Super Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

This is actually from just before Pastry Boot Camp, but they came out pretty cute and the recipe is basically fool-proof, so here you go. I was already getting psyched for the class and I was given free reign on what I could make, all I was told was "Daniel LOVES Superman!" Plus kids love blue cupcakes, right? So in went some food coloring to touch up the purple from the blueberries.



The cupcake recipe is based on a Friendship Bread recipe, but without the hassle of nurturing a starter or dealing with the extras. Turns out you don't even need the aging and you can whip it up with spectacular results whenever you like. I also made strawberry cake into cake balls to put on top of the cupcakes, gave them little fruit roll up capes and piped little white chocolate superman logos for the fronts. The kids loved them, which means I couldn't be happier. Try the recipe, it's so flexible and so utterly easy, you can't help but succeed.


No-Starter Friendship Bread
I found this recipe online, but I can't recall where. If this is yours please let me know, I'll be happy to give you credit.

STARTER:
3/4 cup Sugar
3/4 cup Milk
3/4 cup Flour

Mix starter ingredients together and set aside.

BREAD:
1 cup Oil
1/2 cup Milk
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
2 cup Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 large Box Lemon Pudding (or 1.5 of the small boxes)
1 cup blueberries

- Pre-heat oven to 325F.
- In a small pot, cook down the blueberries until they pop and mush into a paste. Let cool.
- Mix oil, milk, eggs and vanilla until thoroughly blended. Add to starter mix.
- In a separate bowl, mix remaining ingredients well then add to liquid ingredients and mix thoroughly.
- Add in the blueberry paste and food color if you want the blue shade, or leave alone if you want the natural purple.
- Scoop into lined cupcake pans, filling 3/4 full and bake on middle rack for 20 min or until tested done.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I don't really have any fun stories to tell you today, and it's well after midnight, but I wanted to make sure and wish you all a very happy Cinco de Mayo! In honor of the occasion, and for a potluck at work, I made three dozen Margarita cupcakes. I looked around and found a bunch of recipes, but...ahem...they didn't use enough tequila to really make the cupcake taste "festive". The closest recipe I found was for Mint Julep cupcakes (which sound awesome as well, especially for the derby folks) and this time there was a full cup of booze involved. Now that's more like it! I made a margarita and lime spiked cream cheese frosting to match, topped them with sugar coated lime slices and called it a night. I won't know till tomorrow how they came out, but they sure smelled sweet and boozy, which will make work pretty interesting come tomorrow.



Margarita Cupcakes
adapted from Hostess Blog
Makes about 30

Cupcakes
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lime oil
4 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 cup 1800 Margarita Mix

- Preheat the oven to 350º F, and grease or line 30 cupcake cups.
- Combine salt, baking powder, and flour in a bowl.
- Combine the milk and margarita mix in a container with a spout (the mixture will curdle, but that's okay).
- Cream butter and sugar in the mixer and then add eggs one at a time until incorporated. Add lime oil and mix to incorporate.
- Gradually beat in the flour mixture and the liquid mixture, alternating them, making sure to start and end with the flour mix. Beat as little as possible, just until the batter comes together.
- Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake cups.
- Bake about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cool.

Frosting
2 packages cream cheese
1 stick butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons 1800 Margarita Mix
1/2 tsp lime oil

Whip everything together, adding a drop of green and yellow food coloring for affect. Pipe onto the cooled cupcakes and top with slices of sugar coated lime slices or if you prefer, rim with coarse salt. Make a toast and enjoy :D

Totoro Birthday Cupcakes

Before I get into the cupcake fun, I have to share something. A few weeks ago I received an email from POM asking me if I'd be interested in giving their pomegranate juice a try. Why not? I like pomegranates, and while I'm not a huge fan of "from concentrate" type juice, I shouldn't count it out just yet, so when I got a box of juice in the mail, I popped open a bottle and set about searching for recipes. I guess it tasted okay, but I was sure that it would be even better if properly treated, besides, it's good for you, so I had to give it another chance. I found a recipe from Alton Brown for pomegranate molasses, so I dumped 4 bottles of juice, some lemon juice and sugar into a pot and got to simmerin'. Now I don't know if I messed something up or if that's what the recipe was supposed to turn into, but the thick syrup just didn't smell or taste right. The jar is still in the fridge waiting for me to either try doing something with it or waiting to be tossed.



