We're really excited about the change of seasons! Although the leaves aren't changing down here in Southern California...we still love autumn and wanted to bake seasonal cupcakes. We sorted through dozens of fall recipes and decided on a caramelized apple spice cake. We knew it was good when we saw the words "sour cream" and "apple cider" under the ingredients. The end result was lovely. Another plus-they were fairly dense which made for a great breakfast in the morning!

Chopping apples.

The apple brew. It might look unappetizing, but it was deceptively tasty.

EGG ME!

horseplay in the kitch...tisk tisk...

cupcakes and love,

xoxo the chapman sisters

Choco 'n Cream

We're back. And better than before. Why you may ask? Well, for starters, we have a new clean kitchen in our grown-up apartment. Most importantly, we have found ourselves a photographer. Our dearest roommate, Allie Choco, has volunteered her time and photography skills to improve the quality of our blog. We're excited to be back!

First up on the menu? Cookies n Cream cupcakes.

We had the idea to put half an oreo on the bottom of the cups. We loved the idea, but once baked, the cookies slightly burnt to the paper liner. They tasted great, but made it difficult to remove from the paper. If we baked these again, we might try to spray the liners with cooking spray.

Hard at work. (This may be the first ever documented photo of us baking together. Allie Choco, where have you been all of our blogging lives?)

As Rosie the Riveter reminds us every time we step foot in our kitchen, "We CAN do it!" And we're seriously excited for this year.

Love Love Love,

Aim & J

P.S. If any of you out there ever want one of our recipes, please feel free to ask! We love sharing, we just don't like cluttering up our blog.

World Cupcakes.

In order to celebrate our homecoming to the United States and the big World Cup game on Saturday, we decided to try something new.

First, it was such a treat to bake in a kitchen bigger than our tiny apartments! Just one of the many perks to being home in the summer.

To create the soccer ball, we arranged the cupcakes into a ball shape then frosted the tops together. The idea of this pull apart cake is to overfill the cups with batter so that they bake together when they rise. However, ours didn't exactly behave like they were supposed to. We made it work anyways...

Even though the U.S. lost, we're still glad to be back in the States baking!

We sincerely missed being in the kitchen while we were in Europe.

We will be back soon with more from our European adventures.

love love love

Aim and J

Czech us out!

While our experience in Prague may not have been ideal (marijuana hotel placed in between tattoo parlor and night club, dark hairs found in the sheets, no shower head), the food was definitely up to par.

Breakfast for dessert? Yes please! These were Lindsey and Nicole's pancakes with blueberry compote.
We opted for the maple banana crepes.

We were heading back to our hotel after dinner, but were literally stopped dead in our tracks by this gelato shop.

There was a slight language and monetary barrier... but the end result was fantastic.

Many more to come!

Sausagefest.

One word sums up our German experience: Sausage.

Sausage, sausage, sausage.

Belgium.

Belgium was a close second to Paris as far as best food contest goes. Since we were only there for one night, we had no time to waste. So we decided to treat ourselves to a three course meal.

Course #1: Belgian Chocolate.

Insider Tip: If you ever find yourself in Brussels, its best to go into every chocolate shop you see. Most give free samples. End result: a dozen free chocolates.

Course #2: Belgian fries with andalouse sauce.

Course #3: Belgian waffles.

We wish we would have gone for the ice cream on top of the waffle option, but the homemade whip cream was not too shabby.

Paris, Je T'aime!

Bonjour Mademoiselles et Miseurs!

Are you familiar with the phrase "like kids in a candy shop" ? Well they're thinking about changing it to "like Aim and J in Paris". Neither of us are what you would call a "dieter", however, we try to limit the amount of sweets we consume in one sitting to a normal amount. But this city's culinary excellence forced us to leave all the rules at the train stop. Every single meal consisted of us sharing a small sandwich and then a few pastries. A very balanced diet. Our friend Lindsey said it best when she described our diet by saying she felt like a stuffed animal.

We could attempt to describe our experiences, but there aren't enough words to express what our taste buds tasted. We'll let the pictures do the talking:

Chocolate Meringue

Croque Monsieur (not a sweet, but we had to share this Parisienne delicacy)

We can't remember the name of this pastry but we like to call it a double decker eclair.

The double decker eclair pre-surgery

Kristie and her chocolate eclair
A strawberry tart

Ice cream cones from ice cream Le Ils de Glaces (Ice Cream Island).

Macaroons

This is where we got the macaroons, meringue, croque monsieur and double decker eclair. We like to think it's the Parisienne version of Carlo's Bakery.

Unfortunately we did not photograph every treat we ate. Just add a few pain du chocolats, eclairs, croissants and let your imagination do the rest.

Paris was good to us, stay tuned for more European treats!

xoxo

Aim and J