A Taste of Spring

Hi...it's me! Yes, it's been quite a long time since my last post. Life has gotten endlessly busy, especially with all of this wedding planning to do! But I still had time this weekend to create some fabulous spring cupcakes to display these great cupcake toppers from Etsy's Goose Grease. Love them!

If you're looking for a great way to welcome in spring (if it ever actually arrives!)...make these. You will not be sorry. Especially if you have a huge sweet tooth...these will most definitely hit the spot!

Cherry Vanilla Cupcakes
Adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop
22-24 regular cupcakes
350 degree oven
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
A handful of chopped maraschino cherries
1-2 tablespoons of liquid from the maraschino cherries jar

Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add to mixer bowl. Add the milk, extracts, chopped cherries and maraschino cherry liquid (add it until you get the desired taste, depending on how much cherry flavor you want). Mix to combine.
Scoop into cupcake papers about half to two-thirds full (depending on whether you want flat or domed cupcakes).
Bake for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
Note: These cupcakes tend to rise quite a bit and will overflow if you put too much batter in the cupcake paper. Keep it under two-thirds full. They also tend to pull away from the papers as they cool. It should be minimal if the cupcakes were baked enough and shouldn’t be an issue.

Cherry Frosting*
Adapted from Bon Apetit
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons almond extract
2-3 teaspoonds liquid from the maraschino cherry jar (add to taste)

Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in another medium bowl until smooth. Beat in the liquids. Spread frosting over cupcakes.

*Please note: you will probably need to double the quantity of frosting if making the full batch of cupcakes per the recipe above. I did not make the full batch of cupcakes and therefore did not need to make additional frosting.

Channeling the Girl Scouts

I absolutely love the Girl Scouts' Thin Mint cookies...the mint flavor is subtle and perfectly combines with the chocolate. With that flavor profile in mind, I scoured the 'net for the perfect mint chocolate cupcake recipe. As this was (yet again!) a last minute project, I had to also find a recipe that did not call for anything wacky that isn't normally in my kitchen (buttermilk, heavy cream, sour cream, etc...we usually just have skim milk and soy milk on hand).

I came across The Repressed Pastry Chef's recipe for Mint Chocolate Cupcakes. I truly questioned the recipe. No eggs? White vinegar? No dairy to speak of?! Hmm. Since I'd made her basic buttercream recipe before and it was absolute perfection, I decided to give this recipe a try.

OH MY GOODNESS. These were amazing! I want to eat them every day. For breakfast. So light and fluffy. Deep dark chocolate color. The mint in the cupcake gave just the lightest minty hint alongside the chocolate. A batter that was so perfectly runny that I could fill the muffin tins with ease. I also used her buttercream frosting recipe (I made a half batch) and added the peppermint extract into the frosting teaspoon by teaspoon to get just the right minty taste.

My only, only kerfluffle when making these cupcakes was that the bowl of batter seemed never ending! After filling my standard-size 12-cup muffin tin, and then my 24-cup mini-muffin tin, I fill two 4-inch mini cake pans, and still had leftover batter! By that point, I just called it quits and (sadly) chucked the rest. So I would definitely made a half or third batch the next time. But hey, what's wrong with a few too many to-die-for cupcakes?!

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes
from The Repressed Pastry Chef

3 cups flour
2/3 cups Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder (or brand of choice)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups cold water
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon (pepper)mint extract
2 tablespoons white vinegar

Preheat oven to 350F
Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, sugar and salt together.
In a separate bowl whisk together the water, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, mint extract and vinegar.
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/3 of the dry ingredients with 1/2 of the wet ingredients. After the mixture is thoroughly combined, add half of the remaining dry ingredients with the remaining wet ingredients. Combine thoroughly. Lastly add in the remaining dry ingredients. Once the mixture is thoroughly combined, continue to mix for another 2-3 minutes.
Pour into cupcake liners or for a full cake pour into a 9x13 cake pan prepared with baking spray. Tap the pan against the counter to break any air bubbles that exist.
Bake for 20 minutes (cupcakes) or 25-30 minutes (cake) or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Buttercream Frosting
adapted from The Repressed Pastry Chef

(1/2 recipe)
1/2 stick salted butter - room temperature
1/2 stick unsalted butter - room temperature
(or just use 1 stick of unsalted butter if that's what you have on hand)
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 tablespoon peppermint extract (start with less, add to taste)
1 pound confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar, 10x)
2-3 tablespoons very cold milk
green food coloring (optional)

Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer. Add the peppermint extract and combine well. Begin adding in the sugar and mixing thoroughly after each addition. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, begin adding the very cold milk... one tablespoon at a time, combining very well after each addition (mixer on medium-high to high speed) until you reach the desired consistency.

Back & Bakin'

I was sad to take such a long hiatus from baking and blogging...this seems to be a pattern lately that I need to break! Life has been crazy and hectic and (sadly) expensive, so baking has definitely been on the backburner as I've tried to manage everything else around me. AND to add another stumbling block to the mix, Steve was having camera problems and lost the snapshots of the baking that I actually have been able to do recently.

