Picnic on the Esplanade!

The Star Spangled Banner is playing, it's the perfect temperature outside, I'm sitting with two of my best friends in the world watching the rehearsal for the 4th, and we have CUPCAKES!!! From Curlycakes on Beacon Hill.

Here's to the USA!! Have a great weekend, everyone!

Sweet Easter Tweet

Happy Saturday, Sweets!  I just finished up some cupcakes that I'm bringing around to all of our family stops tomorrow, and wanted to share them with you.  I introduce my Easter Chick Cuppies!

I cannot take creative credit for these-- I saw the idea on Paris Pastry and had to try it for tomorrow.

They are super easy and come out so cute!

In case you're wondering, I used a box mix (gasp!!) for these - a Cinnabon swirl cake, and made my own cream cheese frosting to fill the centers and do the decorating.  Here's to hoping they taste as good as the buns in the mall smell!!

Happy Easter!

Irish Carbomb Cupcakes

I love seasonal baking.  I'm talking apple/cinnamon/pumpkin in the fall, peppermint and chocolate in the winter, citrus and fruit in the summer...but spring always has me caught.  My mind goes floral but I haven't gone much further than lavender (with my Almond Lemon lavender cupcakes).  March is the only springtime month that comes easy.  March means St. Patrick's Day, which means bringing out one of my favorites: Irish Carbomb Cupcakes!

My good friend Christina of All's Fare Food Blog shared my recipe with her readers last year, and I am excited to post it here today with new pictures.  These treats bring the flavors of one of my favorite "shots" (can you call it a shot?) together into a cupcake with Guinness Chocolate Cake, Jameson chocolate ganache filling and Bailey's Irish Cream frosting.

I got an early start this year and baked my first batch of these cupcakes in February to say thank you to my new coworkers.  I've recently started a new job, and I'm sure you all know how the first couple of months go.  There is a lot to learn and a lot of my new coworkers have been awesome helping me along the way so I thought they deserved some boozey-cupcakes.  They disappeared fast, good move by me!

Here is the recipe that I adapted from Smitten Kitchen, this makes about 2 dozen cupcakes - enjoy!

Need:

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 1 c. Guinness (pour first to let it settle)
• 1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter - room temperature
• 3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 2 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 c. sour cream

Jameson Chocolate Ganache:

• 1 1/2 c. chocolate chips
• 2/3 c. heavy cream
• 2 tbsp. butter, room temperature
• 1 nip of Jameson Irish Whiskey

Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting (makes enough for 12...make two batches to have enough for all 24 cupcakes):

• 3 1/2 c. confectioner's sugar
• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 nip of Bailey's Irish Cream

Do: 

1) Make the cupcakes

• Preheat oven to 350F and prep cupcake pan with liners.  
• Bring 1 cup Guinness and 1 cup butter to a simmer in a heavy saucepan over medium heat.
• Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth.  Cool slightly.
• Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and 3/4 tsp. salt in a large bowl to blend.
• Using an electric or stand mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl until light and creamy. 
• Pour Guinness/chocolate mixture into the egg/sour cream bowl and beat to combine. 
• Add flour mixture and beat for about 1 minute on low.
• Using a rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.  Be gentle, but make sure everything is well-mixed. 
• Divide batter among cupcake liners, and bake for about 17 minutes or until a cake tester (toothpick in my case!) comes out clean.  
• Cool cupcakes completely on a wire rack. 

2.  Make ganache (you can start this while the cupcakes are cooling)

• Pour chocolate chips into a heat-proof bowl.  
• Heat the cream in a separate pot until it simmers, then pour over the chocolate.
• Let the cream sit on the chocolate for 1 minute, and then stir until smooth.  If the chocolate has not melted enough to stir it smooth, you can pop it in the microwave for 10-20 seconds and stir again.
• Add the butter and whiskey, and stir until combined. 
• Let the ganache cool until it thickens up a bit.  I put mine in the fridge for about 40 minutes and stir once every 10 minutes per Smitten's suggestion.

3.  Fill the cupcakes

• Use a cupcake corer ($5 at Williams-Sonoma), apple corer, wide piping tip, 1-inch cookie cutter, knife, whatever you have on hand to cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes.
• Save your centers to make a tastie! (A tastie is what I call a small bite of your cake that you can dab frosting on to make sure it tastes good without eating a whole cupcake)
• Give the ganache one last good stir, fill a piping bag or ziplock baggie and cut off a corner, and squeeze the ganache into each cupcake.  It's okay if it is a little over-filled, people will love it and you can cover it with frosting later.

