Reese's Cupcakes

For my MIL's birthday, I asked her if she wanted chocolatey or fruity?  She voted chocolate.  I then asked her if she liked Butterfingers or Reese's more? Reese's.  And thus became this year's birthday cupcakes!

 

I found Gluten-Free Chocolate cake recipe found here and it did not disappoint.  I'm still using the Namaste Perfect Flour Blend that my Costco sells, but eventually I need to work on mixing up my own blend. 

I topped these with the peanut butter buttercream and some chopped Reese's.  My goodness.  Talk about delicious and rich!

These are the perfect blend of a not too sweet cake and yummy peanut butter goodness on top.

Enjoy!

For the GF Chocolate Cake Recipe.

Peanut Butter Butter Cream
2 sticks butter, softened
16 oz Powdered sugar
1 tbsp Vanilla
2-3 tbsp milk
2/3 cup peanut butter

Whip the butter and peanut butter until smooth and creamy.  Gradually add in powdered sugar.  Once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, add in vanilla and a tablespoon of milk at a time until frosting is desired consistency.

Frost cupcakes and top with chopped Reese's.

French Toast Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

I made these a million days ago, but never got around to blogging about them.  With a 90% chance of rain all day and temperatures not getting higher than 40, I think I can make time to write about them.

These are another attempt to make a regular recipe into a GF-friendly recipe.  I took Bakingdom's recipe for French Toast Cupcakes and just substituted my Namaste GF flour blend for all flour in the recipe and voila! 

Spiced cake with cinnamon and nutmeg, a brown sugar streusel toppings, and maple cream cheese frosting.

I used maple extract for the frosting. Concentrated flavor without adding too much liquid to the frosting and thinning it.  

If you're not trying to make these GF, follow her recipe exactly. If you are trying to make them GF, I've found that measuring the flour by weight rather than cup for cup, makes the best conversion.  For instance, 1 cup=140g for GF mixes. So if the recipe calls for 3 cups of AP flour, weigh 420 grams of GF flour.  Make sense?

As I said above, instead of a maple buttercream, I did maple cream cheese frosting, because I love cream cheese frostings. 

Absolutely delicious and I'm pretty sure since "french toast" is in the name, these qualify as a breakfast option. Enjoy!

Head on over to Bakingdom for the cupcake recipe!  The maple cream cheese is listed below.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
1 package cream cheese, room temp
2 stick butter (salted or unsalted), room temp
6-8 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp maple extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whip cream cheese and butter in mixer until smooth.  Begin to gradually add powdered sugar until desired consistency.  Add extracts and whip thoroughly.  Add more powdered sugar, if needed.

Lately...

The heat in Texas makes for less than optimum baking weather...aka I haven't wanted to turn on my oven and warm up the house.  But a quick hello and to show you have a few things I have made lately...

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cheesecake
(same cheesecake recipe I used last year but added sliced strawberries and a drizzle of chocolate)

Another repeat, the hub's favorite birthday cake- Tres Leches.

 Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting to celebrate the discharge of one of my little ones---based on my favorite onesie that he wore.

Pistachio Cupcakes with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting

(need to tweek the recipe, but it will be up shortly)

And last but not least, Fall Cookies-my attempt to welcome the season!

Hopefully with cooler temperatures in the forecast, I'll find motivation to bring my pretty pink mixer back into action!  Will be back soon. :)

"Pucker Up"

It's been a few weeks awhile since I've posted and I don't even know what to say.  Looking back at my past few years of blogging, it seems like I always take a baking hiatus in the Spring.  Might have to do with the fact that I'm all 'baked-out' from the Fall/Winter holidays, coupled with beautiful Spring Texas weather where the last thing I want to do is stay inside and bake.  Whatever the reason, I have a few recipes to share today.  :)

A few nights ago I hosted a "Pucker-Up for your Sweetie!" bridal shower with a few ladies from work.  The theme idea came from Pinterest, of course, and turned out precious.  Lemons, limes, oranges, sweet and tangy candies, grapefruit margaritas, lemonade, and more!

