GO CANUCKS GO!! Final Round Baked Goodies!

Well folks, its the final rounds of the Stanley Cup Finals and our beloved Canucks are struggling ... they started out strong the first two games, but they've lost a bit of steam. D had a bright idea that when we baked the Canucks cupcakes at the start of the 3rd round, they came through and won it... So we are really hoping that the baked goodies trick will win us the Cup too!! D did all the work! I mostly kept her company, made a batch of icing and piped some icing between the cookies. She did the hard part of coming up with the design, baking the cookies and piping the little letters painstakingly onto each sandwich cookie!! Of course she was kind enough to bring them in to work to share with our treat-loving office!

So lets hear a cheer for D and her mad skills!

Cookies are: Blondie (chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips) cookies, filled with vanilla buttercream and decorated with royal icing. Yummers!!

And three cheers for our beloved Canucks!!! You can do it boys!!

GO CANUCKS GO!!!

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.

Amazing Cupcake Icing!

Woooohoooo for a long weekend! Happy Easter to all of you. I was looking back over my blog posts the last couple of weeks and realized I haven't posted many sweets lately... I've just been posting a lot about my cooking escapades. So here is a little something to satisfy your sweet tooth! I made these cute cupcakes a few weeks ago for treat day at our office. The cupcakes, particularly the icing on the cupcakes received rave reviews! I wasn't entirely impressed with the cupcakes themselves; I found them to be a little too eggy. But the icing, well that was another story! This is by far the most delicious and perfect tasting icing I've ever made. If you have a better recipe, please send it my way, but until then, I dub this the best icing recipe ever!


Very Vanilla Icing
Recipe adapted from Anna Olson's cookbook Fresh

Ingredients:

• 4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature


• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature


• 3 cups icing sugar, sifted


• seeds from one vanilla bean


• 1-2 tbsp milk


• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Using a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy and smooth. On low speed, add the icing sugar, 1 cup at a time until blended. Beat in the vanilla bean seeds and the vanilla extract. Add the milk one 1 tbsp at a time until the desired consistency is achieved. Colour the icing as desired. Ice cupcakes liberally wth icing.

I hope you enjoy this icing a lot! Tint it with an Easter hue and serve it to your guests this weekend (not by its self, though you will be tempted... please put it on some cupcakes!!).

Happy Baking my Friends!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I recently promised to make dessert and send it in for my old co-workers, but I was having trouble deciding what to make that would be easy to send in for them, easy to package and travel well... Plus, they wanted something chocolately with no fruit, so my choices were a bit limited. Then Anna Olson posted a new recipe on her Facebook page and it was perfect - red velvet cupcakes! Chocolately batter with a pretty pink colour and a rich cream cheese icing to top them off and make them look beautiful. These cupcakes are light, fluffy and moist and the icing compliments them really nicely. The recipe says it makes 15 cupcakes, but I got over 20 cupcakes, but I think I make mine smaller than Anna did. Remember to adjust your cooking time based on how many cupcakes you decide to make!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Recipe from Anna Olson

Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 6 tbsp packed dark brown sugar
• 6 tbsp white sugar
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 3 tbsp finely grated raw beets
• 2 tsp white vinegar

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Beat butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together 1 minute or until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. In yet another bowl, stir buttermilk, grated beets, and vinegar together. Add the flour mixture alternatively with the buttermilk mixture, blending well after each addition. Spoon batter evenly between the cupcake liners. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until the top of the cupcakes spring back when pressed gently. Cool cupcakes 10 minutes in tins then remove to a rack and let cool completely.
3. For the frosting, beat the butter and cream cheese 3 minutes until fluffy. Add the icing sugar and vanilla and beat gently until sugar is incorporated, then beat vigorously until icing is fluffy. Pipe or spread frosting onto each cupcake.
4. Store cupcakes in fridge, but serve at room temperature. They will keep for 3 days in the fridge.

I hope you enjoy this recipe - I know all of my guinea pigs (whoops, I mean ex-co-workers) loved this recipe as did all of my friends I shared them with! Let me know what you think of this recipe. One thing to note about the recipe is that using beets will give the recipe a nice subtle pinky tone - if you are after the vivid red colour found in commercial bakeries and store bought products, you'll need to load this recipe up with red food colouring. Its completely up to you, but I prefer the natural way of colouring the batter... the colour is soft, subtle and pretty and you don't get that yucky processed taste that food colouring can add to your food. And you don't load up on the chemicals and artificial colouring agents that are in food colouring. :)

Let me know what you think of this recipe when you get the chance to try it out! Happy Baking my Friends!

Chocolate Tea Cakes with Earl Grey Icing

I follow a great blog called Food & Whine. She is always posting great recipes for all kinds of things - desserts, main courses, snacks, ketchup, etc! Every time I read a new post I learn something or find another recipe I want to try. When I saw these chocolate tea cakes with earl grey icing, I just knew I had to try them. I'm really excited to share this recipe with you because they were SO good. Its not just me who thinks so! I baked them for a volunteer meeting I was attending and people eagerly devoured them with such comments as "sublime", "delicious", "amazing"... the list goes on! So these are definitely worth a try - even if the idea of earl grey icing freaks you out! Just TRY them. :) I promise, you won't be disappointed.

Chocolate Tea Cakes with Earl Grey Icing

Recipe from Food & Whine

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tea bags Earl Grey tea

Method:

1. Make the cakes: Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line 18 regular-sized muffin pans with paper liners (or 48 mini-muffin). Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (do not let the bowl touch the water). Whisk until smooth, then remove the bowl; keep the water simmering in the saucepan. In another bowl, whisk the sugar, flour and salt; mix into the melted chocolate. Add the eggs, one at a time, then whisk in the vanilla until smooth.
2. Divide the batter among the prepared cups, filling each three-quarters of the way. Bake until the cakes spring back when touched, 15 to 18 minutes (mine took longer, probably about 22 or 23 minutes. Be sure to test with a toothpick regularly so they are neither under or over-cooked. Toothpick will come out clean when they are ready). Remove from the pans and cool on a rack.
3. Meanwhile, make the icing: Whisk the sugar, egg whites, lemon juice and salt by hand in the bowl of a stand mixer. Empty the tea bags and add the loose tea to the bowl, then set the bowl over the saucepan of simmering water and whisk until the mixture is hot and the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Transfer the bowl to the stand mixer and beat with the whisk attachment on medium-high speed until the mixture holds stiff peaks, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large resealable plastic bag (or piping bag fitted with a large round tip if you have one), snip the corner and pipe the icing onto the cupcakes.
   
   
   

I especially love the look of these cute little cakes once the fluffy, dreamy looking icing has been piped onto them. They are just so adorable looking, especially once you put them on a nice plate. I had a few people look at me skeptically when I mentioned the icing was Earl Grey... but once they tried the cakes, they lost any skepticism and eagerly took a second cake. :) I would encourage you to try out this recipe (and check out Food & Whine where I found the recipe). Thanks Jen for sharing this great recipe!

Happy Baking my Friends!