My Picks for UFC 100. In Cupcake Form of Course!

Is anyone else excited for UFC 100?? I have been anticipating the rematch between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir for months and months and months!!!

BF is rooting for Mir. I'm a diehard Lesnar fanatic. So I decided this time to let the cupcakes do the talking!! As always, just click on the picture for a closer look.



They turned out awesome, but it was a long time getting here. First I made a batch of Chocolate Raspberry cupcakes, using the recipe from the book Crazy About Cupcakes.

They were by far the worst cupcakes I've ever made. I was so disappointed. Usually the recipes in this book are really good, but this one was the exception I guess. While I was mixing the batter I fell in love. There were so many fabulous ingredients, like cocoa, raspberries, sour cream and toasted almonds. The batter was so soft and luxurious, I had never made anything like it.

Into the oven they went and when they came out, they had hardly risen at all. As they cooled, the centers sunk into the middles of the cupcakes and the cupcakes pulled away from the liners. The taste was awful. They were gritty, and tasted like unsweetened cocoa despite the 1 1/2 cups of sugar in them. I was so sad. I almost gave up.

Then BF brought me a brand new stick of butter, a bag of sugar and a carton of eggs, gave me a kiss and asked me to try again. I found a jar of cherries in the fridge and made a batch of my tried and true cherry cupcakes. Perfect. I topped them with swirls of chocolate buttercream and popped my fondant decorations on top.

I'm especially pleased with how my fondant rendition of Mir turned out. This was the first time I've ever made a face out of fondant, I'm more of a flower person to be sure. Here he is in real life and in beaten up fondant form:
I cut out all of the pieces (except the letters) freehand. I was a little stumped with how to make his hair look textured, and ended up using the rough edges that occur naturally when you roll out the fondant. I think they turned out great.

BF was very unhappy with this cupcake.

So we've got cupcakes and I made a batch of pulled pork for sandwiches for the party tonight.

Lesnar, GSP, Henderson, don't let me down!!!

Post Fight Thoughts: Hey, all three of my guys won! Maybe my cupcakes are lucky? Now if only the Atlantic Lotto Commission would extend their sports betting to include the UFC, lol.

Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes! With Recipes!

Oh, these were too much fun to make!!

I know I'm a couple weeks late, but these were actually Father's Day cupcakes, I just wasn't able to get together with my dad on the actual holiday (his work sent him to Australia, how awesome is that?). My Dad has a definite silly side, so I thought he would appreciate some cupcakes in disguise. When I saw this idea for spaghetti and meatball cupcakes in the book Hello, Cupcake! I knew it would be perfect!

They really look like spaghetti, don't they?

I loved the concept of these cupcakes, but the actual recipe in the book includes more premade ingredients than I am comfortable using in my baking, so I made everything (except for the meatballs!) from scratch. I made peach cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting, strawberry sauce and Ferrero Rocher chocolates. If you've never had a Ferrero Rocher, I have to say they are probably my favorite chocolate that you can buy at the drugstore. Starting from the center and working out, they consist of a hazelnut in the core, surrounded by chocolate hazelnut cream, a thin chocolate wafer shell, and a chocolate and crushed hazelnut coating on the outside. Just the perfect combination of crunchy and smooth. So decadent! Their size, colour and outer texture make them perfect fake meatballs.

Here are my recipes and the assembly instructions.

Recipe: Peach Cupcakes

Makes about 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla
  
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 large can of peach slices

Drain peaches. Cut slices in half lengthwise and then into small pieces crosswise until you have 1 1/2 cups of peach pieces. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating for a full minute after each addition. Add vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to the cream mixture, alternating with the milk and mixing after each addition. Mix for an additional two minutes after all the dry ingredients and milk have been added so that the batter is nice and fluffy. Gently fold in peaches.

Bake at 350 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes until cupcakes test done with a toothpick. Allow to cool completely before decorating.


Recipe: Vanilla Buttercream frosting (Spaghetti colour)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 to 3 Tbsp milk
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp cocoa
  
• small amount of yellow icing colour (only use a tiny bit, we want the frosting to be more of an off-white than a bright yellow)
  

Beat butter and shortening together for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix. Add icing sugar about 1 cup at a time, mixing until combined after each addition. Add cocoa and icing colour and mix until colour is uniform. Add milk 1 Tbsp at a time until the frosting reaches the proper consistency.


Recipe: Strawberry sauce

Ingredients

• 1 pint of fresh strawberries, halved
  
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp water
  

Combine the first four ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until sauce has thickened somewhat.

