Posts tagged ‘Frosting’

May 22

Yellow Cupcakes With Chocolate Buttercream

I do not like to use shortening in my recipes, but I had some leftover from a pie crust I had made recently and didn’t want it to go to waste. I used it in a recipe from a KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual, which was for a quick yellow cake.

I changed the recipe slightly to make cupcakes, instead of a layer cake. After tasting, I can say that I don’t like this cake! It could have been a mistake on my part, but the cupcakes were a bit on the dry side and I didn’t like the taste, either. I was disappointed, as the photo accompanying the recipe showed an extremely moist-looking yellow cake.

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The chocolate buttercream is an all-time favorite of mine. That recipe can be found at Cupcakes Take The Cake. The frosting is coated in chocolate jimmies.

I’ll go ahead and post the recipe from the KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual, but I don’t recommend trying it. If you’re after a moist and tender yellow cake, I would highly recommend the recipe that Bakerella posted here (I also have made her yellow cake before, here).

Quick Yellow Cake
Adapted from KitchenAid Stand Mixer instruction manual
Makes 18-20 cupcakes, or 2-layer 8- or 9-inch cake

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup low-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Method
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners. Set aside.

Combine dry ingredients in mixer bowl. Add shortening, milk and vanilla. Mix on low speed (or speed 2 of stand mixer) about 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Add eggs. Continuing on low speed, or speed 2, mix about 30 seconds. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to medium speed, or speed 6, and beat about 1 minute.

Scoop batter evenly into cupcake pans. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove and cool cupcakes completely on wire rack.

To bake 2-layer cake: Pour batter into two greased and floured 8- or 9-inch round baking pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Frost as desired.

May 13

5 Comments

Carrot Cake Cupcakes With Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

I made these cupcakes on impulse! Only one day after I made the s’mores cupcakes! The first reason I made these cupcakes was because I wanted to use the rest of the cream cheese leftover from my mint Oreo truffles. The second reason I made these cupcakes was because we had a bag of fresh carrots in the refrigerator.

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This is the first recipe I’ve made from smittenkitchen.com, although I want to try all of Deb’s recipes. The recipe for these carrot cake cupcakes are posted here on her website.

I had to do one substitution, and that was because we have no regular granulated sugar. Luckily, brown sugar can be substituted, in equal amounts, for granulated sugar. I had seen carrot cakes use all brown sugar instead of white sugar, so this is what I decided to do. I used light brown sugar.

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When Deb said in her post that this was a killer recipe, she was totally right! This carrot cake is so moist and flavorful, it’s just unbelievable. I don’t think I will ever make any other carrot cake recipe again – this one is a keeper.

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The frosting is really full of maple flavor, and I’d recommend not going overboard with this frosting. By that I mean, don’t pile on this frosting; just a little swirl or thin layer will do, else it might be a little overpowering and drown out the taste of that wonderful carrot cake.

I think these make a great breakfast cupcake as well. I had one this morning, after a quick round in the microwave (about 9 seconds) to warm it up, with coffee, and it was very nice. :)

May 11

24 Comments

S'mores Cupcakes

It’s almost s’mores season! Of course, I wouldn’t restrict s’mores to any particular season, as they are enjoyed all year long, but it is about time to uncover the barbecues, start up some camp fires and enjoy summertime foods. I got myself in the s’mores spirit by microwaving myself one!

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It has been years, at least 15 years, since I’ve eaten one of these. Where have I been! This was so good and I’m using leftover ingredients from my s’mores cupcakes to make more s’mores.

I spent a while trying to decide how I wanted to build my s’mores cupcakes. I’ve seen it done so many different ways. I couldn’t decide between a graham cracker cake or a chocolate cake, or a chocolate graham cracker cake.

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I chose to toss out my ideas when I saw this recipe on the Martha Stewart website; it’s a recipe for chocolate graham cracker cupcakes and toasted marshmallow frosting from Trophy Cupcakes in Seattle. It has a graham cracker crust base, a layer of bittersweet chocolate, chocolate cake, and graham cracker crumbs and chopped bittersweet chocolate baked on top. The frosting is basically a marshmallowy 7-minute frosting.

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There had been comments on the recipe that it took a while to prepare; for me, I thought that the crushing of the graham crackers and chopping of the chocolate took the longest time. If you had a food processor or similar, unlike me, I’m sure it would make the task quicker.

