cupcake shortage?

No, not really. I just haven't done anything interesting lately.

Okay, that's not entirely true. But I haven't photographed ANYTHING recently. So I'll be posting recipes soon, without any pictures.

Also, my most current project: a gingerbread house kit!

I'm doing it as a gift, and I'm insanely excited about it. I'm planning on making the house pieces, royal icing 'glue', gumdrops, marshmallow snowflakes and trees, and candy buttons, all from scratch! I'm also going to include some store bought candy as well. I plan on posting pictures of everything once I get it all together!

Hello Kitty

I did this birthday cake back in August, for J, a 15 year old.

She absolutely loved it. I was really happy with the way it came out, being that it was the first time I had ever covered a cake with fondant. To paint the face, I just mixed gel food color with a little vodka, and painted it right on.

Inside, its a chocolate coconut milk cake, vanilla buttercream frosting, and white chocolate ganache.

Cake recipe from here.

Fondant recipe from here.

Let's Experiment

My best friend, Samantha, was over a few weekends ago. While we were hanging out around the house, she said 'I wanna make cupcakes!'. So, we did.

Neither of us could decide on a flavor, so when Sam suggested watermelon, we went for it. I know, watermelon cupcakes sound strange. And the first batch we made was absolutely horrible. I looked for a recipe with good reviews, printed one out, and we got started. As we were mixing the batter, I noticed it didn't call for any eggs. I thought it was weird, but we put them in the oven anyway.

Fast forward 18 minutes, and we had sunken, burned on the bottom, raw in the middle, bright pink cupcakes. No bueno.

The second recipe we used was my go-to white cake. But instead of milk, we substituted watermelon juice. They were perfect! With a subtle hint of watermelon flavor, and a gorgeous pink color, these cupcakes were some of my favorites.

We paired them with a honey lime cream cheese frosting. Yum!

Watermelon Cupcakes

1/2 cup butter

1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup watermelon juice (puree watermelon in blender and strain through a sieve)

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375*.

Cream butter and sugar. Sift dry ingredients together into a bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, to the butter and sugar mixture. Alternate dry ingredients and watermelon juice and mix to combine. Add extracts and mix for 15 seconds on medium speed.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

**Be careful not to overfill the pan. Each cupcake liner should be half full. Any more, and they expand to much over the pan and are hard to remove and decorate.

Honey Lime Buttercream

1/2 cup butter

1 tbsp lime zest

2 tbsp honey (I used local orange blossom honey)

3 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter with lime zest and honey until light and fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar in 1/2 cup batches until you reach desired consistency and sweetness. I used ~3 cups.

Lemon Sponge

Out of all the cakes I've ever made, I have never made a sponge cake. I came across a super simple recipe that I thought would be great to try.

Honestly, I was really disappointed with how the cakes came out. They weren't light and fluffy, at all. They were really dense and they took longer to bake than I expected. The tops were extremely hard, and trying to fill them was a disaster.

I'm not going to share the cake recipe, since it was awful, but here is the filling and the frosting.

Raspberry Filling

1 pint fresh raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp water

juice from one lemon

In a small saucepan over low heat, cook raspberries and sugar, stirring frequently, until you reach a jam-like consistency. Add in lemon juice and cornstarch mixture, and continue to cook until thickened (this took about 5 minutes for me).

Pour mixture through a sieve and refrigerate until ready to use.

*My mixture was pretty liquid, which I prefer. I like the way it soaks into the cake.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8oz. pkg cream cheese, at room temp

1/2 cup butter, at room temp

3 cups powdered sugar (more if you like a sweeter or thicker frosting)

zest from 1 lemon

Cream together cream cheese, butter, and lemon zest. Beat in powdered sugar in 1/2 cup batches until you reach the consistency and sweetness you're looking for.

*I loved this frosting, and I really don't even like lemon flavored stuff!

On a happier note, isn't this cupcake wrapper freakin' cute?! I made a whole bunch of them, so you'll be seeing them in upcoming posts!

More Cupcakes!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been busy with life.

I have a few good ones coming up soon though, including pistachio and watermelon! :)

Labor Day Weekend

This year I spent Labor Day with my family and our neighbors. We all hung out together, had some food, and of course, cupcakes. My neighbors are awesome cooks, so they were in charge of food, and I was in charge of dessert.

I made chocolate chip cupcakes with brown sugar frosting. The cupcakes actually tasted more like muffins. I think they needed a bit more sugar. The frosting, however, was super sweet. Too sweet for me, but the little kids LOVED it. They kept licking it off their cupcakes and asking for more while I was frosting the rest.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes (from HERE)

24 tablespoons unsalted butter (3 sticks), at room temperature

1 and 1/2 cups light brown sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 and 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used mini size)

Line your cupcake pans with the liners of your choice. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of your standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs, one at a time, and mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

With the mixer still on low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter/brown sugar, alternating with the milk in thirds, beginning with and ending with the flour mixture.

Add the vanilla to the cupcake batter and mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips to the mixture and gently stir them in with a spatula.

Divide the batter evenly among your cupcake pans and bake until a tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes total, rotating and switching the pans halfway during the baking time.

Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let cool completely.

Brown Sugar Frosting

24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup light brown sugar

3 and 1/2 cups confectioners’ (powdered) sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons milk

2 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low, and slowly add the confectioners’ sugar until completely combined. Add the flour and salt. Add the milk and vanilla extract, mixing until well combined and smooth.

Giraffe Print Birthday Cake

First off, I know. This is a cake, not cupcakes. However, my best friend, Samantha, turned 24 on August 4th. She LOVES giraffes, and wanted a cake for her birthday. I had never made a print cake before, so I was a little worried about how it was going to turn out. I used chocolate fondant to make the big pieces, and stuck them onto the already frosted cake. It worked really well, and I'll probably use that technique again.

I rolled the fondant out about 1/4 inch thick, and then just freehand cut out a bunch of pieces. I purposely made more than I would need so i could pick and choose the ones that looked the best.

The cake was chocolate inside with coconut buttercream. I wasn't 100% happy with the flavor of the frosting, so it's still a work in progress. The cake was tasty, but it didn't have as strong of a chocolate flavor as I would have liked.

Chocolate Cake (edited from HERE)

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup hot coffee

1. Heat oven to 350*. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
2. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and coffee. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated, scraping dow
4. n the sides of the bowl as needed. Don't over-mix the batter.
5. Bake 30-35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in pans, then turn on to wire racks to cool completely.

I'm not going to include the frosting recipe since I wasn't happy with it. Hopefully the next time I make it, it will be better!

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