Sweet Sensations

If y'all are channel surfing, stop right now

Because I've got the sweetest, most sensational show for you. All in butter, I'm in heaven

My friends Alan and Karen are going to be sharing their one-of-a-kind TV dinner cupcakes

Is that not the cutest thing y'all have ever seen? And that's not all, y'all

A person cannot live on cupcakes alone. I'm going to treat them to my maple glazed pork chops and mashed sweet potatoes

You're a good cook. You're a good cupcake. Y'all look at these two folks

This man right here, y'all, this cute little ball-headed man, takes pictures from my cookbooks

And Karen, Karen Tack, is a food stylist. Now, these two folks, y'all, have been buddies for years

They decided to get together, and they wrote the most adorable book y'all have ever seen

Well, you guys get started. I'll see you in a minute. Okay, Ellen. All right, Karen, let's get going

I am so excited to make these TV dinner cupcakes. So we're going to make our cupcake batter first, okay

So what I'd love for you to do, we're making homemade cupcakes. I need two and a half cups of all-purpose flour

I've got a half a teaspoon of salt. Okie doke. Okay. And then some baking powder

I've got two teaspoons of baking powder. And a half a teaspoon of baking soda

And then in here I've got my wet ingredients. I need a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Okie doke. And then I've got a half a cup of milk. Uh-huh. And then I've got a half a cup of vegetable oil

Honey, I'm liking your ingredients. Yes. That oil, y'all, is going to make this a real moist cupcake

Yep, yep. So over here, I've got my stick of butter. All in butter, I'm in heaven

I'm going to cream this, and I need a cup of sugar. Okay, well, I can do that for you

Okay, great. So these are not going to be real sweet cupcakes, are they, Karen

No, because we're going to be adding a lot of goodies on top, and they'll be plenty sweet

I've seen the pictures, and I know that's right. And you know what

I don't know who doesn't like cupcakes. I am a sucker for them

Yep. It's the only way that I can control myself proportion-wise. Right

And you don't need... You know, like one cupcake. Yep. I won't go in there and cut me a slab of cake

I don't have one cupcake. All right, now, am I going to separate these

No, we just need three eggs, one at a time. We're going to add that to this mixture

Okey-doke. Our butter and sugar. And go ahead and add that. Great. I'm going to turn this up a little bit

and get that nice and incorporated. And you know, when making cupcakes, I have two boys

Do you? Yes, yes. Three with my husband. And they'll come home

Mom, I needed, you know, two dozen cupcakes tomorrow. Of course, it's 7 o'clock at night

Am I going to start making homemade? Maybe not. You know, cake mix is great

And when I use cake mix, I use buttermilk in place of the water. So do I

So do I. Or the regular milk. Here, I'll scrape your bowl for you, Karen, and get that all incorporated down here

So we've got that nice and creamy along with their eggs. So we're going to alternate the dry ingredients along with the wet ingredients. Okay

And I always start with dry and end with dry. How about you? That's what I do

You've done this before? I've done it a time or two. Terrific

Okay, that looks great. Now. It does look delicious. You know how you said you always need eight arms in the kitchen

Yes. Let me show you something that makes filling the cupcake pans a lot easier

That's delicious batter, Karen. So what I've got here, Paula, is a resealable bag

I've inverted it onto a measuring cup or a large container. I'm going to give you half the batter

Okay. And then pour that in. Okey-doke. And I'm going to take half

Get that in there. Y'all listen up. This girl sounds like she might be full of tips

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to put this over here. Okay, I can seal it up

Now, what you can do is you can take your bag, give it a little burp, and then zip it up

Mm-hmm. Okay. And then you've got a pastry bag. We're going to take our scissors, and we're going to snip like a quarter of an inch

Okay. Okay. Get in there. Okay. Then, like a machine, you can go through and squeeze exactly two-thirds of the batter

What a smart idea, Karen. Yep. And this batter makes about 18

I was going to say. And so now we're going to put this in a 350-degree oven for about 15, 20 minutes

Okay. And then while those are baking we going to go ahead and make our chocolate templates Oh and that going to be our fried chicken bone I got them on a small sheet pan with the template and then a piece of wax paper

We've got some white melting chocolate. What we're gonna do is we're gonna do the same resealable bag trick

These are quart-sized bags because we don't need such a big bag

Here's a bag for you, a bag for me. And again, we're gonna snip a small corner, but this time we're gonna go even smaller

like an eighth of an inch. Can you see that? And what I've got here is our template

and we're going to outline it, and we don't have to be smooth or anything. We're just going to squeeze, outline our pattern

and then just fill it in with the chocolate. This seems like it would be a wonderful, fun project

to do with your children. Yep. When we've completed our templates, we're going to pop these in the refrigerator

for about five minutes so that they get nice and firm. and then we can peel them off

Paula, I got a surprise for you. I've been doing a family portrait

Look at that. Alan, that's me. It doesn't do you justice. That is me

That is you. This is Gracie. Uh-huh. This is Otis. Take your pick

Bodine, Sam, and me. Look, y'all. Look. Look at that. That's a family portrait, isn't it

