You'll definitely want S'More of these cupcakes

It's been FOREVER since I last posted and it had been FOREVER since I baked it seemed.  I've been trying new concoctions and they have been good but not great.  Last week I made S'More cupcakes from the recipe at MarthaStewart.com, which is the recipe from the owner of Trophy Cakes.  Never heard of it but if it was good enough for Martha, it must be good!  The recipe starts out with making graham cracker crusts for the cupcakes.  The recipe did not make enough for 24 cupcakes so I had to wing it make some extra by guesstimate.  I also found a good use for shot glasses, pressing graham cracker crust into cupcake papers :)  Once you put the crust in the papers, you sprinkle them with shaved chocolate, or in my case, chocolate chips and bake them until the crusts are golden, approx. 5 minutes. 

 Then you add in the "soupy" chocolate batter and sprinkle with the extra graham cracker crust and bake.  They kinda sank but I just used it as an opportunity to add LOTS of marshmallow frosting.  It was like a crater filled with marshmallowy goodness.  Anyways, I baked them and they turned out ok but then I had a baking FAIL.  I tried to make a mini cake in the mini cake pans I have yet to use and the cake bubbled over and created a gooey mess in the oven...miserable. 

Then  I went on to make the "marshmallow" topping.  After watching some Food Network I deduced this was more of a meringue than a marshmallow but then it wouldn't fit the S'More theme so it's marshmallow.  Basically it's egg white (I used the liquid kind from the milk section) sugar, and vanilla.  Pretty tasty. 

The frosting was a mess to work with but I piped them all and then the hubs toasted them with the kitchen torch.  I think he enjoyed it too much and for the next few days he was torching almost everything that came out of the kitchen, and even some things that were not food, like using it to light candles.  It was fun to see it torched because it puffs and then turns golden brown.  We had to be careful not to set the wrappers on fire...
Anyways, they turned out good and the chocolate chips in the bottom added that need S'more essence. 

These cupcakes leave a lot of room to expand on.  Just like how I discovered last year you can make S'mores with Reese's PB Cups...maybe next time..

See the crater of marshmallow?

Hubby Rating
Cake:  9
Frosting:  9.6
Appearance:  7
Overall:  9.2
Happy Baking,

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cakes

Wow I have a lot of catching up to do... Anyways, here are the cupcakes inspired by my dad.  For his birthday I asked him what kind of cupcake would he want.  He told me he likes peanut butter cups (although the eggs are better) and Heath Bars... So I decided to make Peanut Butter Cupcakes with a surprise inside...

Peanut Butter (is this one word or two?) Buttercream Magnificence with Chocolate Glaze!

My Cupcake Taster now requests drink pairings... Milk with this one

Can you see the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup inside????

The recipe for the cupcakes is the same one I used for the Toothpaste Cupcakes.  The book calls it a "muffin" but I like to call it a Cupcake.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Adapted From The Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor

Ingredients:

1 Devil's Food Cake Mix (Super Moist or With Pudding)

1/2 C. Vegetable Oil

1/2 C. Water

1 C. Sour Cream (not the low fat kind, come on now)

1 Small Package Chocolate Instant Pudding (yes, with sugar in it)

4 Large Eggs

2 Sleeves of Crushed Oreos (Found a way to involve the husband, make him figure out how to crush Oreos w/o making a mess.  Pretty entertaining for me and I like to see what kitchen utensil or household item he will try to use)

Anyways, this is super easy!  Put all of the ingredients (minus the Oreos,husband should work on crushing them while you mix) in the bowl and mix for 1 minute, scrape the bowl and then mix for 2 minutes.  Stir in the crushed cookies, eat the extra. 

Divide batter among 24-30 cupcake papers.  This time the recipe made 30.  I put in one scoop of batter and then the peanut butter cup and then another scoop of batter to cover it up.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 17 minutes, depending on your oven.

Remove when done and place on neat wire rack thing to cool.

Honestly for the frosting I put some butter in the mixer, mixed it, added a bunch of peanut butter (I liked the organic roasted PB) and added some vanilla and powdered sugar.  You may need to add heavy cream or milk to smooth out the frosting to make it spread- or pipe- able.  Pipe on cooled cupcakes however you see fit.

Then I made a chocolate glaze and drizzled it over the cupcakes.

These are almost as good as these...

You should definitely try them :)

Hubby Rating

Cake:  9

Frosting:  9

Filling:  6

Overall:  9

Happy Baking

Kristi

Top O' the Cupcake To Ya

Ok so this is VERY late but oh well. 