Allow the sauce to cool and then puree in a blender or food processor. Return the sauce to the saucepan and return to a gentle boil. Combine cornstarch and remaining water in a separate bowl. Slowly pour into the strawberry mixture, stirring the sauce as you pour. Continue to cook the sauce for another minute or two until it has thickened. Allow to cool completely before using it on the cupcakes.


Now, time to put it all together! (this is the easy part)

Recipe: Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 24 cupcakes
• 1 batch of vanilla buttercream frosting, spaghetti colour
• 1 batch of strawberry sauce
  
• 24 Ferrero Rocher chocolates
• 1/2 ounce white chocolate, finely grated

Using a spatula, spread a thin layer of frosting on each cupcake. Arrange cupcakes in a rectangle on the dish you want to serve them on.

Place remaining frosting in an icing bag with a #5 tip (alternately you can just cut 1/8" off of the tip of a disposable bag. I don't use this method because I find it puts a seam in the icing from the seam in the bag).

Squeeze out the icing on to the cupcakes sort of randomly, making sure to cover all of the areas (including the gaps between the cupcakes), so that there is spaghetti icing mounded on top of each cupcake and draping down the sides a little bit.

Coat each chocolate with strawberry sauce. The thinner the coat of sauce, the better because it allows you to see the texture of the meatball better. Set aside.

Take the remaining sauce and gently spoon it onto each cupcake, making sure not to deform the 'noodles'. Again, a thinner coat is better. I recommend putting a little bit of sauce in the center of each cupcake and gently working it over to connect to the other cupcakes using the back of a spoon, adding more sauce where required.

Place a chocolate in the center of each cupcake and sprinkle some of the white chocolate on top of each cupcake. You're all done!


Here are a dozen packed in a foil tray ready to be taken to my Dad's house.

New Bento Book! And my bento lunches are in it!!!

I'm too excited!!

The photos and recipes for some of my bento lunches have been included in this brand new book called 501 Bento Box Lunches. I've known about it for a while, but I was waiting until I actually had the book in my hand before I was ready to tell everyone.

When I first sent my photos and recipes to the publisher (twenty of which have been included in the book) and she told me she was compiling a collection of 500, I couldn't even begin to imagine the work that would go into organizing all of that information. But somehow, she pulled it off! There are pages and pages of recipes, and pictures of each and every bento lunch. It's all compacted into a neat little package. Like many of the bento boxes I've ordered online, the book was smaller than I expected but it's exactly the size it needs to be to include all of the information.

If you want to check it out, I've included links to some sample pages below (with the publisher's permission of course). I've also included it in the list of my favorite bento cookbooks in the left column of this blog so that you can link to its listing on Amazon.

I love this book and I'm not just saying that because I'm affiliated. I think it is an amazing source of inspiration and I can only turn a few pages before I see something new I want to try. I don't think it's a great beginner book, as it doesn't cover off a lot of the basics of bento making (like how to make onigiri, ratios of rice to meat to veg content, speed tips, etc.) but if you ever need a place to go for new ideas, this book is the best one I've seen.

Here are the links to the sample pages:

Pages 18 - 19
Pages 80 - 81
Pages 94 -95
Pages 126 to 127

Butterfly Fondant Cupcake Toppers

After the rose cake I made earlier this week, I had all kinds of marshmallow fondant left over. My grandmother said that she had never had a fondant covered cake before, so I decided to make some fondant cupcakes just for her.

This is my first foray into the world of fondant cupcake toppers and I am really pleased with how they turned out (although there is always room for improvement of course!).

The cupcakes are plain chocolate with chocolate buttercream and marshmallow fondant toppers. The recipe for the fondant can be found here and the recipe for the cake is here (it's the one on the side of a can of Hershey's cocoa. Such an amazing cake recipe! And great when you don't have any butter on hand). The design for the toppers was based on some cupcakes I had seen on Flickr earlier this week, so I can't take the credit for that.
I already had lots of blue and white fondant left over from the cake, so I just needed to make some pink by kneading in some colour (I used Wilton Aster Mauve icing colour) with some of the white fondant.

I made the butterflies and the flowers ahead of time, using three different sized blossom cutters and a butterfly cutter (all Wilton) and allowed them to dry overnight so that they would hold their shape. For the butterflies, I left them to dry in folded pieces of cardboard lined with wax paper, laying the center of the butterfly in the crease of the cardboard so that it would dry in the correct shape with its wings angled up. For the larger flowers (although they're all quite small), I first used a small ball tool to made a round dent in each of the petals and then a large ball tool quickly pressed in the center of the flower to give the blossom an overall rounded shape. For each of the two smaller flowers, I used the small ball tool in the center of the flowers. I dried the flowers in Wilton flower formers.

