positively cupcakes

HEAVENLY CAKE BAKERS~FREE CHOICE~ROSE RED VELVET CAKE

2010-03-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

When I saw this cake, I thought it would be perfect for our CANADA/US Gold medal Olympic game potluck! Fourteen of us got together at a friends house~we watched 68 minutes of Hockey awesomeness projected to 8x12' on the wall! We took our much-in-demand-and-always-gone-in-about-10-minutes Artichoke Dip, Blood Orange Martinis and cupcakes. And a cowbell! It was total fun and we were wild when Sid-the-Kid scored in overtime!!

But I digress...on to the cupcakes...

I doubled the recipe, and couldn't bring myself to use all that red dye, so opted to use beet juice instead. But I was worried about the taste, with the small amount of cocoa in the recipe, so decided to increase it and decrease the flour. They turned out kind of reddish brown. The Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting was quite runny. I added some icing sugar to it in an attempt to thicken it up~didn't help much and I ended up putting it in the fridge for a couple of hours. At one point I remember thinking 'I used all that white chocolate for this?' Apparently I'm not a huge fan of cream cheese frostings....

In the end, although they were good, I probably wouldn't make them again. My never fail wacky cake recipe made into cupcakes is still my fave!

WHIPPED CREAM CAKE~LE SIGH...

2010-01-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

I cannot even find words to express my deep disappointment that Williams-Sonoma doesn't ship to Canada, so I am unable to purchase the fabulous pan Raymond showcased with his beautiful cake, because if ever someone needed a new Bundt pan, it's me...if anyone would be willing to ship that pan to me, please let me know!!

The upside, it tasted very good, and was quickly devoured! Loved the way it went together so easily! Will make it again, once I have a new pan....

GINGERBREAD CAKE~THE UPDATE!

2010-01-13T23:15:00.001-08:00

Total yum!

My entire family LOVED it!

It was the perfect ending to a wonderful family dinner!

HEAVENLY CAKE BAKERS~ENGLISH GINGERBREAD CAKE!!

2009-12-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

I had good intentions, really, about making the carrot cake. The fall was so hectic tho, with work displacements and new work hours and the loss of much-loved and long time work co-workers (to other work places and sites) and of course the on-going kitchen reno, that little baking got done here. Sigh.... such is life. I was bound and determined to make this cake tho, and decided Christmas dessert would be the best time for it!

Love, love, love the easy way it goes together! It's similar to the reliable 'Wacky Cake' that I love and bake so much! It looked beautiful out of the oven! Sorry, no pics today, as Mr Cupcake has taken the camera to his family's celebration a couple of provinces over. Once the lemon glaze was on, I plated it on a fancy cake plate and covered it tightly with plastic wrap. I was going to frost with whipped cream, but my brother is lactose intolerant, so will serve it on the side instead. I'll update later to let you all know how it tasted!

Merry Christmas!

HEAVENLY CAKE BAKERS~PUMPKIN CAKE!

2009-11-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit late to this party, but here I am anyway! I picked up the wonderful cookbook last week, picked up a few ingredients that I was unable to find at home (kitchen reno in progress!) and baked yesterday. First off, my changes~we have a few food allergies here and my Daughter cannot eat walnuts, so I used pecans instead. And used canola for the walnut oil. I had some leftover buttercream in the freezer. To give a little orange flavor,I candied a bit of orange peel~next time I'd make more and use longer pieces~it was very good! I had a 9" silicone pan and used it (first time!) instead of a bundt pan. Think that's it!

The batter filled the pan completely, so I wasn't able to make any cupcakes, as I'd hoped to do. I greased and floured the pan. When it came out of the oven I remembered why I don't like to use flour. Many of the 'Pam' type sprays contain soy oil and I have a huge soy allergy, so I use a spritzer with olive oil.

The cake was moist and yummy! My Daughter is taking some to work to share and the rest has been sliced, wrapped and is in the freezer. One other thing, I input the ingredients into a recipe function on Weight Watchers online and divided by 16 servings to give it a point value of 6 per serving. That's why it's in the freezer! And that is un-iced. I would estimate the icing adds about a jillion points!

I'd make this again, next time with ginger instead of nuts!

Happy Baking everyone!

#7~excuses, excuses.....

