Funfetti Cupcakes for Two

My sister gave up chocolate for lent. I’ll give you a moment to digest that information and react accordingly.

Who gives up chocolate for lent?! Crazy people. Unless you gave up chocolate for lent, I like you.

If I’m being honest, I already find it tough not to bake with chocolate. I find ways to sneak it into almost everything. Maybe it’s excessive?

All that aside, I did have to put my thinking cap on. Good thing Caroline came to the rescue with these. I saw them today and made them today. And I’m glad I did.

This recipe only make two cupcakes with just enough frosting. They are soft and fluffy, aromatic and full of sprinkley goodness! These are perfect when there are only two people around to eat them.

Or when your sister is a piggy (;P) and eats them both in less than 5 minutes flat without offering you a single bite. I’m not bitter or anything.

Funfetti Cupcakes for Two
Yields 2 cupcakes + frosting

FOR THE CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon almond milk (or whatever milk you like)
1 egg white
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sprinkles (I used non-pareils)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan with two liners (in the middle for even baking).

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, egg white, vanilla extract, and sugar until thoroughly combined.
Add in the flour and baking powder and whisk gently until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Add in the sprinkles and using a rubber spatula, gently fold them in. Don’t over stir!! If you stir too much the dye from the sprinkles will bleed and you’ll have tie dye cupcakes instead of funfetti.

Pour batter into your prepared cupcake pan. Bake for 10-13 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let them cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

FOR THE FROSTING

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

In a medium bowl and an electric mixer, beat the butter, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract until a frosting forms. If you like a thinner frosting, add a bit more milk until you reach your desired consistency. Frost your cooled cupcakes, toss on some more sprinkles (because they make everything better, duh) and enjoy!

Cupcakes adapted from Chocolate & Carrots; frosting adapted from Eat, Live, Run

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Oatmeal Cream Pies

Today is a special day.

It’s Mr. Picky-pants’ birthday today!!

It’s also Pi Day (03/14 = 3.14). How lucky he is to be born on Pi Day?! (I was born on Pecan Day and even though I have a very soft spot in my heart for pecans, I firmly believe that I was meant to be born on Brownie Day or I-ate-way-too-many-cookies day, just sayin’). He gets to enjoy all the wonderful pies that people around him make. Oh, wait… he doesn’t like pie. Not one single flavor. Commence eye roll. He’s Mr. Picky-pants for a reason, after-all.

Pie hating aside, I love him and I hope to make his birthday as special as I can. I’m taking him out for some of his fave food with good friends and sending him to work with his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

If you’re nice, I’ll share that recipe soon.

Until then, have some oatmeal cream pies.

Originally I wanted to make a mini fruit pie or at least a chocolate pie but motivation and ingredients were low. So Tracey helped remind me that there were loopholes. I quickly exploited that loophole and made these “pies.”

So, grab a cookie-pie and celebrate! Happy Pi Day!

Happy birthday hubby, I love you sooo much!!

Oatmeal Cream Pies
Yields about 12 cookie sandwiches (24 cookies)

Ingredients:

For the cookies
1 stick butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups quick cook oats (not instant)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 /2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the marshmallow filling
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 7-ounce container marshmallow creme
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used vanilla paste)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl with a hand mixer) cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Add the egg and vanilla and mix together until thoroughly mixed.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Scrape down the bowl with the butter/sugar mixture. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix on low setting until just combined (the flour just disappears).

Use a cookie scoop (mine holds 2 Tablespoons) to measure out dough balls on your prepared cookie sheets. Leave at least 1 inch between cookies (I fit 12 on each cookie sheet and it worked great!)

Bake for 8-11 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

Make the filling:
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and marshmallow creme. Slowly add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth and fluffy.

Add a generous dollop of filling to half of the cookies and top with another cookie, lightly pressing down. Enjoy!

Recipe from Baked Bree

Shirley Temple Cupcakes

Hey there, stranger!

Well, technically I’m the stranger. It’s almost as if I dropped off the face of the blog-world. You probably thought I forgot about you, that I gave up on sugar and baking, and that I’ve turned the other cheek. I assure you, I haven’t.

Life happened and in the midst of everything, I needed a hiatus. That hiatus turned to laziness then a loss of motivation. I think I’m ready to give it another go, I hope you’ll still have me.

After all, I made you cupcakes.

These bad boys are SO tasty. A fluffy vanilla infused cake base with a cherry base, frosted with cherry infused buttercream and topped with a cherry.

So what do you say? Friends again? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Shirley Temple Cupcakes
Yields 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
1 and 1/2 cups (6 oz) plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup Cherry 7-Up, at room temperature*
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon maraschino cherry juice
Red food coloring

*I used regular 7-Up with a splash of maraschino cherry juice. It worked well!!

Instructions:

To make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and prepare a cupcake pan with your desired paper liners, set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 and 1/2 cups of flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer), add the butter and sugar and beat on medium-high speed until creamy, about 2-3 minutes.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. (My mixture looked satiny at this point.)

