Just call me Stephie Crocker

I baked up a storm last week for a dessert night at our house on Friday. At dinner the previous Friday, I was talking about some recipes I wanted to try and Shawn very generously offered to be a guinea pig. How could I say no?

I made four desserts and three of them were successes. Okay, 3.5 of them because the cupcake itself was good, but the frosting wasn't great.

I made chocolate cupcakes FROM SCRATCH, which I've never done before. I mean, they make those boxed mixes for a reason, you know? But this recipe was so easy that I knew I could handle it. I loved that it used a can of Hershey's syrup, which was the only "special" ingredient I needed to pick up.

The McHusband got a couple pictures of me hard at work. Okay, more like my KitchenAid mixer hard at work while I, in true NC construction crew fashion, supervised.

I'm happy to say that the cupcakes turned out really well and that recipe's a keeper.

I made a cream cheese icing - again, FROM SCRATCH - for another dessert so I topped one cupcake with leftover icing for an official taste test. (I didn't make the cupcake frosting until the next night, and I couldn't wait to try my cupcakes.) The cupcake passed with flying colors.

Next I made Fudge Puddles. You know those cookies that people put Reese's Peanut Butter cups in? I basically did that for the cookie, then I made a chocolate-butterscotch filling to put in the "puddles."

I love that I got to use my mini muffin bakeware. I doubled the dough recipe and ended up with 72 cookie cups.

I used the top of my vanilla extract container to push the dough down to create the well in the center. Can cookies be cute?

Oh, I made some Fluffer Nutter Puddles too - I just filled half the cookie cups with marshmallow creme. Peanut butter cookie with marshmallow filling? Sign me up!

And my last from-scratch recipe was a batch of Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies that the McHusband deemed better than his previous favorite thing I make, the Butterscotch Bars. I made these because I had some pumpkin left from making the muffins and I wanted to use it up rather than throw it out. That's why I made the icing as well. I had 4 oz of cream cheese that I didn't want to languish in the fridge until it went bad and I was forced to throw it away.

I have to say, these blondies were probably my favorite treat of the night as well. They were just the right texture - not crunchy but not gooey, and they were a perfect thickness. Delish!

Okay, back to the cupcakes. I love a salty-sweet combination so I wanted to do a salted caramel frosting. I came across several recipes and used one that seemed simple enough for a novice baker without a candy thermometer in her arsenal of kitchen equipment.

Things were looking good as I made the salted caramel sauce. I wish I'd kept just a touch of this to put on the ice cream that Chelle brought for sundaes. I'll defintely make the sauce again for something even if I don't turn it into frosting.

I'll admit, it wasn't the most drool-worthy of color palettes.

Finally, at 11:30 Thursday night, everything was ready for Friday night's dessert party. Whew!

Stay tuned to see who showed up for their just desserts.