Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Cupcakes

News does not take a holiday.

That means that if you work in the news business, you're going to be working holidays. Christmas, New Years, Easter, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, etc...you're going to be working most of, if not all, these days. After many years, you might get enough seniority to get one or two of those days off, but the fact of the matter is, you're going to be working while the rest of the world is enjoying a day off.

But we all know this going into the business, it isn't all bad. When I work a holiday, I always tried to make and take something in to celebrate. Over the past couple of years or so I've been working on making up my own recipes or tweaking recipes into something new. This year, I decided, for Christmas Eve, to take Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's and make up a cupcake based on them.



Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's are sandwich cookies, similar to Oreos, but so much better. They come in different flavors: chocolate cookies with vanilla filling, vanilla with vanilla filling, and, during the holiday season, candy cane (chocolate cookies with vanilla filling that had crushed candy canes mixed in).

I began with my favorite chocolate cake recipe. It's a Wilton recipe called Chocolate Fudge Groom's Cake. I made a couple of small changes to the recipe, it calls for 3 oz unsweetened chocolate. I used 2 oz of unsweetened chocolate and 1 oz of Trader Joe's Peppermint Hot Chocolate mix.





The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cup of milk, I heated the milk, mixed in the 1 oz of hot chocolate mix and let it cool to room temperature.



This gave the cake a very subtle peppermint flavor, but it was still chocolaty and moist.

For the icing, I made the usual buttercream icing I always make, I learned it from my Wilton cake class. I double the recipe because I have a fear of running out of icing.
~ Cream 2 sticks of unsalted butter and 1 stick of unflavored Crisco shortening
~ Slowly add 2 lbs of powdered sugar
~ Add a small amount of milk until the icing is the consistency you want

For this icing, I crushed 24 Candy Cane Joe-Joes cookies.



This could be done in a food processor, but I like putting them in a big Ziploc back and using a marble rolling pin to crush them by hand. I like the texture that comes with the varying sizes of the cookie pieces.

After creaming the butter and Crisco, I added the crushed cookies before adding the powdered sugar.



The icing was flavorful and rich! The cupcakes, overall, are very good! A moist cake, rich icing, and I was worried that it might be overpowering, too peppermint-y, but the flavor was just right.

Because of the different sizes of cookie pieces in the icing, I didn't get fancy with the decorating, there was just no use trying to squeeze this icing through a decorator tip. I used an off-set spatula and placed a mound of icing in the middle of the cupcake. Then I smoothed the sides and the top before sticking a Joe-Joe in the top.

Easy Trader Joe's Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

I've already shared with you my love of Trader Joe's. Every time I enter one, I find something new.

I spent Thanksgiving with my brother and his family in Illinois and, of course, we took a trip to Trader Joe's. My brother proceeded to follow me around the store telling me I need to buy Trader Joe's brand of Chocolate Frosting mix. I really didn't want to because no matter what I make, I always make my frosting from scratch, it's easy and it tastes better than any store bought kind. But after having my brother follow me down three aisles, telling me how awesome this frosting was, I broke down and bought it. I also found a jar of Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I felt the need to buy it.

I had to go in to work on a Sunday evening, so I decided to bake something to take in with me. I didn't feel like going all out and getting all fancy, so I started with yellow cupcakes from a mix. I was out of vegetable oil, but I did find cinnamon applesauce in the fridge. Just let me say, that from now on, whenever I make a cake from a mix, I am using cinnamon applesauce. It adds a subtle cinnamon flavor that just deepens the flavor of the cake. So good!

I quickly whipped up the Trader Joe's Frosting mix. All it called for was 1 stick (4oz) of softened butter and enough hot water, added 1 tablespoon at a time, to get the right consistency.

I have to admit, the frosting was very good. Creamy and chocolaty, a great consistency. It won't replace my chocolate buttercream, but definitely something I'll use again.

I microwaved the caramel sauce for about twenty seconds (I stirred it after 10 seconds) so that it was thin enough to spread easily.

I spread a little bit of frosting on each cupcake, then used my Wilton #18 tip to pipe a ruffled edge, and then spread about a teaspoon of caramel sauce on top.

These cupcakes worked up very quickly and were so delicious!

I'm planning on going to a Trader Joe's again this coming weekend. I'll be sure to look around for something new to bake.

Trader Joe's & Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

I love Trader Joe's.

Unfortunately, the closest one is an hour and a half away. So my visits to TJ's tend to be far and few between.

If you've never heard of or visited a Trader Joe's, it's a small grocery store that sells, mostly, private label food. Their food is very good, unbelievably affordable, and the service is great. I've visited several in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Illinois and every one of them has been clean and well stocked and the customer service has been terrific.

How affordable is this store? I am obsessed with perfecting French macarons (I haven't yet) and one of the ingredients is almond flour. Since I don't own, or have room for, the large food processor needed to grind the almonds properly, I have to buy it already ground. At my local grocery store, I found a one pound bag of almond flour for $10, at Trader Joe's the same pound is only $3. And just because the store is more affordable doesn't mean the quality of the food goes down. It is the complete opposite. I can't think of one thing that I've ever bought there that I didn't enjoy.

Last month I visited my brother and his family, they live about three blocks from a Trader Joe's and shop there often. My sister-in-law brought out a plastic container of Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups and told me they were even better than Reese's. Being a lover of all things peanut butter and having spent most of my life living 15 minutes from Hershey, where Reese's are made, I scoffed. There is no way they could be better than Reese's peanut butter cups. I still refuse to admit it, but they are melt-in-your-mouth, creamy bites of awesomeness.

Whenever I try a new sweet, the first thing I try to come up with is a way to bake them into something. Some ideas work, some don't. These peanut butter cups are tiny.

My sister-in-law recommended cookies, like chocolate chip cookies but with the peanut butter cups instead of chips. That does sound delicious, and I probably will do that some day, but I had brownies on the brain. I didn't want to do chocolate brownies, I figured that would be overkill. So I wanted to do peanut butter brownies.

I bought the peanut butter cups and drove from Illinois to Pennsylvania with them packed in a cooler bag with a bag of ice. They made it home safely and I put them in the fridge and started my recipe search. In the end, I went with this recipe from Betty Crocker. Her recipe called for chopped up peanut butter cups and milk chocolate chips mixed in and then more peanut butter cups pressed into the top. That sounds great, but instead I used only the TJ's mini peanut butter cups with the brownie recipe.

After mixing the brownie ingredients with the stand mixer, I hand mixed most of the peanut butter cups into the batter using a large rubber spatula. I kept about a handful of peanut butter cups out (yes, these are my scientific measurements).

I sprinkled the rest of the peanut butter cups over the top of the batter.

The recipe called for the brownies to bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Believe it or not, the brownies were done to perfection in 17 minutes.

I cut a small piece to try it while they were still warm and I wasn't too impressed. They were good, but they weren't peanut butter-y enough for me. I split the pan in half and cut the brownies, taking half of them in to work with me and leaving the rest for my family to enjoy.

A while later, I tried another brownie after they completely cooled. And it was fantastic! The brownies were mildly peanut butter-y, but the peanut butter cups stayed soft and melted into your mouth when you bit into them. When rereading the recipe, I noticed they recommend you wait until the brownies are completely cooled before eating them. I guess they know what they're talking about.

I plan on getting even more of these wonderful mini peanut butter cups and experimenting. I'll make the cookies and see what else I can concoct. These versatile little candies will find their way into all sorts of new and delicious goodies.