New Moon Night

New Moon Release Party

For those who are not aware of Twilight its about tween vampire who sparkle... I know there is more to it but that's what I take it as. =) I made sugar cookies and mini cupcakes for this years New Moon dvd release party for work. Sugar cookies were made in the shapes of Lions, Lambs, Apples, and Moons. The apples & moons were covered in red & yellow sprinkles. Mini cupcakes were pretty basic vanilla & chocolate chip cupcakes with colored buttercream frosting. I did put out a tent card and business cards hoping people would comment, no luck. Oh well better luck next time. All I do know is that there were no more cookies and or cupcakes left at the end of the night.

Week Six part deux

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

I've been feeling quite ambitious lately with attempting a few new recipes this week. So when you say to some people "oh i made some snickerdoodles" you either get the look of what the heck are those or OoooOo do those have snickers in them? Snickerdoodle cookies are basically a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon and sugar. These cupcakes seem to be a vanilla cupcake with cinnamon and sugar. I find it amazing that they do taste extremely similar to the cookies.

The frosting was a seven minute frosting from the Martha Stewart cupcakes cookbook. Yeah it took longer than seven minutes to make, but it does have the consistency of a marshmallow on a cupcake minus the chewiness. Good news I got to use my candy thermometer again to heat up sugar to 230 degrees. Molten sugar is a scary thing! So anyway the closed star tip was used to pipe on the frosting sprinkled with cinnamon & sugar. Some googly eyes were placed for comic relief. My friend Connie helped with piping and eye placement. (CiaoBellaRosa.blogspot.com)

Week Six

Shipping Off to Boston

Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

with Baileys Buttercream

It seems when it comes to baking and bakeries that everyone does holiday themed goodies. So I decided to join in this week and make come St. Patty's day cupcakes. I will just say that I am in LOVE with cake flour at the moment. It seems to make the cake lighter. With that thought I've been using the same chocolate cupcake recipe for the chocolate cupcakes but this time around I altered a few things like substituting some cake flour for the all purpose flour and I also added some mini Chocolate chips for an extra punch of chocolate.
Vanilla bean cupcakes instead of regular vanilla extract I used French Vanilla extract. It is quite strong and I'm not sure that I would use as much but it has an amazing aroma to it.
The Buttercream.... oh my i didn't really have a recipe for this so instead of adding milk to the buttercream I added Baileys. I like the combination of flavors with the chocolate, vanilla, and the baileys. Not too Shabby!

Week Five

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana.

Oh man that was cheesy. There aren't many songs that have to do with oranges. I was thinking Orange County Girl by Gwen Stefani but that's just plain obvious when it comes to me and my love of No Doubt. Anyways.... these are Orange cupcakes the recipe / idea came from the website www.mybakingaddiction.com/orange-cupcakes-2/ . Yeah I still not too sure how to post a link on this blog but hopefully I will learn soon. Anywhoo. I love this recipe i love the consistency of the batter not too thick not too thin. The batter itself make exactly 12 regular size cupcakes so that's the only downside. Today I went on a nice shopping trip to find some shiny new cupcake liners and I ended up finding some plain brown ones (which i must say look pretty classy) from Tapps a baking shop and some spring time liners with eggs on them from Target.

On Mybakingaddiction.com she used a cream cheese frosting. I wasn't too sure about it even though I bought all the ingredients for it. After trying the cupcakes it seemed to need more of an orange flavor to it. So instead of the cream cheese frosting i made a butter cream frosting with orange extract instead of vanilla. I think they turned out pretty. I had a few panic moments because I seem to have misplaced my giant star tip. I hope it shows up. I just used a smaller star tip and decorated it with a fruit slice candy.

Week Four Part Duex

Shortbread Buttons

So this is where this one started.... Bakeitpretty (Bakeitpretty.com) tweeted a link to these cookies a few weeks ago from Forty-six at Grace. (fourtysixthatgrace.blogspot.com/2010/01/tutorial-shortbread-buttons_8809.html)

They looked so cute that I wanted to try them out. There is a recipe on her blog but it is in grams and I tried to convert it to cups but I was having troubles with the exact measurements. So I found a similar recipe on Joyofbaking.com/shortbreads/shortbreadcookies.html

Today was the day that I attempted them. I liked making 3 different colored cookies then I decided with the scraps to make a tie died cookie with all three doughs. I can't remember if I've ever had a shortbread cookie besides the girl scout version. I'm sure they would be great with tea but by themselves they seem a bit dry. But they look cute so that's all that matters right?

Week Four

Irish Cream Cheesecakes

Well I haven't posted for over a week due to lots of work and making cupcakes for people for Valentines day. This week I have three days off from work soooo i decided to do a few things. This recipe I found on the Internet in 2004 and haven't made it since so I've been seeing a whole lotta bakeries and blogs talking about St. Pats day so remembered this recipe that I made for a class in college. Yes it does have Bailey's in it and it gives it a nice flavor...and I'm sure that the alcohol burns off in the baking process. I made some slight modifications by making them into cupcake sizes. The only problem I run into when making cheesecakes is that the centers always fall. I know I should leave them in the oven to cool blah blah blah but I get anxious and probably mess it up in that way. I would love help on this issue. =) I'm sure my work mates are going to like trying them.

Irish Cram Cheesecake

Crust

2 cups finely crushed vanilla wafers (I used Graham crackers)

5 tablespoons butter melted

Filling

3 (8oz) packages of cream cheese softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

4 large eggs at room temperature

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Irish cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Combine the vanilla wafers & butter in a small mixing bowl

3. Press crumb mixture into the bottom & 1 1/2 inches up the sides of a 9 inch spring form pan.

4. Hold this pan in the freezer until ready to fill

5. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth.

6. Add the sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.

7. Add the gelatin; mix well at low speed

8. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

9. Stir in the sour cream , Irish cream & vanilla

10. Spoon the mixture over the crust

11. Bake at 300 for one hour & 15 minutes

12. Do not open the oven door!

13. Turn off the oven, keep the oven door closed

14. Allow the cheesecake to remain in the oven for an additional one hour & 15 minutes.

15. Do not open the door during this time!

16. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and carefully remove the spring form pan

17. place on a decorative plate & serve at room temperature or chilled

Okay so that's the recipe... but I put the Gram crackers in cupcake liners then baked them for 5 mins at 325 degrees so it set then cooled them then poured the cheese filling on top then baked for 30 mins at 325. I didn't leave them in there because i had another batch to do and that's just a long time to leave things in the oven taunting you with yummy smells. haha. I wish I could tell you where I acquired the recipe from but it was back in 2004.

Week Three

Chocolate Raspberry Beret

It was time for chocolate cupcakes! Oh how I love chocolate! I can never seem to have enough of it at any given time. So what goes well with chocolate? I thought that raspberry is nice. This is a devils food recipe with a good amount of chocolate & sour cream instead of milk. Its not as dense of a cake that I thought it would be. And this was my first attempt with mini cupcakes. I will say that the batter goes a long way. I stopped myself at 48 mini cupcakes and decided to make some regular sized ones.

I am in love with the Meranguie Buttercream. It is such a lite buttery frosting that you can add some kind of fruit to flavor & tint the frosting. Pureeing raspberries is a fun adventure. If you never have done it you will realise that raspberries have a lot of seeds & they need to be seperated from the juice. Lets say it took me a good 20 mins just to seperate them using a sifter. The end product is so worth it because the frosting is not only sweet but has a twinge of the bitterness for the raspberries. The cupcakes came out nicely.