{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!

Honey Vanilla Beehive Cupcakes

 

Happy Friday! The weekend is finally here and with it some beautiful sunshine and blue skies. The bright cheeriness outside on my way home from work today reminded me of these bright cheery Honey Vanilla Beehive Cupcakes that I had promised to share with you ohhhh about a month ago! Bad me, but I'm doing it now, that's what counts right?

 

I made these for the Winnie the Pooh baby shower I threw for my sister and her new baby Preston. You can read more about the baby shower, the food and the decorations here if you're interested! People at the shower went nuts for these things! I received compliment after compliment about how good they were, so hopefully you like them too.

 

Before you ask, no I didn't make the cute little bees on top of them (though you could do it yourself if you have time, patience and are good with fondant) - I bought these little sugar bees from Scoop n' Save in Langley for a super reasonable price (that's also where I found the adorable cupcake wrappers and the food colouring to make my icing that bright!!!).

 



Honey Vanilla Cupcakes
Minimally adapted from Half Baked - the Cake Blog

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup salted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tsp vanilla

For the frosting:

• 3/4 cup salted butter
• 4 oz island farms cream cheese (or other cream cheese, softened)
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 3 tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp vanilla
• yellow food colouring (if desired)
• yellow sanding sugar

see below next picture for method

 

Method

1. For the cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking trays with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients -  flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, mix together wet ingredients - buttermilk, honey and vanilla. Set aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time mixing until well incorporated. Gradually add the wet and dry ingredients, alternating, starting with and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix until incorporated (don't overmix though).
2. Using a medium sized scoop, scoop batter into cupcake liners until 2/3rds full. Bake in preheated oven for 18 minutes or until tops spring back lightly when pressed. Allow cupcakes to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting
3. For the frosting - cream butter and cream cheese until combined and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue mixing until fluffy. Mix in honey. Gradually add a few drops of food colouring at a time until you achieve desired colour. Put icing in large piping bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe swirls of icing onto cooled cupcakes.
4. Dust cupcakes with sanding sugar and place sugar bees on artistically right before serving.

And that's how you make these lovely cupcakes. One of the keys to making them taste delicious - not sickly sweet, is to use salted butter - the salt cuts the sweetness and balances the flavour perfectly!

Hope you enjoy these little beauties as much as we did! Happy Baking my Friends!

Coconut Topped Buttermilk Brownies with Chocolate Buttermilk Frosting

Stop right there!! Don't scroll down to the recipe yet... pause and have a look and these beautifully lit photos my darling hubby captured for me. He got up early to get great lighting for me while I was heading off to work. What a sweetie?! He totally deserves mad props in my opinion!!

These little beauties are coconut topped buttermilk brownies finished with a chocolate buttermilk frosting. Yah, I may have had some buttermilk leftover from another recipe I was trying to use up, but it turned out to be a great success. These were eagerly devoured by my co-workers and my hubby's co-workers (did I mention the recipe made wayyyy more than I thought?!). These even started a little rivalry between husbands at my hubby's workplace.. turns out another wife had sent in baking that day too... cookies. It ended with one of his co-workers (who shall remain nameless), telling my hubby that my cupcakes were way better than so-and-so's wife's cookies... whoops!! Maybe we should plan which days we are allowed to send in baking so we don't step on any toes?!

Don't even think about how much work these may be... just go out, get the ingredients and get to it!! They are soooo worth the effort. :)

Coconut Topped Buttermilk Brownies with Chocolate Buttermilk Frosting
Brownie recipe adapted from Bake Space
Coconut topping from In Katrina's Kitchen
Frosting Recipe by me

Ingredients:
Brownies:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup butter
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup water
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tbsp vanilla

Coconut Topping:

• 4 1/2 cups shredded coconut
• 1 small can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/4 cups icing sugar

Frosting:

• Find the frosting recipe here. Substitute 1/3 cup of the icing sugar for 1/3 cup of cocoa powder for a chocolate version of the same frosting.

Method:

1. To make the brownies: Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 3 - 12 cup muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, granulated sugar and baking soda.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter, cocoa powder and water. Bring mixture just to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and mix until all of the flour is incorporated. Add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Whisk until mixture is smooth and silky (it will be quite thin). Fill prepared muffin tins 1/3 - 1/2 way full. Bake in preheated oven for 10-14 minutes (or until tops spring back lightly when touched). Do not overbake or they will be dry. Err on the side of slightly underbaked as they will continue to cook after they are removed from the oven.
3. Cool on a wire rack.
4. While brownies are cooling, prepare coconut topping by combining all three ingredients and stirring until evenly distributed. Mixture should be quite stiff. Once cupcakes are cooled, form 1-2 tbsp portions of the coconut mixture into disks and fit them on top of the cupcakes, pressing down gently to adhere them to the cakes. Repeat until all cupcakes have been fitted with a coconut disk.
5. Prepare the frosting and frost cupcakes however you like. 

