Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

I love cupcakes, you all should know that by now, but seriously, I adore them. My newest addiction has been making "filled" cupcakes, something with a little surprise inside that you don't see coming from the outside. When I saw a recipe for Guinness and Bailey's aka Irish Car Bomb cupcakes I knew I had to make them! Perfect treat for the hubs' office, because after all, what is better than sharing little cups of deliciousness?

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes (source: Annie's Eats)
Yield: 24 cupcakes
 
Ingredients:
For the Guinness chocolate cupcakes:
1 cup stout (Guinness)
16 tbsp. unsalted butter
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1½ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
For the Bailey’s ganache filling:
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips)
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp. butter, at room temperature
2 tsp. Bailey’s Irish cream
For the Bailey’s buttercream frosting:
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
4-8 tbsp. Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  Combine the stout and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the eggs and sour cream to blend.  Add the stout-butter mixture and beat just to combine.  Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed just until incorporated.  Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners, filling them about 2/3 to ¾ full.  Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes.  Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the ganache filling, place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan until simmering, then pour it over the chocolate.  Let sit for one minute and then whisk until smooth.  If the chocolate is not completely melted, place the bowl over a double boiler or give it a very short burst in the microwave (15-20 seconds).  Add the butter and Bailey’s and stir until combined.
Set aside to let the ganache cool until it is thick enough to be piped.  (You can use the refrigerator to speed the cooling process, but be sure to stir every 10 minutes or so to ensure even cooling.)  Meanwhile, cut out a portion from the center of the cupcake using the cone method (a small paring knife works best for this).  Once the ganache has reached the correct consistency, transfer it to a piping bag fitted with a wide tip and pipe it into the cupcakes.
To make the frosting, place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.  Gradually add the powdered sugar until it is all incorporated.  Mix in the Bailey’s until smooth.  Add more if necessary until the frosting has reached a good consistency for piping or spreading.  Frost the cupcakes as desired. And if you have extra ganache, pipe across the top of cupcakes as extra garnish.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

You all know by now how much I adore dessert, especially all things cake and cupcake. And you all know about my love affair with all things chocolate. Well, when I saw this recipe, from Annie's Eats pop up in my Google Reader a couple months ago, I knew I had to make these. The good news was Hubby's birthday was rapidly approaching, and this was a good excuse to make a batch of these for his office. Be forewarned though, you will need an entire bag of Oreos for this. We're talking serious deliciousness!

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes (source: Annie's Eats)


Yield: 24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
24 Oreo halves, with cream filling attached
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup milk
20 Oreo cookies, coarsely chopped (I quarter them)
For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. heavy cream
For garnish:
Oreo cookie crumbs
24 Oreo cookie halves
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line the wells of two cupcake pans with 24 paper liners.  Place an Oreo halve in the bottom of each liner, cream side up.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir together with a fork to blend and set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Blend in the egg whites one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Blend in the vanilla extract.  With the mixer on low speed, beat in half of the dry ingredients just until incorporated.  Add the milk and beat just until combined, then mix in the remaining dry ingredients.  Gently fold in the chopped Oreos with a rubber spatula until evenly incorporated, being careful not to over-mix.
Evenly divide the batter between the prepared cupcake liners.  Bake for 18-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute.  Blend in the vanilla extract.  Beat in the confectioners’ sugar until incorporated and smooth, 1-2 minutes.  Add the heavy cream to the bowl and beat on medium-low speed just until incorporated, then increase the speed to medium-high and whip for 4 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Frost the cooled cupcakes as desired.  Sprinkle with Oreo crumbs and garnish with Oreo halves.

My First Tiered Cake

Well, Course 3 has now ended and I am on a cake decorating class hiatus until Michael's will offer Course 4, which I am told will most likely be sometime this summer. Course 3 however, did not go out without a bang. For our final project, we had to make a tiered cake, basically a small wedding cake. Let me just preface this by saying, I now understand why wedding cakes cost so much money, they are so very time consuming!

 I spent 15 hours on this cake, and it wasn't even that big! The top tier is two 6 inch rounds, which I made with a delicious vanilla cake recipe, and then torted and filled with my own creation of raspberry buttercream. The bottom tier is two 9 inch rounds, which I made a dark chocolate marble cake, and torted and filled with a dark chocolate frosting. The white frosting you see seeping out the sides is a bit of regular vanilla buttercream that is used as a "wall" to separate the filling from the outside frosting and also keeps the filling from seeping out the sides of the cake.