The recipe calls for whole milk, but we only drink skim milk. So I searched for a quick substitute and ended up using a mix of skim milk and melted butter; 1 cup of skim milk, plus 2 teaspoons of melted butter. I used unsalted butter. It seemed to work fine. The cupcakes rose nicely, they have a very velvety sort of texture and are really moist.

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I used the very last bit of sugar in our cabinets to make the frosting, so I hoped that I wouldn’t ruin it. I haven’t made 7-minute frosting before, so I wasn’t familiar with the process. As I was whisking the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar over a pan of simmering water, I noticed the mixture was very yellow and I thought for sure I had ruined it, but after 6 minutes under the care of the KitchenAid’s whisk it whipped up so perfect, so glossy and so white. It is a really beautiful marshmallowy frosting.

The recipe suggested using a kitchen blow torch to toast the frosting, but as I have no kitchen blow torch on hand, I put them under the broiler (on a low setting) in the oven for a few minutes (but moved the oven rack to the center of the oven). It didn’t toast them like a blow torch would, but it did give them a toasted appearance and crunch.

Unfortunately, I have heaps of frosting left and am not sure what to do with it. Egg whites don’t freeze well, I’ve heard, and I’m not sure how long it might keep in the refrigerator.

Anyway, these cupcakes taste so nice! I wouldn’t say they taste like the traditional s’mores sandwich, however. With the addition of bittersweet chocolate, instead of the traditional milk chocolate, I would consider this a grown-up’s s’mores cupcake!

Updated later: As there are egg whites in the frosting, it’s best to refrigerate your leftover cupcakes. Let them warm up to room temperature before enjoying, or give them a quick zap in the microwave; I put mine on defrost for 10 seconds and it warmed up the chocolate pieces to make them nice and gooey again. :)

Apr 21

13 Comments

Dirt Cupcakes For Earth Day

I haven’t had unsalted butter in my refrigerator for two weeks now, which is why posts have been slow here. Everything I want to bake requires unsalted butter! People have given me suggestions – like baking something vegan, but it seems that vegan recipes always have another ingredient (or three) that I don’t have or can’t get at my local store.

So anyway, tomorrow is Earth Day. I saw these cupcakes, Dirt Cupcakes, from Bleeding Heart Bakery on Cupcakes Take The Cake and thought I’d try to replicate them (as much as I could) as they looked quite nice.

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They do look like a pile of dirt and mud! Actually, these are Martha Stewart’s one-bowl chocolate cupcakes, Hershey’s dark chocolate mousse frosting, and crumbs from one of the cupcakes.

For the cupcakes, I divided the recipe in half. The recipe says to fill the cupcake liners 1/3′s full, but I thought that this wouldn’t be enough, so I filled them closer to 2/3′s full – I got 12 cupcakes. I also used Hershey’s Special Dark dutch-processed cocoa. For the mousse, it isn’t really a frosting, but in this case I made it become a frosting. I divided this recipe in half as well and still had plenty of mousse leftover (the recipe didn’t mention this, but I used my stand mixer’s whisk attachment for creating the mousse). For the crumbs, I just simply crumbled one of the cupcakes up with my fingers.

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These are really nice cupcakes and very chocolatey. Since the frosting is comprised mostly of whipping cream, leftover cupcakes (and mousse, of course) will need to be stored in the refrigerator. However, after tasting one of these straight from the refrigerator, I am recommending that these cupcakes are best enjoyed immediately after frosting; they weren’t quite as nice after refrigeration (or maybe let them return to room temperature before eating – about 10 minutes, I’d imagine).

Happy Earth Day!

Apr 13

4 Comments

Iron Cupcake Earth: Cherry 7UP Cupcakes

When voting for the Iron Cupcake: Earth ingredient for April, I voted for herbs & spices! I wasn’t very interested in a cupcake made from soda pop. But since I didn’t enter last month’s competition, I decided I could come up with something for this month.

I chose to do something with the new Cherry 7UP. I have seen these done before from NZ Cupcake Queen, but she didn’t post her recipe. Hers are very pretty!

I chose to alter a Mountain Dew cupcake recipe I had found online. I replaced the Mountain Dew with Cherry 7UP, replaced the lemon extract with maraschino cherry juice and omitted the lemon and lime zest in both the cupcake and buttercream recipe. I also drizzled the cupcakes with fresh Cherry 7UP after baking, which made the cake very moist.

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Note: It’s cloudy and rainy today – when you rely on natural light to take your pictures inside the house, cloudy days are not good, hence the grayish cast to this photo!

Surprisingly, this cupcake does not taste much of cherry or 7UP (although the drizzling of fresh Cherry 7UP gave it a tiny hint)! I’m a little disappointed. But they do make a nice sweet dessert, and they are pretty cute.

