Spicy Thai Chicken Pizza

This has been a long time coming....

I've been thinking about this pizza for months and finally got the opportunity to have made it! About a year and a half or so ago I ordered this pizza at a restaurant in North Liberty, it was so good....even the leftovers were phenomenal. I've thought about it ever since......::sigh::  Why it took me so long to make it I don't know BUT I finally did it and it was just as good as I remember (okay not as good as from the restaurant but still pretty damn good!). I've never made anything Thai prior, it was the first time I've ever used the peanut sauce, which can be found in the Asian isle. This was the first time I used the Pillsbury Pizza Crust as well, it was pretty good for a store bought dough. However I like making my own, it's more fun but I was short on time and did not prepare myself ahead of time to make this meal so we'll call it semi-homemade ;)

Thai Chicken Pizza
1 pre-made pizza crust or homemade dough
1 - 7 ounce jar peanut sauce
1/8 cup peanut butter
8 ounces cooked skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into stripes
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 green pepper, cut into strips
1/2 red pepper, cut into strips
cilantro
1/2 lime
red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. I used Pillsbury thin crust Pizza Crust. Roll out dough and prebake as directed, about 5 minutes.

In a small bowl, stir together the peanut sauce and peanut butter.

Spread peanut mixture over pizza crust (I reserved about 1/4 of the sauce to toss the chicken with)

Arrange chicken, red and green peppers, carrots, green onions, and red pepper flakes over pizza. Sprinkle with cheese evenly over top.

Bake 8-12 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly. Top with cilantro and squeeze lime juice over pizza slices then serve!

Woola...Easy and delicious! Plus you can experience with whatever toppings you want.

Strawberry Lemon Muffins

This is the first year we have fresh strawberries in the garden and they keep growing faster than we can eat! So I have been on the hunt for some delicious recipes and came across these gems. It uses one pint of fresh strawberries and a fresh lemon, however I used all my lemons for the strawberry lemonade cupcakes so I just used lemon juice out of the bottle which worked just as good!  These muffins stay nice and moist from the fresh strawberries and the glaze adds an extra touch of sweetness.

Strawberry Lemon Muffins

Makes about 20 muffins

Muffin:
2 1/2 cups four

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 large egg, beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk**
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups (1 pint) fresh strawberries, chopped

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp milk
dash salt

In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Zest your lemon and add to the dry ingredients, stirring to combine. Add chopped strawberries to flour mixture and toss to coat.

Juice lemon. In another medium mixing bowl combine the beaten egg, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and lemon. Whisk until well incorporated. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Stir until just combined.

Line your muffin tins with paper liners then spray the insides with cooking spray. Spoon batter into the muffin tins till almost full as they don't rise up a lot.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool muffins in pan for about 10 minutes then transfer to wife rack to cool completely.

While they are still warm, whisk together all glaze ingredients and then spoon over the top of the muffins.

These muffins are great warm from the oven, but taste even better the second day. They are a great make ahead recipes.

**Baking Tip: If you don't have buttermilk just combined 3/4 cup regular milk with 2 tsp vinegar or lemon juice and let stand a few minutes to sour. Works great as a substitute!!

Fresh Strawberry Topping

A fresh strawberry sauce served over french vanilla ice cream...or on top of cheesecake...or even in a strawberry shake. Just some of the reasons to use those in season strawberries in a yummy dessert! This is beyond good! It doesn't compare to the jar of topping you can buy in the store, this is far better. And even simple, I promise!!

Fresh Strawberry Topping

1 pint (2 cups) strawberries, cleaned and stemmed

1/3 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Chop strawberries.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, combine 2/3 of the chopped strawberries, sugar and vanilla.
Cook, stirring occasionally until sauce thickens, about 7-10 minutes.


Remove from heat. In a blender, puree strawberry sauce. Then transfer to a small bowl and add in remaining 1/3 strawberries. Store in refrigerator.

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

Lemonade is a perfect summer time drink for all those warm summer days. Since I love everything in cupcake form I thought these Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes would be a perfect treat for the housewarming party. They are made with fresh strawberries straight from the garden! This is our first year with strawberries and I absolutely love having them on hand in the backyard, I just can't use them fast enough!

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

Triple Lemon Cake- Makes 18 cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
2 ounces cream cheese, room temp
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup buttermilk
Zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tins with liners. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Add sugar and lemon zest to mixing bowl or stand mixer and rub zest into sugar with your fingertips until well distributed and fragrant, Add the butter and cream cheese to the sugar and beat until light and creamy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating about 1 minutes after each egg. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, beating on low speed until just incorporated. Add 1/2 of buttermilk, once incorporated add the next 1/4 of the flour mix, followed by remaining buttermilk and remaining flour, beating each addition until just incorporated. Add lemon juice, beating until combined on low speed.