This post has been linked up with the Recipe Party over at the Sweet Spot. Head on over to check out what other goodies fellow bloggers have whipped up this week.

Yep, these are pretty incredible!! :) :) Hope you'll take the time to try them out. Happy Baking my Friends!

Mini Egg Cupcakes just in time for Easter

Hoppy Easter friends!! :) Sorry, I know that was corny, but I love Easter. Yes, I know the true meaning of Easter (not the coming of the Easter bunny), but the reason I absolutely love Easter revolves more around family activities that I grew up with. We would always go to church as a family to reflect on the true reason for Easter and then we would go over to my grandparents house with our other 10 cousins and have an Easter egg hunt! We would all work together to find our Easter treats that had been carefully hidden in my grandparents' backyard (did I mention it was a HUGE backyard?!!). Needless to say, it was a task that kept us occupied until Easter dinner was ready. My grandma put on quite the show - making everything down to homemade mustard to go on the delicious ham. Yep, it was a lot of fun and cultivated such great memories of our family.

 Since I love Easter and the cute little treats that go along with it, you can imagine my excitement when all these cute Easter treats started showing up on Pinterest. I created these cupcakes based on some inspiration from here. Mine are a little different, but I'm really happy with how they turned out. Here is the recipe I used:

Mini Egg Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup white sugar, divided
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/8 tsp cream of tarter
• 1/2 cup Cadbury's Mini Eggs, roughly chopped

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12 cup muffin tray with paper liners.
2. Separate the eggs placing the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites on medium-high speed until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to whip until soft peaks form. Gradually add 1/4 cup granulated sugar while mixer is moving and continue whipping until stiff peaks form. Scrape into a medium bowl and set aside for later.
3. In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside for later.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter until fluffy (about two minutes). Add 3/4 cup of sugar and beat until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down sides of the bowl and add vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Once just combined, fold in the mini eggs. Then fold in the egg whites, being careful not to overmix or the batter will deflate.
5. Divide batter equally among the prepared muffin tin. Bake 18 minutes or until tops spring back when lighly pressed. Do not overbake!!
6. Frost with buttermilk frosting (recipe below) and garnish with three mini eggs for each cupcake.

Buttermilk Frosting
Recipe by me

Ingredients:

• 3 cups icing sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/8 - 1/4 cup buttermilk

Method:

1. Beat butter in the bowl of stand mixer on medium-high speed. Add icing sugar and vanilla and mix until well incorporated. Add buttermilk 1 tbsp at a time until frosting is the right consistency for piping.

Thats that! The buttermilk frosting tastes a lot like a cream cheese icing, but with a far better piping consistency. Give these a try this weekend for your Easter get together whether its for friends or family or both. They're sure to be a hit.

This post has been linked up with the Recipe Party at the Sweet Spot. Head on over there and check out what other treats bloggers have linked up this week.

Happy Baking my Friends!

Truffle Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

These cupcakes are obscenely good... like unbelievably good. I will pause to let you drool over the pictures for a moment. Honestly, these pictures make these cupcakes look good, but they taste even better than they look!!! You must try them. Do it on a weekend or a day off when you have a bit of time, but make them! They're soooo good. Your peeps will be impressed that you even made the truffle thats all melty and delicious in the middle of the cupcake!

 The reason I ended up making this recipe is because my friend D who has the same Anna Olson cookbook as I do, made these a while back and raved about how good they were. Well, I was flipping through my cookbook this weekend and saw this recipe and was reminded that I needed to try this recipe out. So, I went out to the store and bought the chocolate and cream I would need for this recipe. Everything else was already in my baking cupboard! Can you tell I like recipes with basic ingredients?!

