Thanksgiving Cupcakes

Just wanted to share some Thanksgiving cupcakes. These were for gifting and celebrating.

Vegan Streuseled Spice Cake - spice cake topped with a brown sugar pecan streusel, frosted with a creamy white frosting and sprinkled with nutmeg

German Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Beer Frosting topped with chocolate jimmies

Lemon Cranberry Cupcake - vanilla cake filled with cranberry sauce, frosted with lemon cream cheese frosting and topped with a sugared cranberry

Chocolate Chip Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting topped with mini chocolate chips

Apple Picking & A Baby Shower

I recently went apple picking with my little family up in Oak Glen. We came home with two huge bags of apples. Needless to say I have been baking like a mad woman. I decided to make fresh apple cupcakes for a friend's upcoming baby shower.

I used Martha Stewart's apple cupcake recipe. It's a good one - lots of autumn spice. I was thinking of going with a caramel frosting even though Martha recommended cream cheese. I've been doing a lot of cream cheese frosting lately and am pretty tired of it; but after I tasted the cake there was nothing that would compliment it better than a cream cheese frosting, so I bit the bullet. I used BHG's recipe instead of Martha's (Sorry Martha). BHG adds an additional teaspoon of vanilla and an extra cup or two of powdered sugar. I like the flavor and consistency of this recipe and I tend to stick with what I like.

The shower theme was based on Disney/Pixar's Up. I decorated the cakes with a fondant balloon and piped in the string. They turned out pretty cute.

I've already turned most of the apples into the following: 5 pies, 2 breads, 2 batches of cupcakes and 1 batch of apple butter.

I have one more pie to make for my hubby, some apply sorbet for my toddler and maybe some cider.

Many Cakes Later

I'm finally getting around to blogging. Although I have slowed down in writing I have not slowed down in baking. I neglected to take pictures of all of my recent ventures - pure laziness.

Here is a list of what I have made since my last posting:

• Coffee and Donuts cupcakes - try this recipe - it's fantastic
• Chocolate cupcakes decorated as monkey faces for Ezra's birthday
• Chocolate Bourbon Salted Caramel cupcakes from BHG - very good
• Italian Cream Cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - not what I expected - just okay
• Pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting from the Neely's - not my fav.
• Pumpkin Pie Pop Tart cupcakes - you have to try these too

I've also tried my hand at a rustic peach pie, a tomato tart, goat cheese and apricot muffins, pretzel, butterscotch and chocolate chip cookies, butterscotch oatmeal cake and a Snickerdoodle Quick Bread.

I did take photos of a few of the cakes. The Chocolate Bourbon Salted Caramel cupcakes were sublime. You could taste the bourbon as it was in the cake and in the caramel, but it was not overpowering in the slightest. Very tasty. Hard to eat just one.

The Pumpkin cupcakes and Pumpkin Pop Tart cupcakes are pictured together. My hubby loved the pumpkin and I loved the pop tart ones. Pumpkin pie flavored Pop Tarts are tossed into a brown sugar cupcake batter. Absolutely fabulous. I love all things brown sugar so this recipe is right up my alley. I think I'll use it as a base for all kinds of creations.

In other news (well actually, in very related news), my hubby got me a baking pantry. We needed extra storage space anyway and part of the cabinet we purchased is devoted to my baking gear, ingredients and other essentials. It's awesome. Everything at my fingertips in one place. I don't have to go hunting in several cabinets for what I need anymore. Yes, I am spoiled.

A Baby Shower

I got to make cupcakes for a friend's baby shower this past weekend. It was so fun to make something so cute. I went with an orange creamsicle cupcake from BHG. I liked the recipe, but found myself wanting a little more creamy or milky flavor. The recipe calls for a cream cheese frosting with a couple of teaspoons of orange gelatin mix and a teaspoon of orange zest added to it. It was just a little too tangy for me, but still good and oh so enjoyable.

The shower was a Noah's ark theme so I baked my cupcakes in baby animal printed baking cups. I used a french tip to pipe my frosting and covered each cake with white sprinkles. I finished the cupcakes with fondant baby animals. My fondant was too thick, but I was worried about the animals staying in place if I made them too thin. I also happen to really like fondant - surprise, surprise.

A Special Project

My husband's aunt turned 80 years beautiful this month. Guess what I brought to the party?

My sister-in-law and I each brought a batch of cupcakes for the guests. Hers were great - red velvet with cream cheese frosting and what I think might have been a strawberry cheesecake cupcake (I didn't get to taste that one). I had heard from our aunt that maple and cream cheese are her favorite flavors. I tackled the maple.

What I ended up with was a walnut cinnamon cake filled with a maple pie filling, frosted with a maple almond butter frosting, topped with lightly toasted walnuts and a fondant maple leaf. Here's the long road that got me to that end.

