Category Archives: General Sweets

Oct 1 2015

Halloween Oreo Truffles

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Halloween Oreo Truffles | Shane's Killer Cupcakes

Welcome to October! With the holidays coming up, I thought I’d share some Oreo Truffles with you because they make great treats for all the parties you’ll inevitably be invited to during the holiday season.

If you’ve never had Oreo Truffles before, you really need to try them. They are simple to make and only include three ingredients: Oreos (or similar cookies), cream cheese, and chocolate. I’m amazed I’ve never made a blog post about them before now, to tell you the truth.

There’s something about the mixture of the cookies and the cream cheese that really makes these special. They are decadent and rich. The added chocolate coating only makes them better.

Halloween Oreo Truffles | Shane's Killer Cupcakes

I saw these Halloween themed Joe Joe’s cookies at Trader Joe’s and thought the box was cool looking so I decided to try them. They were not very good. The chocolate cookies were fine but the filling was bland. It tasted like nothing, and definitely not vanilla. Should I just throw the box of cookies away? Continue eating the cookies and hating life? No! Just make them into Oreo Truffles! Even the blandness of the cookies could be fixed with a little cream cheese and chocolate. Once the cookies are combined with the other ingredients, they didn’t taste that much different than the truffles made with real Oreos. So if you ever end up with a crappy box of Oreo knock-offs, you know what to do!

Halloween Oreo Truffles | Shane's Killer Cupcakes

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Halloween Oreo Truffles

Ingredients

  • Package of Oreos or other chocolate sandwich cookies
  • 8 oz. block of cream cheese (softened)
  • 8-14 oz. of semi-sweet baking chocolate or chocolate candy melts
    • Optional toppings:
  • Chopped nuts
  • Sprinkles
  • Sugar confetti
  • Crushed Oreos

Instructions

  1. Put the cookies whole in a large food processor* and crush until the cookies are a fine crumb. If you want to use crushed cookies for topping set some aside at this point.
  2. Put the softened cream cheese into a large bowl and pour the cookie crumbs on top.
  3. With your hands, combine the cookies and cream cheese until completely incorporated. It's a messy job, but at least you get to lick your fingers clean when you're done!
  4. Chill the mixture for 15-20 mins. to thicken it up.
  5. Then roll it into 1 inch balls and place on a wax paper covered jelly roll pan. Chill again for 30 mins.
  6. Melt the semi-sweet baking chocolate in the microwave on 30 sec. intervals, decreasing the time to 15 sec. intervals when the chocolate gets close to melted. You don't want to over heat your chocolate or it'll be ruined.
  7. When the balls are chilled, place each ball, one at a time, in the melted chocolate making sure it's covered completely.
  8. With two forks, pick up the truffle out of the chocolate and place back on the wax paper. While the chocolate is still melted sprinkle the top with your toppings of choice.

Notes

*If you don't have a food processor, split the cookies apart, scrape the filling into a large bowl with the cream cheese and place the cookies in a large ziplock bag. I remove the filling ahead of crushing, because I find the cookies difficult to crush finely when the filling is included.

Crush the cookies finely in the ziplock bag with a mallet or something similar and then place them into the large bowl with the filling.

https://shaneskillercupcakes.com/2015/10/halloween-oreo-truffles/

These little truffles are great for the holidays and an easy, quick treat when you need to make something last minute.

Halloween Oreo Truffles | Shane's Killer Cupcakes

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Jul 3 2015

4th of July Brownie Bites

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4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, so I whipped up these easy brownies as a last minute treat for a BBQ I’m attending. I used a delicious brownie mix I only recently started using. Most brownie mixes that I’ve used taste like brownie mixes. They taste good but not quite as decadent as homemade brownies.

A few weeks ago I tried Trader Joe’s Brownie Truffle Baking Mix with Dutch Cocoa and Chocolate Chips for the first time and was impressed at how rich and delicious it was. It’s also nice that it already has chocolate chips included in it! To make these brownies you can use whatever mix or recipe you want, but I’d suggest trying the Trader Joe’s mix. It’s a good thing to have around when you need a dessert fast and don’t want to rummage through the kitchen collecting all the ingredients.

traderjoesbrownies

Make your brownies and let them cool completely. Cut them into small squares and drizzle melted frosting on the top. If you want them to be festive, sprinkle a few jimmies on each.

4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

That’s it! They are easy to make and don’t require a lot of artistic skill, yet they look pretty and patriotic.

4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

Print
4th of July Brownie Bites

Yield: 36 bites

Serving Size: One brownie bite

Ingredients

  • A batch of brownies, cooled completely
  • 1/3 of a can of white frosting
  • Red, white and blue sprinkles
    • Optional:
  • Marshmallows
  • Chocolate chips
  • Nuts

Instructions

  1. Make your brownies from a mix or recipe and let cool completely. Add extra items (nuts, chocolate chips, marshmallows, etc) to the brownies if you wish.
  2. Cut the brownies into one inch squares.
  3. Put a cooling rack on top of a wax paper-covered cookie pan and place the brownie bites onto the rack.
  4. Melt the frosting in a bowl for 10-30 seconds until the consistency is liquid but still thick.
  5. Drizzle the frosting in a zig zag pattern over each brownie bite.
  6. While the frosting is still wet, sprinkle with your red, white, and blue jimmies.
  7. Chill brownies in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set the frosting.
  8. Serve at room temperature.
https://shaneskillercupcakes.com/2015/07/4th-of-july-brownie-bites/

I added marshmallows to my brownies, but they turned brownish yellow while baking and kind of messed up my red, white, and blue color scheme. They taste great though!

