Gender Reveal Cupcakes!!

This was the most fun I've had making cupcakes in a LONG time.  My Chiropractor and his Wife are expecting their first child in March.  I'm due in January and it's been so fun to have someone else to chat about pregnancy with.  Granted, I see more of him than I do of her but ... it's still fun.  She and I have had very, very similar pregnancies.  We've both felt great, mild nausea, no morning sickness.

Recently, she messaged me on Facebook and asked if I could make them a dozen cupcakes for a gender reveal dinner that they were having with his Family.  I was elated!  I've seen this on Pinterest before but had never thought I'd do something like this.

{Side note: I now wish we would have done something fun like this when we found out we were having a Girl.  The way the ultrasound tech told us was pretty lackluster and looking back on it, it's probably just a ho-hum, every day experience for her. Having a little more excitement around it would have been fun! Maybe for the next kiddo.}

She sent me the Pinterest link for the cupcake that she liked.  It was a simple chocolate cupcake with what looked like a chocolate ganache on top and then a question mark on top of the cupcake piped in a white frosting.  I knew right away what I wanted the cupcakes to look like and I couldn't wait to practice before the big day!

They had their 20wk ultrasound and her Husband found out what they were having and she decided to wait for the cupcakes.  He text me early afternoon after their appointment and told me which cupcakes to give her. I was so excited I could hardly stand to sit at work the rest of the afternoon.  I was so nervous on the drive home that I'd either a.) spill the beans or b.) give her the wrong dozen cupcakes.  {Even though I had labeled them for myself with a post-it note}

I know a few people who are pregnant right now who are due after me.  It would be so fun to make these again or to even make a gender reveal cake.

I realized today that I put the second row, far right cupcake in the carrier crooked and I really am fighting some OCD urges with wanting it to be fixed! 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Filling and Ganache

Cupcakes

Recipe from: Hershey's 

Makes approximately 30 cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extraxt

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350.  Place cupcake liners in each well of a cupcake pan.

Stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for about two minutes. Stir in your boiling water.  Mix until the water is combined thoroughly.  The batter will be very thin.  This is ok. 

Pour batter into prepared, lined cupcake pan, filling each liner about 2/3 full.  Bake 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean.  Cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream Filling

Recipe from: The Girl Who Ate Everything

3 sticks butter at room temperature

6 cups powdered sugar

5 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract dash of salt

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, add the butter and powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla and salt.  Mix until combined.  Gradually add the milk and beat for 2-3 minutes until fluffy.  You may not need all of the milk.  Add a tablespoon at a time until it becomes the consistency you desire.

Ganache

Recipe from: Annie's Eats

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup light corn syrup

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the heavy cream and light corn syrup in a medium saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.  Remove from the heat, add the chocolate chips, cover and let sit for 8 minutes.  After 8 minutes, if the chips aren't completely melted, return to medium heat and stir frequently until all the chips are melted.  Stir in the vanilla extract until combined and the chocolate mixture is smooth.  Cool the glaze until it is lukewarm at which point if you were to pour a spoonful back into the rest of the glaze it would mound slightly. 

Black Forest Cupcakes

This is a recipe from the ever popular, Annie's Eats. I made them once for a meeting at work and everyone loved them!  One of my coworkers raved and raved about these to her family.  Because of the rave reviews, her Daughter-In-Law wanted me to make cupcakes for her Son's Graduation party.  So, I prepared myself to make an array of cupcakes.  She requested two dozen of these cupcakes.  I was happy to oblige.

The major change that I made was that I used this Chocolate Cupcake recipe instead of the one that she uses.  The reasons why I love this specific recipe is because it always is so moist and chocolate-y.

Other than that, I followed her recipe exactly.

Black Forest Cupcakes
From: Annie's Eats
Originally from: Martha Stewart Cupcakes
Frosting adapted from: Wilton

For the cherry filling:
16oz frozen cherries, thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. lemon juice

For the frosting:
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled
6 tbsp. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the garnish:
Chocolate shavings

To make the filling, drain the thawed berries, reserving the juice in a liquid measuring cup. Add enough water so that the total liquid equals 1¼ cups. Add the liquid to a medium saucepan with the sugar and cornstarch. Heat over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture begins to bubble and thicken. Continue whisking so no lumps form. Once thickened, remove from the heat and whisk in the lemon juice. Fold in the drained cherries with a spatula. Stir in the kirsch, if using. Cover and chill until ready to use. (The filling will continue to thicken as it chills.)