 The thing that took the most time was the flowers. Fondant roses are a lot of work, each one takes at least 15-20 minutes to do. The Easter Lilies weren't as bad, it took me about 2.5 hours to do, they are made of royal icing, which I already had some royal icing made up and only had to rebeat it to consistency to make the flowers. The border is a ruffle border, which I had some trouble learning how to do, but in the end I really love the way it looks! Enjoy, I know I loved my 2 slices of cake Friday afternoon!

My First Fondant Cake

This week in Course 3 we learned how to work with fondant. I admit, prior to yesterday I was very nervous to do anything involving fondant. I also thought it would taste bad. I'm glad to say I was wrong on both counts. I took the easy way out and used the premade fondant from Wilton that I purchased at Michael's, but I was pleasantly surprised with the tiny taste I had, it was pretty marshmallow tasting and still fairly sweet. Working with the fondant was much easier as well, the trick is working it enough so that it become pliable.

This was probably my second favorite cake I've made, my number one favorite is still my flower basket cake, but this one was fairly easy and just in a different realm than working with buttercream. Today is my mother in law's birthday and our friend Dana's birthday. As luck would have it, Dana is staying with us this weekend as she prepares to move to D.C., so we will be cutting this cake tonight with her in celebration! Since I knew she would be with us and we'd have it as her birthday cake, I asked her what flavor she would like me to make, so the inside is my perfect red velvet with cream cheese filling. I can't wait to get a taste of all of it together tonight!

Spring Cupcake Bites

My mother-in-law's birthday is coming up, so hubby and I began brainstorming on what to get/send her. Tony suggested I send her some homemade treats to enjoy since it would be criminal for her to have to make her own birthday cake, plus she's an accountant and it's tax season, so she's short on time as it is. I knew I couldn't send her a cake, that just wouldn't ship well. So I came up with the next best solution to cake, cupcake bites! MIL's favorite color is purple, and while I wanted to do the tops of the bites in purple, I also knew I wanted to put some of my violet and apple blossom sugar flowers on top, so I settled on yellow as my color of choice for these. They came out looking like perfect little spring cupcakes! I love making these, every time they just come out cuter and cuter! This time I made them even more professional and put them in some tissue paper lined 1 lb candy boxes I picked up at Michael's, and then tied them with some metallic ribbon. Hopefully she likes them! But I mean come on, who doesn't like chocolate cake and frosting from scratch sandwiched between semi sweet and white chocolate?!

My First Paid Cake Order

This week I was approached by the Mess Treasurer in Tony's office and asked if I would be willing to make a cake for their usual quarter birthday celebration. I, of course said yes! I love making my cakes, and to get paid for making one is even better! So for $20, I made my usual 9 inch layer cake in my usual yellow cake recipe, and did a nice rosette border and piped on some balloons, stars, and wrote out "Happy Birthday." I'm not as happy with this cake as I should be I guess. I think my piping of "Birthday" was off, the B was too big and then it's too smooshed at the end, plus I overdid it with the stars on the side of the cake. I tried to top it off with some colorful nonpareils, but since the icing had already hardened they didn't stick and just ended up getting stuck along the border. Overall though, I guess it came out okay, I am just highly critical of my work at this point. I know it will still taste good, and it looks bright and colorful and most of the work is pretty good, I just want it to look more professional I guess. So hopefully with a little more practice my next paid cake order will be even better!

My Prettiest Cake Yet!

Last night was the last class of Course 2, and so it was time to do our grand finale cake. I am so happy with the way it turned out. It was definitely difficult to make all the sugar flowers over the last few weeks, some were easier to make than others. Overall I am very happy with the way it turned out! Take a look:

 

  

  

 

When I showed hubby my cake, he immediately told me it wasn't going to be big enough for everyone at work, so I decided to make a dozen cupcakes to send along too, and of course they needed to be pretty as well, so I decided to use up the rest of my royal icing in the fridge after beating it back to the right consistency, I whipped out some more violets and apple blossoms. I wanted to use up the icing anyway, and I needed more flowers for part of mother in law's birthday present in the next couple weeks. So an hour and 150 flowers later all my icing was used up. I didn't have a chance to pipe on the little yellow dots though, so the cupcakes look more like cartoon flowers and definitely girlie cupcakes. I think they would be super cute for a little girl's birthday party myself, or at least something I would have loved to have for my birthday party as a little girl. For both the cake and the cupcakes I used my go to Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe and the usual Wilton Buttercream frosting. I think both turned out splendid, if I do say so myself!

