Valentines Glitter Cupcakes

Ahh Valentines day. Some love it, some hate it, Hallmark makes tons of money off of it. I could take it or leave it but its always a good excuse to make cupcakes, especially ones with lots of glitter and sparkle. Since Valentines day is really more of a girly "holiday" than a manly one I decided to go over the top girly and make some fun, glittery, royal icing toppers.  I ADORE the blog, Sweetopia, and saw her LOVE cupcakes and wanted to try her technique, but not copy exactly. Marian is a genius when it comes to royal icing, her cookies are incredible, and she so generously posts tutorials and answers all of readers questions. I, on the other hand, am NOT so great with royal icing, but I am learning.

I had a pile of lemons that I couldn't remember exactly what I was originally going to do with them so I decided on some lemon cupcakes, but I have made lemon cupcakes before so I wanted to try a new recipe. We just recently signed up for a home dairy delivery from a local farm to get fresh, local, organic, lightly pasteurized only milk and stay away from the grocery store milk ( even the organic brands are homogenized and ultra pasteurized which kills all the GOOD stuff about milk) and the price is totally comparable. So yeah we have a MILKMAN now. So cool. I feel so retro, like a 1950's housewife. So I ordered a pint of real deal cultured buttermilk and made lemon buttermilk cupcakes. And to stick with the theme of Valentine's day and because I think they go so good together, I made Strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream.

I try to cook with and bake with as many organic ingredients that I can ( just plain better for you health wise - I try to keep my pesticide consumption to a minimum) and I am telling you all right now to try it at least once, if not maybe twice, to make frosting with organic sweet cream butter. OH MH GAWD is it insanely good. You can taste the rich cream that was used to make the butter. It has amazing flavor  - not bland at all. And with the strawberries added it tasted like strawberry ice cream. Honest it did. I know that some organic products can be more expensive but this is a splurge that is TOTALLY worth it.

I found these super cute Valentine's cupcake liners on sale at Michaels and I had to get them.
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I was happy they showed up with the lighter cupcake batter. So many designs and prints on cupcake liners get washed out after baking. You can also see the flecks of lemon in the cupcakes from the lemon zest.  These smelled so good.

I used my Ateco #9 or as I call it my 1A on steroids piping tip to make huge swirls. I should have flattened the top down a little more than I did for placing my royal icing decors on.

Sweetopia has the tutorial on these and recipes for royal icing. I don't really know what I did wrong but mine were not dry in 24 hours and as I was trying to slide them off the acetate paper so many broke or bent from not being dry. And I know I used way too much Disco Dust. I have it all over my house still. Its basically floating in the air with all the rest of my house dust.

The red XO's look awesome in person. They just didn't photograph well. My camera was having a hard time focusing because they were so sparkly.

Oops. My husband said to use these because a broken heart can be a part of Valentine's day for some. Ouch!  I didn't use them. He was being silly. I hope! HA HA

Pictures also don't do the lone heart justice either. I used osiana rose disco dust. I should have made the hearts a more peachy color than pink since the dust is peachy. Its so pretty. 

These are some of the few royal icing decors I manage to scrape off and not break.

This one was my favorite. Raspberry disco dust on the heart and the light pink on the circle. It showed up best in pics.

The hubby took these to work for Valentine's day. I always make his co-workers eat the cupcakes so I don't have to. But I did sample one and it was oh so worth every calorie. The lemon and strawberry combo is one of my faves for sure!

Of course I had extra frosting after I piped all the rest of the cupcakes so the hubby and I had these ones with sky high frosting. So GOOD!!!

Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes

my recipe I adapted from several other recipes

For the cupcakes you will need:

• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp.
• 4 egg whites - room temp
• 2 tbsp grated lemon zest ( I use a lot but it makes them so good!)
• 1 tsp lemon oil or extract
• 1 cup buttermilk - room tem\p
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Then you:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line two pans with cupcake liners.
2. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a bowl, with an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add egg whites, one at a time, beating until well combined.  Add lemon zest and lemon oil, beating well. Alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, beating until smooth. Add lemon Juice, beating until just smooth.
4. Scoop batter into pan and bake 20-25 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in pan on rack 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes

Ingredients

Makes 5 cups

• 4 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into tablespoons
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4-1/2 cup strawberry puree ( puree either fresh or frozen and thawed strawberries in a blender)

Directions

1. In the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer set over a saucepan of simmering water, combine egg whites and sugar. Cook, whisking constantly, until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch (about 160 degrees). I use a candy thermometer and gauge it that way instead of sticking my finger into hot sugar egg whites. 
2. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat the egg-white mixture on high speed until it holds stiff (but not dry) peaks. Continue beating until the mixture is fluffy and cooled, about 6 minutes.
3. Switch to the paddle attachment. With mixer on medium-low speed, add butter several tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. (If frosting appears to separate after all the butter has been added, beat on medium-high speed until smooth again, 3 to 5 minutes more.) Beat in vanilla. Beat on lowest speed to eliminate any air bubbles, about 2 minutes. Stir in strawberry puree with a rubber spatula until frosting is smooth.

Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcakes

 Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcakes

I'm baaaaccckkk.... Sort of. Sleep deprived, exhausted, zombie-fied, but I have been baking and I neeeeed to blog. Oh and I have NO CLUE what happened to my background. I saw that blogger changed its format one day and I was looking at it and I guess I changed it and couldn't figure out how to fix. Hopefully I will soon because it looks goofy. I am not an IT person so for right now that's what you get. ha ha

So my first blog is some cupcakes I made for a good friend for her kiddo's 2nd birthday. I KNOW I said my first blog back from my self appointed baking maternity leave would be killer vanilla cupcakes but those will be soon ( and they weren't as killer as I thought they would be..) any who. My friend's little boy is 6 days older than my first daughter so they are good friends and we do play dates all the time and my gift to him besides a very obnoxious batteries required monster truck that his dad just LOVES was his birthday cupcakes. Jack is a HUGE Yo Gabba Gabba fan so I made cupcakes to match the theme of the party. I TOTALLY didn't take step by step pics. I know. I suck. BUT. They are MY go-to chocolate cupcake recipe and a basic vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, dyed with ameri-colors food colorings to get those nice bright colors. Americolors are a gazillion times better than Wilton's for 2 reasons: 1. squeeze bottle. No digging around in a tub with a toothpick. 2. You use way less to achieve a nice bright color. So no funny dye taste. I made 20 cupcakes and 2 cakes. I used my wilton sports ball cake pans for the two half dome cake pans. It was also Jack's dad, Noah's birthday celebration so I made him a cake too. I am not all that familiar with Yo gabba gabba so I found several online for inspiration as well as the Nickelodeon web site

Okay. Picture time

Jack - the birthday boy patiently waiting for his cake/cupcakes

 I bought this stand just for the party. There are 5 different characters so I made 4 of each one. Aren't the colors great? Americolors baby!!

I laughed when I saw how I had outlined the eyes on some of the characters. They looked like they had glasses on. My friend Kaysie had made a Yo Gabba Gabba quilt and said that the characters looked like members of The Cure with the black around the eyes. We were cracking up.

For the fondant dots I rolled the fondant thin and used a #12 round wilton deco tip. Worked perfectly

Jack's favorite character is this guy, Brobee, so I made him a smash cake. So what if kids usually only get a smash cake on their 1st birthday, I don't think it should stop at age 1, I think everyone should have a smash cake. So I will have one at my "29th" birthday next year... ha ha.  I used the grass tip for the fur and it wasn't that easy to use with swiss meringue buttercream. I have hot hands and when I pipe the frosting started to soften up so the fur would look a little mushy. I kept having to chill the bag a little so it would harden back up enough to show the detail.

This is the cake I made for Jack's dad, Noah. There is a DJ in Yo Gabba Gabba named DJ Lance and he wears this crazy orange hat with a funky star. I figured since Noah is a DJ by hobby that he needed a DJ Lance hat cake.

Here is the whole set up with the Yo Gabba Gabba quilt in the background. My friend Kaysie did a great job with it.

Cake smashing time. Jack was already messy from the finger painting session so why not dive into the cake. And of course he wanted cupcakes too and why not? It was his birthday afterall

My munchkin diving into a cupcake

I was dying laughing she looked like she had lipstick on. I think from now on I will just do frosting shots. That's all kids eat any way...

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting Recipe

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Makes about 5 cups

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 

6egg whites
1/8 tsp salt
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Put sugar, egg whites and salt into the top of a double boiler over a pan of simmering water. Whisking constantly, cook until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees). Pour heated egg whites into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg white mixture on high speed until it forms stiff (but not dry) peaks. Continue beating until fluffy and cooled, about 7 minutes total.   With mixer on medium-low, add butter two tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. Increase speed to medium-high; continue beating until frosting appears thick, about 3 minutes. If it is still runny keep beating it will come together I promise. Add in the vanilla extract and continue beating 1 minute to reduce air bubbles.

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.

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

I was having a dessert discussion with a friend one day, who has a sweet tooth similar to mine, and we talked about if we HAD to give up ALL desserts but one which one would be the ONE we couldn't live without. We both agreed that cinnamon rolls was the one thing we could never ever give up. I mean we both LOVE lots of different types of sweets, goodies, cookies, pastries, and of course cupcakes, but there is just something soooooooooo good about warm, doughy, ooey gooey cinnamony goodness of a cinnamon roll. Whether they are fresh out of the oven, or reheated later on, they are tops in our world of desserts ( or even breakfasts!)  

