Strawberry Valentine Cupcakes

I baked these up for my little Valentines. A simple white cake recipe with a little strawberry puree added, then frosted with a fresh strawberry cream cheese frosting.

2 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 Cup strawberry puree (mashed & drained strawberries -save juice for another use)

Measure sifted flour, baking powder, and salt; sift together three times.
In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add 1/2 cup sugar gradually, and continue beating only until meringue will hold up in soft peaks.
Cream butter or margarine. Gradually add remaining 1 cup sugar, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add sifted ingredients alternately with milk a small amount at a time, beating after each addition until smooth. Mix in vanilla and strawberry puree. Add meringue, and fold thoroughly into batter. Scoop batter into lined cupcake pans with a regular size ice cream scooper.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 15 minutes. Cool cupcakes in pan 10 minutes, then remove from pan and transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
~adapted from Allrecipes


Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz package of cream cheese, room temperature
2 oz butter, softened
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup pureed strawberries (see above)

Sift powdered sugar into a bowl.
Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy.
Add half of the sugar, beat until combined.
Add strawberries until you achieve the right color and flavor, making sure not to add too much or the frosting will be too soft.
Gradually add remaining sugar (more if you have to) until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like.
~ adapted from Couture Cupcakes











May you have a *Lovely* day! Enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes! This is my 4th dozen I've made in the last week! Most went to the school, but Dorie's stayed home for me, uh for US I mean. I wasn't even going to do them, but my inner chocoholic made me. So crazy me, started these as I was making dinner. My reasoning was that they'll make me feel better since I'm getting a cold.

Clara of I Heart Food4Thought picked this as the recipe this week, check out her Blog for a peek at the recipe. I had read that other TWDers came out dry and it was not a favorite recipe. Then I read one where someone took them out earlier than required. So I baked them for 18 minutes, and the toothpick came out clean, I couldn't imagine baking longer! I used a semi-sweet chocolate for the glaze, which I almost didn't have enough for all the cupcakes. These came out pretty good. Because I had decided to make these at 4pm, that meant my lighting indoors wouldn't be fit for photos, so I headed outside. So chocoholics, here you go...













*I will try to figure out November's TWD, since my 'puter is in serious need of repairs. Maybe I'll keep baking then do a big TWD when I can get back online. I will miss you, my blog! (who saw my silly typo? hahaha)

Cake Walk Goodies

see more of these at my Flickr



I volunteered to donate some homemade baked goods for my little one's Halloween Festivities at school, for the cake walk game. I wonder if any of the 6 winners that chose mine, will visit my Blog (ok, so I snuck in a website URL card, heehee). Here is what I baked up:



Green and orange vanilla cupcakes from Joy of baking:

Vanilla Cupcakes:
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) milk
-food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and butter or line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour, stir in food coloring. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing. If you want flat topped cupcakes then slice off the dome of each cupcake, with a sharp knife, before frosting.

Orange and green cream cheese frosting from Art of Dessert:

Frosting:
8 oz. bar cream cheese, cold
1/2 cup butter , softened to room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar, measure then sift
-food coloring

Beat the cream cheese and butter till blended.Mix in vanilla extract. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a cup at a time.Once all the powdered sugar is added, increase to a higher speed to whip up the frosting till light and fluffy. Stir in food coloring. Frost cupcakes.
(I recommend serving these within a couple of hours and storing these in the fridge so the frosting doesn't break down or melt)





Sugar cookies with sprinkles from Betty Crocker.
3 cups powdered sugar
2 cups butter or margarine, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar

In large bowl, beat 3 cups powdered sugar, the butter, vanilla, 1 teaspoon almond extract and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, baking soda and cream of tartar. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease cookie sheet. Divide dough in half. On lightly floured surface, roll each half 1/8 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes with 3-inch cookie cutters. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. (I use use larger cookie cutters, and sprinkle with colored sugars/sprinkles before baking)

Bake 5 to 7 minutes or until edges are light brown. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

if only they stayed looking like this


Ok, so these didn't make it to the Halloween Festival. For some strange reason, these buggers spread out and lost their cookie cutter shape and became too big for the containers. They looked like blobs of sprinkled sugar cookies. I tried freezing the cutouts for a bit then baked right away, that helped some but I still wasn't impressed with their shapes, but they tasted great. Anyways, these are a favorite, that make it to my Holiday cookie trays every year.

