Strawberry Cupcakes

Note: written March 4, 2010

The other day I found a few stray strawberries in my refrigerator. They were just bruised enough to be unappealing for eating without adornment. I flipped through my brand new recipe book and quickly found a strawberry cupcake that looked perfect for the handful of beaten up berries I have.
I quickly wash and chop up the berries, immediately they look more apetizing.  Anticipation and excitement bubbles in my stomach as I grab my mixing bowls and measuring spoons.  I carefully read the directions and begin tossing ingredients into the bowl.

This recipe is very simple and straightforward, even the most unskilled baker could pull this off.  The cupcake itself was delightful.  Not as light and airy as most cupcakes, but very light on flavor, and the strawberries added a certain freshness you can only get from fruit.  The batter for these was somewhat dense, and definately not the sweetest cake batter I've tasted.  However, I think this adds to its charm, and you can't deny that it was wonderful.  I used a very simple vanilla icing I found online.  As I began preparing the ingredients for my cupcakes, I realized I didn't have any confectioners sugar.  Panicking a little, I headed to google and was able to find a recipe for cooked icing that included flour and granulated sugar.  From what I can tell, this recipe is a very basic, traditional icing recipe.  It was posted on several websites, varying slightly but basically the same, and seemed like the best bet for me to use.


Strawberry Cupcakes:
Ingredients -
2 1/2 cups AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
6 tbs vegetable oil (recipe calls for 6 tbs unsalted, melted butter, but I prefer to use oil)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup fresh strawberries, cleaned and cut into small pieces (I had slightly less than 1 cup)

Directions -
Preheat oven to 350°F.  In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together and set aside.
In another b owl, mix buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.  Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and beat well with a wooden spoon.  Fold in strawberries.
Spoon batter into cupcake papers, filling cups about 2/3 full.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Remove from oven and cool completely before icing.



Cooked Vanilla Icing:  edit- I've used this recipe several times since I made these cupcakes
Ingredients -
2 tbs ap flour
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup butter - soft
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
food coloring (optional)

Directions -
In a saucepan add a small amount of milk to the flour, stir until a smoothe paste.  Add remaining milk.  Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens.  Cool completely.
Cream butter with an electric mmixer, gradually add sugar and salt, beat well.  Add cooled milk mixture, beat until light and fluffy, add vanilla.  Mix in food coloring, if desired.
For the top of these cupcakes, I mixed together 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/4 cup butter.  Mixed together with hands until forms nice crumbs.  Spread on a baking sheet in the oven at 250°F for ten minutes.  Once cool, crumbled up again and sprinkled on top of the cupcakes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The classic cookie. Chocolate chip.
My little brother prefers them with white chocolate chips, which I have to say is really tasty; and I want to try this recipe with m&m's one day. I found this recipe on some random website, via google, and they haven't failed me yet. A friend of mine tried to make them, but instead of putting 3/4 tsp salt she put about 3/4 a cup of salt and tried to get most of it out. Needless to say they didn't turn out that great, although they were completely gone by the end of the day.
This is a very easy, basic recipe. It says to use a whisk or spoon to mix it, which happens to be my preferred method anyways, but feel free to use an electrical mixer on the lowest setting. Make sure you do use a spoon, though, when you mix the chips in.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup soft butter
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 c ups flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips (any kind)

Directions:
Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and eggs with a wire whisk or wooden spoon until completely blended. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt. Dough will be stiff. Make sure all of the flour is mixed in. Stir in chips with a wooden spoon.
Drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet in teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees.
Let cool on pan for a few minutes before moving to a wire cooling rack.

Happy holidays everyone, and enjoy!

Chocolate & Coffee

Mocha cupcakes with coffee icing, and chocolate chip smiley faces =)

In my opinion, the cupcakes were more chocolate than coffee, so if you wanted to you could cut back a little on the cocoa powder and/or add maybe a teaspoon more coffee. Although if you're using coffee icing, I think it brings out enough of that coffee flavor without being overpowering.

MOCHA CUPCAKES

Ingredients:
2 cups ap flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegitable oil
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbs instant coffee
1 cup hot water

Directions:
Measure flour, sugar, cocoa, oil, eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Dissolve coffee into hot water, then add to bowl. Beat on medium for two minutes, until smooth. Batter will be very thin. Divide into cupcake tin, bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cool completely before icing.

COFFEE ICING

Ingredients:
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee
5 cups confectioner sugar
6 tbs soft butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk (plus some extra)
handful of chocolate chips if desired

Directions:
In a mixing bowl beat butter until fluffy, gradually add 2 1/2 cups of sugar and cocoa powder, beat well. Slowly beat in milk and vanilla.
Add the remaining sugar, mix until smooth. Add extra milk to reach a spreadable consistency.
If the icing is too runny when you put it on the cupcakes, put the iced cupcakes in the refrigerator for about ten minutes to harden the icing, the chocolate chips will stay on after that.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
L

Recipe: Belated Halloween Edition

For Halloween I thought I'd go all out, I made Pumpkin Cupcakes as well as Sugar cookies cut into the shape of bats and pumpkins and cats. I think it was all rather a success, and I seem to enjoy spamming this blog with a lot of updates all at once, so here it goes.

SUGAR COOKIES

The sugar cookie recipe is from my Mom, we make them every year for Christmas, always have, and a few years ago we started making them occasionally for Valentines day or Halloween. It sounds silly, but these taste completely different than they do at Christmastime, although they're still just as tasty. It's a pretty easy recipe, I don't think you could mess it up too badly.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Directions:
Mix flour, bakign soda, and salt in a bowl, set aside. In a large bowl cream butter, add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together. Slowly add the flour mixture until thoroughly mixed in. Chill for 2 hours.
Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, cut into shapes with cookie cutters and add sprinkles. Bake at 375 degrees for 5-8 minutes, cool on wire rack.

PUMPKIN CUPCAKES

Now, the pumpkin cupcakes seem a bit unusual, but they taste amazing. I iced them with this great Cream Cheese Icing recipe I have and decorated them just using a bag of colored icing.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin

Directions:
Beat oil and sugars together in a large mixing bowl. In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Add the eggs to the sugar mixture, alternately add flour mix and buttermilk/vanilla, starting and ending with flour. Beat in the pumpkin until smooth.
Scoop batter into lined cupcake tins 3/4 of the way full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Let cool completely before icing.

CREAM CHEESE ICING

Ingredients:
8 ounces cream cheese, soft
2 cups confectioners sugar
4 tbs butter, soft
1 tsp vannilla

Directions:
Beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth, add sugar and vanilla and continue to mix until it is a smooth, spreadable consistency.

All of this might be a bit belated, but you can always have pumpkin cupcakes during Thanksgiving, and I've yet to find someone who doesn't like sugar cookies.

<3