This morning when I made the cupcakes, I assembled the toppers as the cupcakes cooled after coming out of the oven. The first step was to roll out the blue fondant to a little less than a quarter inch thickness and punch out circles the size of the cupcakes. Next I piped on the most of the green frosting, starting with a dot in the center to anchor the butterfly (using tip #12) followed by the vines piped with tip #3. Then I placed the butterflies and flowers on the cupcakes, secured by the buttercream and finished off the vines by piping some leaves on them using tip #352 (I love this tip!! It makes gorgeous leaves of all sizes so easily). The last step was to pipe little yellow dots in the center of each of the flowers and then the body of the butterfly, all using a #2 tip.

Once I got going, I was able to make thirty toppers fairly quickly. I think they look quite nice for how little work they were. After the toppers were complete, I frosted the cupcakes and gently placed a topper on each one. The frosting holds it in place.

I brought some over to my mother's house for Nanny to try and she liked them, so I call that a success. Most of the rest of them will be accompanying BF to his scuba class tomorrow. As of tomorrow afternoon he will be a certified rescue diver! I am so proud of him (not to mention happy that if I get in trouble when I'm learning to dive this summer, he will be able to rescue me, lol)

I can't wait to try this technique again. I think I need to work on getting the edges of the toppers to line up properly with the edges of the cupcakes as you can still see parts of the wrapper when you look at the cupcakes top-down. Suggestions welcome as always!

And here is another picture of my army of butterflies

Earth Day Cupcakes

Today BF and I connected with a bunch of his scuba diving buddies and celebrated Earth Day with a good old fashioned beach cleanup. Of course, I made cupcakes.

I thought they turned out pretty cute. The cupcakes are cherry flavoured with almond buttercream (The recipes are on one of my previous posts, here). As usual, when baking for people I don't know well, I went with a tried and true recipe that has gotten good reviews in the past.

To keep with the Earth Day theme, I swirled the icing by colouring half of it leaf green and the other half sky blue (nice nature colours!) and filling the pastry bag with half of each (one on each side of the bag). In the center of each, I placed a foil-covered chocolate planet Earth. I picked these up at a local candy store (Sweet Janes near Spring Garden Road for all of you Haligonians out there) and did my best to match the frosting colours to them. The frosting was piped with a 1M tip as usual.

Everyone really liked them and there were none left to bring home, so I think that counts as a success!

Easter Bunny Mango and Coconut Cupcakes Recipe

It's BF's birthday tomorrow!!!

And it just so happened that his birthday fell on Easter weekend this year, so that means Easter themed cupcakes!

Since it's his birthday, I let BF pick the flavour of the cupcakes and he decided on mango. I saw this idea for Easter bunny cupcakes on the Kraft website and I thought they were too cute so I decided to do something similar. Instead of marshmallow bunnies I used these adorable belgian chocolate bunnies that I found. They are wonderfully detailed with cute little faces. I fell in love as soon as I saw them. Each bunny sits on a bed of grass (just mix 1 tsp water with some green food colouring, throw it in a ziplock bag with some shredded coconut and shake!) and is watching over a couple of the tiniest Easter eggs I've ever seen (Cadbury Micro Mini Eggs).

When they were finished I thought they looked like a little army of bunnies. BF approved.

Here's the recipe:

Mango Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated and at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup mango puree (it comes in a can)
1 mango, peeled and diced finely

Recipe makes about 3 dozen cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line muffin tins.

In a large bowl, cream butter on medium speed for about a minute. Slowly pour in sugar and beat for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix to combine. Add yolks, two at a time, beating for a full minute after each addition.

In a second bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed mixture in three additions, alternating with the mango puree.

In a third bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer on high until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into the batter.

Fold in diced mango pieces. Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full and bake for 22 to 25 minutes until tests done with a toothpick. Allow to cool before frosting.

I topped these cupcakes with coconut buttercream, the recipe for which I previously posted here.

Easter Basket Cheesecake Cupcakes

These cupcakes were also inspired by the Kraft website. I had never made cheesecake cupcakes before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it. Because the cheesecake doesn't rise and puff up like a regular cake, they don't quite reach the top of the cupcake cup, leaving ample room to fill them with Easter goodies.

I think that no cheesecake is complete without a crust, so I started with a vanilla wafer crumb crust topped with vanilla cheesecake. Once that had was finished baking, I allowed the cakes to cool completely and then refrigerated them. I finished them off with a chocolate topping and basket decorations made from shredded coconut, green shoelace licorice and jelly beans. They turned out wonderfully rich and decadent, I can't wait to serve them at BF's birthday party tomorrow!

Here are the recipes. Makes approximately 20 cupcakes.

