Back to Cupcakes

These are by no means the first cupcakes that I have made since I have moved back to school.  These are just the first ones that lasted long enough for me to photograph them.  Cupcakes don't last long in the cupcake suite.

I made my classic chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting the day after moving back, but those were gone before I got my camera unpacked.

I wanted to try something a bit different so I went for Martha Stewart's maple walnut cupcakes.  They were decent, not anything spectacular though.  The cake was a bit dense and not very fluffy.  That being said, my suite still ate them up.  No complaints on their end!

Happy Baking,
Margaret

Baking with Friends

When I see my friends from home during breaks one of our most important tasks is to bake new cupcakes.  Two of my dear friends and I absolutely can't stay out of the kitchen when we are together.  They are a big part of the reason why my cupcake obsession exists.  We always end up making more than one type of cupcake, so this time we went for lemon and chocolate toffee!

Light Lemon Cupcakes

Adapted From Gourmet

Makes about 2 dozen

1 cup canola oil

2 cups white flour

1/2 cup cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350° and line cupcake pans.

Whisk together flours, salt, and baking powder.  Stir together milk, canola oil, vanilla, and zest in another bowl.  Beat together sugar and eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer until just combined.  Reduce speed to low and add flour and milk mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Bake in muffin pans for 16-20 minutes.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted From Gourmet

Makes enough to frost 1 dozen cupcakes

2 cups confectioners sugar

8 ounces cream cheese

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy.  Add sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice and beat until well combined.  Refrigerate frosting for at least 30 minutes before frosting.

The recipe for the chocolate toffee came from Lighter and Local.  The cupcakes were quite good!  The frosting recipe calls for a ton of butter, but don't be afraid to add it all!  I didn't add it all and my frosting was a bit too thick and hard to pipe.

Happy Baking!
Margaret

Another Year of Cupcakes

Happy New Year!  2012 should be a wonderful year filled with lots of friends, family, and cupcakes.  To celebrate the end of 2011,  I made a couple different cupcakes to serve at my family's New Year's Eve dinner party.  Since it seemed so festive and appropriate, I chose the champagne cupcakes and decided to pair them with some lavender glazed brownies.  It was the perfect way to watch the ball drop and welcome in the new year- with a cupcake in hand!

Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes

From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

Makes 24

3/4 cup plus 2 tbs flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

12/ tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2 1/2 tbs butter, softened

3 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped

1 1/3 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Melt butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water; stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

With an electric mixer on medium, beat chocolate and sugar until combined.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Reduce speed to low.  Add flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Bake brownies for about 17 minutes.

Lavender Icing

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

1/3 cup milk

3 cups confectioners sugar

1/2 teaspoon lavender extract

Bring milk just to a boil in a saucepan.  Remove from heat and stir in lavender.  Whisk in confectioners sugar until smooth.  Use immediately.

 Champagne Cupcakes

From Crazy About Cupcakes

Makes 18

2/3 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 3/4 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3/4 cup champagne

6 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.  In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Blend the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with the champagne.

In a large clean bowl beat the egg whites on high speed until stiff peaks form.  Fold one-third of the egg whites into the batter until blended, then fold the remaining whites.

Bake for 16-20 minutes.

Champagne Buttercream

From Crazy About Cupcakes

3/4 cup vegetable shortening

12 tbs butter

3 tbs champagne

4 1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Beat shortening and butter until light.  Add confectioners sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating until thoroughly combined.  Add champagne once half of the sugar has been added.

Happy 2012!
Margaret

Christmas Eve Baking

Merry Christmas Eve!  Today there was something very important that my family needed to do- we had to bake all of our Christmas cupcakes and cookies!  My mom, sister, and I got right to work this morning.  We had mixed up our cookie dough in advance, so all we had to do was make the cupcakes and bake the cookies.  Everything came out beautifully and incredibly festive!

The peppermint cupcakes and buttercream are from a wonderful recipe from Bakingdom.

