Giant Red Velvet Cupcake

My sister commissioned me with making the cake for my niece, Audrey, when she was about to turn 2 this month.  I had toyed with the idea of making a giant cupcake using this Wilton pan.  What more could delight a toddler for a birthday cake?  The cake pan comes with a recipe for a chocolate pound cake, but some comments online confirmed my suspicions that it was dense and not tasty.  So I found a red velvet recipe another blogger had made using the pan.

Would I recommend the pan?  Nope.  Cute as it is, there are a few issues.  You can't use just any cake recipe because the batter might not be enough to fill the pan with.  The top portion of the cake bakes faster than the bottom.  The outside of the cake could be done before the inside finishes baking because it's tall.  You should really frost or fill the bottom of the cake also, unless your cake is ultra-moist.  And since it's so tall, it won't fit in most cake domes or containers.  But if the sight of a cute giant cupcake seizes you with impulse to go buy the pan, you've got company.

Audrey with her mom, my twin sis

Decorating was also more difficult than I'd anticipated.  And I had little time to devote to it, since a certain little person thought I was her personal toy.  She would command me, too: "Come on!  Lai!"  Bossy, but it was too funny.  Here I went with a chocolate frosting on bottom adorned with candy sprinkles, and piped regular cream cheese frosting on top.  It looked like a mess, unfortunately.  And there wasn't enough frosting.  So on my second try, which you can see in the photo at the top of this post, I adapted a different decorating technique: Keep it simple, stupid.

Luckily for me, 2-year-olds are not as discerning when it comes to design, and Audrey loved this cake.  She ate bite after bite, and ran over to Grandpa so he could sneak her some extra cake.  The second time I made enough frosting, and filled the bottom for a better frosting-to-cake ratio.  I like the larger-than-normal portion of cocoa, and I used Guittard for an intense cocoa flavor.  It ends up tasting a little more chocolaty than red velvet usually does.

If anybody has used this particular pan (and not the silicone ones), I would be grateful for any other recommended recipes or tips.

Key Lime Cupcakes

I don't think there are enough key lime cupcake recipes out there.  When I got the idea to make some, I didn't find many recipes on the Web and I ended up adapting a lemon cake recipe.  The result was a moist cupcake lightly fragrant with key lime, which was echoed in the frosting.  To boost the key lime factor, you can add more zest.  Lime oil is another possibility, but adding more juice could dilute the batter.  But considering the praise these got, I think their lime factor was just fine.

I brought them in to work on the night of the Florida presidential primary, to keep up the sugar and carb high in the newsroom while we were working.  Aside from oranges, what else says Florida like key lime?  I don't think I'll be continuing the cupcake-for-a-primary theme, since my mind wandered to lobster cupcakes for Maine and Rocky Mountain cupcakes for Colorado.  Let's just not go there.  I often find key lime pie cloyingly sweet, but this cupcake dialed that back.  The frosting especially got rave reviews.

This post was shared with:
Tea Party Tuesday
Crazy Sweet Tuesday
Sweet Tooth Friday
Sweets for a Saturday
Themed Bakers Sunday

Chocolate Malt Cupcakes

So we've established that I don't like peanut butter and chocolate confections, but in fact I'm not big on most candy.  I do have a soft spot once in a long while for Werther's, Raisinets, or Whoppers.  My friend Charmie laughingly says, "That's old people candy!"  Maybe, but these Chocolate Malt Cupcakes don't look like something Grandma would have whipped up.

I first spied them on The Culinary Chronicles, and they were so cute I had to make them.  When we decided to lighten up a humdrum Sunday night of work last week by throwing an Oscars potluck party, I thought these were perfect.  I know I enjoy crunching on Whoppers while watching a movie.

I left the Whoppers out of the cupcake recipe because I wanted a uniform cake crumb.  I also tweaked the frosting recipe because I have a personal dislike of shortening.  Use a high-quality cocoa powder; I used Guittard.  The malt flavoring is a bit subdued in the cupcake, but all there in the frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Cupcakes

There are many cupcake flavors out there, but when it comes to me and sis our favorite is always good old yellow with chocolate frosting.  They weren't made this week, the week of the 100-degree high in Boston, but earlier when sis visited and requested them.  I've tried a similar combination before, but I was looking for a better buttercream recipe.  This is it.  The one I tried last year involved a sugar syrup, but syrups and caramels are just not my friends.  This one's easier and just as freakin' good.