Our April ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:

A creation by FRUITFLYPIE, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=16748
a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .

Now, the recipes…

Cherry 7UP Cupcakes
Adapted from Quirky Cupcake
Makes 12-14

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup Cherry 7UP
3/4 teaspoons maraschino cherry juice or syrup
1 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
Extra Cherry 7UP for drizzling

Method
Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

Beat butter on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar; beat on medium-high until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time; scrape the sides of the bowl between each addition.

Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add to butter mixture. Mix on low for 5 seconds.

Add Chery 7 UP and cherry juice or syrup. Mix to combine.

Fill cupcake liners evenly with batter, about 2/3′s full (I actually went about 3/4′s full).

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Immediately after baking, poke deep holes – but not all the way through – each cupcake with toothpick or fork, and slowly drizzle approximately one teaspoon over cupcake. Let sit to absorb and completely cool before frosting.

Cherry 7UP Buttercream
Adapted from Quirky Cupcake
Frosts 12-14 cupcakes

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2-2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon Cherry 7UP
1 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice or syrup
Red food coloring gel (optional)

Method
Sift confectioners’ sugar into a bowl or onto parchment paper.

Beat butter at medium-high speed until creamy. Add half of the sugar, mix on low for 5 seconds.

Add Cherry 7UP and cherry juice or syrup. Beat until combined.

Add food coloring, if desired, for a pinker hue.

Gradually add remaining sugar until a proper consistency and sweetness is reached.

Mar 30

3 Comments

Baby Bluebird Cupcakes

It’s a bit early for Easter, but I couldn’t resist making these nesting baby bluebird cupcakes from Martha Stewart – instructions here.

Mine are nowhere near as cute as Martha’s – they are very easy to make, but the hardest part for me was piping those tiny beaks. I don’t have a small leaf tip, so I made one from a Ziploc bag, reinforced with tape. Maybe that was my problem!

I did not use the vanilla cupcake recipe or the chocolate buttercream from Martha’s instructions. I used Billy’s vanilla cupcake recipe, and Martha’s basic buttercream recipe (both recipes divided in half). I’ve made Billy’s vanilla cupcake recipe before, but this is the first time I’ve got to taste them – I love them! I’ve been having a hard time finding a good vanilla cupcake recipe, but I really really like this one.

I would like to try to make these again sometime, they really are super cute (well, Martha’s are, anyway!) and I’d like to perfect the beak-piping technique!

Mar 22

6 Comments

Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes

I had a very ripe avocado that I’ve had stored in the refrigerator for the past couple of days and was thinking of something to do with it. I really love avocados, so I thought I’d see if I could find a recipe for avocado cupcakes. Then I found the chocolate avocado cupcake recipe. Very interesting! I had to give it a go.

This recipe is not made with a mixer, but a food processor. I don’t have a food processor so I used our blender instead. The blending of all the wet ingredients made a very creamy and beautiful pale green mixture. This mixture is then whisked into the dry ingredients.

The cupcakes need to be baked a few minutes longer than the average cupcake baking time of 20 minutes, mine ended up around 27 minutes total. The tops of these cupcakes cracked, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post, and they were slightly crunchy. It looked more like a muffin, actually. The smell of these cupcakes baking was amazing, it was a rich chocolately smell blanketing the entire house!

The chocolate avocado cupcakes have an amazing soft, moist texture. This is what I like most about them. Can I taste avocado? No! I personally don’t care much for the taste of the cake itself, though it isn’t bad. I would definitely make these cupcakes again. They taste great with buttercream (and would probably taste nice with the glaze in the original recipe, but I didn’t have all the ingredients necessary to make that).

The buttercream frosting I used was my new favorite buttercream from Martha Stewart, recipe divided in half.

Mar 22

4 Comments

Baby Shower Cupcakes

A couple of months ago a friend asked me if I’d like to bake two dozen cupcakes for a baby shower she was hosting for a friend of her’s. Of course I said that I would, and that day was today. She requested one dozen vanilla cupcakes and one dozen strawberry cupcakes, and for both to be frosted with vanilla frosting.

I began the task yesterday. I used Billy’s vanilla cupcake recipe for the vanilla cupcakes, a cupcake which I had never baked before. While I couldn’t taste-test these (as I got exactly one dozen after cutting the recipe in half), they seemed to be moist and smelled of sugar cookies.