4.  Make the frosting

• Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer for several minutes.  You want it really light and fluffy, I like to use the whisk attachment for this.
• Once the butter is whipped, slowly add your powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
• When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, add in the Bailey's and an extra splash of Jameson if you have extra for good measure, and whip until combined.
• You can add more sugar or more liquid (milk, or booze, either one!) to thicken or thin out the frosting.

5.  Decorate!  Now you're ready to frost your cupcakes any way you like.  Enjoy!

Here's one of my tasties; a cupcake core, a dab of ganache and a dot of frosting- delish!

Here are my cupcakes all filled, pre-frosting

Cupcakery Review - Isabelle's Curly Cakes

Last week I finally had the chance to visit Isabelle's Curly Cakes on Charles Street in Boston.  I have been eager to try Curly Cakes since I saw the signs going up about a year ago.  Isabelle is the daughter of famed chef Todd English, and Curly Cakes is supposedly named after her curly hair.  Weird association, in my opinion, but besides that, everything about Curly Cakes was great!

The shop was clean and tidy, and there was room for a few bistro tables so customers could enjoy their cupcakes on-site.  My friends and I only stayed a minute as I brought my cuppies home with me, so apologies for the lack of shop images.  The take-along box was super cute, though!

Arriving at Curly Cakes around 8:00PM on a Tuesday night resulted in a light selection, but the menu board suggested that early-day cupcake shopping would provide a greater array of flavors.  I chose one basic (Vanilla Bean) and one fun (Red Velvet) to take home and try. 

J & I couldn't choose a favorite.  On the vanilla, the frosting was the best part.  It is smooth, creamy, buttery buttercream that tasted great with the vanilla cake.

The red velvet was impressive because the cocoa flavor was SO prominent; it balanced perfectly with the cream cheese frosting and was one of the better red velvet cakes I've had.

I have to say that Curly Cakes didn't beat out Lulu's as my favorite cupcake in Boston, but it was pretty good and I would definitely stop in again.  If you've tried Curly Cakes, let me know what you think in the comments below!

J & I always share our cupcakes, half to each!

Holiday Dessert Round-Up: Double Chocolate Peppermint Swirl Cupcakes

Well readers, tis the season to BAKE!  Over the next week I will feature a number of holiday desserts that definitely deserve a place on the family dinner table.  All include seasonal flavors and are worth the effort they take to bake!  Some are quick and easy, some, like today's cupcakes, take a bit more time.  Life is sweet, and during this time of year, putting a little extra love into dessert never hurt anyone, so enjoy, sweets!!

Today's featured dessert is Double-Chocolate Peppermint Swirl Cupcakes!  I found these on Pinterest (where else) and decided to bake them up for my office holiday party tomorrow.   Imagine this - super rich, moist dark chocolate cake, filled with white chocolate ganache speckled with bits of candy cane, and topped with deliciously light and airy peppermint buttercream.  Heaven.  Yes, I know!

As I mentioned, these do take a bit of time.  I baked my cupcakes first thing in the morning, let them cool a few hours and then made the ganache which also had to cool before filling the cuppies.  Frosting came last and was well worth the wait.

I followed the recipe by Fields Of Cake exactly, so I will direct you there if you would like to try these out.  If so, here are a few notes that might help you along the way.

First - the cake batter is very liquidy.  I poured mine into a liquid measuring cup and distributed that way, much easier and less messy than a spoon.  I filled my cups about 3/4 up - they baked up into pretty tall domes.  I'd suggest filling half way for a shorter or flatter-topped cupcake.

Next, for the white chocolate ganache, after it was mostly cool and well mixed, I switched my mixer attachment from the paddle to the whisk to add more volume and lighten it up a bit.  I highly suggest this! I had lots of leftovers and plenty for tasting, plus it just made a nice light creamy filling.

Finally, my buttercream tasted too salty after following the recipe exactly.  I used about 1.5 cups of confectioner's sugar before it tasted right to me.

Again, if you'd like to give these a try (and I highly suggest you do- they are amazing!) check out Fields of Cake.  And that's that!  Check back soon for the next holiday dessert; pumpkin whoopie pies!

NYC Trip - Molly's Cupcakes!

Happy Monday everyone!  I am home enjoying a day off from work after the hubs and I had an awesome weekend in NYC.  We stayed with my sorority sister and her fiance in Washington Heights and had a blast watching the Bruins play (and WIN!) in Long Island, brunching in Soho, wandering around Union Square, and cupcake hunting in Greenwich Village!!

