My college career is coming to an end, and while so many people advise me to, “Stay as long as you can” or assure me, “You don’t want to enter the real world just yet,” the truth is, I do. I do want to enter the real world and I do want a job that allows me to put everything I’ve learned during my four years of schooling to use. But let me specify. I dream of a full-time job in New York City writing for a food website or magazine publication, and, if possible, assisting a food stylist during photo shoots. When people ask me what I see myself doing after college (and lately, that’s a question I hear more and more often) that is what I tell them. Sometimes I worry I’m being too specific with my career goals, but other times I feel fortunate for knowing exactly where I want to be.

I recently came across this article written in first person by Winnie Ma, food photographer. She explains her love for food and food photography by telling her readers that, “shooting food is in my blood.” I love everything about this article. Not only does it show that Winnie is an extremely talented photographer, but has a knack for writing as well.

Truth is, I absolutely love to bake (and cook on occasion). In my mind, baking is therapeutic and the end result, gratifying. I grew up in a household where baked goods were made weekly and my sister, brother, and I would hover around the kitchen island fighting for who gets to lick the bowl clean of cookie dough, batter, or frosting. I guess that’s where my love for baking sprouted from, and now, it is a true passion of mine.

I guess I should say food in general is my passion. I love everything about it, from the way it’s prepared to the way it tastes, right down to the very way it is plated and presented. Food really can be beautiful. Pick up any food magazine and flip through it. I can almost guarantee you won’t find any photo of food that looks unappetizing. Then turn to the text about the photo. I’ll bet just by reading what it is will make you want to put a fork to the page. As I mentioned, food is my passion, but so is writing and photography because words and pictures bring feelings, tastes, emotions, and facts to life.

So here I am, a senior in college, graduating in May, with a passion for food, love for words, and [developing an] eye for photography. I can only hope and pray that someday I will be able to fulfill my dream of working for a food publication, with the overall goal of inspiring and entertaining my readers.

For now though, I need to tell you how amazing these mini peanut butter cheesecakes are. I know I know, I just bored you with my life story, so I guess I owe this to you guys. These peanut butter cheesecakes are heavenly. So heavenly I made them twice in two weeks. As a food blogger, I rarely make the same dessert twice (I think I’ve mentioned this before) because I like to experience new recipes, but these, these I just had to make again. The cheesecake base is mixed with a cup of peanut butter and combined with chopped pieces of Reese’s cups, giving these individual desserts a rich, smooth finish. They’re baked on top of chocolate graham cracker crust and topped with more chopped Reese’s. If you couldn’t tell, I happen to like peanut butter and chocolate desserts. If you’re as much of a chocolate-peanut butter fan as I am, make these. I’ve been told they’re the best thing I’ve ever made.

Mini Peanut Butter Cheesecakes Recipe
[yields between 20-24 cheesecakes]

Graham Cracker Crust

• 2 cup cracker
• 3 tbsp sugar
• ¼ tsp salt
• 6 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 ts cinnamon (optional)

Directions:

Grease muffin tins (24 muffins) and preheat oven to 325 degrees (don’t turn off when done). Grind the graham crackers in a food processor or by hand. In a large bowl, mix the ground up crackers and other ingredients until all crackers are moist. Place one tablespoon of cracker mixture into each muffin cup and press down until compact. Bake crusts for 10-12 minutes. When done, let cool on wire racks until filling is ready.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake
adapted from The Adventures of the Ireland Family

• 2 bricks (8 oz each) 1/3 less-fat cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp heavy cream
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 19-20 mini Reese’s cups, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven 325 and grease muffin pan with non-stick spray (or line with muffin cups).

Beat first 5 ingredients in a large bowl with mixer on medium speed until smooth. On low speed, beat in eggs, 1 at a time, just until blended. Fold in the chopped Reese’s cups. Fill muffin pans a little more than 3/4 full. The cheesecake rises a bit when being cooked so you don’t want to fill them all the way. If you want to yield more cheesecakes, fill the pans less than 3/4 full.

Bake 20 minutes, or until puffed. (Some may crack on top; that’s OK). Cool completely in pans on a wire rack.

Chocolate Pouring Glaze
adapted from Baker’s Royale

• 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted
• 4-5 tablespoons water, warm

Directions:
Place chocolate and heavy cream in a bowl over simmering water. Let chocolate and cream sit for 2-3 minutes to melt without stirring. Then slowly stir mixture to combine. Add powdered sugar and mix to combine. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing after each addition until pouring consistency is reached. Set aside and let sauce cool. Drizzle with spoon over cheesecakes, top with chopped up Reese’s pieces, and devour!

Lately, I’ve been on some kind of chocolate peanut butter kick and dreamed (literally… I dream in chocolate and frosting) of making a rich chocolate cupcake with a creamy peanut butter frosting. I searched high and low (aka I Googled a ton of recipes) to find a cake and a frosting recipe, and was completely satisfied with the results of both. The peanut butter frosting was very rich and very much a crowd pleaser, but I’m thinking next time I might add about 4 ounces of cream cheese to the mix. I made a few special ones with mini Reese’s cups baked inside the cupcake and the feedback was that they tasted like Funny Bones. Remember those?!

