• Places | Food | Recipes

    Pumpkin Cupcakes w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

    Made these as a Thanksgiving gift for my boyfriend’s mom last year. She loved them!   Here’s my recipe: Pumpkin Cupcakes: cake: 4 eggs 1 1/3 c sugar 2/3c vegetable oil 15oz pumpkin puree Preheat oven to 350F. Beat all until smooth. In a separate bowl. sift together: 2c flour 2t baking powder 1t baking soda 2t cinnamon 1/2t salt Add to pumpkin mixture and mix until well blended. Stir in 1t vanilla extract. Fill cupcake tins 3/4 full. Bake 20 minutes for standard size cupcakes, or 30 minutes for muffin sized. Frosting: 3oz cream cheese, softened 1/2c butter, softened 1t vanilla extract 2c powdered sugar (or less if you…

  • Places | Food | Recipes

    Polish Street Food – Zapiekanki

    Being raised in Poland, I got to experience lots of different foods, but my favorite were always street foods. They were usually served out of little kiosks, or food trucks, and were a great way for people to get together after school/work and enjoy something yum. Today I got an extreme craving for this amazing “pizza bread”, or what we call, “zapiekanki” and decided I should take a stab at it and try to replicate it in my kitchen. Usually made on a long french baguette, they’re covered with mushrooms and cheese, then drizzled with ketchup when served. Here’s my recipe for two zapiekanki: for the baguettes: 1 1/2c flour…

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    Sugar, Sugar!

    I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I’m obsessed with Sweet Paul Magazine…. The new Fall’12 issue is out already and I could not believe my eyes when I saw this recipe, mostly because it’s GENIUS. And so so flexible and inspiring! I told you to save the apple peels from the Apple Spice Scones’ recipe for this reason: ~8oz of Apple Pie Sugar: peels from 6 apples 2/3c sugar 1t cinnamon 1/2t allspice 1/4t nutmeg 1/4t dried ginger pinch of salt 1. In a dehydrator or low oven, dry apple peels until crispy. 2. Using a spice grinder or a food processor, grind the dried peels until very fine. 3…

  • Places | Food | Recipes

    Apple Spice Scones

    Is it Fall, yet? Heard people say “you know Fall’s here when coffee shops start serving Pumpkin Lattes” hehe. So it’s here!   I don’t know about you guys, but Autumn to me reads apples, pears, pumpkins and cinnamon. And booties with sunglasses., skinny jeans, hoodies and red lipstick…. browns reds and yellows. Ha! Although Chicago still celebrates summer weather, I was inspired to bring back my September scones. Apple spice scones. Yum. You will love these. I do. Bf does. Been making these for two Autumns already. Here’s the recipe, before I think of anything else fall I want to add on here… ‘Njoy <3 Ingredients: 1c wheat flour…

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    Gingerbread Pound Cake

    …and still no new mixer… So I made this by hand. I used Paula Deen’s pound cake recipe, and added my fall twist on it. Her Ingredients are: 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, plus more for pan   1/2 cup vegetable shortening   3 cups sugar   5 eggs   3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan   1/2 teaspoon fine salt   1/2 teaspoon baking powder   1 cup milk   1 teaspoon vanilla extract I used margarine instead of butter. You will also need 4T cocoa powder and 1T gingerbread spice (i make mine from cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, nutmeg, ground cloves, in big batches, about 1/2…