Hey everyone! My name is Michelle, and I’m the creator of Kissed by Sweets, a Sweets and Vegetarian Treats Recipe Blog (http://www.kissedbysweets.com). I’ve been baking pretty and delish treats for the last 10 years, and giving them out to co-workers, neighbors, and my fiancé, Mr. Sweets (in an attempt to fatten him up!). I started my blog because several people would ask what my recipes were, so I wanted to share my experience and the ease of cooking and baking with everyone! I would also love to start selling my baked goods, and eventually open up a bakery! I hope you enjoy these treats! Please check out my website, http://www.kissedbysweets, and leave me a comment on my Twitter @KissedBySweets ! Thanks!

Snickerdoodles (who came up with that name, anyway?) are an all-American favorite, so they mean a lot to me. You see, I’m an American living in the UK, and no one really has a sweet tooth like us Americans! They don’t even like cinnamon…or peanut butter! Yeah, I don’t know why I’m still living here either, except to open their eyes and mouths to delicious treats that are pure American, like Snickerdoodles! And guess what? It worked! Prince Michael of Kent, a cousin of the Queen, tried one of my amazing Snickerdoodles this week! Soon the Queen will be calling me up asking for a box of them!! Ahh, pipe dreams…

I got the recipe from this website: http://www.food.com/recipe/soft-snickerdoodle-cookies-97496

Ingredients

• 1 cup Butter
• 1 1/2 cups Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 3/4 cups Flour
• 2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 3 tablespoons Sugar
• 3 teaspoons Cinnamon

~ Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F

~ Mix butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and eggs in a large bowl

~ Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl

~ Mix dry ingredients into the butter mixture

~ Chill dough in the fridge for about 15 minutes

~ Mix the 3 tablespoons of sugar and the 3 teaspoons of cinnamon together in a small bowl

~ Roll 1 inch balls of the snickerdoodle batter in the palms of your hands, then roll it in the cinnamon sugar mix until fully coated

~ Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes!

Your house will smell amazing for the rest of the day!

Thanks, everyone! Smooches! Xoxo

Michelle

http://www.kissedbysweets.com

Twitter: @KissedBySweets

Since the weather has been getting warmer and the sun is staying out forever I decide to make cupcakes that reminded me of some of my favorite childhood summer memories, orange creamsicles!! Who didn’t love an ice cold orange creamsicle? I have been plotting the recipe in my head for awhile and then the perfect cupcake opportunity presented itself; my monthly Bunco night!!

For the cake I used a White Velvet recipe from one of my favorite baking blogs Java Cupcake. (You should totally check it out they have great recipes http://javacupcake.com/)

The batter came together easily and into the oven they went.

They baked up beautifully too!

Now for the frosting. I had initially thought I would be *super* creative and whip some cream and add a package of orange jello and that would be the perfect frosting.

BAD IDEA!! Don’t try this at home it was gross! The frosting tasted weird (and not in the good way).

Now I am in a quandary; what can I do to fix this frosting ?? I’m racking my brain for things I can add to the frosting that will add an orange flavor and it has to be something I can get quickly and easily here in Germany…

Bing! A light bulb goes off in my brain and I think I have found the answer. It’s a Hail Mary pass into the end zone with seconds on the clock; but it’s all I got. Plan B is quickly set into action with one frantic phone call to Rey and some prayers that he can find what I need at the commisary.  Twenty minutes later I get a text saying that, yes indeed he has found the Plan B ingredient at the commissary and is bringing it home!! With secret ingredient in hand I say a little prayer and add it to the frosting and….(insert angels singing) it works!!! I have now got the PERFECT orange creamsicle frosting! It tastes exactly how I want it!! Even Rey agrees!

So what is this magical secret ingredient, you ask?? I wasn’t going to share…. but since I like you guys,here it is….

wait for it……

wait for it…..

Who would have guessed that it would be good old fashioned, American classic, flown in space with NASA, TANG!!

(it blew my mind a little too!)

With things back on track, I’m debating (out loud to myself) if I should fill and frost the cupcakes with the orange filling and Rey chimes in with “Well a creamsicle has cream in it, so you should fill them with cream.” Hhhhmmm… Actually sounds like a good idea. So I whip up some cream (literally, ha) and fill them up. I had some filling leftover so I add it to the frosting and BAM….

……super cute frosted creamsicle cupcakes!! They don’t look to shabby!

These are apparently Rey’s new favorite cupcake and I have been told they taste “Exactly like a creamsicle!” I’m pretty proud that this potentially fail got turned into something delicious!

A Happy Ending!!

Here’s Abby… isn’t she just super sweet!?

Thanks Abby for sharing!

Since being in Belgium I have had to cook quite often and I found my calling… Baking (cue angelic singing). I was doing everything by hand because I did not have a stand mixer.. I know I don’t know how I did it either. Then my amazing mother in law sent me for Christmas/Birthday present a pink kitchenaid stand mixer. It proudly sits on my kitchen counter and even though I have to use a transformer to use it I can’t go back to hand mixing I just can’t. There are not fast food restaraunts on every corner here like in the states. We have a small Airbase here that has Burger King, Anthony’s pizza, & a little turkish place. That is it.. We don’t have the huge food court that Ramstein has (yes I am jealous). Also that Chievres Air base is 40 mins away from my house out in the country side. So needless to say I bake/cook quite frequently which lead to the birth of my blog http://strawberrysprinks.blogspot.com/ Feel free to stop by anytime. Okay enough of me talking on to the recipe.

I orginally saw this recipe over at Young Adventures http://4everyoungfam.blogspot.com/ . I thought wow how interesting. I am a huge banana fan and am pretty much obsessed with finding the perfect banana bread. So I decided this was a must. I loved it! Not only is it moist but so much flavor! I added a lot to it on my own so below is my recipe with changes made. After having this I will never go back to banana bread. I hope you guys will enjoy this as much as I did. By the way in my pictures you will see even after a year we are still eating on paper plates hey no judgement haha it cuts down on dishes. = : ) Enjoy-Ashley

Banana Bread Pie

Ingredients:
2 very ripe bananas ( I used 4 medium bananas)
1/2 cup light Bisquick mix (if you don’t want it runny add 1/4 more)
2 large eggs
1 14oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon of butter melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
*I added 2 Cups of chopped walnuts

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Mash the bananas until smooth. I used a potato musher.
Add rest of the ingredients and mix until blended.
Pour into a 9 inch pie pan. I doubled the recipe and used a deep dish pie pan.
Cook for 26-30 mins. If you use a deep dish pan I cooked mine for like 40 to 50 mins. Use a knife or toothpick and cook until the inside is no longer runny. I added some whip cream and dusted it with cinnamon. It is very very good.

*Tips & Tricks*
If you make it with my changes after about 15 mins cover it with tin foil because the top will burn.

The Divine Cupcake
Eugene, Oregon

This weekend we were throwing a baby-shower for a dear friend and I was in charge of the cake. Instead of ordering the stereo-typical grocery store cake—or cake from Costco, I decided I would order cupcakes from The Divine Cupcake. (The DC specializes in Organic and Vegan cupcakes.)

The Divine Cupcake opened nearly one year ago (March 2010) and is located in a less appealing side of town. In fact you would drive right by it, if you didn’t know it was already there. They are on a one-way street with only one entrance into the very small parking lot. (Parking max is approximately 8 spots. Very small spots. It’s very difficult to navigate in and out of the lot.) The location is one of the reasons I’ve not been there.

