Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins... and a "Ganache" update!

In my last post, I introduced you to our new family member, our Guinea Pig "Ganache." Well... some major changed have been happening here! Let me take a step back and let you know that when we got her, the place we bought her from told us that they thought all the guinea pigs in that cage were all boys, so this one was most likely a boy. When we got home I did a bunch of searching online to find out all that I could about guinea pigs and soon was able to discover that "he" was actually a "she." No big deal, we didn't have a preference on the sex, just wanted to know. As the days and weeks went by, she sure was growing quickly! 

After a few weeks, I began joking that wouldn't it be funny if we had bought a pregnant guinea pig??  Then she grew to this....

...and we started feeling a LOT of movement coming from her lower belly area. Hmmm.... Then about a week and a half ago, we came home from my daughters gymnastics competition to find this....

Oh, hello babies!! And now our little family had grown to include 2 newborn guinea pigs. 

 The one on the left in the picture above has a face that looks just like mama, but a grey body. The one on the right must look a lot like daddy!

 Samantha's arms full of piggies!

They really are so sweet. They are always right next to eachother, and they both follow Ganache everywhere! But let me tell you, three guinea pigs make a much bigger mess than one! And they eat a lot more!! 

Now, on to the muffins.... These muffins were so easy to make. Make them- you won't be disappointed! They make for a great snack, or even a quick breakfast. 

They were so good that I decided to make a 2nd batch right away, but this time I used Cinnamon Chips instead of the Chocolate Chips. They were sooooo good!! 

Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins

recipe source

Ingredients:

*1 cup Flour

*1 tsp Baking Powder

*1/2 tsp Baking Soda

*1/4 tsp Salt

*2 Tbsp Sugar

*2/3 cup Buttermilk

*1 Egg

*2 Tbsp Syrup

*2 Tbsp Butter, melted and cooled

*1/2 cup chocolate chips, plus more for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350*. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. In a small bowl, mix together buttermilk, egg, syrup, and butter. Add the buttermilk mix to the flour mix and stir just until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Scoop batter into greased mini muffin pan, evenly to make 24 muffins. Top each with a few extra chocolate chips. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Place on cooling rack, and remove from pan once cooled completely. Enjoy....!

~Erin

Mini Banana Muffins.... and "Ganache"

Mini Banana Muffins

My kitchen has been very busy lately. Cupcakes, and chocolates, and cookies... oh my! It's been pretty much nonstop. I've also been getting a lot of experience in cutting up fresh veggies lately, as well. We have a new addition to our family.....

Meet Ganache!!! Our new Guinea Pig is so sweet! Unfortunately, she can never eat any "real" ganache, but she sure does love her veggies!

And she loves her hay....

Don't worry, we don't let her "play" in plastic bags! I had the bag open to give her some hay, and she saw the opportunity to bathe in her hay, and took it! I took her right out and put a big handful of hay in her cage.

Since I keep cutting up fresh fruits and veggies for her, perhaps it will help to encourage us to eat some more healthy foods?? Ok, that might be pushing it a little far, but I did bake with bananas! Mini banana muffins are the perfect breakfast or snack. 

  Mini Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups Flour

1 ¼ tsp Baking Powder

½ tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cinnamon

½ tsp Nutmeg

1/8 tsp Salt

2 Egg Whites

1 cup Bananas, mashed

1 cup Sugar

¼ cup Butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350*. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, & salt. In a large bowl, mix together egg whites, mashed bananas, sugar, and butter. Add flour mixture to the banana mixture, and stir just until combined. Fill greased, mini muffin pan with batter and bake for about 12 minutes.

Cake Shooters

Cake Shooters

Between all the holidays that just passed- Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter this weekend, things have been crazy around here! This year is just flying by, way too fast! The other day I was making a batch of cupcakes, I filled my 2 pans with batter, and baked them up. I had enough batter left for about 6 more cupcakes, but instead of making just half of one pan of cupcakes, I decided to bake a mini cake with the leftovers. I used my 8 inch round cake pan and put a thin layer of batter. The plus side- it baked nice and quickly! Just 15 min. at 350*. After finishing frosting the cupcakes, I had a little batter left over, so I decided to make a layered dessert using the "leftover" cake and frosting. My husband got me a set of really cute mini cups and bowls, and this seemed like the perfect time to try them out! These are super-easy. Here I used Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, but you could use any combo. Using ice cream or pudding in place of the frosting would certainly be tasty also....

Just break off bite-sized pieces of the cake (slightly smaller than the glass you are using to fill). No need to make it clean and pretty. The pieces don't have to be a perfect square or circle, in fact once it's all filled it looks really cute having all the different shapes filling up the glasses.

After dropping a piece of cake into your serving dish, pipe a small amount of frosting on top.

Continue the layering with some more cake pieces....

...and more frosting...

Make sure to end with the frosting, and put a nice swirl of frosting on top to finish.

I decided to give a try to the little round cups/bowls.

Being that these glasses were shorter, they only fit two layers of cake. Still cute though!

Top it off with a few sprinkles, since sprinkles always make things more fun! 

(Love the little forks that came with the set!)

They make the perfect size dessert. 

I also made Rainbow Cupcakes this week, so I had to try them out as well! 

It's a nice, fun twist to a traditional cake or cupcake. Give it a try!

~Erin

Baking Labels- Free Printable

I recently organized my baking cabinet. Again. I love organizing. And I love when things are neat, pretty, in their place, and labeled. I use clear containers for so many things. It helps keep things together, and I can always see easily what I have. I like to label each container with what's inside, to make it even easier to find things. You should see my daughter's closet- each type of toy is in it's own labeled container.

