Colourful Cupcakes

I made cupcakes for a meeting I had yesterday. They were birthday cake cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing. I used the birthday cake recipe from the William Sonoma cake book. It is the first recipe in the book and I just cut the baking time to make it suitable for cupcakes. Instead of 20-25 min, I did 15-20 min.


The cake recipe isn't very hard. Your typical flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, etc. The icing on the otherhand was an undertaking!


The first problem with my icing started when I was baking the cake itself. Buttercream requires, among other things - a lot of butter. I turned on my oven to preheat it, and didn't really notice that I had left my bag of groceries (which contained the butter) on top of the stove. I started making my batter, when I thought I smelt burning plastic. I looked over at my stove and my grocery bag had metled onto my element. When I grabbed the bag to take it off the stove, the brand new box of butter poured down my arm and onto my stove. All 4 sticks of butter had FULLY MELTED!!!! The box of butter was filled with liquid and needless to say I had to go buy more.

Vanilla Buttercream is delicious. However be prepared for a time commitement. You end up having to clean your mixing bowl a number of time. I love the William Sonoma recipe but it is a lot of prep - there are easier buttercream recipes online.

Vanilla Buttercream recipe: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=297642B6-04BE-414A-99E9969C9EE672D0

Birthday Cake recipe: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=C53C4D51%2D9BF8%2D44A3%2D9CC6FB1D44BC485B

Despite all my icing woes they turned out great and my meeting was successful! I think all the coloured sprinkles on top helped! More soon...

Choco-Krispies

Even in pain I find myself baking...

Wanted to make a quick treat that took zero time to make and very little time standing up (had a little bit of an accident on my vacation and hurt my back).

3 cups of rice krispies
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla

Melted the chocolate, peanut butter, honey and vanilla together in a double boiler. Combined with the rice kripies, let it chill and cut into bars...

Took max 15 min... and was sooo good.

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

So I know that I promised to make cupcakes but like Ash's challah bread, I simply didn't have time. I did, however, have time to make the best cookies I have ever made in my life which is saying a lot because I've made a lot of cookies.

I meant to take pictures but they were eaten before I had time to find the camera! However, they are a stunning deep rich chocolate cookie and they taste like brownies!

Chewy Double Chocolate Cookies

1/3 c. all-purpose flour

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

9.7 ounces very nice chocolate (99% unsweetened chocolate) (Melt 6 ounces and use remainder to cut into small chunks)

¼ cup unsalted butter

1 1/3 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon ground coffee

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

In a double boiler, melt the butter and 6 ounces of the chocolate over simmering water. Stir occasionally until mixture is smooth. Remove from heat.

In the meantime, mix together eggs, sugar, coffee and vanilla by hand fast for ten minutes. Stop when mixture looks thick.

Slowly add the warm butter and chocolate mixture and mix at a reduced speed.

Add the dry ingredients and the chocolate chunks.

Drop onto lined baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes turning halfway through completely around. Be sure not to over bake.

Makes about 24 2-3 inch chewy cookies. Can keep two days at room temperature or 1 month if frozen.

I can't way to see Ash- I promise we will create something unbelievable. Stay tuned!

Lemon Loaf

I know I still owe you Challa, but the reality is I just have not had the time I have needed to dedicate to my bread project. But along the same bread lines I made a lemon loaf - it was really enjoyable. And it got a lot of good reviews from my friends...

You don't actually use any lemon juice in the loaf itself, you use the rind instead. The juice is just used for the glaze on top.

To make the loaf I mixed together butter and sugar, added in two beaten eggs, milk and vanilla. Then I mixed in the rind of one lemon, and the dry ingredients (flour, salt and baking powder). I put the batter into a greased bread pan and put it into the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Once the cake was done I took it out and let it cool. While it was cooling I mixed together in a suacepan over heat the juice of one lemon and 1/4 cup sugar. I poured this over the cooled load to make a glaze and volia! Lemon Loaf!

Kristina and I are going to be together soon which means for once we will be able to blog about the creations we make together! More soon!

-Ash

I'm going to make a perfect cupcake!

I have a secret hidden desire. I toss it around from time to time and I always end up never quite attempting the impossible: I want to make the best cupcakes in the world. I want them to be light and fluffy, but not dry. I want them to balloon up but not spill over the edge and I want to decorate them with the most perfect frosting and the most beautiful design. In short, I want cupcakes that are better than you could ever find at a grocery store, better than at the bakery.

For me a cupcake is the perfect dessert. It is essentially- a one person present. You don’t have to share it with anyone. You get gobs of frosting and each one can be made unique to a person’s individual preferences. A cupcake is perfect.

As such, while Ashleigh attempts to bake beautiful breads, I’m going on a month long quest to make the perfect cupcake.

I’m going to start with this recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/232944. (The woman after all wrote a whole book on the topic!)

Yet, I also ran across, these interesting other recipes:

Mini Paris Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Mint

The Perfect Cupcake

Let us know if you try any of these and they are worth testing out during my cupcake quest!

Egg Bread - Challa

I am going to make Egg Bread this weekend. I am very excited - my roomate picked up yeast for me yesterday.

I have been looking for recipes online, and I have two I am going to work from. I tend not to follow directions to a T (which I know is the golden rule of baking). But baking is also about gut feelings - if it looks done, smells done, it probably is done.

The first recipe I found is here:
http://www.recipezaar.com/73831

I love the idea of adding sesame seeds and I am definately going to do that.

The second recipe I am going to work from I found here:
http://www.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2114/challah-bread.asp

I am not planning on using bread flour, so I will probably just refer to this recipe.

Very excited for the task I am about to undertake. I will take pics throughout the process and post them here... more soon...