I wasn't ready to throw in the towel and I still had 2 more bottles in the fridge, so when my sister asked me to make cupcakes for my nephew's birthday I decided to give the kids something that seemed like a chocolate cupcake on the outside, but was secretly a little healthy for them. Not much, mind you, it's still cake, but a little helps, right? I found a great recipe on Whipped a while ago and decided to give it a try. I won't retype the recipe here because I made it exactly as is, not changing a thing. I was a bit tentative about messing with something when the happiness of two dozen kids was at stake. I did switch out the frosting for the one from the same blog, but a different post and I gotta tell you, the cupcakes were good, but the frosting was super easy, gorgeously glossy and very chocolaty with a very pleasing tang from the sour cream. While I was a bit apprehensive about the corn syrup, I'm glad I gave it a try. I just might have found my favorite chocolate frosting outside of straight up ganache, at least for now.

I also had another recipe hanging out on my "to bake" list for a vanilla almond cupcakes from Love and Oil and the flavor combination seemed just too good to pass up. Besides, I had everything it called for in my pantry, which was definitely a bonus, but once again, I changed the frosting. I liked the idea of a berry frosting to match the coconut and almond, so I just tossed a few blocks of cream cheese, a stick of butter and a mess of strawberry jam I had made earlier into the mixer and hit the go button. It came out a bit too tart and thin, so I mixed in just enough powdered sugar to adjust the flavor and texture. Oh, and a few drops of food coloring to make the icky fleshy tone go away. One of these days I'm going to have to actually calculate an exact recipe for my cream cheese frosting, but at this point, this is the one thing I make where I don't even bother to measure, and that feels just reckless enough for me to keep doing it by taste.



Oh, and to add onto the list of other people's recipes that I referred to last night was this wonderful tutorial from Cake Journal for Marshmallow Fondant. It was easy to make, and while not exactly gourmet, it tasted miles better than the store bought variety and was very easy to work with. It made the perfect medium to make several dozen of little Totoro's, which my nephew loves. Have you seen the movie My Neighbor Totoro? It's very cute, it's no wonder my nephew and his friends went nuts over it.



All in all, I'd say the day was a success and while I'm still on a search of the next great chocolate cupcake recipe, the almond vanilla one was a drop dead gorgeous success and it's going into the keeper file, so go ahead. Head over to Love and Oil and whip up a batch for your friends. You won't be sorry.

On Craziness, Laziness, Comfort, and Blueberries

The last week or two have been absolutely crazy. I mean chock full of running around, but it wasn't all work. Quite a bit of it was a lot of fun, but now I'm tired and sore and the todo list has only been growing in my absence. Sometimes it's nice to just relax for a bit before taking a deep sigh and getting started on the chores and today, my moment was sponsored by my mother. There was an old joke I read a long long time ago on the differences between an average mother and a Jewish mother and one of the differences were the concept of tea time. An average mother, the joke said, would invite her daughter over for tea and serve tea and maybe some cookies. A Jewish mother on the other hand would invite her daughter over for tea and serve cookies, then pull out some beet soup, a bit of potato salad, a piece of roasted chicken, some cheese blintzes, a slice of cake, well you get the picture. While I'd like to say that this is a stereotype, I can't. I did learn to bring Tupperware with me when I visit though and this weekend part of the loot was my mom's split pea soup. I had a lot to do today, but it was nice to just heat up a bowl and take a quick 20 minute zen moment with the comfort of home.



After work and my zen moment I made a few sewing alterations, a quick trip to grandma's and in the middle of two loads of laundry I decided to make some blueberry cupcakes with the last of the blueberries I picked at Michigan over the summer. Sort of a spring cleaning effort. A while back I found this recipe and dog eared it for future use, but somehow never got back to it. But I had everything on hand and 40 minutes before I could get my clothes from the dryer, and instead of sitting still I started pulling out the ingredients. Believe me, you're going to want to make these too, they were fantastic and greatly received.



