Baked with Love

This month's theme for What's Baking is Baked with Love. I saw an awesome idea for cupcakes with flaming strawberries on Sprinkle Bakes and I knew immediately I had to make these for my love: my wonderful husband. We had just tried whipped cream vodka, so I wanted to base a cupcake on its flavor. I used a strawberry cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart and topped it with a buttercream spiked with whipped cream vodka. I hulled out some strawberries and placed them atop the cupcakes and carefully filled them with whipped cream vodka. Next, we lit—well at least tried to light the booze—and nothing. We were disappointed, but as we all know things don't always go as planned—espcially with matters of the heart. We laughed and discovered the vodka wasn't the correct proof. It must be 80 proof or higher. Oh well. We put the idea on the back burner to try again. We tasted the cupcakes and were again disappointed. While the icing was delicious, the cupcake was a little bland. It didn't have enough strawberry flavor. Next time, I'll puree the strawberries and use more. So I guess you can say these cupcakes were a double fail. In the grand scheme of things, failed cupcakes is better than failed love.

Strawberry Cupcakes
Source: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
*makes about 32 cupcakes

Ingredients:
2 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter (room temperature)
2 and 1/4 cups sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoons  vanilla extract
3 whole eggs
1 egg white
1 cup milk
2 cups finely chopped fresh strawberries

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line three cupcake tins with 32 cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt and set aside. Add vanilla to milk and set aside.

In another bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy with an electric mixer on medium-high speed. Add eggs one at a time and beat well, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

Reduce speed to low and alternately add flour mixture and milk in two additions, ending with flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix well. Fold in strawberries by hand.

Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Whipped Cream Buttercream
2 sticks butter (room temperature)
4 - 6 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons whipped cream vodka
2 - 3 tablespoons milk (I used Italian whipped cream flavored creamer.)

Beat butter until smooth with a mixer on medium speed. With mixer on low speed, add powdered sugar one cup at a time and whipped cream vodka and milk (or flavored creamer) one tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached. Beat until smooth and fluffy.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes topped with Peanut Butter Icing

Move over Hershey, I think I found my new go-to chocolate cake recipe. I was flipping through my Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book looking for a recipe for chocolate cupcakes when I came across a recipe for vegan chocolate cupcakes. It intrigued me because it looked so easy and called for simple ingredients that I already had in my pantry. No eggs, no milk, no butter—so this was an inexpensive recipe as well. I was a little weary about how this recipe would taste, but I'm glad I gave it a try. It produced beautiful chocolate cupcakes with a flat top that is perfect for decorating. The flavor was delicious and the cupcakes were moist and had a great texture that I can only explain as bouncy. I topped these with peanut butter icing and they were divine.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
Source: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cups water

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake tin with 12 paper cupcake liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
In another bowl, beat together oil, vinegar, vanilla, and water with a hand mixer on medium-high speed.
Add flour mixture and beat until smooth on low speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. (Batter will be very thin.)
Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake about 20 - 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking.

Peanut Butter Icing
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 stick butter (room temperature)
2 - 3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 - 3 tablespoons milk (or water)

Beat together peanut butter, butter, and vanilla until smooth with a mixer on medium speed. With mixer on low speed, add powdered sugar one cup at a time and milk one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. Beat until smooth and fluffy.

Handy Manny Cake and Cupcakes

I had never heard of Handy Manny until I was asked to do a Handy Manny cake and cupcake order for a special little boy's second birthday. (Happy Birthday Anthony! We'll be praying for you next month little buddy.) As I researched, I found that Handy Manny is a Disney cartoon with Wilmer Valderrama (aka Fes from That ’70s Show) voicing the carpenter boy. I fell in love Handy Manny's adorable little tools: Pat the clumsy hammer; Turner the grouchy flathead screwdriver; Felipe the ambitious Phillips screwdriver; Dusty the motherly saw; Stretch the perfectionist tape measure; Rusty the fearful wrench; and Squeeze the curious pair of pliers. As I piped their little faces (all freehand by the way!), I loved each one more than the other, but I think my favorite was Rusty the wrench (the orange one). These were so much fun to decorate and I loved the way they came out and so did the client, which is what matters most! The cake was vanilla and the cupcakes were a mix of vanilla and chocolate, all topped with vanilla buttercream. Here's a closer look at some of the cupcakes and cake:

