An eclectic weekend of cupcake flavors!

This weekend's flavours is a little of bit of this and that. There is no real overall theme. But I must say that the process was a lot more complicated than the previous flavours. I was originally going with Smores and Lamington but I wanted an easier weekend so I went with the following:

• Chocolate Cinnamon
• Princess
• Boston Cream

The first one was easy enough. But the next two kind of drove me a little nuts. For Princess cupcakes, I had to find marzipan. It is basically almond paste and moldable. People can use marzipan to make little figures. Kind of like what you can use hard fondant for. Grocery stores do not sell this. Suffice to say you can only find it at specialty cooking stores. Good thing there is one right in my neighbourhood. But it took a trip to Wal-mart, Safeway, a local organic store and a 24 hours store before I realize it's a specialty item and finally went to Gourmet Warehouse.

I'm not a fan of putting things inside cupcakes. I find the whole process a bit cumbersome. It's okay if I drill a whole down the middle and pipe some cream of jelly inside, but when I have a slice it in half and put jam then a piece of marzipan or put custard in it, it gets a little tricky. This also means I can't use a cupcake liner :( And I love cupcake liners!

 The baking process is simple enough.

 The assembly is a bit of a pain. But this is when the apricot jelly was added.

 You'll see a thin slice of white between the cupcake halves - it looks like cheese but it's just sliced up marzipan.

On the other hand, although I didn't enjoy the process of making the Boston Cream cupcakes, I thought it was delicious! It kind of reminds me of a eclairs and I love eclairs! I also really liked the custard recipe - it tastes really good. And I guess after assembling it and putting the chocolate glaze on top, it doesn't look too bad. Of all the cupcake flavours this week, this is my favourite.

 I admit, I was more interested in taking pictures of the process of making the custard then the cupcake :P

No egg whites were used in this process. The mixture thickens up as you heat it over medium heat. 

 

 Then I add in the vanilla extract. It must be cooled over ice, while still stirring. And finally add a bit more whipping cream. 

  Boston Cream Cupcakes - looks like eclair cupcakes!

Chocolate Cinnamon was very simple. It doesn't use butter so the top is hard when it came out. I guess it's the sugar that makes it hard without the butter to soften it. There's coffee in it as well. I like it. It's simple and cute (and I can use cupcake liners!).

 

I love the colours of the powder - cinnamon, cocoa, baking soda, flour. Second picture is after adding the coffee. 

  The difference in the pictures is not only the distance but the second picture has semi-sweet chocolate chips as well!

I love this colour icing on the chocolate cupcake. It's very pretty!

Fruity Weekend :)

This weekend was the annual Oscars Party at the cousins'. In addition to baking, I also made some finger/cold food: deviled eggs and ceviche. The deviled eggs is a recipe I discovered on Goodeggs a couple years ago and I love the recipe and every time I've made it, it's been well received. Actually this was a special request this year. It's a very simple recipe and asks for very little ingredients that you already have at home. The only problem is that it tends to make the kitchen smell like fart. lol

The ceviche is a recipe a friend had forwarded to me. It sounded very simple so I thought I'd give it a try. The recipe turned out to be a lot! I don't think I could've eaten all of this by myself. And ceviche is easier to eat when the weather is hot because it's very refreshing. Nevertheless it's a good enough recipe. In the future I might cut down the ingredients by half to make a smaller portion.

This weekend's recipe has a fruity theme:

• Nectarine Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting
• Pineapple Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting and
• Tropical Cupcakes with Rum Buttercream

Nectarine Cupcakes:

 

 Pineapple Cupcakes

 Tropical Cupcakes

(has Macadamia nuts, Dried Pineapples & Dried Papaya)

Cupcake Tree:

Vanilla Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter Chip and Vanilla Peanut Butter Cup!

This weekend's recipes are:

• Peanut Butter Chip
• Vanilla Peanut Butter Cup
• Very Vanilla Chocolate Chip 

 Some people have asked me how long it usually takes to bake my cupcakes on the weekend. It usually takes me about three hours. This includes:

1. preparation work (measuring and blending ingredients, etc.)
2. washing (rinse out the utensils and bowls after every use)
3. baking (sits in the oven for 20-25 mins.)
4. cooling (usually 10 mins to cool on the rack) and
5. decorating (making and piping the icing) 

Vanilla Chocolate Chip 

Although it may look and sound complicated, I've developed quite a groove for it now! While the first batch of cupcakes is in the oven, I usually go straight ahead to prep the next batch and so forth until the third batch. Once the third batch (last recipe) is in the oven, I would begin making the icing. That usually takes about 10-15 minutes. By the time I'm done making the icing, the first two batches are cooled and ready to be piped. At this point, there are still left over batter for the all the cupcakes, which I usually bake one or two more trays after the third batch. For these last batches, I sometimes put icing on it if I have left over icing, otherwise they are icing-free. I do this because I find some people simply don't like the sweetness of the icing and would just scrape it off anyways. So I leave the last one or two batches icing-free for those people (namely my parents).

 Peanut ButterChip 

 Vanilla Peanut ButterCups 

This weekend I decided to try a different icing recipe - hoping for something less sweet. I found this recipe online: Not-So-Sweet Frosting. I had to cook the flour and milk together until it's thick. It basically turns into some kind of paste which I found to be a little rubbery. Maybe my pot isn't that great but the bottom was burnt so I can't use all of the paste. Can't say I'm a big fan of this.When I blended the sugar and the butter together, I found it to be quite grainy; it didn't have the smooth consistency as using icing sugar (maybe I should do that next time). True to its word, it's isn't too sweet. But it did lack something in my opinion. I will be trying out different frosting recipe until I find one that has the right consistency, texture and taste!

Lemony Sunday!

For my first 2012 cupcakes I've decided to go with a Lemon theme! It seems cheery enough. The recipes this week are: Lemon Yogurt, Cranberry Lemon and Pink Lemonade.

Over the holidays, I received to awesome cupcake-related gifts! I didn't even realize that I'm known for cupcakes now. I received a great cupcake display tree:

This is awesome because it displays the cupcakes so nicely and it's so pretty! It is definitely meant for the regular sized cupcakes, but my mini ones seem to fit :) I love it! Makes taking pictures much easier as well.

My second gift is a portable cupcake-shaped carrier:

I love love love the shape of it. I've seen other carriers for cupcakes and cakes but they're not that pretty. And it seem so big! But this one is so fun :) No more using the old cupcake boxes.

A very nice co-worker of mine gave me these re-usable silicone cupcake liners. They come in shapes of heart, star and square. The square is a little too big to fit into my regular size baking trays so I only used the heart and star so far.

After a two month forced hiatus, it feels good to be baking again! It's so liberating to go out and buy ingredients. Although I must admit, since recovering from my injury my energy level is not at its best yet. I'm finding it more tiring than before but eventually I'll get better :)

Lemon Yogurt:

 

Cranberry Lemon:

Pink Lemonade: