Old Mcdonald Had A Farm....

I got the opportunity to make these adorable cupcakes for a little amazing boy's  first birthday. Each animal had a different flavor and filling too. I would have to say that the pig is my favorite!!! How about you?

  

Enjoy!!!

#33 HOT Chocolate Cupcakes

So here I am contemplating on what to do. My idea was to make German Chocolate Cupcakes out of my Martha cookbook but I just wasn't feeling it. Not wanting to go to the store for ingredients I looked through my pantry and found the usual-flour, sugar, chocolate the base for a good cupcake. Then I came across the chili powder.... Eureka!!! The light bulb turned on!!! I've had this recipe for hot chocolate cupcakes saved in my email for a few months now and this is it's moment to shine!!!! I took the original recipe and added the chili powder and cinnamon. So I guess its like a version of Mexican Hot Chocolate. Anyways if you like your stuff spicy than feel free to add to taste. Just remember you can all ways add but you cant take back!!! 


HOT Chocolate Cupcakes (Courtesy of I Heart Cuppycakes)
If you don't feel the kick of the chili right away just wait a few seconds and it will creep up on you.


The Goods
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate,  finely chopped
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/4 cup water
1-1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/14 teaspoon grounded cayenne red pepper
2/4 teaspoon chili powder
2 sticks butter
1-1/2 cups dark brown sugar
3 large eggs room temp
1/2 cup sour cream room temp
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon


The How To
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop up the chocolate and then boil the water.  Combine chopped chocolate and cocoa powder in a medium sized bowl, add boiling water, whisk until smooth, set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt, chili powders and cinnamon whisk and set aside.

 In the bowl  of a standing mixer, beat butter until creamy.

 

Add the brown sugar and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

At medium speed, add eggs one at a time, beat well between each.

Add sour cream and vanilla and beat until combined.

 

 

Now take third of the flour mixture and beat briefly until combined. Add about half of the chocolate mixture, beat briefly until combined. And repeat this again.

 

Fill liners 3/4 full. Bake for 18-20mins or until cake tester comes out clean. I also rotated my cupcakes halfway through the bake time so the ones in the back don't get burned.

The tops did sink a little but you cant tell after the frosting gets added.

Let these hot tamales cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10mins then remove them from the pan and let cool completely before frosting.

Marshmallow Buttercream

Since my last attempt with really marshmallow frosting miserably failed I went with this buttercream instead. Safe but oh so tasty!!!

The Goods
1 cup unsalted butter room temp.
1 jar (7oz) marshmallow cream
1 cup powder sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

The How To
On medium speed beat the butter until creamy, about 3mins.

Add the marshmallow cream and beat until combined. When well blended, beat in powdered sugar and vanilla. Increase speed and beat for 3-4mins until fluffy.

Now frost and top with marshmallows!!

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The Shirley Cupcake
Happy Birthday Grandma!!
xoxo

#29 Double Chocolate Snowman Cupcakes

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

This was taken last year :)

With the weather hanging around 20 degrees, I thinks it's a perfect day to blog about Snowmen!! These were made for another birthday party a few weeks ago for a co-worker. I had the challenge of making snowmen out of chocolate cupcakes. Nobody wants dirty snowmen so I baked these little suckers in silver cups so the chocolate color wouldn't bleed though the wrapper. I used a vanilla buttercream  and lots of shredded coconut to cover up the chocolate tops. It worked out pretty well.

Now those are some good looking snowmen!!

 

So lets get down to the nitty gritty! I used my two favorite recipes-Martha's chocolate cupcake recipe and her vanilla butter cream.

So after the cupcakes are cooled and the frosting is prepared don't forget about the filling!!!

Chocolate Ganache

No birthday cupcake is complete without surprise in the middle. The Chocolate Ganache filling is the finishing touch to the double chocolate part.

The Goods
8oz semisweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
1tablespoon butter room temp

The How To

Chop chocolate and transfer to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream on the stove until simmering and pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for one min and then stir until smooth. Add the butter and stir until combined. Depending on how thick you want this place the ganache in the fridge for a few minutes if your going to dip something in it or a few hours if your going to use it as filling.

all cooled and filled.

Now that the cupcakes are filled go ahead and get frosted!!!!

I started with the snowman's heads.

I found it easier to work with a couple of cupcakes at a time. If you wait too long the frosting starts to get hard and coconut doesn't want to stick. For the face I wanted a finer texture so I ran the shredded coconut through the food processor. I then mixed white and silver sanding sugar to the coconut to give it a little sparkle. The nose is made of orange slice candy that I cut down and the nose and mouth are mini chocolate chips.