I practiced several recipes in the two or three weeks leading up to the party. I tested out at least four cake recipes and four frosting recipes. I also made a maple filling using a recipe that fills a maple tart from BHG's recent Fall Baking issue. This filing is fabulous. I want to try making the tart.

Cakes:

• Butter cake - too dense and dry
• Doctored yellow cake mix - too sweet
• Walnut cake made with crushed walnuts - too whole wheat tasting
• Martha Stewart's Walnut cake - the winner!

Frostings:

• Maple cream cheese frosting - too loose
• Brown sugar maple frosting - too brown sugary
• Frosting using my recipe for maple filling as the base - not as maple tasting as I wanted
• Maple French buttercream from Martha Stewart - the winner again! Go Martha!

One of the things I realized as I tested out recipes was that I kept looking for the maple flavor you find in a maple doughnut. The recipes using pure maple syrup instead of maple flavoring are a whole different ball game. I got over my desire for the fake flavor that I know and love and went with recipes using pure maple syrup. They were just better recipes. Here is one of my test batches. I decorated with a brown sugar cookie in the shape of a maple leaf.

So here's where the trouble starts: when I went to use my carefully chosen recipes for the big day, my buttercream didn't turn out. The only thing I did differently was double the recipe. I don't know what happened. It just wasn't my day I guess. The frosting was way too loose and wouldn't firm up for anything.

In a panic, and after a few tears, I pulled out the other frostings I had practiced on earlier that week. I had them in the freezer. I used both the brown sugar maple frosting and the one I made up out of my filling. I had also purchased some gold sugar for dusting and made fondant maple leafs to decorate. Here are the finished cakes.

They were so beautiful; that's why what happened next was so heartbreaking. We transported the cupcakes about 5 or 6 hours and when we went to put them in my mother-in-law's freezer for the next day we found that the frostings had melted. The cupcakes were globby messes.

There I was away from kitchen and all of my tools with my finished product in shambles. It was hard to sleep that night. The next day I went to four different stores looking for replacement frosting and decorating ingredients. I was praying that I would be able to salvage the cakes. I ended up buying extra baking cups in case I had to transfer the cakes to cups that weren't covered with melty frosting, plastic piping tips, a bag of walnuts, and for the frosting, maple almond butter, maple flavoring, butter and powdered sugar. I was also hoping to salvage my fondant maple leaves.

When I got back to my mother-in-law's house I painstakingly scraped off all of the melty frosting - even from the pretty baking cups. I also cleaned the fondant leaves. I was able to salvage it all. Whew!

I lightly toasted my walnuts and went to work on my frosting. Here is the recipe I made up:

Maple Almond Butter Frosting:
1 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup maple almond butter
1/2 tsp maple flavoring
4 cups powdered sugar
1 - 2 tbsp milk or cream

I ended up liking this frosting more than Martha Stewart's. Here's my finished cupcakes again.

They were delicious. I will definitely do this recipe again. I'll take a shorter route next time though.

Nutella: Round 2

My hubby is transitioning jobs this weekend and requested some cupcakes to give to some of his co-workers as parting gifts. His boss is a Nutella fan, so I revamped a recipe that I had tried before.

The first time I made Nutella cupcakes I used a recipe for a Nutella cake and a Nutella frosting from an online source I can no longer find. The frosting was good. The cake was dry. I filled the cupcakes with chocolate ganache, drizzled the frosted cakes with the ganache as well and topped them with toasted hazelnuts. The cupcakes looked and tasted great. They also got rave reviews from my family. I didn't think they had enough Nutella flavor (and also the cake turned out dry), so I knew I would do something different the next time. Here's my first batch. Forgive the bad picture.

This time I decided to use the chocolate cake recipe from BHG I have been raving about. I also decided to fill the cupcakes with straight up Nutella.

I used a new Nutella frosting recipe from My Baking Addiction as I can't find the first one I used and topped the cakes with either toasted hazelnuts or a hazelnut chocolate chunk.

The first frosting recipe I used was a lot smoother than this recipe, but I like the flavor of this one better. They are both very decadent. It's Nutella. What da ya expect?

Oh, and the cupcakes were a hit with Matthew's co-workers. They're a hit with me too.

Baking Day

Last week I got to spend the majority of my Monday baking. Matthew took the boys to the park and I had the whole kitchen to myself. (Thank you Love!) I made three different cakes and four frosting recipes. I felt like I was on Cupcake Wars. Here are my cakes cooling.