When inside it’s cute, quaint, and provides plenty of comfortable seating with couches and lounge chairs. The interior definitely takes away from the neighborhood. Farther in, they have different cupcake themed items for purchase: jewelry, clothing, nick-knacks, etc. (Shout out to Bella Cupcake Couture!! I saw your beautiful wrappers on display!) Behind that is their displayed cupcakes and coffee bar.

For the shower I knew I only would need a dozen cupcakes, so I called ahead just in case. I’m glad I did.

My daughter and I arrived at 11 a.m. (they open at 7 a.m. on Saturday’s). I was disappointed at the lack of cupcakes available: flavors and amount. There was maybe a dozen available?! The cupcakes were on the smaller size—even for a full size cupcake.

My dozen “Bodacious Blueberry” (seasonal) cupcakes were boxed up and ready to go. My daughter begged to pick out her own. It took her awhile, but she settled on the red velvet. $30.00 is what I paid for a 13 cupcakes.

My daughter immediately wanted to go home and try her special treat—and so did I. I was SHOCKED that it was so dry and tasteless. The frosting was hard and crusty….very very sweet too. Almost too sweet it overpowered the cake. Not impressed. Now that I think about it, I wonder if it was because they were not inside of a case and sitting under bright florescent track lighting?! I was worried about the “cakes” I bought for the party.

At the party, not one person finished the cupcake. Nobody even said, “Yum, these are good. Where did you get them,” as I was hoping. The texture and taste was the same as the red velvet: dry, crusty, and the frosting was too sweet. As a matter of fact, it didn’t taste anything like blueberry. I was very disappointed!

I will not be back.

Oh—P.S., they should really reconsider hiring new staff. The two girls behind the counter could have cared less that I was there.

The holidays are coming, it’s December, and you need to get in the kitchen RIGHT NOW.

Seriously, pick up your computer (I don’t care if it’s a desktop) and get in the kitchen.

Take out some molasses, brown sugar, butter, and your mixer and let’s get started, the holidays are going to be here before you know it and you will want to be prepared with this gingerbread cupcakes with brown butter frosting.

Yum, brown sugar.

Did you know you can make your own?

This is the part where the spices combine and your kitchen starts to smell really, really good.

And this is the part where you eat raw eggs because you can’t resist eating this delicious smelling cake batter.

And now we brown some butter.

It’s a lot easier than people make it seem, just keep an eye on it.

You’ll melt the butter down over medium-high heat, I use a cast-iron skillet, some people use saucepans. Don’t take your eye off of it, even for a second.

It’ll start to bubble violently and you’ll want to duck for cover but DON’T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF IT.

Once it stops bubbling it’ll start to brown and it’ll brown fast. Keep stirring occasionally and watching. It’ll turn darker by the second. When you feel like it’s a suitable dark brown (I usually go for a nutty, dark amber color) then remove it from the heat. You can take it off a little sooner if you are really scared of burning it, but as long as you watch it you shouldn’t burn it.

Combine it with milk, sugar, and vanilla and you get this absolutely amazing frosting.

Brown butter is probably my favorite flavor and it’s great for the holidays, especially mixed with gingerbread. Once you get the hang of browning butter, you can make browned butter dutch baby pancakes for breakfast (my favorite) or browned butter and vanilla bean cupcakes.

Whoever decided to almost burn butter is a genius.

Gingerbread Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Makes 21-24 cupcakes

1 cup water
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup unsulphered molasses
2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350°F and line two standard cupcake tins with paper liners.

In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. In a small bowl, combine boiling water and baking soda; set aside.

In a large bowl, sift and whisk together flour, ground spices, salt, and baking powder, set aside.

In another bowl or in an stand mixer, cream the butter until light. Beat in the brown sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the molasses, baking soda mixture, and flour mixture. Beat in the eggs. Be careful not to overbeat.

Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of them comes out clean.

Let cupcakes cool in pan for a couple minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Brown Butter Icing
Adapted from Martha Stewart

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk, plus more if necessary

Sift confectioners’ sugar into a large bowl, set aside.

Melt butter in a saucepan on medium-high heat until it turns a nut-brown color. It should bubble first and then settle down and turn brown. Watch carefully so it doesn’t burn. Remove from heat and pour into strainer over top of the confectioners’ sugar.

Add vanilla and 1/4 cup milk and blend together before using a mixer (so it doesn’t splash everywhere). If necessary for consistency, add more milk 1 tablespoon at a time, up to an additional 4 tablespoons. Let everything cool before spreading onto cupcakes.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese frosting, red dye for the bite marks.  I used a boxed cake, but left out one egg and it was incredibly moist and delish!

Pumpkin spice cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting.  Added fresh pumpkin to a spice cake mix, and made the frostings both from scratch…  I used JavaCupcake’s cream cheese frosting recipe with cinnamon in the pumpkin spice one.

I thought – what if I made brownies? Then I thought, what if I made them in cupcake form? Then I thought, what if I put a peanut butter cup in the middle? This is how my brain works. Be thankful I stopped there.

ingredients:
8 ounces chocolate chips
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
12 peanut butter cups (regular size NOT mini)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

I got these FULL size peanut butter cups at Target for ONE DOLLAH. HOLLA! That’s cheap, and rather than just eat them all myself (which I am fully capable of doing) I thought they’d go great in brownies.

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips and the butter, stirring constantly. Once melted and combined, carefully take off the heat and let cool for a few minutes. Whisk in the sugar until smooth. Then quickly add the vanilla and eggs, whisking constantly, you don’t want them to cook.

Carefully add in the flour and cocoa, just whisking until combined. The nice thing about brownies is that you don’t need an electric mixer, however you do need arm muscle. I. Am. Weak.

Now, spoon a small amount (just about 1 Tablespoon) of batter into each liner. Place one peanut butter cup on top (I don’t need to tell you to unwrap them do I? Good.) and then top with more batter – covering the peanut butter cup completely.

Bake for approx 25-30 mins depending on your oven. You can do a toothpick test, but it’s kinda tough since the peanut butter is right in the middle – just make sure the brownie part is cooked through.

Let cool on a wire rack IF you can control yourself. Because they are darn good right out of the oven. Now give them away to all your peanut butter lovin’ friends!

My name is Katrina and I’m an Army wife and a mother of one beautiful little girl. I have always had a passion for cooking and baking. It’s my therapy. I feel that it brings families closer and it gives me something to share with my family and friends. I am currently working on my very first cookbook!!! I have a lot of work to do to get it done, but we (my family) are having a great time making recipes and testing.

This recipe, carrot cake cupcakes, came from a very old cookbook that I had. When I first tried it, it really wasn’t that good. The cake came out too dry and something was missing. About a week ago Richard, the hubby, got a craving for some carrot cake, so I pulled out that old recipe and used it as a “rough draft” for the perfect carrot cake. I added 1 more egg and 1/2 cup more of sugar, and my secret ingredient…crushed pineapple. It adds the right amount of sweetness and make the cake so moist. When I was getting ready to put the cake in it’s pan and in the oven my daughter Lily asked if we could have “pupcakes” so I lined my cupcake pan with liners and baked this little treats. I topped them with a simple vanilla cream cheese frosting and filled the insides with the frosting and shoved a piece of pineapple in the middle!! These are definitely going in my cookbook!! ENJOY!!!!