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, my husband signed me up to make cupcakes for his work.  Just kidding.  However he did pick his day to bring treats based on the fact that he wanted to take the Guinness/Bailey's cupcakes.  They are Guinness Chocolate Cake, filled with Bailey's Ganache, topped with Bailey's Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting.

Here they are...

I made a stop to the cake shop and bought new food coloring to make a nice mint and leaf green two-tone frosting.  To be honest it kind of reminds me of an avocado :)  Which are also delicious.

Here is the cupcake corer in action.  It's pretty awesome.  You screw the corer in place until the flower part touches the top of the cupcake. 

Then you remove the "core" and it stays in the corer until you put it back on.  Pretty awesome again.

Then you fill the cupcake with your favorite filling.  In this case it was Bailey's Chocolate Ganache deliciousness.

Then you put the lid back on.

Then you frost them with your favorite frosting.  For the day of the Irish the frosting of choice was Bailey's Buttercream dyed green.

Then you cut it open and see all the moist yuminess inside. 

Then you celebrate!

Here's the link for the cupcake recipe:

http://www.irishcentral.com/food-and-drink/Guinness-and-Baileys-Irish-cupcakes-65781932.html

Husband Rating

Cake:  6 (dry b/c I forgot to cover them overnight)

Filling:  7 (it needed more Bailey's)

Frosting:  9

Overall:  8 Shamrocks

-Kristi

Birthday Cakes!

So I've done quite a bit of baking and haven't really posted.  By "quite a bit" I mean 2 batches since the last post :)  One is a repeat and one is new!


Birthday Cakes:


Since I had already tried out my Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes on my co-workers and family I knew they were good to go so I made them for a trip to a bar to celebrate a birthday!  This time I made two different colors of frosting for the flowers.  Overall I was happy with them and L-O-V-E-D the way they tasted!  I really like lemon soooooooo they were perfect.  I highly recommend them.  If you see the previous post you will see hubby did too.  Here's some pictures

AHHHHH don't you love them?!!!


I don't think I posted pictures of the lemon curd being made last time so here it is.  The recipe is soooo super easy. 

Light Lemon Curd via Baking Bites
(from Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts)
1/3 cup strained, fresh lemon juice
2 tsp fresh lemon zest
5 tbsp sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Bring the Lemon Juice, Sugar, and Zest to a boil on the stove

 Whisk the egg in a small bowl, slowly, SLOWLY add the hot lemon sugar mixture and whisk for two minutes.

Strain the mixture back into the pot on the stove and heat until it looks like it's thickening. 

Put in small container and let cool.

Put in fridge

Get ready to pipe into cupcakes

Try not to eat it

This recipe is perfect for filling two dozen cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Nicole!

Available for your next birthday festivities

Happy Valentine's Day Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes!

This weekend my mom and I went to the Farmer's Market in Cerritos, CA.  If you haven't been to a farmer's market you should go ASAP.  My challenge this week was to find some lemons and strawberries to make Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes.  So I bought some strawberries and lemons!  I wasn't sure if I should make strawberry cake with lemon frosting or lemon cake with strawberry frosting but I had the ingredients I needed.  We also went to Classic Cakes in Garden Grove and I bought some new cupcake supplies :)

Herringbone, Zebra, Hearts

Sprinkles, mini Herringbone, mini round pans:)

If I had unlimited funds, my apartment would be overrun by cupcake papers and sprinkles....  You can sorta see the small round cake pans I bought.  One day you may even see me use them to make a mini ruffle layer cake.  Also exciting.

Back to cupcake making...

I decided on lemon cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting and was debating whether or not to fill them with lemon curd. 

J-E-L-L-O (secret ingredient)

Ready to bake

Those are some pretty lemons!  Ready to be made into lemon curd

All done, papers were a little overfilled

Lemon Cake Batter :)

They smelled SOOOOOOOO good!  I've never made lemon curd before but I found an easy looking recipe and had the lemons anyway (http://bakingbites.com/2008/04/low-fat-lemon-curd/).  I did not take photos of the lemon curd because I was uncertain if it would make it into the final product. 

Husband was waiting to taste test but said he wanted a complete one so he had to wait. So I dug the food processor out of the closet and pureed some of the yummy strawberries I bought.  I strained them in hopes of taking out most of the seeds but alas it didn't work too well...

Then I made my go-to cream cheese frosting recipe and added the strawberry puree and mixed away.  I really wanted to make two-tone roses again so I bought some red food coloring and hoped I would have light and dark pink.  Well strawberry naturally makes things pink so I had a nice pale pink color cream cheese frosting. 

Husband can now try the finished product.  He was pretty happy.  I put lemon curd in his as a test and topped it off with the frosting. 

Success!  He really liked them with the curd and thought it made it taste more like strawberry lemonade.  So I put some in a pastry bag and filled the cupcakes with curd.

