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

by How Sweet It Is

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. 

Graduation Cupcakes

This is probably one of my shortest blogs as far as me babbling goes. Maybe. ha! I made graduation cupcakes for one of my husband's co-workers. She had two kids graduating one from college and one from high school. So I had lots of fun colors to work with. I searched "graduation cupcakes" and there really isn't a whole lot of creative differences when it comes to graduation cupcake ideas. So caps, diplomas and some little embossed fondant pieces with  "Congrats Grads" and " Class of 2010" and some starts, sprinkles and glitter. These cupcakes were basic, vanilla and chocolate and all with vanilla butter cream. I am still looking for the ONE that perfect vanilla cupcake recipe. The chocolate I made was the one from my pomegranate chocolate cupcakes but I altered the recipe and it is TO DIE FOR. My best chocolate cupcake I have ever made says me and the husband. This is now my GO-TO recipe. Still searching for that vanilla though.  The buttercream is my basic fluffy vanilla butttercream which I divvied up for all the colors. I had JUST ENOUGH for all of them to do nice Wilton 1m swirls on,  and with the little bit of each color I had left over I channeled my inner kindegartner and mixed all together to see what color I could make. Um. EW. It was like a faux chocolate color. Kinda grey, kinda purpely totally gross. ha ha. So here are the cupcakes, I TOTALLY forgot to take step by step pics so these are all finished ones. Preggo brain strikes again!!

The green and yellows are for the college graduation and the blue and reds are for the high school. I had some white with each to break them up and to give a few people the option to eat non dyed frosting. But not many. Ha!

I will post the chocolate cupcake recipe in its own post because it is THAT GOOD it deserves its own post.

Happy Birthday to ME! Cupcakes

Since I am silly and decided to work on my birthday this year I thought it would be fun to bring in cupcakes to share. I work PRN or "As needed" and a place I work for needed me on my birthday I said yes and was mad that I did since it was the warmest nicest day of the year so far. Murphy's law I guess. Ha ha. I decided to bake up some yummy buttery vanilla cupcakes to go with a NEW chocolate frosting recipe. I have a bout 4 different recipes and they are all GOOD just not the "ONE". Well neither was this one. It tasted great, but it was a lot more work for what the end result was AND I ended up having to alter it to get it to be stiff enough to hold a piped form and not melt and ooze all over. One of my favorite baking sites, Our Best Bites, posted about a new Chocolate Frosting Recipe, and I was really excited to try it. Different technique than my other frosting recipes that I have used in the past.

I started with my basic buttery vanilla cupcakes and doubled the recipe to make 24. Being that I am nearing the end of my second pregnancy I have full on pregnancy "brain" and forgot to take pics of the cupcake baking process except for this one..

Fresh out of the oven buttery vanillaey goodness.

But I did take LOTS of pictures of the frosting making process since it was so NEW to me. Our Best Bites also shows step by step but since I like to do that on my blog I did too!

Ingredients set out. Flour, sugar, cocoa ( I used GOOD cocoa too, Droste) butter, melted and cooled chocolate chips, milk

Milk, flour, water in a saucepan and bring to a boil constantly whisking until it gets to a consistency of a thin pudding. Or not. Mine NEVER boiled and when from liquid to THICK before I could even say " I just wasted good cocoa powder" ha ha

Way too thick BUT I think I can save it...

My straining the chocolate station. On the left the pan I cooked the frosting in, you can see the mixture stuck to the pan, the middle my strainer set over a bowl and my spatula, on the right my bowl and spatula used for scraping the chocolate mixture off the bottom of the strainer into the small bowl on the right. My arm was sore after 15 minutes of scraping. I had to add a little milk to thin it out so I could get all the chocolate scraped through so no solid parts were in the frosting. 

Still a little thick and tasted JUST like chocolate pudding

Adding the mixture to the creamed butter

After mixing and adding in the cooled melted chocolate. The taste was AWESOME. Consistency well sucked. Like pudding. No WAY was it going to hold up to being piped. And I had made a bunch of fondant flowers as decors and wanted them to sit on top of pretty frosting swirls. So I added in more cocoa powder, some meringue powder and since the frosting wasn't overly sweet I added in a cup of powdered sugar. I just didn't want too sweet frosting. I then chilled it for a while to see if it would set up. It did BUT as I was piping it started to get back to that pudding consistency really quickly as it got closer to room temp. Surprisingly it held shape but you could tell it wouldn't hold up at anything warmer than 68 -70 deg. These were a frost and eat immediately cupcake.

This is the chilled frosting piped on. It didn't harden up like most buttercreams do when chilled so I could still pipe with ease.

With my fondant flowers I made the day before I baked. I used two of my 5 petal flower cutters and dried them in small painters pallets. They work great to hold the cupped shape. Let them dry out and then painted a little hologram disco dust on them

They looked pretty and tasted good, but the frosting was just TOO soft. So next time I make chocolate frosting I won't be making this recipe again. Sorry Our Best Bites!! I love you and make tons of your recipes sweet and savory but this one just didn't work for me!

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

from my files

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

Makes 12 – 14 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1 stick unsalted butter at room temp

 2 large eggs, room temp

1 ½ tsp vanilla

½ cup whole milk

¼ cup sour cream

1 vanilla bean ( optional)

Directions

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 deg F. Line a standard cupcake/muffin pan with paper or foil liners

In a bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder. Set aside

In another bowl measure out the sugar and scrape the vanilla bean seeds into the sugar. Work the sugar and seeds between your fingers until the seeds are well mixed in and the sugar is very fragrant.

Cream butter and sugar in stand mixer on med speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Bead it vanilla and sour cream.

Alternate the flour in 3 additions with the milk in 2 additions. Not waiting til all the flour is mixed in before adding the milk. Beating on lowest speed until just combined. Scrape down sides of bowl and mix on med speed for 30 seconds until no traces of flour remain.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake cups, filling each about ¾’s full. Bake until lightly golden, when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean or the top bounces back when lightly pressed. 16-20 min. Let the cupcakes cool in pan for 5 min then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting, at least an hour. 

Chocolate Frosting Recipe

from Our Best Bites

Chocolate Frosting
Recipe adapted by Our Best Bites from Sugar Plum

2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup milk
1 cup real butter, softened
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Optional: Additional cocoa powder as needed

Melt your chocolate chips if you haven't already and set aside to cool.

In a small saucepan, whisk together sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and milk; bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Boil 1-3 minutes or until thickened like a thinned pudding.  Remove pan from heat and strain mixture into a small bowl. Cool completely in the refrigerator or freezer.

When chocolate flour mixture is cooled, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute.  Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture until well combined fluffy, about 1 minute.  Finally add in melted chocolate and beat again until well combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  If desired, add additional cocoa powder to taste, up to 4 tablespoons.  Spread or pipe frosting on to cupcakes or cake.

Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes.

Storage:  Store unused frosting in fridge and bring to room temperature before using again.  If needed, beat with an electric beater before using.