red velvet

I have always wanted to make red velvet cupcakes. I'm going out of town on Monday --tomorrow!-- to a horse show, and decided that the show was a good enough venue for cupcakes. I don't have nearly enough events or occasions to bake for - I have to stretch it sometimes! I don't know how these cupcakes will do on the 4 hour drive to the location, but they're waiting in the freezer for now, and maybe I can fit them in a cooler tomorrow. Allow me to share the recipe, compliments of my favorite, Paula Deen.

For the cupcakes:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons red food coloring
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 pound cream cheese, softened
2 sticks butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
Chopped pecans and fresh raspberries or strawberries, for garnish

For the cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.

Of course, I sampled one to make sure they were yummy enough to share, and yes, they are. I adore the cake, and although I am not a fan of cream cheese frosting, it was definitely good. To be honest, though, this is the first time that I've actually scraped some frosting off of my cupcake. I am a frosting freak, too. So eh, cream cheese is not my thing, but overall, I would call these cupcakes both beautiful and delicious.

In their carrier and ready to be transported!

random

So, I had some friends over the other day and [quickly] baked some cupcakes for them. There isn't much substance to this post, because I used a white cake mix and two different frostings - one of which was store bought, eek. But I figured I would share the photos.

First, the cupcakes I made with store bought frosting. I added sprinkles to this half of the batter, frosted them with Betty Crocker chocolate, and threw some sprinkles on top. They were cute, but not my best cupcakes.

And for the other half of the batter, I made strawberry buttercream frosting with fresh strawberries -- this one has received rave reviews from friends and family in the past.

Strawberry Buttercream requires:
1 stick unsalted butter
1 pound confectioners sugar
2-3 fresh strawberries
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat 1 stick butter until smooth. Add 1 pound confectioners sugar and strawberries. Beat until smooth and add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. If frosting is too thick, thin with a little milk or cream.


And a picture of the finished product! Less than fabulous, thanks to the blurry picture. But my family loves that frosting.

ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO!

Not really. Only cappuccino. But Zoolander fans may appreciate the reference.

Anyway, it was my dad's birthday on Monday, and he's a big coffee drinker so I immediately seized upon the opportunity to bake cappuccino cupcakes. These are the only cupcakes I have ever made and not tested for myself! Can you believe that? I'm just not a coffee fan. They got praise from my father though, so they must have been good! Very strong, however. I took a tiny dab of frosting and was left with a mouthful of coffee flavor.

Bake & Destroy supplied the recipe. I cut out the chocolate chips. Here are the cupcakes, fresh out of the oven:

They were short things, as you can see. Apparently, they don't rise as well if you bake them directly in the pan, sans liners? Right, I don't know. They were cute.


And even more so when frosted! Though that one was better sized, as it had a liner, dur. But still, awww. Oh, and can I just say? The frosting was so much fun to spread. Despite barely having tasted it, I would very quickly liken it to Häagen-Dazs Coffee ice cream. Loved it.


The leftover frosting. It broke my heart to see it go to waste, but it had served its purpose, and was thus unceremoniously chucked.

And that's that.

billy's vanilla

Okay, so these aren't the first cupcakes I've baked, but they are the first I'm sharing. I snagged Billy's Vanilla Vanilla recipe from 52 Cupcakes and made 30 nice, dense vanilla cupcakes with some dreamy buttercream. With my oven at 325°, the cupcakes needed about 25 minutes to bake. Apparently, I put too much batter in each cup, because after 20 minutes had elapsed, the still-not-done cupcakes were already exploding out of the pan.


Once done, however, they were delicious. I hear Billy's recipe never fails, and it sure didn't disappoint me!



The cupcake in my layout was actually a part of this batch!

why, hello

So, here we are at the awkward first post, to which there is really no point. I'm actually only doing this so as to test my layout. But while I'm here, I'd like to welcome you to my little corner of the internet.

OK. I just said "little corner of the internet." I don't usually speak like that, I'll have you know. I think it's the fact that this is a cupcake blog that's getting to me...they're just so cute and yummy and tiny and awww, I could gush over them all day! I even talk in exclamation points when thinking about them! Please, don't let my gushing turn your stomach.

Anyway, the only things you need to know about me -- other than that I am sane outside of my little cupcake obsession -- are that I am not a professional or experienced baker in the least, and that I know jack about all the technical..parts..of baking. Really I'm just doing this for fun, and hopefully I'll become a better cupcake baker in the process. [:

There. The end!