Truffle Filled Chocolate Cupcakes
Recipe minimally adapted from Back to Baking by Anna Olson

Ingredients:

Truffles:

• 6 tbsp whipping cream
• 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Cupcakes:

• 2 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/3 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup + 1/2 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Frosting:

• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups icing sugar

Method:

1. To prepare the truffles, heat the cream to a simmer and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for a minute, then gently whisk to blend. Chill this mixture until set, about 2 hours. Spoon this ganache into 20 truffles, shaping them between your hands into 3/4 inch balls. Chill the truffles until ready to use.
2. Preheat the oven to 375F and line 20 muffin cups with paper liners.
3. For the cupcakes, melt the chocolate and butter together in a medium saucepan, stirring over low heat. Then stir in 2/3 cup of the brown sugar and 1/3 cup of the milk. Stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Pour this mixture into a bowl, whisk in remaining 2/3 cup of brown sugar, and cool to room temperature. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Whisk in the vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, stir the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add this to the chocolate mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the remaining 1/2 cup of milk, starting and ending with the four, and whisking well after each addition (the batter will be quite fluid). Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling to halfway.
5. Gently place a truffle in the centre of each cupcake - do not press it in, as it will settle and become completely enveloped by the batter as it bakes. Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes, until the cake springs back when gently pressed. Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting.
6. For the frosting, stir the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat until melted. Transfer this to the bowl of a stand mixer and using the whisk attachment, mix in the sour cream and the vanilla. Beat in the icing sugar until mixture is smooth and spreadable. Spread or pipe the frosting onto each cupcake. The cupcakes should be stored at room temperature in an airtight container and will keep for up to two days. Do not refrigerate.

So, these are a little bit of work, but they are so totally worth the effort. They are decadent and delicious. And if you wish to skip a step, these cupcakes are also delicious with just a fine dusting of powdered sugar instead. The truffle in the middle makes them rich enough and moist enough on their own. :)

This post has been linked up with Fusion Fridays over at Jennifer Cooks. Head on over there to check out some of the great things other bloggers have made this week. :)

This post has also been linked up with the Recipe Party over at the Sweet Spot! Check it out for some great recipes bloggers have posted this week.
Happy Baking my Friends! Here is to having something sweet to start the week. :)

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes!

I made these quite a while ago and was on the fence whether to post them. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the photos, but in the end, the taste won out... these are delish! I made them for my sister's birthday party along with mini oreo cookies and cream cheesecakes and mini raspberry swirl cheesecakes... is anyone picking up on a theme here? You would have to be quite the baking nerd to pick up on it... but I had a bit of an obsession with Martha Stewart Cupcakes at that time and as such, these are all cute desserts from her cookbook. I borrowed the cookbook from my friend D and I honestly didn't want to give it back... but I did what any good friend would do, I scanned half the recipes onto my computer then finally, reluctantly returned the cookbook.

Any way, I am trying to pack for camping this weekend, so I'm gonna make this post a quick one... without further delay, here is the recipe for snickerdoodle cupcakes. Top with seven minute frosting and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and you are set. Any seven minute frosting recipe will do... they are all pretty much the same. Here is one you can try.

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

Martha Stewart Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self rising), sifted


• 1 tbsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon, plus 1/2 tsp for dusting


• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature


• 1 3/4 cups sugar, plus 2 tbsp for dusting


• 4 large eggs, room temperature


• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract


• 1 1/4 cups milk


• 1 recipe seven minute frosting (link above)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together both flours, baking powder, salt and 1 tbsp cinnamon.


2. With a stand mixer on medium high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combine after each addition.


3. Divide batter evenly among 28 lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks and cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored up to two days at room temperature, or frozen up to two months, in airtight containers.


4. To finish, combine remaining 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp sugar. Using a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip, pipe frosting onto each cupcake. Hold bag over cupcake with tip just above top, and squeeze to create a dome of frosting, then release pressure and pull up to form a peak. Using a small, fine sieve, dust peaks with cinnamon-sugar. Cupcakes are best eaten the day they are frosted; keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

Enjoy!! Happy Baking my Friends!!

A Little Nosh's Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Woohoo! So stoked that it is time for the Secret Recipe Club reveal again... feels like this month took forever to go by. Maybe thats because I was so excited about my blog assignment (And the recipe I found on her blog to bake)!!!!! I was assigned to Amy's blog, A Little Nosh. Amy is a food blogger from Washington, D.C. with a really down-to-earth, healthy approach to cooking and baking. She posts a lot of healthy recipes and some treat recipes too! Can you guess what type of recipe I chose??!! Surpise, I picked a treat recipe to bake. I chose her Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting because they sounded soooo amazing and you know what? They were even better than they sounded! Yummers!

Do stop by Amy's blog when you have a minute, especially when you need a quick and healthy idea for dinner! She has so many great ideas that don't take a lot of time, which I guess is important when you're as busy as Amy is! I learned that she is a mother to a cute little boy and a wife to a smart, funny man annnndddd she has a kitchen that is even smaller than mine! But she doesn't let that stop her. Thanks Amy for sharing so many great recipes and tips for eating well and eating quick! :)

Now, on to the recipe!!