Happy Birthday! Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes!

This weekend we celebrated our little girl's 5th birthday. Since we did a little party, I made ice cream cone cupcakes to serve! I have never made them before so I read up on other sites, reviews and tips before starting them. I used a vanilla cake recipe from Magnolia Bakery and a beautiful frosting recipe for the cones. I only made 12 cones and used the leftover batter for a round layer, that I frosted with a butter cream frosting also from Magnolia Bakery. The cones turned out sooo sooo cute and what fun they were! All us adults even ate one.

So, some tips I have about this entry are, be careful moving the decorated cones, they will tip! Thankfully it was the leftover ones that fell to the floor. I was afraid of them melting (haha!) in our warm house, so I put them in the fridge. The frosting turned a little hard, but was ok. This is a marshmallow-like frosting and is super sticky! Do not overfill your cones, I only filled them to that line, and they were perfect while baking but all of a sudden they grew over the cones in the last minutes. Use a large star tip to achieve the soft serve look, I had to go get a tip just for these, I think it was a 1 M that I got. The cake was wonderful, I really liked it overall! Very easy recipe, except I think it was just a tiny bit dry. I will for here on out, buy better food coloring, like a gel or paste. Those little squeeze bottles are lousy for coloring frosting. I also used too big of a tip (or the cake was too small) to write her name, so it looked like squiggles, haha.
I wish I had all the tools from my cake decorating days in a bakery, 14 yrs ago. I certainly don't get to practice enough, hence the silly decorated cake.

a new photo place

a new oven (I swear it's 100' off!)

I forgot the cherries for the final pictures

yea, I spread the frosting on thick

Celebration Time!

Ok, I am in the kitchen way too much, I'm falling behind on my recipe blogging! These are a couple of days late. Apparently I'm loosing track of time too, since something just had a Birthday and I missed it!
So what are we celebrating? Well, first of all my little Blog here turned 1 years old June 25th ! It's funny to go back and see what I was cooking up and even more funnier are my photos! This was my first recipe to be blogged here. Times have changed, but the food is still good!
Also my little boy just turned 15 months old so I had to make cupcakes! I think that was also the day, my Blog was given an award. Ok, so I needed a reason to make them *wink.

So here you go, all my faithful readers gets a vanilla cupcake with cream cheese frosting. These were made especially from my Hello, Cupcake! book, that I won a little while ago at Yummr! Go check them out, tell them I sent ya, you might also win yourself a book for the month of July! Thanks to all of you, who help keep me blogging!

So after I won that book, I had to get me some cake decorating tips and bags and such. No, I did not already have that stuff, my kid's birthday cakes lately have been simply frosted with candies sprinkled all over. Now they'll be a little more elaborate. Let's see if I can remember my cake decorating skills from the days of the big Hobart mixer in the bakery/deli. Well something I didn't realize was the tip size. Haha, I ordered small tips, I need the bigger tips! Oh well, the small star worked OK for these.

Ok, enough talk, let's eat!

Frosted Carrot Cake Cupcakes

4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup raisins (softened in hot water, drained)
1/2 cup shredded coconut, very lightly toasted
1 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted

1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 Tbl lemon juice
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots, raisins and coconut. Fold in pecans. Pour into lined cupcake pans.
Bake in a 350' oven for 15 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, transfer to cooling rack. Makes 24 cupcakes.

( for a 9x13 prepared pan, bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.)

Frosting:
With a mixer, combine butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and lemon juice. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost cakes, sprinkle nuts over frosting. Store in refrigerator.



~My side note
I combined a few different recipes for this. Next time I might also add in a little drained crushed pineapple as well.