The Sweet Life of a RI Red

Hi! I just wanted to say that my friend has a really great blog called The Sweet Life of a RI Red and you should really check it out and take the time to make some of her recipes.

Also; look I made the blog all Christmas-y! Merry Christmas to all! (Or Hanukkah that works too!!)

Get in the spirit and make my chocolate candy cane cupcakes for santa! hohoho!

Bread Pudding

Sounds kinda gross right? Doesn't really look that great either but really if you haven't tried it...
YOU NEED TO IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!

It's so good and rich and it's an excuse for a ton of sugar in fancy french toast. Which makes it ok to eat it for breakfast right? Too late.

It's like nutmeg-y cinnamon-y it's just like happiness in your mouth. It feels like the holidays.

So I used this 3/4 eaten loaf of leftover french baguette. It just needed to be used used and it was stale so it couldn't be eaten! And so I made bread pudding. Yummm. Plus It's crazy easy to make!

It just looked so lonely!

 Bread is reaalllly hard to cut when its stale :(

 Before...

 AFTER!!! Yay ready to be eaten!

SOOO YUMMY!!!

Recipe

Oven Preheated: 325 degrees

3/4 to 1 Loaf of French Bread
1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter
1/2 cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans
1 cup Half-and-Half
1 1/4 cup Milk
3 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

1. Preheat oven. Chop up bread into one inch cubes. Pour the bread onto a cookie sheet with wax paper on it. Sprinkle nuts on bread. Melt butter. Drizzle on bread. Toast lightly until just crispy.
2. While bread and nuts are toasting, blend together half-and-half, milk, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Use any leftover melted butter to lightly grease a 7x11in casserole dish.
3. Pour bread and nuts into casserole dish. Pour egg mixture over bread evenly so all pieces of bread have been covered with egg. (If you use a 3/4 of a loaf of bread, you don't have to use all the egg mixture).
4. Bake for 60 minutes or until tops are golden brown and a butter knife come out clean.
5. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and enjoy!  

Chocolate Candy Cane Cupcakes

My brother and me. Me and my brother. We made cupcakes! Well, he wanted to so I helped him.

These were just really cute and delicious and simple and definetly worth making.The cake was dense but still good. They were super simple to make though and lots of fun!

They couldn't just be regular vanilla cupcakes with choclate frosting!

Of course not! Where's your Christmas cheer?

I just HAD to crush candy canes on top! Yummy!

Recipe

Cake

Oven preheated: 350 degrees
Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners.

1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2/3 cup Cold Milk

1. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl.Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla.
2. In a medium size bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.
3. Add half of dry mixture to butter mixture and blend until incorporated. Add in the rest of mixture and blend until incorporated.
4. Stir in milk.
5. Pour evenly into muffin tin. Bake for 18-24 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of  
a cake.

Frosting

1/2 cup Softened Butter
1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
2 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
3 tablespoons Milk

1. Beat together butter and cocoa powder.Blend in vanilla.
2. Add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. (don't give up just keep blending! at the end it will be a little balled up but hang in the it will get better!)
3. Blend in milk 1 tablespoon at a time until you have a good consistency.
4. Spread or pipe onto vanilla cupcakes.

Topping

3 Candy Canes

1. Put candy canes in a plastic bag and seal it.
2. Pound plastic bag on a cutting board with a metal spoon until it is in small clumps and some is powdery but not all.



3. Sprinkle on top and enjoy!!!