Showing posts with label cupcakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cupcakes. Show all posts

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Chocolate Cupcakes w/ Strawberry Swiss-Meringue Buttercream

Strawberries were on sale the other day when I went to the grocery store so I thought it would be the perfect time to try this recipe from pinkparsley.

Got all my stuff together for the cake part
Chocolate Cupcakes
(I'm not a coffee drinker but happened to have a packet of instant)
Got it all mixed together then added the coffee and got a bit worried... it was SO THIN.
But then as the recipe calls for I mixed it with a spatula a bit and went with it, they ended up baking perfectly.

Then came the frosting...

Strawberry Swiss-Meringue Buttercream

I've never done one of those stove top sugar egg white frostings before so I was a tad worried I'd mess it all up... I mixed and mixed and mixed while it was over the heat, and it just want getting completely 'smooth' between my fingers. So I decided it looked good and went on! (ok, so maybe I'm impatient)

It ended up coming together nicely!

Chocolate Cupcakes w/ Strawberry Swiss-Meringue Buttercream

I've already delivered to 3 of my neighbors and had 3 mini ones myself! I just dropped them off so I'm not sure what they think of them yet. I REALLY like them, def. making again.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Chocolate Peanutbutter Cup Cupcakes

YUM!

I used the same chocolate cupcake recipe that I posted about before and made a peanutbutter frosting with peanut butter, powder sugar, vanilla, and milk. I would tell you how much of everything if I knew!

I put a miniature Reese's cup in the bigger cupcakes and one of the new mini ones in the tiny cupcakes. Which was the only part of this recipe that didnt go quite right... of course the Reese's fell to the bottom and stuck to the paper! oops! the good thing? They still tasted AMAZING!

This is basically what you need:
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and this is what happens:
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My mom just couldnt wait for Easter so invited me over last weekend to celebrate super early (we have the combined excuse that the things she got me I could USE for Easter so it only made sense to do it early!)

The loot?
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look at that amazingness!
She got me cupcake boxes for gifting to people, a piping bag, a bunny spatula, a bunch of cupcake cups!, a smoosher thing for making biscuits, craft paper, some stickers that are just tooooo cute, a cupcake plunger (for filling cupcakes), and my favorite? the 56 piece tip set! but she made it more awesome by splitting it up and instead of candy she put each tip in an egg.
Thats right, I still hunt for Easter stuff! oh so fun!

AND she finished my blanket!
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Seriously? its amazing. Thats her bed by the way. Its a queen size. I have a full.... basically I have it folded in half so the lines are horizontal on my bed and its STILL big enough for me! LOVE.

I cant post my current crafty stuff cause its for a swap. So thatll come later.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Banana Cupcakes

I've actually been calling these Banana Bread Cupcakes... Cause thats what they are like!
I got the recipe from Cheesecake for All (see recipe there) - I didnt have buttermilk so I did the Milk/Lemon thing.

Got all my ingredients together (except for the cream cheese frosting, that was out of the picture but still on the counter)
Banana Cupcakes - Ingredients

It has a few steps to it so I needed 3 bowls
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mmm all mixed up! (the batter tasted good!)
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I didnt take a pic of the tin filled, but I filled them almost to the top, they didnt rise too much so that worked out well

Then bake!
Banana Cupcakes

Now for the Cream Cheese Frosting

Butter and Cream Cheese
Cream Cheese Frosting

Vanilla
Cream Cheese Frosting

Powder Sugar
Cream Cheese Frosting

Nommm
Cream Cheese Frosting

Ta-Da!
Cream Cheese Frosting

Monday, February 14, 2011

9/50 - Cupcakes!

WOOO CUPCAKES!

Now, I normally wouldn't count a cupcake as a 'project' but I used the stove for a couple things making it a whole new world for me! And as I said in my first post about projects... new things in the kitchen are going to be projects!

I used the recipe from 'What's For Dinner' - Its a Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Buttercream (a whole new-to-me kind of buttercream! made with Granulated Sugar!)

While I was at my moms last weekend we were watching Cupcake Wars and I was like "UGHGGJUHGRFJ! I WANT TO MAKE CUPCAKES!" she said "WE SHOULD!!" and then it happened!

While she went to the store to get milk and liners I started what I could. I got the cocoa mixture ready and started the dry ingredients... She got back right in time!
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I got everything together and was about to add the cocoa when...
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THIS ISNT LOOKING RIGHT!

Then I realized "Crap! I added the butter! oops!" (butter was supposed to be for the frosting, NOT the cupcakes)

So I started the batter over and it looked great so I was able to add the cocoa mixture
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messily fill cups
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and bake!
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(dont they look nice?!)

So while they cooled I made the frosting... You have to mix the milk and flour until its kind of the consistency of brownie batter, add vanilla, then let it cool to room temp. While it was cooling to room temp you beat the crap out of sugar and butter. With exception of scraping down the edges sometimes I literally had it mixing the entire time it took the flour/milk/vanilla to cool...

I read the comments on her blog and some had problems with mixing so much it then separated... so I dont know what I did but it worked!

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NOMMM
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So the cake part is very moist, exactly how I like it, light and very cake-like. The frosting is SUPER light, like whipped cream light! and its got a very light taste, not very sweet, but enjoyable. My personal preference is more sugar but it was def. nice for something new!

Also Mom and I decided we're going to try some bakeries around and just share what we get... so we went to a place today and got some kind of raspberry chocolate cake.
The cakes frosting tasted EXACTLY like this, except it had a raspberry flavor to it.

I guess I should take pics of what we get from now on cause we totally graded it.

We went to Piece of Cake in Sellwood
I guess this is what we got:
Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream Ganache
Layers of chocolate cake filled with raspberry, iced in buttercream & topped with dripping ganache.

We gave the bakery a C-
It was very cute inside, you can see the whole kitchen, but the only things that had labels were the cupcakes. So we had to ask about each cake... which was difficult because the woman there had an accent and talked SUPER soft. I literally leaned into her and had her repeat herself, even with no accent I would have had to have her repeat herself.
She gave us a menu but there are no pictures... so it was very hard to decide, and they kept the cut cakes out of sight, so you couldnt even get an idea from looking at them. It kind of killed the experience.
She also didnt ask if we were eating there or taking it, she just put it in a to-go box... so we brought it back and ate it. We didnt even see what it looked like til we got back!
We both agreed if we saw the cakes inside neither one of us would have decided to get it, a very unexciting looking cake.

The cake itself got a C
It was ok tasting but super boring. The raspberry flavor was too faint.

So I dont know that we will go back again just because the way its set up was too difficult to be visually stimulated. (Which is how I pick what I want!)
This was very disappointing cause I always pass this place and was very excited to finally try it... WOMP WOMP...

WHEW LONG post!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

3/50 - Window Scarves (End!)

I FINISHED!
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I'm excited, I dont feel like the photos really show how much nicer it looks in here.
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I'm also excited that I can now start working on other things!
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I was originally going to leave the caps off because I have mismatched sets and one missing. Turns out they look pretty nice though!
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And the lacking one I used in the kitchen since its on the side of my fridge anyway it shouldnt be missed.
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Its very nice to have some color on the walls!

I've ordered some prints from naokosstoop with Christmas money from my father and I'm super excited for them to arrive to add even more to the walls.

A couple other things I've done since my last post:

Birthday card for a friend
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Cupcakes for the BCS game
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