I have a winner to announce for Bake No Prisoners first GIVEAWAY! Our winner will receive SprinkleBakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire Your Inner Artist, by Heather Baird of SprinkleBakes.

The winner is……comment #10!!!!!

As I sit here writing this post, I am overlooking the peaceful coastline of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. (Mental note: perfect writing location) It is a trip we typically take every year and it normally includes a healthy variety of Mr. BNP’s family. I smile fondly when I think about our family trips to the beach in years past and it fills my heart with joy knowing that I will always have those memories to share in the future. We stay at the same beach front condos that have been in the family for years. We love to lay out under the umbrellas and splash in the sea. We enjoy eating out at the same places like Peaches and their fabulous foot-longs or Sea Captain with their spicy seafood jambalaya. We have to have our liver-mush and biscuits in the morning and pinto beans in the afternoon. And at the end of the week, we always celebrate the hubster’s birthday!

A few weeks before we left for the beach, I had ordered the new cookbook everyone is the baking blogosphere has been talking about lately, Sprinkle Bakes. While flipping through the visually appealing pages of what I can only call a “baking art museum”, I had noticed a blue velvet cupcake recipe that would go perfect for Mr. BNP’s beach birthday! So this year I thought I would be a bit proactive and bring cupcakes to help celebrate the occasion. (I also made a giant birthday cupcake, candle included, that the hubster got to eat for breakfast the day we left for the beach). I am so impressed with this cookbook that I thought I would use it in our first Bake No Prisoners GIVEAWAY!! You will absolutely love the artistic side to all of author/baker Heather Baird’s sweet creations! As well as how easy she makes it with her step by step directions and photos. You definitely won’t want to miss out! (See the bottom of this post for details).

Now on to the cupcakes! These blue velvet cupcakes are very similar to red velvet cupcakes and happen to be my FIL’s (Aka three bite wonder) favorite!

These cupcakes were pretty easy to make and their blue hue tied in perfectly for a great beachy feel! Add these to my FIL’s famous homemade vanilla ice cream and you have the perfect summer treat!

Blue Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cake portion:
2 cups sugar
½ pound (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
3 ounces liquid blue food coloring
1 small dab of violet gel food coloring
2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar
Frosting:
1 pound cream cheese, softened
2 sticks butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons white chocolate ganache (my special touch!)

Directions:

How to Enter the Sprinkle Bakes Cookbook GIVEAWAY

To enter this giveaway, just answer the following question in the comments section of this post:

“What’s your favorite summer treat?”

Additional (Optional) Entries

To up your chances of winning, you can receive up to THREE additional entries to win by doing the following (these are optional, not required):

1. Become a fan of Bake No Prisoners  on Facebook. Come back and let me know you became a fan in an additional comment.

2. Share Bake No Prisoners on Facebook on your personal page and let me know you did in an additional comment.

3. Follow @BakeNoPrisoners on Twitter. Come back and let me know you’ve followed in an additional comment.

The Fine Print

Restrictions: Winner must have a U.S. shipping address.

Deadline: Friday, July 20, 2012 at 11:59pm EST. **Contest has now ended.

Winner: The winner will be chosen at random using Random.org and announced at the top of this post. The winner will also be notified via email; if the winner does not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be selected.

GOOD LUCK!!

So to piggy back off of last post’s Chocolate Chip cupcakes, I have discovered the latest and greatest cookbook that prides itself around the best part of making chocolate chip cookies…chocolate chip cookie dough! The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook, which I have already ordered and is being delivered as we speak, has everything from cookie dough cream pie to these cute little cookie dough truffles below. I found this truffle recipe on display over at Bakerella and was immediately compelled to jump into my kitchen and whip up a batch! I mean, how can you go wrong with cookie dough wrapped in chocolate or peanut butter candy coating with mini chocolate chips? So be honest…do you eat some of the raw cookie dough when you are baking chocolate chip cookies? For me, it is the highlight of the entire cookie baking process!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
from The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
chocolate candy coating
Popsicle sticks, cut in half (use kitchen scissors to make a clean, smooth cut) or cake pop sticks

• In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
• Mix in milk and vanilla.
• Add flour and salt and mix on low until combined.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Chill dough in refrigerator for about 30 minutes until firm enough to roll or scoop into 1-inch balls.
• Place rolled balls on a wax paper lined baking sheet and place in the freezer for at least 15 minutes.
• Melt candy coating following instructions on the package. Remove a couple of balls from the freezer at a time and insert the cut stick into the ball. Dip in candy coating and let any excess fall off back into the bowl.
• Add small sprinkles on top and place on wax paper to set. If the chocolate pools at the bottom of the ball, dot the balls on the wax paper until most of it is pulled off the ball and then place it on a clean spot of the wax paper to set.
• Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to a week.

