This recipe is from Golden Blossom Honey, a fourth generation family company whose honey is 100% American-made (not cheap Chinese imports). Their signature proprietary blend combines honey from three different flowers: clover, orange blossom and sage buckwheat*.

RECIPE: MINI CHAMPAGNE CUPCAKES

Ingredients For 72-74 Mini Cupcakes

For The Cupcakes

For The Frosting

 
Plus

Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt.

2. BEAT butter in a separate bowl on medium speed; gradually add sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then add honey, orange juice and champagne. Gradually add the mixed dry ingredients. Once combined, fold in orange zest.

Delicious bubbly for less than $10 a bottle. Photo courtesy Martini & Rossi.

4. MAKE the frosting. In a large bowl whip powdered sugar, butter, champagne, orange juice, and orange zest on medium speed. Spread onto cupcakes and sprinkle with colored sugar, edible glitter or dragées.

WHAT CHAMPAGNE SHOULD YOU USE?

You can use any champagne you like. The champagne is more of a “romantic” ingredient in the recipe; the cupcakes won’t taste like Dom Perignon (about $200), Roderer Cristal (about $250) or even the “bargain”-priced Veuve Clicquot Non Vintage Brut Yellow Label (about $45).

A $20 bottle will do, and a sparkling wine that isn’t from France will do. We enjoy two California sparklers made by great French champagne houses: Roederer Estate Brut, Anderson Valley and Mumm Napa Brut Prestige both about $20. Yellow Tail Rosé from Australia is just $8 and and Martini Asti Rosé from Italy is about $15 (and you can find it in splits); they work great in this recipe.

 
*Varietal honey comes from the particular flower named on the label: alfalfa, clover, orange blossom, etc. We know buckwheat honey and sage honey, from two different plants; but we’d never heard of a combined “buckwheat sage honey.” So we wrote to the National Honey Board and got this response from a representative:

“While I’ve never heard of “sage buckwheat” honey, it’s possible that the bees could be visiting both sage blossoms and buckwheat blossoms, gathering the nectar and bringing that back to the hive. This would result in a cross between the two floral sources and thus, a mixture in the honey. Honeybees travel in a five mile radius, so if both plants were growing the that five mile area, then I’m assuming it could be possible.

“I took a look at where each plant primarily is found. Buckwheat plants grow best in cool, moist climates. The buckwheat plant prefers light and well-drained soils, although it can thrive in highly acid, low fertility soils as well. Sage honey can come from many different species of the sage plant. Sage shrubs usually grow along the California coast and in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So again, it could be entirely possible that they blend these honey’s together to get their ‘signature’ honey.”
  

Bear in a Blanket was created by Angie Ramirez of LittleInspiration.com, who shares yummy food, easy DIY crafts, adventures of motherhood and everything in between on her blog.

The recipe takes only 20 minutes of prep time, 50 minutes of cook time.

RECIPE: BEAR IN A BLANKET

Ingredients For One Bear & Blanket

Preparation

1. COOK brown rice on stove top as directed on package, or about 45-50 minutes.

2. SCRAMBLE eggs with a pinch of salt over medium/high temperature in a lightly buttered skillet pan.

3. ASSEMBLE the bear in a blanket: Place about 1/2 cup of rice in the middle of the plate to form the bear’s body. Then scoop a medium size ball of rice to form the head. To form the bear’s ears, use a small amount of rice by shaping it like a half circle. Place the omelet on top of the bear’s body to form the blanket. Attach the olive and cheese slivers to form his ears, nose and eyes.

Serve to happy diners!

The chef stuffed sections of the crab legs with fresh crab and sea urchin and topped them with caviar: very upscale sashimi!

We’ve ordered crab cakes countless times at countless restaurants, but no one ever served us the stuffed legs of the crab with our crab cake. We loved it, and it inspired today’s tip:

Before you toss out shells—be they crab legs or shells, lobster claws or shells, scallop shells, juiced citrus halves, de-seeded pomegranates or other fruits or vegetables—consider how to repurpose them. You don’t need caviar to make it fun.