The first cake I baked was a pink lemonade cake with a pink lemonade frosting. The recipes call for actual powdered pink lemonade drink mix and they taste just like pink lemonade. I've been feeling like I should decorate my cupcakes a little more. Just frosting is getting a little boring. The recipe for these cupcakes called for a dusting of pink lemonade mix. I thought they tasted "lemonady" enough so I sprinkled them with white nonpareils. I made the mistake of piping the frosting on all my cakes and then adding the sprinkles. Most of them fell off. I either need to add them as soon as I've piped or make my frosting less stiff. These cupcakes adorned my brunch table for a friend's visit.

The second cake I baked was a hummingbird cake. I used a gluten free recipe from Cupcake Project using blanched almond four. Fabulous - absolutely fabulous! I also loved that it only called for the fruit and some honey and no extra sugar. It didn't need it at all. I chose to frost with a simple cinnamon cream cheese frosting. I used my favorite recipe from BHG and added a half teaspoon of cinnamon. Next time I may leave the cinnamon out of the frosting.

The third cake I made was supposed to be a gingerbread cake. It turned out more like a molasses cake in my opinion. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the frosting. First I tried making a molasses frosting. I based the recipe off of a honey frosting recipe I've done before. This was a complete disaster. The consistency and color were beautiful, but the flavor was horrible. I threw it out. There was no salvaging that one.

Next, I tasted one of the molasses cupcakes with the cinnamon cream cheese frosting I had already made. It was just okay. As I had mixed the batter and baked these cakes I smelled a hint of butterscotch. I decided to make a butterscotch frosting based on a white chocolate frosting recipe I have.

Butterscotch Frosting:
6 oz. butterscotch chips
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar

- Leave butter out for 30 minutes.
- Heat whipping cream to simmering and pour over butterscotch chips. Leave for 5 min.
- Stir to combine and then leave another 15 min.
- Gradually beat butter into butterscotch mixture.
- Gradually beat in powdered sugar until frosting reaches piping consistency.


As if that wasn't enough, I decided to make a brown sugar drizzle to fill the cakes with.

Brown Sugar Drizzle:

Bring 1 stick of butter, 1 cup of packed brown sugar and 1/4 cup of milk to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and let cool to thicken.

This drizzle is like caramel, but not as smooth. Also, it has a distinct brown sugar flavor. This recipe remains grainy. If you prefer smoother textures, make a traditional caramel sauce.

I used a squirt bottle to fill my cupcakes with the drizzle. These work better than ziplocks for fillings that are a little looser.

I used a simple 2D tip to pipe the butterscotch frosting on top. I wish I could have thought of some cute way to decorate these. Maybe a molasses chew or a butterscotch candy on top.

I made this particular cake for a friend who loves spiced cake and caramel. She loved it. My hubby and I also loved them. Delish!

Well, I finally did it. I ate frosting... butterscotch frosting... all by itself... a significant amount of frosting... maybe two or three cupcakes worth. It was too much to throw away, but not enough to want to save, so I piped it into my mouth. I didn't feel sick after, but I did feel a little guilty - but just a little.

Chocolate French Buttercream

This week I tried another fancy buttercream. I chose to do a chocolate French buttercream to go with a basic chocolate cake recipe from BHG I've been wanting to try. If I haven't mentioned this before, most of the BHG recipes I try are from a special edition magazine they did on cupcakes.

This chocolate cake recipe is terrific. Why am I not surprised? So far, everything I've tried from BHG has been great. I made the mistake, however, of filling my cups too high and the cakes baked up over my cupcake liners like big flat hats; not very nice to look at. While I like bigger cupcakes (it makes it easier to eat just one), I'll be careful not to over-fill with this recipe again. Hmm, maybe I should try making jumbo cupcakes.

The buttercream was the fun part. I got my recipe from CDKitchen. It had a five start rating. I started off by melting my sugar and whipping whole eggs.

This frosting, like the Italian buttercream, is a lot softer and lighter than American buttercream. It has the texture of whipped cream. It's also way less sweet. Before I flavored it with chocolate it was almost not sweet enough.

I was a little panicked when I added the butter at the end of the process. The mixture was all soupy. I thought I might have done something wrong and ruined a whole batch. Luckily, I was in a very experimental kind of mood. I turned up my mixer a little higher and just let it keep beating. Several minutes later I could tell that it was thickening. Whew! That was a close one.

After I got the consistency I wanted I added a few ounces of melted semi-sweet chocolate to the buttercream. I meant to weigh out 3 ounces or so, but I couldn't find my scale so I just eyeballed it. I think I ended up with 1/3 to 1/2 cup. I can't believe it worked. I always wonder how chefs on TV can just eyeball stuff and dump it in (not that I'm anything like a chef on TV). Anyway, it looked right, so I went with it.