Perfect Carrot Cake Cupcakes
2 Cups Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups grated raw carrots
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple in juice, drained (reserve some pineapple for garnish and 1/2 teaspoon juice for frosting)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound of confectioners’ sugar (sifted)
1/2 teaspoon pineapple juice

*Preheat over to 350*
*Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon
*in mixing bowl, beat eggs and add sugar. let stand until sugar dissolves (about 10 minutes)
*stir oil, carrots, drained pineapple and nuts into the egg and sugar mixture
* stir in dry ingredients and beat until well blended. about 3 minutes with blender set on medium speed
*line cupcake pan with paper liner and fill 3/4 the way full with batter.
*bake for 20 minutes and check with toothpick to make sure they are done in the middle
*cool in pan for 15 minutes then put them on a wire rack and allow to cook all the way before frosting.

Frosting
* combine butter, cream cheese, vanilla and pineapple juice in a large bowl until well blended.
*add sugar gradually, beating vigorously.
*frost cupcakes only after they have cooled all the way, since the frosting is made of mostly butter and cream cheese it will melt off.

ENJOY!!!

REESE’S Pieces Cupcakes

…and chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes.

I think you know how to do the math here! To create your REESE’S Pieces cupcakes, use your favourite chocolate cupcake and the peanut butter frosting below.

Peanut Butter Buttercream
(Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes)

250g of cream cheese
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
4 cups of icing sugar
2/3 cups of peanut butter

1. Make sure your cream cheese and unsalted butter are at room temperature. Leaving it out for 1-2 hours will work too.
2. Using a stand mixer, combine the cream cheese and butter until combined.
3. Add in 2 cups of icing sugar, mix well. Add the remaining 2 cups of icing sugar and mix until combined. This way the icing sugar doesn’t fly out of your bowl!
4. Finally, add in the peanut butter and mix until the buttercream is smooth. Pipe the frosting onto your cupcakes and top with a REESE’S Pieces.

If you also live in Ontario, we hope you had a yummy Simcoe Day!

Today’s topic! Cupcakes for weddings! Wedding season is upon us and the different ideas brides have for what they want is amazing! It all comes down to how they are frosted.  At Wink we have had requests for traditional style cupcakes, to ones that are roses or topped with fresh berries! From white buttercream to light pink rolled in coconut!

And so I leave you this fabulous Monday with some photos of cupcakes to temp your taste buds and just a sampling of what Wink can do for weddings.

*All Photos Copyrighted and Belong to Wink Cupcakes – unauthorized reuse is prohibited.

Photo Credits – Heather Baker Photography

Ok not to beat a dead cupcake so to speak but today I am going to talk about Cupcake Wars on the Food Network.  I have only watched one episode but after that one I can only assume that it’s not getting any better.

Upon the first couple of minutes it was clear that the format of the show was the tried and true “Iron Chef” … but the table of ingredients the contestants had felt less exciting. I mean make a savory cupcake … ok… your choices are bacon, maple etc etc etc. WOW my choices are either a seafood item or a flavor combination that everyone does.   Which one will I choose!?
Hoping for all hope that it’s going to get better I keep watching… did anyone else notice the assistant on the winning team was actress Maureen Flannigan?… http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0281234/ I honestly for the next five minutes was googling her, is she in the cupcake business now? Why is she there? Why is she confused? Is she a stand in?

Ok… round one, underwhelmed… round two, even more unimpressed and then round three…

Make 1000 cupcakes and a display…  Both displays where original, the tier was classy… the golf course was cheap… the fact that it won was amazing.  Also does anyone believe it was made in the time allotted, painted and then dried? A little TV magic maybe… but what I couldn’t get over was all the crying and yelling.  I mean its CUPCAKES. I can understand TV stress and pressure but really?!

So my blog today as you can tell has been building and become more of a rant.  I’ll probably find myself watching more episodes but so far, Cupcake Wars was more of a backyard brawl.

Post by: Lisa Gagnon of Wink Cupcakes – Seattle, WA

Thanks to Two Parts Sugar for the photo!

I am a fan of the cupcake swag; anything with a cupcake on it has to be cute right?  So today cupcake friends I am going to show you my favorite items and point you in the direction to wear you can find them! Get it, WEAR… hehe, yes I am a dork.

For anyone who attended Seattle’s first cupcake camp I was rocking my Custom Made for Cupcake Camp Cupcake Headband! I am a HUGE fan of Esty and I posted a request online and was lucky enough to meet Arbie.  She custom made this wonderful piece for me and let me tell you, it’s heavy but she hid clips under the bow and cupcake cup so when it’s in, it is IN! http://www.arbiegoodfellow.com/ or http://www.etsy.com/shop/Londonxox

OK NEXT! For Liz’s birthday (our pastry chef at Wink) I was trying to think of something fun to get her … other than the ROCKING cake I made her! Onward to Esty I go to search CUPCAKE and up pop’s kids wear… lucky for me, this kids wear comes in ADULT SIZES!  Meet the Cupcake Mafia Hoodie… super comfy, super cute felt cutouts! I bought two (one for me and her!)

http://www.etsy.com/listing/35838423/cupcake-mafia-bp-hoodie-sweatshirt

Keep in mind if you order an Adult size – they run LARGE! I kind of swim in mine.

Looking for an awesome custom made site for toppers, wraps and birthday items! I have had great luck with http://www.etsy.com/shop/Joosycardco.  She is SUPER nice and makes such quality products.  My favorite thing I have bought from her cupcake toppers that have jewels attached to them, plus they are totally reusable if you’re careful with them.

Happy Cupcake Shopping!

Post by: Lisa Gagnon of Wink Cupcakes – Seattle, WA

Well my name is Lisa Gagnon; I am the General Manager for Wink Cupcakes (located at 1817 Queen Anne Ave N Seattle).  I love cupcakes! I love all things cupcake! I came into my job by fate… after almost 10 years working for Starbucks and then a brief blip at an environmental company; it is now all cupcakes all the time.  I was a client of Wink Cupcakes; I would send cupcakes to friends (better than flowers!) and order large batches for the office.  I grew to know Deanne Ederer Emmons the Owner of Wink and over time we developed a friendship.  Soon I was the Office Manager/Website and Social Media Manager and as Wink grew my role changed into what it is now.  I am very thankful for this role and experience, everyday is a new challenge and couldn’t ask for anything more.

At Wink we try to make each cupcake a custom experience for each person.  Our shop is set up so you can watch your cupcakes being made from our “Cupcake Command Center” and we allow people to mix and match their flavors.  Let me tell you we have had some interesting requested flavor combinations! Hazelnut with Coconut Cream Cheese Icing, Lemon with Chocolate Buttercream! Whatever your heart’s desire we will whip up.  I must admit I get in trouble when I watch Food Network because I am convinced that you can make anything into a cupcake!

I will leave you with a funny story that can only remind you of the movie “Parent Trap”…

I have an identical twin sister and prior to working for Wink, for our birthday I ordered cupcakes to be delivered to Lori at work.   I ordered a jumbo Guinness and red velvet minis! Our birthday rolls around (July Babies woooo!) and I find Deanne waiting for me at my office when I return from lunch with a jumbo Guinness and red velvet minis!  I am now CONFUSED.  Deanne is laughing because during the time I had ordered “surprise” cupcakes for my twin, she had ordered cupcakes for me and the exactly the same flavors I had picked out. Deanne had to play top secret cupcake agent making sure neither of us found out! Nothing like a little cupcake twin action!

Hopefully we now can call each other pals and I will live up to the wonderful posts from Betsy.  Next week… Cupcake SWAG … cute or toothache?

With my kids I am always trying to think up new cupcake decorating ideas. Sometimes these ideas get saved and forgotten about. That is what happened with these frog cupcakes I found well over a year ago on Allrecipes.com.

