Orange You Glad It's Fall and 80 in California?

It may be Fall but apparently the weather didn't get the memo.  It's currently 80+ in California so instead of making something Fall-esque, I decided to make some orange cupcakes.  These were inspired by a recent trip to Yucaipa to go raspberry picking.  Now you're wondering how I got oranges from picking raspberries but follow me here...

On the way down the hill/mountain after picking raspberries, we stopped at this fruit/everything shack and tasted this amazing orange curd.  I've made lemon curd plenty of times but have never seen orange curd.  It was fantastic!  So I decided that I should buy some and put it into some amazing orange cupcakes. 

What goes better with oranges than RUM?!  It's the quintessential tropical combination (OK maybe pineapple/coconut/rum would qualify that statement better but you get the idea).  Since it feels like summer, why not make a tropical cake?  So today I got some oranges and rum and made the cupcake vehicle for the fabulous orange curd.  I even juiced the oranges by hand to get fresh orange juice to add to these beauties. 
The recipe I used calls these "Rum Zum Cake".

On a side note, apparently we have quick thinking to thank for Bacardi Rum.  See the article from the LA Times referencing how Bacardi made it out of communist Cuba.

Bacardi Story

Also, the hubs bought me orange roses as a surprise when I came on Friday so I think orange cupcakes were fate :)

Here's the finished product.  Instead of glazing the cakes as the recipe called for I decided to make cream cheese frosting.  Who doesn't love some cream cheese frosting.  I made two different flavors, one vanilla rum, the other had extra orange flavor.  I mixed the two together to get the 50/50 look. 

Gotta have sprinkles for that extra crunch!

They look super orange!!!

Hubby Rating

Cake:  9

Filling:  6

Frosting:  8

Overall:  7.9

"Cake and frosting are very good and moist, good hints of rum and orange.  Filling was hard to distinguish from the other flavors."

Happy
Baking,

Kristi

Carnivore Cookies

On one of the hottest days of the week, I decided it would be easier to make cookies instead of cupcakes.  Note to self:  That was a bad idea.  It was definitely not easier or cooler to make cookies vs. cupcakes.  Maybe next summer I'll take up icecream making...

Anyways...on to what I made.  For some reason I decided to hop on the bacon bandwagon and put it in cookies.  I found a recipe online and decided to go for it.  Now here is where cookies get more difficult.  Not only did I have to make cookie dough but also fry bacon....Nightmare on a hot day.  So I made the bacon - Insert fail here - {In an attempt to not make a mess with the bacon grease and make it easy to clean up, I thought it would be a good idea to pour the bacon grease into a Ziploc bag so I could seal it up and throw it away.  Genius!  Not so much.  As it turns out, hot grease melts plastic bags.  Not such a revelation when you think about it but I'll chalk it up to the heat got to my brain.  Yeah that's it.  End fail.}

Oh and I almost forgot the other part was not just plain old stick butter but "browned" butter.  Which also involved me standing over a hot stove when it was 9 million degrees out.  Ok I exaggerate but it's all about perception and I perceived it to be 9 million degrees.

Once the bacon cooled, I made the batter, which was normal.  Then I added the bacon during the fold in chocolate chip step.

 Here's where I folded in the bacon with the chocolate chips, which were a Hodge Podge of whatever chocolate chips were in the cupboard that day.

 Baked and packed up to go to work.  I think I wound up with around 4 dozen and they were all gone except for two at the end of the day.

You can see the small bit of bacon swirled in next to the chocolate chip.  It was an adventurous not vegetarian friendly cookie to say the least.  Not sure I'd do it again.

Hubby Rating

6

"I personally was not a fan of the bacon, it added a weird texture and took away from the sweetness of the cookie.  I like sweet cookies."

Happy Baking,

-Kristi

Spumoni - Not just an icecream served at Italian restaurants

I'll start out by saying, "I love good Spumoni ice cream".  Something about the cherry, chocolate, and pistachio is amazeballs.  I tried to figure out how to best turn this lovely treat into a cupcake.  I will have to make more attempts because this is not it but it was still tasty.

Side note:  Spumoni will forever remind me of my first job here...

Credit

We had a flavor called "Fantasia"  it was pistachio, cherry, and banana.  Tasted weird, lots of people would want to order it.  I would warn them they should probably try it first.  If they disagreed and did not taste test first, 99% of the time they returned and asked for vanilla.  Come on!  I told you you wouldn't like it!  I remember the last barrel of this stuff, hanging out in the back of house we all got spoons and ate the last melty bit until there was Fantasia no more. 