Superbowl Cupcakes

Sometimes you have to improvise. I wanted to make a special Superbowl cake for our friend's party, but then was told someone else was making a cake. I was dismayed, but came up with plan B. I was going to make chocolate cupcakes topped with the Steelers' logo. I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items and spotted a bag of football shaped Oreo cookies. I picked up the cookies and went with plan C. I made my go-to chocolate cupcakes from Hershey as planned and swirled some chopped up Oreo cookies into the batter. After they cooled, I piped buttercream tinted green onto the cupcakes to look like grass and topped them with a football cookie. They came out really cute and I was happy with the way they turned out, even if the design wasn't what I had originally planned.

Vanilla Cupcakes

I recently won a Spice Islands spice set courtesy of I Heart Cuppycakes! that included pure vanilla extract. Since I've been on the hunt for that perfect vanilla cupcake, I thought it was perfect timing to test my new spices and a new recipe. This has become my new go-to vanilla cupcake recipe, but I'm still not 100% sold on it. (Anyone want to suggest a recipe?) While the flavor was good, these cupcakes were a tad dry.





Vanilla Cupcakes
Source: Melissa Bakes

Ingredients:
1 stick butter (room temperature)
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/2 cups flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake tin with 12 cupcake liners.
In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
In another bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.
Turn mixer to low and alternately add flour mixture and milk in three additions, ending with flour.
Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full and bake for 18 - 20 minutes.
Cool completely on a wire rack and top with your favorite icing.

Vanilla Buttercream
1 stick butter (room temperature)
2 - 3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 - 2 tablespoons water

Cream the butter. Add vanilla and water. Beat well. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until desired consistency is reached and beat well.

Pistachio Cake

This month's What's Baking theme is try something new for the new year using an ingredient, recipe, or technique that's new to you. After I received a cake order for a pistachio cake, I knew it fit the bill. I never baked with pistachios before. I've eaten pounds of them, but never had them in a cake. I imagined a sweet and salty cake with perfect amount of crunch. I set out to find the perfect recipe. My aunt told me to use the tried and true pistachio cake recipe using pistachio pudding, but I had my eye on a recipe from my Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. I converted the recipe from cupcakes to a cake and hoped for the best. What I got was a flat, dense, sickly sweet cake. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe the recipe is best left as cupcakes.

I scrapped that recipe and went back to my aunt for help. This time I got two beautiful light and fluffy pistachio cakes that rose beautifully. I topped them with vanilla buttercream and stuffed more chopped pistachios between the layers per the client's request. Then I iced the whole cake with more vanilla buttercream and topped it with some drop flowers in the requested colors. The client said it was "the best cake (he and his wife) ever had." I was thrilled. The worst part of making this cake was shelling all the pistachios.

Center of cake

Pistachio Cake
Source: Cooks.com

Ingredients:
1 box white cake (or you can use your favorite white cake recipe)
1 box pistachio pudding
3 eggs
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup pistachios, chopped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a cake pan.
Blend together all ingredients, except pistachios, on medium speed for two minutes.
Fold in chopped pistachios.
Pour into cake pan and bake for 30 - 35 minutes.
Let cool and top with your favorite icing.

Vanilla Buttercream
2 sticks butter (room temperature)
4 - 5 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 - 2 tablespoons water

Cream the butter. Add vanilla and water. Beat well. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until desired consistency is reached and beat well.

Last Pastry Class

This is the very last treat we made in pastry class: petit fours. After all the complaints I had heard about making these, I wasn't really looking forward to making a fussy little cake. I'm proud to say I had a lot of fun making these, plus it was the first time I got to work with fondant. Now I've made tons of cakes, but I always topped them with buttercream. I've heard people say how much they didn't like the taste of fondant, but I have to say this wasn't too bad. A little sweet, but not bad. It wasn't too bad to work with, either, and I'm looking forward to making my first fondant covered cake soon.