Pumpkin Cupcakes

Pumpkin Cupcakes

So its been a while since I've posted anything. I've been baking but not posting strangely enough. Since it is fall (finally!) and the people around me like pumpkin flavored items I decided to try to make some pumpkin cupcakes.

My go to lady for recipes Martha Stewart cupcake book. There are a few things I changed... instead of buttermilk I used sour cream and of course I put in more spices. I will say that she put in a lot of ginger. In retrospect I'd not put in so much. It seems like all you taste is the spices.. but then again I'm that clueless person who doesn't really know what pumpkin tastes like. The cake is extremely moist.. which I love! And what goes better with pumpkin cupcakes is Cream Cheese frosting. I love that it only has 3 ingredients butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar!

These came out pretty tasty and really easy to make. :)

Nom Nom Nom!

Triple Citrus Cupcakes with Citrus Glaze

It's been a while since I've baked and or posted an entry. I've made a few things like a 4 layer chocolate cake for John's birthday and some more Carrot Cake Cupcakes for my mom's birthday. It's been really warm lately and it doesn't help that I live on the top floor of an apartment complex that doesn't have A.C.. So needless to say I seem to bake if its not already an oven in the apartment.

Anyway for father's day this year we were having a cookout w my parents and my Great Aunts and I wanted to try something new and refreshing for the summer time. So in the good ol Martha Stewart Cupcake book there was this recipe for these Triple Citrus Cupcakes. The interesting thing about this recipe is that the only flavoring is 3 types of zest... Lime, Lemon & Orange. Also another odd thing is that there is no leavening agent. No baking power or soda which I found to be really strange!

The glaze itself consisted of three things powdered sugar, lime zest and lime juice. The glaze is a bit tart but it is a nice compliment to the cake. Strange observation... the day these were made after trying them the cake didn't taste like much and all you tasted was the lime glaze, but after a day of them sitting in the fridge (like I said my apartment is an oven) and trying them again the citrus flavor was more apparent more flavorful.

I really liked these! I thought they are quite refreshing and are a nice alternative.

Marshmallow Experiment

RAY WHAT DID YOU DO?

Marshmallows how I love you! So soft, fluffy and just melt in my mouth! I could probably go through a half of a bag of them on their own. This was a challenge to see if I could make them on my myself. There is only a handful of ingredients that go into a Marshmallow and it mostly consists of sugar... both corn syrup or granulated sugar the other main ingredient is gelatin and lots of it. If I was a less ambitious person I would have made a half of a batch instead the recipe took 4 packets of gelatin and a cup of corn syrup.

I've made a marshmallow frosting for the smore cupcakes and its a similar process. Heat the sugar to a molten 244 degrees then combine it with the gelatin then whisk it until it is crazy fluffy. I did enjoy trying to figure out how to transfer the marshmallow out of the bowl and into a 8 by 12 glass pan without it sticking to everything. I failed miserably. It stuck to my hands and to the rubber scrapers and also to the sides of the bowl the only thing it didn't stick to was the glass pan because it was covered with powdered sugar. Then it has to sit out over night to dry. There wasn't an approximate time with how long this happen but i figured a good 12 hours.

The fun part is when its all ready to go you can break out your fun cookie cutters and go to town. I posses a few round cookie cutters for your basic marshmallow shape but then I also own a Squirrel cookie cutter (don't ask why i just do) and I made some fun squirrel marshmallows.
They turned out pretty good and i have a whole bag of marshmallows to myself. Nom nom nom. I can totally see why people can charge what they do for gormet marshmallows its not as easy as it might seem. If I do this again I will add different flavoring to them maybe rasperry or orange extract to make them more exciting!

SQUIRREL!

Banana cupcakes

These Cupcakes are Bananas B-A-N-A-N-A-S

These are Roasted Banana Cupcakes from the Martha Stewart cupcakes book. Couple of things about roasting bananas is interesting... I'm not found of their texture after they are roasted and then trying to extract them out of their peels. I've decided that I need to invest in another Kitchen Aid Mixing bowl because you have to beat the egg whites separate from the actual batter, which I'm sure gave them the light and fluffy texture of the cake. I'm sure it would have been easier if I had a separate bowl and wasn't transferring batter to another bowl while whipping the egg whites. The recipe only makes 16 regular cupcakes so to have more to try & distribute I made allot of minis and took some to Classic Studios when I got my hair cut. They seemed to enjoy them very much.

The frosting is a honey cinnamon butter cream quite tasty! Of course I added more cinnamon because 1/4 teaspoon doesn't seem like all that much to me. The cake is a whole lotta banana flavor and the frosting is a sweet accent. If I can get past the preparation of the bananas I'd make it whenever I have extra ripe bananas.

Lemon Cupcakes

She Wore Lemon

I like citrus desserts they are always refreshing and seem to clean you pallet. I've made these cupcakes before for both my brother's wedding shower and his wedding. But as always I changed the recipe to make it my own. The recipe called for self rising flour but instead I used cake flour with a teaspoon of baking powder as the rising agent. I used my new and shiny juicer to squeeze all the juice out of the lemons! It's so much better then me squeezing a lemon with my hands like I did for my brother's wedding. The cake is light and not as lemony as you might expect it to be that's where the frosting comes into play.

I used the liners that my mom bought me from Crate & Barrel they are very spring like. I usually make the lemon cupcakes with a lemon frosting, but this time around I wanted to switch it up and experiment with swirling two flavors together. I ended up with Lemon Raspberry frosting.... half lemon half raspberry. The lemon itself is kind of tart because of the freshly squeezed lemon juice and zest and the raspberry is a nice complementary flavor because they also have a tendency of being a bit tart. They are very tasty and refreshing. I'm really happy the way these turned out. =)

Egg Bread

There is nothing better then homemade bread & I don't mean bread out of a bread maker. Egg bread is one of my favorites to make the cookbook suggests to put it into 2 loaf pans I have a preference to making one loaf and braiding it. It has a tendency of stretching length wise over a baking sheet. But I think it looks pretty.

I experimented this time around with mixing the dough at night and letting it rise once then I put it into the fridge so I could bake it in the morning for Easter. I put it in the fridge and woke up in the morning and saw it did its second rise and I got slightly worried that it wouldn't do a third rise, but thankfully it did.

One more picture =)

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

To celebrate Easter this past weekend I decided to try a new recipe Carrot Cake provided by Abbey at Our Forking Blog (http://ourforkingblog.blogspot.com/). Because I seem to be selective to desserts that don't have to do with chocolate I've never tried carrot cake, but my mom is a big fan of this dessert. I shredded my carrots and away I went. I must say that the batter seemed runny and I was slightly concerned with its outcome but when I rotated the pan everything seemed A-OKAY!



The frosting is a cream cheese frosting another first for me and its delicious! I love cream cheese in general so why not in frosting form. I love how it consists of three ingredients: cream cheese, butter & powdered sugar. YUM.

I will be happy to report that the cake was fluffy and light and the cream cheese frosting had a smooth consistency. Mom was very happy and so was I.