 

Cupcake Bites and Cake Balls

With Valentine's Day upon us, I had decided last week I would make Tony's office a nice little treat. I had planned on making these goodies on Thursday for him to take in on Friday, but I was snowed in today (and yesterday too for that matter) and was starting to go a little stir crazy and bored, and seriously itching for a run. So I decided to pass the day by making these early, since I will hopefully be running the rest of the week and therefore be busy. These little babies are super cute, but they took me all day, and I do mean all day, I began by making my cake at 11 am, I ended up finishing up and cleaning up the kitchen at 7 pm. Granted I did take a couple breaks here and there, but nothing substantial.

I followed Bakerella's directions, except I made the same yellow cake I made a couple weeks ago and my usual Wilton buttercream as my cake ball base. It made way more than 50 balls, it made about double that! I got my mold at Michael's, the basic peanut butter cup candy mold, it cost about $2. I used plain old Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips to fill the molds, red candy melts as the top, and Sweethearts conversation hearts, white chocolate chips, and some red and white sprinkles to decorate them.

Take your cake after it has completely cooled and crumble in a large bowl, texture should be fine and fluffy. Add in frosting and mix. I tried to do it with a large wooden spoon, but it just wasn't working, so I just dug in and mixed with my hands. After it was all mixed, I began rolling into quarter sized balls. Place balls on parchment covered cookie sheet. Pop in freezer for a couple minutes.

After they have firmed up a bit, get out the candy mold and melt your chocolate in the microwave according to package directions, mine said 6 oz of chocolate chips for 1 minute at 100% and then in 15 seconds increments if needed. I filled a disposable pastry bag with my melted chocolate and piped it into the mold. Right after you fill the mold, press a cake ball into it until the chocolate comes up around the side of the ball. As so:

 

Then place in freezer for about 5 minutes to allow chocolate to harden. Pop out of mold. Get candy melts melted according to package directions and then dip cake ball portion in the candy melt and decorate while the candy is still wet. Place back in fridge to set. 

Since I ran out of most of the red candy melts, and didn't feel like going through the arduous process of filling the molds and waiting for them to harden, I decided to use the remaining cake balls to make just that, cake balls! Much like the ones I made in September I again followed Bakerella and just dipped these babies into some melted chocolate, again just using my Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips, rolled them around in the melted goodness and then placed them back in the fridge. I also decided to make some white chocolate covered ones. For them I used Toll House white morsels, nuked them in the microwave for 1 minute at 70% power along with 1 TBSP Crisco. I used some of the remaining white chocolate to drizzle with my spoon on the finished cake balls. 

 

 

YUM!!!

Pretty Cupcakes

Just wanted to share my pretty cupcakes I made on Sunday to take to the Superbowl party we went to. I used my go to chocolate cake recipe and my usual Wilton buttercream recipe, only I halved both since I only wanted to make 12 cupcakes. Then I piped on the frosting and decorated with some sprinkles and voila! Pretty cupcakes!

 

My Third Pretty Cake: Roses and Sweet Peas

This was the final week of Course 1, tear, but don't fret, I've already signed up for Course 2 which begins February 11th! This week we learned how to make Wilton roses and sweet peas, along with bows, leaves and vines. I am pleased to say, I think this was my best cake yet! I decided to make a yellow cake from scratch and filled it with the same cream cheese frosting I used last week with the red velvet because I had a ton left over in a Tupperware in the fridge and it was just so darn tempting that I kept digging into it at random times during the week, so I needed to use it up so I would stop eating it all. The cake I am sad to report was not as moist and delicious as I thought it would be. I was really disappointed. I mean it still tasted good, but not as good as let's say Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden is. I got the recipe from Smittenkitchen.com. Here it is:

Yellow Cake From Scratch (from smittenkitchen.com)
Ingredients:
4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken (I used my trick from last week, 2 TBSP lemon juice and just under 2 cups skim milk)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.) I sprayed mine with Pam for Baking and didn't use the parchment.
 
