Peanut Butter Buttercream!

For a friend's birthday/congratulations on having a baby boy! gathering a work, I made chocolate cake cupcakes with peanut butter chips topped with a...wait for it...peanut butter buttercream frosting...mmmm!

What goes together better than peanut butter and chocolate? Not much. So I was happy to try out the combination. I made a standard chocolate cake batter with coco powder/flour/eggs/sugar etc. Then for the peanut butter frosting, I had thought about making it a chocolate peanut butter frosting--but the thought of trying to dye that blue kind of scared me. So I went for simple. Just your standard vanilla frosting, 2 tbs of peanut butter blended in and voila! The ymmiest frosting ever.

I didn't pile on the frosting on this one becuase it was RICH! plus with the chocolate cake, I didn't want people going into sugar comas at work--not so good.  So I just added enough frosting so you'd get some in every bite.

I was glad the birthday girl and mommy to be enjoyed them (she had two--one for her and one for baby :) ).

I still have to try out the cherry coke cupcakes once cherries come into season here. Wondering how that one will turn out, I also have a snickerdoodle cupcake on the request list as well.

So many flavors, so little time.

Found Another Keeper

Marshmallow cupcakes were a success! Thank you cupcake corer :)

I brought in my latest batch of cupcakes, chocolate with a homemade marshmallow filling and basic chocolate frosting. Looks like I will be adding this flavor to my basic 10, yay, that means I've 2 outta 10 down. 8 more to figure out.

I was glad I got good reviews on the marshmallow filling, it was rather tricky. Making your own marshmallows isn't too difficult (start off making meringue then add more sugar) but the first batch I made was too runny and kept getting soaked up in the cupcake, no bueno. I had to thicken up the filling so I'd actually have an ooey-gooey center. Figured out that more egg whites would be needed to accomplish such a task.

Next up, per Kim's request is gonna be a banana cupcake with a cream cheese frosting. I've got to limit myself to trying *maybe* 2 new flavors a month. Otherwise, that's a whole lotta baking and a whole lotta cupcakes for the people around me to suffer through. After the banana, it will depend on what I can find in season in the grocery store.

Here we go!

 

The best frivolous cooking tools ever!

 So I was browsing online the other day and saw at Williams-Sonoma (my favorite cooking store, if only I could afford it!) had some fun new gadgets that I was super excited to try out. Now, keep in mind the title of today's blog: The best most frivolous cooking tools ever. The two items I picked up today are absolutely not necessities, but they sure do make baking more fun. And although you often make do without certain tools, why restrict yourself when a tool is created that makes an easy task a complete breeze?

                  First up, what every cupcake baker needs--a cupcake corer! yay! When I have made filled cupcakes in the past, I just insert my frosting tip into the cupcake and watched for the cupcake to swell, yes, you can actually see the cupcake bloat when its got enough filling in it. The annoyance here is that not each cupcake gets the same amount of filling, and I need consistency. Also, the filling often then overflows up out of the cake if the cake swells too much. Unsightly. So, enter the cupcake corer. It basically punches out a dime-sized hole and voila, no more overflow from over bloated cakes, awesome! Right now I am in the midst of making my chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow filling, so I am excited to put this bad boy to work.

Next up, who doesn't like poptarts? nobody that's who. So why not make your own at home? You can make them with any kind of filling you want, sweet or savory (think breakfast poptart, mmmm), and then top it off with what ever frosting you like. Perfect. So I picked up a toaster pastry press at Williams-Sonoma which basically is a sandwich press setup and you make some pastry dough, use the press to cut out the top and bottom pieces, fill as you would a pie, press together with tool and tada! Baked in your very own oven is a yummy pastry. I am thinking about using some of the homemade blueberry compote I made in my first batch. Just another fun thing for me to try out in my kitchen.

Nothing like a little competition...

....to get you motivated!

I couldn't believe that a cupcake shop was opening up at the Alderwood Mall.  What?! Really?! That's what I wanted to do, granted I am not in a place where I can drop a couple grand on a store front, but it was like a slap in my face-throwing my dream job right back at me! Boo.  I couldn't stand for this atrocity. 


SO, my strategy is to check out Pinkabella's this weekend when it opens up and scope the place out.  Keep you enemies close right?

Actually, I've been to Pinkabella's at the Redmond Town Center, and I distinctly remember not liking her cupcakes, yes the store is super adorable with pink ballerina decor all over the place, but I felt the cupcakes themselves were lacking.  The cake was dry and the frosting grainy.  Bias toward my own product, not at all.  I'll shout it from the roof tops that I really like Cupcake Royale--I believe they have some good stuff down there.  Trophy? ehh.  Good cake, frosting not so much.  I can't compete with Cupcake Royale, but I can surely stand my own against Pinkabella. 

Store front at Alderwood mall in the outdoor shoping area

What throws me more for a loop is that this is Margo's (owner) 3rd store and she has only been in business for 17 months, bananas!  I guess that means she must be doing something right...

Part 2 of my master plan, get my signature flavors down.  I can't do a store front, but that's what the world wide web is for.  I'm gonna go online.  I figure I need at least 10 solid flavors before moving any further.  A for sure flavor is gonna be the one I just made this past week, pound cake with brown sugar cream cheese frosting.  My poor co-workers are gonna be cupcaked out since I am using them as my taste-kitchen.  I've already got a request for a banana cupcake with cream cheese frosting, another friend added I should include real banana pieces and walnuts.  Next on my list is to make a chocolate cupcake with marshmallow filling and maybe a butter cream meringue frosting (less sweet than traditional butter cream). 

We'll see which ones make the cut and which get tossed.  This is gonna be fun!

