4th of July!




Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

 
It's been a while, right? The last few months have been kind of crazy for me, and cupcakes have been on the bottom of my to-do list. I'm back with a couple of recipes and a promise to try to make more cupcakes. It might not be a recipe a week, but I will make cupcakes and I will share them with you!

This week's cupcakes is all about the color (and making them quickly!). While I love stuffing cupcakes with interesting things, these were for an Independence Day get-together. What could be better than red velvet cake? Rich, red color with a hint of chocolate, covered in smooth cream cheese frosting.... delicious.

I used a tried-and-true recipe for red velvet cake from The Joy of Baking.*  I made my own cream cheese frosting, because the frosting recipe on the web page is a little softer than I like for piping on cupcakes. Easy peasy!  The decorating possiblities for a 4th of July cupcake are endless, but this was a quickie and I used what I had... blue spray coloring (found with the Wilton supplies at Walmart) and white sprinkles. Yum!

*Because I made the recipe to the letter, I just linked it to the original site.

Week 4 - Double Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcake

Chocolate pumpkin cake with chocolate chips, topped with cream cheese frosting.

This is the easiest cake you will ever make. I've shared this recipe more times than I can count. It's delicious and adaptable and cheap and easy, and I love it.

This cupcake is not a light and fluffy cake. It is dense and moist and substantial. It's also a great way to sneak a veggie into your kids.  I usually make these without frosting and call them muffins, but cream cheese frosting gives it that little extra that takes it from muffin to cupcake. Really, what is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake? It's frosting.

You need three ingredients. Seriously. I would not kid about this. You can even leave out the chocolate chips and have a two ingredient recipe.  I know, right?  It's also a very versatile recipe. You can use spice cake instead of chocolate and have pumpkin spice cake. You can use yellow cake and really bring out the taste of the pumpkin. You can add nuts instead of chocolate chips, or white chocolate instead of semi-sweet. You can do anything with this recipe. Make it yours.

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes/Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 box cake mix, chocolate (or spice... or yellow... make what you like)
• 1 can pureed pumpkin (not pie filling)
• 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Dump the can of pumpkin into a medium bowl. Open the cake mix and take a tablespoon of the mix out, stirring it into your chocolate chips (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the cakes). Dump the rest of the mix on top of the pumpkin and stir until well mixed.

At this point, the batter is THICK. It's like brownie batter, only thicker. If you have trouble stirring, you can add a little water. I usually add about 1/4 cup of water to make it easier to mix.

Stir in the chocolate chips and fill your cupcake papers. This batter doesn't rise a lot, so I fill mine a little over 3/4 of the way full to get a nice, rounded top.  If you do not use papers, you must grease and flour your tins.  

Bake the cupcakes for about 20-25 minutes, or until the tops spring back when you gently touch them. The toothpick method doesn't work well with this cake because it is so moist, so just give the top a little nudge and see if it sinks. If it does, pop it back in for a few more minutes.  Cool completely in the tins before frosting.  This makes about 16 cupcakes. You can fill them less and squeeze a few more out of the recipe if you like.

At this point you can either eat them as they are, or you can frost them. If you're feeling plucky, you can do both. They have pumpkin in them... it's okay if you eat two at once. Or three.  I went with a cream cheese frosting, and it works with the pumpkin. You could also do chocolate frosting for a triple chocolate pumpkin cake!

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 8 oz block cream cheese, cold
• 4 Tbsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar

Cut cold cream cheese into chunks and beat with softened butter until well mixed and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix. Slowly add powdered sugar, mixing after each addition just until mixed. Be careful not to over mix the frosting or it will break down and be too soft. When a good spreading/piping consistency is reached, stop mixing. If you want to add color, stir it in carefully by hand just until mixed. I used Wilton gel colors blue and rose to make this purple.

I dumped the entire bowl of frosting in a large ziploc bag and cut the corner off to pipe the frosting on these cupcakes. Stick on a spider ring and call it a Halloween cupcake. Easy peasy.

Make these, then eat them. Look at the rich, chocolate goodness. It's calling you.

There are more Halloween cupcakes coming this week, including Candy Corn. I'm making a couple hundred cupcakes for a Halloween party next weekend, so cupcakes will be taking over around here. Keep checking in for more decorating ideas, including how to make white chocolate spiderwebs!

Week 3 - Strawberry Mascarpone Cupcakes

Pink strawberry cake filled with strawberry mascarpone, topped with

strawberry cream cheese frosting and a pink gum paste ribbon

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Most of us know someone who has been touched in some way by this disease, be it a victim, a survivor, a mother, a daughter, and aunt, a sister, or a friend. If it hasn't touched your life, it has probably touched the life of someone you know. 

One of my dearest friends is a breast cancer survivor. She fought it and she kicked its ass, and I'm so glad to have been a part of her life while she fought this battle. Love you, Kellie.

I have this other friend who is neither a victim nor a survivor, but she fights for those who are. She's heading out on Friday morning to walk nearly sixty miles over three days to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure fund. She raised well over two thousand dollars, and she's walking a very long physical and emotional road this week. She's doing it for all the people who can't. Love you, Kelly.

If you would like more information about breast cancer, visit this site. 

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Ok, so now let's talk about the cupcake. I combined several recipes to get this pink delight, and I was a little unsure of it.  I'm not a huge fan of strawberry (much to the horror of my husband), but this was a tasty cake. My taste testers loved it. I filled the cupcakes when they were a little warm, so the filling soaked in to the cake a little more than it would have if I had waited, but patience is not my strength.

I used a cake recipe that I hoped would hold up to the adding of ingredients and filling. The filling was not super thick, so a little density in the cake worked well.  The frosting was a little softer than I liked, but I may have left the bowl sitting next to a warm oven before I frosted the cupcakes. Don't do that. If I hadn't been rushing to take them to my sister's for dinner, I would have refrigerated it for a while.

Strawberry cake

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup pureed strawberries (fresh or frozen, pureed in food processor)

Preheat oven to 375.  In a large bowl, cream softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix salt, baking powder and flour. Add to butter mixture slowly, alternating with the milk. Beat for two minutes on medium speed until well blended. Add strawberries and, if desired, food coloring and beat just until mixed.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake about 20 minutes, or just until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out dry. Cool completely.

Mascarpone filling

• 8 oz tub of mascarpone cheese*
• 1 cup pureed strawberries
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/4 cup sugar

Mix all ingredients well. Mixture will be thin, so don't panic. Spoon mixture into a pastry bag with a small tip or a filling tip.  Press tip into the center of each cupcake and gently squeeze the bag until the top of the cupcake expands a little, then pull the tip from the cake. Be careful not to overfill, or the cupcake may crack in half.

Most of the recipes I read for this type of filling called for lemon juice, but also came with a lot of complaints about the cheese curdling after mixing. I skipped the juice and added a little zest. Problem solved!

*If you can't find mascarpone cheese, you can substitute cream cheese.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz tub strawberry cream cheese
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup strawberry puree
• 3 - 4 cups powdered sugar

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Mix in the strawberry puree. Slowly add the powdered sugar until the frosting is fluffy but firm enough to frost with. If you want a more pink frosting, add a little color now until you get the shade you want.  Frost your cakes.

I topped mine with gum paste pink ribbons, because I happened to have gum paste that needed to be used. You could use fondant. You could put some pink sprinkles on it. You could put a strawberry on top, or leave it plain. You can not go wrong with a decoration here. Well, unless it's bacon. This might be the single place in the universe that bacon does not belong. Anyway, have fun with it!

Yum.