My recipe is a little different than theirs and in my opinion makes a cuter cupcake.
We start with the cupcake a basic vanilla cupcake.

Vanilla Cupcake
1 cup Butter
2 cups Sugar
6 eggs
4t vanilla
zest of one lemon (optional)
3 cups flour
3t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup plus 2 TB milk

bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.

Some note’s about the recipe…

First mix in ingredients in the order listed. You want to first cream the butter and sugar. When it looks like this:

you are done. You want it nice and fluffy.

Next mix in eggs one at a time then vanilla.

The lemon is optional and we like it

I love my mini grater, it is Tupperware.

Next add in your dry ingredients and lastly add your milk. On the milk most people can get by with only a 1/2 cup but I live in the desert. I add 2 extra tablespoons to combat the dryness here. In the end your batter should look like this:

It reminds me of thick vanilla pudding.

Fill cupcake liners 1/2 to 2/3 full and bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Once the cupcakes have cooled comes the fun part decorating.

I use a buttercream to frost-

Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
4 cups confectioners sugar
2t vanilla
4TB milk

cream butter and shortening until fluffy. Slowly add confectioners sugar then vanilla and milk. You can add more or less milk to get the thickness you want. Once you add the milk whip on high speed, the longer you whip it the lighter and fluffier your frosting will be.

In my opinion a kitchen aide with the whip attachment is the best thing to use to make frosting.

Since we are making frogs tint your frosting with green gel food coloring. Frost your cupcakes and sprinkle with greed sugar.

Now it’s time to make the frogs. Gather your cast of characters-

Frosted and sugared cupcake, dark green sugar, large marshmallows (I prefer jet puff), Twizzlers pull and peel (cut in about 2-3 inch segments) and chocolate chips, frosting and water.

First cut marshmallows in half-

These will eventually become the eyes.

Next take water and place in a shallow bowl. Also place the green sugar in a bowl.

Next dip marshmallows in water.

Then dip in sugar

So they look like this-

Add frosting to the bottom and “glue” to the cupcake.

Once eyeballs are glued on peel apart Twizzlers into strands and add mouths.

The final touch is “gluing” chocolate chips with frosting to the center of eyeballs so they look like eyes.

Now you have your own cute little froggie cupcakes.

Enjoy!

First of all, I must say I am completely overjoyed by the oh-so-wonderful Betsy, or Java Cupcake, as she recently asked me to be a guest blogger and write a brief photography piece for her fantastically delicious blog! Cupcakes and photography? Both are individually delightful and together they are enough to provoke an over the top happy dance. I‘m not even kidding. Seriously, baking yummy cupcake treats, photographing those little lovelies and then of course the taste testing, can it get any better?

I think not!

Although I must admit, I’m quite new to the world of photography. So new that I just recently celebrated the first anniversary with my lovely little Canon 30D. I genuinely do not consider myself a real photographer and I’m primarily blaming this on my unwillingness to read instruction manuals or directions. I’ve always been the type to figure things out on my own and in my own way. My creativity is continuously improving and I’m finding myself more inspired each and everyday with the incredible people who do photography professionally. I’d like to think every picture I take is a new adventure – So, let me share my top three favorite pieces of advice with you.

First, the two most common techniques I absolutely believe in, is to utilize natural lighting and to style your subject attractively. Yep. That’s it. Very simple and extremely effective.

Although, in this wonderful State of Washington, utilizing natural light can be quite tricky. At least that’s my primary complaint during those forever long, dark and rainy winter months. I often found myself rushing to finish decorating the cupcakes to simply run outside and take a picture before the sun disappeared. In most cases, I would end up saving my cupcake creations until the next afternoon simply to take a better picture. So, if possible, take advantage of any natural lighting when it is actually available.

Second, most of my food and cupcake pictures are taken right in my own dining room – Hurrah for a sturdy window sill! Not only do I have ample amounts natural light but the presentation is also clean in appearance. I’m personally drawn to the simplicity and minimalism as it directs your focus to what really matters, your subject. Props and backgrounds are fun and can certainly add nostalgia to your photograph; however, using items or backgrounds that are too busy can often distract from the fabulousness of your subject. I like to think a bit of simplicity is often enough to make a photograph ‘pop’ on its own.

Finally, my absolute favorite piece of advice is to photograph absolutely everything you see. Yes, continue to photograph everything even if your significant other looks over to find you attempting to balance a cupcake on top of your pet Chihuahua’s head. Just ignore those judgmental stares and continue on with the silliness! You can read an instruction manual all day but the real lessons will come once you pick up the camera and begin shooting.

Enjoy the endless creativity!

Courtney’s Trifle Cupcakes

Chocolate Dessert Cups:

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate

1 bag white chocolate

Muffin Cups

Muffin Pan

Pastry brush (silicon works well)

• Line muffin pan with muffin cups.
• Melt chocolates separately over a double boiler. Once the chocolate is melted brush the chocolate inside the cups making sure to get the sides and bottom.
• Freeze for about 20 minutes, then you can peel the liner off. Easy peasy I promise
• When all the cups are separated I like to put the chocolate cups in a fresh muffin cup and place in the refrigerator.

Now for the Trifle, or my take on a trifle

Cake

Bake a batch of chocolate cupcakes, cake, anything you don’t mind crumbling up! I made cupcakes so I’d have leftover to bring of those as well. I made chocolate, chocolate chip cupcakes

While the cupcakes are baking start the “mousse”. I hate real mousse, but some like it.. For me the taste is too strong, so I made a “faux mousse”

Mousse:

I used 2 packages of the smaller size chocolate pudding

2 cups Milk

2 cups heavy cream

• Whip until pudding consistency and refrigerate.

On to the whip cream

Wilton’s Stabilized Whip Cream:

Credit – Recipezaar

1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin

4 teaspoons cold water

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

• In small pan add gelatin and cold water and let stand until thick.
• Once its thick place over low heat and stir constantly until the gelatin is dissolved, then removed from heat and allow cooling, but not getting thick.
• Meanwhile whip the cream and powdered sugar until a little thicker in texture.
• On low speed add the cooled gelatin, then whip at high speed until you see whip cream.

Assemble:

Take the unfilled dessert cups out of the refrigerator. Fill a pipping bag (any tip) and pipe mousse into the cups.

Take the cupcakes…

And chop ‘em up! I didn’t use the tops.

I wanted the softer texture of the cupcakes.

Take the pieces…

Lightly crumble them into the cups.

Cover with more mousse (I switched the tip)

Then do a little star with whip cream…

Hey, wait… what about all the leftover cupcakes and whip cream? I didn’t forget

Because I Can Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes by Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Devil’s Food Cake

9 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ cups cake flour (not self-rising)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
4 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
½ cup water
½ cup whole milk

Adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter (or use the baking spray) two regular size cupcake/muffin pans or two mini. I personally made 12 large cupcakes and 20 mini cupcakes.

Sift together the cocoa powder, cake flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl.

In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, or by hand, beat together the butter and sugar about 5 minutes until smooth and creamy.

Add the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. (If using a standing electric mixer, stop the mixer as necessary to scrape down the sides to be sure everything is getting mixed in.)

Mix together the water and milk. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, the add the water and milk. Finally stir in the other half of the dry ingredients.

Fill cupcake pans 2/3 of the way full with cake batter. For regular size bake 20-22 minutes. Mini bake 13-15 minutes.

Cake recipe  from David Lebovitz.com

Crème Egg Filling Buttercream Frosting

the centers of 20 Cadbury Crème Egg scooped out (save the chocolate shells for décor and filling)
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 to 8 cups powdered sugar
1 TBSP vanilla extract
milk to thin frosting

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Add the creme from the eggs and beat until incorporated.

