Carrot Cake Cupcakes: Take 2

Back in April I took a crack at Martha Stewart's Carrot Cupcakes. As is obvious from the post, they weren't much to write home about.

A few weeks ago it was my BFF Sarah's birthday and when I asked her what her cupcake request was she said "I love Carrot Cake!" I was a little nervous.

You see, Sarah happens to come from one of the most culinarily-endowed (yes, I just made that up) families that I have ever met. I have never had a mediocre meal at Sarah's Mom's house. I have never had a mediocre meal that Sarah or her sis have made. And I had made mediocre carrot cupcakes in the past.  I took this new challenge on with a determination not to make Sarah sucky birthday cupcakes.

So what did I do you ask? Well, I went to someone else who I've never had a bad meal with. The Pioneer Woman. Sure, I haven't actually shared a meal with her but I've made a few of the recipes that she's blogged about and never had a bad one. As a matter of fact, my last post came from one of her blog posts. Back to the story, I clicked on the search tab on her site and typed in carrot cake which led me over to Tasty Kitchen.

There I found this scrumptious recipe.

It was clear from the beginning that this recipe was going to be a winner:

Batter pre-oven

(sorry guys, I don't know how this one got turned around after I uploaded it...)

Cooked Cupcakes

The Final Product

I've only made a handful of carrot cakes before but I have to say, this is one of the best I've ever tasted. It was nice and moist, not overly greasy and not too heavy. I thought the pineapple was a nice touch, though I'm sure you could safely skip it. The general consensus at the party seemed to be good, but then again, who is going to tell a stranger that their cupcakes suck?

Unfortunately Bretta wasn't a part of the festivities this time so there is no picture of the Birthday Girl and Bretta. This will have to suffice:

If you're wondering what's going on, Bretta is shoving her slobbery buffalo on me in hopes that I will play with her instead of taking pictures of her from the floor. Silly puppy.

Patriotic Cupcakes with blueberries, raspberries and fresh whipped cream!

Since we are swiftly approaching the celebration of our nation's independence I thought I would take advantage of the Cupcake Deck's red, white, and blueberry cupcakes. (You'll remember my most recent endeavor from the cupcake deck: White Mountain Chocolate Cupcakes)
A direct quote from one of my tasters: "This could be your best cupcake yet Mrs. T"
I could stand to hear that a few more times and if you would like to, you should make this for your 4th of July BBQ!

What I really loved about these is that they were quick and simple to make, so if you do make these for a party you'll still have plenty of time to prep your other food. Because the frosting is whipped cream I gave the cupcakes extra time to cool, bringing my time from start to finish to about two and a half hours.


Red, White, and Blueberry Cupcakes
Makes 12 Cupcakes (seriously this time!)
Oven @ 350F
For the cupcakes:
1/3 cup fresh blueberries
1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder (not soda)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (or 1 stick) of unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites, at room temperature also *side note- what do you do with the extra yolks?*
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup fresh raspberries

For the topping:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/3 cup fresh blueberries

Put the blueberries (washed, of course) in a small bowl and stir them gently with 1 tbsp of the flour; set aside. Sift the remaining 1 cup plus 3 tbsp of flour, the baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter and sugar until smoothly blended and lightened in color, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. Beat in the egg whites in two additions, mixing until smoothly blended. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and beat for 2 minutes. The batter should look smooth but foamy. On low speed, add half of the flour mixture, mixing just to incorporate it. Mix in the milk. Mix in the remaining flour mixture until it is incorporated and the batter looks smooth. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the blueberries and raspberries into the batter.

Fill each paper liner with 1/4 cup of batter, to about 1/2 inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the top feels firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack, then remove the cupcakes from the pan and set them on the rack to cool completely.

For the topping:
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla until firm peaks form. (Queen Helen was at home so I had to rep the $7 Long's Proctor Silex hand mixer. What up!)

Use a small spatula (or whatever you have) to spread a generous 3 generous tablespoons of whipped cream evenly over the top of each cupcake. Gently spoon (or hand place, I found that easier) several raspberries and blueberries over the whipped cream. Refrigerate and serve cold. <-- Very important!

