Easter Eggs in a Nest Cupcakes

 This is my final entry for the project, I decided I would make enough for the entire class, 

so this meant 48 cupcakes!!

I thought since Easter was coming I would make some fancy festive cupcakes.

 I have never made so many ever, so this was quite the task.

 The batter I used was the Yellow Sunshine Cupcakes recipe, so I could use my own recipe to show off to the class and also so I could add colors to the batter to create the pastel Easter colors I was hoping for. I had to quadruple the recipe to make 48 cupcakes, as my original recipe was for 12.

 I added the amount of food coloring that was on the back of the food coloring box to create a turquoise, pink, purple and yellow.

 I made the Butter Cream Icing to start the nests for the eggs. I added margarine, instead of butter, as one of the quadruples to make the icing a bit more smooth. I also added yellow food coloring to make it more spring like.

 I then used some chocolate icing and mixed it in with the butter cream to make the actual nests. The Chocolate Creamy Icing was what I had used for the yellow sunshine cupcakes and they tasted really good together. I also wanted to make the nests the color of twigs and hay. I piped the nest in a circle to create a basket type for laying the candy eggs in.

 I used some malted chocolate candy coated eggs and sour jelly bean eggs to add more color and crunch!

It took a long time to make these, but it was really fun, 

especially to see all the bright colors and to finish off the project.

Final Product Enjoy-W!

Sunshine Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

 Since it was a snow day today, I wanted to make something that was fun and sunshine filled. I decided to make my own recipe, since I was feeling good and this is what ended up happening:

With an electric mixer I mixed together sugar and wet ingredients all at once:

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 milk

2 eggs

1/4 butter or margarine

1/2 tsp of vanilla

 I also mixed together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl using a wooden spoon:

1 1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Once you have the two different mixes mixed well, start to add the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients mixture. Add about half of the dry mixture and keep adding slowly as you mix with the electric mixer on medium speed. 

After the full thing is mixed together, I added about half of a small bottle of food coloring (Yellow) to make sunshine filled cupcakes.

 Put them in the oven for approximately 20 minutes on 350 degrees.

 For the icing, I mixed:

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

3 cups of icing sugar

4 tablespoons of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1/4 cup baking cocoa 

Mix all of the ingredients on medium speed with an electric mixer, adding the milk in separately each time you add one cup of icing sugar. I added the butter and cocoa together first along with 1 tablespoon of milk and the vanilla to blend well before adding the icing sugar. Each time I added another cup of icing sugar, I added in another tablespoon of milk, just for easier blending.

 Once I took the cupcakes out of the oven, they had turned out great. I added on the chocolate frosting, but I did not do anything fancy as they tasted great and that is all I needed!

Final Product Enjoy-W!

St. Patty's Day Cupcakes

 For St. Patty's day, I decided I wanted to make something festive. I had also wanted so badly to try red velvet cupcakes, so I finally found a good recipe for those and gave it a shot.

 

I got this recipe for red velvet cupcakes from Allrecipes.com, these were really simple and turned out very tasty! The site gave me the option to change the measurements from their option for 30 cupcakes to 12, so some of the measurements are a bit odd, but I rounded to make them even amounts. This worked out well for me, as I never noticed any bad parts to them!

1 cup flour

3 tablespoons of cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup softened butter

3/4 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons milk

1/2 small bottle of red food coloring (approximately 20 drops)

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in another bowl on medium speed 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. 

Beat in eggs, one at a time, adding sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla gradually also. 

Add in dry ingredients mixer about half at a time, beat on low speed to prevent over mixing.  This batter gets quite thick, so do not mix too much to ensure it will be easy to scoop. 

Add batter to muffin tins, about 2/3 full.

 I then made butter cream icing. I decided I wanted to try to make it a bit smoother than usual, to make it easier to spread through the icing bag. All I did was add some vanilla for extra taste, and added an extra tablespoon of milk. It worked out well in the end, but I would only use it for times when you have a smaller sized icing tip, as it was a bit too smooth for this design.

The recipe I used for this was:

3 cups icing sugar

5 tbs of milk (to make it a bit more smooth consistency-easy to spread)

¼ tsp vanilla

250 g butter

(doubled the recipe to make 12)

 I also added some fondant four leaf clovers. 

The recipe for the fondant can be found on the Icing Recipes page.

Final Product Enjoy-W!

The Unconventional Cupcakes

 These are definitely not your every day cupcakes, but I love this idea so much that I just had to put them in. PLUS you make them in a muffin tin, so I thought they could pass as Pizza Cupcakes!

 These are fairly simple to make, first take pita bread and cut it into circles (I use a biscuit cutter or a can that will give a good sized circle) Then place these pieces in the muffin tin, squishing the bottom all the way down to the bottom and making sure the sides are up enough to hold in the rest of the ingredients.

