Nutella Craze

We're 2 weeks from finals here, and that means stress baking and more blog posts.  My current fascination is Nutella and whatever I can put it on or in.  First, Michael and I made Nutella cookies and Nutella Peanut Butter Cookies. The straight Nutella ones were delicious. I tried to steal them all but Michael caught me. The Peanut Butter ones are alright, but if you spread them with Nutella, they are awesome.

That's probably a good estimate for how many I ate...

 Our next adventure, that caused some burns in the kitchen last night, were Nutella Cream Cheese Swirled Brownies.  We baked with one of Michael's roommates, Jake, in one of the least well stocked kitchens.  That should seriously be a TV show. Bake something in a kitchen that doesn't have the proper utensils. Seriously, I used a fruit bowl as a mixing bowl... and they didn't have a 1/4 cup measuring cup, so we had to do tablespoons instead. Needless to say I'll be glad to be back in my own kitchen baking tonight.

Jake with his tbsp earring of pain.

These brownies were seriously worth driving across campus to raid my kitchen for ingredients and avoiding homework for a little bit. I mean look at these things!

I will say that making them, most of the ingredients looked like poop. But it's okay, because it's not poop, it's brownies. And brownies are delicious.  Word of caution: let them cool before you try to eat them. I burnt my hand and my mouth because I was over-excited and so did the guys.

See ya'll soon with some Samoas!
-Steph

Belated Birthday Pibb

Just because we've done awesome cakes before, doesn't mean that all of them come out pretty. This one came out pretty ugly. But delicious!

It was someone's birthday last Thursday, but he didn't really let us know till it was too late to do anything.

So it good friendly spirit, Steph and I decided we needed to make him a birthday cake. Who cared if he wanted it or not?

Now, Wes really likes Dr. Pepper. It's an addiction, and sadly Steph & I only fueled it. But it was such a delicious fueling! Unsure if he liked chocolate or vanilla cake more, we just went with the Dr. Pepper cake. Now, our campus is supported by Coca-Cola, so we actually used Mr. Pibb. The difference is basically lost in the cake.

Adjusted slightly from here.

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup Mr Pibb (left open and covered for around 3 hours, to become somewhat flat)
• 4 tbsp cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 buttermilk***
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla

***Instead of buttermilk, put 1/2 tbsp white vinegar into a 1/2 cup, then fill the rest of the 1/2 cup with milk and let sit around 5 minutes.

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Heat butter, Mr Pibb, and cocoa in microwave until the butter has melted. Mix well and set aside.
• Cream eggs, sugar, buttermilk, and baking soda.
• Combine cinnamon and flour.
• Alternately add flour and Mr. Pibb mixtures to the sugar mixture while mixing, then add vanilla.
• Pour into greased 9x12 pans or two 9x9 pans then cook for 25-30 minutes.

Let the cakes cool after you remove them. Next comes the icing, also loosely based off the linked recipe.

Mr Pibb Icing

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup Mr Pibb
• 3 tbsp cocoa
• 16 oz powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

• Heat butter, Mr Pibb, and cocoa until butter is melted.
• Gradually add in sugar, mixing as you go
• Add in vanilla before all of the sugar is added, so that you don't end up too wet or too dry
• I added too much sugar at first, so I splashed in more Pibb. Then had to add more sugar, but it turned into a solid, easy to spread icing.
• And because I'm addicted to food coloring and I've always associated Dr. Pepper/Mr Pibb with a brown-red color, I added about 7 drops of red, until I was happy with the color.

The cake is predominantly chocolate, but the cinnamon and other "23 flavors" do snap out at you. If you like chocolate but would enjoy something with some extra bite to it, I'd strongly suggest this cake! 

The orange and blue were vaguely supposed to be Portals. They were also a replacement for candles since we aren't allowed to have lighters in our apartments. Whoo birthday!