The Treat to Start Your Week Sweet

Yes, today is Monday—back to school, work, etc. However, Monday’s don’t have to be completely drab. If you bake a sweet treat, it can help make the day a little more pleasant. But not just any sweet treat, something that is easy to make, but tastes out-of-this-world—today’s recipe qualifies for a Monday sweet treat!

But first, I received a wonderful blog award, “One Lovely Blog” from Taylor!

I will be nominating 10 other bloggers on my next post :-)

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes

Yields: 24

Prep: 20 minutes

Cook: 25 minutes

Ingredients

Frosting:

• 1/2 c light cream cheese (block style)
• 1/4 c creamy peanut butter (I used PB&Co Dark Chocolate Dream)
• 1/4 c confectioner’s sugar

Cupcakes:

• 1 c cake flour
• 1 c granulated sugar or sugar substitute
• 1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c low fat buttermilk (I used Almond Breeze and added 1/2 Tbsp vinegar and mixed)
• 1/3 c canola oil
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 oz semisweet chocolate, melted
• 1/2 c seedless jam (your preferred flavor—I used raspberry)
• 1/4 c honey roasted peanuts, chopped

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a mini 24-cup muffin pan with nonstick spray.
• To make frosting, with an electric mixer on low speed, beat the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth, about 2 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap, set aside.
• To make the cupcakes, whisk together cake flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking powder and soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk together buttermilk, oil, egg, egg white, and vanilla in a larger bowl. Whisk in the melted chocolate. Add the flour mixture, stirring until just blended.
• Fill each muffin cup 2/3’s full with batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the pan.
• Meanwhile, fill pastry bag with seedless jam. Carefully insert the pastry tip into top of cupcake. Pipe in about 1 tsp jam. Repeat with remaining cupcakes and jam.

• With a small spatula, spread the frosting over the tops of the cupcakes, sprinkle with peanuts.

..Then you can lick the spoon! And the bowl if you must :-)

Today’s recipe adapted from Weight Watcher’s Best Ever Desserts.

C’mon and do the Twist!

A pretzel twist that is—unless of course you really feel like busting out a move and dancing that’s a-okay with me!! Today I finally got around to making homemade pretzels! I have had this on my endless long list of recipes to make for awhile now and I guess the whole sound of “making pretzels from scratch” sounded a tad bit daunting. Good thing I was up for the challenge—and I was glad to find out that it wasn’t such a challenge after all, which means you can get in your kitchen ASAP and make them!

I got this recipe from my Food Network magazine and it was under their monthly feature Copy That where they try to recreate a “secret” recipe. This one of course was a replica of the famous Auntie Anne's pretzels. The verdict? I think they came out pretty close! So here’s the recipe and in the bold print is the changes I made to the original ingredients. I also made 12 mini pretzels instead of 6 jumbo, and I calculated the nutritionals using my adaptations and for one mini pretzel with a dusting of cinnamon, it will set you back just 110 calories! And being a “mini” pretzel, they are not really mini at all.

Food Network’s Almost-Famous Soft Pretzels

Active: 45 min Total:1 hr (plus rising) Makes: 6 pretzels or 12 mini

Ingredients:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 package active dry yeast or 1 packet fast rising yeast
• 3 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
• 2 1/4 C all-purpose flour or 1 C whole wheat+1 1/4 all-purpose
• 2 Tbsp butter, plus a few more for brushing on pretzels
• 1/3 C baking soda

Directions:

• Warm milk in saucepan until 110 F; pour into a medium bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let the yeast soften, about 2 mins; stir in brown sugar and 1 C flour. Dice 2 Tbsp butter and soften; stir into the mix. Add the remaining 1 1/4 C butter and fine salt to make a sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, adding more flour if needed, until smooth but slightly tacky, about 5 minutes. Shape into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in warm spot about 1 hour or until doubled in size.

• Preheat oven to 450 F and grease a large baking sheet. Punch the dough to deflate it, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide the dough into 6 pieces or 12 if your making the mini pretzels. Roll and stretch each piece with your palms into a 30 inch rope. (15 in for minis) Form each rope into a pretzel shape.

• Dissolve the baking soda in 3 C warm water in a shallow baking dish. Gently dip each pretzel into the soda solution and arrange on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until golden, 10-12 minutes.

• Melt a couple tbsp of butter and brush over the top.(The original recipe called for 8 TBSP of butter, and then to dip the whole pretzel in, but who needs all that butter?!) Their recipe called for a coarse salt topping, but I decided to take it a step(okay maybe 5 steps) further and turn these into some special pretzels—check it out!

• Pretzel Number One

The Peanut Butter and Jelly Pretzel

Figured I would dedicate this one to one of my favorite bloggies over at Peanut Butter and Jenny! It was just some strawberry jelly slathered on, covered by 2 Tbsp of melted PB chips.

 

 

• Pretzel Number Two

Pineapple Cream Cheese and Coconut Pretzel

Of course this pretzel needed to be dedicated to another sweet girl Laura at Pineapple Gurl! 1 Tbsp of Pineapple Cream Cheese topped with 1 Tbsp flaked coconut.

• Pretzel Number Three

Plain Jane Powdered Sugar Pretzel

Unfortunately, I know no bloggers by the name of Jane, so no dedication here. Just a sprinkling of powdered sugar made it taste like funnel cake from the summer fair!

 

 

 

• Pretzel Number Four

Double Chocolate Devotion Pretzel

1 Tbsp of chocolate frosting with a sprinkling of chocolate sprinkles.

 

 

• Pretzel Number Five

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bonanza Pretzel

1 Tbsp of chocolate frosting and some sliced peanuts.

 

 

 

 

• Pretzel Number Six

Choco-Walnut Bliss Pretzel

1 Tbsp chocolate frosting with 1 Tbsp crushed walnuts

 

 

 

• Pretzel Number Seven

Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels

(2 in the middle)

Gotta go for now guys—my phone is ringing, I think it may be Auntie Anne’s calling to hire me! =) Have a fab Friday!