Thankfully, all was not lost and he was able to recover the files, so now I can happily return to blogging with pictures in hand (because, really, what's a baking blog with no drool-worthy pictures?!).

So back to the blogging task at hand. A few weeks ago our neighbors Rob and Jill had their housewarming party (shout out to Rob if you actually read this as you claim! :) ) and in every circumstance I convince myself that I need to bring baked goods, whether or not others really want 'em. Any excuse to bake and know that it's going to leave my house so I'm not tempted to gorge myself is an opportunity not to be passed up.

Since it's harder to travel with cupcakes, I never get to make them. But with Rob and Jill's place right downstairs, cupcakes it was. Baking Bites is always my go-to for recipes, I can sit for hours going through the archives and weighing my options. So I was excited when I hit upon these Vanilla Brown Butter Cupcakes - very simple to throw together, the brown butter was a little bit of a twist on something ordinary. Done and done. I wanted a frosting that was more suitable for piping on than spreading, so I used this recipe for a basic buttercream on The Repressed Pastry Chef, dividing the recipe in half, using all unsalted butter and adding in a vanilla bean.

The cupcakes baked up well, and I said, very easy to throw together. Buttercream is pretty basic and fool proof as well (not to mention delicious). I decorated all of the cupcakes and they looked beautiful. I knew the frosting tasted great, so the cupcakes were really the wildcard. We took them down to the party...and there they sat, dressed to kill but with not a lot of takers. Steve and I shared one (because one simply must taste test) and they were...ok. Not great, a little heavy, the brown butter was a taste that you couldn't quite put your foot on but weren't quite sure if you wanted to. But how did others know they had a strange and mysterious taste? Everyone at the party must have had stellar baking e.s.p. and just knew these wouldn't be delightly simple vanilla cupcakes

All-in-all I learned that even for cupcakes beauty may only be skin deep, but I simply must do more research in the field to confirm this ;)

Scraping the Bean

The lure of baking products is always high for me, from intricate cake pans to gadgets and extracts. I generally manage to control my spending and buy just a few things at a time. This weekend I picked up a "vial" of bourbon vanilla beans and decided to make some vanilla bean cupcakes, topped off with cherry blossoms I made out of gum paste.

I've admired Cake Journal's cupcakes covered with poured fondant, and since she gives such a great tutorial on the process, I decided to give it a try. I used Chockylit's basic vanilla cupcake recipe, with the addition of my vanilla bean and a little extra vanilla extract to give them a little more vanilla-y oomph, and used the following pour fondant recipe (although there are a lot of variations out there):

Pour Fondant
1/4 c water
1/8 c light corn syrup
2 1/2 c powdered sugar
Combine the water and corn syrup in a sauce pan and heat over medium/medium high heat until it comes to a boil. Whisk in powdered sugar, cup by cup, until mixture is smooth. Add food coloring if desired.

If making a large batch of cupcakes I would double or triple the recipe (I made a small batch because I only baked up a dozen cupcakes).


These were an amazing sugary treat for a Sunday afternoon, and I would definitely give this a try again. I think the trick to the fondant is getting the right temperature and consistency. Amazingly, one kitchen gadget I haven't purchased (but is next on the list) is a candy thermometer, which will help me pinpoint correct temperature. At the right temperature I think it will be easier to cover the cupcakes more evenly.

Oh, if only I weren't on a diet...

Check out my review of bourbon vanilla beans on Sazze.com!

Cupcakes for Kookybites!

Today is Steve's birthday, so what better way to celebrate than with cupcakes?! I love drooling over the great cupcakes I see online, but I rarely have the opportunity to make them - cupcakes + the CTA bus is an unfortunate combination. What's the point of making them so pretty if they're going to get shmooshed in transit? Since Steve has the luxury (in my eyes) of driving to work every day, it was easy to send him off to work with two dozen cupcakes.

I love Chockylit's blog...is is the ultimate cupcake droolfest. So, I decided to make her peanutbutter filled chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache. Simple, right? Of course - sort of...

I thought cutting the cupcakes open and filling them would be difficult, but that was a snap. They were chilled from the fridge, so it was easy to carve out the center...

...and fill with the (to die for) peanutbutter filling...


However, the chocolate ganache was a different story. After making it I thought it was a little too soft (silly me), so I popped it into the fridge for a bit. Needless to say, it completely hardened up and could not, would not, pipe onto the cupcakes. I tried to whip it up a bit and get some air into it, and added a little milk to the equation, but the results were still sub-par in my opinion. They just didn't look pretty enough...

However, taste completely wins out over beauty this time, because these cupcakes were absolutely phenomenal.

Thankfully this isn't my only opportunity to celebrate Steve's birthday via baking. I'm making two cakes over the next two weeks - one at his request for us to have at home and one to take to a party next weekend. In the meantime, I need to brush up on my cupcake skills...