Tag Archives: cupcakes

But…But…But…It Has CARROTS In It!

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Admit it. You want this.

I have never been a fan of carrots. I actually go through salads and pick out all the little shreds of carrots. I do however like them heavily buttered but only baby carrots. So carrot cake was never a dessert on my radar. It was so far OFF of my radar that liver may actually have been in front of it by virtue of the fact that I had at least tried liver. But carrot cake? Nope. Wasn’t doing it. No way no how. No carrots for this woman.

I DO however love frosting. And Oranges. So when I was at the grocery store one day a few years back  casually perusing drooling over the baked goods in their bakery department and trying to figure out why there was a check out boy with a mop & bucket in front of me as a voice said “CLEAN UP IN FRONT OF THE FAT LADY AT THE BAKERY…AGAIN!!!”   I saw a huge cake. It was decorated in this thick creamy white frosting and on the little sign that I still remember fondly (I took a photo of that sign and framed it. It hangs in a sacred spot in my home now; the bathroom) were printed the words, “Carrot Cake With Orange Frosting- More Money Than You Can Really Afford Per Slice But Buy It Anyway!” .Ok, it didn’t really say part of that but it may as well have. So I looked… glared at the kid with the bucket because he kept cutting off my view of the cake…and told myself that yes, it was carrot cake… i.e. a cake with the dreaded carrots in it but that if nothing else, I could always pay 3 gazillion dollars for a slice of this and just eat that heavenly looking frosting. So I bought it. I took it home. I ate all the frosting off the top. I drooled some more. Then I took a deep breath and took a bite of the cake part. It was the only way to get to the frosting packed between the layers. Then… I fell in love.

Kind of.

I still don’t like most carrot cake. I do though like carrot cake the way I make it now (and from that same store when I feel like blowing the rent money on cake). I like moist and tender cake chock full of pineapple and raisins and orange zest and spices and oh yeah, those  carrot things too. And frosting that is buttery and cream cheesy (ahem; yes, this too is now a word) and also full of that lovely orange flavor I so drool over in store bakery sections.

If you like carrot cake, you should like this. It isn’t overly sweet (I actually think I will add a bit more sugar next time; maybe 1/2 cup. It’s more muffiny than I like.) and is nice and moist and the frosting I made to go with it is quite yummy if I do say so myself. The cake comes from (adapted slightly) The King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book (other than the orange zest and using both pineapple and raisins; they had it as a choice, silly people.) and the frosting comes from my warped brain. Enjoy!! You can also make this as a layer or sheet cake (that is what it is in the book) but I wanted cupcakes. It makes 33 cupcakes so it is perfect for a pot luck or church supper or for kids at school and this is actually semi nutritious (I know; scary huh?) cause of the fruits and carrots and whole wheat flour.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes With

An Orange Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 2 1/2 cups grated carrots (yes… THOSE)
  • 2 tablespoons orange zest
  • 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
  • 1 can (8 ounces) well drained crushed pineapple
  • 1 cup raisins
  • FROSTING-
  • 1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon orange extract
  • 2 tablespoons orange zest
  • 4 tablespoons orange juice
  • 4 cups (more or less as needed to get proper consistency) powdered sugar
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Either grease and flour 2 9 inch cake pans or line 33 (can be done in batches) muffin cups with paper or foil liners.
  2. Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add the oil and beat until well blended. Add the vanilla then the sugars.
  3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones, mixing until it is smooth. Add in the carrots, nuts, pineapple and raisins. Mix well.
  4. Spoon batter into the prepared cupcake cups. Bake at 350 for about 16 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pans for 2 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling while you make the oh so delectable frosting :-D
  5. For Frosting- in a large bowl, mix together the cream cheese and butter until creamy and well combined. Add in the orange zest, extracts and orange juice. Beat well. Add in the powdered sugar and beat at low speed until combined (I always do this with the bowl set in the sink so that I don’t have sugar flying everywhere) then turn speed up to high and beat for five minutes. If frosting it too thick, add a touch of OJ to it. If too thin, add more powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time until you have the desired consistency.
  6.  Spoon or pipe frosting onto cupcakes. Eat. Don’t share. Tell the kids that these are poison.

Boredom Is REALLY The Mother Of Invention

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I think all the things we take for granted were discovered out of boredom, not out of necessity.  Did we NEED electricity? Nope. Did we NEED phones? Nope. Did we NEED cars? Nope. Did we need Twinkies and Cheetos? Ok, maybe we needed those. I do anyway. Life would be hell without my Cheeto fix. Dipped in hot sauce and/or blue cheese dressing. I know. Strange. But it’s good darn it!

