Somewhere over the rainbow...

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Being Irish by marriage, I felt it was my duty to celebrate this holiday with baked goods, because that’s what I do! (And because if I said “with drinking,” I would be getting AA referrals… especially from my hubby!)

I Googled “St Patrick’s Day Cupcakes” for some ideas. I found green velvet cupcakes, but since I turned everyone’s mouth blue with my blue velvet cupcakes in December, those were out. So I went for rainbow cupcakes with a twist. I decided to make the rainbow with my frosting, and my cupcake would be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

To make the pot of gold cupcakes, I used my darn good chocolate cake recipe for the “pot”, and a yellow cake batter for the “gold”. I basically spooned some chocolate batter into the cupcake liner and formed a little bowl for the yellow batter. (Fortunately the chocolate batter was thick so this worked well. I wish I could have taken pictures of this step, but it was pretty messy!) I was pleased with the way they turned out, especially since I was basically winging it. Some of the pots were overflowing with gold!



I originally wanted to do a rainbow swirl frosting to top the cupcakes, but having never made swirls before, I wussed out because I was out of milk and couldn’t remake the frosting in case I messed up. Instead I just piped little rainbows on the cupcakes, which turned out cute!



Since I couldn’t fit all the rainbow colors on the cupcakes, I played around with the green and yellow frostings to attempt a swirl. I piped the swirl onto some cupcakes that I made with extra yellow batter that I dyed green. Pretty!



YUM!



Until next time, an Irish blessing:

Wishing you a rainbow
For sunlight after showers—
Miles and miles of Irish smiles
For golden happy hours—
Shamrocks at your doorway
For luck and laughter too,
And a host of friends that never ends
Each day your whole life through!

Peace, love and cupcakes,
Amanda

Oh My Ganache, It's Valentine's Day!

Dear Weight Watchers Gods,

Okay, so I fell off the wagon… a little. But it’s my favorite holiday and I haven’t had a single cupcake all year (apart from the WW friendly ones). So I’ll be having cupcakes… and some yummy food to celebrate the holiday of luuuuuurrrrve, and I promise on February 15th I’ll stop making excuses and get back with the program!

Love,
Amanda

Okay, so now that that’s done, I decided to tackle two of my cupcake goals this month that happen to involve the flavors chocolate and strawberry since they are kind of the official Valentine’s Day flavors.

My first goal was to make strawberry cupcakes, one of my favorite cupcake flavors. I have only attempted strawberry cupcakes once before, but that time the strawberries turned the batter pink, and as much as I love pink, I was going for more of a vanilla cupcake with strawberry bits in it.

For these cupcakes, I actually used the Sprinkles cupcakes recipe, and it worked! Woo hoo!

My batter:




Here they are, fresh out of the oven! Gorgeous :)



My frosting came out pretty awesome too. My strawberry puree was a bit thick, but I think it was kind of cool to have the little strawberry bits in it!

Here is the strawberry frosting on a chocolate cupcake, which I used for my second cupcake challenge, which was frosting with a chocolate ganache.

First I tried the ganache I use on my Chocolate Harvest Cake, but it was too soft and was strange on the frosting. I ended up using chocolate candy coating like the kind I use on my cake balls and it turned out great!

I hope everyone has an awesome Valentine’s Day!

Peace, LOVE and cupcakes,
Amanda

*Sigh* New Year's Resolutions...

Happy New Year, everybody!

Of course, with the start of every new year comes a plethora of New Year’s resolutions; promises made to oneself to stop a particular bad habit (or maybe to start a good one) that are usually broken by Valentine’s Day. Nobody knows why we put ourselves though this madness and I am no exception to it. Yes, I made a resolution to start Weight Watchers after my 12 days of Christmas turned into 30 days of cupcakes (there were more cupcakes baked behind the scenes of this blog, and many of them were eaten by me!)

So, this presents a problem to a baker with a sweet tooth. I plan to continue “real” baking, but I am trying to give myself a little time to really get into Weight Watchers before I tempt myself. I found a recipe for Berry-licious Cupcakes on the Weight Watchers website and decided to give it a shot. I was very skeptical that this recipe would actually produce something that I would want to ingest since I have tried a Weight Watchers cupcake recipe before that turned out horribly. (Fat free cream cheese should be banned from existence, or at least from the top of a cupcake!) But, I wanted to give it a shot for all the other “weight watchers” out there who are in need of guilt-free sweets!

Here are the ingredients I used to make the cupcakes:



The recipe called for sugar-free strawberry syrup, but I couldn't find any, so I used sugar-free Jell-o mix. It also called for real strawberries, but with strawberries being $5 a box, I wasn't going to chance spending the money on cupcakes I wasn't sure would turn out well, so I skipped them.

Here's a picture of the batter... the batter consisted of white cake mix, diet cherry Pepsi, egg whites and a bit of pink food coloring... that's all!



