Santa Hat Brownies

First let me just say that 'pinning' is killing my creativity.  There is just too many cute things on there, why would I ever need to come up with my own ideas?  The Santa Hat Brownies were so cute I had to make them.  And so easy!  I used a box brownies (I know shame on me, but I just did my huge pile of dishes I didn't really want to make a million more.  Plus Ghirardelli is just so darn good, why mess with perfection?) I also made a cream cheese frosting, have I posted that recipe?  It's pretty delicious. 

Cream Cheese Frosting

Mix in standing mixer:

1/2 cup + 3 tbl butter

1 cup powdered sugar

Cream together until smooth and creamy

Add:

1 lb (2 boxes) softened cream cheese

Add:

lemon juice

vanilla bean paste

I just add a healthy squirt of lemon juice and vanilla bean paste (about 1 tbl each) to the mix and keep adding until it tastes just like cheesecake



As American As Cherry Pie!

I couldn't let a holiday go by with out baking something, but I was short on time and hadn't found anything new or exciting to inspire me, then I remembered Cherry Pie Cupcakes.  I had always wanted to make these they are so cute and incredibly simple. 

I used a box mix of yellow cake to save time (replacing the water with buttermilk to make a moister cake), I made a cream cheese buttercream:

1 box cream cheese

1 stick of butter

1-2 tea lemon

1 tea heavy cream

1 tea vanilla bean paste

1-2 cups powdered sugar

All measurements are approximate.  When I make my buttercream I start by:

Creaming my butter &/or cream cheese. 

When that has become smooth I add my liquid; cream/coffee/liqueur/lemon juice, etc

Then I add powdered sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time so not to over sweeten.

Stop, scrape down sides, taste test.  Add more sugar/liquid/butter/cream cheese as needed. 

Blend, stop, scrape, taste as many times a needed until it is right.

For the cherry pie topping, I just used a can of cherry pie filling, so simple!

I cut the tops of the cupcake off so that the cherry pie filling would not fall down the sides.

Put thin layer of frosting on top of cupcake

Piped standerd boarder to hold in filling and give 'crust' apperence

Topped with cherry pie filling

Piped a basket weave on every other one

The result; the cutest cherry pie cupcakes that tasted like a cherry creamcheese cake, yumm!

I was trying to finish these quickly so that I could play bubbles outside with my son, so I only made 4.  With the leftover frosting, I quickly smeared it on the rest of the cupcakes.  I'm usually a fan of the piped frosting on cupcakes, but there's something to so yummy looking about a messy cupcake don't ya think?

Happy Fourth Everyone!