Week 7: Martini Cupcakes!

The other day at work, my co-worker Jess sent me this link: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/red-velvet-cake-martini/16d93190-e7d0-4d0e-bad0-254e8594be03?WT.mc_id=taf_recipe_BC.  She says it’s her kind of cupcake, a red velvet martini that is made out of cake mix. I thought it was funny, but then it gave me the idea, can a cupcake be made in a martini glass.  A few days later after looking on Pinterest, I found out that it could be! :) So this week's cupcake is in honor of Jess for her Birthday!

I went on what I thought would be a mission to find 18 martini glasses, but found them at the dollar store and probably only took half the shelf!  At the time I only had 16 members and since I bought them in advance, I forgot to buy a couple more.  I was only one short for a member plus me, but I was able to just bake it in a normal cupcake form!

I will admit I was very hesitant and excited to make these.  I was afraid that the glass would explode in the oven, but it was think and thought that there are glasses baking dishes, so it can’t be that different.  The hard part was trying to figure out what temperature I could cook it at.  I found on recipe that said 200 and the originally blog I found, never had a temperature.  I figured that it must be 350, because I felt like it would have said otherwise if it had to be a lower temperature, so I went with 350 and baked only one to test.  It worked, so I continued to bake it that way!

For this week I used three different blogs: 

• Original idea of baking in the martini glass: http://hoosierhomemade.com/cocktail-cupcakes-cupcake-tuesday/
• Cupcake: http://lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com/2010/02/red-velvet-love-for-you.html
• Icing:  http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2011/03/cinnamon-rolls-with-whipped-cream.html#more

The cupcake recipe is for 8 cupcakes, so I tripled the recipe and got 18 martini glass cupcakes & two regular sized cupcakes:

Filling:

• 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 4 ½ tablespoons lightly beaten egg (break egg, mix with fork, measure)
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Batter:

• 3 cup plus 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 6 teaspoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 plus 3/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 teaspoon vinegar
• 3 large egg
• 3 tablespoon red food coloring
• 2 ¼ teaspoons vanilla
• 9 tablespoons sour cream 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Make sure you remove any stickers on the glasses and wash them well with soap and hot water.  You then need to spray the inside of the glass with a non-stick baking spray and make sure you get it all.  I used my finger to spread it all around. 

Prepare filling first. With a mixing spoon, beat together softened cream cheese and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and stir until smooth. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, thoroughly stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. 

In a second mixing bowl, stir together oil, sugar, vinegar, egg, red food coloring, vanilla and sour cream. Mix very well, then add the flour mixture and stir just until blended.

Fill each glass1/3 full with cake batter. Spoon cream cheese mixture over red mixture, dividing evenly between all glasses. Then using the remaining batter cover the cream cheese mixture to the best of your ability.  The glasses should be 2/3 full.  I tested one first to make sure it wouldn’t explode.  I would maybe recommend testing one first, before making them all!

Bake for 20-23 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. The glass stays hot for a while, so be very careful.
Once cupcakes are completely cooled, you can make the icing.  

 
I halved the recipe to below as I didn’t want a lot of icing, as the cupcake recipe said you didn’t need icing but who doesn’t need icing! :)


Icing:

• 8oz cream cheese, room temperature
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup heavy cream, cold.

Beat the cheese, sugar, vanilla and heavy cream until smooth and fluffy.

I then dipped the rims into the icing and then into a bowl of crystal sprinkles to decorate the rim. 

Since I still had enough icing left, I decided to ice the tops of the cupcakes.  I first filled in any caters with the icing and then iced them all. 

The cupcakes were so good!  These were ones that I wish I had extra but of course just had enough, which is probably the best! 

Love always, aloterella :) 

Week 6: Valentine's Day Surprise Cupcake!

Well of course since Valentine’s Day was this week, I had to go with a Valentine’s Day themed cupcake.

I got the idea and recipe from: http://bakeitinacake.com/recipes/heartinacupcake .  I however doubled the recipe as the blog was incorrect and ended up with 24 cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes!

For the cupcakes you’ll need:
3 sticks unsalted butter
3 c. granulated sugar
6 eggs
4 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
4 t. vanilla
5 c. flour
2 2/3 c. whole milk
a small heart shaped cookie cutter

For the frosting you’ll need:
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
2 c. powdered sugar

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees (F).  Use a non-toxic marker or a pencil to draw a little dot on the outside of 12 cupcake liners, then place them in your cupcake pan. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the baking soda, baking powder, vanilla, and salt. Mix for about a minute, until creamy (be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice, to ensure everything is getting worked in). Then add the milk and flour, alternating between the two ingredients (to avoid lumps) until the batter is smooth and everything is well combined.

Pour a little more than 1/3 of the batter into two non-stick (or lightly greased) 8x8 baking pan (about 2 cups each pan) and bake until the edges of the cake start to turn golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean (different recipes will require different baking times—be sure to keep an eye on your cake).  Allow to cool completely (to speed up the process, I stuck it in the fridge).

With the rest of the batter, dye it the shade of red or pink you like.  Then cover and keep in a cool area, away from oven but not in fridge until needed.

Once one of the sheets of cake is cooled, loosen the edges away from the pan with a knife and then invert the pan onto a cutting board. Use a small heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out 24 cake hearts that are small enough to fit into an average-sized cupcake pan.

Spoon two heaping tablespoons of the remaining batter into paper-lined cupcake tins, so they’re about half-full.

 

Put one heart into each tin and press it point down into the batter. (Keep all the hearts facing towards the dot you drew on the cupcake paper, so you remember which way the heart is facing after the cupcakes are baked.)