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour. Then frost.

And now the good stuff! Enjoy! 

Second Pretty Cake

This week was week 3 of Wilton Course 1, this week we learned figure piping and drop flowers and the shell border. I decided this week that I wanted to make a red velvet cake from scratch with a cream cheese filling. I wanted to frost the cake in the cream cheese frosting too, but it ended up way too thin to hold up to the decorating I knew I would be doing, so I ended up making a regular batch of the Wilton buttercream to frost the outside of the cake with like usual. I had never made a red velvet cake before, and found it surprisingly easy to make and it came out wonderful!

 

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Filling (from cdkitchen.com)

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (I subbed 1 TBSP lemon juice and just under 1 cup of skim milk (put the lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup and then add the milk until it gets to the 1 cup line) and let it set out for about 5-10 minutes before it was ready)
2 ounces red food coloring (2 full bottles of red food coloring)
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the Frosting:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened (I used 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, I used Crisco)
1 pound box confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans (I used Pam for Baking, makes it a lot easier!). In a medium bowl or on a piece of waxed paper, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk. Beat in food coloring and vinegar, then add vanilla. Spread the batter evenly in the pans. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

For the frosting: In a large bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter. Beat in confectioners sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla Use frosting to fill and ice cake (or just fill like I did).

It was so delicious, at least the one small slice I had was delicious! And it must have been considering Tony brought me home an empty carrier after taking it to work on Friday! And now, without further ado, is my newest creation:

 

My first Pretty Cake!

I have been wanting to take the Wilton Cake Decorating Courses at Michael's for a while now, in fact I signed up in November, but the class got canceled, well it finally had enough people signed up that it began January 7th. The first week is basically just an intro, and then actual baking and decorating begins the second week. So last night was my first night getting to decorate my delicious chocolate cake. I have taken to making cakes from scratch lately instead of from a box, this time I decided to go with the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake from the back of my Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder box. The cake tasted delicious and was quite moist. Decorating it was definitely fun, I still need to work on frosting the cake without getting crumbs in the frosting, and perfecting the consistency of the icing. But I am so looking forward to next week's class and the following three courses!

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 3/4 cups plus 3 Tbsp Cake Flour)
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost. 10-12 servings.

Vanilla Rum Cake, From Scratch

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I made another rum cake for Christmas. Differing from the chocolate rum cake I made a few months ago, this one I decided to make without a boxed cake mix. I found the recipe here and just had to try it! It was absolutely delicious! This time I didn't overcook the syrup and it soaked into the cake perfectly! It was definitely a treat and it will definitely be made again, hopefully sometime in the not-too-distant-future.

Almost Tortuga Rum Cake (from recipezaar.com)

Basic Cake Mix

2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, cut into bits
3 tablespoons oil (I used Canola)

For the Cake

1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (I omitted) 
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 cup milk
4 eggs
1/2 cup whaler vanille rum (Hawaiian-style rum) (I used Tortuga Gold Rum)
1/2 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Rum soaking Glaze

1/2 cup butter (do not substitute)
1/4 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup whaler vanille rum (Hawaiian-style rum) (Again I used Tortuga Gold Rum)

Directions

1. Basic Cake Mix: In a large mixing bowl, combine basic cake mix ingredients.
2. On low speed combine ingredients until the mix is the consistency of fine gravel, and all particles are about the same size.
3. This mix may be contained and stored for up to 3 months in the refrigerator, or used right away like I did. 

For the Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Spray a large Bundt pan (12 cup) with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts on the bottom. (I skipped this step).
   
4. Place Basic Cake Mix, pudding mix, milk, eggs, rum, oil, and vanilla extract in a large bowl and combine on medium speed with electric mixer for 2 to 3 minutes, scrape down the bowl halfway through.
5. Batter should be very smooth.
6. Pour into Bundt pan.
7. Bake for about 55 minutes- until fully golden and tester comes out clean and cake springs back.
8. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack while making the soaking glaze.

Rum Soaking Glaze:.