2009-08-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

We've had the hottest summer on record here~much too hot to turn the oven on! I can't remember when I last baked a cupcake, altho I've wanted to! Cooler weather is just starting, and my birthday is coming in a few weeks. I'll be making something yummy soon! Hope everyone has had a fun filled summer!

#6~Cinco de Mayo Yumminess!!

2009-05-06T11:31:00.001-07:00

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas with salad!!
http://lillyella.blogspot.com/2009/04/in-kitchen-creamy-chicken-enchiladas.html

These are yummy and so easy! I used 4 chicken breasts and kept everything else the same. Last night I made 8 enchiladas. They aren't real spicy, (I don't do spicy..) but the heat can be easily increased.

For dessert, Key Lime Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream!
http://icecreambeforedinner.blogspot.com/2007/12/key-lime-cupcakes.html
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Coconut-Buttercream-104915

This has to be the best batter I've ever made!! I still had my cast on when I was zesting the limes~tough job, so it ended up a bit skimpy~there was simply no way I could hold those little limes with an immobilized thumb! The recipe made 16 cupcakes and they taste even better this morning than they did last night. (if eating cupcakes for breakfast is wrong, then I don't want to be right..) I made a full recipe of the icing as I'm planning to make cupcakes (pina colada) on Saturday night when we have people over for 'Cinco de Mayo meets Hockey Night in Canada' Should be fun!

#5~Orange-Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Ganache and Hazelnut Buttercream Frosting

2009-04-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Don't they look delish? I made half the cupcake and icing recipes which made 17 cupcakes and kind of ball-parked the filling. I topped them with candied orange peel left over from a previous cupcake experiment. They are very sweet, but def yummy! Here's one opened up to show the nutella filling!

The recipe is from:

http://sourandsweet.wordpress.com/2007/01/26/orange-chocolate-hazelnut/

#4~

2009-03-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

I ventured back into the realm of the kitchen today, thinking it couldn't be too difficult to operate the kitchenaid one-handed~I had surgery a week ago and am sporting a huge honkin' cast on my left hand and forearm~and managed pretty well except for taking the pan out of the oven. I used a 12-cup pan thinking it would be easiest, but it was not easy to get the hot pan out of the oven, with one hand, trying not to damage the cupcake goodness!

My cupcake choice today: White chocolate sour cream cupcakes, a recipe I found on 'cakeonthebrain' blog . Scraping nearly every bit of batter out of the bowl (no easy feat with one hand!) I was able to get 12 cupcakes. They are a bit flat on top, and they stuck to the rim of the pan, so they all ended up with somewhat lifted tops as I had to loosen the edges with a knife. Then I made a white chocolate cream cheese icing, subbing baileys in for the milk. I didn't go too heavy with the icing sugar, since my preference is a softer and less sweet icing. The cupcake itself is light textured with a subtle white chocolate taste and nicely moist. The Baileys icing is very good, with barely a hint of cream cheese flavor coming thru. All in all, very yummyful, and now I'm off to do the one-handed kitchen clean-up!

#3~'Grandma's Lemon Cupcakes'

2009-03-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

Well, not my Grandmas cupcakes, but a recipe in an Esther Brody book I picked up a few years ago and have never used until today. There's sour cream in the batter, which was very thick and a bit hard to get into the cupcake liners, but they baked up just fine and are quite yummy!

I wasn't sure what to do about the frosting, but turned to page and found a lemon cream cheese icing! This made me happy as I didn't want to make lemon curd and don't like the taste of lemon extract. I used low fat cream cheese tho, so it's runny and has a bit of an aftertaste~lesson learned!! I added a ton more icing sugar but it didn't thicken up as much as I would have liked. From now on it's the full fat stuff for me! So a thumbs up for the cupcake and a thumbs down for the icing...

#2

2009-02-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I did bake cupcakes the other night, my 'default' chocolate cupcake recipe~a wacky cake made with coffee instead of water, and topped with the Strawberry Buttercream mentioned in the previous post~they were awesome, and disappeared pretty quickly! Even found the cat licking the buttercream off one! Although I made only half the icing recipe for 21 cupcakes, there's left overs~will make more soon..

#1

2009-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

I picked up the latest issue of Martha Stewart magazine yesterday~who could resist all those cupcakes! The recipes make lots, so I'll be off to buy more baking pans today. The strawberry buttercream icing sounds to-die-for!

(image:marthastewart.com)