I had a ton of cherries leftover that I pitted and then kept in the freezer for when the mood strikes. A cherry mood. I threw together a quick vanilla cupcake and folded in some cherries and yum. There you go. These are fine without frosting which is just dandy since it’s been 100 degrees here in L.A. The poor frosting would never make it…

ingredients:
1-3/4 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk
2 cups pitted cherries
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375° F. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt.

In large electric mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until combined. Add in the eggs, 1 at a time, until well combined.

Alternate the flour and the milk into the butter mixture. Mix in the vanilla, and then fold in the cherries.

Spoon batter into prepped cups 3/4 full. Bake cupcakes 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

The winner of the Hello Kitty Pasta giveaway is…

random integer generator: 8 Lady P!

Congrats! Email me with your address and your kitty pasta will be in your hands in no time! Thanks for the birthday wishes!

Today is my birthday and I love party favors. As a thank you to you guys who keep coming back for more recipes here is your party favor:

Who wouldn’t want a bag of Hello Kitty Pasta?!? Imagine the possibilities of what you could make! (Baked Pasta, anyone?)

Who doesn’t want free stuff?? And free cute stuff at that. Just leave a comment on this post and you are in it to win it. You have until Sunday – thanks for reading and good luck!

**Also if you want to keep up with shop news, recipes, very important cupcake info – I am now on twitter, ~ http://twitter.com/justjenndesigns ~follow away!

I made the peanut butter brownies from The Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook. While they tasted fantastic, in no way did they look as cute as the pic in the book. So I did the next best thing and salvaged the ugliness by cutting them into hearts with a cookie cutter THEN filling them with softened homemade vanilla ice cream. Oh yeah. That more than saved them it made them about ten times more appealing.

ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs

peanut butter brownie top
ingredients:
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment, brushed with butter.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour and salt and set aside.

In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine the butter, chocolate chips and vanilla. Stirring until smooth. Remove from the heat and add the brown sugar, stirring until combined.

Cool slightly, then transfer the chocolate to a large bowl and add the eggs, carefully, one at a time, stirring quickly – you do not want to cook the eggs! Fold the dry ingredients in the mixture and pour the batter into the prepped pan.

Now move on to the peanut butter topping. In another medium saucepan over low heat, stir the peanut butter, butter and brown sugar. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl. Again, cool slightly, then add the egg (don’t cook it – keep stirring!!) then fold in the flour.

Pour THAT peanut butter mixture on top of the brownie batter. Bake for 40 minutes, let cool completely.

Once cooled, using a heart shape cutter – cut out hearts in the brownies. You should be able to see a side view of the thick brownie with the peanut butter topping. I had a cutter with a hole in the center, which proved to be best for filling with softened homemade vanilla ice cream. THE BEST.

My kids love waffles. So much that they were asking for them everyday for about two months. Talk about boredom in the kitchen. I try to liven them up when I can (hello, moffles!) , but something about a nice chocolate-y Hello Kitty just sounded good…

ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 Tablespoon melted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

In a bowl whisk flour, salt, sugar, cocoa powder and baking powder.

Carefully stir in the milk and the eggs. Then add the butter and vanilla until you get a nice batter. Don’t overstir. Fold in the mini chocolate chips.

Make according to your waffle maker directions.

I decided to throw together some yogurt cupcakes, but with a twist. A nice green ribbon twist to be exact. I used strawberry yogurt mixed with green tea matcha powder to get the prettiest little pink and green cupcakes ever. However, I must admit…I cheated. I added two drops of pink food coloring cause the strawberry yogurt just wasn’t giving me that pink Pantone color that I so desired. Designers. Never satisfied.

I love they way they came out – and the MOST important thing – moist and tasty.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup strawberry yogurt
1/2 cup of melted butter
2 drop pink gel food food coloring

1 Tablespoon green tea matcha powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon milk

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prep a cupcake pan with liners. In a bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until well mixed. Carefully add the flour mixture. Add the yogurt – mix well. Carefully add the melted butter until stirred in.

In a small bowl, mix the powdered green tea and sugar with the milk, mixing it into a paste. (Much like you’d do for green tea ice cream…) Add 1/2 cup of cake batter until it turns a lovely green.