1. Combine butter, water and sugar in a small saucepan.
2. Bring to a boil carefully as mixture boils over very easily.
3. Reduce to a simmer and cook until sugar is dissolved and syrup is well combined and a little thicker.
4. Remove from the heat and add the rum, mix to combine.
5. While cake is still cooling, pour some of the hot syrup on top of the cake, allowing it time to soak in (this may take a few minutes as there will be a lot of syrup) continue to add syrup until all of the syrup is added.

Allow cake to cool completely in pan before turning out onto serving platter. This cake is delicate, so once it is turned out, it can not be moved around easily. Can be eaten when fully cool, but even better the next day!

 

 

Tony's Graduation and Christmas #1

Whew! It has been a busy few weeks!! My wonderful husband has finally finished his M.P.A. (Master's in Public Administration), so with graduation being December 19th and the in laws coming for this momentous occasion, we decided to combine it and celebrate an early Christmas with them! It was so great to see them since we don't get to see them very often. And of course, there was a ton of food and cooking to be done! I made the 13.2 lb turkey I won at last month's Turkey Trot. I made it the usual way my family makes turkey, covered it in poultry seasoning, added 1 12 oz bottle of Corona in the pan as well as 1 12 oz can of chicken broth, 1 stick of butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Then covered it all with foil and let it cook at 325 for 4 hours. After it was done, I took the foil off and brushed on some melted butter and let it brown about 10 more minutes. The rest of the trimmings were mostly from cans, except my mashed potatoes, those were homemade. We stuffed ourselves Friday night and then settled in for presents and cake and eggnog! Tony's parent's gave us the cutest ornament for our tree that they got a local craft fair, I LOVE it!!

Then it was time for cake and eggnog. Tony, being the guest of honor, got to pick what kind of cake he wanted me to make him. Of course, he picked chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Normally, I make cakes with a box mix, but this time I decided to try something new and went ahead and made the whole thing from scratch! I pulled out my Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics  and got to work on the Moist Devil's Food Cake.

Here's our graduate with the cake, I piped on the words using leftover blue frosting from the cookies:

And then it was eggnog time! My family always makes homemade eggnog every year, except we always put the bourbon in the nog when making it, but Tony's parents don't drink, so I made it without and just let those that wanted to add liquor to add it themselves.

Eggnog:

6 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 cups bourbon

1 quart whole milk

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1. Separate eggs, beat yolks until creamy (I put them in my Kitchen Aid on 6 for about 3 minutes). Add sugar, mix to creamy, another 3-5 minutes. Add bourbon, mix until sugar dissolves; then let the mixture sit in a large bowl.

2. Beat egg whites until thick. I used my Kitchen Aid and beat on 8 for about 3-5 minutes, basically until the egg whites form peaks. Fold egg whites into the other mixture. Add milk, just pour the whole quart in.

3. Beat heavy cream until thick, the thickness of the cream will determine the thickness of the nog, so do this to your liking, I like mine kind of thick, so I beat the cream until it made whipped cream and the peaks stood on their own when the beater was removed. Pour the cream into the nog. Gently stir.

4. Half the mixture into 2 bowls, freeze one and refrigerate the other. The next day mix the two together and grate some nutmeg over it, or be lazy like me and just sprinkle some already ground nutmeg in there to your liking.

I skipped adding the bourbon since as I said before my in laws don't drink, but it still came out delicious, the only thing was the half in the freezer froze over without the liquor in there, so I had to let it sit out for about an hour for it to thaw out to be able to mix the two together.

So, the next morning was hubby's graduation, so we got all dressed up and headed on downtown. It was a little nippy out, about 30 degrees or so, but colder with the wind chill, so walking downtown was not too enjoyable, but luckily we cut through the Peabody and took this awesome photo in front of their huge Christmas tree!

Finally some pics of the graduate!

 

Then it was off to the Pig 'N' Whistle for some authentic Tennessee BBQ and a nice relaxing afternoon evening. The in laws are now gone, but we had a great visit with them! We can't wait to see them again in June for Pat and Heather's wedding (Tony's brother and his fiancee)! Now I just need to get ready for Aunt Tara's arrival on Wednesday and a nice low key Christmas! Merry Christmas to all of you and I wish you all the best in the 2010!!