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.

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. 

Gerbera Daisy Cupcake

Along with the Hello Kitty Cupcake I made and just posted about, I also made a cupcake for my friend that I was going to be seeing the past weekend that was in her favorite colors. I chose to make a red daisy sitting on top of turquoise frosting. Partially because I got new PME Gerbera daisy cutters and I had seen this GORGEOUS gerbera daisy cupcake on Flickr and wanted to try and copy it. I had seen the daisy tutorial on the blog, Sweetopia, a while back when I was looking at daisy cupcakes and followed along step by step. Worked out great!

I added in a few smaller pieces of fondant around the daisy denter so I had 3 layers of daisies cut out plus the little pieces and the center white part. I dusted with pixie disco dust. The only frosting I had left was cream cheese frosting and I wasn't totally sure what happened to the consistency when I added in the gel color but it thinned it a bit. So it was super soft when I piped it. I tried to fridge it to set it up but then thought if it set up too much I wouldn't be able to set the flower on it. So I plopped the flower on top of the frosting and chilled and hoped that the frosting would set and the daisy wouldn't soften. Worked out perfectly!!