With the leftover batter, I add two drop of gel food coloring – pink. It gives a lovely balance to the green of the green tea. And for some reason it tricks the eye (and stomach) into believing that the taste is more ’strawberry’. Sight is a funny thing. Now in your prepped liners, alternate the two batters by spoonful until you get to about 3/4 of the way full.

To get the nice marbled look, take a knife, toothpick, chopstick – whatever you have and make figure 8s in the batter. You’ll be surprised how well this works.
Bake for 17-20 minutes until you get a clean toothpick. Let cool on a wire rack.

Dust with powdered sugar if desired – serve.

If you are from Hawaii, have visited Hawaii, or heck even go to the King’s Hawaiian bakery – then you know about Dobash. It’s a light chocolate cake, but what puts it over the top is the pudding like frosting. It’s surprisingly not as rich as it looks – just the right amount of sweet.

Usually it’s a layer cake but I thought just a cupcake would work out fine, turned out to be the best thing ever – easy to transport and still cute and tasty.

cake ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk

frosting ingredients:
1-1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners (makes 24)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat eggs whites until frothy. Gradually add in only 1/2 cup of sugar, until the whites are stiff.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, the other 1 cup of sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa. After making a well in the center, pour in the oil and some of the milk. Mix well and add the remaining milk and egg yolks until smooth.

Fold the egg whites into the chocolate batter. Pour into cupcake pan and bake for 15 mins depending on your oven. Cool and rest on a wire rack.

While they are cooling make the frosting. In a saucepan combine the water, sugar, salt and butter – bring to a boil. In a small bowl mix together the 1/2 cup of water and the cornstarch to form a smooth liquid. Once the sauce pan starts to boil, add the cocoa carefully, then slowly pour in the cornstarch mixture. This process should happen quickly, and the frosting will seize up. Let the frosting cool. I usually pour it into another bowl to cool.

Since Dobash is traditionally a layered cake, I tried to incorporate the idea of frosting throughout by making a hole in the center of the cupcake. That way the frosting tunnels down through it. Once the frosting is cooled, fill/frost the cupcakes and serve.

My mom always made this for us as kids. I know, we’re Southern like that.

I don’t have time to stand over a hot stove so I made up this jambalaya recipe for a crock pot. Thus the ‘cheaters,’ as the pot does all of the work except for shoveling it into your mouth.

ingredients:
1 chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 (28 ounces) can diced tomatoes (DO NOT DRAIN)
2 cups fully cooked smoked sausage
1 Tablespoon parsley flakes
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon Tabasco
¾ pound frozen fully cooked shrimp
3 cups cooked rice

Put the chicken breast in the bottom of the crock pot. Add all of the ingredients, EXCEPT the shrimp. Stir to combine.

Cover and cook on low for 7 hours or high for 5 hours.

Add the shrimp at the end, stir up – the heat will thaw the shrimp just right.

Serve over cooked rice. Really tasty, and wasn’t that the easiest? It should last you a few days, or none at all depending how big your family is. No mess, either.

Most kids loved peanut butter and jelly but for me, I like peanut butter and honey. I’m sure it has something to do with my incurable sweet tooth, but there is something really delicious about the nutty and the gooey sweet that goes so well together.

cupcake ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

frosting ingredients:
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup peanut butter
pinch of salt
3 TB heavy cream

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs and the sugars. Add in the honey, milk, oil and vanilla. Carefully add in the flour mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepped cups, about 3/4 full. Bake for 15-17 mins. Let cool on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the honey, butter and peanut butter. Add in a pinch of salt, and add the milk just until you get the right consistency. You might not use all of it, or you might need more. Pump your mixer up to high to get the frosting nice and fluffy.

In our house we could eat tacos everyday. And sometimes we do.

ingredients:
1 lb thinly sliced beef sirloin
1 small onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic
salt
pepper

corn tortillas
salsa
cheese
lettuce

This was more of an experiment using Trader Joe’s products, really. I found this beef and the fact that it was already ‘thinly sliced’ (more like chopped) – I thought would be great for tacos.

In a large pan saute the onion in olive oil until lightly softened. All the meat and garlic. Cook until browned, season with salt and pepper.

This is the world’s lamest recipe, but just these few ingredients makes for some darn tasty taco filling.

Add toppings as you like, I happened upon Three Pepper Salsa at Trader Joe’s and fell in love. I’d show you a picture but the jar is gone. The entire jar.