While our cupcakes are in the oven, I'm going to show Karen the ultimate combination of sweet and savory

Don't those look delicious? And later, Karen's going to show me how to make our cupcakes

into the perfect TV dinner. It's starting to look a lot like chicken

So to go with all these fabulous cupcakes that y'all are making, Karen, I've got a sweet but savory dish for you

And I'm going to make a maple glazed pork chop and sweet potatoes

Sounds delicious. So what I'm going to do is cut on my stove and get my pan hot

Okay, what can I do? I've got four pork chops right here

Look at these beautiful pork chops. Gorgeous. They're center cut and it's got the tenderloin on it

Yummy, yummy pork chops. Love that. So what I want to do is mix up a seasoning

I'm going to take four teaspoons of ancho chili powder. Okay. Smell that

Mmm. So it's not too spicy. Uh-uh. And then I'm going to add one teaspoon of salt

That's our rub? That's our rub. And if you would just rub that on our pork chops. Okay

Rub your meat, rub your meat, rub your meat. Get those seasonings in there

I'm going to be putting a little olive oil. Now, I've sprayed my pan so my pork chops won't stick

So just a little bit of oil in there. Perfect. Is that ready yet

Look at those chops. Now, this is... I'm going to go wash my hands. Yeah, go ahead and wash your hands since you touched that meat

It's going to take my cast iron a little bit to heat up because cast iron, as you know, is a heavy, heavy cookware

So why don't we go ahead and start our glaze for our pork chops. Okay

All right, let's cut on this right here. If you would measure us out about three tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

Okay. We're going to cook that down to about half. and it's going to be like the consistency of syrup

So right in that pan that goes. All right, so this is starting to kind of spit at us a little bit

So let's go ahead and put our pork chops in here. Look at these chops

They are so big there. Delicious. You know, this is out of my territory here

Well, you're big into bacon, aren't you? Next, we're going to make a mixture of a half a cup of butter maple syrup

Okay. And a half a cup of chicken stock. And after our balsamic vinegar reduces down, we're going to put the chicken stock and the syrup in there

We're going to pour it over our pulled chops. That sounds delicious

Doesn't that sound wonderful? And back here we've got some sweet potatoes y'all that we cubed and we've boiled

All right, so these are coming right along can I drain those then are they ready

Yeah, let's go ahead and get those drained Right into that colander, and you can see down in there our balsamic is starting to fall

It's like a facial I know Here I don't want to dump them on you that's all right. I'll kind of got them in there for you

It's hot. Ooh, ooh, hot. Okay, okay, let's put these over here

All right, so we're gonna take, Karen, three tablespoons of honey. Okay And a quarter of a teaspoon of cinnamon and a quarter of a teaspoon of salt Okay And I think the recipe calls for a quarter of a stick of butter but why don we do half

Okay. I have no problem with that. And look at our pork chops, y'all

Don't those look delicious? Mm-hmm. Look at them. Ooh. That chili powder has darkened them

and giving them such rich color. We're doing Karen and Alan's cupcakes today

But I tell y'all, a person cannot live on cupcakes alone. No

As much as I would like to, we've got to have a little savory

Our balsamic, I think, is ready for our liquid. Now you just take that electric mixer

Okay. I can go ahead and... And just beat it, girl. Okay. And in the meantime, I'm gonna take half a cup of the syrup, a half a cup of the chicken stock

And then we put that down? Yes, and then we're gonna reduce that down

Okay. And I'm gonna let that continue to do its magic. Mmm

That's good. It is good. Pass me that honey, please. I know

I like my sweet potatoes more sweet. Ah, I love it. So there we go

Oh, these pork chops, I mean they're kicking over here. Mm, those look yummy

Uh-huh. All right, so let's see what we've got. Mm. Mmm! That's good

That's better, isn't it? Up next, our pork chops and sweet potatoes are all ready for the tasting

Mmm! It's delicious. And then later, our cupcakes go from dessert to dinner with just a few simple tricks

How cute is this? Y'all, this is Karen Tatt

She, along with a friend of mine, Alan Richardson, wrote a great cookbook, and it's called Hello Cupcake

They do the most fabulous cupcakes you've ever seen. And the ingredients they use, we can get them from any curb store or grocery store

That's what I call a curb store. Oh, is that? Okay. Uh-huh. And that comes from a long time ago in Albany

You pulled up to the curb, and somebody came out and waited on you

Oh, wouldn't that be nice? You didn't even have to go in. So we called them curb stores

This looks delicious. So we have cooked up here a wonderful maple chili pork chop

We put some nuts on top. With sweet potatoes. Yes, we're going to garnish them with some chopped nuts

And why don't we put just a little parsley? We've got beautiful parsley here

So there we go. Look how pretty that is. So let's taste

Can we dig in? Yes, let's dig in. Oh, you're so welcome

I'm going to go in for my tenderloin. That's what I'm going to. I noticed you

And I'm just a swallowing. So tell me what you think. You're a good cook

You're a good cupcake. Isn't that yummy? Mm-hmm. Mm. We got the sweet and we got the savory