When it came time to frost my cupcakes I decided to fill them with the buttercream first. I then stumbled my way through a couple of piping techniques. What I really needed was a big round piping tip. Is it just me or is every store in every city always out of basic big round piping tips? I'll have to order one online I guess. I'm usually able to get away with cutting a hole in the corner of a ziplock bag. Cooked buttercreams are so delicate though and my ziplock technique didn't work as well, but I did the best I could.

Both recipes are keepers. The chocolate cake I'll do over and over. The frosting I'll probably reserve for special occasions or when I'm baking for someone who doesn't like overly sweet and heavy frosting.

Pistachio Blunders

I put two recipes together to make what I thought was going to be a spectacular pistachio blueberry cupcake with a crumb topping instead of frosting. I should have taken more pictures along the way, but got caught up in the many steps of this endeavor.

I started off with a recipe I found in Food Network Magazine for a pistachio tea cake made with finely pulsed pistachios. Instead of topping each cupcake with a cherry like the recipe said, I decided to top them with fresh blueberries and a pistachio crumble that goes on top of a coffee cake. I found this second recipe in a cookbook that Costco was giving out for free one day. I've made the original coffee cake recipe before and it is fantastic.

Here's the the crumb topping recipe:
1/2 cup chopped pistachios
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp flour
3 Tbsp butter, melted

While my hopes were high for this cupcake, I was brought low fast. The original pistachio cake recipe instructed me to bake the cupcakes for 8 minutes and then add the cherries. I'm guessing so they wouldn't sink to the bottom of the cakes. I followed that direction and pulled out the cakes at 8 minutes to add my blueberries and crumb topping. I baked them another 12 minutes just like the recipe said.

The original recipe for the crumb topped coffee cake baked for an hour. My crumb topping was no where near crusty enough. Also, the cupcakes that should have been done were still all gooey. This is what I get for combining two pretty different recipes.

After lamenting for a while, I put the cupcakes back in the oven hoping they would cook through and the crumble would brown a little more. It all worked out in the end.

I was hoping for some authentic pistachio flavor out of these. I mostly tasted coconut and blueberry. The next time I'm craving pistachio flavor I might try a pistachio pudding cupcake recipe.

Italian Buttercream

I finally purchased a stand mixer. Don't be jealous, but I found it on Craig's List; a KitchenAid, brand new, in the box, for $140. Yay for that!

I've been waiting for this lovely machine to try my hand at Italian and French butterceam recipes as you need eggs/egg whites whipping as you slowly drizzle in a hot sugar syrup. I wanted to try Italian first as I have never tasted it. I used Martha Stewart's Grand Marnier Italian Buttercream recipe, but omitted the Grand Marnier - this time around anyway.

Meringue style frosting is a lot more involved than your run of the mill butter and powdered sugar frosting (American buttercream). I had two to three things going at the same time.

Here's my stand mixer working at the egg whites with sugar syrup and my hand mixer getting ready to go at the butter.

This buttercream is wonderful. If you like whipped cream or meringue kind of flavor and texture this is the buttercream for you. My hubby, who likes more of a whipped cream frosting rather than a buttery one loved this. Funny as there is more butter in this recipe than in your basic American buttercream. A friend of mine thought it was a lot like a cream puff filling. Might have to tackle cream puffs next - or better yet, make a cream puff cupcake.

While the frosting recipe was the star of this show, I still wanted to try a new cake. I went with a basic vanilla cake from BHG. This recipe is on my favorites list. It's almost biscuit-like. The texture is nice and dense just like I like. The cake went great with the frosting, but a little too boring for me.

Because I had so much Italian buttercream left over (the recipe makes a huge batch) I tried another cupcake a few days later. I was worried about the frosting and read up online. It will keep 3 to 5 days. I stored it in my fridge in an airtight container, brought it back to room temperature and re-whipped it in my stand mixer. It was like the day I made it.

So the second cake I made was part of a recipe for a lemon meringue pie cupcake (again from BHG). I followed the recipe for the baking of the cakes, but went in my own direction by filling each cupcake with lemon curd and topping with my Italian buttercream.

The original recipe had you just add a small dollop of curd on top of each cake and then top with real meringue.

My one gripe about this cupcake recipe is the consistency. No matter how much I baked them (I nearly over-baked them) the tops were left a little mushy - like they weren't cooked. The flavor, however, was great. The finished cupcake reminded me of a piece of lemon meringue pie with less lemon tang. Maybe a homemade curd instead of a store bought one would have helped. I wish I could have been more creative with decorating the cakes. I wasn't feeling inspired so I kept it simple.

Payday Cupcakes

I love Payday candy bars. When I found a recipe for a Payday cupcake I scrawled it on my list of cupcakes to try. I had planned on following the recipe as closely as possible but ended up deviating in a few places. You can find the original recipe on Your Cup of Cake. It's a basic white cake frosted with caramel frosting, topped with salted peanuts and a caramel drizzle.

