Mini Chocolate Cheese Cupcakes

So after I say farewell for the year, I end up making these adorable little cupcakes. I hope you've been checking back or you might miss something good! I made these for my potluck lunch at work tomorrow. I can't remember where I got this specific recipe but there's lots of similar ones on the internet. They are commonly referred to as "Black Bottom Cupcakes" as well. Here's how I did it:

Topping
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1 egg
1/3 c. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 (6 oz.) pkg. mini chocolate chips (I didn't have any of these, but I had some little skor chip things and they worked)

Cake
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. Hershey's cocoa (Superstore brand seemed to work just fine)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. water
1/2 c. cooking oil
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix topping ingredients together; set aside.

Blend all cake ingredients together. Fill cups 1/2 full with cake batter; add 1/2 teaspoon topping (I used a toothpick at this point to swirl around the topping). Bake at 350 degrees about 15 to 18 minutes. Makes about 60 (made about 45 for me) cupcakes. Use the petite sized paper cups in the mini muffin tins.

 It's like a little cheesecake baked into a cupcake! 

NOTE: Two things I wanted to mention, these taste kind of gross when they first come out of the oven.. like hot cheese. Once they cool, or better yet, have been in the fridge for a while they taste MUCH better. Also, I used my hand mixer for the first time making these! My wrist was in heaven. 

Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

Here are my mystery cupcakes! Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting. This was actually my first attempt at making my own frosting... I still need to work on the consistency I think. I also need to purchase a huge sack of icing sugar apparently! I found the recipe on the Cupcake Frenzy blog. Here it is:

Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes

1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup cocoa powder
45g butter, softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
frozen raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 F). Line muffin tins with cases.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Stir in the vanilla.
4. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk and beat well.
5. Fill the muffin tins 3/4 full. In each individual cup, place a frozen raspberry and push down a little way into the batter. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool in tins for at least 10 minutes, then frost when completely cool.

Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

The recipe for this is really imprecise. Basically you have to play with the quantities until you get the colour and consistency you want.

150g butter, softened
2-3 cups icing sugar
frozen raspberries, quantity depends on how much of a raspberry taste/colour you're after
1/3 cup milk

1. Cream the butter. Add the icing sugar and raspberries and beat well. If you find you need more liquid in the frosting, add milk gradually.
2. Frost away!

So I was able to practice my piping bag skills with this recipe and also work on my stirring arm. I will admit, Jason had to take over once it started to get thick.

What I learned from this is to plan the plating before doing the plating. I didn't like the way they looked initially on the platter, so I took them all off and started over. This results in damaged cupcakes and a crummy plate.

MY REVIEW: The cupcake flavor was good - the chocolate/raspberry combo is a great mix. The icing could be perfected still. Must practice! Anyone want a cake? Jason can't keep up with me.

JASON'S REVIEW: They were delicious.

Mystery Cupcakes

Stay tuned tomorrow to see these cupcakes get iced! I'll post the recipe for both the cupcakes and my first homemade frosting tomorrow. If you look closely, you can see the secret ingredient...

For those who are interested, my first cake decorating class was yesterday! Although I just iced a metal cylinder with plain white icing, it was nice to have room to work and all the proper supplies at hand. Just being in that bakery itself would be inspiring for any hopeful decorator.

One interesting thing I discovered was that not everybody is covered in icing after they decorate a cake. In fact, the majority have clean hands. Thankfully, there was one other person who had icing all over their shirt and plastered on the table/floor surrounding them. I thought that was pretty standard but I guess not. I've got lots to work on and practice but I really enjoyed myself and look forward to next Monday.

Catch Up!

I have been cooking, just not posting! Here's some stuff from the last few days:

An easy way to make cupcakes:
1. Get a boxed cake mix
2. Make it in some cupcake tins
3. Get a container of icing
4. Melt it and dip your cupcakes in.

The lazy (wo)mans cupcake! I found step 1 and 3 to be most challenging as I actually had to leave the house.

Jason had a race on Sunday, so that meant pasta on Saturday night. Nothing fancy... just some chickpeas, spinach and tomatoes in a sauce.

This evening I made some blackened chicken spinach salad. It was a combination of some Companys Company recipes as the orginal recipe was for blackened chicken ceasar salad.

BLACKENED CHICKEN
1 tbsp Cooking oil

Boneless, skinless chicken breast 2 lbs. halves, cut into 3/4 inch (2 cm) pieces (I used 2 breasts)
2 tbsp Ketchup

1 tbsp Paprika

2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

1/2 tsp Onion powder

1/2 tsp Ground thyme

1/2 tsp Chili powder

1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper

Heat wok or large frying pan on medium-high until very hot. Add cooking oil. Add chicken. Stir-fry for 6 to 7 minutes until chicken turns white.  Add next 8 ingredients. Stir-fry for 8 to 10 minutes until chicken is no longer  pink inside. Remove from heat.

This is when I strayed from the recipe. I used a whole bag of spinach (to insure left-overs), and made a variation of another dressing recipe found in the Company's Coming 'Most Loved Salad' cook book.