To fill the cupcakes, use the cone method to remove a portion from the center of each cupcake. Fill each with a spoonful of the cherry filling.

To make the whipped cream frosting, add the heavy cream to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Start beating on medium-low speed, slowly increasing as the cream begins to thicken up to medium-high speed. While the cream is being whipped, gradually add in the confectioners’ sugar a spoonful at a time. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. (Be careful not to overbeat!) Fold in the vanilla extract.

Frost the filled cupcakes with the whipped cream. Garnish as desired with cherries and chocolate shavings. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Red Velvet Cupcakes, again!

I've made Red Velvet Cupcakes before and have posted them here.  I made these for Valentine's Day this year and brought them into work.  I made about five dozen cupcakes, took four dozen to work and shared the other dozen with my Parents, Sister & her Boyfriend as well as a Friend of mine and her Daughter. 

These cupcakes are definitely a crowd pleaser and they're honestly so simple to make! 

Aren't these cupcake boxes cute?  I think I got them awhile back at Target in their Dollar Spot.  The heart decoration on the bottom left, is from a candy melt mold.  I've never used candy molds before but they didn't exactly work out nicely when you tried to pop them out.  The top two cupcakes, I did those decorations freehand on wax paper with melted candy melts.  Once they were dry, I plucked them off the wax paper and adorned my cupcakes with them. 

Once again, my coworkers went gaga for these cupcakes.  I was happy to share them and they really made my day with their sweet compliments about the presentation of the cupcakes.  My local Target gave me some plastic cupcake carriers that made transportation to work so easy! 

Product Review: This review is not compensated or sponsored by Reynold's.  Their new "Baked For You" cupcake liners are amazing.  They are foil lined and they keep their vibrant color and design.  They don't get oily or greasy like other cupcake liners.  I've only ever used the Black Damask design since I found them at a grocery store at a mega discount!  I hope to find them again for a decent price (maybe with a coupon) so I can continue to use them.  They really work well and add a little oomph to your cupcake presentation!  I can't wait to use the Pink Damask, Tiffany Swirl and Dots liners! How cute would those Monkey liners be for a child's Birthday Party?

Ice Cream Cake and Cupcakes

On a Monday morning I was contacted and asked to make an ice cream cake and 1 dozen cupcakes for a 6th Birthday party on that same Wednesday. [insert panic here]

I was so extremely nervous for two reasons. #1: I've never made an ice cream cake before and #2: I've never made a cake/baked good for anyone other than family or coworkers before.

Everything turned out fine. They were to pick up the order at about 4:00pm Wednesday. At 3:50 I slid the decorated cake back into the freezer to freeze a little more before they picked it up, at 4:02 my doorbell rang. Talk about finishing in the nick of time!

I googled countless ice cream cake recipes, watched an ice cream cake video on youtube and just went with my own plan of attack. I didn't follow a specific recipe, but I had the idea in my head. I event went to a local Dairy Queen to check out their cakes, prices and decorations.

Marble cake was the Birthday girls choice!

Ice Cream Cake
My original recipe

1 baked and cooled cake, flavor of your choice
96 oz of your favorite ice cream, softened (I used chocolate and vanilla)
2-3 sleeves of crushed up oreo cookies (I purchased the family size oreo box)
Hot Fudge sauce
Cool Whip or Homemade whipped topping
Buttercream frosting to decorate your cake with
9x13 disposable pans (regular cake pans would work fine, but I was giving this away and didn't want to give away my glass 9x13 pan)

Once my cake was baked and cooled, I knew I wanted to transfer it to a pan other than the pan it was baked in so I took it out and noticed that I needed to cut it down. I used my cake leveler to cut it in half lengthwise. I put the half that I was using in the disposable pan and set the half that I wasn't going to use aside. (I had intentions of making cake balls with it, but it really didn't end up to be that much so I just tossed it.)
Set your ice cream out now for about 5-10 minutes to let it soften up. You want it to be smooth and stirable but not soupy. Put a layer of ice cream on top of the cake. I did about 1/2 to 3/4 of my container of ice cream.

