Tiramisu Cupcakes (Uses Cake Mix)

Ingredients :

Servings : 24

Cupcakes :
1 (18 1/4 ounce) package white cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cups water

Liquid Coffee Layer : 
2/3 cup water, boiling
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee

Mascarpone Filling : 
1 cup mascarpone cheese (from tub)
3 tablespoons Kahlua (or coffee extract)
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 (8 ounce) container french vanilla cool whip

Frosting : 
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
chocolate shavings (to garnish)

Directions : 

Source : food.com

Cooking Tips : 

Confused By Your Kitchen? Cook Like A Pro With These Simple Tips

Many people cook, but they don't know what it is like to get pleasure from the act of cooking. Some others cherish every moment in the kitchen from the first cup of milk in a recipe until the last bite of cake. If you've been secretly relishing the experience of making meals, here are a few tips for you to enhance your cooking skills.

When cutting onions, hold a match between your teeth while you cut. Make sure the match is not lit. This will keep those stinging eyes and unwanted tears away. Your experience cutting the onion will be more pleasant if you follow this simple tip each and every time.

Add salt and horseradish to your foods if you want to instill more flavor and add spice to each of your meals during the day. These ingredients are found everywhere and are very inexpensive, allowing you to maximize your level of taste with very minimal expenses. You can Improve the flavor of many foods with these ingredients.

Olive oil is one of the most important investments that you can make during the course of your cooking career. Find a high quality brand of olive oil and add this ingredient to a variety of different foods. This oil will help bring out the taste in pasta, fish and meat.

After you have cooked a meal for someone, never rush them into eating as you should always take your time and engage in conversation to give your body a chance to digest. Part of the meal is the smells and aromas it gives off while the other part is your actual consumption.

If you want to spice up your meal, add peppers. Peppers will not only give the meal that you are making flavor, but will increase the spice intensity to appeal to your taste buds. Try different types and variations of peppers so that you can hone in on the peppers that you prefer.

Make big portions when preparing stock. Make sure that you prepare a large amount of stock so that you will have more than enough to store and use for future kitchen adventures. You can use that delicious chicken stock in stews, casseroles, and soups. Let your stock come to room temperature before you freeze it.

When it's time to chop fresh herbs, you should sprinkle a bit of salt on your cutting board first. This adds flavor and keeps the herbs on the board. Don't put too much salt on the board, though. Don't add salt later, either, as there should be enough absorbed when you are chopping. That salt on the board adds some flavor since it sticks to the herbs.

When a sauce is too thick or too thin, it's useful to add either flour or water. Flour should be pre-mixed in a little bit of cold water to prevent it from clumping when you add it to a sauce. Water can just be added and stirred in. This is helpful when you want the consistency of your sauce to combine with your meal. Thicker sauces will tend to stick to noodles better than their watery counterparts.

When cooking a stew or pot roast, remember to skim the top of the stew to remove the excess oil. It's best to skim before the stew is mixed up because the oil will dissolve into the mixture and remain there until it eventually separates later.

To keep lettuce fresher longer, do not wash it until you are ready to use it. When the leaves are refrigerated wet, they hold in the excess moisture, which speeds up the decomposition process. By keeping it dry when in the refrigerator, the lettuce will keep better and remain fresh.

There are much better ways to heat tortillas. The first way is to turn your oven on at 350 degrees and place the tortilla on the rack directly until it's as crispy as you want it. If you have a gas stove top, you can heat the tortilla by placing it directly on the burner over the flame. Using these methods your tortilla will taste fresher and crispier.

Fresh herbs and different types of natural seasonings can add a kick to the traditional dish. Dried herbs, such as oregano and basil. are only good for dishes that are complex and have many different flavors going on. However, fresh herbs will brighten any dish and improve its flavor. If you love to cook, create an herb garden, which will provide you with a variety of quality herbs any time you choose.

Try making stir fry. Stir fry is the perfect dish for inexperienced cooks - or for anyone who just wants to make something quick. Stir fry is simple to make. It isn't even necessary to follow the recipe. If you mess up while making stir fry, you can almost always fix your mistake without losing anything.

If you have stale bread, implement it in a recipe. Don't just throw that stale loaf of french bread out to the birds. If the bread is still good, add it to a recipe. Crumble it up and use it in a seasoning. You can even make it into croutons for a salad.

If you're cooking with cast-iron pots and pans - never clean with soap, unless you want to lose its non-stick properties! Instead, use a paste of salt and water to scour the pan, if needed, or boil some water in the pot or pan to loosen stuck-on foods. Remove the remaining residue with a paper towel, and rub on a thin layer of oil before storing.