(almost) Red Velvet Cake

Anyone who knows me knows I love desserts. Anyone who really knows me knows I adore red velvet cake...

So I tried my hand at making some red velvet cake. But it didn't quite come out the way I wanted it to, first I ran out of red food coloring so the red is not the correct depth of red that I would have liked to see. Second, my baking powder is a tiny bit flat so the density of the cake was a little off. However, aesthetics aside, the flavor was there. I did like the cream cheese frosting with white chocolate curls and the marshmallow frosting filling, it added some sweetness that balanced the tartness of the cream cheese. I even blended some of the marshmallow frosting into the cream cheese which made it silky smooth without altering the flavor significantly.

  Mike took it to work for a good-bye party for one of his co-workers, how convenient that I was baking the night before his departure! Now Mike got to score extra points in the office, he owes me since my friends at work didn't get to have the red velvet that I promised them~instead, they got the pound cake cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese frosting (which I actually preferred!). 

 

So I'll have to make it up to my friends at work another day...I am itching to try this recipe again
and getting the end product just perfect.

Creating Princess Leia

So Mr. Jonas is having his 4th birthday this weekend and I am helping make his cupcakes.  He is having a Star Wars themed party so my friend decided to go with Princess Leia cupcakes.  She found a picture from another blog and I tried to follow it as best I could.  Here are the steps I took to re-create them:

                                                  Started with plain white cream cheese frosting

                                     Added some chocolate hair with the right frosting tip

Then some chocolate dots for eyes

Then I used some heart sprinkles for her mouth

And the finishing touch, some chocolate filled oreo cookies for her trademark buns

Pies in a Jar

Valentine's Day Goodies or mush?

I thought I'd give my friend's at work a different kind of Valentine's Day treat.  I ventured away from the traditional chocolate and candy treats and tried my hand at baking a pie in a jar.  I saw pictures and recipes online.  I thought they were a cute pint-sized treat to hand out at work.

The concept is easy enough, pie crust, pressed into the sides of a mason jar, filled with filling (I used peaches and blueberries), and baked at 375 degrees.  You can bake mason jars because they are intended for canning, so they withstand the heat (not direct heat like on a burner or flame).  You bake them in the oven without the lids on and they are supposed to bake up nicely, just like if it were in a pie tin.  Another option is to prepare them and then freeze them for later devouring.

Anyway, I prepared them and baked them.  Problems, I overfilled them and the fruit juices bubbled out overboard.  Also, I don't like my pies to be super sweet so I was careful about how much brown sugar and white sugar I added to the mix.  So, I had my husband taste the mix before baking, after some adjustments, he approved of the sweetness.  To my husband's dismay, they were not sweet enough post baking.  Where did all the sweetness go?!  Nuts.

But at 10:30 PM it was time to call the game.  I tasted one jar in the morning once I got up, and I liked them, but the test would be if others would.  I tried to find smaller jars, but all I could get my hands on were 8 ounce jars.  I personally thought these were too big. 

I'll have to try again another holiday and double up the sweetness and search high and low for shorter jars.  I love the idea of these treats too much to give up after one attempt.

AAHHHH, Baking disaster!!!

So I am trying to make French macaroons for a cookie exchange at work.  The French macaroons are the "burger" style cookies not the ones covered in coconut.  However, I substitued almond paste with poppyseed paste to make it more "Beth Friendly".  I wanted to make something that would be edible for my friend who is deathly allergic to any and all nuts.

But ahhhhh! apparently almond paste is NOT the same as poppyseed paste.  Yikes, my macaroons ended up being flattened crispy cookie-like things that were also chewy somehow, ugh!  I am going to try again tomorrow night with almond paste and we'll see if it was the ingredient change or if it was due to baker error....if disaster strikes again, we may have to change the menu to something a little less French  :-)

Here's to round two....

Cranberry Bliss Bars!

Cranberry Bliss Bars a la Starbucks

We had a bake-off at work where we compared Starbucks seasonal delight, Cranberry Bliss Bars, to our homemade versions.  I gotta tell ya, I think I prefer the homemade versions becuase they were less sweet than the Starbucks version.

Also, I made mine in a dish smaller than suggested so I got more of a cake-like density versus Starbucks' bar-like texture.  Now, that I've made my own, I can have them any time of year instead of having to wait until Christmas!

Now I want to play with the recipie more and add a little more ginger and try a cranberry drizzle instead of a frosting drizzle ontop of the cream cheese frosting.  Yum Yum.

 

Pistachio Cupcakes!

 My latest cupcake attempt included two things I have never used before in a cupcake: 1) Pistachios; 2) Pistachio butter.  First of all, not a super fan of pistachios--but my dear ol' husband picked the flavor of the day.  So after searching high and low for pistachios that were unsalted and didn't cost a fortune, I found myself at Trader Joe's (I should have known!).  Okay, key ingredient--check.

Now for the pistachio butter.  Pretty much all you gotta do is put the nuts in the food processor and blend away.  Ends up with the same coloring as peanut butter, weird since the pistachio is bright green.  Hmm.

This recipe was pistachio on top of pistachio.  The batter is your basic white cake batter (cream cheese adds some tangy flavoring) with the butter added in and then another handful of roughly chopped pistachio's gets folded in at the end.

On top sits a powdered sugar glaze with more pistachio slivers as garnish.  I think next time I make this recipe I will try a cream cheese frosting.  The overall taste is a cupcake that is not too sweet since the nutty flavoring is more predominant than the powdered sugar.

PS.  This 36 cupcake carrier is awesome! 3 trays stack nicely inside that keep the little cakes from toppling over.  Also, serves as a huge Tupperware to keep them fresh rather than stacking them on a tiny cake stand.  Thanks to my little sister for a super birthday gift!