My contribution for the shower was the desserts.  I found a recipe for Pink Lemonade Cupcakes that looked cute and sounded tasty.  These cupcakes were so easy (love glorified boxed mix recipes) and the frosting was perfect-tart and sweet!

Next I made "Lemon-Cheesecake Shooters" which were a graham cracker crust, my whipped cheesecake filling, and homemade lemon curd, topped with a raspberry, all served in a cute little votive.  So delicious- I love this combination!

                           

For the recipes, just follow the links above!  Here are a few other pictures of the sweets table :)

Pucker up!

Funfetti Cupcakes

Happy New Year! Browsing through recipes, I tried to come up with the perfect cupcake to start out 2012.  

Well my friends, here it is, for the kid in all of us.  

A homemade funfetti cupcake.  :)

I used Jessica's cupcake and buttercream recipe, just used regular sprinkles in the batter instead of the nonpareils.  

Straight out of the oven, these cupcakes were moist and delicious.  Unfortunately, the next morning the cake seems to be a little on the dry side, but still tasty!  My goal is to tweak this recipe to perfection, then repost.  

The icing I'm not tweaking though. It's fabulous.

These cupcakes make me smile and like I said before, despite being a little on the dry side, they are really quite tasty.  

Happy 2012!

Funfetti Cupcakes (makes 1 dozen)

from HowSweetItIs

(printable recipe)

Funfetti Batter

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 whole eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup rainbow sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line cupcake pan with liners. 

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl.  Add half of dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.  Add in milk until combined.  Add remaining flour mixture.  Fold in sprinkles.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake for 18-20 minutes.  Let cool then frost.  

Vanilla Buttercream

2 sticks of butter, softened

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tbsp vanilla

1 tbsp milk, if needed

Cream butter until fluffy.  Gradually add in powdered sugar until combined.  Add in vanilla and whip on high speed for 2-3 minutes.  If frosting is too thick, add 1 tbsp of milk at a time.  I didn't need to use any milk.  

Candy Cane Fudge, Peppermint Pie, and the rest of December...

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year! I realize I'm about 4 days too late to the Christmas recipe party but better late than never right?  

This December has been a whirlwind of events.  Birthday. 1-Year Anniversary. Christmas. Parties. Headband business starting. And not to mention, I had to actually work sometime in there.  Here's a little recap of December and what I've been baking lately and just life in general.  

Rather than type out and post the recipes I used, I'm just going to link them straight up.  

That being said...my December.  

Tollhouse Pie

One-Year Anniversary---Enchanted Rock, Fredericksburg, TX

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Train themed birthday cake for 1 year-old

Celebrating the holidays in Llano, TX...I have no idea what sort of gun I'm shooting.

Merry Christmas, from Nelly.

Candy Cane Fudge

I didn't use nearly enough red dye or peppermints but it tastes delicious.

Peppermint Ice Cream Pie

Christmas Eve with my siblings.

Here's to 2012 :)

Fall & Fiesta Birthday Cakes

October is a big month for birthdays in this household.  It's probably my second favorite month of the year because of all the birthdays.  For when there's birthdays, there's an opportunity to bake!

First up in October is my older sister's birthday.  Crazy thing, she turned 29 again this year.  29 and holding, as she would put it.  I feel so guilty, I didn't make her a special cake.  She came to visit the week before her birthday when I had all the wedding cupcakes, so I just made sure she had lots of those.  Sorry, sister.  Next year.

But I did write about my brother's 16th birthday cheesecake.   He's next in line.  

And now for the grand finale...my good friend, Laura, my twin niece and nephew, and my mother, all share an October 30th birthday.  Needless to say, I had a very busy baking weekend.  

For Laura's special day,  I went with the theme of her cocktail party...Fall.  I had seen a picture online with this idea and tried to do something similar.   

I used my pumpkin cake recipe with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and fondant for the decorations.

Since we don't have changing tree colors with seasons in Texas, I turn to fondant.  

And now for the twins' cake.  The theme of their party was Fiesta! 

I made pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting and fondant (obviously) for decorations.