Blueberry Cupcakes
adapted from Seattle Pi
Makes about 18 cupcakes

2 Cups + 2 tablespoons sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 1/2 cups of Sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup of whole milk
1/2 cup of blueberry puree
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F and line cupcake pan with paper liners

Blueberry Puree:
- Bring one pound of blueberries (fresh or frozen) to a boil in a sauce pan. I used the berries I picked last summer and froze, and I must say organic berries will give you a much richer flavor, just look at that color! Everything was stained blue.
- Reduce heat to low and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated (about 1/2 hour) and the mixture is thick, making sure to stir often.
- Cool the blueberries slightly and place in a food processor. Mix until smooth. For an
extra smooth puree pass mixture through a fine sieve before using, but I didn't really bother and it was fine.
- Makes about 1 1/4 cups.



Cupcake:
- Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add one egg at a time, beating until incorporated after each one.
- Sift dry ingredients into a separate bowl.
- Mix milk with 1/2 cup of blueberry puree and vanilla.
- Add wet and dry ingredients alternately to butter/sugar mixture starting and ending with the dry ingredients in three additions.
- Mix until just incorporated after each addition. Do not overbeat batter.
- The batter will puff up when baking, but then settle again once it cools, so you want to make sure that you fill each liner at least 3/4 full of batter. If you want an extra punch of flavor you can mix in a little of the blueberry puree into each cupcake and swirl slightly with a wooden skewer or small spoon. Or you can be lazy like me and skip this step. It will be fantastic without it.



- Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until cake springs back to the touch.
- Cool for 10-15 minutes in the pan then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.
- Whip up a batch of Swiss Meringue Buttercream using your favorite recipe or use mine and whip in the remainder of the blueberry puree. Frost the cupcakes and top fresh blueberry...or not. They're good on the first day, but they're even better on the 2nd, so don't hesitate to make them ahead of time. Don't forget to share.

When Ingredients Ask for Recipes

Have you ever wondered down the aisle at your nearest grocery store of choice and noticed an item on the shelf you had to have? I'm not talking about junk food, though an impulse buy of Con Queso (or as my friends call it "cheesy crack") is not unheard of I'm talking about something that can't be consumed straight from the box in front of the TV. On my last trip, a small tub of ricotta called to me. I haven't actually used ricotta in a while and I didn't really have any plans on making lasagna, but I just had to have it, I'd figure out why later.

The answer came two days later when I ran across this recipe and it clicked. Cheese and Chocolate, and not a cheesecake, worthy of not just a fling, but a "relationship". I knew I had to try it. I happened to have everything on hand and it flew together really fast. Now I just need to figure out who to share it with.



Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Ricotta, Rum, and Orange Zest
Adapted from Gourmet via Orangette

Ricotta mixture:
1 cup fresh whole-milk ricotta
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 Tbs dark rum
1 tsp finely grated clementine zest
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
A pinch of salt

Cupcake batter:
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbs distilled white vinegar (surprising, but it works)
1 Tbs pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp orange-flower water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two 12-well muffin tins with 18 paper liners. You may not need them all, you may need more. I got 19 cupcakes, but the original said 12, so use your own judgment.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all ricotta mixture ingredients. Place the mixture in the refrigerator to chill.

Place a good-sized sieve over a large bowl, and put the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and sugar into the sieve. Shake the sieve to filter the dry ingredients through into the bowl. Whisk to combine them thoroughly.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, egg, vinegar, vanilla, and orange-flower water; then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the large bowl, stirring to just combine. Do not overmix.

Spoon a generous heaping tablespoon of the chocolate batter into each muffin cup. Top the chocolate batter with a rounded tablespoon of the ricotta mixture, followed by another rounded tablespoon of the chocolate batter. The instructions say that there will be enough for 12 cupcakes and too much ricotta, but I ended up with 19 cupcakes and just barely enough ricotta. Swirl each cupcake with a toothpick to marble the batter.

Bake the cupcakes in the middle of the oven until a toothpick or thin knife inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Cool them in the pan on a rack; then gently unmold and serve. Or pick the cupcakes out while they're still piping hot like I did and eat with a hot cup of tea. Or if you like your fingers, you can wait till they're cool.

Monkeying Around

I had an order this past weekend for a little boy's 1st birthday with a monkey theme. I love Curious George and I loved the color scheme that they had (yellow/brown/blue), so these were very fun to make. They wanted a bunch of cupcakes and a little "smush" cake for the birthday boy and the flavors would of course be chocolate/banana.


I happened to be shopping at TJMaxx a few days previous and I found several adorable milk bottles filled with colorful candy bananas which, along with some sprinkles, worked perfectly for half the cupcakes.