Add 4 cups of the sugar and vanilla extract.

On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.

Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. If too thick, thin out with milk.
You can take half of the icing and color it yellow for effect. You will also probably have little bits of chocolate that stayed with the crème filling, no worries, it’s tasty.

Chocolate Shell Ganache

10 ounces of chopped up Cadbury Crème Egg Shell, if you don’t have enough to make 10 ounces, then add some milk chocolate chips to it
1 cup heavy cream

Put chocolate in a medium bowl.

Bring cream to a simmer in a saucepan and remove from heat. Pour over chocolate. Let sit 5 minutes.

Whisk in chocolate until smooth. Let set up at room temperature.

To assemble the cupcakes:

Take chocolate shell filling and place into a pastry bag fitted with a small tip.

Take tip and place into cupcake squeeze filling into cupcake using the cone method (or just poke into center and fill if making mini).

Frost cupcake and top with chocolate shell piece. If making the mini, they do make mini eggs. Cut those in half and use as décor.

Sugar Cookie Flowers…um, Cupcakes

Wow, the title of this blog post was hard to come up with! hehe. I didn’t know whether to call them cookies or cupcakes because…well, see for yourself. =)

Here are the cupcakes…

Here are the decorated sugar cookies…

And these beauties are the finished product!

See what I mean? I promise the next post will have a less confusing title. hehe. Anyway, I thought these cookies/cupcakes would be a good way to celebrate Spring! It’s officially here! Although, I’d have to say that I’ve been quite confused about time-of-year since arriving in SoCal last week. The temperature has been around 80-85 degrees F this whole time! It makes me feel like we should really be celebrating summer! I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only March. =)

Anyway, more about these cookies/cupcakes…I saw them in Martha Stewart’s Cupcake book last month and knew that I had to make them. The cuteness was irresistible. I have a major weakness for aesthetically pleasing food.

And since the cupcake-shaped Sugar Cookie Pops I made last month turned out to be such a big hit, I knew these would be awesome!

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on how to make these because I already featured them in the cupcake-shaped pops entry. You can reference it for tips and step by step photos.

Just make sure your flower cookie cutter isn’t too big. Something around 2-3 inches in diameter would be perfect. And get the 6 inch lollipop sticks.

Here are some additional helpful links that I mentioned in my previous post:

Click HERE for Our Best Bites’ Sugar Cookie Decorating Tutorial
Click HERE for Our Best Bites’ Sugar Cookie Pops Tutorial
Click HERE for Our Best Bites’ Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe

Decorating these was really fun! I picked out three colors: white, pink, and yellow. Perfect shades for spring!

I outlined them in white and used yellow for the centers.

Then I very carefully filled in the pink petals.

Allow the icing to dry. Let the cookies sit uncovered for about 24 hours.

(2) The Leafs

These were really easy to do. All you need is some gum paste, a small leaf-shaped cookie cutter, and green food coloring.

Color your gum paste and roll it out. If your gum paste it too sticky, you can use corn starch to dust the surface of your work area.

And there you have it! Easy peasy.

I like to stick the leafs on right away, before they have a chance to harden. When it’s soft, you can bend it slightly in the middle to mimic a real leaf. But I’m getting ahead of myself here…

(3) The Cupcakes

Use your favorite cupcake recipe. Chocolate cupcakes would be awesome too! In retrospect, chocolate probably would’ve been better, huh? hehe. Oh, well. Maybe next time. And use whatever frosting you like! What about cute liners? Maybe green polka-dotted ones! My point is: you can get super creative with these! Go wild!

For the frosting, I used Wilton’s grass tip. Here’s a good tutorial on how to pipe it. I thought it was going to be way hard, but it actually turned out to be quite intuitive! You’ll know what to do when the time comes. hehe. I didn’t like for the grass to be super uniformed. So instead of pulling straight up, I pulled every which way, to make it look more real. Because grass never just grows straight up, you know? It’s more like “artistically messy,” I’d say.

(3) Putting it all together

No explanation needed, really. Stick the cookies in the middle of the cupcakes, then add leafs. Some of them had one, some had two. I’m very unpredictable like that.

Ok, and here’s one more picture. Because I couldn’t resist. =)

Happy Spring and Happy Baking!

Girl Scout Cookie Cupcakes

It’s my favorite cookie time of the year. And yes, there are cookie times of year. Don’t fight it. Acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to happiness.

At least that’s what my Chinese horoscope says. Right now Samoas are here. As are Thin Mints. And Tagalongs. And some weird new flavors that nobody wants. But I’ll forgive them their dried-cranberries-in-a-cookie misstep just this once.

I just can’t resist those cute little gals in uniform in front of the grocery store. I’m their best customer, and especially so this year because I decided to take on a baking project involving my all time fave—the aforementioned Samoas. Crunchy cookie covered in chocolate, caramel and toasted coconut? What could be better?

Making it into a cupcake, of course. You could do this with any of your favorite cookies, Girl Scout or non—see my suggestions at the end of this post. To match the flavors of the Samoa, I chose a basic vanilla cupcake and a frosting lightly flavored with coconut.

I now accept that I am ready to begin. So I will.

First we need to get some coconut milk reducing to make it more concentrated.

Pour a can into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer over medium heat for about a half hour. Give it a stir once in a while. It will froth and get really big, but the liquid is really reducing in there.

Meanwhile, grab the basics: flour, cake flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.

4 eggs. Hippie eggs. I wrote a song about them earlier but I felt it would be inappropriate to share with you.

Unsalted butter. 2 sticks. Cubed.

One cup of whole milk. And I’m definitely not going to share my song about hippie milk with y’all.

Pure vanilla extract. Don’t ever buy imitation vanilla flavoring, pretty please. I will come over and throw it out your window.

And, most importantly? The cookies.

I used two boxes for 24 cupcakes. I accept that there are far too many calories in Samoas alone, let alone in a Samoa cupcake.

Somewhere Jillian Michaels is doing push-ups in her magical trainer castle and plotting what she’ll have in store for me tomorrow.

Stick ‘em in your food processor and pulse away.

Not even close.

Getting closer….

…perfect.

Toss ‘em in a shallow bowl and let’s get ready to make our cupcake batter.

Toss your dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Give it a quick spin on low to combine the powdery stuff.

Throw in your butter…

…and mix just until those little buttery chunks are coated with flour.

Crack your 4 hippie eggs into the milk and add one tablespoon of vanilla.

Mix well.

Add the milk/egg/vanilla mixture to the dry ingredients a third at a time, stopping before each addition to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

One…

two….

…three. It’s alright if it’s a little lumpy. Those little chunks of butter will serve to keep the cupcakes moist.

Now here’s my trick for filling cupcake liners. Grab a big freezer bag and anchor 3 inches of one of the bottom corners under something heavy. Your stand mixer works perfectly for this.

Pour in the batter (I usually hook one edge of the bag onto the little metal thingie that the mixer attachments hook onto. Yes, that is it’s proper name.).

Seal the bag, hold at the corner and cut off the tip. This is for those of us ghetto-fabulous chefs who don’t own pastry bags.

Fill your liners about 1/3 full…

…and then sprinkle on a light layer of the crumbled cookies.

Then squeeze more batter over the top so that the entire thing is about 3/4 full.

Throw into a preheated 325F oven for 17-20 minutes.

By now your coconut milk should be about a quarter of what it once was. It’s also creamy and thick—perfect! Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Ready to make frosting? Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla, powdered sugar and reduced coconut milk in your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.