This recipe calls for a doctored white cake mix. I went ahead and used the website's directions instead of my own favorite way of doctoring cake mixes. The cake turned out really soft and fluffy and crumbly. I know some people really like a soft and fluffy cake, but I like denser cakes, so next time I'm sticking with my own way.

One thing I did my own way was use my own caramel frosting recipe. Most caramel frosting recipes end up tasting pretty similar and my version calls for milk instead of cream. Here's my version.

Caramel Frosting:

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar

- Bring brown sugar, butter and milk to a boil over medium heat
- Cook and stir 2 minuters
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla
- Cool to lukewarm
- Gradually beat in powdered sugar until frosting reaches spreading consistency

You know how I like really thick frosting? Well, this time I went too far. The frosting looked great and I thought I'd make it even better by adding a little more powdered sugar. I thought I had done a good thing until I tried to pipe it. It was just too thick. It would barely come through the piping tip and then it pushed my tip right through my ziplock bag. Instead of putting the batch back in the bowl and beating a little milk into it, I decided to spread it on then and roll the whole thing in the salted peanuts. I ended up having to really push the peanuts into the frosting to make them stick, but it worked out.

I originally wanted to make the cakes look like the picture on the recipe, but as my frosting was unpipable (yes, that's a made up word) I opted for a simpler decor. I think my version looks more like an actual payday, but they are not as pretty as the original recipe.

I finished each cupcake with a drizzle of store bought caramel ice cream topping (another slight deviation). After tasting one, I added additional salt over the top of all the cupcakes. Even after that I thought they could have probably used more salt.

Terrific flavor! I'm glad I went with the white cake. I had contemplated substituting a peanut butter cake, but I think that would have made it too overwhelmingly peanutty (another made up word).

Birthday Cupcakes

I made myself some birthday cupcakes this past weekend. Maybe making your own birthday cake is not your idea of a good time. It sure is mine. It was my pleasure to make cupcakes for my special day and to share with my friends, being addicted to baking and all.

I made orange-scented chocolate cupcakes. I had intended them to be dark chocolate, but in the end they just tasted like chocolate - and orange of course.

I really wanted to taste the orange so I used both orange extract and fresh orange zest and juice. There are many things I will do differently if I ever make these cupcakes again. One thing I'll cut out is the extract. It gives the cake a bit of an artificial taste. I used the extract in the cake, in the frosting and in the bark adorning each cupcake. It worked well in the bark, pretty well in the cake, but not so well in the frosting. I decided to use the extract in the frosting instead of the zest because I didn't want pieces of zest in my teeth. I think that is a risk worth taking to get that natural orange flavor.

My cake was a dark chocolate cake recipe made with some strong coffee to compliment the chocolate. The last time I made this cake it was darker. The recipe calls for dark chocolate chips which I omitted this time. Maybe they make a bigger difference than I thought. I also added a teaspoon of orange zest and a teaspoon of orange extract. As far as the orange flavor goes, it worked like I wanted it to. It was definitely an orange-scented chocolate cake and not overpowered by orange flavor. I added the orange flavoring right after adding the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar.

For the filling I tried a recipe using sweetened condensed milk. I adapted it from a lime flavored filling. I added a tablespoon of orange zest and 1/3 cup of fresh orange juice to the milk and put it in the fridge to thicken. Well, it never thickened. I tried to pour it down the middle of my cakes anyway and the cake just soaked it up. Not good. I think I've made this mistake before. To fix the problem I quickly made some whipped cream frosting and mixed it with some of the condensed milk mixture. The flavor was great and the consistency was good, so I piped it into the cakes. Unfortunately, the bottom of the cupcakes were a little mushy from the first filling attempt.

The frosting was a basic chocolate frosting recipe using melted chocolate. I used unsweetened chocolate instead of semi-sweet to get a dark chocolate flavor. It didn't really work. It tasted almost the same as it always does. I added a couple of teaspoons of orange extract. This is where the extract tasted the most artificial. Luckily the fresh zest and juice in the filling made the whole cupcake work better and taste more natural.

When I first thought about making an orange-scented chocolate cupcake I thought about garnishing with candied orange zest. I looked up a few recipes and decided to scrap that idea as I didn't want to put so much work into a garnish. I chose to make an orange dark chocolate almond bark instead. It is so easy. Cover a baking sheet with foil, sprinkle whatever nuts or goodies you want running through the candy, melt your chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave (be careful not to burn it), mix in any flavoring, and pour over the nuts. Stick it in your fridge until hard and then break into pieces. It looks great and tastes great too. I love when easy things are so impressive.

