Down the Bunnie Hole: Remix

I’ve been so busy the past couple of months that I haven’t had a chance to blog much- so here I return with a delicious pumpkin muffin recipe perfect for this time of year! Seems like it was just summer and now BAM! all the leaves are now changing colors to the beautiful hues of Fall we all love. The apple orchards here are brimming with perfect apples and of course the pumpkins and gourds galore! Nothing beats a New England fall…it really is such a wonderful time of year.

I’m always enjoying all the pumpkin flavored drink concoctions and baked goods this time of year… but it is always so much nicer to bake a lovely batch of warm muffins on a chilly fall morning for your loved ones. I made these this morning and they are super moist and just the right amount of sweetness. My toddler LOVES it.

This recipe makes a dozen delicious muffins.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

Muffin Batter:

• 1 can or 15 oz pumpkin puree
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup +1 tbsp white sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• A pinch of nutmeg
• 2 pinches of salt

Streusel Topping:

• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 1/2 tbsp sugar
• Handful of pecans (or  walnuts) chopped finely
• 1 1/2 tbsp of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Prepare your topping by mixing softened butter with the sugar. Add your nuts, flour and cinnamon and mix but do not OVER mix- it should resemble the texture of bread crumbs.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Whisk egg, brown sugar, white sugar and vegetable oil. Add in vanilla extract and pumpkin puree. Sift all your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt) into the wet ingredients. Stir and whisk til everything is combined nicely. Now scoop the batter into muffin cups, sprinkle your topping and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy!

In my efforts to finish off the last batch of pistachios (I had in this huge bag- I’ve been snacking on for months!) and a little left over white chocolate chips- I was on the search for something quick and easy- and I found a cran-pistachio cookie recipe from the girls who ate everything’s blog-so I just added the white chocolate chips and tadaaa!

It’s incredibly easy cookie recipe for any pistachio lover. The texture of these cookies is so amazingly soft and chewy. 

Cran-Pistachio White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe adapted from:Betty Crocker

• 1 pouch Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix
• 1 box (4 serving size) pistachio instant pudding and pie filling mix
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup dry roasted salted pistachio nuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl stir together sugar cookie mix, pudding, and flour. Add the melted butter and eggs and stir until incorporated. It will look firm and doughy like this.

Gently add pistachios, cranberries and white chocolate chips Stir til combined.
Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. I let my toddler use his hands and roll a few balls- the dough is that easy to work with!

Bake for 8-10 minutes. I baked them for exactly 9 minutes and then cooled on the pan for 2 minutes before I transferred to wire rack to cool completely.

Be careful as to not overbake these cookies! The cookies won’t look done but if you bake them too long you will lose this incredible soft chewy texture and they won’t be as green!

Store in an airtight container and enjoy!!!

Makes approximately 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

It’s June- and that means Strawberry season is here! I can’t wait to go strawberry picking. So to celebrate Strawberry season here is a really easy and delicious strawberry recipes that anyone can do!

Recipe adapted from Nutmeg Nanny.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries:

1 pound large strawberries

8oz. block soften cream cheese

3 – 4 TBS powdered sugar (depends on how sweet you want the filling- I used a heaping 3 TBS)

1TSP almond extract (or use vanilla, lemon, etc. )

Graham cracker crumbs

Optional: Chopped chocolate chunks

Instructions:

Clean your strawberries and pat them dry. Using a paring knife cut around the top of the strawberry- removing the top and clean out inside if necessary. Most of the strawberries already had a nice hollow center so that step was not necessary- so it just depends. If you want to stand your strawberries upright- like how I did in my pictures-slice a bit off the bottom so the strawberry can balance itself. Set them all aside.

Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and almond extract with a mixer or by hand. Add cream cheese mix to piping bag and fill strawberries.  I’ve had them with vanilla extract and I personally prefer the almond flavor- but it’s up to you- both taste fabulous. If you don’t want to pipe the mixture you can just spoon it in but they won’t look as pretty. Once strawberries are filled, dip the top in graham cracker crumbs and sprinkle chopped chocolate.

You could also drizzle or dip strawberries in chocolate if desired to fancy it up.

You can store the stuffed strawberries in the fridge. They are simply irresistible and tastes particularly so nice chilled!

Super Easy Pistachio Cupcakes w Buttercream Frosting Recipe

My good friend Nars, a cupcake lover like me- was sweet enough to email me a recipe she came across. It’s good to have friends that know what you like because I LOVE this cupcake recipe. It’s easy for anyone who is apprehensive about baking- if you feel intimidated about making your frosting then you could skip that step and just use store bought- but I plead with you to try making your own frosting- it makes a huge difference!

Pistachio Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from: http://shewearsmanyhats.com/2012/03/pistachio-cupcakes/

The original recipe called for white chocolate shavings and curls, but I chose to just place pistachio nuts on top because I have a huge bag of nuts laying around. This cupcake recipe is really delicious and moist and I must say it’s pretty delicious without any frosting too!