They came out very light and fluffy, although the cake didn't really pick up any cherry flavor from the soda (so if you are making these and already have Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke at home, there is probably no need to buy the cherry flavor, unless you just really want to!):



Of course, I wasn’t so much worried about the cake as I was the frosting. I like Cool Whip, but I usually hate when people/grocery stores try to pass it off as frosting. However, as I was pretty desperate to bake, I put my feelings aside, hoping that it’s pretty pink tint would help me forget about the absence of my beloved powdered sugar and butter...



...well, it didn't (shocking, right?!) However, it isn't bad. The frosting consists of Cool Whip Free, Fat Free Cream Cheese (I know...), Splenda, vanilla extract, Strawberry Jell-o mix and a little more pink food coloring. It is quite tasty, but, of course, can never replace buttercream or cream cheese frosting.

The moral of the story is that if you want an honest to goodness cupcake, just have one. However these cupcakes, at 3 PointsPlus a piece, make a nice everyday dessert. For someone who likes to have her cake and eat it too, that ain't bad!

I'm pretty sure I can't link to the recipe, so I will just post it here:

Weight Watchers Berry-licious Cupcakes

Ingredients:

4 oz Cool Whip Whipped Topping Free Whipped Topping, half an 8 oz container
1/4 cup(s) fat-free cream cheese, softened
6 tsp SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp food colouring, neon pink, divided (2 drops)
1/2 Tbsp Hershey's Sugar free strawberry syrup, or raspberry variety (I used Sugar Free Stawberry Jell-o mix)
9 1/8 oz regular white cake dry mix, 2 cups (half an 18.25 oz package)
1 cup(s) diet cola, black cherry flavor
4 large egg white(s), about 1/2 cup
6 medium strawberries, pureed

Instuctions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a medium bowl, combine whipped topping, cream cheese, Splenda, vanilla extract, 1 drop of food coloring and syrup. Using an electric mixer at medium-low speed, blend until frosting is thoroughly mixed, about 1 minute. Chill frosting in freezer for 20 minutes and then transfer to refrigerator until ready to frost cupcakes.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, soda and egg whites; add pureed strawberries and remaining drop of food coloring. Mix with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until smooth, about 45 seconds.

Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray, or line with cupcake wrappers. Evenly spoon batter into prepared muffin pan.

Bake until firm, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely in pan. Once cool, remove cupcakes from pan and evenly spread with frosting. Yields 1 cupcake per serving.

**************
If anybody makes them, especially with the SF strawberry syrup, let me know how yours turn out!

Peace, Love and Cupcakes,
Amanda

VICTORY IS MINE!!!

Every year for the past 3 years, my office has a holiday baking contest. The categories that the desserts are judged on are "Best Presentation", "Most Creative" and "Best Overall", with the prizes being gift cards in the amount of $25, $25 and $50 respectively. Now, if you know anything about me, you should know that I'm a wee bit competitive. And by a "wee bit," I mean VERY. Blame it on my only child status, blame it on my astrological sign (Aries, fire sign!), or just blame it on good, old fashioned stubbornness, but I LOVE to win contests! (And I don't enter that many, so a lot rides on the ones I do enter!)

The first year, I made red velvet cake balls, and back then cake balls were more or less still a novel concept. I had made them a few times for friends, and everyone loved them, so I was sure I would win something. Alas, there was no cake ball love for me.

Last year I made these awesome Oreo cupcakes that I worked very hard on... they were from-scratch chocolate cupcakes topped with Oreo buttercream frosting, and the cupcake even had half a freaking Oreo at the bottom! (That was for you, Andrea :)) Yet again, my creation was overlooked.

I was getting frustrated... yes, I know, it's only a stupid work contest... it's not like my whole professional future was riding on the outcome of this baking contest. However... I consider myself a pretty experienced, although amateur, baker. Many people at my office know I bake, in fact, my co-workers are often my guinea pigs for my culinary experiments. So I felt kind of like a failure when my baked goods did not come out on top. :(

However, that all changed this year! I decided to make Spicy Chocolate (Mini) Cupcakes after making them a couple times and getting rave reviews. They were also fairly easy to make, and having worked hard the last two years, I decided to make something a bit simpler. I got the frosting recipe from Cupcake Rehab. It is a chocolate frosting, with cinamon, chili powder and cayenne pepper(I did not use the coffee in the recipe, however)



The cake is my tried and true Darn Good Chocolate Cake (I promise more cupcake recipes are coming soon!) I use it so much because it is THAT good, and I needed something I knew would be liked. So many minis!!!



Here they are on display! I actually won for "best presentation," however I was told it was a toss up between that and "most original", so I'll take it! (But please note the awesome red plate that made the judges lean toward "best presentation" LOL!)



Here's a picture of my prize, a $25 American Express gift card that I can use wherever I like! Truthfully, it will probably be used to buy more cupcake supplies, but maybe I'll use it for something crazy like clothes :)



Okay, here's another type of cake for ya! Last week I also made the spicy chocolate frosting at the request of a co-worker, but I knew I would be making the chocolate cupcake this week, so I made a cinnamon vanilla cupcake. I had been wanting to try to make a cinnamon vanilla cupcake for awhile, I had tried to make them before, but they came out hard as rocks. Then I tried a professionally baked cinnamon vanilla cupcake that was very dry. I knew that there had to be a moist cinnamon vanilla cupcake recipe out there, and I found it here
I believe this recipe is from The Cake Mix Doctor. Awesome!

