It's Good To Be Back!

It's been a while since I've posted anything or baked anything for that matter. In fact, my last post was in May! What have I been up to, you may wonder? Well, June is the busiest month in the whole year for me. My birthday, both my in-law's birthday's and Father's Day all happen to be in the same month so pretty much every weekend in June is fully booked with family events. In July Mike and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary (woohoo!) and went on a mini vacation. The rest of the summer Mike and I spent as much time as possible outside enjoying our pool which left me no time for baking. But I have to admit I have missed baking and playing around with different recipes so not only did i decided to start up my cupcake project again but i baked two different cupcakes in one week.

First I decided to make a lemon cupcake. A coworker of mine (who we shall call Yenifeeeer for anonymity  purposes) asked for a lemon cupcake for her birthday. Her exact request was a lemon cupcake that was definitely lemon, but not too lemony. She wanted something that would make her say "mmm, lemon" (her words,  not mine) :)

Lemon Cupcake
I was at the store with my mom getting everything I needed for the lemon cupcakes when my mom noticed they were selling Meyer Lemons. Apparently they aren't very commonly sold at grocery stores here in California (at least not at my grocery store). If you are like me then you probably don't know what a Meyer Lemon is and how it differs from a regular lemon. Luckily for me my mom is an endless pit of knowledge (seriously, I would list her as my phone-a-friend in a heartbeat!) Meyer Lemons are thought to be a cross between a lemon and a tangerine which is why their peels have an orange tinge to them. They also have a strong aroma and tend to be sweeter and less acidic tasting, which makes them great for cooking. I decided to trust my mom and give them a shot which is a good thing because their flavor won me over!

For the cake I decided to use a pretty basic vanilla cake recipe but added in fresh lemon juice and zest from one whole lemon. A little tip I learned from my mom is to always roll a lemon on the counter before cutting it open to juice it. This loosens up the juice and you will get A LOT more juice out of it. The cake turned out really good; it was light and fluffy. The only problem I encountered was that a few of the cakes sort of exploded out of the liner. Exploded isn't really the best word to describe it but I just don't know how to better say it. I could be totally wrong but I think it had something to do with the lemon juice. If it ever happens again I'll take a picture of it. Anyways, I decided to taste one of the semi-exploded cakes before tossing it to see what kind of "mmm, lemon" flavor i was dealing with. It did have a nice lemon flavor but was definitely more on the subtle side so I decided to core out the center and fill it with a lemon curd filling.

Once the centers were filled with the lemon curd it was time to move on to the frosting. I decided to make a lemon butter cream. Again, i used fresh lemon juice and zest. Can I just say this was quite possibly one of my favorite butter creams that I have ever made! It's taken me a while to find a good butter cream recipe that didn't taste too buttery or too sickly sweet and now I've found it. Unfortunately, I was baking at my mom's house so I didn't have all my supplies with me, including my piping bags and tips, so I wasn't able to pipe the frosting on and make it pretty and had to settle for using a spatula. Lastly, i sprinkled edible gold dust on for a finishing touch.

That's the finished product, what do you think? I'm not usually one to toot my own horn but I have to say this was a very good lemon cupcake. Even Mike, who admittedly doesn't like lemon flavored anything, thought it was really good.

Caramel Apple Cupcake

Later in the week Mike and I were having his family over for a BBQ and I decided to make.....CUPCAKES!! Big surprise, right? I came across a recipe that used fresh apples and home made caramel that sounded yummy so I thought I'd give it a try. The cakes were actually a brown sugar apple cake. I used my food processor to finely dice up 4 Granny Smith apples and mixed them into the batter. The cakes turned out really tasty but definitely weren't super sweet. They actually would be really good on their own as a muffin.

Now for the fun part: home made caramel! A word of advice, avoid the urge to sample the caramel as soon as it's made!!! Even though I knew it was super hot I couldn't resist myself and dipped the tip of my finger in the caramel. It felt like the skin was melting off my finger, no joke!

After letting the caramel cool completely (about an hour), i mixed in powdered sugar and had some delicious, though very sweet caramel frosting! And this time I was home and excited to be able to use my piping bags to put on the frosting.

They were yummy and I was very surprised at how much it actually tasted like a caramel apple! 

Cake Pop Madness

It seems like everywhere I look I am seeing cake pops; they're all over the place! For those of you who live under a rock and don't know what cake pops are, they are little cake balls (maybe not the best arrangement of words) covered in chocolate. They can be as simple as just chocolate dipped balls like in the first pic, or as elaborate as the second pic (my personal favorite since I am obsessed with cupcakes) and much more...

I recently saw a cake pop cookbook that I want really badly but I'm gonna hold off on buying it until I am finished with my cupcake challenge because I know if I buy it i might be tempted to abandon cupcakes... Maybe that will be my next project: Operation Cake Pops!

Anyways, I decided to give cake pops a try, though i thought I'd stick to the basic cake pops for my first try and save the cute/crazy designs for later. Red Velvet is my absolute favorite cake so that's what I ended up making. First, I baked a red velvet cake. As beautiful as it looked coming out of the oven, it was time to destroy it. That's right, to make cake pops you have to crumble up the cake into a bowl.

The next step is where it gets messy. You mix the crumbles together with the frosting (I used cream cheese frosting to go with the red velvet cake) and form smallish balls. Doing this not only makes the cake very moist but also helps it taste just like you're eating a real piece of cake! Place all the balls on a cookie sheet and let them cool in the fridge for a couple hours. You can speed up this process by putting them in the freezer if necessary.

