Super Secret

My cousin Teela, her twin boys, and I went shopping on Thursday for some super secret cupcakes I'm making in the next month or so. It was a total blast.

Here's what we got:

Some gold foil liners.

Some super awesome gold luster dust.





Some maroon AmeriColor gel food coloring.





Some black Wilton icing coloring.





Some burgundy Wilton icing coloring.

And some white/vanilla Satin Ice rolled fondant!
I'm so excited to finally get to use fondant! But that's all you get to know about the super secret cupcakes until I post pictures. =]

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

Well I'm finally up to date. These are the cupcakes I made about 4 days ago. They're cherry chip cupcakes with chocolate frosting and either a cherry sour or a twin cherry gummy on top. They're delicious. I made the cupcakes from a box mix, simply for convenience and the fact that I was just making them for myself really.

Here's the recipe I used for the frosting, which is by far the most amazingly chocolatey frosting I've made:

Hershey's "Perfect Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting (from the Hershey's website)

• 1/2 c. (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 2/3 c. Hershey's cocoa (any cocoa will do of course)
• 3 c. powdered sugar
• 1/3 c. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. Yields about 2 cups frosting.

St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

I made chocolate espresso cupcakes with green mint frosting for St. Patrick's Day, which also happens to be my mom's birthday! These were not my favorite cupcakes. I think I added too much mint to the frosting and not enough espresso to the batter. I would do things differently if I made them again. They sure were pretty, though.

Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes

• 1 stick room temperature butter
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp. instant espresso powder
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 mins. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined. Mix rest of dry ingredients in separate bowl until combines. Mix milk and vanilla in another separate bowl. Add wet and dry ingredients to butter/sugar, alternating wet and dry, starting and ending with dry. Half-fill cupcake cups. Bake 22-25 mins.
For the frosting, I just made my standby buttercream and threw some peppermint extract and green food coloring in there. Piped it onto the cupcakes, stuck an Andes mint in the top, and voila!

S'mores Cupcakes

Yes, you read that right. S'mores cupcakes. I made them for my friend Riza for her 20th birthday! These turned out absolutely perfect. I have no complaints at all.

First things first:

They're made from the Hershey's chocolate cake recipe I used for the hamburger cupcakes. That is an awesome chocolate cake recipe, by the way. I think it must be the baking soda, because they come out so fluffy and light every time.

So yeah. Chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow frosting, with graham cracker crumbs on top of that, and a square of Hershey's bar and a square of graham cracker on the very top. Sooooooooo delicious.

Marshmallow Frosting

• 2 1/2 sticks room temperature butter
• 2 c. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 7 oz. tubs marshmallow fluff/cream

Cream butter on high until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating until fluffy each time. Beat in vanilla until incorporated. Dump in fluff, mix until light and creamy.

What to do with leftover cupcakes?

Frost them and eat them, of course! But not after taking some pictures.

These are the leftover vanilla and chocolate cupcakes I had from making the hamburger cupcakes. With my trusty buttercream and some sprinkles on top!

Hamburger Cupcakes

No, they're not cupcakes made out of hamburger meat. Nor are they grilled, served with ketchup, fries, cheese, tomato, or lettuce. They're simply cupcakes that I made for David's Dad's birthday that look like mini hamburgers.

The only thing that I was not happy with with these was that they did not dome properly, so the "buns" don't really look as they should. But, I gotta say, these still turned out pretty awesome.

Pictures, of course:

David's dad loved them. So now of course I'll explain how I made them. The "bun" is a golden vanilla cupcake cut in half, and the "patty" is the bottom half of a chocolate cupcake. The ketchup, mustard, and lettuce is all colored vanilla frosting.
If I get the opportunity to make these again, I would love a do-over. I was pressed for time when I made these (only had about two and a half hours) so I had to use a box mix for the vanilla cupcakes and CANNED FROSTING (ughhhhhh). They still tasted alright.
Here's the recipe I used for the chocolate cupcakes (hamburger patties):
Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake (from the Hershey's website)

• 2 c. sugar
• 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
• 3/4 c. Hershey's Cocoa (I used grocery store cocoa because it was what I had and it still turned out deelish)
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 tps. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 c. milk
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 c. boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 10 to 12 servings.
VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.
THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.
BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.
CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Triple Rainbow Cupcakes

Let me start this post off by saying that the cupcakes you are about to see are the most AWESOME cupcakes I have made to date. Everything just fell into place perfectly, and they turned out amazingly.

