Category Archives: Cupcakes

Mini Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

May 5, 2012 – 6:00 am

I was so excited when my friend Anna asked me to make some sweet treats for her party guests. Anna is an amazing makeup artist and makes making someone over look like it requires no effort at all. She asked me to make some cupcakes because she said that she is not much of a baker. I think it is so great to have a group of friends that all have different talents so that we can all learn and benefit from each other. The way that Anna can transform a woman on her wedding today to look like she just stepped off a runway, would be impossible for me, yet making a few sweets was enjoyable and required minimal effort for me. I think it is empowering to recognize the strengths that we all possess. What talents do you have to offer your friends and family?

Anna asked me to make cupcakes but I couldn’t resist adding in the Lemon Curd Tarts and Sparkly Pink Ombre Cookie Tree that I shared with you earlier in the week. I also wanted to give my friend what she requested though. Even with all of the fancy cupcake flavor combinations that are out there today, sometimes I like to stick with the classics like these Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.

These cupcakes were perfectly infused with vanilla bean flavor and the frosting was so much fun to pipe because of the perfect consistency. The cream cheese adds just enough tang so that the frosting is not too rich but has more of a subtle chocolate flavor. So if you are looking for a new go-to classic vanilla cupcake recipe or a chocolate frosting recipe, may I highly recommend that you try these Mini Vanilla Cupcakes and Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting?

*NOTE: If you don’t have vanilla beans on hand, simply omit and you will still have plenty of vanilla flavor from the extract.

Mini Vanilla Cupcakes

by Mercedes Porter

Keywords: bake dessert vanilla cupcake

Ingredients (~32 mini cupcakes)

1 1/3 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (8 Tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped (omit if you’d like)
1/2 whole milk or half and half

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line mini muffin tin with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl and with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together for about 2 minutes. Add eggs and mix to incorporate. Add vanilla and vanilla bean seeds (if using) and mix.

Add half of the flour mixture and mix. Add milk, mix, then add remaining flour mixture and mix well to incorporate.

Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full of batter using a small cookie scoop or teaspoon.

Bake about 12 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool completely before frosting.

Recipe adapted from Joy the Baker Cookbook

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

by Mercedes Porter

Keywords: chocolate cream cheese frosting

Ingredients (enough frosting for 32 mini cu)

4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup (4 Tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp milk

Instructions

In a large bowl and with an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth and combined.

Add cocoa powder and mix. Add powdered sugar and mix to incorporate.

Add vanilla and milk and mix until well incorporated.

Frost or cupcakes (or cake) immediately.

Recipe adapted from Joy the Baker Cookbook

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Tags Chocolate, cream cheese, Cupcakes, Frosting, vanilla | Comments (6)

Hoppy Easter Cupcakes

April 8, 2012 – 6:00 am

A couple of years ago, the Easter Bunny brought me this book:

Have you seen this book? It has some of the most adorable cupcake creations I have seen. The materials and details that are put into each cupcake design are incredible. Although I think the cupcakes in this book are so cute, I have been too intimidated (lazy?) to spend the time making any of them myself. Until now.

With spring having sprung, and Easter right around the corner, I have green grass, flowers and baby animals on the brain. I could no longer resist these little cotton tails

peaking out of grassy egg-filled patches.

I tried a new chocolate cupcake recipe from Sweetness Delicious Baked Treats for Every Occasion by Sarah Levy (which was super moist and chocolatey) and stuck with my favorite vanilla buttercream frosting from Magnolia Bakery.

For the bunny cupcakes, I frosted cupcakes with buttercream and then dipped the frosting in crushed Oreos. The bunnies’ feet are cut out from the flat Kraft Stacker Marshmallows, with jellybeans and chocolate covered sunflower seeds for the “pads” of the feet. The tail is a mini marshmallow coated in thinned out buttercream and rolled in decorating sugar.

For the grass cupcakes I used a Wilton #104 icing tip and topped the frosting with Whopper Eggs.

Supreme Chocolate Cupcakes

by Sarah Levy

Keywords: bake dessert cupcake

Ingredients (16 cupcakes)

2/3 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup boiling water
1 cup cake flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 1/8 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks (12 Tbsp) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 eggs, room temperature
1 Tbsp + 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line 2 muffin pans with paper liners.

In a small bowl, combine boiling water and cocoa powder, set aside.

In a large bowl, combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter and cocoa mixture. Mixture will be dry and lumpy at this point. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full with batter.

Bake for 18 minutes.

Cool completely before frosting.

Recipe adapted from Sweetness Delicious Treats for Every Occasion by Sarah Levy

combine cocoa powder and boiling water

combine dry ingredients in large bowl and add butter and cocoa mixture

add eggs and vanilla and mix well

pour batter into cupcake liners 3/4 full

bake, then cool completely before frosting

Vanilla Buttercream

by Adapted from Magnolia Bakery

Keywords: no-bake dessert frosting

Ingredients (Enough frosting for ~16 cupcak)

1 1/2 sticks (12 Tbsp) butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup + 1/8 cup milk
5 cups powdered sugar
food coloring (optional)

Instructions

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, cream butter and vanilla together.

Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, alternating with milk a little at a time after each powdered sugar addition.

Add desired food coloring if using.

If frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If too thick, add more milk.

Happy Easter!

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Chicago Food Tour Day 2: The battle for the best cupcake

March 16, 2012 – 1:18 pm

It seems like every city, no matter how big or small, has a cupcake shop. It amazes me that a bakery can make it only selling one item and it also makes me very curious to sample these items to see what all of the rage is about.

I have told you before about my love for Magnolia Bakery and when I was in Chicago this past week, I naturally had to wander in to the Magnolia there to see if the standards that NYC set were held up. Everything that I have come to expect from Magnolia was just as it should be. In addition to their cupcakes, Magnolia offers other confections that people rave about such as pies, icebox desserts, cookies and bars. I have only sampled the cupcakes, but the other desserts look just as drool-worthy.

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I have never tried Sprinkles Cupcakes and felt that it was my sweet tooth duty to compare the other popular cupcakery to my already beloved Magnolia. Sprinkles prides themselves on having celebrity fans and using high quality ingredients for their cupcakes which are topped with their signature “modern dots”.

While the cake was incredibly moist, and the frosting was just fine, I just felt that the cupcakes were nothing to write home about. I detected no overwhelming flavor sensations and the vanilla and chocolate cake may as well have been from a box mix. Please don’t stone me to death devoted Sprinkles fans, I’m just telling it how I experienced it!

There was an unexpected contender in this battle for the country’s best cupcake. This quaint little place literally just snuck up on me.

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Even though this place was a sleeper to me and I had never even heard of it, I made two trips in the 4 days I was in Chicago just so that I could be sure of what I am about to proclaim: Crumbs Bake Shop officially makes the best cupcake I have ever tasted!

What makes these little babies earn the top spot on my list? Well these aren’t just any old cupcake. Almost every cupcake is not only frosted and topped with wonderful things like candies, cookies or nuts but also filled with fruit preserves, buttercream, fudge and many more tempting fillings. I also love the Crumbs philosophy of celebrating the simple things in life, like the best cupcakes on earth, for example!

This cupcake was my love at first bite. It is called the Baba Booey and is a peanut butter lover’s dream come true: chocolate cake filled with peanut butter frosting and topped with peanut butter and chocolate cream cheese frosting and miniature peanut butter chips. Are you booking your trip to Chicago yet?

The bakery also offers inciting breakfast options such as scones and ginormous muffins that looked splendid, but even I only have so much room in my tummy for treats, so those will have to be a reason for me to revisit Crumbs (like I needed another reason )!

The day we left Chicago, we made one final stop and my husband and I each chose a cupcake for the road. Before I forget to mention, Crumbs cupcakes come in 4 different sizes: Taste (a mini cupcake to tease you a bit), Classic (your traditional-sized cupcake), Signature (Crumb’s most popular size and the size that you want if you are a serious sweet tooth like me) and Colossal cupcakes (perfect for a party: serves 6-8). My husband chose the Salted Caramel Cupcake which was a deep chocolate cake filled with melty salted caramel and topped with fudge sauce and I chose the Cookie Dough which was vanilla cake with chocolate fudge filling and topped with cream cheese frosting studded with cookie pieces. I regret to inform you that possibly our favorite cupcake, the Salted Caramel variety never made it to it’s photo debut. You can use imagination as to why that tragedy may have happened……

But it’s Cookie Dough friend made it far enough to introduce himself:

The cake is so moist and flavorful and that fudge filling and perfect frosting just puts these cupcake over the top into my new favorite bake shop dessert.

Don’t worry, Chicago is not the only place you can find a Crumbs cupcake of your own. There are bakeries on both coasts and you can also order your very own assortment of cupcakes and have them delivered to your door.

I hope you enjoyed my cupcake tour of Chicago (FYI: they actually have formal cupcake tours of the city that you can go on!). I always love to get new inspiration on my travels and you can bet I will be trying to replicate some of these incredibly scrumptious creations!

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream and Peanut Butter Cups

January 25, 2012 – 6:00 am

I know, I don’t really need to write anything else do I?

Sometimes when I make things I just know they are extra special.

For example, when I made these Coffee-spiked Chocolate Caramel Bars I knew they were the bomb dot com. Yes, I really just said that.

And I had a feeling these Coconut M&M Cookie Bars would be a hit.

And when my sister and I whipped up these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream and Peanut Butter Cups, I had a feeling I would be adding these to my all time favorites list.

Chocolate and peanut butter is by far my favorite flavor combination and so I knew I would like these cupcakes, but what I didn’t realize was just how much the chocolate buttercream and peanut butter cups on top would put them over the edge! This is the best chocolate frosting I have ever made! It was just the right amount of rich chocolate flavor and then the subtle saltiness from the peanut butter cup chunks was simply perfection.