Carrot Cupcakes

It has been one busy couple of weeks! I feel like I have had absolutely no time to sit down, let alone cook and blog. I got into a bit of a food rut too -- I have been eating a lot of cereal and scrambled eggs. Yikes. I think I had a bit of February blues, but these carrot cupcakes were just what the doctor ordered.

I needed something that would get me back in the kitchen, that was sweet and satisfying, that was relaxing and easy to make. These hit all the marks. I can't even begin to tell you how delicious the icing is, too. It's a thick cream cheese icing and it's so amazing. The best part? The recipe makes lots so you can slather it on thick and still have enough to lick off the back of your spoon. After all, that's the best part, no?

Carrot Cupcakes

Serves 12

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Icing

• 1/2 pkg (4 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 tbsp heavy cream

Cupcake

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put cupcake liners in 12 muffin cups.
• In a bowl, beat together the eggs, white sugar and brown sugar and mix in the oil and vanilla. Fold in the carrots. 
• In a separate bowl, mix in the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. 
• Mix the flour mixture into the carrot mixture until evenly moist. Fold in 1/2 cup of walnuts. 
• Bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool completely.
• Meanwhile, beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in vanilla and gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until the mixture is fluffy. Mix in heavy cream. 
• Ice each cupcake and sprinkle with remaining walnuts.

Recipe adapted from All Recipes

Black Forest Cupcakes

My sweetie celebrated his birthday the other day, so I decided to celebrate with something sweet. His favourite cake is black forest, but with just two of us at home, I didn't want to make a whole cake -- especially as it's not my fave -- so I opted to make cupcakes instead (because even though it's the same amount of cake, I believe it is less overwhelming).

My girlfriend Lindsey came over to help and we made an assembly line to put these together because there are a couple of more steps than just making the cupcakes and icing them. Not only did we have fun doing it, the cupcakes were delicious! You really can't go wrong with a whip cream icing and chocolate cake. And the cherries? Really good! 

The only thing about these cupcakes, is because of the whip cream, they need to stay near a fridge. As a result, I wasn't able to take them to work because the icing would have just melted on the subway. But straight out of the fridge? Delicious!

Ingredients

Cake:

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp espresso powder
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Filling:

• 1 can cherry pie filling 
• Maraschino cherry juice or Kirsch

Frosting:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 8 tbsp sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Garnish:

• Fresh or maraschino cherries
• chocolate shavings

Directions

• To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 16 cupcake wells with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed mix in the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix each addition until just incorporated.

• Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pan 5-10 minutes, then let cool completely on a wire rack.

• To fill the cupcakes, use the cone method to remove a portion of the centre of each cupcake (feel free to choose your own way to dispose of these!). Spoon in about 2-3 cherries (not too much of the jelly). Drizzle some maraschino juice or Kirsch over the fruit. 

• To make the frosting, add the 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 the confectioners sugar, a spoonful at a time. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Fold in the vanilla extract.

• Frost the filled cupcakes with whipped cream. Garnish as desired. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Adapted from the Cupcake Project

Mocha and Peppermint Cupcakes

I recently celebrated my birthday on a work day, so I took the opportunity to make some special cupcakes for my team to enjoy. My "signature" cupcakes are cherry chip with a pink tinted icing and I'm embarrassed to say that they're straight out of the box and can respectively. They cost about $5 and they're really very good -- especially when you pipe the icing. But I am expanding my culinary horizons and took the from-scratch recipe from Annie's Eats and they were certainly worth the effort. 

I particularly enjoyed the icing. When I told a couple of people how I made it, they called it "seven minute icing." I'm not sure where the name came from as it took more than seven minutes to make, but it was light, fluffy, not too sweet and piped well. Another birthday down and another new recipe under my belt!

Ingredients


For the cupcakes:

• 2 2/3 cups flour
• 2/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2-3 tsp espresso powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs

For the frosting:

• 6 large egg whites
• 1 3/4 plus 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 4 tsp peppermint extract
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

• To make the cupcakes: preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 24 muffin tins with paper liners.
• In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• In a measuring cup, combine the milk, coffee and peppermint extract
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar with the paddle attachment. Blend in the eggs one at a time. Alternately mix in the dry and liquid ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients until just combined.
• Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners and bake for 18-20 minutes.
• To make the frosting: combine the egg whites and sugar in a heat proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Heat, whisking frequently until the mixture reaches 160 degrees F and the sugar has dissolved. 
• Transfer the mixture the bowl of the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled to room temperature -- about eight minutes. 
• Reduce the speed and add the butter, two tablespoons at a time. If the frosting looks soupy or curdled, continue beating on med-high until smooth again.
• Stir in the peppermint and vanilla extracts and mix until just incorporated. 
• Frost cupcakes as desired and serve!

Recipe from Annie's Eats

Icing Success!

Do you remember the icing worms? They were a disaster.


But these cupcakes! These delicious ones, made out of our family birthday cake recipe and mocha buttercream icing -- these not only tasted great, they were pretty!

What did I do differently? First, I watched a lot of videos on YouTube. I find this to be a tremendous resource when learning a new technique.


Second, I made a smoother icing that was more pipe-able.


Finally, I got the proper tools. Last time, I used a really small tip with a really thick icing. For these, I got a 1M icing tip, which is significantly larger and is even called the standard cupcake swirl tip. 


I know I'll continue to improve, but I wanted to share my progress!

Icing Update

Oh, and last night, T mentioned that the icing tasted "a little too buttery." Well, that's because all it is is butter.

Icing Worms

I have four cupcake cookbooks and they all make icing look so easy. So easy, in fact, that no one actually tells you how to ice. How hard could it be?

I attempted Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream icing for cupcakes for a potluck. All that's in this icing is five egg whites, one POUND of butter and one cup of sugar. The icing turned out ok, but when I added colour, it all went downhill. I'm told that you should always add gel paste as colouring because the colour takes better. I didn't have it, so I added regular red food colouring and the best colour I could make was like a skin tone. Gross.

Then I whipped out my new icing tip -- a Wilton 21, a nice star tip. This is what happened:

My icing didn't even cover the cupcake and it certainly didn't come out in a smooth flow like I expected it. It came out clumpy and inconsistent.

After a number of failed attempts, I switched icing tips to a Wilton 12, which is a large, round tip. It pretty much looked like there were skin coloured worms on my cupcakes.

Here, in all their glory, are my cupcakes, which will not be making it to the potluck on Thursday. Sigh.

Lessons learned:

• 
  
  gel food paste is essential for colouring icing
• 
  
  never use a pound of butter, ever
• 
  
  cupcake decorating lessons might be a good idea