Monday, April 11, 2011

Just two Cupcakes. Literally




You ever have one of those mornings/days/nights when you REALLY want a cupcake, or two in case you have someone to share them with, and you don't want to make a whole batch be it box mix or scratch but you want a cupcake. And you want it bad?

Well a friend of mine, who is a fellow cupcake fan, showed me this post from How Sweet It Is blog a few weeks ago.  A recipe that makes JUST TWO CUPCAKES. No making a giant bowl of batter and baking only two. But enough batter to make just two. How awesome is that???  And in her post she says its a one bowl cupcakes for two but with having to melt butter in something I can't call it a one bowl process. Maybe a one big bowl one smaller bowl. And her recipe is for vanilla cupcakes which I made first  and loved and then I adapted the recipe to make chocolate cupcakes for two. Also using one big bowl one small. So here are my pics of the process for the vanilla cupcakes. Also bonus here is since there aren't many ingredients this takes just a few minutes to whip up the batter. Takes longer to preheat your oven!!

Bowl

 Egg white

 Sugar

 Whisking

 Oops spilled some vanilla

 Melted butter.   Yum

 Dry ingredients

 Batter all mixed together

 Milk

 Two cupcakes ready for oven

 Not bad of a mess for just two cupcakes

 OH yeah!! Frosting!  I remembered I had some Oreo crumbs in my freezer from something else I had made and I had some whipping cream so I whipped up Oreo whipped cream frosting

 cream, powdered sugar, vanilla   no spills this time

 mmm whipped cream

 you want to know what's insanely tasty?  Oreo whipped cream.


 Fresh out of the oven. Not sure why this pic came out so bright. You can see there are two vanilla cupcakes though. That's the point. Ha





 Again. Sorry for the need to wear sunglasses to look at this picture. I didn't use a flash I swear. Not sure why so bright. But again. Just two cupcakes


 I guess for some reason I felt that I needed more things to clean since these cupcakes didn't require much cleanup from making. So I got all fancy and got out a piping bag to frost the cupcakes with


 Totally worth the mess.


 I couldn't stop licking the Oreo whipped cream out of the bowl. It was that good

 The cupcake was kind of flat ( I like more of a dome) so I compensated with a sky high swirl of frosting.
So thanks again to How Sweet It is for this recipe. I will post it at the end


Now for MY version. Chocolate
I liked these better than the vanilla. Has nothing to do with the gal that came up with the vanilla. Those were good. I liked how the chocolate were a bit denser and moist. The vanilla I made were a little drier and lighter. 


I went crazy and melted a whole two teaspoons of chocolate chips. I know. Out of control

 I subbed cocoa powder for one of the tablespoons of flour

I also used oil in place of the melted butter. Just to see the difference

I also used my bigger pan ( 12 cup as opposed to my 6 cup) and I filled the empty cups with water. Didn't do that with my vanilla. And this batter made slightly more so my cupcake liners were FULL

Beauty eh?

Oh yeah. Frosting. I had some coconut Italian meringue buttercream in my freezer. Always good to have frosting in the freezer just in case...

These were so yummy. And I shared with the husband both times. I'm nice like that


So there ya have it. Cupcakes for two. Vanilla or Chocolate. And I am thinking the possibilities really are endless. You could do any citrus flavor for the vanilla ones. Like for example lemon cupcakes use lemon extract instead of vanilla and add in lemon zest, same with orange or lime. For the chocolate you could use any type of cocoa powder and chocolate to melt from milk to dark or even add espresso powder and use coffee instead of milk to make a mocha cupcake. See lots of possibilities

Here are the recipes for the cupcakes only. For the frostings I just winged the Oreo whipped cream and already had the coconut frosting on hand. So frost with whatever you want.

One Bowl Vanilla Cupcakes for Two

One Bowl Vanilla Cupcakes for Two
serves 2
1 egg white
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla (yes, a full teaspoon – they are super vanilla-y!)
1/4 cup flour
1/4 heaping teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with 2 liners.
In a bowl, add egg white and sugar and whisk until combined. Add in vanilla and melted butter and stir until mixed. Add flour, baking powder and salt and stir until smooth. Stir in milk. Divide batter equally between the 2 cupcake liners.
Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, or until cake is set. Let cool completely, then frost as desired.
(side note: mine took about 15 minutes to bake)

Chocolate Cupcakes for two
by me. A Cup Full of Cake

Chocolate Cupcakes for Two
serves 2
1 egg white
2 tablespoons sugar
 2 tbsp canola oil
1 coffee or chocolate extract
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 heaping teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
2 tsp chocolate chips melted and cooled
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with 2 liners.
Melt chocolate chips in a small bowl in microwave 30 seconds at a time until melted. They will still hold chip form so stir when they are completely melted. Set aside.
In a bowl, add egg white and sugar and whisk until combined. Add in extract and  oil and stir until mixed. Add in melted chocolate. Scrape into the bowl with a spatula since the amount isn’t much. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt and stir until smooth. Stir in milk. Divide batter equally between the two cupcake liners.
Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, or until cake is set. Let cool completely, then frost as desired.

My notes: This makes 2 cupcakes depending on the size of your muffin tin. I have two that are slightly larger than my others so those the batter doesn’t quite make it to the top of the liner. My smaller tin the batter fills the liners completely with none left to make a third.  The first time I made these as the one bowl vanilla cupcake recipe I didn’t fill the other spaces with water and the cupcakes came out really flat. This time I filled them just under halfway with water and I sprayed a bit of nonstick cooking spray around the edges of the two spaces where the cupcakes were going to be baked so in case they poofed out onto the edges they wouldn’t stick. Also these took me 20 min to bake not 10-12 like the vanilla ones did. But even with those mine weren’t done until 15 min. Just depends on how long you preheat your oven and if it has even heat all throughout or if there are hot spots. Since you are making just two cupcakes its easier to make sure they get baked directly in the middle of the oven.

Also since the chocolate chips aren't that many I think next time to make it easier to scrape them out of the bowl once melted I will add the oil in with them and then melt and cool. That way they're easier to scrape out.