I have had some issues in the past with baking with yeast. Very hit and miss for me. Either I had the wrong yeast, or it was expired, or my liquid wasn't warm enough, or my area to rise my dough wasn't warm enough. Whatever it was I have had some MAJOR FLOPS and have been very hesitant on making anything with yeast. But I had been having a craving for cinnamon rolls and really wanted to make them. I did stop by Cinnabon a few weeks ago and it satisfied my craving but I still wanted to see if I could be successful at making them at home again. I had made one recipe several years ago in our old apartment and they came out fantastic. I tried making an overnight recipe for Christmas and they were so bad I threw them all out.

Also since this is primarily a cupcake blog why not make - Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes!!! I was debating between making actual cinnamon rolls cupcake sized or making a buttery cinnamon vanilla cupcake and topping with the cream cheese frosting. I settled on the traditional type roll for this recipe and will make the other kind later on. This was my yeast challenge afterall.

So here we go....

Started out melting some butter. I tend to explode butter when melting in the microwave so I like to use my All Clad measuring cups and melt on the stove

Fresh Active Dry Yeast. Not instant

Warm milk - oops a little too warm. The best temp for proofing yeast is 105-115 F and I heated this up just a wee bit too much. So I waited for it to cool down to 110 F

My ingredients ready ( except for the flour)

The yeast, milk and sugar foaming up. Mine didn't get super foamy ( so I was starting to panic just a little) BUT it smelled super yeasty so I added in the rest of the ingredients hoping for the best

After an hour of rising ( I had heated up my oven to lowest temp, turned it off then put the bowl of dough inside covered and cracked the oven door so it could rise for an hour. The dough, not the oven. ha )

IT WORKED!!! Totally doubled in size!

This recipe makes 24 so I used cupcake liners since I had a feeling without they would stick to my pans. Plus I had some fun liners to use

After rolling the dough out I painted with the softened butter. You can do this with a spoon, hands whatever,  I like to use my pastry paintbrushes

Sprinkled with the brown sugar cinnamon mixture. I spooned it over and then spread around with my hands and sort of pushed into the dough. When rolling it was kind of spilling so I am wondering if making this more of a glaze would keep it all into place. I have also heard that sprinkling a little flour on top helps keep it in place. I will try those next time

I forgot to take a picture of them all rolled up into one giant log and cutting them but those are kind of a two hands on job and I think my husband would get mad if I got cinnamon and sugar all over his nice camera. 

After rising and then baking. Some poofed up crazy high so I squashed back in with a spoon. I wanted flatter tops for piping on the icing 

Perfect sized. Not ginormous like Cinnabon so you can actually still function after eating one and not slipping into a cinnamon roll coma.. ha ha

I wanted to pipe the frosting on instead of just a spoonful blobbed on top. Going for that cupcake "look". I frosted when the cupcakes were completely cool so the frosting would hold its shape and not melt all over...yet.

Surprisingly the liners didn't really stick with the cinnamon sugar butter oozing out  the bottom. 

I thought the bottoms looked kinda cool all spiraled up. And no they weren't burn, that's the cinnamon sugar glaze all sticky on the bottom. Yummy

I LOVED the way they looked cut in half. I put a TON of the cinnamon sugar inside but it seemed like there could have been MORE.

Microwaved for 15 seconds ( if they are already at room temp) 30-45 seconds if straight from the fridge. Seriously SOOO GOOD. And totally worth the work and waiting for them to rise. 

Cinnamon Roll Cupcake Recipe

Adapted from La Fuji Mama

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

Dough
2 1/4 tsp. or 1 packet (1/4 oz./7 g) dry active yeast
1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 cup warm milk (approximately 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp. salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour 

Filling

1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, softened

1. Dissolve the yeast and 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar in the warm milk in a large bowl and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy.
2. Mix in the eggs, butter, salt, and other 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Add flour and mix until well blended and the dough forms a ball. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about one hour).
3. After the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners (I like to double them up because these cinnamon rolls are so moist), and lightly spray over the top of them with cooking spray.
4. Roll dough into a 12×22 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/2 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 24 rolls. If they are too big for the cupcake cups re-roll each one just a little bit tighter
5. Fill two cupcake pans with paper liners and lightly spray with cooking spray ( oil)  Place each roll in a cupcake liner. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 10-12 minutes. Let rolls cool completely before frosting (or else the frosting will melt and slide off).

Frosting
1 (8-oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar ( or as much as it takes to get to the consistency you want)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon juice or extract

pinch salt

Cream together the butter and sugar ( in electric mixer or a medium bowl with a hand mixer) add in the powdered sugar a half a cup at a time until you get the consistency you want. If you don't want stiffer for piping on the cupcakes use less sugar. Just adjust to your taste. Add in the vanilla, lemon juice and salt and mix well.