Strawberry Cupcakes

My neighbor has been asking if I could make a cupcake with strawberries. Since I've been having great luck finding really juicy and sweet strawberries at Whole Foods, I decided to give it a try.  I made the cupcake using a Vanilla Buttermilk batter.  In the meantime, I chopped up fresh strawberries, mixed with a little granulated sugar and let sit for about an hour.  The frosting I made was vanilla cream cheese buttercream with a little bit of the syrup that came off the strawberries.  Last, I topped it with the chopped strawberries.  I love everything about these cupcakes.  The cake was nice and light, the frosting was rich but not too sweet and the strawberries were sweet and fresh tasting.  These are officially in my top 5 favorites!

Decided to pipe roses using the same frosting.

Holiday Office Party Cupcakes

These are some of the pics from an order I did for a holiday party on a unit at the United Nations.  4 flavors: Chocolate with Swiss Meringue frosting, Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Buttercream frosting, Coconut with Malibu Cream Cheese Buttercream and Vanilla Buttermilk with Caramel Icing.

Mini White Chocolate Amaretto Cupcakes

I did a "recipe remix" using one of my favorite alcohols and my love of chocolate.  Some people do not like white chocolate but I do not discriminate when it comes to chocolate. I have love for ALL of them:). Searched online for some and nothing seemed like it would work so I took the recipe from the Caramel Cupcakes, followed pretty much the same exact steps but made a few ingredient changes and stirred in the melted white chocolate right before baking.  Overall, I thought these were just OK. Kinda too sweet and not moist enough for my taste.  I got good feedback about them but not so sure about making these again.

INGREDIENTS (makes about 36 minis)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp amaretto
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp milk
3/4 cake flour ( make my own sifting cornstarch and AP flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter
5 oz melted white chocolate (cooled)

I did these for a graduation (nursing) celebration so I made cupcake picks to liven them up a bit.

Thanksgiving Cupcake Marathon

Today I made over 100 cupcakes!  My feet are sore but I still feel great! After taste-testing quite a few being surrounded by cupcakes all day, I know what I'll pass on at dinner tomorrow.  At least they were not the regular sized-ones:) Actually, most of the feedback I get usually has to do with the size.  This is one instance where bigger is not always better.  I personally also like the mini cupcakes because I feel a lot a little less guilty.

Red Velvet, Cookies n Cream, and Caramel

These are most of the cupcakes I made.

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Bite-Sized Red Velvet Cupcakes

I made these little red velvet cupcakes for the Going-Natural event.  I modified a few of the recipes I've seen to get the perfect red velvet for me.  I like to use a little more cocoa powder than most recipes.  This yields about 28 mini-cupcakes (they are really small).
          1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 
           1/2 teaspoon salt

         1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

          3/4 cups sugar (brown and organic cane sugar)

         1 egg

         3 tablespoons cocoa powder 

         1 tbsp heavy cream

          1/2 ounces red food coloring

          1/2 cup buttermilk (Saco buttermilk powder mixed with almond milk)

          1 teaspoon vanilla paste

          1/2 teaspoon white vinegar

         1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Cream butter and sugar about 2-3 minutes.  Blend in egg.  Make a paste from cocoa and red dye.

Add paste to butter sugar mixture

Mix in flour and salt.  Add milk and vanilla.

Combine the baking soda and vinegar in a separate bowl. Fold in with a rubber spatula.

Bake 11 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. ( I used very small cupcake liners.  Add more time for bigger liners.)

Perfect!

 I made a standard cream cheese buttercream (confectioner's sugar, butter, cream cheese, milk, and vanilla) then sprinkled red crystals on top.

Gluten-Free Mini Coconut Cupcakes

I'm supplying cupcakes for my good friend Mireille's Going Natural product launch party this Sunday.  She is sensitive to wheat and loves coconut and vanilla.  She asked me if I could make something that she would be able to eat during the event.  I've never baked without wheat flour but was up to the challenge.  I made up my own recipe following some of the steps and ingredients for the Caramel Cupcakes as a base.  I generally use brown sugar to ensure moistness.

RECIPE 

2 egg yolks

1 egg

1 tsp coconut extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup plus 2 tbsp buttermilk

(I used Saco buttermilk powder with coconut milk)

1 ½ cup gluten-free all purpose flour

½ tsp xanthan gum

2/3  cup sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp condensed milk

2 ¼ tsp baking powder

¼ salt

¼ cup butter (room temperature)

¼ coconut oil (room temperature)

½ cup shredded coconut 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

In a large measuring cup, whisk together, the eggs, egg yolk, coconut extract, vanilla extract, condensed milk and buttermilk and set aside. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together the flour, xanthan gum, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix on low. With the mixer running, gradually drop in the coconut oil then the butter pieces and until blended, about 2 minutes. With the mixer still on low, begin slowly pouring in the wet ingredients. When all the wet ingredients have been added, increase speed to medium and mix until the batter is light and fluffy, about 1 1/2 more minutes. 

Mixing in wet ingredients.

Fold in unsweetened shredded coconut

Bake for 15-17 minutes

Nice and moist!

"They" always say that baking is very precise but a lot of times I throw few ingredients together and eyeball the measurements and still get good results.  That's exactly what happened with the frosting.  I whipped up these ingredients together.

About 2 cups sugar, 2 tbsp coconut milk, 3 tbsp organic heavy cream, 2 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut and 1/4 tsp coconut extract)

Whipped with a whisk then beat with paddle attachment  about 3-4 minutes

Caramel Cupcakes

This past Saturday I had a Book Club meeting with some wonderful ladies from my church.  It's very casual and we all bring a dish or drink and gather at someone's house.  The book selection was "The Shack."  We had some smoked gouda cheese and crackers, mac and cheese, fried chicken and salad.  I decided to make these cupcakes.  I tweaked a recipe I got from Piece of Cake Blogspot.  The buttermilk does make the cake extra moist.  I almost always substitute brown sugar, almond milk and vanilla paste.

I've made these in the past.  Here are 2 more pics:

I love how simple and tasty these are!

My First Post- Cookies and Cream

Well, I've been talking about having a cupcake side hustle for a while and I'm finally going full speed ahead with it. Tonight I made Cookies and Cream cupcakes for my friends in Baltimore.  One of our friends is heading there tomorrow for a long weekend.  I used the recipe from http://annies-eats.com/2010/06/02/cookies-and-cream-cupcakes/ with a little tweaking.  I used 2/3 cup brown sugar and 1 cup of organic cane sugar, almond milk instead of cow's milk, and vanilla paste instead of extract.  Her recipe is GREAT and very easy to follow.

This is a pic of some I made a while back

The Oreo on the bottom is a nice surprise. 

Ready to go! I get these boxes from Michael's. I think they're so cute:)