I have a little confession to make. Until this past weekend, frosting cupcakes was my worst baking nightmare. I envied bakers who were able to master the technique of using a pastry bag and decorating tip to frost cupcakes. I’ve searched site after site trying to find the correct way to frost a cupcake with little to no luck of actually creating a beautiful one myself. I had received a 15 piece Ateco decorating tip set for Christmas last year and insisted on using it every time I made cupcakes. My only problem though, was that I just wasn’t achieving that perfect ribbon-like swirl.

Then it hit me. I was using cake decorating tips! To me, a decorating tip was a decorating tip, and every time I watched a tutorial online, the closed star tip they used (the one that makes the pretty ribbon swirl) looked exactly like the one I had! But, to my surprise, it wasn’t. At all. I want to inform everyone out there reading this that you too can become a master cupcake froster. All you need is a 2D large closed star decorating tip, a large coupler, and a pastry bag – oh yeah, and some frosting!

(I’ll post a picture of the two tips tomorrow to show the size differences!)

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting Recipe

Chocolate Cupcakes
From Annie’s Eats

Ingredient:

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1½ cups sugar
• 2 large eggs

Directions:

To make the cake batter, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; whisk together and set aside. In a liquid measuring cup, stir together the sour cream, milk and vanilla extract. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until incorporated.

Spoon a tablespoon or two of batter into the bottom of each cupcake liner. If using, place a mini peanut butter cup in each cupcake well and top with the remaining batter so that all the cups are filled. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Peanut Butter Frosting
Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

Enough to frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 ¾ cup creamy peanut butter
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2/3 cup heavy cream

Directions:

Place the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

As we all know, hurricane Irene paid the east coast a little visit this past weekend. She pretty much ruined all the plans everyone had, has made getting anywhere in north Jersey a 2+ hour drive, and has flooded out homes, towns, and places of employment. My heart goes out to all those who now have severe water damage to their homes and are still without electricity. If I could, I would pack a little basket of cookies and sail them to you!

Fully knowing I was going to be rained in this weekend – well, mainly just Sunday – I stocked up on all the essentials: flour, sugar, brown sugar, marshmallows (I’ll be putting those to use shortly!), butter, eggs, milk, and chocolate chips. Phew! My hobby is getting expensive. So Sunday was a lazy day filled with baking, reading, eating, and sleeping. My kinda day!

Before I get into these delicious peanut butter chocolate chip oat cookies – they’re worth the wait, trust me! – I have to express my addiction to Stieg Larsson’s trilogy. If you haven’t yet heard of his books – starting with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – I highly suggest you look into them. Before I began reading his first novel I had no idea what I was in for. By the end, main character Lisbeth Salander had me absolutely hooked. I’m now on the second book nearing the end and literally cannot put it down. Every page brings a new twist or turn to the already captivating plot. Larsson combines mystery, journalism at it’s finest, scandals, murders, the Swedish sex trade, and family saga together to form novels that will literally have you on the edge of your seat.

Hurricane Irene basically gave me an excuse to seclude myself from the world and submerge myself in this book, which, I didn’t hate. But the fact that my place of employment is fully submerged in water makes me wish Irene minded her own darn business this past weekend…

Nonetheless, I was left with free time and decided to whip out my favorite cookbook: Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours. I actually made these cookies last week for my coworkers and since they were such a hit, I decided to make another batch over the weekend. Dorie really knows her desserts and this variation from the traditional chocolate chip cookie is just what I was looking for. I’ve always been a sucker for peanut butter and chocolate so these were right up my ally, but then they also have rolled oats and cinnamon to give them that chewy, spicy, oatmeal raisin cookie feeling. I’m not quite sure whether I ate more of the dough or the actually cookies… I get the feeling that’s become a far too common dilemma of mine. Oh well!

Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipster
Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

• 3 cups old fashioned oats
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 1/2 cups store-bought chocolate chips or chunks (I used chocolate chips)

Getting Ready: Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. (I only baked one batch at a time on the center rack. In fact I baked one dozen and then froze the dough and did not reuse it for another week. I then let the dough thaw and baked the rest one batch at a time)

Whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the dry ingredients, beating only until blended. Mix in the chips.

If you have the time, cover and chill the dough for about 2 hours or for up to one day. (Chilling the dough will give you more evenly shaped cookies.) If the dough is not chilled, drop rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto the baking sheets. If the dough is chilled, scoop up rounded tablespoons, roll the balls between your palms and place them 2 inches apart on the sheets. Press the chilled balls gently with the heel of your hand until they are about 1/2 inch thick.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back after 7 minutes. The cookies should be golden and just firm around the edges. Lift the cookies onto cooling racks with a wide metal spatula – they’ll firm as they cool.