Reduce the mixer speed to low, and alternate adding the flour mixture and the Cherry 7-Up, beginning and ending with the flour, mixing well and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the vanilla and almond extracts, mixing well. (My mixture actually looked a bit curdled but they baked up great!)

Place about 3/4 cup of the cupcake batter in a separate small bowl and add the remaining 1 tablespoon of flour, maraschino cherry juice, and red food coloring (to your desired tint).

Evenly distribute the red cupcake batter among your prepared liners, about 1-2 teaspoons per liner, gently smoothing out the batter.

Once the red batter is in place, evenly distribute the remaining cupcake batter among the cupcake liners, making sure not to mix the two batters. Be sure to cover the red batter completely so it doesn’t bake up the sides and to the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs attached (do not overbake). Let cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

For the Buttercream frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
Pinch salt
2 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon maraschino cherry juice

For garnish:
12 maraschino cherries with stems

To make the Buttercream Frosting: In the bowl of your standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

Add the pinch of salt, powdered sugar, vanilla and almond extracts, lemon juice, and maraschino cherry juice into the bowl. On low speed, incorporate the ingredients until the powdered sugar is mixed in. Increase the speed to medium and beat for about 2-3 minutes. If you like your frosting thicker, add more powdered sugar (small amounts at a time) and if you like it thinner add a bit more cherry juice.

Pipe as desired onto your cooled cupcakes and garnish with a maraschino cherry. Enjoy!

Recipe from The Curvy Carrot For a gluten-free version go to Simply Gluten-Free for the recipe.

Happy St. Patty’s Day!!

I have missed every fun food related “holiday” since, well… ever. I missed Pi Day, Nutella Day, CCC week, Pound Cake Day (or was it week?) either way, I miss EVERYTHING!! So I WASN’T missing the chance to make something awesome for St. Patrick’s Day.

Enter: Green Velvet Cupcakes! The color is AMAZING!! The texture of these is fluffy and moist and they bake up so pretty!! If you’re looking for drop dead delicious chocolate flavor, look elsewhere. These have a hint of chocolate flavor but vanilla takes the spot light. But there’s something to be said for aesthetics!! I sent half to work with the fiance (and I’m happy to report that they are all gone!) and the other half went to work with me. Not even the UPS guy could turn one down.

As soon as the green shock-and-awe wore off, there wasn’t a sound. Except the munching and “mmmm, oh yum’s” filling the air. I’ll be using this recipe as my go to Red Velvet cake recipe as well, but I’ll be playing around with different chocolate measurements.

I topped these with a tad of vanilla frosting (although cream cheese is ideal, but when you discover that you only have half a block left, this can pose a problem. HALF A BLOCK?! Who has HALF a block? Ugh.) and green sprinkles.

They are SURE to delight!!

Red Green Velvet Cake

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa (mine was heaping)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup oil (use 1-1/2 for a layer cake)
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 oz. green food coloring (usually one standard McCormick bottle)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Line two cupcake pans with liners.
• Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
• Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really good with another wire whisk.
• Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix starting on LOW to get things going(this is ONE ENTIRE BOTTLE of food coloring, you don’t want it on your clothes!) then on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
• Fill each liner about 2/3 of the way (I had extra batter left over so I filled em up about 3/4 of the way) and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
• Bake for about 30 minutes for a layer cake and about 18 minutes for cupcakes. Or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• After about ten minutes, remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack. I also cover in plastic wrap while the cakes cool.
• Then make the frosting (which I wasn’t too crazy about but below is the recipe in case you’re interested).

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
From Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes book

Makes about 4 cups

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 pound (4 cups) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

• With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.
• Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners’ sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.
• Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

After seeing how fun baking something like this for St. Patty’s day was, I vow to bake more fun themed things for foodie holidays. Just do me a favor? Remind me when they are 😉

MSC – Coconut Cupcakes… OMG yum.

Let’s start this post off by noting that I was never a fan of coconut. Unless of course it was in the shape of an Almond Joy. But coconut cookies, cakes, anything sprinkled with the waxy, oddly textured stuff was shunned by me. I quickly turned my nose up in disgust and pranced away to play with barbies.

I am reformed! Can I get a hallelujah? I’d like to think that my adult taste buds are finally coming in and I am starting to branch out into different tastes and textures.

These cupcakes have opened up my mind. I must admit that I was a bit hesitant to try one but I sighed in that beautiful aroma and ogled the light, springy cupcake and I could no longer resist. Coconut or not, I was eating one! (After all, I had to even out the batch. Odd numbers bother me. I’m quirky, alright?)

And it was indeed perfect. Soft and springy and fluffy. Warm and delicious. Hints of coconut flavor, but not over-powering. Oh the joy. And that was without the frosting.

Now, the frosting, I wasn’t too crazy about. It had a great texture, but even when I added vanilla extract, it tasted like it was still missing something. It’s a great simply-throw-together type recipe but it needs to be tweaked, flavor wise.