Boredom works in cooking too. Buffalo chicken wings, brownies, Twinkies , God knows how many things came about because the creator was bored with cooking things the normal way and wanted something different.

Well, today I wanted something different. And while it won’t be as earth shaking as Twinkies or Cheetos cause I mean, really, can ANYTHING match those two, it turned out pretty yummy.

Years and years ago, I learned how to make a Caramel flan. I always got a kick out of how quickly the melted sugar would harden up. Yes, I realize I’m easily amused. But the transformation from a solid to a liquid back to a solid again, albeit one that tasted completely different, was strangely fascinating to me. So for the longest time I had been wanting to play around with caramelized sugar. Not caramel sauce though that ended up in this recipe too… just the sugar. But my worry was wasting a bunch of sugar and it not working.  A couple months ago one of my favorite bloggers, Culinary Concoctions By Peabody, did it with
These delicious cookies and since I now knew it could be done, I knew I would be trying it sooner or later.

Today was the day. But I didn’t want cookies. I wanted cupcakes with a creamy “OMG, how much sugar did you put in this” type of frosting. So I made a cupcake with the finely ground caramelized sugar. When you make this, be ready; the sugar doesn’t immediately dissolve into the butter the way regular sugar does. It clumps up. Just keep beating. You will still have some clumps after the batter is completely made but that’s actually ok. When the cupcakes are done, you will have these slightly dimpled cakes with small bits of caramelized sugar and those bits give a nice caramelly burst of flavor. The cupcakes themselves aren’t overly sweet but the frosting makes up for that :-P

If you have never worked with caramelized sugar before, be careful. This is dangerously hot when liquid and stays that way for a while.

CARAMEL CUPCAKES WITH A CARAMEL BUTTER CREAM

  • For the Caramelized Sugar-
  • 2 cups granulated white sugar
  • For the cupcake-
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups finely ground caramelized sugar
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • For the frosting-
  • 3/4 cup Smuckers Caramel Sundae Syrup
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 4 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1) For the caramelized sugar, first, line a cookies sheet with foil and set aside. Then take the 2 cups sugar and pour into a heavy bottomed medium saucepan. Over medium heat and never leaving the stove, cook the sugar. When you start, it will start to lump up. That’s fine. It will smooth out as it melts. Stir every ten seconds or so to expose all the sugar to heat. When it starts to melt, just continually gently stir & turn your heat down to about 4. This isn’t a quick process but if you have the heat too high the only thing you’re going to end up with is a scorched pan and a really nasty smelly mess of burnt unusable sugar. When it is all melted and a nice golden brown color (be careful here. It can go from golden brown to burnt in a heartbeat), carefully pour it out onto the foil lined pan. Set it aside somewhere not reachable by small hands and let it cool.

2) Once it is cool, break it up into large chunks. Eat some :-P .  Save some for garnishing the cupcakes. Put the chunks into a food processor bowl and process until it is finely ground.

3) For the cupcakes- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 14 muffin cups. Or use cupcakes liners because you are smart and don’t want to have to scrub a muffin pan :-D . In a small bowl, combine your flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4) Put your butter and sugar into a large bowl. Beat until well blended. Remember, it’s going to look clumpy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Add the extracts.

5) Add half the flour mixture, beat well, then add in half the milk. Repeat.

6)Pour the batter into the lined cupcake pan.

7) Bake at 350 for 19 to 21 minutes or until the top is firm and a nice golden brown. Let cool in the pan that is set over a wire rack for five minutes then take out and let cool thoroughly on a wire rack.

8)For the frosting- Beat  butter and caramel syrup (I wanted to use the ground caramelized sugar in here too but I realized that it wouldn’t work after I saw the way it clumps since it can’t bake back out in frosting.) until creamy. Add in the vanilla and the powdered sugar and beat until thick and creamy. Spoon or pipe onto the cupcakes. Garnish with the slivers of hard sugar you held back and more caramel syrup.

 

 

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Honey, I’m Home

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When I was a kid in the late 60′s and early 70′s (I was born in ’64 so I guess I can claim kid-dom up until about 82 or so but I mean little kid here) the music that was around was much simpler and dare I say much more innocent most of the time. I grew up listening to country or “Country and Western” as it was known back then. In those days, it wasn’t the trendy music it is now. You listened to it because you loved it. I also was exposed to AM Pop music; artists like Gilbert O ‘Sullivan, Simon And Garfunkel, Carly Simon, James Taylor and Bobby Goldsboro. They are still singers that I love to be honest. I remember Bobby Goldsboro having a song called “Honey”. It is the worlds saddest song (with REM’s “Everybody hurts” still in first place for worlds most depressing song) about a man whose wife dies while he is at work and how he misses her. The romantic child I was then thought it was so cool that she died and he loved her enough to nurture some stick of a tree for her and I just knew I would grow up to have that kind of love. I conveniently forget about the part where she dies. Alone. By herself. No one there to help. Dead as a doornail. You get the point. I still love the song though. My dad always told me that it reminded him of my mother and made him think of her when he heard it.