Prevent your pie crust from burning at the edges by wrapping the outer edge of crust in aluminum foil for the first part of the pie's baking time. The outside edge always cooks faster than the portion that covers the filling, so the ring of foil can help to slow down the browning process.

Cooking can be a great way to spend time, especially if you enjoy it. By all means, tuck these tips away for when you need them the most. Getting a sense of fulfillment from the act of cooking is something that only some people truly know. If you're one of them, you're lucky indeed.

Please Even The Pickiest Person With These Tips

Cooking does not have to be a scary thought! Understandably, cooking is easier for some than others. It takes know how, practice, and patience, but you can do it! Below are some helpful tips to make your cooking a pleasure:

To prevent your homemade pizza from becoming soggy with all of the juicy toppings you add, lightly coat the bare dough with olive oil. Pizza sauce, peppers and meats can all weigh down a pizza dough and cause it to be soggy even after baking so be sure to brush on a bit of olive oil for a crispier, firmer pizza!

Indenting the center of a hamburger patty by up to one half inch will prevent bulging during cooking. Just a poke in the middle prior to cooking will allow a more even distribution of heat and will stop your burger from swelling on the top, something most of us are all too familiar with.

Preparation is a very important part of cooking. You want to make sure you have every item you might need. You also want to make sure you have all the supplies you might need. You don't want to be in the middle of a dish and find out you are missing something important.

If you are wanting to make a good sandwich, make sure you put the mayonnaise on from corner to corner. You don't want to rush this step. Doing it this way will ensure that every bit is full of flavor. This will make the whole sandwich that much more tasty.

Cook your rice in vegetable or chicken stock instead of using water. Choosing a stock will add both extra taste and valuable nutrients. The cooking process and time are the same as with water, so you won't be adding any extra work by trying this method.

Rising the dough requires patience and an optimal environment. Don't just leave the bowl with the dough where it's not in your way. Create the perfect conditions to get the best results. Find a place with constant, warmer temperature without draft. Constantly changing temperature and draft makes the dough rise slowly and unevenly.

If you are always in the kitchen cooking, invest in a knife sharpener. This will ensure that your utensils are sharp at all times, which will give you the ability to maximize the quality of your cuts. Keeping your utensils up to par is very important when cooking in the kitchen.

Save your butter and margarine wrappers to use when baking. The wax paper that butter and margarine is wrapped in just happens to be the perfect size for greasing pans or rubbing onto a potato before popping it in the oven for baking. Save wrappers butter-side to butter-side in a closed storage container, so it stays fresh for your baking needs.

Are you ready to get started? The helpful tips above, no doubt, will contribute to you making a delicious meal! This is just a few suggestions to inspire you to give cooking a try or perhaps a second chance! Enjoy!

Weight Watchers Pumpkin Cupcakes

Ingredients :

Serves:24  Yield: 24

1 (18 ounce) box spice cake mix
1 cup water
15 ounces canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions :

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 cupcake pans. Mix all ingredients in bowl and pour into the liners. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on coolings rack. They are very moist cupcakes

Source : www.food.com

Cooking Tips : 

Basic Steps On How To Become A Good Cook

Eating is, of course, one of the survival necessities of human beings. But plain "survival" foods can lead to boredom in the kitchen. Being able to cook a culinary masterpiece is often more rewarding than actually eating it. The following tips will help you improve your cooking abilities.

Freezing meat slightly before cutting it will help you to get a nice, even thin slice. This works great when you are cutting steak thin for philly's or if you need to cut pancetta into thin slices or strips. Do not freeze it solid; freeze it just enough that it is slightly firm.

For stir fry with an authentic Chinese touch, try using their velveting technique! Prepare a mixture of corn starch, egg whites, seasonings and sherry and set your pork, chicken or shrimp in it for about half an hour. Then, blanch it in hot oil or boiling water for shiny, tender and delicious restaurant quality stir fry.

If you are making a sandwich and adding mayonnaise, make sure that you spread the mayo from corner to corner to give you the ultimate coverage and a delicious taste in every bite. Each and every bite that you take should be outstanding, as spreading mayo will achieve this goal when you eat sandwiches.

If you are cooking for someone special, do not try a recipe that you have never tried before. Because you are trying to impress this person, you want to make sure you make a satisfying meal. Try something you are very familiar with, and make sure you have all the ingredients you need to make it.

