Posts tagged ‘Cupcakes’

Nov 14

Apple Cupcakes

It astounds me when I see all the different varieties of apples that there are in the store. My favorite for eating is usually Pink Ladies, and my least favorite is Red Delicious. For baking though, there’s usually one main choice, Granny Smith apples. These apples are what I used in my entry for Iron Cupcake: Earth; the challenge ingredient this month is apples.

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This is just your average apple cupcake, baked with chopped apples inside, a filling of dulce de leche for a rich caramel taste, and cream cheese frosting. A pecan sits on top. Read more

Nov 11

12 Comments

Chocolate, PB, Toffee, Bacon Cupcakes

Wow, the title of this post is a mouthful! If you can think of an easier name for these cupcakes, just let me know! These cupcakes were created for November’s Cupcake Hero challenge ingredient, peanut butter. I’ve already entered one cupcake into the competition this month, but I just love peanut butter so there was no way I could only enter just one.

My second entry is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips and finely chopped crispy bacon baked inside. It is frosted with peanut butter frosting, sprinkled with finely chopped toffee and topped off with a square of crispy bacon.

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Nov 2

15 Comments

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

This month’s theme ingredient for Cupcake Hero is peanut butter. Peanut butter is one of my favorite foods and a definite staple in our kitchen cabinets. I had a couple of ideas for a peanut butter-themed cupcake and this post will show you my first one, the chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake. I realize that the chocolate and peanut butter combination will probably be quite popular in the competition, but they just taste so great together that I figure that one can’t have enough chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes! I’m not sure if I’ll get around to my second idea, as we’re preparing to move overseas at the end of the month so we’ll be quite busy.

It might come as no surprise that the inspiration for my chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake came from Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, one of my favorite foods in the candy aisle.

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My peanut butter cupcake is covering himself in a chocolate peanut butter shell that also holds a pool of creamy peanut butter in the bottom. The cupcake is double-coated with chocolate ganache and a little peanut sits on top. Read more

Oct 18

31 Comments

Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes

A child’s birthday is a very special event, not only for the child but also for the parents. On that special day, however many years ago, you were blessed with the birth of your child and he or she is now another year older. Read more

Oct 12

39 Comments

Dulce De Leche Pumpkin Cupcakes

Unfortunately, dulce de leche isn’t available in most stores, but you can make it yourself at home quite easily with a can of sweetened condensed milk. Read more

Oct 7

44 Comments

Zombie Halloween Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago I was leisurely browsing through Bake It Pretty, in particular the Halloween decorations. When I saw the zombie hand cupcake toppers, I knew I had to order them and make a batch of Halloween cupcakes. I have never made a Halloween cupcake before; the closest I’ve came were these pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, but they weren’t exactly scary!

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But these are! This is what I created with Martha Stewart’s awesome Halloween cupcake liners, Bake It Pretty’s zombie hand toppers and a couple of Oreo cookies. Read more

Sep 22

9 Comments

Dark Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes

At the end of this post, feel free to cast your vote as to whether you would try a dark chocolate bacon cupcake!

You either love it or you hate it – the dark chocolate bacon cupcake. When I first heard about this cupcake over at No One Puts Cupcake In A Corner I was instantly disgusted. I understand it’s that sweet and salty combination that you find in chocolate-covered peanuts or chocolate-covered pretzels. But bacon in a dark chocolate cupcake? I certainly don’t think so!

Months and months went by, and for some reason I kept seeing this chocolate bacon cupcake pop up at other baking blogs and even professional cupcake bakeries. Recently, a new chocolate and bacon combination (well, it was new to me, anyway) was being sold at a local festival – chocolate-covered bacon.

I wondered if I could even be paid to eat a piece of chocolate-covered bacon! But curiosity finally won over, and last week, as we had a package of bacon in the refrigerator, I decided to melt a little bit of my chocolate and dip a piece of bacon in it.

It felt like I was doing something bad, and I was even appalled that I was letting myself attempt this flavor combination. I reluctantly took that first bite, and a second, and I thought that it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I couldn’t even have explained the taste that I was experiencing. However, the fact that I had chocolate and pig meat in my mouth at the same time overwhelmed me and I couldn’t continue eating that piece of chocolate-covered bacon!

Well, a few days went by, and I decided that I’d actually try out those dark chocolate cupcakes that apparently everyone was raving about.