Making the cupcakes was straightforward and simple, except I halved the recipe and even then only had nine paper liners.  So I sprayed the unlined wells with cooking spray, but don't follow my example.  The cupcakes still stuck to the pan and browned faster.  There was still a bit of batter left so I dug out two silicone baking cups, only to remember why I don't like baking with silicone.  The cake always breaks or sticks to the sides when you unmold it.  Paper is just the way to go.  Afterward, I started the buttercream, cooking the egg whites and sugar a bit to dissolve the graininess, then beating the mixture into a soft meringue.

The mixture is transformed into buttercream when you add the softened butter, and then flavored with melted chocolate.  We piped, then kicked back with a cupcake (or two).  Sis thought it looked like a lot of work, but you've got to put in a little love if you're not using Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines, right?

Wedding Barnyard Buttercream Cupcakes

So, I only helped decorate these.  I just returned from a few days in Denver, where I went to my friend Debbie's wedding.  She and her husband, Jose, served up these cute farm-themed cupcakes at their wedding.  They were a big hit at the reception, and I saw one little nephew snag a cupcake when everyone else was starting on appetizers.

The decorations were made almost entirely of buttercream.  Or, But-R-Creme, as Jose, a food scientist, informed me.  Apparently you can't legally call a product buttercream if it's made with shortening and no butter.  I only helped with the easy parts, namely the sheeps' wool, the pigs' mud, and the grass.  Debbie and Jose did the detailed work... the faces, tails, ears, etc.  Both the wool and mud were piped without a tip; you just keep piping bumps without lifting so you don't get points.  The "grass" was piped using a grass tip.  And Jose used a finer tip to make the pigs' curly tails.  The chickens got little chocolate buttercream eyes.  But the eyes for the pigs and sheep... mini chocolate chips!  The sheep are my favorite.  Tweezers would have been handy, since I felt like my fingers were melting the chips.  It was a fun, late-night, eve-of-wedding activity.

There was no stuffy, fondant-covered cake for the wedding.  It was a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, personalized with a marzipan family of figurines made by Debbie, an artist and art teacher.  The family member on the left is Pork Chop, their cat.  The marzipan was colored and then sculpted and molded around a pretzel to stick into the cake.  Debbie told me Jose was hollow, which I thought was some harsh criticism before I realized she meant marzipan Jose.  The real-life couple looked amazing on their wedding day.

Lil Cookies & Cream Cheesecakes

These little bites of cheesecake are so cute. I actually don't like Oreos, but I love Cookies & Cream. Sounds strange, I know, but I was also one of those kids who hated tomatoes but loved ketchup and tomato sauce -- at least I grew out of that. These are from the new Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book, and I love how the crust for each cheesecake is an entire Oreo.

It's so much easier to plop a cookie in each paper cup, rather than grind up graham crackers and press them into each cupcake well. They bake up really quickly, and everybody will love them. One word of advice: Read the entire recipe to make sure you have enough cupcake or muffin trays. It yields a lot of batter (I halved the recipe and used cupcake tins instead of muffin tins), and the cheesecakes need to refrigerate in the trays, so you can't remove the cakes immediately to bake up the rest of the batter.

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
42 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped

2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1 cup sour cream

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

Divide batter evenly among cookie-filled cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate (in tins) at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

Enjoy them with a glass of milk!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I made these for our summer intern's goodbye party, as a tribute to her southern roots. Paula Deen's recipe looked popular online, but I took note of comments about the recipe being too oily and the funny undertaste of food coloring and made adjustments. Actually, the latter adjustment was involuntary -- I had only a half-bottle of red food coloring, about half a tablespoon (a quarter of what the recipe called for), and the batter still came out scarlet, like a pretty nail polish, as you can see here.

It effectively tastes like yellow cake, and I used my own cream cheese frosting recipe, which goes on all my carrot cakes and pumpkin squares. They made a great first impression on my coworkers, but some of them asked, "What's in them?" Doesn't everyone know what red velvet cake is? A couple even wrinkled their faces and walked off when I joked, "red food coloring," but they generally got great reviews.

RED VELVET CUPCAKES (Adapted from Paula Deen's)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk, well-shaken

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 tbs red food coloring

1 tsp white distilled vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl, lightly beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Fill the cupcake tins about 2/3 full, and bake 20 to 22 minutes. Turn the pans around halfway through baking. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the cream cheese and butter together on high, and then mix in the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract on low. Frost cupcakes with an offset spatula or piping bag fitted with a star tip. Or snip the corner off a Ziploc bag to make a makeshift piping bag.