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. This is delicious. I could stand here and I could gnaw that bone, but you know what

I really want to see what you've got up your sleeve. Some dessert

Okay. To finish off the cupcakes, we've got our cooled cupcakes here

I'm going to give you one. I recognize these. These are donut holes. Mm-hmm

Mm-hmm. And what we're going to do with the donut hole is we're going to take a small knife and just make a little slit on the side

And then we're going to take the hardened chocolate and we're going to insert it so it looks something like that

There you go. So a nice big mound of vanilla frosting on top of the cupcake

Okay, so that's perfect. We want a little mound in the center. And we're going to put your donut hole on top

And then what we're going to do is pop in the freezer for about 15 minutes just so the donut hole doesn't roll around when we add more frosting

Right. I had some that I made before that I set up

Okay. Okay. So you can see they're not going anywhere. So what we want to do with these is we want to cover the donut hole with another little skim coat of frosting How fun I mean won the children have a ball doing this I was going to say I having

right good time myself. That looks terrific. Terrific. Okay. Now what I've got here, I've got a bowl of

crushed cornflakes. So we're going to just sprinkle those on the edge and I like to press the crumbs in

or you could even roll it in the crumbs so that it's completely covered

I love this. It's starting to look a lot like chicken. Chicken

That's it. Fried chicken. How cute is that? And so we've got a fun aluminum pan over here to be like the TV dinner tray

Okay, so we can put that. Why don't you put your chicken leg right in here? We've got to have some mashed potatoes with this

Absolutely. You can't have fried chicken without mashed potatoes. Okay. We're going to use the vanilla frosting

Okay. Now we want it to look like a nice swirl of mashed potatoes

Okay. And then I want to make a little well in the center for my butter

For your gravy. Butter gravy, yep. And so for the butter, we're just going to use a yellow fruit chew

I'm going to put it on the side like that. Oh, you're making melty butter

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to do like butter that's melting. And then our gravy

Do you know what that is? Yes, I do. A little caramel sauce

I thought it was caramel sauce. There we go. Don't be stingy with that

Okay. Terrific. And you know, doesn't that look like gravy? Yes, it does

And what's nice is that it's going to settle a little bit so that that butter pad pokes it

Oh, boy. I really heavy-handed on the gravy there. How cute is that, y'all

Isn't that fun? And how easy Mashed potatoes and So easy I mean, no special

So easy Coming up We have to have a vegetable You have to have a vegetable pot Yeah

Alan and Karen will show us How to make our TV dinner cupcakes complete

We got fried chicken We got peas and carrots And we got mashed potatoes and gravy

All right, y'all, I'm back in the kitchen. I've got Alan on one side, I've got Karen on the other

and they're fixing to show me how to make our meal complete. We've got our fried chicken, we've got our mashed potatoes and gravy

and they insist that we have to have a vegetable. Got to have it

Got to eat your vegetables. Got to have it. All right, so how are we going to make our peas and carrots

Well, we're going to start with using our vanilla frosting, and we're going to tint it green

And do y'all always use store-bought frosting? We've got some great recipes, homemade recipes, but, you know, in a pinch

This works so well, doesn't it? Yep, this classic vanilla frosting is terrific

You tell me when. So keep going a little bit, and I'd love, like, a drop or two of yellow because I like it a little brighter

Bodine said we would, too. That's great. And you know that store-bought frosting actually takes the color better than a buttercream or homemade

It does. The consistency is perfect, isn't it? It's perfect. So we've got a nice green there

Okay. That's a pretty colored green. Mm-hmm. All right. So everybody get a cupcake

And for the peas and carrots. So these are those candies that melt in your mouth, not in your hand

They sure are. That we love so much. But if you're like me and like pure sugar

These are the candies that start with an S. They do. Before we start adding our peas, we want to cut our carrots

That's right. Okay. Okay. And the great thing about this orange fruit chew is that you just want to cut it down the middle lengthwise

and then just cut it crosswise into thirds. And it takes about three or four fruit chews per cupcake

So then it's just a matter of just placing them around. Okay

And we're going to tuck them pretty close to each other, aren't we? Yeah, and then we'll add a couple of carrots, too, in there

And you want to cover the whole top. And I always find when you put in the carrots on it's nice to find one of those nice sharp edges

It looks just like it does when it comes out of a broken package. How cute is this

And this is as easy as just pressing on the candies. We call these, when we do these, we call them press and plate cupcakes

Yeah, I can see why y'all are having fun. This is not like a whole bunch of work

This is kind of like play. Here we go, Paula. This is too adorable

That looks great. Look at that. We got fried chicken, we got peas and carrots

and we got mashed potatoes and gravy. With the butter on it

Jack, my little grandson, is going to love it, and we send y'all best dishes, best cupcakes

from our kitchen to y'all. You better give me that mashed potatoes

and gravy