Transfer batter to muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pan then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup diced strawberries
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 lb powdered sugar

Cream butter in a mixing bowl until smooth. Add in strawberries and lemon extract and beat until most of the chunks are gone. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating on low speed until incorporated. Increase speed to medium and whip for about thirty seconds. Place in a piping bad and decorate as desired. Tip with a fresh strawberry if desired.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

You may remember the Cookies and Cream Chocolate Cake I recently made a few weeks ago. It was such a hit that I decided to turn it into cupcake form! I was asked to make a couple orders of cupcakes for my sister-in-laws parents housewarming party over the weekend and one of the requests was for a chocolate cupcake with the chocolate frosting I had used on the cookies and cream cake so I thought I would just turn the entire cake into a cupcake!

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Cake recipe from Hershey's

Cake:

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin tins with cupcake papers.

Add sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large mixing bowl or stand mixer and mix together until combined. Add eggs, milk, vegetable oil, and extract and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water on low speed until well incorporated. The batter will be thin. Fill each cupcake about 2/3 full and bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool about 10 minutes in muffin tins then place on wire rack to cool completely.

Once cool hallow out the center for the filling.

Filling:

2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Approximately 20 Oreos

Pour heavy cream into metal mixing bowl and chill in the refrigerator. Crush Oreos in a food processor and set aside. Add vanilla extract to cream beginning on low and gradually increasing speed to medium high as cream thickens. Add powdered sugar slowly while mixing. Beat cream until it holds stiff peaks. Gently fold in crushed Oreos.

Place filling in pastry bag or Ziploc plastic bag, cup the tip off and fill cupcakes

Frosting:1/2 cup unsalted butter
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter and pour over cocoa powder. Beat on low speed until well incorporated. Add 1 cup powdered sugar followed by 1/3 of the milk, beating on low speed until incorporated, continue alternating until all the powdered sugar is incorporated. Add vanilla and beat on medium speed until smooth. Add more powdered sugar or milk to reach necessary consistency.

I got about 30 cupcakes from this recipe and only used half the filling to fill the cupcakes. I would recommend halving the filling next time.

Delicious!

Catching Some Bieber Fever

I caught some Bieber Fever last week in honor of making a special little girl, Lillie, her 6th birthday cake! I made a Hershey's Chocolate Cake with chocolate frosting and a homemade whipped cream filling covered in marshmallow fondant. It of course had to be his signature color purple along with silver and black accents.

"I Heart Justin Bieber"

I decorated along the edge with piano keys and song titles.

Happy Birthday Lillie!

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

My favorite way to make asparagus is to roast it with a litte olive oil and salt and pepper. This was my first time having prosciutto, it's a little bit saltier than I thought but really compliments with asparagus in this dish. It's good served warm or cold for a side or appetizer.

Prosciutto Roasted Asparagus

1 pound asparagus, trimmed

1 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
6 to 8 thin slices prosciutto, halved lengthwise

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Wrap each asparagus with 1 piece of prosciutto, exposing tips. Place wrapped asparagus on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss. Roast until tender, about 15 minutes.

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate

I know I've shared the recipes for these Hershey's Chocolate cupcakes here and chocolate cream cheese frosting here but they are just too good not to blog about again! I could eat the chocolate cream cheese frosting all by itself if it came too it, it's just seriously that good!! So when asked by my friend Meghan if I could make her come cupcakes for a little girls night get-together I knew these two would be the perfect pair to offer.

I even had some marshmallow fondant left over from the baseball cake I cut flowers out of and used as a cute little decoration.

Baseball Glove Cake

This week I finally got to make my first boy birthday cake! Jamie had asked me a few weeks ago if I had ever made any cakes for boys and that she wanted a baseball themed cake for her son Peyton's 1st birthday. Although I had yet to make a boys cake, I as definitely up for the task. She ended up wanting a baseball glove cake and after debating how to carve a glove out a cake, I found a baseball mitt cake pan at Hobby Lobby, score! I only buy cake pans I know I'll use more than once and this one I know I will be.

I used two cake batters, one for the baseball glove and the other I divided into a 6-inch round cake pan for the smash cake and two 8-inch square pans for the baseball base. All three cakes are a white cake with white buttercream frosting and the two larger cakes are covered with marshmallow fondant.

Happy 1st Birthday Peyton!

Baseball glove and base cake

Baseball Smash cake

White Cake

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour*

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, at room temp

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

*If you don't have self-rising flour you can you only all-purpose flour and add 1 tsp baking powder.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a small bowl, combine the flours and set aside.

In a larger bowl cream butter with electric mixer for about 2 minutes. Add sugar then add eggs one at a time until combined. Alternate adding 1/3 of the flour then 1/2 of the milk until thoroughly combined. Add vanilla.

Divide batter among prepared pans. Bake 25-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from center.

Best Buttercream

2 cups shortening

8 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

6 oz heavy cream

Cream shortening in electric mixer. Add sugar one cup at a time. Add salt, vanilla and cream, mix until fluffy, about 3 minutes

I usually only use butter in my buttercream but this is truly a really good buttercream recipe that I'll use for special cakes and occasions.