As far as the decor on the cake goes, I just started playing with fondant and cutouts and came up with these.  I started with white fondant and picked bold colors to work with.

The banner idea came from here.  I now want every cake I make to have a banner.  Just sayin. 

At the party with the pinanata!  If you asked the twins what the birthday donkey says, they would say "Heeee-haaaaww!"

I also made a dozen pumpkin cupcakes in yellow and pink so the kids could have a personal cake.  

Again, my mom was lumped in with the masses.  But for the record, I asked her if she wanted her own cake and she said she'd just have a slice of the twins.  I tried.  At least sister and mom get their picture on the blog.  Happy Birthday :)

Witch Hat Cupcakes

Happy (almost) Halloween!  While many bloggers have been featuring spooky recipes all month long, I went the Fall route with apples and pumpkins.  But don't you worry, I have something festive to share with you!


First, to get in the spirit of the holiday, the hubs and I carved pumpkins with our friends on Saturday night.  

Evidently, the hubs has an artistic side that only comes out around Halloween and pumpkin carving.  He always "freehands" his pumpkins and they turn out the best.  So jealous.

Last year:

His is the dog on the very right. No stencil. Nothing.

This year:

His is the TX Longhorn.  And mine....the cupcake, obviously. But hey, I freehanded mine this year, too.  Just not as impressive as a longhorn. Whatever. 

Now onto the rest of the festivities!  After I brought those Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes to work last week, one of my co-workers approached me and asked if I'd be interested in making cupcakes for her to take to her daughter's soccer team celebrating her 9th birthday.  Give me an opportunity to bake and I'll take it.  Especially when she said it could be something Halloween-y.  

After doing a little research, I found an idea for Glamourous Witch Cupcakes by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.  Thought these were too fun so decided to give them a try.

Result:

Pretty darn cute.

I went with a chocolate cake base with purple liner.  Electric green buttercream icing with purple sparkle dust on top.  I bought "Chocolate Melts" from the grocery store to dip cookies and sugar cones in.  Then a fondant rim.  

I was looking for a very flat cookie to use as the brim of the hat and ended up going with Keebler Fudge Striped Cookies and dipped the vanilla side in chocolate.  

At first, I tried the little pearl candies on the brim, but they just didn't do it for me.  That's when I took them all off and decided to go with my new favorite...fondant.  

My co-worker sent me a picture of how she packaged up the cupcakes to give out at the game and thought it was too cute not to share and such a good idea.

So if you have a Halloween party this weekend and need something festive to take...here ya go!

Happy Halloween from the both of us!

Festive Witch Cupcakes (adapted from CCQ)

(printable recipe)

1 dozen cupcakes, flavor of choice (Need an easy recipe? Try this one!)

1 batch buttercream icing

1 dozen sugar cones (may want extra in case you crack some)

1 dozen flat-shaped cookies

edible sparkle dust, purple or green (optional)

chocolate melts, dark or milk

purple and yellow fondant

1.  Bake cupcakes according to directions and allow to completely cool.  

2.  Using a serrated, cut about 1" off the top of the sugar cones. (Most difficult part!)

3.  Microwave chocolate melts.  Dip sugar cones and cookies in chocolate and allow to cool and harden on wax paper.

4.  Cut out fondant strips and piece together for rim.  Strip of purple, square of yellow, very small square of purple.

5.  Once cones have hardened, dip the circular end of the cones in the chocolate and place on top of chocolate cookie.  Allow to harden.

6.  Wrap fondant rim around chocolate cone and using a dab of water, secure in place.

7.  Frost cupcakes with open star tip.  Dust with sparkle powder.  Place hat securely on top. 

Buttercream Icing

2 sticks of butter, softened

2 tbsp milk or heavy cream

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

Blend together butter, milk/cream, and vanilla until smooth.  On low speed, add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until fully combined.  If frosting looks too thick for piping, add 1 tbsp milk at time until reaches desired consistency.  Increase to medium speed and beat frosting until light and airy.  Add food coloring at this point.  Frost cupcakes.