I halved the recipe and yielded 9 cupcakes and halved the frosting as well and had wayyy too much left over. I am no cupcake artist, but I am rather proud of the way these turned out! PRAISE ME!! *imitates Invader Zim*

Now when I am offered a coconut treat, I’ll politely take one with an open mind. And then prance off to play with my barbies 🙂

A great big thank you goes out to Jennifer of Cinema Cupcakes for opening my coco-nutty world 😀

MSC – Gingerbread Cupcakes

I have run behind. BIG TIME. I keep proooomising myself that I’m going to post.

“I baked it, I photographed it, tiiiime to post”

But it hasn’t happened. I’ve been busy, tired, busy, or… well… tired.

But I’m breaking the chain. For now at least 😉

And what a recipe to come back on. Martha’s Gingerbread Cupcakes with fluffy vanilla frosting. This cupcake is the epitome of the holiday season. Holidays in a cupcake wrapper, if you will. It’s fluffy, aromatic and quite tasty.

I made half a batch of cupcakes (which actually yielded exactly 11 cuppies) and quartered the frosting and it was enough to frost all the cuppies so that each cuppie has a dash of sweet delight topped off with a sprinkling of cinnamon. 🙂

Kayte at Grandma’s Kitchen Table is to thank for this…. deliciousness! Thanks Kayte. PS, Hiii!!

The recipe can be found on page 246 of the Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes book. Its a great book, trust me on that!!

Please forgive my piping skills, as I don’t have any 😉

For more pics, click here.

Rainbow Cake

Ahhh the simple things in life. Those are the ones that matter most, no?

The beautiful tweeting of birds in the morning, the warm kiss of sun on your skin, telling your honey that he rocks on guitar hero although the screen told him so already, laughing and baking with a best friend ’til the wee hours of the morning, doing simple math on your fingers (am I the only one?) and spectacularly, BRILLIANT white frosting.

See? Simple.

But sometimes life requires something a little out of the ordinary. Something with a bit more flair. Something that deserves fan fare and a drum roll!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!! Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you this 6 layer, vivid rainbow cake!! *crowd goes wild*

Just cutting into this cake made me giddy with delight. The colors, the aroma… oh MY!

There were a few mistakes made during the whole process, things that I will be sure to avoid next time (like evenly dividing the batter, crumb coating, leveling the cake, buying fresher limes, etc etc). Hey! Will you look at that? I’m learning after all! But none of the mistakes made take away from the beautiful presentation and most importantly, the taste! Its simply… delicious.

Rainbow Cake

Adapted from Conversations With A Cupcake

Ingredients:

2 boxes white cake mix (we used Betty Crocker’s super moist white cake)

6 eggs

1 c. water

2/3 c. oil

1/2 c. raspberries (we mashed them)

Zest of 1 orange + 2 T. juice

Zest of 1 lemon + 2 T. juice

Zest of 1 lime + 2 T. juice

1/2 c. blueberries (we used frozen, thawed and then mashed them)

1/2 c. blackberries (we mashed them)

Wilton Icing colors in red (we used pink), orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

Brilliant White Frosting (see recipe at end of post)

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, eggs, water, and oil together. Follow directions on the box. Scoop 1-1/3 cups of batter into six small bowls.

In the first bowl, mix raspberries and 1/4 tsp red coloring. In the second bowl, mix orange zest and juice, and 1/2 tsp. orange coloring. In the third bowl, mix lemon zest and juice and 1/4 tsp. yellow coloring. In the fourth bowl, mix lime zest and juice and 1/4 tsp. green coloring. In the fifth bowl, mix blueberries and 1/4 tsp. blue coloring. In the sixth bowl, mix blackberries and 1/4 tsp. purple coloring.

Prepare six 8 inch cake pans by greasing and flouring each generously. Using a spatula, spoon and spread each color of batter into its own cake pan. Bake in an oven, preheated to 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes, or until tops spring back when touched lightly. Allow to cool completely. Frost with Brilliant White  Frosting.

Seven-Minute Frosting
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

5 tablespoons water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs whites at room temperature
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk first five ingredients together in a large, stainless-steel bowl. Set the bowl in a wide, deep skillet filled with about 1 inch of simmering water. Make sure the water level is at least as high as the depth of the egg whites in the bowl. Beat the whites on low speed until the mixture reaches 140 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer. Do not stop beating while the bowl is in the skillet, or the egg whites will be overcooked. If you cannot hold the thermometer stem in the egg whites while continuing to beat, remove the bowl from the skillet just to read the thermometer, then return the bowl to the skillet.

Beat on high speed for exactly five minutes. Remove the bowl from the skillet and add vanilla, beating on high spped for two to three more minutes to cool.

Use this frosting the day it is made.

*Side note: one batch of frosting wasn’t enough so we had to make another batch of frosting and then ended up with too much! Next time I think I’ll make 1-1/2 batches of the frosting.*

**Double side note: if you are making this cake for anyone other than yourself, i suggest you level off the layers and crumb coat. We were making this for ourselves, therefore we revel in our imperfections.**

For more pics of this lovely cake click here