Mix until light and creamy.

Once the cakes are done, set them on a rack to cool completely before frosting.

I’m fairly certain my cupcake army is plotting to take over my home.

Once they’re cool enough, frost with about 1 tablespoon of frosting each. We’re really using frosting in this case to serve as “glue” for the cookie crumbs—we don’t want to overdo it.

After frosting, give ‘em a light dunk in the cookie crumbles.

Perfect!

I found one stray cookie in the box, so he gets the seat of honor.

Uh oh. Maybe he’s commander of the army. I think I’ve just done myself in.

And, just because I feel like being sued for copyright infringement*, I stuck a purdy little Girl Scout logo on one of these beauties.

*Rainy Day Gal has no affiliation with the Girl Scouts. She admires and respects the organization and hopes that they will not sue her, but instead send her boxes and boxes of cookies.

Alright, let’s get down to it: how did they taste?

Pretty darn good. The cake was moist and a tad on the dense side, with a crunchy little layer of cookie halfway down.

The frosting added to the flavor of the cake, but didn’t overpower the taste of the cookies on top.

I simply loved the texture: crunch is always good.

These cakes are not for the faint of heart, however—they are incredibly rich. I would make two Girl Scouts share one.

A chaser of milk is definitely in order.

I now accept that this post has come to an end. But before you go here are some ideas I have for making cupcakes using other flavors of GS Cooks (that’s my new nickname for them. Go with it.):

• For Tagalongs: Ina Garten’s recipe for chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting
• For Thin Mints: Simply Recipe’s chocolate mint cupcakes
• For Dulce de Leche: Sugarlaw’s caramel cupcakes

I hope you’re enjoying Girl Scout cookie season as much as I am! Well, who am I kidding—I don’t think anyone enjoys Girl Scout cookie season as much as I do.

Have a totes fab wed, y’all.

-RDG

Samoa Cupcakes

• One batch Vanilla Vanilla Cupcake batter
• 2 boxes Samoas cookies, pulsed in a food processor until crumbly
• One batch Slightly Coconut Frosting (see below)

Preheat oven to 325F. Fill cupcake liners 1/3 full of batter. Sprinkle a light layer of cookie crumbs on top of batter. Pour the remaining batter on top until liners are about 3/4 full. Bake for 17-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Once cool, spread one tablespoon of frosting on top and then lightly press frosted side of cupcake into cookie crumbs. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Slightly Coconut Frosting

• 1 can coconut milk
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 4 tbsp butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Pour coconut milk into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until reduced by 75%. Let cool. Combine 4 tablespoons of the reduced coconut milk and remaining ingredients and beat until light and creamy. Refrigerate any unused frosting.

Shelly is a Weight Loss Surgery guru and is full of great recipes, cooking ideas and tips to be successful post WLS!

Be sure to check out her blog and follow her on Twitter!

Shelly’s Mint Chocolate Chip Protein Ice Cream Cakelettes

1 cup Vanilla Soy Milk (or Regular Milk)
2 scoops Vanilla Protein Powder
2 Tablespoons Sugar Free Torani Peppermint Syrup
1/8 teaspoon Green Food Coloring
2 – 3 Sugar Free Andes or Peppermint Patties, chopped (30 cals a piece) or SF Chocolate, chunked.

Mix together milk, protein, syrup (or you could use 1/8 tsp Peppermint Extract but be careful a little goes a long way) and food coloring. I used this gadget to mix it up. It makes it airy and lump free. If you don’t have one just toss it in a blender on super high. You want it fluffy almost double in size. Pour into ice cream maker. Follow your machine’s instructions for freezing. 5 minutes before done add the chopped chocolate. You can eat it right away it is soft serve-ish (use it at this stage for Protein Ice Cream Cakelette making) if you want scoops put it in the freezer to set for an hour. After that hour it will be hard (like rock hard – this is do to the lack of fat content) just nuke it 25 seconds to bring it back to scoops.

To assemble the ice cream cakelettes:

Crush 2-3 Sugar Free Cookies (for each cakelette) with a teaspoon of SF Peppermint Torani Syrup. Press into silicone muffin pan.

Spoon protein ice cream onto cookie base.

Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for a few hours.

Pop ice cream cakelettes out and serve. I topped mine with a squirt of SF Land o Lakes whipped cream.

I used these cookies and SF Vanilla Torani Syrup for the base. You can of course use any SF Cookies and Protein Ice Cream combo.

Here are some other Eggface Protein Ice Cream flavors.

Have your cupcakes ever separated from their liners? If so, do you know why that happened? (via Twitter)

Hi [wishes to remain anonymous]!

I get this question ALOT from my cupcake minions… ahem… readers. Here are a few things that I’ve noticed when I bake that may play a role in cupcake separation from liners.

(1) Humidity and excessive rain (weather) is a big factor. If there is more moisture in the air than usual or you live in a high humidity environment combined with the heat from the pan, steam will occur between the liners and the pan if you leave the cupcakes in the pan to cool. Regardless of increased moisture, I usually take my cupcakes out of the pan after they come out of the oven and let them cool on a rack or baking sheet to avoid the build up of steam. Also make sure that before you start baking that your cupcake pan is dry too!

(2) I have found that there is variation in cupcake liners too. I usually like the party nut cups for their simple structure and it allows me to get away with not using a cupcake pan but when I’m baking for clients many request the normal cupcake liners since they are easier to unpleat and eat. I suppose the customer is always right. HA! In my experience the plain white liners seem to work better than the more decorated ones. To be honest I’m not sure if there’s something different about some of the decorated ones vs the plain white ones. That’s just an observation I’ve noticed. Decorated liners have a little wax maybe? *shrugs

(3) Make sure to fill your cupcake liner to the correct height so that the cupcake rises enough towards the top of the liner. I’ve noticed that the cupcakes that aren’t filled enough seem to separate more if they don’t rise above the top of the liner. Maybe there’s less moisture build up at the top of the liner so they are able to stick better? Unfortunately all recipes are different so you’ll have to experiment with each recipe for the amount to fill the liner before the breaking point of overfilling. I aint gonna lie. It’s a fine line. I usually fill mine about 1/2-2/3 full depending on the baking soda/baking powder measurement in the recipe.

(4) There’s also a fine line for overbaking. I try really hard to pay attention to my kitchen timer when I bake but life gets in the way sometimes and when the timer goes off at 17-20 minutes (although most of the time I rely on the toothpick test more than time) but the dog is running up and down the stairs b/c the UPS man is at the door, it’s really hard to remember you’ve got cupcakes baking. (I think I need a clone.) Overbaking cupcakes could result in dry cupcakes that tend to pull away from the liners. And who wants a dry cupcake? Let the UPS man wait.

(5) In contrast, underbaking could be an issue too. If the cupcake is too moist especially from excessive butter, buttermilk, sour cream, oil, water etc that could result in the cupcakes not adhering to the liner.

(6) I don’t use cooking spray on my liners. It seems to defeat the purpose of wanting them to stick to the cupcake liners IMO.

Hope that helps!

-CB

PS- You all have no idea how much it irks me that I could not come up with 4 more reasons to make it an even 10. I’m a list and numbers girl. It’s either 5 or 10. Anything in between is just weird on the eyes. Is it just me??

PPS- Please remember that I have no scientific proof. (It pains the scientist in me to say that.) I’m just going off what I’ve seen in my own kitchen. If any readers have something to add to my list, feel free in comments! Preferably 4 more things… Please and thanks.