I mixed about 2 tbps of olive oil with about 1tbsp of balsamic vinegar. I put approx 1tsp sugar and a sprinkle of both paprika and onion powder into the dressing as well and poured over the spinach. Since we were just having this salad for dinner, I hard boiled 2 eggs to add to the mix for a little more substance!

I put the chicken on top the spinach and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. This was probably the first time I've made an actual dinner salad!

JASON'S REVIEW: He is outside washing his bike but I know he liked it because he went back for more.

MY REVIEW: This was really good! The chicken was so flavorful and the dressing went really well with it. I'd definitely make this again.

Spaghetti & Meatball Cupcakes and Garden Update

I can post the details if anyone's interested! Basically, it's piped vanilla frosting from a can (a little yellow food coloring and cocoa added for a better color) and ferrera roche chocolates rolled in strawberry jam. I grated some white chocolate on top for that parmasean effect and voila! Spaghetti and meatballs. Don't mind the toothpicks. I was just getting ready to cover them when I realized I didn't have a picture.


Our grass! We had to borrow a lawn mower for the first mow as our little real mower couldn't handle the jungle that was growing back there.
Almost everything is coming up now (even a potato!) but I'm probably most excited about the swiss chard. This stuff looked like a little wilting weed when it was first planted but made such a huge comeback.
Strawberries are doing great.. feeding both us and the family of blue jays that live in our backyard.
The container of lettuce is almost ready to lend itself to a salad as well. Now all we need is some rain!

Hello, Cupcake!

This was my Valentines Day present from my mom:


If you click on that picture, they actually have a pretty good website that I just discovered. I plan on trying a few of the recipes in this book. It has some of the most creative cupcakes I have ever seen and is full of decorating ideas. I used the recipe for chocolate cupcakes and a really good method for icing on my Oscar Cupcakes!

... they don't look as good as these Oscar cupcakes....

.... but I also have a life :)

Here's mine!


Chocolate Cupcakes

1 3/4cups flour
1/4cup cocoa powder
3/4tsp baking soda
1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks (12tbsp) unsalted butter (margarine)
3/4cup lightly packing brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
1cup buttermilk
1tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the muffin cups with paper liners

2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, with an electric mixer on high, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. (my arm was starting to get sore....)

3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition (my shoulder was starting to get sore...) Beat in the chocolate. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk in batches, begining and ending with the flour mixture and beating just until blended. Stir in vanilla. (Make sure you can bench press atleast 50lbs before trying this recipe without a mixer)

4. Spoon half the batter into a ziplock bag. Snip a 1/4 inch corner from the bag and fill the paper liners two-thirds full. Repeat with remaining batter (this method worked wonderfully with the first bag..... the batter blaster through a hole in the second bag). Bake until a toothpick in the center comes out clean, 15-20 minutes.

So for decorating these, I used their dipping method. I don't know why I never thought of this myself. I put some store bought icing (they said it works the best) into a little bowl and put it in the microwave for 15 seconds. You take the muffin and hold it upside down in the icing for a second it, pull it out, let it drip back into the bowl and flip it over quickly. This worked so well!! It gives it a very smooth looking finish. For decorating, I just used some tiny little chocolate balls on top. Nothing too fancy yet.

MY REVIEW: Loved the icing method! I tried a chocolate one and it tasted ok. I don't really like chocolatly things but I mean really... these cupcakes are more about the look than the taste! Who would honestly be excited to eat that dog cupcake on the cover? Besides my dad? I look forward to Jason's review as he ate the 9 cupcakes that didn't make it onto the platter I'm taking to the Oscar's Party tomorrow...

JASON'S REVIEW: Sweet and satisfying.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

**This picture does not do justice to the red velvetness of these cupcakes**

I don't remember where I got this from exactly because I have it hand written in my recipe box. It was from the internet somewhere... I am not taking credit for it! It is a great recipe though:

2 1/2cups flour
1tsp salt
1/2cup unsalted butter (margerine)
1 1/2cups sugar
2 eggs
2tbsp cocoa powder
2 ouces water (equals 1/4 cup)
2 ounces red food coloring (the gel works WAY better and you dont need half as much as it calls for)
1cup buttermilk
1tsp vanilla extract
1tsp white vinegar
1tsp baking soda

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare cupcake tins (put papers in or spray if not using papers)
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy
3. Add eggs and blend well
4. Make a paste of cocoa and food coloring and add to the butter mixture
5. Sift flower and salt together into this mixture
6. One at a time, add the following: buttermilk, vanilla and water
7. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda. Fold it into the cake batter. Make sure it's incorporated, but don't beat it.
8. Pour the batter into the cupcake tins. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

I've made this once before at Christmas time and used little foil red and green papers and they looked really cute. I had some white papers with hearts on them this time but they didn't turn out so hot. The color is SO pretty. That picture is awful. Trust me! It says it makes 14-18 cupcakes but I made all different sizes so it's hard to say.