Snowed In Coconut Cup Cookies

Snow ruined my Saturday night. I made the best of it.

Inspired by the wintery white stuff all around me and trapped in my apartment, I started out looking for recipes that involved one egg and no milk. I came across this neat coconut cup cookie recipe. It sounded easy, so I made half of it (there are no need for 12 cookies at a table for one).

The best part about this blizzard is that I learned how easy it is to make pie crust in my food processor. Seriously, really easy. I pretty much just tossed in a cup of flour and half a stick of butter, then pulsed the processor slowly adding water as I went. The results were fabulous.

After forming the cups in my muffin tin, I baked for 10 minutes and added the fillings. Seeing as I didn't have any gross marmalade like the recipe called for, I decided to mix it up. Two cups had guava paste, two had chocolate chips and two had blueberry jam. All were good, but it was hard to tell them apart!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

These cupcakes were for my friend Erin's birthday. She's a big fan of peanut butter, so it seemed to make sense. It might have made a little too much sense though...her roommate made her a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for her birthday... Oh well, both were delicious, and we sort of had a theme going.

I used my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe, which also happens to be the only chocolate cupcake recipe I've ever used. They turned out great. This is what I used for the frosting, though I had to use more milk and less sugar to get a nice consistency.

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

There is certainly no shortage of Valentine's Day cupcakes. I mean, I guess I could have made some bitter Singles Awareness Day cupcakes, but hey, I'm a sucker for holiday-themed stuff when the timing is right. Today, my family got together for dinner, and the timing was definitely right.

This was also one of my most serious attempts at baking yet. I've made some cupcakes and other good desserts in the past, but this was taking it up a notch. Until now, I've been putting off the purchase of an electric mixer for fear of a hefty price tag. But today, I bought a mixer at Target for, get ready for it, $7! It works perfectly so far...

Anyway, seeing as I'm no expert, I relied on recipes from a cupcake blog that is nothing less than inspirational. Really, some of her recipes are amazing. I followed this recipe for the cake itself, and this one for the frosting. In other words, I mixed and matched another blogger's ideas to get my Chocolate Valentine's Day Cupcakes with Pink Coconut Buttercream Frosting.



In case your wondering, I had to half the frosting recipe for my 12 cupcakes, but I ended up with less frosting than I needed. Oops. Happy Valentine's Day!