We stopped into Molly's Cupcakes on Bleecker Street- you may recognize the name as this shop was the WINNER on Food Network's Cupcake Wars!  What a cool shop.  The variety of cupcakes was impressive - these were unique and fun flavor combinations - there was definitely something for everyone.  I loved the artsy flavor labels!

If for some reason the flavors in the case aren't cutting it, Molly's lets you create your own, too!

A big seller for this cupcake shop is that it's not a teeny tiny storefront with a counter and a register; it's a nice sized cafe with plenty of room to sit, stay, eat, and play.  And by play, I really mean play!  There's a huge case of games that you can break into while enjoying your cupcakes with friends.  If Apples to Apple's isn't your thing, you can still get your 'play' on by enjoying your cupcake on one of the swing benches!

Our fabulous hosts, Amy & Zach, and friend Evan!

Swingy benches- so cool!

We had come here straight from brunch at the Corner Shop Cafe (MUST go--- adorable space and really delicious brunch food like truffled eggs or creme brulee french toast!) so Jake and I considered sharing a cupcake...until we saw the flavors.  After taking one glance at the offerings that "sharing" idea was out the window, hah!  Here's what we tried.

Jake - Cookie Dough (I really need to make these at home, maybe today!)

Amy - Pumpkin Spice

Me - Caramel Butterscotch - PERFECT cake & filling but salted caramel buttercream was way too salty for me

Zach - Cake Batter (oh man that looked good!!)

Evan - Peanut Butter Nutella - he said there was tons of gooey Nutella - YUM!

So needless to say, our cupcake hunt was a great success.  Have you been to Molly's?  What did you think? What other cupcake shops do you love in NYC?  I'll be back in a few weeks looking for another great one to try, so let me know what you think!

Baby Shower Cupcakes

This weekend I had the pleasure of baking up 48 cupcakes for a baby shower!  Did anyone follow my live tweet as I worked on them?  It was a fun project, with one little whoopsy near the end (I dropped my bowl of flour/baking soda mix on the floor.  The bowl shattered into a million pieces and I had no idea how much flour I lost, so I had to eyeball it.  Scary!)  In the end, the cupcakes turned out great!

The order was for 24 chocolate and 24 vanilla cupcakes, all topped with raspberry frosting.  I was so excited for this order because I never tend to bake up the classics, so this was a great opportunity to do it.   I did some research and chose three recipes to follow..links and notes are at the bottom of this post.

Carol, thank you for the order and I hope today's baby shower is filled with love and fun!!!

For the vanilla cupcakes, I followed the Cupcake Project's Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake recipe.  I love this recipe and am keeping it as one of my go-to's.  The batter is super easy to put together.  I was a little nervous that the batter was so liquidy, but it baked up fine.  I had a little issue with crazy tops at first:

but when I filled the cupcake liners a little less and more evenly on the 2nd batch, they were perfect.  This cake is super light, nice and moist, and a strong, delicious vanilla flavor.  LOVE this recipe.

For the chocolate cupcakes, I followed the Magnolia Bakery recipe.  This recipe took a bit longer to make, mostly because you have to melt the chocolate and then wait for it to cool down a bit.  The nice thing about this recipe is that it made enough batter for 2 dozen cupcakes...I ended up getting 30 cupcakes from it.  The batter on this one was to die for.  My husband likes to "taste test" all of my batters, and he thought this one was frosting, not cake batter.  It is thick, moussy, delish.  The finished cake is much denser than the vanilla one, just as intense in flavor.  They baked up perfectly even, probably because I used a cookie scoop and made sure to put the exact same amount of batter in each cup.  LOVE love love this recipe.

Now for the frosting, I found a recipe for raspberry cream cheese frosting and tweaked it a little bit.  The original recipe called for adding a little liquor for taste and that just didn't seem right to do for a baby shower.  Here's the end recipe that I used.  It's sweet (but not TOO sweet!) and has a very intense raspberry flavor.  I know I've used that adjective a few times already-- I'm telling you, these cupcakes are so, SO flavorful.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting:
Need:
-1 8oz pack of cream cheese - room temp
-1 stick of unsalted butter - room temp
-1/2 a stick of shortening (4 oz) - room temp
-1/4 cup of seedless raspberry jam
-1 1/2 tablespoons of raspberry flavored jello powder
-2 lbs powdered sugar

Do:
1.  Beat cream cheese, butter and shortening together until light and fluffy.
2.  Add raspberry jam and 1 tablespoon of jello powder, beat to combine.
3.  Add powdered sugar in 4 parts.  Add in the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of jello powder with your third part of sugar.