I heard that song today on my media player. No, you do not want to know what other songs are on there. It would simply clarify my extreme old age and senility for you. I prefer you believe I have all sorts of modern songs with the modern attitude that goes with them and that I spend my days getting cool tattoos and having people come up to me and say “I just had to tell you that I hope I look as good as you when I’M 25!”. I do not, I repeat do NOT, have Donny Osmond singing “Go Away Little Girl” on my media player. I swear I don’t. If it is there, my husband must have put it there.

As I was saying though, I heard the song Honey today and decided to make something with honey in it in honor of the worlds saddest song. So I made cupcakes. Lemon Honey cupcakes with a lemon honey frosting. The recipe originally comes from Womans Day I took the liberty of making some changes to the batter because when I tasted it (Hey! It’s quality control!) it had minimal lemon flavor. To be honest, it had minimal flavor period. No offense to Womans Day. They do however have a nice tart sweet lemony frosting that I loved. perhaps too much since I ended up with three cupcakes with no frosting. Oops. If you like Lemon, you’ll like these. :-D   While you’re cooking these you should go to youtube (*points to link below) and listen to the song Honey.  You can listen to it and weep while you wish you had a love like that. Minus the dead part. The dead part sucks.

Lemon-Honey Cupcakes Recipe

  • Cupcakes-
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 tsp each baking powder and baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
  • 3 Tbsp grated lemon zest
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • Lemon-Honey Frosting
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
  • 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 7 to 8 tsp lemon juice
  • Few drops yellow food color

1. Cupcakes: Heat oven to 350°F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sour cream, milk, lemon extract, lemon zest and juice in a small bowl until well mixed.

3. Beat butter, honey and sugar in large bowl with an electric mixer 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended.

4. With mixer on low speed, beat in half the flour mixture, then the sour cream mixture. Beat in remaining flour mixture until just combined.

5. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter into each muffin cup. Bake 18 to 20 minutes until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove cupcakes from pan to wire rack to cool completely.

6. Frosting: Beat butter, honey, lemon extract  and lemon zest in large bowl with an electric mixer until creamed, about 2 minutes. On low speed, beat in confectioners’ sugar until blended. Beat in lemon juice and a few drops food color until mixture is fluffy and pale yellow.  Taste about 47 bites of the frosting to make sure it’s lemony enough. Vow never to eat sweets again. Eat more anyway.

7. Spoon into a large ziptop freezer bag, snip off one corner and pipe onto cupcakes, or just spread frosting onto cupcakes. Or just eat it all and tell everybody that the cupcakes are really lemon muffins thus they don’t need frosting.

*Points down to song link*

 

Honey

 

 

 

Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Since I still have no oven *sobs piteously and falls to the floor whining and kicking* I am posting a recipe that I have on food.com. The following is my link there if you’d like to see my page and my recipes:

Janet’s page on food.com

This is for red velvet cupcakes. I normally find the frosting on red velvet cake or cupcakes cloyingly sweet but not on these. These are the favorite of one of my daughters in law. If she and my son come to visit and I haven’t made these, there are violent threats and temper tantrums :-P

RED VELVET CUPCAKES

  1. 1 (18 ounce) box red velvet cake mix
  2. 1 4 ounce box instant chocolate pudding
  3. 1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
  4. 4 cups powdered sugar
  5. 1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
  6. 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
  7. 1 cup whipped cream (can use cool whip or homemade whipped cream. I tihnk we all know by now which I choose :-P )
  • Prepare cake mix as directed on box, adding in the box of chocolate pudding mix and 1 tsp of the vanilla extract.
  • Beat well for at least 2 minutes. Batter will be thick
  • Fill a touch over half full muffin tins that have been well greased or lined with muffin/cupcake liners; don’t fill too high as they rise considerably.
  • Cook according to directions on box of cake. When done, cool on wire rack.
  • While the cupcakes are cooking, make the frosting. Do your best to NOT follow my lead and eat half the frosting before the cupcakes are even cooled. Oh what the heck; go ahead. You can always make more :-D
  • Using a mixer, beat cream cheese, remaining tsp of vanilla and butter in large bowl until well blended; gradually beat in powdered sugar.
  • Beat in whipped topping (or whipped cream) and continue beating until frosting is thick and creamy looking, giving it enough time for the powdered sugar to break down and dissolve or you will have grainy frosting.
  • If too thick, add a little bit of milk or cream. Add just a bit at time. You can always add more but if you add too much, you end up with glaze not frosting and believe me, you don’t want to ruin this frosting.