Recipe: Vanilla Wafer Crumb Crust

Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs

Melt butter. Mix with crumbs until fully combined. Spoon 1 Tbsp of the crumb mixture in each muffin cup. Firmly press the crumbs into the base of the cups using the back of a spoon. Be sure the crust reaches out to the edges of the bottom of the cup.


Recipe: Vanilla Cheesecake

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sour cream
2 8oz packages of cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp flour
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place sour cream in mixing bowl and beat for a few seconds until fluffy. Add cream cheese and continue to beat until evenly combined and fluffy. Add sugar, vanilla and flour and mix until combined. Add eggs one at a time, mixing on low speed just until combined.

Spoon into muffin cups on top of the vanilla wafer crumb crust, so that muffin cups are 3/4 full. Bake for 22 -25 minutes or until centers are almost set. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for about an hour.

Recipe: Chocolate Topping

Ingredients:
5 oz semisweet chocolate (5 squares)
1/2 cup sour cream

Melt chocolate over a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream. Place a thin layer of the chocolate on top of each cupcake using the back of a spoon (to avoid getting chocolate on the paper wrapper).

Take a 4" length of shoelace licorice and press each end through the cheese cake about 2mm from the edge of the cake, forming the handle of the basket. Sprinkle the cupcake with coconut and place a few candies in the center of the cupcake.

Coconut Cupcakes Recipe

Once in a while, something will come out of my kitchen that truly amazes me.

These coconut cupcakes definitely qualify.

I was inspired to make these by an episode of Good Eats. The talented Alton Brown was on a quest to make the perfect coconut cake, and I was so intrigued by his recipe, that I had to try it out.

There were two reasons I wanted to try out this recipe.

• It uses not one, not two, not three but four different forms of coconut
• I get so excited when I see a recipe that uses a fresh ingredient where I've always been using ready made ingredients, in this case shredded coconut. I've always used the dessicated kind that you buy in a bag so I was stoked to try to take a whole coconut and make it into a bowl full of perfect shreds of fresh coconut.

Lastly, I'll say that I was extremely tempted to add pineapple flavour to these. It took all of my self control to just allow them to be plain coconut flavoured, without so much as a hint of vanilla. And am I ever glad! They turned out light and fluffy with the most exquisite coconut flavour I've ever experienced. The light, airy texture of the cupcakes meant that too much frosting could overpower them, so rather than pipe a big swirl, I just spread the frosting with a spatula and then flipped them upside down and dipped them in a bowl of the fresh, shredded coconut.

To make the shredded coconut, first drain the coconut by using a hammer to poke holes into its three 'eyes' with a screwdriver and then placing over a bowl until all of the coconut water drains out. Place the coconut on its side and hit with a hammer a few times until it cracks and you can split it in half. Separate the meat from the shell by sliding a dull knife (I used a butter knife) between them, and then cut the brown rind from the meat using a paring knife. Wash the white parts of the coconut to remove any bits of fibre and place pieces in a food processor using the grater disk.

Here is the recipe, which is Alton Brown's with the following changes:

• Adapted from a cake recipe to a cupcake recipe
• Used buttercream frosting rather than 7-minute frosting (I ran out of eggs)
  

Recipe: Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream frosting

Ingredients

• 14 1/4 oz cake flour,approximately 3 cups
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 8 oz butter, room temperature
• 16 oz sugar, approximately 2 1/4 cups
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 4 egg whites

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 shortening
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 5 Tbsp coconut milk
• Grated coconut from 1 coconut, approximately 8 to 10 ounces
  

For the Cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Makes about 30 cupcakes.

Place the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Combine the coconut milk and coconut cream in small bowl and set aside.

Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer and using the paddle attachment, cream on medium speed until fluffy, approximately 1 minute. Decrease the speed to low and gradually add the sugar slowly over 1 to 2 minutes. Once all of the sugar has been added, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides. Turn the mixer back on to medium speed and continue creaming until the mixture noticeably lightens in texture and increases slightly in volume, approximately 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the coconut extract.

With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk mixture to the butter and sugar in 3 batches, ending with the milk mixture. Do not over mix.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter, just until combined. Fill cupcake cups about 2/3 full. Place in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for 25 minutes or until cupcakes start to become golden brown around the edges and a toothpick pressed in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in the pans for 10 minutes then remove and transfer to a cooling rack.

For the Frosting:
Cream butter and shortening together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes on medium speed.Add coconut extract and mix to combine.

Gradually add icing sugar until combined. Add coconut milk, 1 Tbsp at a time until the frosting reaches desired consistency.

Spread frosting on top of each cupcake and then dip cupcakes in shredded coconut to coat the tops.