Will I ever make this cupcake again? Maybe if someone requests it. I do know what I'll do differently the next time.

Simplicity

Sometimes I feel like the cupcakes I come up with are a bit complicated, especially when I'm layering flavor upon flavor. While the idea of making a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting is boring to me, I do think there's something to keeping things simple. Yesterday I went with a simple almond cupcake.

I used an almond cake recipe from the back of my Hello Cupcake! book. I used a plain white frosting that called for a bit of almond extract and topped the cupcakes with toasted almonds.

The cake portion turned out to be the best cake I've ever baked. It was moist and the texture was absolutely perfect (not too dense, not too light), and it was fluffy to boot. The recipe called for almond paste instead of almond extract. It made a huge difference. The almond flavor was definitely present, but more subtle than when I use almond extract. The natural almond oil in the paste also contributed to making a moister cake. I give all the credit to the recipe.

The frosting ended up complimenting the cake instead of the other way around. I've found that most people like it that way (I'm one of those frosting people that likes a little cake with my frosting). This is the first shortening based frosting I've tried. The beauty of this frosting is that it is not too sweet. It's the perfect frosting to let any cake shine. The frosting is a Better Homes and Gardens recipe.

Creamy White Frosting
1 cup shortening
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 pound powdered sugar
3 to 5 Tbsp milk

- Beat shortening vanilla and almond extract for 30 seconds.
- Gradually add 2 cups sugar.
- Add 2 Tbsp milk.
- Gradually beat in remaining sugar.
- Add enough milk a tablespoon at a time until frosting reaches spreading consistency.

I used a star tip to pipe several flowers over the cakes. I got this idea off of Pinterest. It was so easy; just squeeze out frosting right in the middle of the cake until you get the size flower you want, then stop squeezing. Repeat the process surrounding the middle flower. Each frosted cupcake immediately got a small piling of toasted almonds.

I toasted the almonds at 375 for 4 or 5 minutes. Toasting nuts brings out their nuttiness. I like to do this when nuts are topping cupcakes. I actually prefer not toasting nuts when they are going in a batter or being cooked in a dish.

I'd call this cupcake attempt my most successful thus far.

Toffee Cupcakes

Before I get into this recipe let me just say that I've come to realize something very important; the reality that not all cupcakes will be a success. I think I've been expecting every recipe and trial to end in a perfect cupcake. In actuality, some recipes aren't that great and sometimes my technique is gonna suck and sometimes both are going to be true at the same time.

That said, this toffee cupcakes is both a success and a failure. The frostings and the flavor profile were totally successful (read "successful" in a sing-songy voice). The cake, however, was unsuccessful (read "unsuccessful" in a monotone depressing voice).


Here is how this cupcake came about. My friend, Erika, and I tried to make toffee - a master recipe from our friend Christie. She warned us of the dangers of trying to make toffee on a humid day. We didn't listen. Also, we went about the whole process a bit haphazardly as we were crunched for time and surrounded by toddlers and babies - this was our "mommy" play date. I say that we "tried" to make toffee because although the flavor was fantastic, our toffee didn't set correctly and stayed soft.

Later on it hit me, this soft toffee would be perfect in a cupcake. I looked up recipes online and decided to go with my own intuition. I chose to do a browned butter cake with toffee pieces baked in the batter. I used a brown sugar frosting, coated with a chocolate ganache and topped the cake with more toffee pieces.

The cake recipe I got from Cupcake Project. One thing I'll say for this cake is that burning the butter was fun.

Unfortunately, the cake turned out dry. The flavor was not amazing either. The cake ultimately served as a vehicle for the delicious frosting and topping combo. The only thing I didn't do according to the recipe was use whole milk. I have a feeling the cake would have ended up a little more moist if I had. I would like to try another brown butter cake recipe, but I probably won't try this one again. I also found that the toffee pieces in the cake didn't make any difference for me. My hubby, however, liked the crunch of the nuts from the toffee in the cake portion.

I used two frostings for this cupcake to mirror the flavors in the toffee. The first was a brown sugar frosting I found in an old Taste of Home issue. This may be my all-time favorite frosting. I thought it would work great with this cupcake as butter and brown sugar is cooked together with milk to give it a very toffee-like flavor.

Brown Sugar Frosting:

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 milk
1 tsp vanilla
About 2 cups powdered sugar

- Bring butter, brown sugar and milk to a boil over medium heat.
- Cook and stir 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
- Cool to lukewarm.
- Gradually beat in powdered sugar until frosting reaches the consistency you like (I tend to like a thicker frosting).

