I N G R E D I E N T S

Chocolate cookie crust (I just use the Oreo crust that you can find at any grocery store)
32 large marshmallows
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup creme de menthe
3 tablespoons white creme de cacao
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
green food coloring if desired
chilled bowl





D I R E C T I O N S 

Heat marshmallows and milk over medium-low heat in a large sauce pan, stir constantly just until the marshmallows are completely melted. Refrigerate until thickened. Stir in the liqueurs with a whisk. Be sure to break up the marshmallow.

In the chilled bowl beat the whipping cream until stiff then fold in the marshmallow mixture and food coloring. Pour the mixture in the pie crust. For some finishing touches you can sprinkle the pie with semi-sweet chocolate shavings. Then cover the pie and refrigerate until set--at least three hours. Voila! Now grab a slice and a mug of hot chocolate and cuddle up in front of a Christmas movie to transport yourself back to that wintry time-but this time without all the stresses of shopping and gift wrapping!

I love a good cupcake, so when my roommate decided that she wanted to relieve our friends from studying and papers by hosting a dinner party I quickly called making the dessert. I asked, what kind of cupcake I should make (already kind of knowing what I wanted to do--chocolate chocolate chocolate) My roommate yelled out "Salted Caramel!" she has a strong love for all things salted caramel! So with their encouragement (my last attempts at caramel all ended in a disaster), I gave in. Dark chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting and some salted caramel flair on top.

Dark Chocolate Cupcake:

1/2 cup fresh strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup chocolate cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F degrees and line your cupcake pans.
2. In a sauce pan melt butter on medium-low heat. Whisk in cocoa powder until all blended and smooth. Pour in the heavy cream, vanilla extract, and brewed coffee. Heat until just barely simmering, then remove from heat and set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt, then set aside.
4. In another medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream and eggs.
5. Slowly pour the chocolate mixture in the egg and sour cream mixture and whisk until smooth--be sure to do this slowly so the eggs do not cook.
6. Pour that into the large bowl with the flour mixture in three parts to make the mixing easier. After the batter is all incorporated, blend the mixture on medium for a minute.
7. Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full with the batter then bake for 17-19 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean).
8. cool in pans for about five minutes the remove and place them on a wire wrack to cool completely.

Now for the salted caramel-- because I was failing so miserably when trying to make caramel before to fill some macarons, I found this easy recipe:

Salted Caramel Sauce

3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tbsp salt

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan
2. Whisk in the brown sugar, heavy cream, cornstarch, and lastly the salt.
3. Put in a heat safe package and refrigerate so cool down and solidify.

The Cream Cheese Frosting

1 cup cream cheese at room temperature
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar

1. Cream together the cream cheese and the butter, then slowly blend in the powdered sugar until it all incorporated.

Now just assemble! When the cupcakes are completely cooled pipe on the cream cheese frosting, and then add the salted caramel. I drizzled mine on top of the frosting in a spiral. Something else you can do is fill the cupcake with some of the caramel sauce then put the frosting on top of that. The Caramel sauce added some salty sweetness to otherwise more savory cupcake.

My roommate also wanted to make little party favors for our friends to take home, she elected for some hot chocolate stirring spoons.

She melted Dark Chocolate (the melting candy kind) mixed in some smashed up candy cane bits, scooped the mixture onto a plastic spoon (for take home purposes), and garnished the tops with mini marshmallows and candy cane. They cooled and hardened within minutes.



I of course cared more about the presentation than the actual favor, so I opted to make the wrapping for the favors. We bought little gift bags from our local Michaels Craft store, that I stamped with gold and wrote little holiday sayings then finished it off with a little bow.























After feasting on some great pasta, we all sat around our Yule Log fire and sang some Christmas carols. Such a sweet night and just the right amount of social interaction for this introvert!

*The cupcake recipe is from javacupcake.com

I am the sister, and I have never blogged my words before. Typically I have just posted pictures, or beautiful quotes about love or becoming one with nature--here, have some.

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." -Robert A. Heinlein

"I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air alive with closed eyes to dash against the darkness." E. E. Cummings

I am a Political Science major, and a lover of problem solving and figuring things out, I like to connect the dots--oh this event in history happened because of this, and all of that led to this and how people see that! But, I do not want to go to law school (which is always the second question after they ask about my major) I want to instead explore styling and design. While in church one Sunday this past fall I caught myself rolling around thoughts in my head; shoot, I need to get a job this summer, what should I do? I should do something that helps build my resume for my career. But, wait, what do I want my career to be? I do not want to work in an large company office behind a computer, I'm awful with computers! Ughhhhhh! Okay, what do I love to do? And then, it dawned on me, everyday while getting deep into Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, I would start squirming to get up and make things. I lacked a lot of typical craft things here in my apartment, so I would end up baking. My roommates would tell me that I love to bake, but I think that I just love to CREATE and that baking does the trick. In just an hour after I have begun, I have made something from hand fulls of little nothings.

So, for this blog I will most likely post things that I have built, or things that are beautiful and inspiring--if I was not so deep in the suburbs of Los Angeles I would love to flood this with nature and such, but that will mostly fall to my sweet sister who can be in it, snap it, and then tell you all about how it got there (geology). For me, I'll stick with God, food, crafts, cats, maybe some political science spewing, and on lucky occasion, nature.