visiting!

Cookie Cups (For Ice Cream Sundaes, of course)

Want a REALLY good ice cream sundae? Ice-cream, fresh fruit, whipped cream, chocolate shavings, maybe a few sliced almonds...in a Cookie Cup! The Cookie Cup transforms a familiar, really good dessert a to a special, really GREAT dessert. People swoon. People moan. People linger.

This recipe has been in my files since I was a newlywed in 1981. I have only a photocopy of a page from a cookbook, no notations. I am pretty sure the photocopy is from a Sunset cookbook from the 1980s, but I am not certain.

Use any nuts you want, but I have specified my favorite combination. Other than that, I have made no changes to the original recipe.

Cookie Cups

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (Light or dark brown sugar was not specified. I've used both, and prefer the dark)
1/2 cup light corn syrup
7 Tablespoons flour
1 cup finely chopped nuts (I use half pecans and half sliced almonds--both chopped finely)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add in brown sugar and corn syrup and bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. When liquid boils, remove from heat and stir in flour and nuts until well blended. Stir in vanilla.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a cookie pan with Pam for baking (or any other method you prefer). Make 2 cookies on one cookie sheet. For each cookie, pace 2 Tablespoons of batter in a puddle on the cookie sheet.

 Batter  before baking, above.  After baking, below.  See how it spreads?  Only bake two cookies on one sheet!

Cookies will spread A LOT. (you can bake 2 sheets at one time, if you move the sheets around after 5-6 minutes). Bake in 325 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, or until cookies are lacy and have a rich golden brown color. Remove from oven and let cookie cool on the tray for a minute or two (but not much longer).

Turn a glass or very small bowl, with a flat, 2-inch diameter bottom, upside down onto counter. When the cookie edges are firm, but the cookie is still somewhat stretchy, with a wide metal spatula, transfer cookie from sheet to OVER the upside down glass on the counter. With your fingers, quickly press the cookie into the shape of the glass. The cookie will harden almost immediately. Leave the cookie there to cool a minute or two (while you get the next batch in the oven).

One cookie cooling over an upside down glass, one cookie completely cooled and removed from glass and standing straight and firm.

Remove cookie cup from glass. Cookie cups can be stored in "rigid" (I use tin) container for up to a week, or frozen for longer storage....but they are delicate, so be careful.

Just before serving, place ice-cream, fresh fruit, whipped cream...whatever your hear desires...into the cookie cups and serve. You'll see joy in your guests eyes.

Thanks for visiting my kitchen today.  Stop by again for some homemade ice creams, sherbets, and sorbets to put in the ice cream cups!

Chicken Tortellini Soup

This soup is delicious, hearty, and very, very easy to pull together. It's a staple around here. Everyone likes it. You could leave out the chicken, I often do now (I seem to want to eat less meat as I get older), but don't skip the leek or the fennel seeds because, working together they crank this soup up from good to GREAT.

Chicken Tortellini Soup

1 T. olive oil
1 leek, sliced (white and pale green parts only)
1 small onion, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 T. dried basil
2 tsp. fennel seeds
6 c. chicken stock (homemade is best)
2 medium zucchini, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
1 (9-oz.) pkg. cheese tortellini
1/2 bunch spinach, coarsely chopped (no stems)
1 1/2 c. diced cooked chicken or turkey
Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper, to taste
grated parmesan cheese

Heat oil in heavy skillet. Add in leek, onion, garlic, basil, and fennel seeds and cook until onion is tender, about 10 minutes. Pour chicken stock into pot, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add zucchini and carrot, cover and simmer for 5 more minutes. Increase heat to high and bring soup to a boil. Stir tortellini into boiling soup cook until tender, uncovered, about 5 minutes. Stir in spinach and cooked turkey, heat through. Season to taste with Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls and sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.

Makes 4 main dish servings. Thanks for visiting!