Week 5 - Candy Corn Cupcake

Candy corn flavored cake with honey buttercream frosting.

This is an adorable cupcake. I love the orange and yellow cake, and I love the piece of candy corn nestled in a swirl of creamy white frosting. The flavor is not complex, and there's a hint of food coloring flavor to it, but to be fair... there's a hint of food coloring flavor to candy corn, too.  I made these yesterday for a friend's business meeting, and I'll be making hordes of them this weekend for a Halloween party.

To achieve candy corn flavor, I used a honey flavored cupcake recipe with a tiny bit of almond extract added for that candy flavor.  The recipe is slightly adapted from one I found on Oprah's website.   You can easy this up by using a white cake mix with food coloring and canned frosting. They'll still be adorable!

Candy Corn Cupcakes

• 1/4 cup softened butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/8 tsp. almond extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• orange and yellow food color gel

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake papers.

In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in honey, eggs, buttermilk and extracts. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix into the batter until just blended.

Separate batter into two bowls equally. Tint one bowl of batter orange and one bowl yellow, stirring to mix well. Fill white cupcake liners 1/3 full of yellow batter. Tap pan gently on counter to help settle the yellow, then fill to 2/3 full with orange batter.   Note: Be sure your cupcake pans are very clean when you put the liners in. Any residual oils will stain your liners and ruin the effect of the colored cake.

Cupcakes are ready when the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 20 minutes (15 - 17 for mini cakes).  This recipe makes 12 regular sized cupcakes or about 28 mini cupcakes.

Do not over bake these cupcakes. I can not stress this enough. Three minutes before you think they should be done, station yourself next to the oven. Check them every minute. I kid you not, they dry out really, really quickly. I ruined half of my batch in the matter of two minutes.  If they overcook, they are garbage, unless you are my husband. He put a couple in a bowl, poured some milk over them, squeezed a little dollop of frosting on top and ate it like cereal. For the love of all things cupcake, do not ever do that. *gag*

See how pretty the colors look?

For the frosting, I used a honey buttercream. I usually use only butter in my buttercream as opposed to the shortening version you get on grocery store birthday cakes, but this time I added a little shortening for the sake of stability. This batch was being transported two hours to a meeting then sitting out for a while, and the all butter version of buttercream tends to get droopy if it gets warm. It's warm in Florida today. It's actually pretty hot... in late October. I mourn the absence of autumn. 

Anyway, here's the buttercream recipe I used. If you're making them at home, you can use all butter instead of the shortening/butter mix and they will be super yummy.

Honey Buttercream Frosting

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/3 cup honey
• 4-5 cups powdered sugar
• milk for thinning out frosting

Cream butter, shortening and honey until light and fluffy. Mix in powdered sugar one cup at a time until frosting is fluffy but firm. Add milk as needed to thin the mixture enough to blend it.  Pipe on top of  the cupcakes using a star tip or a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off. Top with candy corn.

  

Look how cute they are, all lined up like an army of candy corn cupcakes. Yum.


Added 11/1/10: Just a note for future reference: I tried a version of this cupcake over the weekend with a cake mix. I used a yellow cake mix and replaced 1/3 cup of the water called for with honey, then added a couple of drops of almond extract. I made the same frosting, but this cake was really easy and really good!

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!