Cover with another heaping teaspoon of batter so the heart is completely covered and bake until the cupcakes have turned golden brown and the cake bounces back when you gently press your finger into the top of the cupcake. *I forgot to cover, so a few turned out correctly but majority the hearts where too high! Allow to cool before decorating!  What they should look like out of the oven:

 However, this is what the majority of mine turn out:

With the other sheet of cake, cut out another 24 hearts, like you did previously and set aside.

Whip the butter and cream cheese together in a mixing bowl on medium speed until smooth. Add one cup of the powdered sugar, and mix until fluffy. Then add the other cup of powdered sugar, a half cup at a time, mixing until fluffy.

Here’s the tricky part—you’ll have to keep the cupcakes facing forward so you get the right cross-section of the heart when you cut or bite into the cupcake (to get the full heart effect). That’s where the little dot on the cupcake paper comes in handy. After frosting, I then took one of the cake hearts and cut it half as they were thick and placed the good half on top of the iced cupcake in the center.  I faced it forward so I know which way to cut the cupcake in order to see the heart shape inside.

 

*I made a little description of the cupcake and how to cut it. However, I said to cut it with the heart facing you, but never said to cut it horizontal or vertical. A few people cut it the wrong way, but if you squeeze it together and cut it the other way, it still works!

Love always, aloterlla :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I woke up to a very nice surprise from my awesome roommate, as you can see below; she knows my obsession with cupcakes! 

 

I then got to spend a lovely evening with a two year :)!  We had a nice ravioli with broccoli dinner and then watched some Thomas the train and sesame street!  I brought him a cupcake to share, however he was not into sharing the cupcake with me and I don’t really blame him!

 

Since I had some money to spend on these cupcakes, I got a little more creative in the wrapping.  I of course had to go with a Valentine’s Day themed cupcake!   Here is a little preview of what the finished project looked like:

I will add the recipe and how to later this week!

Love always, aloterella :)

The Cupcake Club!

As much as I am enjoying my cupcake challenge, it is starting to get costly.  Let’s get real I am only a graduate student working two jobs and making a whole lot of money. Thanks to suggestion from two friends, I decided to start charging for my cupcakes.  To make it even cooler, I decided to start the Cupcake Club.

I put together an email and sent it out to friends and co-workers in the area.  The email was:

Hello,

I hope you all are enjoying my 52 week cupcake challenge as much as I am.  As much as I am enjoying it, it is starting to get a little expensive and never thought I could go through so much sugar and flour so fast.  Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, I am going to have to start charging for my cupcakes. 

I am going to start calling it the Cupcake Club and am going to ask for $4 per month for four cupcakes (one each week).  I can take up to 24 members into my cupcake club, first come,first serve!  I would ask for your monthly membership in the beginning of each month to help pay for the supplies/ingredients. 

Now if I haven’t sold you just on the idea of joining a cupcake club, just think that queen city cupcakes sells their cupcakes for $3.50 each, that’s a savings of $2.50 per cupcake or $10 per month.  Also, who doesn’t like a weekly surprise!  And each member gets a free cupcake for their Birthday! :)  Plus you have gotten 5 weeks free already!

If you are interested in joining the Cupcake Club, please let me know!  February will be $3, as there are three more weeks left this month!  

Thanks,

Rachel aka Aloterlla

To date, I currently have 18 members! And still have space for 5 more.. hint hint!!

Since I was able to collect some money, I of course had to go and get some supplies and for those who don’t know me I am bargain shopper.  I got 20lbs of flour on sale for $8.00 at stop and shop and bought more sugar and other supplies at BJs.  Now the question when I came home was how does own put 20lbs of flour in a cabinet.. The answer is no one.  Due to all these supplies, I had to do a little rearranging.   This was the outcome of my shopping, rearranging and purchase of new containers to store all supplies, though I need two bigger containers for flour and sugar!

And thanks to Pinterest, instead of recycling my coffee cream bottle, I reused it for storing chocolate chips.  It’s now easier to pour and measure while baking. 

I also went out and bought short cups to be able to easily handout the cupcakes to all the members and not have to worry about using up all my containers and trying to collect them.  I will show you what they look like next week. 

Love always, aloterella :)

Week 5: Half & Half Football Cupcakes

So I have been a little busy so I took the easy out and found a very simple recipe.  However the easy way out, in my eyes wasn’t so good in the end.  Others enjoyed the cupcake; however, this has got to be my least favorite cupcake.  

I got the original idea from http://paintedpreppy.blogspot.com/2012/01/valentines-day-inspiration.html and http://www.cutefoodforkids.com/2012/01/26-football-shaped-food-ideas.html. 

This recipe involved brownie mix, strawberry cake mix and two cans of frosting (one chocolate & one vanilla), plus your normal eggs, oil and water that the boxes call for.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line cupcake pans with cupcake liners. 
3.  You mix brownie mix according to box in one bowl and mix the strawberry cake according to box in another bowl.
4. Fill the cupcake liners about 1/3 filled with the brownie mix.  Then fill the liners to about 2/3 fill with the strawberry mix.  You will have extra mix, as it makes more than 24 cupcakes.
5.  Bake in oven for the shortest time on the cake mix box.  Cupcakes will be done when you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.
6. Let cupcakes cool completely.
7. Once cupcakes are cooled, using Wilton tip 18 and the chocolate icing move in a s shape but very close together.  Then I used my icing writers from Avon to make the white lines.

It is a pretty easy recipe, and doesn’t take long to make.  When I ran out of chocolate icing, I just used the white icing.

Love always, aloterella :)