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. 

Cookies & Cream

June 12th, 2010

Jill's Birthday!

My next adventure in cupcake recipes was cookies & cream.  I used a this recipe from Annie's Eats.  Sadly my camera was stolen so I only have pictures from my cell phone.  But, I'll definitely be trying this one again because it's so good!  First tip: oreo cookies are not easy to cut up.  This wasn't a big problem for the ones that go into the batter, since the quarters were all different sizes.  But it was tricky trying to get enough nice looking halves to put on the tops of the cupcakes.  The best thing to do is cut them all in the beginning and use the not-so-pretty ones to grind up in the icing.  

Since the icing for this recipe was cream cheese I used her other recipe for oreo whipped cream frosting.  It was delicious, but I was nervous the whole time that it would melt.  I was going to try out another recipe, but everyone loved it so much that I'm going to see if I can keep it.  I'm going to try adding more powdered sugar and hope that makes it a little stiffer.  

Seriously though.  These are tasty.

More Minty Goodness

June 5th, 2010

Mom & Dad's 35th Anniversary

I decided to remake the mint chocolate cupcakes and follow the suggestion of my coworker to add some chocolate chips.  I used mini chips and followed his advice to coat them in flour first to keep them from melting. 

The only downside to the chips is that it makes it difficult to use the toothpick method to test if they're done.  The chips stayed intact though and I was happy because people seemed psyched to have them. 



I also got a chance to give the icing another try.  This time it worked much better, which was a huge relief because it's much more delicious than the other buttercream.  (Less buttery!)  I guess the lesson is, room temperature butter should NOT be 80 degrees!  It amounts to the same thing as melting the butter, which defeats the whole purpose and it doesn't bind the sugar together. 

Ta-Da! 

  

Minty Goodness

 May 23, 2010

TSER/Operetta

My second attempt was mint chocolate cupcakes!  I used the recipe on this website.  The author describes them as "sort of like a thin mint reincarnated as a cupcake."  Who can resist that!?  The recipes says it makes 12 cupcakes so I doubled it, and it made 33!  The batter was really fluffy, I think because of the sour cream, and I didn't want to overfill the cups so I didn't use too much in each.  

The results weren't very puffy at all though, which made for good decorating. These cupcakes are small for regular sized cupcakes.  I really like the look of the oversized cupcakes from the red velvet batch.  Everyone seemed to like these cupcakes, I got a few comments that they were dry.  Not sure if that was due to the temperature though since some were eaten straight from the fridge.  Someone commented on Simply Recipes that these are excellent when frozen, but I don't know if I want to go that far. 

I decided to try out a different buttermilk recipe this time, since I didn't love the taste of the last one.  I used Chockylit's recipe for Mint Buttercream Frosting.  Sadly, it was a disaster...I think it was my own fault for making it in the sweltering heat of my kitchen (it was about 80 degrees).  The icing was really runny and I barely got it onto the cupcakes.  They were saved by sticking them in the fridge for a while.  The icing was super sweet (I had to brush my teeth right after eating it!) and delicious.  The mint flavor really made it awesome.  I got nothing but compliments about the flavor.  I'm definitely going to try the recipe again in a more reasonable climate.  

The Mission

My dear friend Irina is getting married in July of 2010. This blog is a chronicle of my attempts at becoming a professional baker in 3 short months in order to provide the cupcakes for her and her guests! It's going to be a combination of my love for photography and the scientific method...so watch for lots of pictures and serious analysis by my lab rat colleagues. 

Days left: 66