 Then add in some pizza sauce. I used one small can of pizza sauce for 30 of these pizzas.

 

I then cut up pepperoni, you can use any meats you would like and you can even add in vegetables (any ingredient you like on your pizza) but don't add too much. Having an over flow will make the ingredients slide out of the pita.

 Shred some cheese, again any kind will do. I used cheddar. Only about a pinch will be enough for each pizza, depending on how much you like.

 Cook on 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, depending on your oven or until they are brown and the cheese has melted.

Final Product Enjoy-W!

Spring Flowers Cupcakes

 Since it has been so sunny in PEI lately, I decided I wanted to celebrate this and make some spring type cupcakes. I knew that the last flower design I used was quite successful and tasty, so I decided to do some potted plant looking goodies.

 I found a new chocolate cupcake recipe, which would be the "dirt" in the potted plant. Here is the recipe for the batter: (it is from Glorious Treats Blog)

I used half the recipe as this would make 24 cupcakes.

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup olive oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

With a wooden spoon, mix together all dry ingredients:

sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Then add in the liquid ingredients and beat with electric mixture with medium speed:

Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. 

Stir in boiling water. This will make the batter quite runny and thin but that is fine. It will make the cupcakes very fluffy.

Fill liners 2/3 full with batter.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until they are cooked the full way through, testing with a cake tester.

 I used some flowery cupcake tins to add a little more spring feel to the design.

 I then cut 6 marshmallows in half for the middle of the flowers.

 I added a touch of yellow food coloring, you can add whatever color you would like your flowers to be.

 I dipped this food coloring side in light candy sprinkles, to add more flavor to the marshmallow.

 I used fondant for the leaves and the petals, I still had some left over from the first batch, so I used green for the leaves and red for the petals. The recipe for these can be found on the Icing Recipes page under Marshmallow Fondant.

 Once I took the cupcakes out of the oven, I noticed they were the perfect size for doing icing, they were quite flat on the top which works out perfect for these types of designs.

 I used Buttercream Icing to decorate as grass on top of the "dirt", you can find the recipe for the icing on the Icing Recipes page also, under butter cream icing (not the one with salt).

 I added the fondant petals and leaves to the icing, along with some more sugary sprinkles in green to add to the grass.

 I did not make them all the same, some with four petals and some with three or four leaves, but this added to them and makes each one a bit special.

Final Product Enjoy!-W

Ice Cream Wanna-Be+Oreo Cupcakes

 It has been a few weeks since my last post, but I thought I would come back with a great treat!

I have been having requests for Oreo cupcakes again, since the first batch was so good. 

I have also really wanted to make come chocolate dipped icing cupcakes, since they always looked delicious online!

 I gathered up all the ingredients, for the Betty Crocker recipe that I found in one of my books I have, Just Cupcakes. I used the White Cupcake recipe:

(I halfed the recipe to make 12 cupcakes, well guesstimated since most of the measurements are hard to divide in half)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

 

2 1/4 cups flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 2/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup shortening

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups milk

Blend all of these ingredients together with an electric mixer. Once it is all blended, mix in 5 egg whites. (I had never done up egg whites before..it was definitely an experience but it really isn't hard)

I then added 12 crushed up Oreos (if you are doing 24 cupcakes I would say 24 Oreos).

After everything is all blended well, you can scoop the batter into the pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

 I then made a recipe for White Creamy Frosting from Betty Crocker's book too. 

This was a very simple recipe, just like the others I have used. I used the full recipe and it did well for 12 cupcakes.

4 cups icing sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 tablespoons milk

Blend icing sugar and shortening together with electric mixer, and then add in vanilla and milk and blend until smooth.

 To make the chocolate dip, I made up my own recipe. I used to work at an Ice Cream parlor, and so using my "expertise" from the chocolate dip we used to have there, I went on taste and sticky-ness factor. 

You will melt all of the ingredients in together over the stove.

(This was a great amount for 12 cupcakes)

2 cups chocolate chips

1/4 cup shortening

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

First melt over medium heat, until all chocolate chips are melted, then leave over low heat until you are complete of dipping.

 I made the icing look like ice cream on top of the cupcakes, it doesn't have to be perfect, since many times when you get a scoop of ice cream it is sort of lumpy and falling. Just make sure that you have the icing sticking well on the top of the cupcake because if not you will have icing plop into your chocolate dip mix!

As you dip, make sure to hold the cupcake above the mix to allow any excess chocolate drip off.

I also put them in the freezer on a baking sheet for approximately 5 minutes just to harden the chocolate so it would not drip everywhere.

Final Product -Enjoy W!