  • When cupcakes are cool, spread or pipe the frosting on the cupcakes. Then do as I normally suggest; grab a few and go hide in the closet with a flashlight and a good book. Enjoy. :-)

My Kind Of Blackberry

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Blackberry’s are all the rage right now along with iphones. I on the other hand am still in the stone age from what I’m told because I only have a phone from Cricket.  My daughter has an iphone with all the bells and whistles and was showing it to me the other day and bragging on it. I am pretty sure that that thing probably has an app on it that would find you a mail order bride. But hey, I’ve moved up in the world with my cricket. A mere three years ago, I still had a Tracfone…. with an antennae I had to pull up to be able use the phone. It was made from stone. I also have a car that requires me to stick my feet through a hole in the floor and make it go by foot power. Fred Flintstone is my hero. But I digress (you’ll get used to that with me.)
Since I can’t have a blackberry that I can use to access the internet, I decided to make my own blackberry. It’s not in the shape of a phone though; sorry. You also can’t use it to get a mail order bride but I can guarantee mine tastes better. At least I hope it does. There’s no app to make your phone yummy is there?

These cupcakes were fun to make. They were pretty fun to eat too if the purple stains on my shirt and the slight bloated feeling in my belly are any indication :-D It uses a white cake mix that I doctored up (I told you; I like cake mixes. They’re easy & they taste pretty damn good; especially when you add all sorts of different things to them. This has a homemade blackberry/lemon butter cream frosting that is good enough to eat from the bowl with a spoon. I should know; I ate enough of it.

BlackBerry Cupcakes with a Blackberry/Lemon Buttercream

  1. 1(18.25 ounce) package white cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)
  2. 1(3.4 ounce) package french vanilla instant pudding mix
  3. 1 cup sour cream
  4. 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  5. 4 large eggs
  6. 1/2 cup warm water
  7. 1 12 ounce container fresh blackberries
  8. 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  9. 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  10. 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
  11. 2 tablespoons blackberry jam
  12. zest from one lemon
  • Preheat your oven to 350 (175 Celsius) and line your cupcake pans with liners (you don’t have to do this, you could just spray them with a non stick spray like Pam but personally , anything that saves me from major dish washing is heaven.).
  • Gently wash the berries then pat them dry with a paper towel. Put all but 20 of  them into a blender or a food processor bowl with the 3 tablespoons sugar and process/blend into a puree. Set the 20 aside to use as garnish. You can then strain the puree through a sieve if the idea of the seeds bugs you, but I didn’t bother.
  • In a large bowl, mix together ingredients. 1-6. Beat on low until everything is thoroughly mixed then turn it up to medium and beat for 2 minutes. Don’t skimp on that; it makes your cupcakes lighter.
  • Fill your lined cups about half full with batter. Add a tablespoon of the blackberry puree on top of each cupcake then top that with another spoonful of batter. Don’t fill your cups over about 3/4 full or you’ll end up with cupcakes that spread onto the side of your pan and besides not looking as pretty, they are a pain to get out of the pan. Using a butter knife, gently swirl the jam and batter together, making sure to leave streaks.
  • Bake for 16 to 22 minutes (It will vary depending on your oven. Mine were done at 20 minutes) or until a toothpick stuck in the middle of one of the cakes comes out clean.
  • Let them sit in the pan for about 1 minute then use a spoon to get under the liners & put them on a rack to finish coo0ling. Eat one of them before you frost the rest because you’re the cook and you can.
  • Mix together the 1 cup butter, the remaining blackberry puree (you should have about 1/2 a cup)  and the blackberry jam. Mix well for about 2 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and beat on low until all the sugar is incorporated then turn it up to high and beat until it is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. It should be thick enough to stand up on your spoon w/out flopping over. If not (you may need more depending on how juicy your berries were), add powdered sugar 1/4 cup at time until it is thick enough to spread. If too thick, add heavy cream (or milk) a few drops at time until it thins out to where you want it.
  • Pipe or spread your frosting on the cupcakes, then garnish with one of the reserved blackberries. Then eat one with frosting because again, you’re the cook.
  • This makes 20 cupcakes or at least it did for me. It might have made 21 but some of the batter jumped in my mouth. What!? Salmonella is our friend.

I don't know what happened to this one. Someone *cough cough* must have gotten to it while I was turned away.