Apple Cider Cupcakes

Breaking news!!! I'm still alive! It has literally been so long since I've baked and blogged that I've forgotten how to do everything. Seriously. When I went to edit my photos, half of them were out of focus because I've apparently forgotten how to use my camera...

Here is a quick recap of the past few months: I've since moved to San Francisco and have already finished my first quarter at FIDM and I absolutely loved it. It reminded me how much I love learning, how much I love shopping, and how much I enjoy procrastinating (in the beginning at least). And although I don't want my break to end, I'm looking forward to starting the next quarter and it feels pretty darn good!

So... I had originally planned to bake off some alcoholic cupcakes first, but when I found out my nephews and niece (who are ages 2, 4, and 5) would be visiting, I decided to change it to a more kid-friendly cupcake... Anyway, for the past month, I've been looking forward to the arrival of autumn and these encompass the season pretty well, if I do say so myself. The cake itself has the sweet cinnamon and apple flavors you'd find in hot apple cider, and the caramel buttercream adds just the right amount of creamy richness. And bonus: your whole house smells like Christmas when you're baking these!

The Ingredients (makes about 2 dozen):
For the cupcakes:
-3 1/2 cups flour
-2 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
-2 cups sugar
-2 tbsp vegetable oil
-4 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 cup unfiltered apple cider

For the caramel sauce (from Ina Garten's recipe; optional, you can use store bought):

-recipe can be found here

For the frosting:
-1 cup unsalted butter, softened
-1 cup vegetable shortening

-1 1/2 cups caramel sauce, or to taste

The Directions:

Tip: If you choose to make your own caramel sauce, be sure to make it far enough ahead of time to allow it to cool, which may take up to 4 hours. 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your cupcake pan.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together and set aside.

3. Beat the butter and sugar together until combined.

4. Add eggs, vanilla and oil one at a time and mix until combined.
5. Stir in the cider.
6. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet, mixing until just combined.

7. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely.

8. Cream the butter and shortening together until combined.

9. Slowly add the caramel sauce, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to keep anything from settling.

10. Consume and enjoy!

The Hostess With The Mostest

Oh boy, busy busy month February is. I think every weekend this month, I've been busy with something. Today is the first day I've had some down time in awhile so I'm trying to use this as an opportunity to get some much needed work done, including this blog.


I do have some news, but I can't decide if it's good or bad yet. I recently met with an admissions adviser at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in San Francisco about possibly enrolling in their merchandise marketing program. I know, crazy, huh? And for those who have known me for at least the past few years, I'm just as shocked as you are. The adviser was very helpful and very well informed, but with all the information to digest, I left the building semi-nauseated by it all. Long story short, I think the program sounds excellent and the support and networking the school offers to their students is very desirable but I'll have to think about each pro and con thoroughly. And on top of all of that, if I want to pay the current tuition before the increase, I have to be accepted into the school by May 1st. No pressure, right?


Anyway... can you guess where I got the inspiration for these cupcakes? This might sound cheesy (but admittedly, probably not more than the title for this post), but I got the idea for these after I opened up my pantry and saw a box of the familiar chocolate cupcakes with the white squiggle on top and the overly sweet cream centers. And, fun fact: the "cream" used to fill the cupcakes is actually made with Crisco, not real cream. Yum. My version of the famous sweet treat is filled with vanilla mousse and raspberry preserves. A pretty tasty combination when combined with the rich chocolate cake and chocolate ganache on top, if I do say so myself. 


The Ingredients (makes about 2 dozen):
For the cupcakes:
-recipe can be found here
For the filling:
-2 tsp vanilla extract
-2/3 cup sugar
-2 egg whites
-1 cup heavy cream
- raspberry preserves
For the frosting:
-3 cups bittersweet chocolate chips
-1 cup heavy cream
-1 1/2 tbsp corn starch


The Directions:
1. Start with the filling first. Whip the heavy cream, vanilla and half of the sugar until soft peaks form. Set aside.
2. Beat the egg whites until foamy. Then add the rest of the sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
3. Carefully fold the egg mixture into the whipped cream until combined. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours to allow the mousse to firm up (I made this the night before making the cupcakes).
4. Bake the cupcakes as directed.
5. Once the cupcakes are cool, core out the middle, being careful to keep the cores intact as you will need them to close up the hole later. Set aside.
6. Put a layer of raspberry preserves into each cupcake and follow with a spoonful of vanilla mousse. Replace the tops of the cupcakes to prepare for the ganache frosting.
7. Dissolve the corn starch into the heavy cream first to avoid clumping. Then, in a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips and heavy cream together and stir until smooth.
8. Apply a layer of the ganache on top of each cupcake and allow to cool completely before serving or decorating.
9. Consume and enjoy!

