Zucchini and Yellow Squash Cinnamon Chip Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

As usual I had some produce that I wanted to use so it didn't go to waste.  I had a HUGE zucchini and a HUGE yellow squash.  I wasn't in the mood to make something savory so I made these really delicious cupcakes.  It's a combination of a few recipes plus with a bunch of changes I made myself.  The end result was a really YUMMY one.  I made 24 zucchini cinnamon chip cupcakes and 24 yellow squash cinnamon chip cupcakes but I think next time I'll just combine the two.  Good thing I made 48 cupcakes because I wanted to bring at least 24 to a friends house and my family (my husband and 3 kids ate ALL the other 24 in less than a day).  I guess they liked them.  I thought they were delicious without the frosting but with the frosting, WOW!  I never made a caramel frosting before and now it's a new favorite of mine. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup apple juice 

1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups zucchini or yellow squash, grated (you could also do a combination of both)

1 cup of cinnamon chips

Caramel Frosting

1/2 lb caramels unwrapped (about 28 caramels)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup water 

3-4 cups powdered sugar

Preparation:

Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Fill muffin tins with cupcake liners. Wash and grate zucchini, set aside.   In a large bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, oil, vanilla and apple juice, set aside.  In a medium bowl whisk together, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet until completely combined.  Mix in the grated zucchini and cinnamon chips..  Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full

Bake for about 15 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean

Cool completely before frosting.

Frosting:
Melt caramels in water in top of double boiler over boiling water, stirring now and then.  Cool sauce to room temperature. Thoroughly cream the butter add salt.  Add sugar alternately with the caramel sauce, blending till frosting is smooth and creamy.  You can spread the frosting on with a knife or put frosting in a pastry bag fitted with a large circle or large star tip and pipe frosting out.  A little goes a long way.....this frosting is very sweet. 

Everyday Sisters Sharing Sundays #15

Well you knew it was coming!!!! Since it's October 2nd I think we can start with this most popular Fall ingredient so..........This week's them for Sharing Sundays is PUMPKIN! 
I really love pumpkin and you really can use it in a million different ways.  I'm excited to see what everyone will link up this week.

Our Rules:
1.  Please become a follower of our blog.
2.  Please share a link back to your actual recipe post, not to your main blog page.
3.  Please link back to our blog so others can join in the fun.
4.  Leave us a comment about what recipe you are linking up.
5. Have fun!

We loved all the nut recipes from last week.  Here are a few of the highlights!

Caramel Cheesecake Bars by Carolynn's Recipe Box














Pumpkin Gingerbread with Pumpkin Spice Butter
by Baking Me













Biscoff Buttercream by Home Grown Beanes


















Chocolate PB Explosion Cookies by Crumbs and Chaos














Almond Joy Brownie Bites by Flour Me With Love

Pecan Noodle Ring

This is a really delcious dairy free noodle pudding.  My Mother in Law always asks me to make for the Jewish holidays.  I like this recipe better than most dairy recipes, it's sweet and moist and crunchy all at the same time.  It also holds together beautifully and of course best of all it's super easy to make.  The original recipe is from the Kosher Palette Cookbook.

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup margarine, melted
Vegetable cooking spray
1 (16 oz) package extra wide noodles
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Combine pecans, brown sugar, and margarine and spoon into Bundt pan coated heavly with cooking spray. Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and transfer into a large bowl.
Add eggs, sugar, salt, and cinnamon, stirring well. Pour into noodles. Mix well with spoon. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn out into a serving plate.
Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Asian Steak Marinade

We eat steak in my house at least once a week and my girls favorite type of steak is skirt steak.  I started marinating it in a light asian marinade that everyone loves.  I wanted to share the recipe with all of you.  You can also use this marinade for chicken or seafood.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons agave (or honey)

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients together in a large ziploc bag.  Season meat with salt and pepper.  Add meat to marinade in ziploc bag, seal bag and let mariande for at least an hour but it's much better if you can wait 24 hours.  Remove meat from marinade and discard extra marinade.  Grill steak on BBQ on high heat for about 5 minutes on each side.  (I like when the marinade starts to caramelize).  Let steak rest for 5-7 minutes before slicing to let the juices redistribute.

Crockpot Eggplant Lasagna

I have had my crock pot for years but I never know what to make in it.  It always seems to me that most of the crock pot recipes require a can of some kind of creamed soup and that wouldn't go over very well in my family.  So I don't use it as often as I would like.  It would be really nice to just throw something together in the morning and just forget about it until dinner time.   So I'm on the search for good slow cooker recipes.  If anyone has one please leave a link in your comment so I can try it out.  Having said that, this crock pot eggplant lasagna was delicious.  My husband really loved it and so did my 21 month old son.  I used eggplant in everyother layer inplace of the pasta to help "lighten" this recipe a tiny bit. 