After the faces are finished I moved on to frosting the large cupcakes which made up the body of the snowman. Now to get the snowman to stay together, take a toothpick and put it through the head connecting it to the body.

All the decorations are edible. The scarfs, mittens, ear muff bands, and ties are made out of laffy taffy which my husband rolled and cut out. The arms are pretzels sticks and the hats are large and small Oreo cookies. With the left over marshmallows that I had from my flower cupcakes I cut these in half and they are part of the ear muffs.

A perfect project for a snowy day!!

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Pink Velvet Raspberry Cupcakes

#25 Strawberry Confetti Birthday Cupcakes

I'm such a slacker!!! It's not that I'm not baking, because I'm on baking overload. It's just that I haven't been keeping up on my blogging :( So sorry! Don't be surprised when you see Christmasey cupcakes in January! These butterfly cupcakes turned out amazing! I made them for one of my co-worker's daughters birthday at the beginning of December. I made all the chocolate butterfly wings and leaves a couple of days ahead of time and everything was assembled the day of the party. With the extra cupcakes I made some flower bouquets. but i noticed that after a couple days the marshmallows get a little mushy so they should be eaten quick.

Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes
The strawberry comes later. If you don't want the confetti affect just leave out the sprinklers.

I noticed when you find the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe its best to just stick with it so I went with Martha Stewart's vanilla buttermilk cupcakes which I used for national vanilla cupcake day. For the confetti effect I added pink and yellow sprinkles. I know your dying for pictures but my computer must have eaten any pre-decorated pictures of the cupcakes
:( So you'll have to use your imagination.....



The flower petals were made out of marshmallows that were cut in half and dipped in sprinkles


Strawberry Filling
This will leave you wanting more! It tasted just like fresh strawberry shortcake!

The Goods
1pkg (16oz) frozen sliced strawberries in syrup thawed (I ran it through the food processor)
1cup heavy cream
2tablespoons cornstarch

The How To
Combine strawberries, cream and corn starch in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until thickened, about 8-10mins. Remove from heat and chill before filling cupcakes. I made this the night before.

 Vanilla Frosting

For the frosting I went with Martha's delectable fluffy white frosting. Nothing screams birthday more than this stuff!

The Goods

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

The How To

With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy. Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth.

So after you have the cupcakes cooled, filled and frosted it's now time to decorate!!! Unfortunately i didn't take step by step pictures of the process since I would like to keep somethings a secret ;) So here are a few more pictures of the outcome.

before the butterflies

And after. Don't the chocolate leaves look awesome?!

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Gingerbread Cupcakes

#23 Sweet Potato Cupcakes

Sorry I didn't get these up sooner. I've been kinda busy. I made these cupcakes for Thanksgiving and they were a huge hit!!! I used Mascarpone cheese and maple syrup for the filling in the center. This cream cheese has almost a cream taste and was much smoother than regular cream cheese. It was a nice change. The original marshmallow frosting was a disaster!!! It never got fluffy and it was more like runny marshmallow fluff. Thankfully I had a back up plan which was piling a bunch of mini marshmallows on top and browning them in the broiler. This method was much easier and there was no sticky mess.

my tasty filling ingredients

Sweet Potato Cupcakes (courtesy of Cupcake Project)


The Goods

2cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter melted
4lg eggs, lightly beaten
15oz sweet potato puree

The How To

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda/powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice then set aside.

In a bowl of a stand up mixer whisk together brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs.

butter, sugar, eggs

now it's all whisked together

Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in sweet potato puree.

the dry was just added here

I used the sweet potatoes that came in a jar and pureed it. Much easier than boiling the potatoes.

With the potatoes added to the batter

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Seriously don't fill more than half way these suckers really rise well.

Bake until tops spring back when touched about 20-25mins. You can also do the tooth pick test. Make sure to rotate the pan half way through the baking time. Transfer to wire rack and let cool.

Looking good! Almost time to fill these baby's up!!!

For the filling all i did was mix an 8oz container of Mascarpone cheese with 2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup. Then I spooned it into a pastry bag and filled the middle of the cups.

Cheese and maple syrup all mixed together

What an artsy picture this is!! Pretty good for me ;)

So when it came time to make the marshmallow frosting I thought i did a pretty good job of following directions but something went terribly wrong and the frosting never got fluffy. Since I never made it before I went along with it and still put in top of the cupcakes. HUGE mistake!! The stuff started spreading across the tops of the cups down the sides it turned into a really big sticky mess. Luckily the cupcake recipe made a little over 2 dozen so I took the unsticky ones and topped them with canned nuts and regular marshmallows then toasted them in the oven.

As you can see I tried covering up my sticky mess with more marshmallows. Looks can be deceiving!! You could barley get the wrapper off the cake!!!