We took B over to my in-laws' last night. They have a cat, named cat, that Bretta has seen several times through the glass door but never in a face to face situation.
As you can see, she doesn't quite understand why she can bark at the cat through the glass door.

You can also see that the cat could care less about her at this point, he's just bitter that she's in his house and he's forced to eat outside.

Happy fourth of July everyone! Don't forget to thank a soldier!

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cupcake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting

Hello cupcake lovers! I know that the deliciousness has been MIA the last week, but I do have an excuse, I got a wicked cold on top of my normal seasonal allergies that had me laying on the couch for a couple of days. I would have made cupcakes but I was afraid of:
a- passing out from standing for longer than 5 minutes
b- sneezing all over the cupcakes

Anywho, I got right back to it this weekend when I found the following tasty recipe from a cupcake blogger http://cupcakeblog.com the cupcake link here

I made a few adjustments. I used half the instant espresso powder and used unsweetened shredded coconut instead of flaked sweetened coconut. And, as *almost* always, I came out ahead by 3 cupcakes.

These cupcakes took approximately 2.5 hours from start to finish, cooling time included- not bad!
They were a big hit at work, everyone thought they tasted like a Mounds bar. Yum! The following is how I made them, use the link to see the original recipe.

350F oven, makes *27 cupcakes, or 24 that are slightly big

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cupcakes

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cocoa powdered
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
1-1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating 30 seconds after each addition.
Measure the flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, and espresso powder into a medium sized bowl and whisk to combine.
Measure the milk and vanilla into a measuring cup (or anything else that will make it easy to pour in together.) Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine. Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 3/4’s full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Coconut Buttercream Frosting
1-1/2 sticks butter, room temperature
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
1-1/2 cups coconut, shredded and unsweetened

Beat butter briefly, scrape bowl. Add the sifted powdered sugar and milk. Beat until smooth. Add coconut and mix until combined.

Top cooled cupcakes with coconut-buttercream frosting. Top with more cocoa powder (or forget to if you're like me...)

Once finished, go cuddle with darling puppy and make a mental note to sketch her silhouette some day to hang over your future mantle.

Did I mention that I recommend milk with the cupcakes?
Well I do.
Thanks to this weeks tester, you'll see her review below. I'll let her introduce herself.

50/50 Cupcakes: AKA Orange Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting

As it started heating up here in Sonoma I was reminded of the 50/50 bars my Mom used to buy in a gigantic bag that seemed to take up half of our freezer. They are a perfect summer treat, orange sherbert on the outside and sweet vanilla ice cream on the inside. Now obviously a cupcake isn't going to be as refreshing as a popsicle (or is it?) but once I settle on a flavor combination there's no turning back. So I scoured the internet and was surprised to find quite a few listings for the very combination I was looking for. Sidenote- a ton of listings for Orange Vanilla but barely any for the Lemon Raspberry cupcakes I made a few months back. Strange, no?
After reading through a few posts, and their comments I settled on this delicious sounding recipe from www.chow.com. It sounded like just the recipe to bring my 50/50 cupcake to life.

Orange Vanilla Cupcakes
Yield: 24 Cupcakes (really!)

Ingredients for both the cupcakes and the frosting:

• 1½ cups self-rising flour
• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup orange juice (use a variety without pulp)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Oven @ 350F
To make the cupcakes:
In a small bowl, combine the flours and set aside. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and zest gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the orange juice and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended.

Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

 

To make the icing:

 In a medium-size saucepan, whisk the flour into the milk until smooth. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to bubble, 8 to 10 minutes. Make sure that you stir constantly, otherwise you'll get a weird milky film in your pan. Yuck

Cover with waxed paper placed directly on the surface, and cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.

 

At this point, this is the most high-maintenance frosting I've made yet and I'm hoping that it's going to be the best tasting.....

In a large bowl, on the medium-high speed of an electric mixer, beat the butter for 3 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating continuously, and mix until fluffy, for 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat well. Add the cooled milk mixture, and beat for 5 minutes, until very smooth and noticeably whiter in color. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes (no less and no longer—set a timer!). Use immediately to frost the cupcakes. The original recipe calls for shredded coconut as garnish at this point which I chose not to add.