For the strawberry cupcakes, I used Sprinkles’ strawberry cupcake recipe. I’ve made these once before and noticed the strawberry taste isn’t very strong. They also don’t turn out very pink. My friend specifically said that she didn’t want a very strong tasting strawberry cupcake, so I thought these would be fine.

For the frosting I used the Basic Buttercream recipe which can be found in February 2009′s issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, or at her website. I had never made this frosting before, but was extremely pleased with the results. It was very smooth, a perfect texture I would say, and it was not too sweet. In fact, it was quite buttery. I will definitely be using this buttercream recipe again in the future. I used the recipe in its entirety for these two dozen cupcakes and had just approximately 1/2 cup leftover.

Above are the vanilla cupcakes, below are the strawberry cupcakes. They are not the best photos as I photographed these in the morning and can never get good lighting in the house in the morning for taking food photos.

This the first time the Cupcake Courier has really been used, so I had to take a photo of it as well!

I personally did not get to taste-test any of these cupcakes because I made exactly the right amount! I can’t wait to hear if everyone enjoyed them!

Mar 7

3 Comments

Ghirardelli Devil's Food Cake & Mocha Buttercream

Yesterday was my birthday, so I just had to bake a cake. It took a while for me to decide what kind of cake I wanted and I ended up with a couple of recipes inside of a Ghirardelli 100% Cocao baking bar (that’s an unsweetened chocolate baking bar, in case you weren’t sure). It was for a one-bowl devil’s food cake and mocha buttercream.

This was going to be a bit of a dare, however, as the recipe asked for shortening – 1) I don’t have any shortening because 2) I don’t like shortening. I had read many comments from people who always substitute butter for shortening with minimal or barely noticeable differences, so I took a chance and substituted unsalted butter for the shortening.

What I thought would happen though, ended up happening. The recipe tells you to sift a flour mixture into a large mixing bowl, then put all the wet ingredients on top of that and mix for 2 minutes. That’s a really strange way to make cake batter, in my opinion. I thought that the butter wouldn’t mix in thoroughly and would leave butter chunks in the batter. And, well, I was right.

I didn’t want to keep beating the batter so I wouldn’t overbeat it, so I poured it into a pan and sat it on the stove over gentle heat for just enough time to melt the butter. I kept thinking I should have went with a different recipe, because this one would end up a disaster and I would have wasted a whole bar of that 100% cocao!

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However, the cake ended up baking just fine, much to my surprise!

Note, number of candles not relative to my age (although some could argue that)

The buttercream was very strange to make as well, even though I did have all the required ingredients for that. The recipe says to melt a bar of 100% cocao. Then dissolve two teaspoons of instant coffee in 2 tablespoons of boiling water, and stir it into the melted chocolate. This turned the melted chocolate into a sticky clump of chocolate and my first thought was that this would not be able to mix into the frosting without clumping. And, well, I was right again.

I beat the frosting for quite a while (maybe two minutes?) at medium-high speed just to work out the clumps and this did actually work. It’s a very light and creamy buttercream with a strong mocha taste. I didn’t need to add all of the milk the recipe asked for, I left about 2 teaspoons (give or take) of the milk out. If I added more it would have been to wet to stick on the cake, I think!

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So, how did this cake end up, overall? First I will say that I will not be making this cake again, even with using shortening. I personally don’t think this cake tastes all that great, but it isn’t bad. I feel like I wasted my nice unsweetened chocolate on this cake, though.

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View printer-friendly PDF recipes here.

Feb 15

1 Comment

Valentine's Day Goodies

I got a huge surprise for Valentine’s Day from my husband; a chocolate stash.

I love the little Starbucks Chocolate Tasting Squares, they are so cute!

All those Ghirardelli bars will be used in the future to make cupcakes, brownies and/or cookies!

Now, on to our Valentine’s Day cupcakes. They did not turn out how I planned. I planned for nice, fluffy, high-rising chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes with cherry cream cheese frosting. But three things went wrong. 1) I forgot to put in the chocoalte chips!; 2) the cupcakes didn’t rise very much at all; 3) I wanted to use heart sprinkles, but didn’t have any. I think they didn’t rise because I cut the recipe into thirds and perhaps it messed up the properties of the baking soda and baking powder. I’m not sure. Anyhow, they still taste nice.

The recipe for the cupcake was Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake, and the cream cheese frosting recipe comes from How To Eat A Cupcake (and I also cut her recipe in half). I just added a tiny dollop of red gel food coloring, and approximately 3-4 tablespoons of chopped maraschino cherries to her recipe.

Feb 5

2 Comments