Note- using the full 2 lbs of sugar will give you a nice thick frosting that is good for acheiving a firm design when decorating like in my pictures above.  You can certainly add less for a more creamy frosting, or even a glaze if you'd like.

Enjoy!

My To-Bake List

Is anyone else as addicted to Pinterest as I am?  Talk about inspiration!  To pass on the love, I'm sharing the beautiful photos and ideas that make up my current "To-Bake" list.  Let me know if you've made any of these items, and how they came out!


Inside-out carrot cake cupcakes


Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

Cookie dough cupcake

Oreo-stuffed brownies

Everything Fall Cupcakes!

Fall is in full swing here in New England and what better way to celebrate crisp days, pretty leaves, and cozy nights than with cupcakes?!  This year I was in the mood for something a little different than my typical pumpkin spice cupcake, so I turned one of my favorite blogs, Cupcakes Take the Cake, for a little inspiration and found the holy grail of cupcake creativity; The Cupcake Project!

If you love cupcakes, you need to check out this site.  The writer posts so many creative flavors and combinations; it's awesome!

Today's cupcake is one straight from the Cupcake Project blog- I didn't change anything, though I did leave the cranberries off the top.  Since I didn't modify this recipe at all, feel free to check out the original here!

For now, here's the low-down...first you make a batch of mini apple cobbler cupcakes and top them with some brown sugar glazey icing that is just like the icing on a donut. Ho-ly-mo-ly good luck to you saving enough to complete this project.  The fact that they are mini and moist and addictive makes this a hard task, so I suggest hiding them until they're cool and ready to be frozen.  Seriously!

Next you make your big-cupcake batter; pumpkin with real maple syrup and rum.  This is one of those batters where you freak out because it looks curdled and nasty at first, but don't worry, it comes together beautifully and ends up looking and smelling like a delicate pumpkin mousse.

Bake the pumpkin batter with a frozen mini (wrapper removed) in the center and you have your cupcake.  The last step is whipping up an easy batch of cinnamon cream cheese icing and topping your cuppies with love, and voi-la.  You have the best fall dessert you've ever made.

These fall cupcakes SO good, and you can easily taste all of the flavors...except for the rum.  I used Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum (my favorite dark rum) and I think it was just overpowered by the maple and pumpkin.

This project does take some serious prep time; you have to freeze the mini cupcakes overnight.  This was a 2-day baking project for me, but it was a lot of fun and the taste makes it worth every minute.  Check out the Cupcake Project's original recipe here, and enjoy!!

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Recently my buddy Christina of All's Fare Food Blog did a post on an amazing looking apple cheesecake she made.  The post has a VERY funny (although probably not funny to her in the moment) story about her baking adventure, I highly recommend checking it out!

So Christina's cheesecake post reminded me that last week I made my first batch of cheesecake cupcakes, and that I really wanted to blog about them!  These cupcakes were super easy and fast to whip up, and went over extremely well!  I brought them to work for a meeting I was leading, and they were gone before I knew it.   The strawberries on top made them seem kind of summery, but I think the switch to fall-centric sweets will be coming soon.

I went with the cheesecake cupcakes because a coworker of mine asked me if I had ever made them, and I had not!  I figured this meeting was an appropriate time to let my work friends be the taste-testers for my first attempt.  Sad thing- the coworker who asked about them missed the meeting!  (Next time, Nancy!)

Anyway, these cuppies are great crowd pleasers, and the product of my southern love, Miss Paula Deen!  Here's my slightly tweaked version of Paula Deen's Easy Cheesecake Cupcakes.  This recipe is enough for 12 cupcakes.  Enjoy!

Need:
-2 8-oz packages of light cream cheese, softened
-1 cup sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-2 eggs
-1.5 graham crackers (3 squares)
-1 cup strawberry jam
-6 fresh strawberries

Do:
1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake pan with paper liners
2.  Beat cream cheese until fluffy
3.  Add sugar and vanilla, beat well
4.  Beat in eggs, one at a time
5.  Break each of your three graham cracker squares into four small pieces, place one mini square in the bottom of each cupcake cup
6.  Spoon cream cheese mixture ontop of the graham crackers in each cup
7.  Bake for 20 minutes
8.  Let cupcakes cool completely.  When cool, put a spoonful of strawberry jam ontop, and garnish with half a fresh strawberry