The frosting did not mix together well, as you may be able to tell from the picture of the frosted cupcake above. After all the effort put into the frosting I was pretty disappointed with the results. The cupcake itself was fabulous but I will definitely be using a different frosting recipe if I make these in the future. All in all the usual taste testers (people at my day job) thought they tasted fine. 

Individual Coffee Cakes

Let me start by saying that this was one intimidating recipe. I was faced with the reality of my 3.5 feet of usable counter space, lack of awesome marble pastry board (like this one from Williams-Sonoma) and sheer laziness when it comes to multiple steps. I like to keep my fabulousness simple. Did I mention that this recipe requires two days to complete? Definitely not my style. But my head was filled with thoughts of replicating my own favorite coffee cake (or danish), and I was sucked in. I would like to say that my own favorite is super exclusive and only available in this little teeny boulangerie in Paris but it's not because it's this:

Entenmann's Raspberry Danish

If you haven't had an Entenmann's Raspberry Danish, get down to the closest grocery store you can and buy one. You won't find it at Whole Foods. At this point I would like to say that after making my own I will never be going back to the blue box that is probably filled with 1,000 grams of toxic waste (You'll have to look into the nutritional information yourself, this blogger is too lazy to offer sound reporting at this point) but I can't. I love that little blue box and even if it really isn't coffee cake, that's the kind of coffee cake I like.

Now after that monologue I should probably clarify that I am not saying that these were not delicious, because they were. You'll just have to try them for yourself. So without further ado:

Individual Cinnamon Coffee Cakes with Chocolate-Cherry-Almond Swirl from Fine Cooking's "Sweet Cakes" magazine- link to recipe here 
I didn't use any substitutions for this recipe, except that instead of chopping everything in a food processor I chopped it in my Braun hand chopper (like this one available on Amazon) because that's what I have. I did the chopping in two stages since there was more than my little bowl could handle. Here's the not-quite finished product:

The only time adjustment was that instead of overnight the dough ended up being in the 'fridge for 2 nights, and was fine. Since I have tile counters with divots deep enough for a chocolate chip I taped down wax paper to roll the dough out onto, something I will definitely be doing for future baking projects.

Lesson: the dough gets VERY sticky VERY fast, even if your husband is the one taking the pictures. The shot above is prior to cutting the individual rolls.

Well my hand's were clean....

This would be Bretta's opinion of me spending my evenings baking, she gets as far away from me as she can. It's my punishment. Sorry for the zombie eyes...

"Kid Friendly Cupcakes" aka I'm super lazy!

So a few weeks back I decided that I was going to attempt the individual coffee cakes that are in my Sweet Cakes magazine (you'll remember the Ginger Cupcakes I made from the same magazine) and then realized that I wouldn't be able to finish them for the week I had planned, so I better think of something quick. The following were aptly named "Kid Friendly Cupcakes" and are also from my Cupcake Deck
These cupcakes had a basic cake batter and a pretty simple frosting that I flavored with Almond Oil Extract and decorated with non-perils.

 The results: Happy co-workers at Mr. T's job

And a neglected pup from my night of baking:

Cinnamon Apple Swirl Cupcakes Rounds 1 and 2

The first batch of these I messed up so bad that I won't even bother telling you the details. The second batch went much, much better. I got the recipe from The Cupcake Deck that my HLM Maddy got me for Christmas last year. It is the first recipe I've tried from it.

Some Details:

From Start to Oven: 25 minutes. Including grating the apple. Hell yeah!

Oven time: 18 minutes

Replacements: I used vegetable oil instead of canola/corn oil. I'm not sure if that made a big difference or not.
What I loved: Only one spoon is needed for this recipe, no electric mixers required. Also- hello, delicious cupcakes that could pass for muffins in less than an hour?! These were also the simplest I have made thus far, making them a winner for kids and people that just got home from a long work day (like me.)
What I didn't love: That they were greasy enough to make the cupcake liner greasy. I prefer cakey cupcakes that don't mar up my pretty tin liners ;) In the future I'll definitely be looking for thicker "grease proof" liners.
Yield: 12 Cupcakes (you'll have no problem polishing them off)

 Bretta's favorite part? That she gets the apple core....

Ginger Cupcakes with Lemon-Cream Cheese Frosting

This week's recipe came from Fine Cooking's "Sweet Cakes" magazine, link to recipe here.