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Recipe from A Little Nosh (October 2010)

Ingredients:

• 8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces


• 2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped


• 1/2 cup dutch processed cocoa powder


• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 3/4 tsp baking powder


• 2 eggs


• 3/4 cups granulated sugar


• 2 tsp vanilla extract


• 1/2 tsp fine salt


• 1/2 cup sour cream

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tin with paper liners and set aside.


2. Combine butter, chocolate and cocoa powder in a microwave safe dish. Using 30 second increments, microwave until melted. Stir well until smooth. Set aside to cool.


3. Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder in a small bowl.


4. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat eggs until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla and beat well until fully incorporated. Beat in cooled chocolate mixture until well combined. Stir in one third of flour mixture until just combined, then beat in sour cream. Add the remaining flour mixture and stir until just incorporated. Do not overmix or you will have tough cupcakes!


5. Divide batter evenly among baking cups. Bake 18 minutes in preheated oven until toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs on it.


6. Cool cupcakes completely, then frost with peanut butter frosting (recipe below).

Peanut Butter Frosting

Recipe from A Little Nosh (October 2010)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup icing sugar


• 1 cup creamy peanut butter


• 5 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature


• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract


• 1/4 tsp kosher salt


• 1/3 cup heavy cream

Method:

1. Beat together icing sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla and kosher salt until well combined.


2. Beat in heavy cream until icing is smooth.


3. Pipe liberally onto cupcakes however you like!


4. Try not to eat the whole batch of cupcakes.

Thanks Amanda for hosting the Secret Recipe Club again this month, and thank you to Amy at A Little Nosh for introducing me to such a lovely recipe!

If you want to join the Secret Recipe Club, check out the website here.

Happy Baking my Friends!

Hello Cupcake! Featuring pastry chef Tina Bacon!

On June 22nd my sister and I attended the Hello Cupcake! class at Well Seasoned Gourmet Food Store in Langley, BC. This awesome class was hosted by Tina Bacon of the Pink Spatula. I had only heard of the Pink Spatula when I purchased some marshmallows from Well Seasoned around Christmas time. If you haven't tried these marshmallows, you are missing out!! They are so good and they come in all different flavours.

Any way, back on topic- we soon discovered how creative and talented Tina Bacon really is. You can check her out on Facebook too under The Pink Spatula. This class was great! Can you believe that in a two and a half hour class we had six different kinds of cupcakes to take home? With no pre-baking or pre-making icing!! Now that shows some mad skills!

Here are some of the lovely flavour combinations we tried:

• Chocolate cupcakes brushed with Baileys, topped with an espresso swiss buttercream icing and garnished with a chocolate covered coffee bean.


• Chiffon cupcakes brushed with a rum simple syrup, topped with a lime swiss meringue buttercream, sprinkled with shredded coconut.


• Vanilla cupcake filled with caramel, topped with very vanilla easy buttercream, drizzled with caramel, and finished with a sprinkle of fleur de sel & toasted pecans.


• Chocolate cupcakes filled with peanut butter filling, topped with cocoa easy buttercream and rolled in toasted peanuts.


• Vanilla cupcakes topped with espresso vanilla easy buttercream icing and sprinkled with sliced toasted almonds.

Can you say delicious?! I think so! Needless to say, I left the class so inspired with all these amazing flavour combinations running through my brain.

I'm going to share Tina's Chocolate Cupcake recipe with you along with her swiss meringue buttercream icing recipe. You can flavour the buttercream however you want! We added espresso so some of it and lime zest to some of it so we had two flavours from one batch of buttercream. You can also freeze the buttercream - which is super handy because this recipe makes a huge batch of icing!!!

Tina Bacon's Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 1 cup cake flour


• 1 cup plus 2tbsp granulated sugar


• 2/3 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 1/2 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (or 1/4 butter and 1/4 oil)


• 1/2 cup freshly brewed coffee


• 1/2 cup buttermilk


• 1 large egg


• 1 large egg yolk

Method:

1. Preheat over to 325. Fill 12 muffin tins with cupcake liners.


2. Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Heat butter and coffee in a small pot over medium heat until the butter has melted. Pour into a medium bowl. Whisk in buttermilk, egg and yolk. Then add sifted dry ingredients and whisk until incorporated.


3. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs, 20-25 minutes. Cool for a few minutes in pan. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

Tina Bacon's Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 10 large egg whites


• 2 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp sugar


• 2 1/2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

Method:

1. Place egg whites and sugar into a metal bowl that will fit over a saucepan. Fill saucepan with an inch or two of water and bring to a low simmer. Place bowl over pot and whisk constantly until mixture is hot to the touch, around 130F. Pour into a stand mixer fitted with whisks and beat on high until it is thick and glossy and feels room temperature. It will probably be close to 90F. This can take up to ten minutes.