 Freeze for at least 1 hour (this is when I made the cupcakes for the same order)

 After the vanilla ice cream has refroze somewhat, I prepared the cooke fudge layer. I crushed up oreos and ccombined them with hot fudge sauce. I wouldn't recommend this again. The hot fudge got very thick and wouldn't spread as I was hoping it would. I revamped my plan and instead, I sprinkled the crushed oreos on the vanilla layer and drizzled some chocolate ice cream topping over the crushed cookies. I was very generous with both the oreos and the chocolate topping because I wanted them to be very noticeable in the cake in both presentation and taste.

I also sprinkled some Nerds candies on the fudge layer because I heard that the Birthday girl loves candy. Looking back, I should have sprinkled more nerds to create more of a layer rather than a sprinkling.

After you've taken the cake out after freezing it with the cookie fudge layer, you're ready for the final ice cream layer. In this case, chocolate. I tried to go a little heavier with the chocolate ice cream because that was a request from the chocolate lovin' Birthday girl.

At this point, it was about 10pm at night and I was ready for bed. After I had spread the chocolate layer on, I popped it in the freezer and froze it overnight and all day while I was at work the next day.

On Wednesday when I got home from work, I quickly frosted the top with my cool whip, added a few decorations/writing in Buttercream frosting and sprinkled more nerds on top. I can't believe I don't have a picture of the final cake uploaded yet. I'll upload that and edit this post soon.

It was a lot of fun to make and I'm glad to have had the experience. I was so relieved when the Mom of the Birthday girl text me and gave me rave reviews. Her Daughter loved the cake, they all loved the cake!

Whew! Ice cream cake = success.

Here are a few picture of the cupcakes. Both the ice cream cake layer and the cupcakes were box mixes-Duncan Hines marble. Easy & tasty!

 






White Buttercream Frosting
Source: The Girl Who Ate Everything
Review: I really loved this frosting. I'm not a fan of usual buttercreams and tend to go with the whipped toppings but this was really tasty. It wasn't too sweet or thick. It was so easy to make and light to work with too. It was a very smooth frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Source: Hershey's 'Perfectly Chocolate' Chocolate Frosting
Review: I was sort of 'meh' on this recipe. I realized that I didn't follow the steps exactly though. It says to alternately add the powdered sugar and milk and without realizing I added all of the milk and then added the powdered sugar. The frosting had a little of a gritty taste to it which could be in part to my error. I'll definitely make this again and make sure to follow the instructions. My Husband who is a chocolate frosting lover, really liked the frosting but also commented on the gritty texture.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

My Mom recently had a Birthday and I offered to make her Birthday dessert. I was eager to try my hand at red velvet cake and this was the perfect occasion. I asked her if she wanted a cake or cupcakes and she chose Birthday cupcakes! Awesome! Cupcakes are easy, transportable and always well received.

I've never eaten red velvet cake before. I always had this preconceived notion that it would taste 'funny'... as if there was an absurd ingredient in it or something. Who knows. I was wrong. I was so wrong. These were phenomenal. They were perfectly moist and oh so delicious. Oh, and that cream cheese frosting? It was TDF (to.die.for). Definitely the perfect companion for my new beloved red velvet.

Annie never lets me down. I found this red velvet recipe on her website and it was perfect.

The batter is a beautiful, deep red color!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Source: Annie's Eats
Yield: about 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. (1 oz.) liquid red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. distilled white vinegar

For the frosting (see note at end)
8 oz. cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt; whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared liners. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes. Let cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired. In my picture I used a Ziploc bag with a hole snipped at the end. My Mom doesn't have piping bags on hand (not many people I know do) and I didn't think to bring one with.