Then I added the red food coloring to my frosting and put both the light and dark pink in a pastry bag and started piping.  Here they are....

LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!

Now on to the ratings...(1 - low, 5-high)

Husband

Cake:  5

Filling:  4

Frosting:  5

Decoration:  5

Completed Product:  10

"Refreshing, delightful, perfectly balanced, may not be here in the morning." - Husband 2/13/11

Success!

Happy Valentine's Day Blog Readers (all two of you!)

~Kristi

Red Velvet is Easy!

My favorite way to make red velvet is the easy way!  Red velvet and cream cheese frosting is a must.  I really don't understand why they even bother putting nasty vanilla frosting on it at all.  In case you didn't know, red velvet cake is essentially a chocolate cake with red food coloring in it.  According to the Google (I use Google as a noun and a verb, this time it's a noun) the cake was red because cocoa back in the day had a redish tinge to it but modern cocoa is processed differently reducing the redish color.  Also traditional recipes will call for vinegar that reacts with the cocoa creating the red color.  Anyways, as promised here is my favorite EASY red velvet recipe and following is a recipe for cream cheese icing. 

Quick Red Velvet Cake - Adapted from the book The Cake Mix Doctor
Makes 24 cupcakes (really it does)
Prep Time:  8 Minutes
Baking Time:  12-15 minutes based on your oven temp

Ingredients

1 package (18.25 oz.) German chocolate cake mix with pudding (most have pudding if they say "extra moist")
1 cup sour cream (no skimping with light sour cream)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 bottle (1 oz.) red food coloring
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract ( no imitation vanilla)

Directions

1.  Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325 and line two 12 cup cupcake pans with cupcake liners

2.  Put all ingredients together in a bowl and blend with an electric mixer for 1 minute.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and blend for an additional 2 minutes.  The batter should look thick and well blended.

3.  Using a cookie scoop or ladle, fill each cupcake liner about 1/2 way full.  If you use the same size scoop all the liners should be evenly filled.

Cooled and ready for frosting

4.  Place the pans in the oven for about 12 minutes.  Check the cake for doneness by quickly tapping the center of the cupcake with your finger.  Make sure your hands are clean!  You can use a tooth pick but I usually don't have any in the house.  If the cake jiggles when you pull the rack out, don't touch it just put it back in for a few minutes.

5.  Remove the pans from the oven and place on a rack to cool. 

Allow the cupcakes to cool completely or you will not be happy :)

Cream Cheese Frosting (basically the best frosting on Earth)
-Adapted from Southern Living

Makes A LOT!  Way more than enough for 24 cupcakes
Prep Time:  15 minutes (does not include time for the cream cheese and butter to soften)

Ingredients:

1 8 oz block of cream cheese + 4 oz. cream cheese, softened (essentially 1 1/2 blocks of cream cheese)
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 packages (16 oz. packages)  of powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar is the same thing) sifted
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1.  I like using a stand mixer but an electric hand mixer will be fine.

2.  Make sure the cream cheese and butter is softened, if you don't you will have chunks in your frosting.  No one, I mean no one, wants to bite into a chunk of cream cheese.

3.  Place the cream cheese and butter in your bowl and begin to mix.  If you're using a stand mixer, get it started and let it go.  That way you can start sifting the powdered sugar.  NOTE:  Don't let your husband do this!  They make a mess.

4.  After the cream cheese and butter are creamed together and look non-chunky and fluffy, sift your powdered sugar if you haven't already done it.  Sifting ensures no pockets of sugar in your frosting. 

5.  Slowly.  Did you catch that?  SLOWLY.  Add your powdered sugar to the butter/cream cheese mixture.  If you put it all in the bowl and then turn on your mixer your kitchen will look like it was hit by a blizzard. 

6.  Once your powdered sugar is all mixed in add the vanilla to the mixture.



7.  Now mix the frosting for a little while until it looks awesome.  The more you mix, the more air you incorporate and the lighter it will be. 

8.  Now you have a choice on how to frost your cupcakes.  You can either use an off-set spatula, pastry bag and tip, frosting contraption, or a good old zip lock bag.  Yes zip lock bag.  You fill the bag, seal it, cut a corner off and pipe away.  The best thing about the zip lock bag is you can just throw it away when you're done and you don't have to fish a decorating tip out of a frosting filled pastry bag.

9.  Pipe away and make sure you refrigerate these ones!  When ready to serve, take them out of the fridge and let thaw.

There you have it!  EASY Red Velvet and Cream Cheese Frosting.  AKA best cake ever.



All frosted and ready to EAT!



- Kristi