I'm usually not a big fan of Ginger but we were having a few friends over for dinner, including Naomi and David who you may remember from our hike back in August. Naomi celebrated her birthday while we were gone in Switzerland and she loves her ginger so I figured that I would try and make it up to her with food (always a good start.) and try something new for myself.

I have to say, I am really pleased with how they turned out. Everyone said they liked them and Naomi and David even took some home. With the extra frosting as Naomi pointed out I didn't put enough on there. 

In my defense, I grew up in a family that prefers pie to cake, and doesn't love frosting. I know, where did you come from then, right? I think they found me under a rock and I'm sure any one of my brothers would happily confirm that for you.

The recipe was a bit daunting by looks, but not to bad once it got underway.

The batter was interesting with just butter and lemon zest, but it was a leap of faith that turned out well. If you think the coutertop looks cramped, that's because it is.

Once all the ingredients were mixed it made a surprisingly small amount of batter. The recipe says it yields 36, but as always I cam out ahead with somewhere around 44.

Bretta always likes to "oversee" my projects.

 

Big thanks to everyone for coming over to enjoy our back patio before the rains started!

PS: Naomi makes awesome upcycled paper bead jewelry, check her out on Etsy here

The sweet smell of success and muffins

Today I decided that I was going to create my own blog header so that I could spiff up the blog a bit. Since Mr. T is the computer genius in this house I figured he would know exactly which program to use and how to start it out. Mr. T explained that Adobe was not the best program for creating an image from multiple images and to use Paint. Now I am convinced that he just didn't want to have to explain the different aspects of Adobe to me. After 20 painful minutes trying to keep the resolution while resizing pictures I gave up on paint and went to Adobe. An hour later I have made the header that you now see above just by layering. Pretty good for someone that didn't even know what the hell layering was an hour ago right?

This week's cupcake deliciousness is actually muffins. I know that you may be thinking that I'm cheating but I really don't care. I found this recipe on one of my favorite random recipe sites, www.allrecipes.com
The description said "very moist and delicious" so I figured that I had to give them a shot. Link to recipe here

Batter mixed by Queen Helen

I used the recipe as is, according to the site it yields 12 muffins. I ended up with 18. The recipe also directs you to bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes but in my oven they were done in less than 15. Just keep an eye on them if you do try this recipe.

The final result

They are a little stickier than I would like because of the lemon/sugar glaze but the taste is perfect. I may try them without the glaze next time but as is they are just fine. 

We are enjoying the sunshine today by adding lights to the back deck and taking care of the plants. Between all the hard work Bretta somehow fit in some tanning time.

Second week of deliciousness: Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes

For this week's challenge I chose a trial run of one of my Easter dessert possibilities. I got the recipe here: http://alaunamakes.blogspot.com/2009/03/lemon-raspberry-cupcakes.html
The recipe doesn't say, but it makes 36 cupcakes. I hope you are either a mother or have an army to feed if you plan on trying this. I had Mr. T take about 20 to work. Another 4 we pawned off on my in-laws and I plan to pawn another 4 or 5 off on my boss.
As far as I can tell the biggest glaring difference so far is my ability to make my cupcakes look really pretty. But I'm working on it. So far I've found that the cheapy baby formula bottle liner-esque confectioner's bags work as well as you'd guess, and that a Ziploc Freezer Bag (pint size) with a corner cut out is going to be the sturdiest butter cream piping bag that you've got in your kitchen. Both the sandwich bag and the bottle liner look-a-like bag exploded.

Lemony delicious batter

Butter Cream Icing- need I say more?

Pre cone cut-outs

Finished product

  My recommendations: Make this recipe when raspberries are in season. There's nothing like spending $7 on a box of raspberries (maybe 24 count?) and having half be inedible. 

  So far my reviewers haven't been very helpful. They gave these cupcakes an A+. As opposed to the "these are the best cupcakes I've ever eaten" that the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes have gotten. Luckily for me I have recently expanded my reviewer base and will now be pulling in taste testers from around the country once a month for a more rounded review. Bon appetit!

Spring has sprung and we couldn't resist a Bunny Bretta for less than the price of a gallon of gas.