*Annie recommends to increase the quantities by 50% to make more frosting. This will allow you to have more frosting on your cupcake and if you're swirling it by using a large star tip, you'll want to have the additional frosting. You may end up with some frosting leftover, but hey, you'd rather have that than to be short frosting, right?

I had these cute edible decorations left from Christmastime and I used those to decorate a few of the cupcakes. Although they are edible, I don't think they're desirable. I don't know about you but when I'm eating a cupcake, I really don't want to bite into a hard crunch. I think they're really pretty on these cupcakes though. It really makes them look elegant; like little pearls.

Birthday Recap

We went downtown to a little cupcake bakery/cafe to celebrate my Birthday. This place was recommended by some of the girls on my local Nest board and it wasn't too far from my work, so off we went!

I didn't think to take pictures of the actual cafe, it was kind of a cramped space and it was pretty busy. I wasn't expecting that at first, but we were on University Avenue right by the U of M campus so I should have known. We even drove by the new TCF Stadium, which Matt was pretty impressed with. Little did he know, a wrong turn on my part took us that way, but hey, we'll pretend we had to go that way.

We went to.... Cupcake!

The handles on the door when you enter the cafe, look like whisks, I thought that was pretty clever :-) It was a cute little shop, it was also a cafe so you could order sandwiches, soups etc. I wish I would have taken more pictures, ooops!

We chose four cupcakes, two for the each of us. We decided to sit down and eat a couple and save the other two for another time. We rushed ourselves along because we weren't exactly sure the time limit of our parking spot. There was a sign that said both 1hr limit and one that said 15min limit. We didn't exactly know how to decipher them so decided we would hurry!

I ate the chocolate mint cupcake, and Matt ate his mocha cupcake. They were both very good. My frosting had a strong, but not too strong, mint flavor and Matt said the same thing about the coffee taste in his (strong, but not too strong). My cupcake was pretty crumbly and fell apart, but Matt's had nice texture and stayed together nicely.

They were both good, I just wish mine would have held together better. I'm excited to try my other one, The Betty Crocker. A vanilla cupcake, with a swirl of pink icing and sprinkles. Typical Birthday Girl treat, don't you think? Matt has The Coco Loco waiting for him at home, a lemon curd filled vanilla cupcake topped with marshmellow frosting and shredded coconut.

Overall it was a fun atmosphere. The employees were friendly, it was a nicely decorated cafe, tabletops were clean, there were seats available. I also enjoyed being able to watch the decorator pipe icing onto the cupcakes.

There was something that really freaked me out while we were there. While I was getting us some ice water, I noticed they had their patio door open, and as I looked over, what did I see? A baby mouse! Not kidding!  The mouse did not, I repeat did not, go in the cafe, but it very easily could have.  That really kind of grossed me out.  If you own or even work at a cafe, I would suggest not leaving the door open intentionally!  Eeek!  The only other con that I have is there was literally, no parking other than the paralell parking right in front of the cafe, which had no room when we were looking for a spot.  We parked a little ways up the street and took our chances with our time limit. 

On our way home, we were stuck in rush our traffic! Bad idea Birthday Girl! I should have known going that way at around 4:30pm was going to be trouble. However, I really wanted to try Cupcake after hearing so many positive reviews. Although it really wasn't what I expected, it was still fun to go to! It kind of makes me want to start my own cupcake shop :-)

For dinner we went to ... Rey Azteca! We had a coupon, and it was close to home so we decided to go there. YUM! I definitely give it two thumbs up! We were seated promptly, they took our drink order shortly after we sat down, and then our server dissappeared. They were a little busy so I can understand though. The food was excellent and they have huge portions! Matt had fajitas and I had a plate of enchiladas that came with two tacos and a stuffed pepper. Very delicious, and very filling! They also serve tortilla chips with salsa and a white dip. The best I can describe it is a cucumber, ranch, sour cream type dip.

I have no pictures :( I think we were so hungry we were ready to eat! The margaritas were excellent as well!

I had a great Birthday! Lots of love and wishes from my family and quality time with my Husband! We closed off our night by stopping at Target and picking up toilet paper and paper towels (ahhh..the life of being an adult!) and went home to get ready for my Tastefully Simple party.