After reading through the list of blogs that Cupcakes Take the Cake had posted on their blog, I came across the Cupcake Bakeshop.  I have no idea why I had never read this blog before, but it’s simply amazing.  Their most recent post discusses the importance of taking your time and really paying attention to the care you take when baking butter based cupcakes.  Over the course of the last year I figured out all of these steps, but after many many many trials and errors and not so great cupcakes.  I wish I would have seen this post sooner!  These tips are really worth reading and following… they really do make the best cupcakes!

——————————–

There is nothing terribly exciting or novel about this recipe. It’s my standard chocolate cupcake recipe with strawberry frosting. Boring, no? Well, what I intend to do with this post is to articulate all those little tips & tricks that I know from experience/reading, but never include in a condensed recipe. Some of this is covered in my “basics & troubleshooting” section, but I thought it would be of use to describe these tips & tricks in the narrative of a recipe.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I wrote out the recipe for my chocolate cupcakes. This is what I want to do if I plan to be very careful and not miss anything. I find its easier to follow and I can check off things as I add them.

Then I had the idea to write down the little things I was doing that normally don’t end up in a recipe and explanations for certain aspects of the recipe. Hence the idea was born. So, no formal looking recipe in this post. Just a story…
Beat 2 sticks of butter until soft.

First off – the butter. Every recipe says it, but do we always pay attention? ROOM TEMPERATURE. I really can’t stress enough just how important this step is. I have been disappointed before… About to start baking only to remember that I forgot to take out the butter hours earlier. But really – the best thing to do? Wait it out. An alternative? Beat the hell out of the butter all by itself, scraping down a few times in between beatings. Why? If the butter isn’t soft it won’t get all nicely cut up by the sugar and distributed evenly in the batter. You might just end up with little pools of it melting in your end result. I have had it happen. But whatever you do, don’t microwave the butter. It will just melt and melted butter is useless to you.
Add 2-1/2 cups of sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

Most butter-based recipes say this as well. Beat until light and fluffy. Beat for 3 minutes. Etc. But do you always? Why 3 minutes? Why not 2 or 4? What is light and fluffy? Bottom line? You want to beat that butter well. You want it cut up into tiny, tiny pieces by the grainy sugar so it doesn’t end up into little pools compromising the structure of your wonderful cupcakes. So, beat away! Turn on your mixer and have a glass of wine! Scrape down the bowl and beat some more. (Sometimes mixers leave a thin layer of butter untouched… once that gets folder into your batter you could be in trouble!)
Add 4 large eggs, one at a time, beating well between each.

Similarly, you want the eggs incorporated very well. Basically when you are baking things like cupcakes, you DON’T want to beat the batter once the flour is in (it will toughen them up) but you DO want to beat the ingredients so they are well incorporated. So, beat the butter, sugar, and eggs as much as you can (without going overboard). Now is the time for beating.
Whisk together 1-3/4 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder.

This part is easy! Many recipes mention sifting, but sifting is a pain. I have never noticed a difference with whisking and whisking is easier to do. So, I whisk. The goal is to just get everything mixed together and any lumps removed. As an aside, I use these restaurant style containers to store dry goods and its very convenient for scooping stuff out without making a mess. And I know I should weigh the dry ingredients, but there is something inherent in me that requires I go only SO far when it comes to baking.

Measure out 1 cup of whole milk and 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and wet ingredients mixing to incorporate between batches.

So what is with this step? It’s always a little complicated to write down. Some recipes are very specific about adding 1/3 dry ingredients, mixing, adding 1/2 wet ingredients, mixing, 1/3 dry ingredients, and so on. Is there something magical about these proportions? Doubtful. What you want to avoid is dumping everything in and having to beat and beat to get it mixed up, because word on the street (ok, I never tried this…) is that doing so will make your cupcakes tough. The idea being the glutens get over beaten. Whether this is exaggerated, I do not know, but with many of the other steps described above, I have screwed up and have seen the unfortunate results. So I am leaning towards this being a good thing to follow. One day I should over-beat some and see what happens.
Scoop batter into cupcake papers 1/2 full.

This step gets me thinking about a few things. First, every recipe is different. So if something goes wrong with a recipe or a cupcake comes out with a dome or without a dome, it all really depends. The more flour there is proportionally, the more structure the cupcake will have, the less likely it will be to sink, the more likely it will have a dome, and the more batter you can put in the cupcake paper (like 2/3s to 3/4s full). But these cupcakes, while more fool proof, are also denser and not as soft. The less flour, the less structure, the more likely it will overflow or sink, the less likely it will have a dome, and the less batter you can put in the cupcake paper (1/2 full at most). BUT these cupcakes will be soft, fluffy, and in my opinion superior… By the way, ice cream scoops are really absolutely necessary. They make filling the papers a breeze…

This chocolate cupcake recipe is a result of my experimentation in trying to get the cupcake to be as delicate as possible and as chocolately as possible without being a complete disaster. That said, you need to be careful. Don’t, I repeat, DON’T overfill the papers. And DO make sure your oven is at the temperature it says it is. If you are super concerned, add another 1/4 cup of flour to the recipe. That will help reduce some of the risk. That said, I love the way the cupcakes come out and while I do sometimes overfill and get some overflow, it doesn’t stop me from eating them and sharing them.
Bake for approximately 22-25 minutes at 350F or until a cake tester comes out clean.

This step sounds easy. It isn’t. It’s where I tend to screw up when I do. For example, I have a working theory that cool spots in the oven cause some of my cupcakes to overflow. This is because the overflowing cupcakes tend to be in one area. I especially see that if I am baking a lot of cupcakes. The ones on the lower rack tend to overflow. So often I will do one of two things, preheat the oven to 375F and drop it to down to 350 once I get them in there. Or I will preheat to 350F but run the convection fan during preheat and for the first 10 minutes of baking. The problem with this (I did it a couple of weeks ago) is if you leave the convection fan on the whole time, the cupcakes will over bake and be crumbly and dry. Normally when you use convection you should drop the temperature down 25 degrees. I also think convection is better for things like cookies or chicken where you want it to get crispy, but doesn’t work so well with cupcakes. It seems like a good way to get rid of unevenness in the oven…. Jury is still out.

I recommend not disturbing the cupcakes for the first 10-12 minutes. Then I will often rotate the pans also because of the unevenness mentioned above. I start testing at around 22 minutes for this recipe. I think post people use toothpicks as opposed to official “cake testers” but I use an ice pick as that’s what I have on hand. Anything pointy you can stick in there. If you under-bake these cupcakes they will be gummy. If you over-bake them they will be dry and crumbly. So start testing around 22, test every couple of minutes, and try your best to get it right.

Whew, with any luck you have some gorgeous cupcakes cooling on a wire rack. Now let’s get cracking on the frosting.
Beat 2 sticks of butter until soft.

Pretty much the same thing goes with frosting. It’s way better if your butter comes naturally to room temperature before making frosting. I have tried many shortcuts and they work ok enough, but in my opinion you won’t get as smooth as a frosting otherwise.
Sift in 3-4 cups of powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

Again, I don’t like sifting, but if I must (and with frosting, you must or it will be lumpy) I will use one of these metal sieves and a spoon. By far the easiest method I have come across. I always start with a good amount of powdered sugar with room for adding more later.
Add 1/4 cup of strawberry puree and beat until combined.

Not much to this except your yellowish frosting turns a pretty pink. Feel free to add a teaspoon of vanilla at this step if you want.

Add more powdered sugar until you get the consistency you like.

