UFO Cupcakes
We celebrated my son’s second birthday yesterday with some “out of this world” cupcakes! Read more
Posts tagged ‘vanilla’
Aug 25
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Rainbow Cupcakes For Cancer Research
Last Friday, my daughter’s school was hosting an Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser. Newsletters were sent out asking parents for donations to a cupcake stall that the students could buy from during recess to raise money for cancer research. Read more
Feb 25
Half-Birthday Cupcakes
Babies are cute. I oughta know, I’ve had three of them. My latest installment was a baby boy, six months ago. His name is Miles. He’s been the sweetest, cutest and most patient of my three. He smiles and giggles at anything and sleeps mostly through the night. You couldn’t ask for much more out of a baby other than that he sleeps through the night, trust me. Sleep-deprivation is not fun.
I have breastfed my babies exclusively for the first six months of their lives (and weaned at 18 months), and on their six-month birthdays I have given them their first tastes of solid foods. Yesterday, the 24th, was Miles’ six-month birthday and we had a great day.
Jan 6
Vanilla Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcakes
As we’re waiting for the final verdict on December’s Cupcake Hero challenge, I thought I’d post about these cupcakes that my daughter and I made shortly before we left the US. What makes these cupcakes extra special is that they were completely made up by my 4-year-old daughter.
One night as I was putting her to bed she told me she wanted to make her own cupcake. I asked her what kind of cupcake did she want to make. She said she wanted a vanilla cake, pink raspberry frosting, a cherry on top and a piece of white chocolate. I promised her I’d help her make them.
Jul 6
Independence Day Cupcakes
We had a fun Independence Day weekend; not only was it Independence Day, it was also my son’s second birthday and our friend’s baby’s first birthday party. Unfortunately, the entire morning, noon and night of July 4th was rained out. It literally rained constantly the entire day! There were some brave people who ventured out to light fireworks until midnight or so that night, so we got to see a few.
July 5th was our big day, however. I made cupcakes to celebrate my son’s second birthday and also Independence Day (although a day late).
Just plain old vanilla-on-vanilla. He had quite a time blowing out the two little candles and was actually upset when they were both blown out! He had such a big day that he stayed home with daddy and slept while my daughter and I went to our friend’s baby’s first birthday party. We had a great time there as well and had lots of yummy food and cupcakes and ice cream for dessert!
I hope everyone else had a safe and fun (and non-rainy!) holiday weekend! :)
Mar 30
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
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!
Dec 29
Amy Sedaris Vanilla Cupcakes
In my search for a perfect vanilla cupcake recipe, I realized I haven’t yet tried Amy Sedaris’ vanilla cupcakes. I baked up a batch before Christmas, with Bakerella’s favorite buttercream.
I did like Amy Sedaris’ recipe, and would use it again for my next batch of vanilla cupcakes. However, the addition of Bakerella’s favorite buttercream made it too sweet; next time I would add a dash of salt to her buttercream recipe.
Chocolate & Coconut Cupcakes
Today I took six more cupcakes out of the freezer from the box cake mix that I made last week. I made the vanilla frosting from this recipe (but divided the recipe in half) and coated the frosting with sweetened shredded coconut.
And of course a bright red maraschino cherry sits on top. Once again, you can use any chocolate cupcake recipe to make these cupcakes, and also any vanilla frosting. It might even be a good idea to replace the milk in the vanilla frosting with coconut milk for extra coconut flavor.
Sep 19
First Cupcakes Made With The Kitchenaid
Today I made my first cupcakes with the Kitchenaid mixer that I got earlier this week. I made a mistake with the first batch, the chocolate ones, by not mixing it enough. I realized this after they were done baking. I did better with the vanilla ones. I have to say that the Kitchenaid does a fantastic job with whipping cream and buttercream.
These are the chocolate ones. They’re not as pretty as I wanted them to be, but they are definitely tasty. They’re chocolate cupcakes, filled with whipped cream and frosted with a Lindt chocolate ganache.
See the inside of this cupcake here.
I really like how the vanilla cherry ones look. They’re vanilla cupcakes, filled with whipped cream, frosted with vanilla buttercream and topped with a maraschino cherry.
This is the first time I’ve ever baked with nut & party cups and I have to say that I liked it! I think that the cupcakes are generally bigger with the nut & party cups. I also cut a small slit at the top of the cup before I filled them up so that it could be easily unwrapped. See the inside of this cupcake here.
I used Wilton’s bismark tip for filling the cupcakes (which is a brand new toy), and found that this made it incredibly easy to fill them.
Now I know what you’re saying, I should be putting my efforts into this month’s Iron Cupcake Earth challenge, but I’m finding the challenge ingredient to be pretty difficult! I don’t have many days left now, so I’ve really got to get to work if I want to be a part of the competition this month.
Sep 4
Plain Old Vanilla
I made five cupcakes today, just five. I wanted to try something I had read about somewhere (cannot find where now) about coloring your own sugar to make sanding sugar. It only involved ordinary sugar and food coloring. For my own test, I used about 3 teaspoons of sugar, put it in a Ziploc bag and added one drop of yellow food coloring, mixed the sugar with my fingers (on the outside of the bag so my fingers wouldn’t get messy), then added one drop of red food coloring to make orange. When it was mixed, I poured out the sugar onto a paper towel and spread out the sugar so it could dry. The end result was exactly what I wanted. Thus, today this cupcake was born…
A plain vanilla cupcake with plain vanilla frosting (tinted orange as well, with yellow and red food coloring), sprinkled with the colored sugar that I made.