Brownies made for a bake sale are much more enticing when potential buyers can see what goodies are in them. To accomplish this task, when the pan of brownies has about eight minutes left of baking time, remove the pan from the oven, cover the top with a layer of miniature marshmallows and then sprinkle chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, nuts, caramel chunks and anything else you like to add to your brownies on top of the marshmallows. Put the pan back into the oven for the final few minutes of baking to allow the marshmallows to soften and toast and give time for the chips to melt. When the pan comes out, you will have an irresistible pan of brownies that look as good as they taste.

One important tip to remember when cooking dishes focuses on the size of the dish being prepared. The smaller the dish is that you are cooking, the higher the baking temperature and less time needed to cook the dish. Smaller dishes generally take only a few minutes at high temperatures to fully cook.

Cooking hamburgers seems to be easy, but there are some tricks to learn. Make a hole in the center of the patty before you put it on the grill. The hole prevents the meat from rising in the middle so you won't have an uncooked middle with burnt edges any more. The whole will completely disappear during cooking so no one will notice your trick.

When you are going to purchase beef, make sure that the package does not have too much liquid in it. An excessive amount of liquid may indicate that the beef was not stored properly or that it is no longer good. Make sure you always check the expiration date as well.

No matter what kind of cheese you may have in your refrigerator, be sure that air cannot enter it by wrapping it tightly. Air contributes to mold growth on cheese. If your cheese does happen to have a little bit of mold on it, you can still use it by just cutting off the part with mold.

Does your family love roasted vegetables? They taste wonderful but can get dried out and too crispy when roasted in the oven or on a grill. A little known secret is that vegetables will roast well in their own juices when placed in a crock pot. Hard root veggies like carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic and more, will roast to perfection when placed in the crockpot for 6-8 hours (depending on quantity) on low heat. You can add a little bit of salt and seasoning and a tablespoon or two of olive oil if you like, but they also roast perfectly well just in their own juices. Your vegetables will turn out delicious and healthy!

When applying seasoning to meat and fish, always remember to season evenly and thoroughly. Shake or grind the shaker as if the seasoning is snow falling from the sky. Doing so will allow the meat to be evenly coated with spices and seasoning and prevent clumps or over seasoning.

Make homemade stock to create tastier dishes. If you cook large quantities, you could store the leftovers in resealable bags inside your freezer. You should always have access to stock when you are cooking other dishes. An enormous benefit of cooking your own soup stock or broth is that you know and control the ingredients in the stock.

Rinse your chopped red onions gently in cold water to reduce the bite and sharpness that are inherent in onions. This will give you more flexibility with the types of items you can use your onions in without overpowering the flavors of your dish. You can also use this technique to keep the texture of an onion without the overwhelming flavor.

It is important to test the heat of oil before using it to pan fry your food. Pouring the oil into the pan and then sprinkling it with water should give you a series of cracks or sparkles. If it does not, then the pan isn't currently up to frying or heating capacity and dumping the food in it will act closer to an oil sponge than a frying pan.

If you appreciate good food, you should enjoy cooking too. Take these suggestions, and include little touches of them in your cooking. Your skills in the kitchen will get better, and you will be the one that people look forward to seeing when you show up at an event with a platter of something yummy.

Regain Control Of Your Kitchen With These Cooking Tips

Cooking is a vital skill that everyone should have. But it doesn't always come easily to everyone. So below are a few tips that've been accumulated to help you become a better cook. With these tips, you won't have to worry about producing a meal that nobody wants to eat again.

Ensure that you properly maintain your cooking utensils on a regular basis. A chef's knife, for example, is of no use to you when blunt so ensure that these are sharpened on a regular basis. When purchasing a chef's knife look for one with a long and wide blade as this will give you better control and chopping speed.

To successfully cook a meal you should always follow the recipe. This will assure you use the correct amount of each ingredient. Cooking is a science and each ingredient has its job. Leaving out an ingredient, putting too much of something, or cooking for too long can turn your dish into a disaster.

When cooking stock, make it in a large quantity and store it in smaller bags in the freezer. Stock has a long freezer life and can be useful in so many recipes. Making a larger batch is no more difficult than making a small batch. You'll save yourself time later by having a freezer store to turn to.

Make sure that when you are making your pasta, not to use oil in the water upon cooking. This will reduce the risk that the pasta will stick to the sauce, which can ruin the quality of your meal. Avoid oil in water when you are cooking pasta for maximum results.

These are only a fraction of the tips that're out there to help you become a better cook. Hopefully you've learned some valuable information and are on your way to becoming a great cook. Even if you're only cooking for yourself, it's always nice to be able to make a good tasting meal!