I’ve mentioned many times before how much I love all of the Queen Creek Olive Mill’s flavored olive oils. Use any one of them to make light and luscious cupcakes, from Meyer lemon or Mexican lime to vanilla or blood orange. Or be especially adventurous and use their newest creation - chocolate olive oil to create a mild chocolate cupcake that will surprise. It will be light in color with a subtle chocolate flavor.  We made the orange cupcakes during summer classes, although the kids thought that without any frosting, they were a bit more like muffins. Feel free to top with a light frosting or glaze, just be sure it doesn’t overpower the delicate cake.

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Thanks to the numerous “cake” themed cooking shows on TV, one of the hottest desserts around are cake balls or cake pops. They are incredibly easy to make, especially if you begin with cake mix and canned frosting.  Additionally, they are a fun cooking project to get your kids involved in.  Of course, if you want to go the gourmet route, begin with your favorite cake baked from scratch and use homemade buttercream frosting.  Either way, they are pretty darn cute!

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Once I ran out of ideas and energy for the remaining peaches in my refrigerator, I used them to make peach bread.  The mini-loaves actually fit in my freezer, so they were the perfect and delicious solution.

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Just in case you missed Valley Dish and the seriously awesome dish we made, here is the LINK… and the recipe for the dish will be posted in the next couple of days… it’s so good!!!

If I’ve ever lead you to believe that mistakes aren’t made here at Les Petites Gourmettes Cooking School, please forgive me. Although not necessarily everyday, certainly at least every other day!  Eggs are cracked, not into the bowl as intended, but rather onto the floor. Flour has been thought to be powdered sugar when making frosting… easy to fix, just start over. Things burn, they are undercooked or overcooked, you get the idea.  Most are minor and easily repaired or corrected… while others… not so much.

Let’s see, there was the time a couple years ago when a pair of young boys added 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper to a pot of chili, instead of 1/4 teaspoon.  That went directly into the trash.  That’s actually rare, when something ends up in the garbage, although I was certain it was going to happen again last week…

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Today marks the last day of the forth week of kids’ summer cooking classes. It’s been a great month and there is only one week left. This year I had the great opportunity to partner with Shamrock Farms. The provided me all the dairy I needed and in turn, I created several recipes featuring their products and was also able to give coupons out to my students. Certainly a winning situation for me, especially with the ever increasing food costs!  One dessert we made used up quite a bit of the buttermilk Shamrock provided me.  It always feels good to use up buttermilk, since its expiration date is usually shorter than other dairy products.  This pie was a huge, a really huge, hit with the kids.  Plus, it is super duper easy breezy!

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That is the literal translation for dulce de leche, milk candy.  Sounds good either way you say it and these sweet little mini cheesecakes are the perfect vehicle for the sweet stuff!

I’ve used the cute little mini cheesecakes molds and told you where you can purchase them before, back in December when I made THIS RECIPE. Also I’ve told you how to make your own dulce de leche from sweetened condensed milk back in April when I made THIS. But you can also purchase ready made cans of dulce de leche in the Hispanic section of most grocery stores.

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You’ve heard of the “Six Degrees of Separation” before, right?  The idea that everyone is six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, “a friend of a friend” can, on average, connect any two people in six steps or fewer. It was originally set forth by Frigyes Karinthy and then popularized by a play written by John Guare.

That really has nothing to do with today’s recipe, I just love the idea of that, how connected we all are… OK, on to macarons, French macarons to be exact. These are a completely different breed than the coconut macaroons you might be more familiar with.  Those are easy to make, these are not!  And the only reason we even attempted them in the teen class graduation last week was because one of my long-time students, Steven, requested to make them. Steven has been coming to Les Petites Gourmettes since he was 8 years old… he is now 16 and drives himself to class.  How time flies!!!

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One of my favorite comfort food desserts is pineapple upside-down cake, well it’s actually a toss up between that and my famous carrot cake. For their graduation luncheon, the teens in last week’s class requested  “cake, cupcakes, pineapple upside-down cake, macarons, and ‘something’ chocolate”.  After compiling all of their suggestions, I settled on pineapple upside-down cupcakes and macarons filled with chocolate ganache.  The easy cupcakes are here today and the much more complicated and patience needed macarons will be posted on Tuesday.

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What makes something suddenly become a fad, the new “in” thing, all the rage?  Especially when it’s something that’s been around forever?  And when I say “forever” – I’m talking more than 200 years.  And what I’m talking about are cupcakes!

According the source of all modern knowledge… Wikipedia… “The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796, when a recipe notation of “a cake to be baked in small cups” was written in American Cookery by Amelia Simms. The earliest documentation of the term cupcake was in “Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats” in 1828 in Eliza Leslie’s Receipts cookbook.”

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Yesterday in class we made the Samoa cookies, today we are using those cookies to make some seriously out of the world cupcakes. I would say, “Hey, don’t let the 7 1/2 sticks of butter (nearly 2 pounds!) between the recipe for the cookies and this recipe for the cupcakes, scare you off”… but I would be lying, it totally scares me!  According to my math (and my math is iffy at best-since I married a CPA and I rarely use that part of my brain) that is about 2 tablespoons of butter per cupcake! So let’s just agree that one cupcake would serve as your dessert for several days and not buy into the guilt.

Speaking of guilt, I’m going to add a little “Linda’s Psych 101″ into today’s post.  This is what I feel about “guilt”… it is a wasted emotion. I’ve heard it said that “The Jewish people invented guilt, and that the Roman Catholics perfected it.” I would have to agree, and here is one Roman Catholic who wants to abolish it!

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