{Guest Post} Rainbow Cupcakes!

Hi Friends! Today I have a super special post for you! I'm so excited about it that I couldn't even wait til tonight to post it! I have a very special guest post for you today - let me introduce my lovely cousin Tracey. Tracey is an amazing mother of two kids who is a spectacular cook and baker! She has a heart of gold and is always there to help out her friends and family when they need it. I'm going to turn it over to Tracey to tell you all about how to make her super cool rainbow cupcakes!

Finding the perfect chocolate and vanilla cupcake recipe was starting to feel like a chore, until I looked in my Canadian living baking cookbook.  This is my go to recipe for a good tasting cupcake and it’s a big bonus that it is really moist as well.  These cupcakes freeze really well if you are in a big rush just put them in a good freezable container.  Take them out about 3-4 hours before you need them, that is plenty of time for them to thaw.



 Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 ½ cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp each baking powder and baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 ½ cups buttermilk

Prepare two 12 cup muffin pans by lining with paper liners or spraying with non-stick spray. In a large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy; beat in eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla. In a separate bowl sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir into butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Make three additions of dry ingredients and two of buttermilk. Pour into prepared cupcake trays and bake in the centre of 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes or until cake tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.

Vanilla cupcakes:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 2/3 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 ¼ cups buttermilk

Prepare two 12 cup muffin pans by lining with paper liners or spraying with non-stick spray. In a large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each; beat in vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir into butter mixture alternately with buttermilk. Make three additions of dry and two of buttermilk. Pour into prepared cupcake trays and bake in the centre of 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes or until cake tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.

Vanilla buttercream icing:


I love this icing because it is easy to make but it is also tastes really good. Not too much butter and not too much sugar either. It is a very thick icing so it is a great one if you are going to do a lot of piping. If you are not wanting it as thick you can add a little more whipped cream, although I haven’t tried this.

• 1 cup butter softened
• 5 cups icing sugar
• ½ cup whipping cream
• ½ tsp vanilla

In a large bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Beat in sugar and cream, making 2 additions of sugar. Beat in vanilla. You can also make the icing the day before but take it out at least one hour before you want to use it and make sure you whip it up before using. To make the rainbow colors I used gel food coloring available at Walmart and most baking supply stores. I slowly added the color and kept mixing until I got the vibrant colors that I wanted. You can assemble them as pictured below to create a rainbow shape on a cake board, or just leave them as is.

Thanks so much for preparing this great post and sharing your recipes Tracey! I hope you all enjoyed this post as much as I did! Happy Baking my Friends!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Carmelized Mango Buttercream

I tend to like to stick to recipes that are pretty easy - not too many steps, not too many ingredients and not too labour intensive. I'm impatient and fairly lazy, so easy recipes are definitely where its at for me. I did make an exception when I bought Bobby Flay's new cookbook "Bobby Flay's Throwdown". This is a cookbook full of labour intensive, all-out recipes! Bobby shares the Throwdown stories and really lets you get to know both himself and the competitors... The cookbook is really well done! And of the few recipes I've tried out of the cookbook, they've all been show stoppers.

When I started making these cupcakes, I didn't really realize how labour intensive they are. They are not a quick easy batch of cupcakes to whip up, but boy are they good! Definitely a great treat to sit down to after all that hard work!!! They're moist with an extra ginger zing added by infusing a simple syrup with fresh ginger. So yummy! The mango buttercream was really interesting. As you can see from the recipe below, they call it buttercream for a reason - it is chock full of butter. Perhaps a bit too buttery for my taste, but pretty neat with the carmelized mango added in. Try out this recipe when you want to pull out all the stops and really impress someone you care about. :)

On to the recipe!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Carmelized Mango Buttercream

Recipe from Bobby Flay's Throwdown

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 3-inch piece fresh ginger, coarsely chopped
• cooking spray
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp fine salt
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 6 tbsp molasses

Carmelized Mango Buttercream Ingredients:

• 2 cups, plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, slightly softened, but still cool, cut into small pieces
• 2 ripe mangos, coarsely chopped
• 6 large egg yolks
• cooking spray
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup finely diced candied ginger, for garnish