IDEAS FOR STUFFING THE SHELLS

What kind of leftover shells do you typically have, and what would you do with them?

NOT ENOUGH SHELLS FOR EVERYONE?

Simply freeze them until you have enough.
  

A few months ago we created a feature on party food bars:

Our drinks bars included the different ways to serve Bloody Marys, lemonade and iced tea. Around Thanksgiving, we realized we had left out another “essential,” and created an Apple Cider Bar.

We liked it so much for Thanksgiving that we did it again for Christmas and we’re planning it for next Halloween as well. So today’s tip is: Don’t wait until then: Set up an apple cider bar for New Year’s Eve.

Serve the cider cold and hot, so people can customize their drinks. Heat the cider on the stove with a ball of mulling spices, then serve it in a pitcher. If you have a hot plate or other device to keep the cider warm, so much the better.

APPLE CIDER BAR INGREDIENTS

Juices & Mixers

 
Spirits

 
Garnishes

 
Plus

Add your favorite spices. Photo courtesy Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

Related Snacks

 
*To float atop hot cider.

†We like Food Should Taste Good tortilla chips in Kettle, Pumpkin and Sweet Potato; Laurel Hill tortilla chips in Pumpkin Seed; or Way Better Snacks tortilla chips in Zesty Sweet Potato.

This recipe marries tiramisu with cupcakes, filling the soft, moist cupcake with tiramisu, the luscious Italian dessert made of ladyfingers dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks, egg whites, sugar and mascarpone cheese, flavored with cocoa.

In this recipe, cupcakes replace the ladyfingers. It’s from one of our favorite bakers, Lauryn Cohen of BellaBaker.com.

“I like to make filling my cupcakes easy—no cutting cones out or slicing and dicing my cupcakes,” says Lauryn. “Just stick a pastry bag into the cupcake and squeeze. It works every time, I promise!”

She made these as mini-cupcakes for portion control, but you can make standard size cupcakes if you prefer.

National Tiramisu Day is March 21st. National Cupcake Day is December 15th.
 
 
RECIPE: TIRAMISU CUPCAKES

Ingredients

For The Syrup

For The Cupcakes

For The Filling & Frosting

 
Garnish

 
_____________________
*Available at candy stores, coffee bean stores, food markets (including Trader Joe’s) and online.

1. MAKE the syrup (be sure to do this first). Stir together the espresso powder, sugar and water over low heat until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool while making the cupcakes.

2. MAKE the cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a mini muffin pan with cupcake liners. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. CREAM butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, until smooth and pale in color. Add eggs one at a time, making sure that each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next one. Stir vanilla into milk. Switch mixer to low speed and add dry and wet ingredients, alternating with half the dry, all of the wet, and the remaining dry, making sure not to overmix.

4. SCOOP batter into liners and bake for 10-12 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. As soon as the cupcakes come out of the oven, poke hole in the tops with a toothpick, and, using a pastry brush, brush tops of cupcakes with the coffee syrup. Allow cupcakes to cool completely.

5. MAKE the filling and frosting: Beat butter, mascarpone and yogurt in an electric mixer on medium/high speed until fully combined. Add confectioners’ sugar, a half cup at a time. Beat in the coffee extract.

6. PLACE the filling/frosting into a piping bag with a narrow round tip. Push tip into top of cupcake and gently squeeze filling out of pastry bag until tip naturally starts to rise out of the cupcake. You will quickly get the hang of when to stop squeezing. Be gentle and do not over-squeeze. Once you have completed the filling, spread frosting over the cupcakes in a dome-like shape. Sprinkle with cocoa powder and top with a chocolate covered espresso bean.
 
 
TURN CUPCAKES INTO A CLOCK

Alternatively, you can make cupcakes into a clock presentation for New Year’s Eve. Use any cupcake recipe and decorate the top of each cupcake with a different number from 1 to 12. Arrange them in a circle like the face of a clock, with chocolate pretzel rods as the hands.

Here’s the recipe, plus Lauryn’s tips for baking perfect cupcakes.