Salty Caramel Cupcakes.

Tweet

 These were absolutely fantastic. FANTASTIC! The combination of the cake, caramel and salt was magnificent! Seriously. The actual cake is the perfect texture as well. I am for sure going to make the cake with other things because it was just perfect! At the last minute I decided to fill the cupcakes with a little caramel too, I enjoyed it. The one thing that was a bit "off" was the icing, for some reason, mine was a little grainy, but I didn't personally mind it, I actually thought it tasted amazing.
 I did cheat and used store bought caramel ;) I wasn't in the mood to make my own...I WAS in the mood to try spun sugar because I was going to put spun sugar balls on top of the cupcakes..umm, yeah. IT WAS A DISASTER. Horrible. I am not sure if I am ever even going to try it again, I have no clue what I did wrong, but my kitchen is still a sticky hot mess! I wish I would have taken pictures of my kitchen! Instead, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, oh my.

I let AnnaBella play and pretend like she was making them in her pink oven. Too cute.

Cake:
- 1 cup whole milk
- 4 large egg whites, room temp
- 2 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
- 3/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350 F. 

In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the milk with the egg whites and vanilla extract. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, quickly mix the flour with the sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and the remaining 3/4 cup of milk. Beat at a low speed until blended, then beat at medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the egg white mixture in 3 additions, beating the batter on medium-speed for 20 seconds after each addition. 

In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the cream until soft peaks form. Stir 1/3 of the whipped cream into the batter, then fold in the rest with a spatula. Using an ice-cream scoop, spoon out the batter evenly amongst the cupcake tins. Do note that the batter does rise a little, so don’t overfill. Bake for 20-24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centers come s out clean.

Icing:
- 1 stick unsalted butter, room temp
- 1 stick salted butter, room temp
- 2 cups light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 4 cups confectioners sugar
- hot water, to thin out, if needed
- sea salt
- caramel (homemade or purchased)

In a saucepan, melt butter and add brown sugar, whisk. Bring to a boil and lower heat to low. Stir constantly. Remove from heat and add heavy cream..cool until lukewarm, gradually add confectioners sugar and add water to thin, if needed.
Frost and sprinkle with sea salt, add caramel drizzle too!

*the recipe is delicious alone, but like I said, I filled my cupcakes a little bit with caramel as well!

Vegetarian Meatloaf Cupcakes.

Tweet

 I LOVE MEATLOAF. I have not had it in a long time though :( I also have been running out of veggie things to cook lately. I think I need to invest in a few more vegetarian cookbooks! It's hard sometimes, and I don't want to keep making the same stuff over and over again! I found this vegetarian meatloaf recipe a while ago but just kept forgetting to try it...until the other day. I was nervous about the recipe because it is also for a loaf, not a cupcake, but it still turned out well! The one thing I will say about this recipe, is that once you put it all together, if it looks too dry, that's okay. Mine looked dry, so of course, I started adding more oil, more mustard, etc and it was a tiny bit too runny..not bad, just a lil' ;)

Ingredients:

• -1/2 (14 ounce) package vegetarian ground beef (e.g., Gimme Lean TM)
• -1 (12 ounce) package vegetarian burger crumbles
• -1 onion, chopped
• -2 eggs, beaten
• -2 tablespoons vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
• -1 teaspoon salt
• -1/3 teaspoon pepper
• -1 teaspoon ground sage
• -1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• -2 teaspoons prepared mustard
• -1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• -3 1/2 slices bread, cubed
• -1/3 cup milk
• -1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 
  

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

- Line tin with liners

- Combine all ingredients

- Scoop mixture into liners, fill to top

- Pour tomato sauce on top of each "cupcake"

- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes (i did 25)

- Let cool for a few minutes and pipe with your favorite mashed potato recipe!

So easy!

Easter Cupcakes!!