Method:

1. To make the cupcakes, combine the granulated sugar, fresh ginger, and 3/4 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the sugar has melted and the mixture thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let infuse for 30 minutes. Then strain the ginger syrup before using.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners and spray the liners with cooking spray.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon and cloves into a medium bowl.
4. Whisk the melted butter, oil, brown sugar, eggs, and molasses together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients and stir until the batter is smooth.
5. Fill each paper liner with 1/3 cup of the batter, to come about 1/4 inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the tops liberally with the ginger syrup. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing. Let cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
6. To make frosting, heat the 2 tbsp butter in a large saute pan over high heat. Add the mangos and cook until carmelized and soft (watch them carefully - they will burn easily at this high temperature), about 10 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and process until smooth. Pass the mixture through a medium-mesh strainer into a bowl. Discard the solids.
7. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on high speed until creamy and pale yellow, about 5 minutes.
8. Spray a heatproof measuring cup with cooking spray. Combine the sugar and corn syrup in saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil over medium-high heat. Cook without stirring until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage, 238F- 242F on a candy thermometer. Immediately pour into measuring cup to halt the cooking.
9. Add a small amount of the syrup to the beaten egg yolks, turn the mixer on to high speed, and beat for about 5 seconds. Continue stopping the mixer, adding syrup and beating in the same manner until all the syrup is incorporated. Beat the mixture until it is completely cool.
10. Add the remaining 2 cups butter, a few pieces at a time, beating until incorporated before adding the next pieces. When all the butter ha been blended in, add the vanilla and mango puree and beat until combined.
11. Frost the top of each cupcake liberally with the buttercream, and garnish with candied ginger.

Whew!!! What a load of work, but so delicious. Please don't eat the whole batch by yourself... I doubt you will feel very well if you do... and even if you're still able to walk, you probably won't be able to get dressed because your clothes won't fit you any more!

How is that for a weeknight post folks? Hope you enjoyed and it added some sweetness to your week! Woohoo for tomorrow being Friday! Hang in there!

Happy Baking my Friends!

Almost Black Forest Cake

Check out this recipe for an almost black forest cake! It's so yummy! I made this cake for my parents' 30th anniversary and it was a hit. I used the chocolate cake recipe from my post Decadent Chocolate Cake. Once the cake was baked and cooled, I sliced it in half to make 2 layers. Each layer was brushed with kirsch mixed with icing sugar until it tasted sweet and was a bit syrupy. Usually about 1/3 - 1/2 cup kirsch mixed with about 1/2-2/3 cup of icing sugar, but go by taste.

You will need to make a buttercream icing to act as a barrier between the chocolate cherry filling and the rest of the cake. This will avoid having soggy cake! I found my buttercream recipe on the Food Network webpage - I cheated and made a "quick" buttercream icing rather than going through the work and massive amounts of butter required by a true buttercream. This buttercream recipe was delicious tasting and had a lot of the characteristics of a true buttercream (only an expert would know that I "cheated"!!).

Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Recipe from the Food Network.com

Ingredients:

• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tbsp whipping cream

Method:

1. In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.
2. Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency.

*Note: Double this recipe if you are icing the entire cake!! You will need almost all of the icing.

Ice the top of the bottom layer and then fill a piping bag with some of the icing and pipe a "barrier" around the edge of the cake layer. This will hold in the filling so it doesn't ooze out of the cake when you top it with the next layer. See my photo below for an example:

To make the filling, combine any scraps trimmed off the cake (crumble them up) with cherry pie filling (about 1/2 of the recipe). Spoon this onto the bottom layer inside of the buttercream barrier. Then top with the top layer and ice the entire cake with a thin layer of the buttercream (Called a crumb layer). This will fill in any gaps and collect up any crumbs of chocolate cake so they don't get in your final layer of icing. Place in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to firm up.

Then ice with a final layer of buttercream. Make sure this layer is nice and smooth! Garnish with fresh cherries and grated chocolate to give people and idea of what's in the cake. Enjoy!