Is this thing on....

Turns out, moving across the country and starting over with your kitchen appliances, tools and gadgets makes cooking and baking tough. But, I've definitely been up to more than I've let on. Here's a little something to tide you over. Unfortunately, I do not recall which vegan chocolate cupcake recipe I used for these cupcakes - I think it may have had avocado in it - and I totally cheated on the frosting. I cough *bought* cough it. I was pressed for time, and I didn't want to risk it.

I made these for a new co-workers birthday, which also coincided with our lab meeting. Yum, brains!!

Cupcake Fever

It was a friend's quarter-century birthday last week, and she's been begging for carrot cake since I last tried to make it for Easter.  You'll recall that at Easter I wanted to make cupcakes, but I had no cupcake pans (HOW?!) and so I made a bundt cake. After that tragedy I quickly bought some cupcake pans, and this time around I made the cupcakes I wanted.  Thanks to the best birthday present ever, Williams-Sonoma mechanical pastry bag, I used the super-large open star tip and swirled the cream cheese frosting on top for a fancy finish!

There is a story in here, although it's not about the baking.  It's about the cupcake pans.  In March when I discovered I had none I was amazed.  I couldn't believe I didn't have cupcake pans - but I decided maybe they had been my old roommates and were left with her in Boston.  On Monday when I went to bake these cupcakes I opened the under-stove drawer where my pans are, and there were no cupcake pans.  I've been doing some major house reorganization lately, so I checked in the cabinet with other pots and pans and baking sheets.  Not there.  Now, I was sure I had two cupcake pans, but I couldn't find them.  I opened the under-stove drawer one more time, and as I did this I accidentally pushed one cake pan over the back edge and into the scary dark abyss.  As I reached my hand back to get the lost cake pan, I heard it clink against something.  So I did some more digging.  And what did I find there??  FOUR cupcake pans.  The two I bought in March nestled snuggly on top of the two I couldn't find in March.  Apparently, the under-stove drawer is constantly stealing my cupcake pans.  But the good news is, now I can make FORTY-EIGHT cupcakes at once!!

4th of July Cupcakes

Better late than never, right? I made these cupcakes for Caitlyn's second (and not final!) birthday celebration. These were for a sleep-over she had with two of her best friends. I just plopped myself in front of the TV and went to town on these guys. It was fun! It also beat going crazy with smoothing over frosting on a cake -- over and over and over again, putting it in the fridge, and smoothing it over, over and over AGAIN. With cupcakes I feel like you can have more fun. It's okay for them to look homemade, right? What's also great about cupcakes is if you're making them for someone else, you can always have one or two for yourself. You can't exactly cut a piece of cake for yourself. . . and then give the cake away. Or maybe you can. . . extra frosting anyone?

Cupcake Madness

Cupcake Madness happened two weeks ago, right before my dance recital. I decided to give one of these cupcake boxes to each of my eleven student assistants.

The boxes (how cute are they?) are from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macy's. There were matching cupcake papers and labels too, but I thought that was WAY too matchy, so I just opted for a combination of pastel and silver papers.

The cupcakes, from the top left are chocolate with chocolate buttercream, white with traditional buttercream, chocolate with peanut butter frosting, and white with strawberry butter cream cheese frosting. Yum-o, no?

The more unusual frostings were a little experimental. The peanut butter frosting came from a super cute and informative book that Leah got me for my birthday called Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse. It was experimental in that I had never made it before. It was good though, so I will post that recipe when it's not nearly 1:30am. . . the strawberry butter cream cheese evolved from one of my favorite recipes for just plain butter cream cheese. I thought, hey, what would happen if I made that and then stirred in some strawberry jelly? Well what happened was this: Scott's favorite frosting ever was born.

So there you go, my cupcakes. Just add some sprinkles, and BAM -- they're ready for gift-giving.

Cupcakes, take II

Oh wow - I think these are my new favorite cupcakes. I set out to make them as penance for screwing up so many batches of cupcakes last weekend. I first found this recipe in the Rachel Ray magazine I bought while stranded in Houston on my way to Wales in September, and finally, 7 months later, I've made them. The recipe turned out 20 cupcakes, and I ate one right out of the oven - you know, to see if they were any good. I actually made them late last night, and there was no time to frost them before I needed to go to bed. In the morning I decided to freeze a bunch, so there are now 12 unfrosted cupcakes in my freezer (YUM!) and this evening I mixed the frosting and frosted them. Lately I've been choosing to use my giant plastic spatula to spread frosting, it's been really useful! Once frosted and photographed, I ate one. And now - I want another!!

Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes with Mascarpone Icing

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 4 ounces chocolate, broken into pieces 1/2 cup boiling water 2 sticks (8 ounces) butter, at room temperature 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 4 large eggs 1 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup medium- to full-bodied red wine, such as cannonau** Two 8-ounce containers mascarpone cheese, at room temperature 2 cups confectioners' sugar Red grapes, halved, for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Line 2 muffin pans with baking liners.
2. In a medium, heatproof bowl, combine the cocoa powder and chocolate pieces. Whisk in the boiling water until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is combined.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until blended. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until just combined. Alternating, add the chocolate mixture and wine in batches, mixing well between each addition, until the batter is smooth. Divide among the muffin cups, filling each about three-quarters full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in the pan.
4. Lightly beat the mascarpone, then add the confectioners' sugar and beat until creamy. Remove the cooled cupcakes from the pan, spread each with icing and top with a grape half.

**I used Yellow Tail Shiraz-Cabernet

A Kitchen Snafu!

That about sums up my weekend - the only thing I was successfully able to make was Annie's Shells and Cheese, which, let's be honest - YUM! I set out to make cupcakes, as a "welcome new baby" surprise for the family I babysit for. I was undecided, chocolate or vanilla, so I tried to make a half batch of each. I was trying new recipes, which, in the end I will try again - and follow a little bit better. I tried the "Silver White Cake" and "Best Chocolate Cake" from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook. I mixed both batters, poured the cupcakes and put them in the oven. They smelled yummy, and in 15 minutes were perfectly done. I decided to sample one of the silver white cupcakes, and it tasted LIKE EGG! It's then that I realized that I halved everything in the recipe EXCEPT the egg whites. FIVE WHOLE EGG WHITES, gross. They all got tossed. Now, the chocolate cupcakes had something already working against them, as I ran out of sugar while making them. I tried to supplement with some confectioners sugar - between that and my egg faux pas (yes, I forgot to half the eggs in BOTH recipes) they weren't great. Pretty bland. But, a true cook keeps going, right?! So on with the frosting. Yes, Mel - I fight with it too. I have no idea why. I dread it. And it gets everywhere - I had some behind my ear this time, no lie. I made a new frosting, that I should have realized would taste like Fluff, as it required me to boil sugar and corn syrup to 242 degrees (aka, soft ball stage). The idea to use my mechanical pastry bag to "pipe" the frosting was a horrible one, as this "frosting" just oozes - everywhere. It was disgustingly sweet, but worked to hide the blandness of the cupcake itself decently. In the end it was a mediocre mess of cupcakes, that I embarrassingly delivered as a present. I'm so thoughtful!