4th of July Brownies | shaneskillercupcakes.com

What are you doing for the 4th of July? Are you making anything special?

 

****I was not sponsored or paid by Trader Joe’s to recommend their product. I just really like it!****

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Jun 1 2015

Circus/Carnival Cupcakes

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cupcakesThe circus/carnival party I had was a great success and I wanted to share the cute cupcakes that I made for it. For more details about the party head over here. Below, learn about how to make carousel horse cupcakes and clown cupcakes.

Carousel Cupcakes – Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Buttercream Frosting

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After I found this cool cupcake carousel stand I couldn’t pass up making some cupcakes to go in it. To make the cupcakes look even more like they belonged on a carousel, I wanted to add some carousel horses to them. I found these really cute carousel horse cutouts for paper straws and I cut the straws in half so they could be cupcake toppers.

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For the cake on these I used this delicious Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate cake recipe. The batter was incredibly runny and they didn’t rise very much, but they were moist and tasty. I only made a half batch for this party and shared my buttercream with the clown cupcakes below. If you make a full batch, use the frosting recipe below.

Make a batch of Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, but instead of the vanilla substitute peppermint extract. The peppermint goes so well with chocolate!

You’ll also be using this frosting for the clown cupcakes.

Continue reading »

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Feb 12 2015

Cherry Amaretto Cordial Cake Hearts

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Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and one thing that goes well with romantic holidays is chocolate and alcohol. These take a day or two to prep for, so if you want to make them for Valentine’s Day this year, better get to it (okay, okay, it’s my fault I didn’t get these posted sooner)! You can make them for any time of the year though so don’t fret if you don’t have time to do them this week.

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There are a few things you’ll need to make these. You’ll need a silicone mold of some kind that has slightly deep wells (I used a heart treat mold), some melting chocolates in your favorite colors or flavors, chocolate cake mix, canned frosting, maraschino cherries, cherry topping, pie filling or cherry jelly, and some amaretto.

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The amaretto doesn’t have to be the expensive kind. I got the cheaper stuff and it worked well for this recipe. For the cherries I chose maraschino cherries because they are bright and sweet. Fresh cherries could work too, but would change the flavor a bit. The cherry topping I found actually tasted more like fresh cherries and was dark in color but it went great with all of the other ingredients.

The first thing you want to do, is pull the maraschino cherries out of their syrup, drain, and dry them a bit. I just rolled them around in a couple paper towels. Pop them into an empty jar and pour the amaretto over them. Let them soak for 24-48 hours.

On the day you make the treats, bake the chocolate cake first and let it cool. While it cools, make your cherry sauce by adding 1/4 cup of cherry topping (strained of fruit pieces) with 1/4 cup of amaretto, set aside. If you’d like to omit the alcohol, don’t soak the cherries in it and only use the cherry topping for the sauce. If you’re using cherry jelly and need to thin it a bit, mix a little cherry syrup into it instead of amaretto.

Prepare your silicone mold by melting the chocolate/candy melts and coating just the bottom and sides of each heart well. The back of a spoon and a pastry brush helped me get it covered. Make sure there are no holes! Freeze the mold for 5 minutes. I suggest placing the mold on a baking sheet to keep it from bending.

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Once the cake is cool, crumble it up in a bowl and mix in 1/2 cup of frosting until it is completely combined. It should have a consistency of clay. It’s a messy job, but I like to mix it with my hands, I find it easier to combine this way.

Continue reading »

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Aug 7 2014

Cheers to Vegan Sweets Cookbook #Giveaway (8/7-8/15) US

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IMG_2487You know what’s more awesome than winning a copy of Cheers to Vegan Sweets: Drink-Inspired Vegan Desserts by Kelly Peloza? Winning TWO copies of it! A couple of months ago I won a copy of Cheers to Vegan Sweets from Cut Out and Keep. The prize finally showed up this past week. I was excited to get it, because I haven’t made vegan treats before and I’m interested in trying them out.

Then two days later another copy of it showed up! What!? Someone at the publishing company must have made a mistake. Should I have contacted the publisher to return the second book? Probably. But I’m sure they’d tell me to keep it. Plus, I have a group of awesome readers who love baking, so hopefully they won’t have a problem with me sharing it with you!

If you’d like to check out a couple of the recipes from the book, click here!

How to Enter

To enter, leave your name and email address in the mandatory entry in the Rafflecopter widget below. That’s it! If you’d like to increase your chances of winning, enter as many of the optional entries as you want. Some are even daily!

Rules

Entrant must be 18 years of age or older and be a resident of the US. Shane’s Killer Cupcakes is mailing this prize and only US addresses will be accepted. This giveaway starts at 12:01am EST on 08/07/14 and ends at 11:59pm EST 08/15/14.

For the complete giveaway rules, click here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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