2. Meanwhile, chop butter into walnut-sized chunks. When egg mixture has cooled, remove the whisks and use paddles with your machine set on low. Add butter a couple chunks at a time while beating continuously. As you continue to add butter it may look quite liquid. Nows' the time for the magic!! Turn your mixer on high and keep beating until it breaks and then becomes thick and fluffy. At this point, reduce the speed to low and add whatever flavour you like (i.e. up to 1/4 cup vanilla or liqueur, 2/3 cup dark chocolate melted and cooled, a paste of 2 tbsp instand expresso powder and 2 tsp vanilla).

Tina shared so many great recipes and tips with us that I can't fit them all into one post! I'm sure you'll see tidbits pop up over the next couple of months as I get the chance to try out some of her techniques in my own kitchen.

Thanks Tina for such a wonderful class and for so kindly providing me permission to blog about and your class and share your recipes. It was an absolute pleasure to meet you and I hope to take some more of your classes in the future!

Happy Baking my Friends!

Go Canucks Go!!!!!

I work in an office full of people who LOVE hockey! There is always a lot of talk about our local hockey team the Vancouver Canucks and that talk has definitely increased since they have been doing so well in the playoffs this year. My friend D & I made these cupcakes in celebration of our team making it into the 3rd round of the playoffs. I am not going to post recipes because these are just easy and basic recipes, but I really wanted to share pictures with all of you because we are so proud of how great these cupcakes turned out!

Lots of chocolate cupcakes... and just as many white cupcakes too!! Maybe a little overkill?? I think not!!

D's handy piping skills: White chocolate hockey sticks & Go Canucks Go lettering. Looked great on top of the cupcakes!!

Icing so blue it matched D's blue bowl!! Hellooooooo food colouring.

Iced cupcakes ready to finish off with edible glitter & hockey sticks and little puck candies.

Cupcakes in their cupcake carriers before we put the finishing touches on them.

All decorated up and ready to go!

At the office, arranged all pretty in the lunchroom.

Can you believe how many cupcakes we made?! They were pretty delicious if I do say so myself!! :)

Now I guess we'll have to come up with something even better to celebrate our team making it to the Stanley Cup Finals!!!

GO CANUCKS GO!!!!

p.s. Happy Baking my Friends!

Lemon Lime filled Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

Excuse me while I try to stop drooling over these cupcakes long enough to finish this post! These cupcakes were super delicious. Probably the best cupcakes I've ever made! The inspiration came from a friend's blog, Lizardbreath Creations , a month or so ago. She made lemon-lime curd and homemade coconut bread and served the two together! How brilliant! So I made the coconut bread recipe and instead of baking it in a loaf pan as directed, I baked it in cupcake pans. I filled the cupcakes with the lemon-lime curd and topped with a simple buttercream flavoured with coconut. You honestly can't go wrong with this one!


Make the lemon-lime curd first. You will have to cook it and let it cool and set before using it to fill the cupcakes. You can find the recipe here - I followed the recipe exactly using the smaller quantity of sugar. You don't want the curd to be too sweet because the cupcakes + the icing are sweet enough already. You want something a little bit tart to balance out the sweetness.

Next up bake the cupcakes. Let them cool completely before attempting to pipe the curd into the middle of them though. It will be tough to wait that long; trust me, I speak from experience.

Coconut Bread (in cupcake form)

Recipe adapted from Lizardbreath Creations

Ingredients:

• 1 cup shredded coconut, sweetened


• 2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1/2 cup granulated sugar


• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar


• 1 tbsp baking powder


• 1/4 cup vegetable oil


• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk


• 1 egg


• 1 tsp vanilla

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare muffin tins by lining with paper liners.


2. Sprinkle a little of the shredded coconut in the bottom of each cupcake liner.


3. Mix the coconut, flour, sugars, and baking powder in a large bowl.


4. In another bowl add the oil, coconut milk, egg and vanilla. Mix together well.


5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just incorporated. Pour into the prepared muffin tins. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (start with about 12-15 minutes).


6. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack until cooled completely.


7. Once cooled completely, with a sharp knife cut a small tunnel into each cupcake and then pipe full with lemon curd. Pipe coconut icing liberally onto each cupcake in order to cover the hole where the curd was piped in.

For the icing I just dumped ingredients into my mixer bowl without measuring (bad me) and tasted until it was yummy. If you are one of those measuring types, feel free to use this vanilla icing and instead of the vanilla extract, add coconut extract.

Happy Baking my Friends! Hope you're ready for another busy week.