Rainbow Cupcakes

A close friend of mine has been requesting some rainbow cupcakes for well over a year now, so I finally gave in and made them for her. As pretty as these turned out though, I'll have to admit that I don't plan on doing these again for quite some time, as it is very time consuming. And if you're semi-OCD like me, it could require a lot of patience as well as a steady hand. I mixed up and dyed the batter in no time, but filling the cups and spreading out all the colors took days. Okay, not really, more like 5 to 15 minutes per color. But because my batter is a little more thick, it took a little more elbow grease and careful spoon maneuvering to get the colors to spread out.


If you're not OCD like me though, you can always just spoon the batter in without spreading it out first and they'll still come out nicely!


Happy 2012!

The Ingredients (makes about 2 dozen): 
For the cupcakes:
-3 1/2 cups flour
-1 tbsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 cup unsalted butter, softened
-2 cups sugar
-2 tbsp vegetable oil
-4 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 cup milk
-assorted food coloring (I used gel)
For the frosting:
-1 cup unsalted butter, softened
-1 cup vegetable shortening
-1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, or to taste
-1 tsp vanilla extract


The Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your cupcake pan(s).
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
3. In your mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add eggs one at a time, mixing until combined. Then add in the vanilla and oil, mixing well.
4. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet, mix until combined, then add 1/2 the milk. Repeat until you run out of both. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl between each addition, especially after the dry, to ensure everything is mixed in.
5. Divide the batter into 6 bowls/cups and add the food coloring until desired color is reached. I divided the batter evenly, but upon filling the cupcake liners, I realized I should've divided it so that my bottom color would have the least amount of batter and my top color would have the most since I wanted to spread out each color to the edges of the liners.

I reused some plastic cups from a coffee shop I frequent so I didn't have to worry about the dyes staining my dishes

6. Fill cupcake papers and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean, rotating the pan halfway through to ensure even baking.

7. Cream the butter and shortening together. Then slowly add the sugar and follow with the extract. This can also be dyed with the food colors, if desired.
8. Consume and enjoy!

December's Cupcake Of The Month: Dark Chocolate and Peppermint

I hope you are all having a lovely December so far. Earlier this month, I was knee deep in work, tutoring, and finals, so of course, I welcomed my break with open arms. And even though I can't say that I've been particularly productive this break (what with my long to-do list of reading two book series, going back to the gym, and other miscellaneous tasks that I've been putting off), I have been enjoying the time I've spent with my family and friends. There's just something about the simple things in life like staying in for the night and watching a movie with my brothers or spending hours catching up with a friend over coffee that makes me so grateful for what I have. It's actually making me a little teary-eyed right now just thinking about it. But anyway... 

On a less serious note, another thing I'm really grateful for is chocolate. Especially when it's paired with almonds or mint. So I decided that, as a birthday present to myself, I'd center this month's cupcakes around chocolate and peppermint! I used the same recipe for the cupcakes as my chocolate and Chambord recipe and for the filling and frosting, I made a super simple whipped cream, flavored with peppermint extract and candies. I hope you enjoy this recipe! Cheers and happy holidays!


The Ingredients (makes about 2 dozen):
For the cupcakes:
-recipe can be found here
For the filling and frosting:
-2 cups heavy cream
-4 tbsp powdered sugar, or to taste
-2 tbsp peppermint extract, or to taste
-1/2 cup finely ground peppermint candies


The Directions:
1. Bake cupcakes as directed.
2. When cupcakes are cool, cut out the center of each cupcake.
3. Whip the cream until soft peaks form.
4. Slowly add the sugar, and then the extract and whip until firm peaks form.
5. Gently fold in the candies and then fill and frost cupcakes.
6. Consume and enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins Using Only Two Ingredients

All this recipe calls for is one box of yellow cake mix and a couple of cups of pumpkin puree. Can it get any easier than that? You don't even need eggs or oil, and you can spice it up (figuratively or literally) any way you want! I added some pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and chocolate chips to mine and they were delicious!


I don't have any pictures for this recipe, but everything is straightforward. The batter will come out pretty thick, but I didn't find it too problematic just mixing by hand with a rubber spatula. The consistency of the batter is more along the lines of a very sticky cookie dough but once it's baked off, the muffin will still have that cake-like texture. And if yellow cake isn't your thing, I've seen others use spiced cake mixes and even chocolate and devil's food cake mixes as well!


Enjoy!

Ingredients (makes about 2 dozen):

- one box of yellow cake mix

- 2 cups pumpkin puree

Optional ingredients:

- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

- 1 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1 cup chocolate chips

The Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your cupcake pan(s).

2. Mix the cake mix and puree together until consistent throughout.

3. Stir in the pumpkin spice and cinnamon, and then fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before storing.

5. Consume and enjoy!