Once cooled, melt your chocolate in a bowl and dip the tip of a popsicle stick in the melted chocolate. Insert the stick into a cake ball.

Once the stick is securely in the ball, dip the entire ball into the chocolate. If you are trying to keep the shape perfectly round or you are making a fun design you would then wedge the stick into a piece of styrofoam and let chocolate harden. But since i wasn't trying to do anything crazy i set the chocolate dipped pops back onto the cookie sheet and placed them back in the fridge to harden. As a result the base of the pop was a little flat but otherwise it was tasty!

The cake pops were yummy and everyone that had one liked them. I'm definitely going to be making these again and perhaps next time i will make the cupcake shaped ones!

Birthday Fun

My nephew Kieran just turned 1 year old and my sister asked if I'd make cupcakes for his birthday party; she thought cupcakes would be easier for him to handle then a cake. Of course I said yes! However, after talking to my mom I decided to make him a little cake too, after all, you only turn 1 once.

I decided to keep things simple so I made vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean butter cream frosting. I absolutely love using real Madagascar vanilla beans! They make such a difference in the flavor and seeing all the little flecks of vanilla in the batter/frosting made me want to eat them all!

For the cake i decided to use my giant cupcake cake pan to keep with the cupcake theme. I made Devil's Chocolate Cake (From the Martha Stewart Cupcakes Book) with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. I was definitely nervous about making this because I had only used the cake pan once before with disastrous results. I don't think I greased the pan enough and the cake wouldn't come out of the pan with out crumbling to pieces. This time I greased the pan as much as possible, making sure to get every little nook and cranny. Then I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer...

The cupcakes were simple vanilla but simply amazing! I'm not a huge fan of butter cream (give me a cream cheese frosting any day) but this one was very good. My husband even declared it "the perfect vanilla butter cream"! My only critique came from my brother-in-law who said he would have preferred more cake and I think i agree with him. This was my first time using an ice cream scoop to fill the cake liners so i wasn't used to doing it that way. Next time I will definitely fill the liners with slightly more batter. 

The chocolate cake was sooooo yummy! The consistency and flavor was perfect, as was the frosting! And I was so happy the cake actually came out of the pan. My only disappointment was the bottom portion of the cupcake cake. I had originally planned to make a cupcake liner for the cake by making a mold of the pan with melted chocolate. I read online and found several people who had done it and said it looked great. The only problem was getting the hardened chocolate off and out of the pan once it was cooled. I tried flipping it upside down and tapping it out, I tried dipping the pan in hot water really quickly to warm it up slightly. In the end i gave up and chipped it all out. I'm going to continue to research this and try to find a solution. Clearly it can be done as i saw online.

Overall, the party was a success and everyone enjoyed a little sweetness!

Yummy in my Tummy!

This past month has been a crazy one for me. Between work, a mini vacation to visit my sister in Washington, and a business trip to Idaho I haven't had much time to bake anything! Today happens to be my day off from work and i felt that all too familiar itch to bake something so I decided to kick off Operation Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, yay!

I decided to make Snickerdoodle Cupcakes partly because they are one of my hubby's favorite cookies and partly because thats about all I could make without running to the store! I seemed to be one ingredient short for almost every other recipe.

The batter was simple enough to make and tasted absolutely delicious (I'll admit I tend to eat a decent amount of the batter before it even gets cooked)! The tough part was that our oven isn't working right and basically burns everything in 5 minutes so i had to use our toaster oven. It works well and the cupcakes came out great but i could only use my small cupcake pan that makes 6 cupcakes at a time!

 Fresh out of the oven....

For the frosting, I tried the Swiss Meringue Buttercream and while i liked it, i think it was a little too buttery for me. A cinnamon frosting would have been good or even a light fluffy whipped cream frosting but at the very least i think ill cut back on the butter in this frosting next time. This frosting also wasn't ideal for piping; it didn't hold its swirl very well.

    

 The finished product, with some cinnamon sugar spinkled on top.

Overall i liked these cupcakes. The cake was really good and definitely tasted like a snickerdoodle cookie!

Hello Everyone!

Hello everyone! I love baking and spend so many of my days off work trying out new recipes and techniques. Sometimes it seems like all the stars align and my experiments turn out to be master pieces. Other times things don't turn out the way i want and i chalk it up to a learning lesson. Often I find myself browsing the Internet for tips when i feel stuck and have stumbled across some really fun blogs. That's brought me here; I'd like to think something i try out might help someone else.

That brings me to my mission with this blog: Inspired by Julia&Julie, iv'e decided to work my way through my favorite cupcake cookbook, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, and post about all my experiences (including pictures). I'm going to talk about how it turned out, what worked, what i might change next time, etc... Along the way I'll also share any other yummy treats i make!

 

This next weekend is my nephew's 1st birthday and my sister asked me if I'd make some delicious cupcakes for the event. Of course i said yes! I'm still trying to come up with ideas for what I'm going to do but as soon as i have I'll be sure to post pics so stay tuned!

In the meantime, here is a pic of the most recent cupcakes i made. 

I made these for my friends birthday. Needless to say she is a hello kitty fan and everyone thought these were adorable! It was also my first time using fondant so i was pleased with how they turned out, even though it was VERY time consuming! Oh yeah, did i mention they were DELICIOUS?!?! They were a Madagascar Vanilla Bean Cake with a Dulce de Leche filling, yummy!