 I made the pistachio the cake part.  I could not find unsalted pistachios so I used pistachio pudding to flavor the cake.  Definitely not strong enough.  I think next time I can rinse some pistachios and chop them up to use as decoration to add to the flavor or use chocolate cake with pistachio pudding filling....

I'm trying to remember but I think I mixed in chocolate chips for the "chocolate" portion of the Spumoni.

Next was the cherry, while at the grocery store and making up the recipe on the fly, I asked the hubs "is there some type of cherry flavoring?" To which he said, "I don't think so."  So I bought some maraschino cherries and used the juice to add to the buttercream frosting.  I also peeled the skin off of about a dozen of the cherries to cut up and add to the frosting to try and get that cherry zing.  This did not work.  I do not recommend it at all, it was a lot of work and not a lot of flavor. 

Fast forward to the next day when discussing said cupcakes with the hubs...
Me:  I wonder what I can use next time to make the cherry flavor better?
Hubs:  Oh you mean like grenadine, the stuff they use in Shirley Temples?
Me:  Where were you with this idea yesterday when we were at the grocery store?!
Hubs:  I was rushed and not thinking clearly.  I didn't know that was what you meant when you asked about cherry flavoring.

So, we have the not so Spumoni Cupcakes.  They look pretty but will have to be revamped for next time...

Cute right?  Maybe also I can use the aforementioned grenadine and make Cherry Coke cupcakes :)

Hubby Rating

"Can't recall"

Happy Baking,

Lemon Blueberry

Two posts, one week what?!  Yup trying to catch up.  This week I made Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes. 
I LOVE lemon cake so I used the lemon cake recipe I tried and liked for the lemon strawberry cupcakes.  I filled them with lemon curd and topped them with Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting.  The blueberry wasn't as strong as I had hoped for but the lemon cake was good :).  Maybe next time I can add in some

To get a better blueberry taste.  I also finally got to use the super cute cupcake wrappers my friend Kacie got me months ago.  I've been waiting for a perfect cupcake to use them for.

I added some fresh Blueberries to a few of them



Cracked open for lemony goodness



Hubby Rating

Cake:  8

Frosting: 7

Filling:  9

Overall:  8.5

Happy Baking,

Sorry this is all Bolded, can't figure out how to turn it off...

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,

Breakfast Cupcakes

After I took my LOA for a few weeks to recover from baking-itis I decided to make a breakfast cupcake.  The following was born of a baking fail... Pancake Cupcakes.  My Quality Control Officer aka The Hubby tasted the Pancake Cake and said, "No this is no good" and I agreed with him so I made....

Coffee Cake Cupcakes with a "Watch out Cinnabon" Cinnamon/Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting (possibly my favorite icing ever...)
I used my favorite Cake Mix Doctor Coffee Cake recipe and, of course, made it into a cupcake.
The essential ingredients are...

• Yellow Cake Mix
• Eggs
• Oil
• Vanilla Pudding Mix
• Water?
• Sourcream? (sorry I don't have the book with me to verify)
• Vanilla
• Cinnamon
• Brown Sugar
• Walnuts (optional)

When I put the batter into the cupcake tins, I put one scoop and then put in the cinnamon/brown sugar mixture then put the second portion of cupcake batter on top.  Let me tell you, if when you make these your whole house will smell AMAZING! 

I had some left over brown sugar/cinnamon so I decided "Why not add this to my frosting?!"  So I did.

When the cakes cooled, I made cream cheese frosting and added the cinnamon/brown sugar plus some more cinnamon.  Since cinnamon has health benefits, why not?

Here is the finished product...

You can see the cinnamon and brown sugar swirl in the cake!

The brown sugar in the frosting adds a grittiness that I love!

Amazing!

Happy Baking!

Kristi

 

*Update*

So it's been awhile since I posted.  Mainly because I made enough cupcakes in one shot to last for an entire month of posts.  I made 120 cupcakes on Easter weekend for a retirement party at work the following Monday.  So I may have not baked as consistently as before.... :)
Here are some photos of the 8 Dozen

Vanilla Cake with Black Raspberry Buttercream

They look better with a little less purple

Devil's Food with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Why is my red dye "Elmo Red"??

Devil's Food with Cream Cheese Frosting

Vanilla Cake with Coconut Buttercream and Toasted Coconut

There were many others however I was more focused on packaging and getting these to work ASAP.

They all turned out well and disappeared quickly!  Awesome enough, there is a cake shop by my house that sells bakery boxes with cupcake inserts :)

Happy Baking!

Kristi