Winter Baking

Any Excuse to Bake...

Here are some things I baked this winter:

Mini Christmas Tree cupcakes 

for the McCann's bowling league party.  

I can't believe I actually found that teeny tiny star cookie cutter, but it was essential!  Initially I made the stars out of sugar cookies, but when I didn't have enough I resorted to punching them out of Andes mints.

Bacon Cupcakes 

for the Giants Superbowl  

Bacon inside...

And out.

Mmmmm... bacon.

Mean Sweethearts Cookies

for Valentine's Day

I made these for my dates... like a boss.  

Here's a tip: if you're planning to buy a heart-shaped cookie cutter, don't wait until Feb. 14th.  You will be stuck with whatever size is left... Hence dinner-plate-sized cookies. 

My First Recipe

Pumpkin Ale Cupcakes

I made Pumpkin Ale cupcakes for Halloween last year using a recipe I found online.  It was weird, and even though the cupcakes tasted fine (they were still cupcakes after all) they weren't the best.  So I reinvented the recipe and voila!  My First Cupcake Recipe.

 
1 cup Pumpkin Ale (any brand)
1 stick + 2 Tbsp butter

1/3 cup brown sugar
2 cups sugar

2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream






Preheat the oven to 350. Melt the beer and butter together in a saucepan on medium heat until simmering.  Remove from heat and whisk in the sugars.  In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs and sour cream then add to the butterbeer (haha) mixture.  Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and spices and blend everything until totally combined. 

Bake until done (18-20 min) I found these take a little longer because they are so liquidy.  Just keep an eye on them. 

I frosted these with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and sprinkled them with brown sugar. 

 

I'm the worst blogger ever...

Mike's 30th Birthday

So here are some cupcakes from December... 2010.
I made yellow cake.  It wasn't very good, neither was the chocolate frosting.  It was also my first attempt at filling a cupcake!  Oooooh... at least the pictures came out good - sort of.

Cupcakes, you guys

My friend Emily had a "puppy shower" and requested the "cookies n' cream" cupcakes with paw prints. 

I used junior mints and necco mint patty's to make the paws.

For my Dad's retirement he asked for the mint chocolate cupcakes.  But I was feeling inspired by the Bake it in a Cake site and I decided to shake things up by adding his favorite cookie (pepperidge farm's mint milano) to the mix. 

Some are mint milanos and some are raspberry!  Which one did you get?

The Big Day!

July 24th, 2010

The Wedding Day! 

 

For those of you that weren't at the wedding...

The cupcakes were a hit! 

 Thanks for following my experimental insanity. :)

When life gives you lemons...make cupcakes!

July 10th, 2010

The Bridal Shower

After a disastrous attempt at lemon cupcakes that are not even blogworthy, I decided to scrap the recipe and start all over.  I used a recipe for Extra Moist Lemon Cupcakes from recipezaar.com.  The first thing to notice is that the recipe directions call for salt, but it isn't listed in the actual ingredient list!  No problem, I used 1/2 tsp of salt and that seemed to work out fine.  Second, one of the reviewers mentioned that they only had lemon yogurt so they used that instead of plain.  This sounded plain genius to me considering that these are lemon cupcakes, so I did the same.  I did not make the lemon syrup, instead I went with this recipe for Coconut Frosting from epicurious.com.  I needed more frosting than this made, so I actually made it twice.  The second batch had a completely different consistency than the first and I have no idea what could have made the difference.  The only possibility that occurs to me is that the first batch I made the night before and refrigerated, while the second batch I used right away.  The second batch was much creamier and pleasant looking than the first, which had a sort of oily consistency.  I was nervous about the texture of adding all that coconut to the frosting, so with the first batch I strained it.  The second time I didn't and there was no difference that I could tell.  I also, didn't use the 2 and 1/2 cups sugar that the recipe calls for - I used four.  It might be because of this that the icing didn't have much coconut flavor, but I had no choice because I needed the frosting to be nice and stiff.  I can't tell if the coconut reduction is worth the trouble (I have a nice half inch burn on the side of my face from the constant explosions) I might use it but add coconut extract instead of vanilla, to get more flavor in it. 

 

The wedding is (less than) two weeks away!  I decided it was time to get fancy.

 

 

 

Cookies & Cream Part Deux

June 20th, 2010

Brasil World Cup

It's the return of cookies and cream.  This time documented with legit pictures.  (Thanks to Deborah for the use of her camera!)  

 



I didn't vary the recipe this time, but I did fill the cupcakes closer to the top since they don't rise much.  I can only assume this is because of the giant cookie pieces inside.  

I love the way the oreo cookies look on the bottom of the cupcakes.  And they are probably one of the most popular things about the cupcakes. 

I tried to stabilize the whipped cream frosting this time by adding double the amount of powdered sugar.  I'm not sure if it worked or not.  They made it through a very hot day, but were definitely a little "weepy" by the end of the afternoon.