White Chocolate Chip and Cookies n' Cream

I try not to spend too much on ingredients as it can be quite costly since I'll be doing this every week for a year. So in order to avoid spending too much I look for recipes that I know I already have most of the ingredients for. I found white chocolates in my baking cupboard so that works! Unfortunately I had already set my mind to doing cookies and cream so I needed to fork out some cash for a bag of Oreos.

Baking is so wonderful because often times the ingredients (batter) smell so good even before you put it in the oven! And of course with certain cooked items, you can do a little tasting beforehand.

My least favourite part in this process is crushing the Oreo cookies. Ugh. I started off using a fork. Too many holes and the cookies moved around too much. Then I used a spoon. It was a lot of work. Then I tried the Hamilton Beach's equivalent of a Magic Bullet - but because of the cream it became stuck ALL THE TIME. I finally gave up and just dumped it all in. Some chunks were definitely bigger than others. In hindsight, probably not the best idea. But I was getting too frustrated to care. Which would only cause more problems later on. You'll see...

For the white chocolate cupcake, I choose a Vanilla icing and decided to add some red food colouring to make it "prettier". This icing, although quite delicious, was very runny. The icing did not have the same consistency as frosting so it would just slide down. I just decided to make shapes with it instead. I wanted to have icing but I didn't want it to look too messy. I was dripping icing everywhere!

It was the same thing for the Cookies and Cream icing. Way too runny. I put this in a piping bag (BIG MISTAKE) and because my cookie chunks weren't all small the icing had trouble coming out. I had to constantly pick and prod at it to make it come out. I was very annoyed. I really should've crushed it better. I now know better next time. Not my prettiest presentation, but they're not bad. No complaints so far.

Green Tea and Raspberry Vanilla

I love green tea! I drink it almost daily and at least a couple of cups a day. But more than green tea, I love Matcha! The creamy-ness of it is simply delicious. However; I didn't realize how hard it was to find matcha powder let alone how expensive it can be. But I'm glad I did find/buy it because so far it's one of my favourite cupcake flavour.

I wanted to make mini cupcakes this time, but I couldn't find my cupcake liners and since it was a Sunday evening, I didn't feel like going out just to buy some. So for the second week, made regular sized cupcakes. Since I have two regular size trays, I could do one after the other quite quickly.

The matcha powder smells delicious, but not the buttermilk. Buttermilk always remind me of soured milk. Kinda gross. Good thing there's no chunk in it. So like every recipe, you start off by mixing the dry and wet ingredients separately before adding them together. I already have two designated bowls (dry and wet). It's quite convenient that it's pretty much the same method, just different ingredients.

The second one smells like a birthday cake! Originally from the title, I thought I'd mix the raspberry jam with the cake, but actually I would insert the jam AFTER the cupcake is done.

The both turned out pretty nice. Again the batter is pretty thick so I had to scoop everything in. I realize that I still have a bit of batter left after all 12 cupcake liners were filled. So perhaps this 12-cupcake recipe can produce more than just 12 cupcakes!

This time around I have an actual frosting bag and nozzle. So the cupcakes definitely look A LOT better than my zip-loc bag piping attempt. They are quite pretty.

Chocolate and Peanut butter

For my first two cupcakes, I chose to make Best Chocolate Cupcakes and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes.

First I mixed all the ingredients together (both cupcakes look the same so there is no need to put up two separate sets). I like to start with the dry ingredients first. Measure it all out and leave it in the bowl while I start to put all the wet ingredients together. After these ingredients become creamy, I added the dry ingredients in (3 parts). This part I didn't like so much because I really need to stir really hard to mix all the ingredients well together.

Next I lined the cupcake pans and scoop in the batter. Unlike the Betty Crocker instant cupcake mix, these are actually really thick. It is quite impossible to pour it in, you have to scoop it in.Then this gets put into the oven.

After about half an hour - the cupcakes are ready! But they need to be cooled on a cooling rack first otherwise everything you put on it will simply melt off. At this point I like to make the icing. For today, I chose Butter Cream Icing for the chocolate cupcake and Peanut Butter Icing for chocolate peanut butter cupcake. Homemade icing is so much better than store bought! 