When you add a liquid to buttercream it’s hard to get it to a nice thick consistency that is good for photo shoots. You can keep adding powdered sugar, but it won’t help. So minimize the amount of liquid. I went beyond 1/4 cup in one try of this recipe and it was way too much. I never recovered the frosting. It was usable, but runny. If you are anxious about this, omit the puree and just add chopped strawberries. It won’t be as strong a strawberry flavor, but less risk is involved.

I also made a cream cheese version of the strawberry frosting. If you want to try that substitute 1 8-ounce package of philly cream cheese with 1 of the sticks of butter and don’t add much puree. Stick more to using chopped strawberries as the cream cheese will already make the frosting softer than buttercream.

Decorate as usual by either piping the frosting on, scooping it on, whatever works for you. If you pipe, use a tip with a big opening, like 1/2 inch or so.

Cupcake Truck

Some people are serious about food, others about wine. My obsession is cupcakes! I love them! They are small pieces of heaven on earth. You have the satisfaction of a cake without the guilt of eating a whole one. There are some key factors in a good cupcake one is the icing it should always be fresh and creamy. It can be sweet but not overpowering. The cake should be moist and have flavor. If you are like me I like to have a little icing with each bite of cake so if both of them are too sweet it becomes too much. There have been several places I have been very loyal to including Magnolia,Cupcake Factory and Crumbs.

Today I was reading the NY Times and came across an article about a mobile cupcake truck! Genius! I love the MUD truck because I love their coffee and the concept of it being mobile adds to the allure. So as I am reading the article I learn the truck will be debuting today in 2 locations. I quickly friend them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter this is serious business.

The truck is going to be in Chelsea until 10pm so I make sure to get all my errands and motherly duties done so I can reward myself. Its 8pm and I’m done I get on the 5 train head to union square and take a nice walk up to 23rd street. As I approach 7th avenue I see the truck in all its sweet glory with lights around it and adorned in painted cupcakes.. Beautiful! I cross the street and avoid getting ran over by cars whizzing down 7th avenue.. The closer I get my hearts starts beating faster..Cupcakes,Cupcakes,Cupcakes!

I walk up to the truck and order the Oreo. I ask if they did wholesale. The guy working the truck points to the genius who came up with the idea his boss Lev Ekster who I shake hands with and inform him that I have been waiting for this moment all day. I let him know I am serious about my cupcakes. He asks me where I usually go and I tell him Crumbs he tells the guy in the Truck to give me another cupcake and tell him what I think. I let him know I can’t lie about these things. It was a damn good cupcake!

So I got to meet the owner, enjoy 2 complimentary cupcakes and make a business connection. I also suggested a new flavor white chocolate hazelnut.

So make sure to check them out http://cupcakestop.com you won’t regret it. If you are lucky and early enough try the Red Velvet. The prices are great $2.25 for a regular and a buck for a mini!

Sweet Peace,
DivaMomNYC

I know that apples aren’t native to the Pacific Northwest, but we have a lot of apple orchards on both sides of our state and thought it would be a perfect base for a cupcake! With a suggestion from my sister, I decided to buy locally the apples and eggs because we all know how much the “tree-hugging” people from Seattle and the Northwest love their locally grown, organic foods!  So from this, the “Tree Hugger Apple” cupcake was born!

The base of the cupcake was inspired by this Appledoodle Cupcake I found while browsing the Iron Cupcake Earth website.  I changed a few things and made it my own by adding sliced apple to the top of the batter before baking, then filling the cupcake with more apple and drizzling the buttercream on top with caramel.

JavaCupcake Note: This is a re-post of a blog from Nicole at Baking Bites! I used this technique to make the White Velvet Raspberry filled cupcakes. Be sure to check out all the other delicious creations Baking Bites is Nicole is making on her blog!

/

My favorite way – and, in my opinion, the best way – is the method I used for the Devil’s Food Cupcakes. It gives you the maximum amount of filling and the best overall look for the cupcake. All you need is a paring knife, or other small, sharp knife with a narrow blade, to begin. Insert the knife into a cooled cupcake at an angle, halfway between the center and the outside edge.

The exact angle isn’t crucial, but it should be around 45 deg., and the knife should go into the cake about 1″. The idea here is to cut out a circular cone of cake.

Once you have your cone of cake, remove it and slice off the pointy end of the cone, leaving just the circular base (which was the very top of the cupcake). The filling will be put in the hole once filled by the cake cone, and the circular piece will be used as a plug to seal the filling in.

Filling should be added using a pastry bag or (my favorite) a ziploc bag with the corner cut off. There is no need to use a pastry tip to fill the cupcakes; a medium-sized opening in either type of bag will make filling the cakes a breeze.

Once the filling is in place, just pop the flat circle of cake back into place and continue to frost as you would with any other cupcake. You can see what the finished cake, sliced in half to reveal the cream filling, looks like here.

I’m sure you’ve probably seen this everywhere by now, but since it was part of mine and hubby’s homemade Christmas gift baskets this year, I couldn’t post about it until now or I would have spoiled the surprise! When I first learned how easy it is to make your own vanilla extract though, I was so excited. It’s much cheaper than buying it in the store! And since I was about three months away from Christmas at the time, I knew they would make perfect gifts as well. I’ve been using the homemade vanilla extract in my baking ever since, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to store-bought!
Here’s what you’ll need:

• Vodka (any type will do – I used Skyy)
• 1 vanilla bean per 1/3 cup vodka
• Lidded glass bottles
  

Drop the vanilla beans into the bottles. Mine held about one cup of liquid each, so I put in 3 vanilla beans per bottle. Fill up the bottles with the vodka. And, that’s it! Store the bottles in a cool, dark place for about three months before using, making sure to give them a shake every once in a while. The picture below was taken about a week and a half after making the extract; it’ll get even darker over time.

JavaCupcake side note:  As a part of my goals for 2010, I wanted to create a signature cupcake.  I’m hoping that this recipe (in three months!) can be used as a part of it!  Thank you Tracy for this great recipe!!

3/19/2010 Update:  My vanilla extra is READY and I”ll be using it in all my upcoming recipes!

Peppermint Bark Cupcake Brownies…or Brownie Cupcakes

I was inspired by my friend on Twitter (@JavaCupcake) to create a holiday cupcake, recipe and all. So I decided on a peppermint bark brownie cupcake, I think they look really really really good.

Here is the recipe I used:

1 2/3 cup soft unsalted organic butter
13 ounces of the best organic bittersweet chocolate (I find everything at Whole Foods and Trader Joes)
6 large organic eggs
1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract
1 2/3 cup organic sugar
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour (organic of course)
1 teaspoon salt

You can pretty much alter any of your favorite brownie recipes or chocolate cake recipes with organic ingredients to make cupcakes/brownies and you can also add nuts to this recipe if you’d like, I chose not to but if I did, I’d probably use 1 1/3 cup chopped walnuts.

Preheat your oven to 350.
Melt butter and chocolate together in a large heavy pan.
In a bowl: beat eggs with vanilla and sugar.
Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt.
Once the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a little before beating in the eggs and vanilla and sugar. Than add nuts and flour or just flour if you aren’t using nuts.
Beat until smooth.
I use an ice cream scooper to get the same amount in each cupcake paper. I also make sure the cupcake paper is sprayed with a cooking spray before filling them with batter so the brownies come out easily, if you are using a cake mix, you do not need to spray the cupcake papers.
Bake for about 25 minutes.
Since these are brownies and not cake mix, take them out when it looks dense and gooey because they continue to bake while they cool, if you bake too long you’ll get a dry brownie.

This is how they should look: