Baking for the Queen

Why do I love birthday cupcakes? Could it be the fact that I am such a giver and love watching people indulge my cupcakes? Or, could it be that they feel so generous at that moment and let me have a cupcake, as well? Yup, I believe that's it.

Finally! A day where I have both a special occasion AND a day off! Lucky me! Tomorrow is the birthday of my favorite sister. She deserves way more than cupcakes, but giving cupcakes has been very gratifying for me! On Tuesday, we celebrate my co-worker, Sarah, but since I don't work on Tuesdays, Monday will have to do! Also, Jon comes home from his vacation tomorrow, so a cupcake or two won't hurt his welcome.

Well, for starters, my sister has been confined to a dairy-free diet for her daughter's allergy. Talk about a challenge! But one I wanted to go for, for sure. I Google-d my heart out until I found a cake recipe that seemed to be decent. One stop at the grocery later, I was a baking diva! The batter was super moist, which is just right in this 5,280 altitude. My only issue was the flavor was lacking, but we'll see how the cupcakes turn out:

With my handsome assistant in Iowa, I was all alone! I'm sure my parents LOVE it when I do experiments in their kitchen!

Here is the batter, placed, of course, in the Royal Queen paper cups!

Then, the frosting: A banana dairy-free frosting! (Thanks to Google, yet again!) 

Banana, butter (dairy free), squeeze of lemon, and lots of powdered sugar! 

YUM YUM YUM!!

I think I'll try this frosting a few more times, it is fabulous!

The cake recipe was called at 350* and 30-35 minutes, but with cupcakes, I figured turning it down would be smart. I checked it at 25 minutes and they were PERFECT. I repeat: PERFECT!! Let us just remember the good days in January with the exploding cupcakes! I am amazing!

My other challenge: Sarah. She is somewhat picky, so birthday cupcakes have to be fit for her! I focused on Cookies and Cream Cupcakes (Yes, OREOS!!) with a Marshmallow Frosting! One thing the author left out of this recipe is to make sure the cup of milk is at room temperature. Have you ever seen milk fly? Me neither, until today. The butter was at room temp, but the milk was straight from the fridge and cooled the butter down, so when I went to mix, everything (including me!) got covered in milk. Birthday wish list: A large apron. I thought about writing the change in my book for future endeavors, but I think the splatters will do for a reminder.  Holy cupcake! The batter was very worth it. I may or may have put a little more Oreo's in the mix, because those little cookies are my weakness!

Alrighty, so the cupcakes have cooled and are ready to get glamorous! The banana frosting was VERY liquidy, but just a dribble on each cake did the trick. I then became a genius. I wanted my new colored sugars to decorate these pups, and found the best way:

Sugar in an olive oil dipper, cupcake dipped in sugar! Aren't they beautiful?!

The Marshmallow Frosting gave me a little more run for my money! BUT--it is delicious! (And gooey)

Getting the 'mallows ready! (Double boiler to soften them)

Happy Birthday, Girls! Here's to many, many more!

Well, if you made it through all of this: You're a trooper! Just think of it as a two-for-one deal!

Thanks for reading this. I love to hear your thoughts in comments. 

Credit to mi madre: To make frosting more thick: beat it more!

Lesson learned today: When using measuring cups, rinse immediately. You never know how soon you'll need the 1/4 cup, again!

Recipes used today:

Dairy Free Chocolate Cake

Dairy Free Banana Frosting
Cookies and Cream Cupcake  (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella) 
Marshmallow Frosting  (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella) 

Let's Try Something New!

Oof.

I have done no justice here. School has swallowed up my life! Therefore, I have no time to make "Just Because" cupcakes, and they are only made when a celebration is occurring.

Yesterday? The other Finch-person in our lives: Sarah's birthday! We first shared a chilly and wind-blown picnic with her and then I* went home and baked! With the help of Emily, we chose Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes (say it ten times fast--it's awesome!) The recipe was SUPER weird and had two sections that said something like "Top of cupcake" and the other recipe said "The Cupcake". The top part was just a mix of egg, vanilla, brown sugar and chocolate chips, and the bottom was more of a cookie dough consistency. But that wasn't the most odd part of this recipe. I* was to bake the bottom cupcake part for 15 minutes and add the top recipe to fill the cups, which, to me*, seemed like it would be a layered cake--no. I baked the bottom part and they ended up sinking in the middle (intentionally? Maybe!), then I spooned the top recipe into the formed "bowls" to be cooked for 10 minutes. The results?

They win the award for the ugliest cupcakes ever served (yes, even worse than my first attempt!) BUT oh my gosh!! They were so delicious! A glass of milk was the best finishing touch! Best of all? Sarah's guests loved them! The night was fantastic with a wine bar and creme brulee! Happy Birthday, Sarah, love celebrating with you!

*Please note that "I" or "me" in all of my posts also includes, Jon, who:
a. Puts up with my picky-ness of baking, and
2. Helps do the odd jobs for me, like finishing up!
He's pretty great!

Recipes used today:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella) 

Supa Bowl, Supa Cole

Again, any excuse to whip up some treats, I'll take it! The Super-bowl is no exception! I decided I wanted to do something out of the ordinary, AND something that is common for those with less exotic taste buds! I found the Peanut Butter cake recipe and instantly thought "That will fail." Which made me decide that I had to do it! There was plenty of chocolate frosting from last week and thought that would taste absolutely delightful! For the more common recipe, I chose those yummy, moist chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla frosting.

I started with the p-butter cakes, thinking if they were to fail, I would have time to whip up more chocolate cakes. I expected the peanut butter to make the batter sticky or unbearable, but to my surprise, it was just as normal as other batters! I lathered on the frosting and used white fondant to make little footballs of the cakes!









The result? A hit! A little bit on the crumby side, but, my oh my, the taste was just splendid!

Now, for the chocolate cakes! I've made these before, so I knew they would be great. My new indication is Mark. I talked about our friend Mark last blog, and his "Taste-o-meter" is the most flattering thing ever! Granted, he likes to eat nearly everything, but still, I can't even describe the sounds he makes--but I know he loves my cakes! This night, I did get very frustrated and had Jon step in for the frosting part of this, so that helped relieve a ton of my stress! Here they are:

Go Saints!

To finish off, I was bragging last post how much I LOVE birthdays! And that was when my best girl, Nicole informed me that I had not baked HER a batch of my cakes for her birthday, which was a month ago. How horrible can I get?! So I pulled a chocolate cake with green frosting to write "Happy 23rd---Congrats---Sorry". (She also JUST got a job at Rose Medical Center, I am SO proud of her!)

Sunday was fantastic! Jason and Kellie hosted a great party with lots of friends and food! Never a dull moment with that group!

Recipes used today:
Peanut Butter Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella) 
Chocolate cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Vanilla Frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Fondant writing tip (From Michaels)

Just a little something I whipped up

I have to come clean. There is a secret deep inside of me that I MUST confess to my faithful readers: I love birthdays.
I'm not even sure why! Mainly, I think, it's the celebration of someones birth--usually people who mean a lot to me. I think that is why cupcakery is so precious to me: it's a little gift made with a ton of love! So this week was very, very special with the celebration of a great friend (Mark) AND Jon's sister (Katie) and dad (Nathan)!

Obviously by the lack of baking/blogging (blaking?!), school has swallowed up my schedule, so the time to do things fun has gotten shorter and shorter. But when it comes to birthday's, I seem to pull through! Example:
4:30-Go time, done with work, and it's time to book it
6:00-Arrive at Jon's and we run to the store
7:00-Mix, mix, mix! Pop those puppies in the oven
8:00-Enter birthday boy and his lovely wifey
8:24-(Commercial of 24!) Indulge and success!

As we didn't have a ton of time and lacked many ingredients, I made something I've done before: Golden cupcakes. Again, altitude conversions (souper batter, less baking powder...) helped with the beauty of these cakes. Jon whipped up an internet frosting, which was very, very delicious, however a little gooey. Here are the results:

Pre-frosting

DIY frosting!

The man of the night (besides Jack Bauer!)


Then, the next day was another busy day of school, but once I got to Jon's, we went to the grocery to buy ingredients to make the best frosting ever for Katie and Nathan's birthday(s)! (Used on the previous blog: Strawberry cupcakes) (DISCLAIMER: If ever anyone wants any of these recipes in detail, please let me know!)

The party was super fun, and ended with a surprise visit from Ben "Jammin" Jarvis and Colin Twaddell! Lucky us!

Recipes used today:
Chocolate Frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Golden Cupcakes (From Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
1 Minute Chocolate Frosting (Found here)

Kate: The Party Planner (Cupcakes included!)

In my professional cupcakeing career (almost a month now.), I have come to terms with the fact that no cupcakes are ever supposed to be perfect. With that said: I have made the most perfect cupcakes! Well, kind of! Jon's birthday party was "24" themed, with the season premiere of our own Jack Bauer! Jon requested something simple and delicious, and I knew that just would not do. So I picked a Chocolate cupcake and a White cupcake recipe to be marbleized! Then we bought black food coloring to mix in with Vanilla frosting! My Saturday night was spent mixing and stirring and thinking about what I would write on my blog (apparently already famous!) Here are the cupcakes out of the oven:

Now is where I should add that I couldn't stick with the theme of 24 with 24 cupcakes, and with all of my left over batter, came up with 48 cupcakes!! I'm not joking! I had used a dark chocolate powder here, so the chocolates were a little too rich for my taste...I suppose I will have to try, try again.

And now...the devil of the evening:

I used that whole thing! I think it added an odd flavor to the icing, but I don't think anyone else noticed.

So the idea behind this black icing was to match the 24 style, and we found this AWESOME food coloring spray that we were going to stencil "24" onto the cupcakes. BUT apparently, the spray doesn't show up on black. That was a bummer, 20 minutes before the big party! My fast moving brain did some food coloring in sugar to make orange to stencil "24" on that way--semi-success!

(I sincerely apologize for the quality--does anyone know where my camera memory card is?!)

All in all, these puppies were a success, looked great and everyone seemed to really enjoy them. Cavities prevented my pleasure, but I still was happy!

The party was wonderful with great people, and a fantastic first 2 hours of 24! Let the season begin!

Recipes used today:
Chocolate cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
White cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Vanilla frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)

Practice makes perfect!

With Jon's Birthday quickly approaching, I decided it was necessary to brush up my skills before the big show. Stay tuned, we have big cupcake plans for that!

Tonight, my Mama and I wanted Strawberry Cupcakes with GOOD chocolate frosting. This can actually be quite the task! Started to work, and decided to cut the recipe in half, because what family of 3 1/2 need 24 cupcakes?! The batter went wonderfully; I used my altitude conversions (more runny batter, less baking powder, lower temp, etc). While the cakes were cooking, I started on the Chocolate Frosting recipe. My first reaction? "So long store-bought frosting". OH my gosh! This was fantastic--I almost don't want to put it on the cupcakes and just eat it all! Here is the frosting result:

Then the cupcakes were ready to come out of the oven, and low and behold! SUCCESS...again!

Obviously a hit!

Recipes used today:
Strawberry Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Chocolate Frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)

Marzi-CAN'T

Let's put our past behind us, yes?

I got a very exciting e-mail today requesting that every guest brings something for our meal for tomorrow nights New Years' Eve party. I quickly signed up for dessert, because I'm obviously an expert cupcake maker! What better cupcake to make than the Champagne cupcake? So, I got to work, in hopes of containing my enthusiasm!   After lunch, I went straight to the store (not Target, since they were OUT of powdered sugar!), bought all my materials and came home! After last weeks failure of cupcakes, I decided to research and found a great site for adjusting your baking for high-altitude found here and another one here. This was it! My batter was delicious and I knew the cakes were going to turn out spectacular. This particular party I am going to be with all of my close friends, so these puppies have to turn out just perfectly! The conversions to the recipe worked!

Aren't they just beautiful?!

Then I decided a Strawberry Butter Cream Frosting would be the best with these little guys. So I searched the internet and found the best recipe (From Martha) and the frosting tastes delicious!

After the frosting I got the cute idea to make marzipan and cut out numbers for the cupcakes, sort of like counting down on New Years. This was a little more than I bargained for. Marzipan is a type of candy/frosting that is used for decoration. In many of those famous cake shows, they use something similar, fondant, to decorate their cakes. All the marzipan recipes I stumbled on were either complex or called for pounds of almonds. I finally found one that didn't seem too extravagant for my little old kitchen. It went...alright. Boiling sugar, cooling the pan, kneading the sticky mess, it goes on and on. The end result? Another fail. The sugar clumped, the almond's weren't chopped enough, etc. It was in the trash can before I could get a picture of it! So I went to my greatest resource: My cousin, Ceacy! She gave some great advice about marzipan, fondant, and gum paste. I searched for a fondant recipe (VERY easy, as well as sticky!) and....nothing.

Sadly, I had no decorations, but the Champagne Cupcakes with Strawberry butter cream frosting were amazing and quickly disappeared! My first success! Happy 2010 everyone!

Recipes used today:
Champagne Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Strawberry Butter Cream Frosting (Ala Martha)
Marzipan

Fondant