Unfortunately I didn't have the proper tool to pipe the icing on nicely so I used a zip loc bag. In fact, I had to double bag it because I keep poking holes in the bag. I'm sorry but the final product doesn't look the prettiest but it still tasted quite nice! Of these two, I prefer the chocolate peanut butter cupcake :) Enjoy!

Inspiration "Julie & Julia"

After watching "Julie & Julia" I decided to start a blog. However; I did not want to cook, I wanted to bake. I did not want to bake pies or brownies, I wanted to bake cupcakes. So with this idea in my head, I headed to Chapters to see if I can find a book of cupcake recipes and try my hand at baking every single recipe. In the end I chose this book (or rather it chose me because there weren't that many cupcake-specific books available).

This book is broken down into seven different categories: Chocolate, Fruit, Nuts, Adults Only (think alcohol), Kids' Corner, Spice It Up, and New Twists. There are 125 recipes in this book and if I were to bake two recipes a week, I can make them all in a years' time. Of course, I know there will be weeks that I will miss baking and then there will be weeks where I'll be inspired to bake more than once a week. But nevertheless, I am determined to finish this book in a years' time. Fifty-two weeks. I think my biggest challenge would be finding some of the ingredients, especially in small quantities. Well, let the baking begin!

Recipes:

Chocolate:

- Best Chocolate Cupcakes

- Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

- Chocolate Gingerbread Cupcakes

- Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

- Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

- Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

- Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes

- Orange Chocolate Cupcakes

- White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

- Butterscotch Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes

- Very Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Fruit:

- Apple Crisp Cupcakes

- Apricot Rum Cupcakes

- Apricot Spice Cupcakes

- Blueberry Apricot Cupcakes

- Cherry Almond Poppy Seed Cupcakes

- Cranberry Lemon Cupcakes

- Figgy Cupcakes

- Mango Coconut Cupcakes

- Nectarine Cupcakes

- Orange Date Cupcakes

- Pina Colada Cupcakes

- Pineapple Cupcakes

- Blueberry Rose Cupcakes

- Tropical Cupcakes

- Banana Cupcakes

- Lemon Yogurt Cupcakes

- Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes

Nuts:

- Candied Pecan Cupcakes

- Almond Poppy Seed Cupcakes

- Awesome Almond Cupcakes

- Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

- Peanut Butter Chip Cupcakes

- Peanut Butter Cupcakes

- Vanilla Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

- Pistachio Cupcakes

- White Chocolate Macadamia Cupcakes

- Hazelnut Chocolate Cupcakes

Adults Only:

- Pimms Cupcakes

- Creme de Menthe Cupcakes

- Cassis Cupcakes

- Margarita Cupcakes

- Kahlua Cupcakes

- Sherry Apricot Cupcakes

- Rum Raisin Cupcakes

- Malted Espresso Cupcakes

- Cappuccino Cupcakes

- Jays Favorite Chocolate Cupcakes

- Mocha Cupcakes

- Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcakes

- Espresso Dark Brownie Cupcakes

- Earl Grey Cupcakes

- Green Tea Cupcakes

Kids Corner:

- Candy Bar Cupcakes

- Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

- Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

- Confetti Cupcakes

- Malted Milk Cupcakes

- Coconut Cupcakes

- Peppermint Candy Cupcakes

- Toffee Cupcakes

- White Cupcakes

- Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

- Pretty in Pink Cupcakes

- Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

Spice It Up:
- Anise Cupcakes
- Banana Nutmeg Cupcakes
- Cardamom Plum Cupcakes
- Carrot Cupcakes
- Chocolate Chili Cupcakes
- French Toast Cupcakes
- Ginger Cupcakes
- Maple Raisin Cupcakes
- Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Spice Cupcakes
- Zucchini Chocolate Spice Cupcakes
- Spiced Peach Cupcakes
- Chai Cupcakes
- Applesauce Cupcakes

New Twists:

- Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes

- Raspberry Vanilla Cupcakes

- Lamington Cupcakes

- Smore Cupcakes

- Cheesecake Cupcakes

- Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes

- Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes

- Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cupcakes

- White Cupcakes with Coconut Frosting

- Carrot Zucchini Cupcakes

- Toasted Sesame Cupcakes

- Sticky Date Cupcakes

- Princess Cupcakes

- Madeleine Cupcakes

- Orange-Scented Angel Food Cupcakes

- Boston Cream Cupcakes