The other frosting I used to contribute to the toffee flavor profile was a standard chocolate ganache. I had started my ganache while the brown sugar mixture cooled. By the time I was done piping my first frosting, my ganache was ready to go. It also has to cool down and thicken a bit to be able to coat the cakes appropriately. I dipped each frosted cake in the ganache and immediately topped with some additional chopped toffee.

The finished cakes went right into the fridge to set. It's the ganache that needs the setting. I like it to run a little so that it looks like a melty layer of chocolate over the top, but not so much that it starts to fall off the cake and take the topping with it.

I prefer to eat these particular cakes by peeling off the cupcake liner and cutting the cake portion in half horizontally. That leaves just enough cake so that I'm not eating pure frosting (although that wouldn't be so bad now would it?) and I don't notice so much that the cake is too dry.

I think these cupcakes would taste just as great with toffee that has been correctly made or even store bought toffee. I really liked that the toffee was soft. Soft cake, soft frosting, soft toffee - it really works for me. My husband would have liked more crunch. I'm not gonna go spoiling a batch of toffee just to get a soft version for cupcakes, but if it happens again it will be a happy mistake.

Gluten-free

I'm revisiting the gluten free coffee cake cupcakes I did for a wedding shower a month or so ago. The groom requested the recipe, so here it goes. (Wish I had a picture)

I adapted my recipe from Better Home and Garden's Cinnamon Roll Cupcake with the help of my friend, Cara of Fork and Beans. My first attempt was a bit of a disaster. I only substituted gluten-free all-purpose baking mix for the flour. The cakes were not the right consistency and sunk as soon as I took them out of the oven. The following principles brought me success the second time around.

1. Subtract 2 to 4 tablespoons of the liquid called for in the recipe.
2. Add 25% more baking powder than called for.
3. Bake cupcakes longer - somewhere between 22 and 28 minutes.

Without further ado, here's the recipe that worked for me (the modifications I talked about above have already been accounted for.

For the cake:

2/3 cup unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups gluten free all-purpose baking mix (Must include a starch and a gum. See Cara's website for more info. on mixes. I used Arrowhead Mills.) 
3 1/8 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup milk

1. Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, line twenty-six 2-1/2-inch muffin cups with paper baking cups. In a medium bowl stir together baking mix, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl stir together brown sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add granulated sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, beating on medium speed until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes more or until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and milk to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined (batter may look curdled).

3. Spoon about 1 tablespoon batter into each prepared muffin cup. Sprinkle about 1 scant teaspoon of the brown sugar mixture over batter in cups. Spoon remaining batter evenly over brown sugar mixture in cups. Sprinkle another scant teaspoon of brown sugar mixture over batter in cups. (You will have left over brown sugar mixture)

4. Bake for 22 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Check cupcakes after 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in muffin tins on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from muffin tins. Cool completely on wire racks.

5. Spread or pipe Creamy Butter Frosting onto cupcakes. Makes about 26 (2-1/2 inch) cupcakes.

A quick tip from my cupcake diva neighbor: You can store frosted cupcakes in an airtight container in the freezer. Pull out cakes about an hour before you want to eat them to defrost at room temperature. This is especially nice for gluten-free baked goods as they tend to go stale even faster than regular ones.

For the Creamy Butter Frosting:

1 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla
Dash of salt
8 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 to 3 tbsp additional whipping cream

Allow butter to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Beat in vanilla and salt. Gradually add 4 cups of the powdered sugar, beating until combined. Beat in the 1/4 cup whipping cream. Beat in the rest of the powdered sugar. Beat in additional whipping cream until frosting is light and fluffy and reaches a spreading (or piping) consistency. Makes 4 cups.

The groom also wanted a cake version:
Grease a 9 x 13in. cake pan or baking dish. Prepare batter as above. You can either pour half of the batter and top with half of the brown sugar mixture and then repeat, or pour in all of the batter at once and then top with all of the brown sugar mixture. The cake will need to bake longer - I'm guessing 35 to 45 minutes, maybe even longer. Check cake after 30 minutes. I also suggest making a thinner version of the frosting by adding less powdered sugar so that you can drizzle it over the top of the cake instead of piping it. 

Chocolate mint and a lesson in options

Yesterday's adventure was a chocolate mint cupcake. I started with a basic chocolate cupcake, filled it with an Andes creme de menthe ganache, piped a cream cheese peppermint frosting on top, drizzled it with regular chocolate ganache, and topped it with Andes creme de menthe baking chips.

For the cake I used a chocolate cake mix. There are a few ways you can doctor cake mixes to get a better cake. My favorite way is to substitute milk for the water (preferably, whole milk), add an extra egg, and substitute melted butter for the oil - oh yeah, and double the amount of butter. :)

I made a ganache for filling my cake using Andes creme de menthe baking chips instead of chocolate chips/baker's chocolate. In retrospect, I could have just as easily made a regular chocolate ganache and added some peppermint extract.

