Happy Birthday BFF & Strawberry Cupcakes

I hosted a small birthday brunch for my BFF and cupcake cheerleader L at her house this past weekend. Having already made her favorite - lemon cake - at her baby shower last year, I opted to try a new flavor, strawberry, which to my delight was a success.





You can see that the batter was super sticky - I thought I had over mixed and it was gonna turn into chewy goo, but I think the batter is supposed to be like that with all that yogurt in it. The cupcakes by themselves didn't look too exciting, but it was the vanilla buttercream that really brought out the essence of the berries. It tasted like a strawberry creamsicle. YUM!

You can do it too, though I recommend waiting for strawberries to be in season, as they were a a bit pricey and also very tart.

Thank you to Cooking with Amy for the her Strawberry Cupcake recipe. I used my own buttercream recipe instead of the one below.

Special thanks to my BFF L, who gave me that nifty cupcake/cake carrier that you see in the pics.

Strawberry Cupcakes

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 large egg
6 ounces Dannon® All Natural Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt (or any other fruit flavor of yogurt)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, diced

Frosting:
1 stick butter
1 cup powdered sugar
2 fresh strawberries, about 2 Tbsp. mashed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. With an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg, Dannon® All Natural Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt and vanilla, blending until smooth.

2. Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl and blend, then fold in the strawberries.

3. Divide the mixture equally between the 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

4. Beat together butter, powdered sugar, and mashed strawberry in medium-size bowl until creamy and smooth. Chill frosting for 15 minutes or until thick. Frost cupcakes with a spatula. Keep cupcakes in the refrigerator loosely covered.
Yield: 12 servings

Espresso cupcakes

For me one of the few things that can calm work stress is baking...and I've pretty much been baking every week! My beautiful friend D was having a birthday dinner and she loves coffee (esp Blue Bottle), so I decided to make her some cupcakes with coffee flavor in them. My boss had just gotten promoted too...two birds with one stone!

The Mini Espresso Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting recipe was from Food Network. I switched out the PB frosting for espresso buttercream by adding cocoa powder and a bit of instant coffee diluted in a teaspoon of hot water to the buttercream.

The cake was super delicious coming out of the oven (as most cakes are!) but I think I overbaked it, so it was a bit dry the next day. The conversion of baking times are so tricky! If I made this again, I would make a loaf, not a cupcake, and omit the cocoa powder from the buttercream, as it was just a touch too sweet.


The white chocolate writing was not too hard - anyone can do it. Melt white chocolate chips *very slowly* in the microwave, place contents in extra strength ziploc bag, snip tiny hole at the tip, and practice your squeeze writing on wax paper.

These were my mess ups. Good luck with yours!

Sprinkles

I've heard about Sprinkles a million times over from my many foodie friends. So when my BFF H brought me a red velvet cupcake from the Sprinkles in Palo Alto, I was very excited to try it. For one thing, I never make red velvet in the kitchen, it's just too messy and I don't like the idea of swallowing a whole bottle of red dye in my batter.

The cake was very very moist and quite possibly, the best red velvet I've ever had in terms of cake. The frosting, however, left much to be desired. It was disgustingly sweet and booo....not cream cheese flavored. I left a lot of it behind (see below)

I still prefer Sibby's, a discussion we will have to save for another day...

Carrot Cake

... I can do anything better than you! From Annie Get Your Gun, this song has been in my head.


I went to Kara's Cupcakes on Scott Street in San Francisco a few days ago because I was in the mood for some new flavor ideas. Ironically, nothing looked that inspiring - I settled for carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, something I hadn't had in quite some time. It was pretty yummy - the cake was very moist, with a nice punch of sweetness from the raisins. The frosting was much too sweet though.

"What do you think?" said BF. "I think you could make it better."
"Yeah," says I. "I think I could. And I will!"

And so we got home, I pulled out my mandarin orange Kitchen Aide that BF had gotten for me last Christmas, and viola! I made better carrot cake cupcakes than Kara's! Say that ten times fast!

And here is the recipe. It's fairly easy and I encourage you to try it when you're in the mood for vegetables for dessert. ;-)


Carrot Cake with Fresh Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
- makes one 8-inch cake -
Adapted from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, by Melissa Murphy.

Ingredients

For the cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound carrots, grated medium fine
3/4 cup walnut pieces, coarsely chopped

For the fresh orange cream cheese frosting:
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
Zest of 1 orange
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softene
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Procedure

Before you start
Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter and flour two 8x2-inch round cake pans. Line each pan with an 8-inch round of parchment paper.

To make the cake

1. in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat the eggs at high speed until light and frothy, about 1 minute. Decrease the speed to medium and add the oil, sugar, and salt, and mix until just combined. Decrease the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing until just combined.

3. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the carrots and walnuts.

4. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans. Spin the pans to level the batter. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a rack to cool for 20 minutes before turning the layers out onto the rack. Cool completely before filling or frosting.

To make the frosting
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese, sugar, and zest. Start on low speed and then increase to medium-high speed and beat until smooth, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. Add the butter and mix on medium speed until just fluffy and smooth, about 45 seconds more. Add the vanilla and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat.

To complete the cake

1. Cut 4 strips of wax or parchment paper about 12 inches long by 3 inches wide. Place the bottom cake layer trimmed side up on your serving plate. Tuck the wax paper under the edges of your cake on all sides. Later, after frosting the cake, you can pull away the stripes to reveal a nice clean serving plate.

2. Using a metal offset spatula, spread the filling across the top of the layer, but leave about 1/2 inch uncovered around the outside edges. (This leaves room for the filling to be squished down but to stay inside the cake.)

3. Place the second layer trimmed side down on top of the filling and press down gently with your hands.

4. Apply a light, even layer of frosting on all sides of the cake. Place the cake in the refrigerator to chill for a good 30 minutes.

5. After the crumb coat has chilled, smooth on your final layer of frosting.

The cake keeps in a cake saver in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. It tastes great eaten at room temperature or chilled.

Taking Orders

My old coworker is placing a future order in March for her son's 2nd birthday. She's going to have over 60 guests! Hopefully she'll order minis like the ones I made for my little cousin's 4th birthday. I put them in fancy white boxes with clear windows.

Christmas Ornament Cupcakes

Cupcakes from another Christmas order. The client requested cupcakes to look like Christmas tree ornaments. I used candies and butter cream frosting. It took some time to come up with different designs for each cupcake and the execution - lots of colored sugars and food dyes!

Chocolate Christmas Cupcakes

Happy Holidays everyone!

I took some orders over the holidays for Christmas cupcakes. My friends were ordering as gifts for their boyfriend's families. Isn't that sweet?

These were classic chocolate cupcakes with double chocolate frosting. I hand decorated them with butter cream. it was hard work not to shake while squeezing out these little penguins and snowmen!