Much better and no sticky mess!!! Not bad for a last min. change.

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Tres Leches Coconut Cupcakes

#20 Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes

Well it's that time again to create another cupcake masterpiece for the ms cupcake club and this month was the oh so cute marshmallow turkey. At first I was a little skeptical, I saw that it needed the Swiss meringue buttercream and I cringed a little. Since my disaster with the 7 min. frosting last month I was expecting another flop, but to my surprise it was extremely easy and very tasty too. It reminded me of marshmallow fluff, but without the sticky mess. The hardest item to find for these were the coconut marshmallows, which after endless searching were finally located at Walmart. So here's my take on Martha's turkeys.

Chocolate Cupcakes (pg. 152 in MS cupcake book)
This was the first time I've actually used buttermilk usually I substituted sour cream for it, but I think the buttermilk really makes a difference. They were very moist.

The Goods
1 1/2cups flour
3/4cup unsweetened dutch-process coca powder
1 1/2cups sugar
1 1/2teaspoons baking soda
3/4teaspoon baking powder
3/4teaspoon salt
2lg eggs
3/4cup buttermilk
3tablespoons veg. oil
1teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4cup warm water

The How To
Preheat oven to 350degrees. With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

I got all the ingredients together and pre-sifted before I put it in the mixer

Reduce speed to low. Add eggs. buttermilk, oil, extract, and water; beat until smooth and combined.

FYI this is not a super thick batter

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about two-thirds full.

Bake, rotating halfway through, until a tooth pick inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20mins. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10ins; remove cupcakes from pan and let cool completely.

Look at that dome action!!!

After the cupcakes are cooled start on the Swiss Meringue Buttercream (pg. 304). I actually made mine the night before just in case the frosting didn't turn out I would have time to come up with something else.

The Goods
5lg eggs whites
1cup plus 2tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1lb unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temp
1 1/2teaspoons vanilla extract
4 1/2 oz semisweet chocolate-melted and cooled

The How To
Combine egg whites, sugar, and slat in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water.

Before I boiled the water I took the bowl from the mixer and figured out how much water I needed so the water wasn't touching the bowl

And here is my double boiler

Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips.)

Whisking my little heart out.

Take the bowl and attach it onto the mixer fitted with the whisking attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, whisk until stiff peaks form.

unfortunately the mixer was moving way to fast for my camera :(

Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl) about 10mins.

With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition.

I had my trusty butter added on hand. As you can see he takes his job very seriously!!

Once all the butter has been added, whisk in vanilla. Switch to the paddle attachment, and continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2mins. If needed scrape down sides with a spatula and keep beating until frosting is completely smooth.

Taste tester approved!!

Since I made mine the night before and I totally forgot to add the chocolate I brought the frosting to room temp and mixed it on low speed with the paddle attachment for about 5mins. Then I melted the chocolate (while the frosting was fluffing) and then added the chocolate to the frosting with a flexible spatula after the chocolate has had time to reach room temp.

Now that you have the major parts of the project ready you will need to make 12oz of toasted sweetened coconut. Preheat oven to 350. Spread coconut evenly onto a rimmed cookie sheet. Toast and stir occasionally until it starts to turn brown about 10mins.

Not realizing that I only needed 12oz, I ended up toasting the whole bag.

Good thing I like coconut!!!

Now while your coconut is cooling frost up the cupcakes. I did a couple at a time.

This was the closest thing I could find to a all brown cupcake liner.

Get all your decorating stuff together. You will need 24 coconut marshmallows, long chocolate sprinkles, 1lb gummy fish I found large and small ones and toothpicks.

I found my fish in the bulk section of Haggens.

Get yourself situated and grab a little glass of water ( I used a shot glass) and take the wet toothpick and poke 2 holes in the marshmallow to make room for the long sprinkles which will become the turkey's eyes.

Cut up some orange gummy fish (this is where I used the small fish) in half or in my case cut off just the tails and push half the gummy into each marshmallow for a beak. I found it easiest to take the toothpick and make a whole before inserting the gummy.

Now that you have your turkey heads ready insert a tooth into the marshmallow, this will keep it from falling off the cupcake. Now press marshmallow heads onto cupcake.

Take 5 gummy fish and press them into each cupcake to make tail feathers. I used the larger gummy fish for this also cutting the tails off so this only took 3 gummy fish per cupcake. I then took the left over fish tails and gave poor little turkey wings.



much better with wings

 Sprinkle toasted coconut over naked turkeys until completely covered.

And there you have it!!! Decorated cupcakes can be stored up to 1 day at room temp in airtight containers.

Up Next...
Sweet Potato Cupcakes