Here's my ganache recipe:
12 oz. chocolate (I used Andes creme de menthe for this recipe)
1 cup whipping cream
- Heat whipping cream just to a boil.
- Add chocolate. Don not stir. Leave 5 minutes.
- Stir until smooth and let rest another 15 minutes, at least. I recommend letting it sit longer, until it reaches a clearly thickened consistency - almost like frosting. It fills cupcakes best this way. You can even use it as frosting if you want. I have a little leftover Andes ganache I just might take a spoon to.

One more thing about ganache, if you are only using it for filling and/or drizzling, I would only make half a batch.

There are also different methods for filling your cupcakes. I like to take the back of a wooden spoon, stick it down the center and swirl it around to make a cone-shaped hole. Then I pipe in my filling using a ziplock freezer bag with the edge snipped off.

I made the mistake of trying to fill my cakes while my ganache was too loose. My kitchen was too hot and it didn't thicken in the time I allotted. The ganache poured into the cake and slowly got absorbed. After I had frosted almost half the cakes I decided to refill the rest of the cakes with regular chocolate ganache that I had leftover from another project. Ultimately, after trying the different cakes, I found that the extra filling was unnecessary. It didn't hurt anything, but the cakes were just as good without it.

The mint frosting used cream cheese as its base. I got the recipe from Your Cup of Cake. The writer of this site also does an Andes mint cupcake and uses a different version of doctored cake mix. Feel free to try both versions. After completing this project I got the feeling that you can't really go wrong with any version. Chocolate and mint just really works. Hurray for that!

I finished off my cakes with a drizzle of semi-sweet chocolate ganache (I was worried about going overboard with the peppermint) and topped them off with some of the Andes baking pieces. The pieces weren't as lovely as the Andes regular chocolate mints. They rub up against each other in the bag and get kind of akin to a fuzzy sweater. That probably sounds worse than it actually is.

I ran out of frosting before all of the cakes were done and improvised by creating a version that people who aren't big into frosting might like better. I dipped the filled cupcakes in the Andes ganache, put them in the fridge for a few minutes to set, drizzled regular chocolate ganache over them, and topped them with Andes creme de menthe pieces.

One of the things I love about cupcakes (there is so much to love) is that there isn't just one right way to do things. Whatever kind of cake you want to make, know that there are many options and all kinds of different ways of doing it. Think of the flavor profile you want to end up with and get creative.

By the way, these cupcakes are addictive. The peppermint makes them refreshing and whenever something is refreshing you can consume more of it for some reason. Don't ask me why.

My take on Goober

I got an idea last week that I just couldn't shake - Goober cupcakes. I grew up eating Goober and thought this cake would carry a bit of nostalgia for me and those of my generation. I wasn't exactly sure how the cake would play out so I tried a few different things before landing on the version that worked for me.

I've tried a peanut butter and jelly cupcake or two from cupcake bakeries that didn't really do it for me. For my version, I knew I wanted to start with a peanut butter cupcake recipe I got from Epicurious a while back (Note: if you ever make these, omit 1/4 cup of the flour). This makes a moist and kind of dense cake. Not everyone likes dense cakes. If you are more of a light and fluffy kinda person you'll want to find a different recipe. I also knew that I wanted to fill each cupcake with actual Goober.

I used a basic peanut butter frosting recipe, but may go with a cream cheese peanut butter frosting next time. I wanted it to be creamier than it turned out.

The experimentation started at the frosting of the cakes. I wasn't sure what I was looking for with the taste or the aesthetic. I started off trying to swirl the peanut butter frosting with plane ol' grape jelly. I also tried piping the peanut butter frosting and then drizzling the grape jelly over it. Both versions looked ugly, so I whipped up a grape jelly frosting of my own making. I would only recommend this frosting for a peanut butter and jelly flavored cupcake. I don't think it is so good on its own.

Grape Jelly Frosting:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup grape jelly
About 2 cups powdered sugar

The grape jelly frosting looked better on the cakes and tasted better with the flavors already present in the cake and filling too. It cut the peanut butter flavor which is overpowering without the grape jelly frosting. Even with the addition of this frosting the whole cupcake is still pretty "peanut buttery," but delicious. After trying a few different ways of putting both frostings on the cakes I settled on piping some of the grape jelly frosting on first and then topping with a piped layer of peanut butter frosting. The cakes looked beautiful - maybe a little too beautiful for Goober cupcakes. Although I didn't feel like the cakes had the look of a playful and nostalgic Goober cupcake, the flavor was there and the look was to my liking.

Needless to say, I went through a lot of piping bags this time around.