Ingredients:

1/2 lb of no boil lasagna sheets

1 medium eggplant sliced into 1/2 inch slices lengthwise

1 lb of ground beef (chicken or turkey would be good too)

1 1/2 jars of pasta sauce

1 small container ricotta cheese

1 egg

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded

salt and pepper to taste

non-stick cooking spray (to spray inside of crock pot)

Preparation:

Spray entire inside of crock pot ceramic pot.  In a large skillet brown ground beef, drain off excess fat.  Add pasta sauce to meat and stir to combine, take off heat.  Mix ricotta cheese, egg and parmesan cheese in a small bowl and set aside. 

Assembly:

Spoon a couple large spoonfuls of meat sauce in the bottom of crock pot, next add a layer of pasta sheets (break them up to make them fit across the bottom of pot) Next add a layer of ricotta cheese mixture, sprinkle with a handful of mozzarella cheese. Spoon more sauce then add a layer of sliced eggplant, ricotta cheese mixture, mozzarella cheese and sauce.  Continue layering using pasta sheets and then back to eggplant until all ingredients are used up.  End with a top layer of mozzarella cheese.  Cover pot and cook on low for 4 hrs.

Candy Corn Cookies

I saw these cookies on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle and I just thought they were so cute.  I was dying to make them.  I also loved reading her information about this recipe because it is a "flawed" recipe.  You are supposed to color 1/3 of the dough yellow, 1/3 orange and leave the other 1/3 uncolored or white.  The problem with this is that when you slice them into the triangles (see pictures at bottom of post) you would end up with every other cookie with a white tip and yellow bottom and every other cookie with a yellow tip and a white bottom.  Candy Corns always have yellow on the bottom, orange in the middle and white on the top.  So I thought it was a great idea to fix this problem by not dying the dough yellow at all, having top and bottom uncolored and the middle orange and then after they are baked, dipped the bottoms in melted yellow chocolate.  Genius!  Either way these are a super cute Halloween Treat!  Also these cookies are not overly sweet so having the added sweetness of the white chocolate is very yummy!

 

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tablespoon milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-2 cups of Yellow melting chocolate

 

Preparation:

Cream together sugar and butter. Add egg, vanilla, and milk. Whip until light and fluffy. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt and add slowly to the wet ingredients until well incorporated. When the dough is formed, remove it from the bowl, and divide it into thirds. Tint one third of the dough orange (I used Wilton gel coloring) and leave the other two-thirds uncolored.

Afterward, line a 9×5 loaf pan with plastic wrap.(I had either a 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 or a 9 1/2 x 5 1/2 loaf pan.  I opted for the 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 and it worked out perfectly)  Press one third of the white dough into a flat layer on the bottom. Next, add the orange dough on top creating the second layer. Finally, use the last of the white dough to make layer three. Cover the top with the overhanging plastic wrap, and chill, preferably overnight. Slice into “candy corns” (pictures below) and bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes.

Melt about 1-2 cups of yellow Candy Melts in the microwave.  Heat on high for 30 second intervals stirring inbetween until chocolate is melted and smooth.  I didn't have yellow candy melts so I use white chocolate chips and yellow food coloring.  You have to be very careful if you choose to do this because if the chocolate isn't at the exact right temperature then it will seize up when you add the food coloring.  The chocolate has to be at exactly 110 degrees on a candy thermometer before you can add the coloring.  It's actually not very easy.  I seized up the first two batches of chocolate that I used.  I found if you add a few capfuls of vegetable oil in the chocolate before the food coloring this helps to temper the chocolate.  I also don't think I got the right color doing it this way.  The yellow Candy Melts would've looked much better.  Anyway, after you have melted yellow chocolate dip the bottoms of each cookie into the chocolate then lay on a lined cookie sheet to harden.

1st layer white, 2nd layer orange

3rd layer white

Fold plastic wrap over top of dough and chill overnight

Slice 1/4 inch strips of dough

Then cut triangles but alternating between "v" and upside down "v" shapes

Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Melt yellow chocolate and dip the bottoms of each cooled cookie

Let chocolate harden on a cookie sheet (I put mine in the refrigerator to speed up the process

Linked to Crazy Sweet Tuesday

Linked to Sweet Treats Thursday

Linked to Sweet Tooth Friday

Linked to Sweets for Saturday

Linked to Seasonal Inspiration by Crumbs and Chaos

Linked to Cast Party Wednesday

Everyday Sisters Sharing Sundays #14

We loved all of the delicious APPLE recipes from last week.  There are so many we want to make....thank you to everyone who linked up.  This week we are keeping with the theme of fall and want to see all of your favorite recipes using NUTS!   Almonds, cashews, pecans, walnuts, pistachios, pine nuts.....anything is game.

Our Rules:
1.  Please become a follower of our blog.
2.  Please share a link back to your actual recipe post, not to your main blog page.
3.  Please link back to our blog so others can join in the fun.
4.  Leave us a comment about what recipe you are linking up.
5. Have fun!

Now let's see the featured APPLE recipes from last week:

Homeade Apple Dumplings by Cooking with K


Upside Down Cinnamon Apple Coffee Cake
by The Lady Behind the Curtain

Carmel Apple Spice by Everyday Mom's Meals















Apple Bars by The Kitchen Cookie


Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake by A Spoonful of Thyme


Apple Stuffed French Toast by Semi Homemade Mom