Tweet

 I can't even handle how cute these are!! I have been stocking up at Michael's and AC Moore since Easter decorations were out like at least a month ago,probably two...they don't play with their holidays. To make these, I used the Billy's Vanilla cupcake recipe and the Billy's Buttercream recipe that I used for the cotton candy cupcakes(just obviously without the cotton candy in the icing), it really is my favorite vanilla cupcake. Then I just went to town decorating! My favorite are the baskets in the plastic...ohh and the little chicks(they are clearly not edible)

Recipe:
Makes about 30 cupcakes
1 3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

2. In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat.

3. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about two-thirds full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.

4. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat process with remaining batter. Once cupcakes have cooled, use a small offset spatula to frost tops of each cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles, if desired. Serve at room temperature.

Billy's Vanilla Buttercream

Colored sprinkles, for decorating (optional)
Makes enough for 30 cupcakes

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
6 to 8 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add 6 cups sugar, milk, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. If necessary, gradually add remaining 2 cups sugar to reach desired consistency.

Cookie Dough Cupcakes!

Tweet

 Omg. This isn't the first time I have made the delicious cookie dough filled cupcake. It was however, the first time that I decided to make cookie dough truffles and add them to the top as well. So you have the cake with a cookie dough ball stuffed inside, icing, and another cookie dough truffle on top. Heaven. The best part is there are no eggs, so you don't have to worry about getting salmonella and pooping your pants from indulging in the ever so delicious cookie batter! That's a plus!
 I don't know how many calories are in this bad boy, and I don't want to know!

I made the cookie dough filling/truffle balls first because you have to let them chill before forming the balls because they are so sticky. Oh and another thing I have learned with this recipe is you can fill the cake pretty high in the liner because they don't get all crazy big.

(makes 24)
Cupcakes:
- 3 Sticks unsalted butter, room temp
- 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 2/3 cup flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup of milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup chocolate chips

Filling/truffles:
- 8 TBL unsalted butter, room temp
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 1/4 cup flour
- 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup choc chips
- package of chocolate melts

Frosting:
- 3 sticks unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
- 1 cup flour
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3 TBL milk
- 2 1/2 tsp vanilla

Filling/truffle directions:
As I stated, I made the dough balls first. Combine butter and sugar and cream until fluffy. Add flour, condensed milk and vanilla. Fold in the chocolate chips.Cover, put in freezer for about 45 minutes.
Roll out the balls..I rolled out 24 and put them in the fridge. With the remainder, I made the truffles. Do do so, just melt the chocolate melts, and dip! Once dipped, I added those to the fridge as well and started working on the cake.

Cupcake directions:
 Preheat over to 350 F. Line cupcake pans. (makes 24). Combine butter and brown sugar about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs, 1 at a time. Scrape sides of bowl as needed.

Combine the dry ingredients in separate bowl. Add to the butter/sugar mix, alternating with the milk, starting with the dry ingredients and ending with the dry ingredients.

Add vanilla, then fold in chocolate chips.

Add batter to the liners and bake for about 18 minutes. (depending on your over anywhere from 18 to 20)

When finished baking, take out and let cool completely. Once cool, cut a cone shape out of each cupcake and fill whole with a cookie dough ball, and then add the top back to the cupcake. They might look a little weird, but you won't be able to tell once the frosting is on, don't worry!!

Frosting:
Mix butter and brown sugar. Add the confectioners' sugar, the the flour. Add the salt, then milk, then vanilla.

Easter Carrot Cakes Balls/Pops

Tweet

  These are so freaking cute!!! I used a carrot cake box mix, and made homemade cream cheese frosting. Food colored some white melts and sprinkled coconut on top!!!

 -Make carrot cake as directed on box

Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 4 oz soft unsalted butter
- 4 oz soft cream cheese
- 2 cups confect. sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla

- Mix cream cheese and butter, add sugar, then vanilla


You make these the same as the chocolate cake pops I posted last week. I am being lazy and don't feel like retyping it! Ha...it's one of those days!