If decorating like chocolate chip cookies, flatten the balls into patties and freeze for dipping. Insert the stick carefully into the thickness of the patty and dip in melted peanut butter candy coating. Then just sprinkle with more mini chocolate chips before the coating sets.

I love chocolate chip cookies! Especially the new ones at Chick-Fil-A. They are at their best when they are gooey and soft and fresh out of the oven. Last weekend I was in the mood for chocolate chip anything when I came across this recipe from Martha Stewart. I own her infamous Cupcakes cookbook which has everything from dipped and glazed to simple and sweet. Since it is just my husband and I here, I had to cut the recipe from 30 cupcakes to 15 and finally to 8. This was not an easy feat and at one point I actually had to 1/2 an egg! Fortunately for me, it all worked out. They were a bit on the muffin side rather than of a cupcake consistency, but after I slapped some vanilla butter cream with chocolate chips, I was in heaven!

Click on the link below to check out the recipe!

Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

If you are a frequent visitor of BNP, then you know that during the day I teach 4th grade at an amazing K-12 charter school. Well a few weeks ago I was perusing the school’s Facebook page and a parent had asked if we had a baker in our school community. So I thought to myself, Self, why not put yourself out there and see what happens. Come to find out, this parent contacted me and asked if I would be up to making 5 dozen cupcakes for the 2012 seniors. And to that I said…OF COURSE!

So I sent her a few design ideas and she came back with a few of her own and together we came up with a very cool and creative cupcake to celebrate the milestone of high school graduation. I developed a vanilla cinnamon cupcake that is compared to that of a cinnamon roll and used a vanilla butter cream to top it. This is by far my favorite cupcake I have ever made to date! I also made 2012 and PLP signs out of  white chocolate to contrast the blue frosting (blue and white are our school colors) and used a graduation liner and hats to make it festive.

Congratulations Class of 2012! “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…” ~Dr. Seuss

My fourth grade students just finished up an introductory unit on Chemistry and to make things interesting, I challenged them to memorize “The Elements” song by Tom Lehrer. If you have never heard of Tom, he was a brilliant mathematician and singer/song writer who wrote the now legendary song, where he sets the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the”Major-General’s Song” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. As a reward, students earned a pink lemonade cupcake courtesy of yours truly!

Well I made quite a few cupcakes this weekend and used the left over cupcakes to make these! I saw them over at Bakingdom a few days ago. She had quite creatively developed Star Wars themed cake push pops. I, myself, plan to piggy back off her idea and create The Avengers cake push pops in the near future, so be on the lookout!

If you are interested, below is the link to “The Elements” song! After several weeks of practice, I can sing it now too!

The Elements Song by Tom Lehrer

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes – from Sweet Cheeks – makes 20 cupcakes

Ingredients:
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
Pinch salt
1 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
4 egg whites
2/3 c. thawed frozen Pink Lemonade Concentrate
1/2 c. buttermilk
Pink food coloring

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin pan with liners. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and lemonade concentrate. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of buttermilk, beating until just smooth.

Add just enough food coloring to turn the batter a light shade of pink.

Scoop batter into liners (fill about three-fourths full). Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting (see below).

Lemonade Buttercream
3 c. + 3 Tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. pink lemonade concentrate
Milk to reach desired consistency
Pink food coloring

Add the butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, lemonade concentrate, and a few drops of food coloring to the stand mixer and mix on low using the paddle attachment until combined.

Turn the speed to med-high until the buttercream is fluffy and uniformly pink. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

Courtesy of Beantown Baker

One of my husband’s favorite desserts is chocolate malt….We are talking Whoppers, Chocolate Ovaltine, malted milkshakes, and so on.  Apparently it is a family addiction because the love of chocolate malt dates back all the way to his great grandmother and the memories she created with her delicious chocolate malted milk balls! I, myself, am not the biggest fan of malted anything, but that didn’t stop me from experimenting to see if there was something malted out there that would make my mouth salivate.

So when my close friend asked me to make her little boy’s birthday cupcakes, I decided to make chocolate malted cupcakes. I used my family’s vanilla buttercream frosting recipe and to my surprise, it was delicious! It is an exciting spin on the typical chocolate cupcake that brings back all those malted memories from long ago!

Click on the picture for a larger image!

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes:

For the cupcakes:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1 1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 cup milk

1 1/4 cups malted milk powder

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup sour cream, room temperature

1 t vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line standard muffin pan with paper liners. Whisk together flour, cocoa, both sugars, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and malted milk powder until it is dissolved completely.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat flour mixture, milk mixture, and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well until incorporated, scraping down the sides of bowl as needed. Add sour cream and vanilla, and beat until just combined.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each halfway. Bake, rotating halfway through, until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cupcakes can be stored up to 3 days room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.