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I used my own favorite dark chocolate cake recipe, from Hershey’s Kitchens, and is the exact same recipe you’ll find on a tub of Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa. The batter for this cake is thin and watery and I decided to add my crispy, chopped up bacon on top of the batter after I had poured the batter into the cupcake liners. I didn’t mix the bacon into the batter because I was worried the bacon would sink to the bottom.

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The dark chocolate frosting is from Hershey’s as well, and is the same recipe that is on the back of the Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa tub. I sprinkled leftover crispy bacon on top of each cupcake. It’s best to sprinkle the bacon on immediately after frosting each cupcake to ensure that the bacon will stick to the frosting (otherwise the frosting might set up and the bacon will just fall off).

I had to try one of these cupcakes as soon as I frosted and bacon-sprinkled the very first one. I admit, I was nervous. But it wasn’t quite as bad as I had expected. What I definitely didn’t like was that even though the bacon in the batter was crispy when I added it, it turned softer and chewy in the baked cupcake. The crispy bacon on top was a nice crunchy touch, and gave the cupcake it’s main taste of bacon.

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In the end, I decided that I didn’t like these cupcakes and put the rest of them in the refrigerator. But guess what happened on the next day? I tried one straight from the refrigerator and it tasted better! My husband never got brave enough to try a dark chocolate bacon cupcake; my 4-year-old daughter only likes frosting, so she never tried one either, except a spoon of frosting; my 2-year-old son ate these cupcakes up like there was no tomorrow.

I can definitely say I would never make a dark chocolate bacon cupcake again. However, I am still interested in trying some of the other bacon cupcakes out there, like French toast and bacon cupcakes, or caramel bacon cupcakes.

Find the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen’s original dark chocolate bacon cupcake recipe at No One Puts Cupcake In A Corner.

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Aug 5

11 Comments

Lemon Chocolate Cupcakes

I was this close to entering July’s Iron Cupcake: Earth herb challenge, but couldn’t find the herbs I wanted – I wanted them fresh. But I decided to go ahead and try the cupcake I wanted to make, but without the herbs, just for fun. It ended up being one of my favorite cupcakes that I’ve made thus far.

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And it certainly is pretty! It’s a devil’s food cupcake, frosted with lemon cream cheese frosting and decorated with a homemade candied lemon peel.

The cupcake recipe I chose is from Martha Stewart. It’s the second time I’ve used this particular recipe and I decided that I really like it enough to be my current favorite chocolate cupcake recipe. It uses sour cream in the batter, which gives the batter a beautiful-looking creamy texture. The cake itself bakes up soft and moist, but still firm.

I’ve never eaten lemon cream cheese frosting, and I am admittedly not a fan at all of cream cheese. But if it’s sweetened enough I think it tastes really nice as a frosting. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com. I ended up not having to use all of the confectioners’ sugar; I believe I only used 4 cups, rather than the full 5 cups. It is really creamy and lemony; if I ever need a lemon frosting recipe again, I’ll definitely be choosing this one.

What really put the lemon in the cake, though, was the homemade candied lemon peel. I found the recipe for this from Whole Foods Market. These turned out extremely lemony and tasted great on the cupcakes.

The main inspiration for these lemon chocolate cupcakes came from a memory of eating a Lindt lemon chocolate bar. It’s pretty crazy because I cannot find that Lindt lemon chocolate bar anymore, but I’m pretty sure that they did exist and that I did eat one!

Jul 26

10 Comments

Faux Hostess Cupcakes

On a recent visit to My Baking Addiction I saw a faux Hostess cupcake. Like Jamie, I keep seeing these cupcakes over and over again and have tried to keep from baking them myself. I thought that there were way too many out there already, and they looked just a little time-consuming. But Jamie’s version was the very last straw for me, they looked so absolutely irresistible!

So, at the very next opportunity I had, I made my own version.

I used Martha Stewart’s devil’s food cupcake recipe for the cake. I really like this particular recipe. It makes a beautiful smooth batter and a very nice firm, yet moist and tender, chocolately cake. I divided the original recipe in half and ended up with 17 cupcakes!

For the cream filling, I used Annie’s Eat’s marshmallow filling recipe that she used in her faux Hostess cupcakes. I chose this because I didn’t want to take the time to make the 7-minute frosting that I have mainly seen used for filling in these cupcakes (next time I will use it though). I have to agree with Annie that the filling isn’t as light as in the commercial version, but it is definitely suitable, and yummy, to use in these cupcakes. As per Annie’s recipe, I also used the filling to pipe the swirls on top of the cupcakes (with added cream).