I was also browsing the web looking for inspiration for monkey decorations when I stumbled upon this fabulous blog that not only has the cutest designs ever, but it has the most fool-proof step-by-step instructions on how to make all sorts of different toppers: The Frosted Cake 'n Cookie. While I didn't have any fondant lying around, I figured sugar paste would work just as well.


Half the cupcakes were banana with a chocolate buttercream and the other half were chocolate banana with a banana buttercream. I think I'm going to work more on the banana cake before I share the recipe, but the chocolate banana recipe I found at Joy of Baking was absolutely perfect! The cake was a combination of both, so a layer of banana, a layer of chocolate with banana buttercream inside and vanilla buttercream on the outside since I wanted the pale baby colors to show.


I didn't bring my camera when I delivered the goodies, which is too bad because my friend fromTruly Smitten was doing the decorations and everything looked gorgeous! Look at these cute cupcake toppers she created:


And she was nice enough to send me these pictures to share with you, including a picture of the one she saved for herself and took home for later :D

Happy Purim!

This doesn't happen often, but I was inspired. Usually, on this holiday I am content with store bought Hamentaschen or, if I'm really lucky, my mom will make hers, but when I saw this post I knew I couldn't just sit idly by and let someone else have all the fun, so I "let it slip" to a friend that the holiday comes with cookies and she absolutely insisted that I make her some. Now that I was "cornered" into a commitment I was all set to roll up my sleeves and start baking. Laundry will just have to wait until a different day. I do still have clean clothes so it's not really urgent any ways.

First step was making the cookies themselves. The recipe was easy and straight forward and still I messed it up. I was trying to do things fast and ended up adding more butter than required. Quite a bit more. The cookies turned out delicious :) There was only one casualty where the folds came apart, but I dubbed that one the test cookie and moved on. The picture above is of the cookies while still in the oven. They looked so good I couldn't help sticking my camera in there.

Next up were the cupcakes. The recipe said that it makes 24, which I just don't know how to do, so I doubled it and ended up with a gorgeous, smooth and fragrant batter. This was the first time ever I tried a recipe like this and while somewhat lengthy, it was a great experiment and I'll definitely be making this again. The cupcakes came out light, spongy and moist. I filled them with some more apricot jam and brushed the tops as well to keep in the moisture and to hold the cookies. These were so much fun to make and came out looking fabulous. I can't wait to share these tomorrow and see what people say. Thank you Stef for a great idea and a wonderful recipe.

Catching Up

My computer has recently decided that it doesn't feel like recognizing any of the USB drives other than my mouse and even though I've been baking at least three times a week for the last two weeks, I have not been uploading any of the pictures. I guess I could have looked into this problem earlier, but like I said, I've been baking. So to catch up a bit I have some pictures of the Red Velvet cupcakes I took to the potluck party I went to on Valentine's day


It was a nice casual get together with a Southern food theme. There were amazing Red beans and rice, buttermilk fried chicken, mac-n'-cheese, and a very interesting stew. I thought that the red velvet cake, a Southern classic, would fit the theme perfectly, and I think they went over well with some people coming back for seconds :)

I made my Parrot cake for my boss's going away party. It's like a carrot cake, but it has shredded pears instead of carrots, making the cake extra moist and very flavorful. Unfortunately, I was running around so much I didn't have time to take any pictures. One of my co-workers snapped a few, but I still have not seen them, so you'll just have to take my word for it.


And finally I went to my very first fondue party this past weekend. It was really fun and now I want three crock pots of my very own. Everyone brought sweet and savory dippin's like bread, veggies, homemade angel food cake, homemade pound cake and fruit. After brunch we were going to watch 'Chocolat', but the DVD refused to cooperate and we ended up playing a board game instead, which ended up being even better since by that time everyone was in a food comma and watching a food-related movie would have put everyone to sleep. As my contribution I figured I'd make something to "munch" on during the movie, cake balls. I was trying to make cake pops like I saw on this blog, making my own cake and frosting instead of the store bought one, but I didn't have any lolly pop sticks or candy coating, so I ended up sticking with just the bon bon shape. They were delicious and the perfect over the top snack.

I have a growing list of things I'd like to try in the upcoming weeks as well as a few orders in the works, and now that my computer is being nice to me again I'll try to be more consistent with updates....I promise :)