Ingredients:

• 1 box of white cake mix & all ingredients it says on the package (usually eggs, oil, water)
• 1 box of pistachio pudding mix
• ¾ cup chopped pistachio nuts *optional
• 24 whole pistachio nuts (set aside to top) *optional
• 1 batch of Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Directions:

1. Combine cake mix and its ingredients according to package directions.
2. Add in pudding mix and combine well. Gently stir in chopped pistachio nuts into batter.
3. Fill cupcake liners about 2/3^rd  full with cupcake batter.
4. Bake as directed on cake mix packaging. I baked my cupcakes at 22 minutes at 350 degrees.
5. Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then cool on wire rack completely before frosting and decorating as you like.

Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

This recipe is actually one of my favorite frosting recipes from this blog.

You can see step by step photos here.  

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
• 3-4 cups confectioners’ (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

1. Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.

Damn Delicious: Meyer Lemon and Matcha Marble Pound Cake

damndelicious:

I love making muffins. That’s just a fact. But do you know what I hate making? Anything that uses a loaf pan. It’s my krytopnite. Seriously, every time I set out to make a loaf, it is an utter disaster. I put way too much batter into the pan so the sides burn up and then the middle doesn’t…

I must try this recipe…soon.

Super Moist Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I baked these last night so we could have them as nice addition to our breakfast today. The recipe is adapted from one of my favorite banana bread loaf recipes of Martha Stewart’s.

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 very ripe bananas

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Paper line a muffin pan and set aside. Cream butter and sugar together until it becomes light and fluffy mixture. Add eggs, and beat to incorporate. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined.
Mash bananas to a nice pulp- I like to just slice them and pulse them in my smoothie blender with the sour cream and vanilla to get a nice smooth texture for my muffins. If you don’t have a blender of some sort, you can just mash the bananas by hand and add sour cream, and vanilla; mix to combine. Fold in chocolate chips, you can more than 1/2 cup if desired and pour into prepared muffin pan. This recipe makes exactly a dozen muffins.

Bake for 35 min or until golden brown.

Let rest in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Yes…I was delighted today to receive a recipe for strawberry fudge! I’ll share after I make a test trial batch :) stay tuned!

Banana Bread Heart Nutella Sandwiches

It’s strange how I do not like eating fresh bananas- seriously makes me queasy at the mere thought of it. This taste change occurred after my pregnancy and its even more odd considering how I used to chomp on them as a snack here and there during pregnancy.  Oddly enough, my son who is now 2 still hates them – it’s the only food he’s ever refused even when he first started solids.

But we do love banana bread, muffins, and other banana flavored things. The only reason why I even buy bananas now are for baking or smoothie purposes. Oh and I forgot the husband eats them HA!

I have several banana bread recipes but this one from Martha Stewart is by far the moistest and a bonus is that its not too sweet so its perfect for these nutella sandwiches I like to make.

I adapted the recipe- just with a few minor changes. Here is it but the original can be found here.

    Ingredients:

    1 stick butter, at room temperature

    1/2 cup granulated sugar,    1/2 cup light brown sugar

    2 large eggs

    1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

    1 teaspoon baking soda

    1 teaspoon salt

    1 cup mashed very ripe bananas

    1/2 cup sour cream

    1 teaspoon vanilla

    1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I omitted it this time)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan; set aside. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and beat to incorporate.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined. Add bananas, sour cream, and vanilla; mix to combine. Stir in nuts, and pour into prepared pan.

Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let rest in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

I used a cookie cutter to cut my bread slices into hearts and smear it with a dabble of nutella and topped with thinly sliced strawberries. Delicious!

Homemade version of Cheesecake Factory’s Shrimp Bistro Pasta

This is my absolute favorite pasta dish at Cheesecake Factory. I notice either people love or hate it. I assume its because some people dislike basil and this dish is very fragrant with the basil and lemon flavors. For me personally, the more herbs the better!

So I went on a search for the “perfect” recipe, went through several recipes and tweaked it a bit and came up with this one.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1lb cleaned large shrimp (u can decrease or increase qty as u wish)

2 eggs beaten

1.5 cup panko crumbs seasoned with a dash of garlic powder and italian herbs

olive oil (for frying)

1 box of linguine or fresh linguine pasta (prepare according to package instructions)

For the sauce:

1 stick of butter (if u use unsalted u will need to add some salt to the sauce)

4 cloves of fresh garlic minced

6 leaves of fresh basil

1 cup of heavy whipping cream (so about half a pint)

Juice of 1 fresh lemon

2 egg yolks beaten

Optional garnish:

Fresh basil

Pine nuts for extra crunch

To prepare the shimp: Dip shrimp individually into the 2 eggs beaten mixture. Quickly dip into panko and then redip into eggs and panko again to achieve a thicker coat of breading. Repeat until all the shrimp are well coated.

Heat oil on a frying pan med high. Fry the shrimp in small batches so you don’t overcrowd and burn the shrimp. Transfer the fried shrimp and let it soak up excess oil on paper towels.

For the sauce: Melt butter adding garlic and chopped basil leaves til garlic looks soften, about 1-2 minutes. Slowly whisk in cream and lemon juice until sauce thickens. Whisk in beaten egg yolks and cook til sauce thickens up. Add your pasta and top with shrimp. I added some more basil and pine nuts on top to serve. Yum!