I would recommend keeping these in the fridge after making until enjoying because of the cream cheese...mine were pretty soft and needed to be..

Cotton Candy Cupcakes

Tweet

 First let's start of with the fact that I want this

I think it is going to be added to my wishlist...I am already hinting around the fact that I NEED a red old fashion pop corn maker for my kitchen..hint hint...so maybe once I get that, I can then get a cotton candy maker...it would be heaven, really.

 Cotton candy makes me really happy. It's fluffy, cute,and pink! (Although I had forgotten how gross and annoying it gets on your fingers after eating a few bites...I hate being sticky,blah)..Anyway, so I made cotton candy cupcakes! I used my go-to buttercream cake and frosting recipe...it's seriously the best cupcake in the world, in my opinion. I added cotton candy to the icing and then on top of the cupcakes. If you are SUPER serious about cotton candy, it would also be quite delicious to add cotton candy flavoring to it! I had only thought of that AFTER I started making them, and I don't have cotton candy flavoring just laying around...although I probably should?

 I became very irritated while making these cupcakes. I bought these cute liners from Michael's Craft store, I was thinking to myself, WOW these would be perfect for my cotton candy cupcakes! WELL, they weren't. Upon opening them, I noticed they were very thin, and I questioned whether or not to put a liner inside these cute pink liners. I read the box and it said just to fill with batter-BIG mistake. After taking the cupcakes out, they looked greasy :( wah wah. Cupcake aesthetics is more important to me than actual taste sometimes, so that really put me in a nasty mood. The SECOND thing to piss me off is that the cupcakes look way darker in my photos than they did in real life. I feel like the cotton candy-ness was not captured, haa. We can blame that on my location, "Dreary Erie". I usually take my photos in daylight because they look best, but since it was dark and snowing when it should have been pretty and sunny, my photos paid the price.

 So other than my two complaints, they tasted delicious, and I knew they would. It' not my favorite recipe for nothing.

Buttercream Cupcake
Ingredients:
-1 3/4 cup cake flour
-1 1/4 cup flour
-2 cups sugar
-1 TBL bkg powder
-3/4 tsp salt
-1 cup (2 sticks unsalted butter,room temp)
-4 large eggs(room temp)
-1 cup milk
-1 tsp vanilla (i use a little more)

350 degrees,20 to 25 min.
 A mixer with a paddle attachment really does wonders with this recipe, it makes them perfect!
-Combine all dry ingredients
-Add cubed butter to dry ingredients and mix until covered
-Whisk eggs,milk and vanilla separately,add in 3 parts to butter/flour mixture, mix well
-Bake!

Since I use this recipe a lot, I have really figured out how it bakes..I like giant cupcakes, so I fill them 2/3 full...if you do not want them so big, only fill about half way!

Best Buttercream Frosting(with cotton candy added)
Ingredients:
-2 sticks of unsalted butter(room temp)
-6 to 8 cups confectioner's sugar
-1/2 cup milk
-1 tsp vanilla

-start by creaming the butter(mix well)
-once creamed, add sugar, I usually use 7 cups..add gradually
-add vanilla
-then add milk (you can use more or less milk depending on how you want your frosting to be)
-in this case, add a cup or so of broken up cotton candy
-and pipe cupcakes!

*Ok, now I am not implying any of you would do this, BUT I DID..DO NOT add cotton candy to tops until you want to serve, or eat them! I wasn't thinking and put the cotton candy on top right away last night, and was planning on giving them to people today, and the cupcake sucked up all the cotton candy :(( Just a little pointer!*

Cadbury Creme Cupcakes

Tweet

 I love Easter time...for two main reasons. #1, I LOVE pastels...and #2, I LOVE candy. My candy taste is equivalent to what a five year old would like. The thought of a cadbury creme cupcake is very exciting to me.
 A few notes about this cupcake though, it is HEAVY, messy and definitely not the prettiest cupcake I have ever made, HOWEVER, they are amazingly delicious(obviously if you even like cadbury creme eggs to begin with).
 I bought 12 cadbury creme treats..The batter recipe makes around 18, so you can either buy more eggs, or just have a few extra plain cupcakes..that's what I did.
 And the ganache frosting, seriously, it's amazing. I made the ganache frosting before I even started the cupcakes, because I chose to use a whipped ganache, which has to be chilled before using.

