Dishing Out Dessert

Hey all, it’s Alexis.  Today I found my first comment on the beef stew recipe!  Oh man, that was exciting.  After I finished doing a victory dance, I went oh crap, now I need to get my butt in gear and post some recipes!  So this next recipe is from the beginning of October when we were having an open house for the group.  The open houses are a chance for new graduate students could come and visit us and see what kind of research we do and spend some time getting to know the current group members.  Since we were trying to coax some students to join our group I thought I should be on my baking “A game”.  Because if they weren’t a hundred percent sold by the research at least they would know that deliciousness happens in our group and it is the place to be.  Also Lena and I had just been to the apple orchard so I had a few pounds of apples that I needed to use up.  These things put together got me thinking that apple whoopie pies with cream cheese frosting are what I should make. Continue reading →

Hey all, Alexis again, I know I am behind on posts but I have not been slacking on baking…just need to get the recipes up and figure out how to format my posts.  Turns out (actually I think I always knew this) I am technologically deficient.  When I was trying to set up the website to begin with, I tried to do the 5 minute installation of the website software…I think it was about an hour later that me and Diane, another graduate student in my group, got it up and running.  Then another hour later we gave up trying to change the font on the webpage design.

Anyways, about a month ago Diane completed her first topic exam.  The topic exams are one of the hurdles of getting a PhD in the physical chemistry division and basically it is a 3 hours test on a paper that you had ten days to learn everything about.  These tend to be kind of stressful so in celebration of her getting through the first exam I thought I would make the one dessert Diane always requests, snickerdoodle cupcakes.  These cupcakes are pretty awesome.  The recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s recipe and can be served with or without frosting because they are pretty sweet.  This time around I served them with cream cheese frosting and dusted with cinnamon and sugar.  YUM. Continue reading →