I made these for my younger cousin Kaity, who is in love with all things rainbow. I made them for her 15th birthday on January 30th. I used the simple white cake recipe from my last post, and the same frosting recipe, but with powdered sugar this time.

Pictures first, explanation after:

So you're probably wondering how I made these normal-tasting cupcakes so psychadelic! Well first I made up the batter (you can use any white cake for this) and divided it into six bowls.

Then, I added food coloring to each bowl to make red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple batter.


Next I layered the colors into lined muffin tins. Purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, so that the rainbow pattern will be right side up. I smoothed each layer with a spoon to avoid waviness.



Then of course I baked them! To get the rainbow frosting, I did kind of the same thing. I made the frosting (of course you could use any white frosting) and divided it into six bowls. I colored each bowl with gel food coloring to avoid watery frosting, and layered them into my piping bag. Make sure to squeeze some of the frosting out of the piping bag back into a frosting bowl before piping onto the cupcakes as the bottom color (in my case pink) will be predominant until the rest of the frosting works down to the bottom of the bag. I didn't know this, so that's why the first three or so of my cupcakes were mostly pink. No matter, still awesome. To finish them off, I topped them with rainbow non-pareils! Kaity loved them, and so has everyone else that's seen them so far. They were super tasty, too!

Pink Peppermint Cupcakes

These were my first real attempt at cupcaking. And by real, I mean that I used a recipe instead of a box, and a piping bag instead of a butterknife. They turned out pretty well, except that I kinda butchered the frosting. I didn't have any powdered sugar, so I decided to make my own by processing granulated sugar in the blender. Not only did that take forever, it also didn't get the sugar fine enough at all so my frosting was crunchy. I definitely would advise against making your own powdered sugar unless you're going to use it in very small amounts.

Onto the pictures!

Now, the cupcakes themselves weren't bad at all. They were deliciously dense and moist, more like mini pound cakes than cupcakes. That frosting was just awful. I'm ashamed to post these cupcakes here, but I want to show you that everyone makes mistakes!
Here are the recipes I used (instead of the vanilla in the frosting recipe, I used half vanilla and half peppermint extract):
Simple White Cake

• 1 c. white sugar
• 1/2 c. butter
• 2 eggs
• 4 tsp. vanilla (I like a strong vanilla taste. If you don't, you can definitely cut this in half.)
• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 c. milk

Preheat oven to 35o degrees fahrenheit. Line muffin pan with liners. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and the butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Make sure to beat thouroughly, for about 3 minutes or so, to get enough air in the mixture, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder in separate bowl, add to creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. At this point, it should look like pale yellow Cool Whip. Pour or spoon batter into prepared tins. Bake for 20-25 mins. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch. Yields 12 cupcakes.
Creamy Butter Frosting (this is an awesome recipe when made with real powdered sugar. This is my go-to buttercream recipe.)

• 1/3 c. butter
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 3-4 tbsp. milk

Cream butter, salt, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add sugar in thirds, adding a tbsp. of milk after each third of sugar. Beat until smooth. Add more milk if desired consistency is not reached. Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes.

Let's start things off!

I guess you're probably wondering what's so great about me that makes me think I should have a blog? Well, my friends, I make a lot of cupcakes. I like to think I'm pretty good at it, too! I also need somewhere to keep all of my recipes and photos and to possibly get some good feedback.

So here it is.

I'm going to start by kind of backposting, to show you all the cupcaking I've done thus far. I'll make one entry for each cupcake, and once I'm caught up to the present, I'll post them as I make them!

Sound fun? I think so!