Ganache Frosting Ingredients:
- 16 ounces chocolate, chopped into small pieces
 -2 cups heavy cream

- Place chocolate in bowl
- Heat heavy cream on stove on medium to high until it boils
- Remove and pour over chocolate, stir
- Cover with foil for 5 minutes
- Uncover, stir well, cover with plastic wrap, and put in fridge for an hour
- After an hour, mix until peaks form, and then decorate!


Cake Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cup flour
1 1/4 cup milk
Cadbury Eggs (frozen overnight)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

- Mix butter until pretty smooth
- Add sugar and beat well
- Add eggs
- Mix in all other ingredients.

Add a little batter to the cupcake liners, then place egg in the middle. Pour more batter on until egg is almost covered.

Bake for 20-25 minutes...I only baked for 20 but, honestly, they could have used a few more minutes.

Take out and let cool them cool completely before adding icing.

Again, not the prettiest, but worth making for sure!

Enjoy!

Cake Pops!

Tweet

So cake pops are another one of those treats that I never made because they seemed way too intense! Surprisingly, they were easy. Easy...yet tedious. Tedious, because I am the most impatient person in the world! I'll explain..

All you need is:
Cake mix
Frosting
Candy melts
sticks
any decorations
styrofoam block


I used a devil's food mix, and a fudge frosting.

The first parts are WAY easy...

1) Make the cake mix.
2) Let the cake mix cool for at least an hour
3) When it cools add frosting...use your hands and mix well...The recipe I read said to use 1/3 Cup of frosting...I however, found that I used almost the whole can
4) Mix well, form into a giant ball
5) Refrigerate, I did over night

I didn't get to take pics of the first few steps, bc I forgot! Oh-well. ;)

6) Take mixture and roll into balls
7) Melt some of the coating, dip the stick in coating, then insert into ball (helps keep the stick on the cake)
8) Put back in fridge for about 10 minutes
9) Take out of fridge and let it sit for a few minutes
10) Melt the coating, and dip!

Now here are a few things I ran into....
-I made some of the balls way too big, and some way too small..medium size is best, like an inch and a half
-Some of my balls fell off the stick...probably because they were too big
- Let the coating sit for a few minutes before you start dipping the balls....this was my major problem..I am so impatient and immediately started dipping! When you do this, the coating is too runny and melts everywhere, making a mess and ruining them!(pics..and you should have SEEN my kitchen!)

Next time I will probably use a homemade recipe and make them even better! So for my first try, I say, not bad! For being box mix they taste really good too!!!

Rainbow Cupcakes!

Tweet

 These were soooo easy! I used a box mix, since I have never made these before I didn't want to take all the time to make my own and then mess up the rainbow..next time I will know it's easy and just make my own though!!  I just topped them with whipped cream..this was sort of a last minute baking decision, plus sometimes it's nice to take a break from the super sweet icing! (and way less sugar for kids).
 AnnaBella seriously couldn't help herself! We practiced colors and made the purple and green from mixing the primary colors, so it was educational too! I actually couldn't even use most of my pics because her little midget hands were creepin' trying to steal whipped cream off of the cupcakes! (4th pic down...ha)

All you need:
White cake box mix
Primary color gel

Directions:
Mix box cake as directed, take about 1/3 cup and place in bowl, repeat 5 more times. Add food coloring, and done!

Don't try and smooth over or blend the colors, that will just make muddy colors. Just plop em down ROYGBIV.