Happiness In Cupcakes (H.I.C.)

Yesterday, I received a sweet surprise! Guess what this box contained.



This box was sent to Manila Foodistas by Meg from Happiness In Cupcakes. Happiness in Cupcakes, or fondly known as HIC, is a home baking venture selling cupcakes that are infused with alcohol. Yes, you heard it right!





It was the first time I saw a cupcake with a bacon topping! (Above)

Their cupcakes are available as either alcoholic or virgin. The former contains hints of alcohol like Cerveza Negra, Kahlua, Cuervo, etc, while the latter has no alcohol at all. It's funny how they have disclaimers that don't usually come with your ordinary cupcake box: "We don't sell alcoholic cupcakes to minors." & "Lightheadedness is a popular experience."


Here you go! In the box were 6 tasty-looking, unique cupcakes. Flavors are: The Elvis, Mojito, Car Bombs, Food For The Gods, Red Hot Choco Peppers and Margarita.




I got to share it with my friends, and they liked Red Hot Choco Peppers the most. It was spicy and chocolatey, a twist to your usual cupcake experience.



My favorite however, was Food For The Gods, which had a distinct walnut and caramel taste.



And yeah, here is The Elvis! It's peanut butter banana bacon-flavored goodness with bacon topping!



What's special about these cupcakes (besides the alcohol) is that their icing or cream are really delicious.

To order, you can contact them at 09175362770. Like their page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Happiness.In.Cupcakes.


One dozen's order is P650. 3 days lead time for orders!

Many thanks HIC!

Danne

Recipe | Joey's Banana Cookies

Joey's Banana Cookies
Servings per batch: Makes around 40 cookies
Total preparation time: About an hour and a half
Difficulty: Another experiment -- I've yet to actually follow a recipe. So I suppose you can say this is relatively easy, if I managed to cough it up haha :)

These are like banana cake in cookie form, but not as sweet and definitely much, much healthier than your typical banana cake. My cookie experiment #1 came out soft and quite fluffy :9

These have absolutely no butter in them (just 2 tablespoons of canola oil that I put in as a "safety measure") ♥ I think these cookies are very healthy, as far as cookies go.

This is my first baking experiment. I'd have to say it went better than I thought it would :9 Considering that my baking experience is a total of one cookie, I wasn't very confident about how the cookies will turn out, since I still only have a vague idea of the "proper" proportions and what sort of ingredients you have to put in to make the cookies come out tasting and resembling cookies.

I'm glad these came out okay tho. Not quite what I wanted, but my brother says he likes these more than my apple cookies (but, personally, I liked those better). And, to be honest, I wasn't planning to post this recipe since I still want to tweak it a bit, but talking to a few of my friends who got to try it (and apparently loved it), I decided to share the recipe anyway and, should I ever find time to try it again, just update this post with the improved recipe.

In any case, I hope you guys enjoy this! :) It's really quite simple to make, and it's healthier than most baked goodies ;) (Most of my cooking tends to be on the healthy [and tasty!] side -- Hannah says it's my niche.)
Happy baking~! ♥

• 1 cup mashed bananas (~5 bananas)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
  
• 2 eggs (or egg substitute, the equivalent of two eggs)
  
• 2 and ¾ cups flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
  
• 1 and ½ cups brown sugar
  
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix the mashed bananas, eggs, canola oil, and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients together in smaller bowl, then add the dry mixture into your wet mixture. Mix well.

Preheat your oven to around 250°C (480 °F).

Line your baking sheet with parchment/wax paper. Spoon dough to the sheets, leaving at least a ½" gap between each cookie. Bake for about 20-30 minutes. The cookies should come out soft and a bit airy/fluffy.

See more photos on my flickr.

Recipe | Joey's Apple Sauce & Apple Cookies

Joey's Apple Sauce & Apple Cookies
Servings per batch: Makes around 60 cookies
Total preparation time: About an hour and a half
Difficulty: It was my first time baking haha! :) Quite easy.

One of my goals for this summer was to try my hand at baking. It took me forever to decide what exactly my first baking project would be, but I finally settled on making apple cookies.

Until I saw this photo (the same photo I got the original recipe from), I've honestly never heard of apple cookies before. And, apparently, upon mentioning it to the few friends I told about my plans of baking, not many people I know have either. Since I already decided not to bake anything generic (like chocolate chip cookies or crinkles) and since I adore apples, apple cookies seemed like a pretty good place to start my baking journey.

The recipe in the photo's description called for unsweetened apple sauce. I decided to make mine from scratch so that I'd be sure that there would be no preservatives, etc. in my cookies -- Everything from scratch! I even used a masher to obliterate my diced apples into apple sauce (you can use a food processor or a blender like a normal person though, haha). I'm not quite sure how to defend myself for doing it the primitive way, since I have a perfectly good blender at my disposal -- maybe so I can say that everything, even the making and mashing of my apple sauce, was a labour of love? :P

I'm very blessed and happy to be the first foodista to post a recipe on our still-new blog ♥ I hope you enjoy making and eating these as much as I had.

NB: There will be excess apple sauce. You can store this in your fridge and just eat it as it is or enjoy it with some ham for brekkie :) It is delicious on its own though, trust me ;)

Apple Sauce
Servings per batch: Makes 3 and ½ cups
Total preparation time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

• 6 Fuji apples (medium), peeled, cored & diced
  
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Place your apples and water in a soup/sauce pot, cover and bring to a boil on high heat. Once it comes to a boil, switch to low heat and stir occasionally for about 20 minutes (or until your apples are just soft enough to mash without difficulty). Add in your sugar and stir till it completely dissolves. Finally, add the ground cinnamon and nutmeg and let sit for 1-2 minutes, stirring occasionally. (Your kitchen ought to smell quite heavenly right about now. :9)

Turn off the heat and choose your weapon for mashing up your apples. You might want to keep your apple sauce still a bit chunky (ie, not very blended/smooth yet) for your cookies.

Apple Cookies

• 2 eggs
• ½ cup canola oil
• 2 and ½ cups apple sauce
  
• 2 Fuji apples (medium), peeled and grated
• 2 and ½ cups brown sugar
• 2 and ¾ cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup raisins

Mix the brown sugar, canola oil, egg, apple sauce, raisins and grated apple together in a large bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients together in smaller bowl, then add the dry mixture into your wet mixture. Mix well.

Preheat your oven to around 204°C (400 °F).

Line your baking sheet with parchment/wax paper. Spoon dough to the sheets, leaving at least a ½" gap between each cookie (they don't spread much, don't worry). Bake for about 20-25 minutes (poke one of the cookies with a toothpick or a fork once you reach the 20 minute mark to see if it's ready).


And that's it :) Quite easy to make. The cookies, if you do them right (I can't imagine how you can go wrong though), are very moist and very soft (and yummy! They're not too sweet and they're not very heavy :9). This was a huge hit in my house, and I'm sure it will be in yours too. Enjoy baking and the cookies (and snacking on the leftover apple sauce)~! ♥


PS. Read what Cy and Harrell had to say about the cookies :)

See more photos on my flickr.