Peppermint Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1-2 tsp peppermint extract

1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin pan with cupcake papers.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined.  Add the peppermint extract and stir.  Add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the sour cream in two batches.

To marble the cupcakes, stir in red food coloring to 1/2 of the batter.  Add a scoop of each color batter to the cupcake tins and swirl with a toothpick.

Bake for 14-18 minutes.

Peppermint Buttercream

1/2 cup butter

4-5 cups powdered sugar

3-4 tablespoons milk

1 tsp peppermint extract

Cream the butter until light and fluffy.  Add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating until well combined.  If the frosting gets too thick, add milk 1 tablespoon at a time.  Add peppermint extract.

 We also made molasses cookies and sugar cookies- all we had to do was shape the cookies and pop them in the oven, since we had already made the dough.  Both doughs  needs to be refrigerated for awhile, so it's easy to make in advance.

Molasses Cookies

3/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

2 tsp baking soda

2 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp ground clove

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375°.

Melt shortening and let cool.  Add sugar, molasses, egg to a large bowl and beat.  Sift together remaining ingredients and add to mixing bowl.  Mix until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Roll into small balls, coat in sugar, and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Sugar Cookies

(from Joy of Cooking)

1 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cup sifted flour

Cream butter, sugar, and salt.  Add egg and vanilla, beating until just combined.  Slowly stir in flour.  Refrigerate dough for at least 3-4 hours before rolling out.

To roll out, dust with flour and roll out to 1/4" thickness.

Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes.

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon corn syrup

2 tablespoons water

Combine ingredients and spread onto cookies.

Merry Christmas Eve,

Margaret

Home for the Holidays

Now it's officially winter.  The winter solstice has happened, and it's nearly Christmastime.  It has felt like winter for a bit longer than that, though.  We had our first (and only) snow back in October, the trees lit up on campus a week after Thanksgiving, and since then the days have been progressively shorter while the hours spent on work have grown progressively longer.  Unfortunately, that doesn't leave as many daylight hours in which to bake and photograph, so most of my holiday baking has taken place after the sun has gone down.  So it's not to say that I haven't been baking- I've made several pumpkin loaves, loads of gingerbread cupcakes, and holiday cookies galore- it's just that I haven't had pictures to share.

But now that I'm home, that all changes.  I woke up this morning to the smell of a pumpkin chocolate chip loaf baking in the oven.  Mom did a lovely job- it was just cool enough to slice when I made my way downstairs for breakfast.  The recipe that I used at school was from Food Network, since I was baking with fresh pumpkin.  I would always substitute the seeds for chocolate chips though!

Happy Holidays!

Margaret

Glorious and Edgy

As many of you probably know, I am a dancer, and this weekend I performed with two of Columbia's dance groups.  One of them was Orchesis, Columbia's largest student-run dance group.  One of the pieces I was in was choreographed by a good friend to Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory.  It was one of the most wonderful pieces I have danced in, so my cast decided we needed to do something special for our choreographer.  Since he always brought us candy or snacks at rehearsal we decided on these cupcakes that my friend found.

Not only are they cupcakes- they have a candy bar baked inside of them.  We used snickers- our choreographer's favorite!  Since they sunk a little, we added some chocolate ganache in the middle and then frosted them with chocolate buttercream.  Hopefully they are good- I actually haven't tried them since they were a gift!

From the Edge of Glory,

Margaret

Birthday Breakfast

 Last week- actually exactly a week ago today- was my birthday.  My wonderful friends did an amazing job of planning a wonderful surprise birthday party.  They put so much effort into making it a very special day!

The cake was perfect- dark chocolate with pumpkin buttercream and a chocolate glaze.  I am so grateful to have such wonderful friends- thank you guys again!

One of the gifts they got me happened to be one of the kitchen gadgets that I was desperately missing from my kitchen- a waffle maker.  But this waffle maker was extra special- it was a circus animal waffle maker!  So of course we had to make waffles the next morning.

Love and Cupcakes,

Margaret