So, needless to say, I am having a great holiday week, and I think Santa may have more in store for me ;) I hope everybody has a very Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

Peace, Love and Cupcakes,
Amanda

Happy Hour!

My cousin Brieanna's 21st birthday was last week, so in her honor, I wanted to make some boozy cupcakes. I've made margarita cupcakes before, but I wanted to go more chocolatey, so I chose a mudslide as my inspiration. A mudslide is traditionally made with Kahlua, Vodka and Bailey's Irish Creme, but I used "Failey's" (fake/not brand name Bailey's) because (take note, Brie) alcohol is expensive!

The frosting recipe is from Homemade by Holman, and the cupcake recipe is my tried and true Darn Good Chocolate Cake recipe infused with Kahlua and coffee.



They turned out ah-mazing! The cake is always good, but I was really impressed with the frosting! It's a great, unique flavor. The Failey's, which is actually called Michael's Celtic Irish Creme, worked just fine in this recipe!



And no, you can't get drunk off these cupcakes, at least not without eating the entire bowl of frosting and then washing it down with a couple of real mudslides. A sugar coma, however, is highly likely :)

Peace, love and cupcakes,

Amanda

Food coloring is no laughing matter

Before I get to the cupcakes, I would like to explain why I have clearly changed the name of my blog. I am a self-proclaimed "frosting snob." I do not use canned frosting since the last time I bought a can of cream cheese frosting and it basically just tasted like sugar... blah. I make all my own frostings from scratch and they are exponentially better. I take pride in the quality of my cupcakes... too much pride to let them be sullied with crap in a can! *end rant* LOL...

My cupcake adventure today was Blue Velvet Cupcakes for my in-laws' Hanukkah Party. I am not Jewish, but my husband is (or at least, he is on the holidays ;)), so I get the perks of all the yummy food like latkes, and even presents! Sounds like as good a reason as any other to make cupcakes! This was a new recipe I tried, and as always, new recipes can be hit or miss. This one was an inbetween, which I'll get into later. (The recipe is courtesy of Sprinkle Bakes)

Here's a picture of the pretty blue batter (and my "magic" pink mixer).:



This recipe, just like the red version, calls for lots of food coloring to get such a vibrant color. I used gel food coloring instead of my usual liquid food coloring since it's better quality and more potent. However, instead of coming in a handy dandy dropper bottle, it comes in a jar, and since the jar has the opening the size of a quarter, and I needed a tablespoon of it, I had to get down and dirty with the food coloring. Looks kind of like I slammed my fingers in a door!



Thank goodness it has since washed off, but only after much scrubbing!

This is just a picture of what happens when you add vingear to baking soda... it fizzles :) I'm not really sure what that does for the cake (I was never good at chemistry) but its fun to watch... then again I'm easily amused :)



This is where the recipe starts to go south. I baked the cupcakes for 5 minutes less time than the recipe called for, just to make sure they didn't burn. I did the "toothpick test", and they were definately done, but for some reason they came out smaller than I expected and very dense. Also, the cupcake paper was pulling away from the cupcake. This is the first time I have ever seen this happen, and I'm still not sure what went wrong. A few other people online have used this recipe successfully, so I am sure it was some kind of "user error" :)



For frosting purposes I just took the wrappers off and frosted them "naked". They taste just fine; they're a little dense, but definately edible. I was disappointed they didn't come out bigger and fluffier like my usual cupcakes. Next time I make them, I'm going to try just using my regular red velvet recipe and swapping out the food colors only. Oh yeah, and maybe I'll use some of those plastic gloves you see the cafeteria folks wear ;)



Peace, Love and Cupcakes,
Amanda

I heart baking!

Welcome to my blog! I love to bake, so I thought I would share my baking adventures with whoever wants to read about them.

While I have LOVED cake for as long as I can remember, I only got into baking a couple years ago. Maybe it was because of all the awesome pink kitchen equipment I got for my wedding (which my husband is okay with as long as it "makes food"), but I got really interested in baking cupcakes and experimenting with new flavors. And now that cupcakes are the "in thing", I can usually find a few willing participants to test out my creations on!

I'll be baking quite a bit this holiday season, of course who isn't? Tis the season... of delicious food and sweets! Here are the cupcakes I made for Thanksgiving, pumpkin with cinnamon cream cheese frosting:


These are some of my favorite cupcakes to make; the cinnamon and the nutmeg in the cupcakes make them smell amazing and the pumpkin makes them super moist! I don't like to make these unless its Fall, so I've been baking lots pumpkin goodness since October!

Coming up next week: Blue Velvet Cupcakes for Hanukkah!

Peace, love and cupcakes,
Amanda