For the chocolate glaze I also used the same one that Annie used in her faux Hostess cupcakes. I used the full recipe and ended up with exactly enough glaze to double-dip all of the 17 cupcakes.

They are reminiscent of the real Hostess cupcakes, but no, they are definitely not an exact replica! However, they are extremely delicious! I preferred the taste of these the day after baking. I stored them in the refrigerator and also preferred them at room temperature.

They are a little time-consuming, but they are oh so worth it!

Jul 20

14 Comments

Butterfly Cupcakes

My daughter’s fourth birthday was yesterday and I decided to try my hand at making the butterfly cupcakes from the book Hello, Cupcake. But I got my inspiration from Annie’s Eats’ rainbow butterfly cupcakes, which are absolutely stunningly gorgeous.

My daughter’s favorite color is green, so she insisted on green butterflies. I made the butterflies the day before her birthday and stored them in the refrigerator overnight.

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I did have problems making these butterflies! I actually am quite disappointed that they didn’t turn as beautiful as the orange butterflies in the book, or Annie’s rainbow butterflies. The problem I had was with the candy chocolates. While the dark chocolate was easy to work with, I had problems with the green chocolate – I don’t know why, but it just wouldn’t get liquidy enough to easily fill in the dark chocolate outline and I didn’t want to burn it by heating it more and more. It stayed really thick and wasn’t very easy to swirl the dark chocolate into, so the butterfly wings didn’t end up very smooth-looking with all those green peaks. And for some reason, the dark chocolate outline ended up developing light-colored streaks in it after it dried.

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I have worked with candy chocolate coatings before and didn’t have problems with melting the chocolate. The only difference was that previously I used chocolate from Make n’ Mold. For these butterflies, I used Clasen.

Despite the troubles, my daughter (and son!) had no problems ripping into these cupcakes at the birthday party!

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Making the butterflies was a little bit more difficult and time-consuming than I thought they would be, although maybe that’s just because of my problems with the chocolate. I would like to try making them again, as the effect of all the butterflies together looks pretty neat, but perhaps try a different chocolate coating, just to see if it makes a difference.

Has anyone else made the Hello, Cupcake butterflies? What was your experience like?

Jul 8

20 Comments

Peanut Butter Cupcakes And Nutella Cupcakes

This is going to be a 2-in-1 cupcake post! I was going to post a recipe for mixed berry tea, but quite a few people have expressed interest in both of these cupcakes, so I decided I’d go ahead and post the recipes for them instead.

The first cupcakes I’d like to absolutely rave about are these peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate glaze from I Heart Cuppycakes.

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These are amazing! I’ve been reluctant to make peanut butter cupcakes because I thought that the peanut butter might make the cake heavy or dense. But these cupcakes are so incredibly moist and soft and so full of rich peanut butter flavor! I was blown away, this is one awesome cupcake!

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This will definitely not be the last time I make these. If you love peanut butter and chocolate, I highly recommend you bake a batch of these right now! And make sure you have a tall glass of milk to go with them!

Now for the second cupcake. The peanut butter cupcakes got me thinking about Nutella cupcakes. Nutella can often be substituted for peanut butter in recipes, so I decided to give it a go with these cupcakes. I used the same amount of Nutella, but I did decrease the sugar by about 1/4 cup because Nutella is much sweeter than peanut butter. I did everything else the same as for the peanut butter cupcakes.

What I found was that the Nutella cupcakes sank slightly in the middle when they were done baking. They seemed to rise higher as well, so next time I wouldn’t use a full 1/4 cup of batter in each liner; my Nutella cupcakes overflowed a little bit!

But, the cake did taste of Nutella and still came out very moist and soft.

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I wasn’t sure of the type of frosting to use on Nutella cupcakes. I didn’t really want to use more Nutella in case it ended up being a bit too much. A friend suggested marshmallow frosting, which sounded like a winning combination! I guess sort of like a fluffernutter cupcake, only with Nutella instead of peanut butter!

To finish off the Nutella cupcake, I spooned a dollop (or about a teaspoon) of fresh Nutella into the middle of the top of the cupcake and frosted them with marshmallowy Swiss meringue from the queen of Swiss meringues at How To Eat A Cupcake. This frosting is definitely a keeper, it was fantastic!

The Nutella cupcake is quite sweet, but a flavor combination I haven’t yet experienced. Next time I probably wouldn’t use so much frosting on each cupcake, but instead just spread a light layer on top.

What kind of frosting would you like on a Nutella cupcake, just out of curiosity?