I decided to make my own labels for my baking supplies. Feel free to print them out and use them for your own containers. Just print the file out on good quality 8x10 paper, or cardstock. If you use a sheet of label paper, just cut on the lines and stick on your containers. Or you could just use double-sided tape and stick them on that way, which is what I usually do.

SweetsForSami-BakingLabels

Sweetheart Cookies

Who says Peanut Butter Blossoms are just for Christmas?? Well, to be honest, as much as I LOVE those cookies, around Christmas is the only time I seem to ever make them. We can't have that, can we?!? So instead of the Kiss on top, I decided to put a Dove heart chocolate. I always pick up a bag of those (or 3) every year around this time. I gotta say- I love the Valentine's Day candy section! So I went to Target all set to pick up a bag of Dove chocolate hearts, when what do I see- a bag of Hershey chocolate hearts also! What to do, what to do... Clearly, I had to buy a bag of both- for research sake, of course! Usually I am a loyal Hershey fan, I love their products, their chocolate, and a visit to Hershey, PA, is always a blast and one of my favorite places to go.... 

The match up... The Hershey chocolates were slightly larger, and I found them to be a bit creamier. The Dove has a better presentation, in my opinion. And I love reading the sayings inside of the Dove wrapper- it's like a chocolate fortune cookie! 

After tasting them both, chocolate alone and in cookie, I do have to say that I'm a Hershey-girl at heart. Something about the distinctive Hershey flavor that I just find comforting. I wouldn't kick either of them out of the kitchen, though!!

For the cookies, I used the same peanut butter cookie dough as the one I made here. It's my go-to peanut butter cookie dough. I used a small cookie scoop, rolled the dough into a ball shape, tossed in a bowl of granulated sugar, and baked at 350* for about 8 minutes. Immediately after removing from the oven, I lightly pressed a piece of chocolate into the center of the cookie. Let the cookie cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack, or you might have a cookie catastrophe (cookie falling apart). 

If you have any leftover chocolates (what? It could happen!), here is an easy Valentine's themed decoration to use them for....

Simply fill a mason jar with chocolates- here I used a mix of Dove Hearts, Hershey Hearts, and Kisses. To add a little extra touch, I put a cupcake liner decorated with hearts under the lid. Sweet, simple, and tasty! I've also discovered that if I see my husband going for this jar for a snack, all I have to say is, "Hey, I'm using those for a recipe!" and he leaves it alone. I'll have to remember that!! 

What do you guys think about the Dove-Hershey match up?? You might want to go to the nearest store and buy a bag. Of each.... And don't forget- Valentine's Day is just over two weeks away! Have you made any plans yet??

~Erin

Peanut Butter-Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies

I finally get the chance to take take pictures while baking, and I come on here to see that I managed to go the whole month of December without posting a thing on here! What the heck?! Although I did post some pictures and posts on my Facebook page ("Like" me, yo! @Sweets For Sami), I have seriously been slacking here. Not that I haven't been baking- quite the opposite, my kitchen has been very, very busy this past month! With all of my holiday baking, I made chocolate chip cookie bars, pumpkin bread, cake balls (red velvet, vanilla, and chocolate), chocolate truffles, oreo truffles, chocolate chip pudding cookies, peanut butter blossoms, chocolate dipped almond cookies, peanut butter cups, nutella chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cup cookie cups, chocolate covered oreos, and a cinnamon roll cake. Whew! I think that was it. After Christmas I took a few days away from my hand mixer and oven. But I'm back, ready to sweeten up the new year!

I was going through all of my favorite websites the other day and this cookie caught my eye. And my tummy! Peanut butter-cinnamon chocolate chip cookies! I had all of the ingredients on hand, and made up a batch. They were delicious!!! I had a few different kinds of chocolate in already opened bags, so I figured this would be a good way to use them up. The peanut butter flavor was nice, but not too overpowering. And the hint of cinnamon was a nice touch! This is definitely a keeper-recipe! Next time I might switch it up a little and change out the peanut butter for some Nutella. I've only just recently "discovered" Nutella, and I feel like I have some making up to do! ;)

 I usually tape the recipe I'm working with onto the cabinet right above my work space. It's nice to have it at eye-level, and it won't get messy. Usually....

 The dry ingredients. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE this cinnamon??

 On the plus side, only one stick of butter is needed here! Which is great, since I went through probably a year's worth of butter in December alone.

 Butter-Peanut Butter. Or Peanut Butter-Butter. Or, just delicious.

 Sugar!

 So... Have I mentioned how much I LOVE brown sugar??? ;)

 A few more ingredients.... Oh, hey- honey!

 All creamy!

 Time to add the dry ingredients...

 Chopped up some quality dark chocolate. Maybe stole a piece. Or three.

 Hello, lovelies!!

 Chocolate, meet Cookie Dough.

 The finished dough!

 Dough, meet cookie sheet.

 Ugh, dishes.... Deal with them later!

 Take them out when they look just about almost done...

 ...and in a few minutes of chilling out on the cooling rack, they will look like this!

 The lighting isn't great in this picture, but I spotted this cookie as soon as it came out of the oven. A perfect mix of all 3 chocolates! And it had my name on it!!

Peanut Butter-Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies

**recipe source- une gamine dans la cuisine

(Check her out- beautiful pictures, delicious recipes, & a fellow Deadliest Catch fan!)

1 1/4 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 Tbsp honey

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp sour cream

2 cups chocolate chips

Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, & salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and peanut butter. Add sugar and brown sugar, and beat until creamy. Add in the egg, egg yolk, honey, vanilla, & sour cream, and mix until well combined. Add the dry mixture. Mix in chocolate with a wooden spoon. 

Drop on a lined cookie sheet using a small scoop, or tablespoon. Bake for 8-10 min. Cool completely, and enjoy!