Chunky Monkey Cupcakes

Want there to be a party in your mouth? Then try these cupcakes. Playing around with ingredients one afternoon and having the flavors of my favorite breakfast smoothie in mind, I came up with my own Chunky Monkey Cupcakes.



Chocolate-Banana Cake

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
• 1 cup mashed bananas
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs

Prepare according to directions on box.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

• 2/3 cup natural, creamy peanut butter
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Mix together peanut butter and butter. Slowly mix in sugar. The measurements for the ingredients are really only guidelines. I tend to adjust as I mix the ingredients together and taste everything.

Last step: Drizzle with caramel topping, the sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Eggnog Cupcakes

For me, one of the true marks of the holiday season is eggnog. So naturally when I needed to make cupcake for my office holiday potluck, eggnog cupcakes came to mind. For this particular cupcake adventure, I decided that I wanted to modify a cake mix instead of trying everything from scratch. This way I could save a little time, and cash.

Thanks to some extensive Google research, I found an eggnog cake recipe that uses a mix.

Here is the recipe that I followed, modified slightly to be made as cupcakes.


Ingredients:

* 4 ounces butter, softened
* 1 cup eggnog
* 1/4 cup rum
* 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 3 large eggs
* 1 package vanilla cake mix

Preparation:
Heat oven to 325°.

Beat butter until light; beat in eggs and eggnog and rum. Add vanilla, nutmeg, and cake mix; beat slowly to combine, then beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Spoon into cupcake liners. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

The batter tasted to delicious!!

The frosting was kind of my own invention. I just wanted to make a simple cinnamon buttercream frosting. I used two sticks of butter, about 3 cups confectioner's sugar, 3 tablespoons of eggnog, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. I tend to add things to my frosting depending on how it tastes. For this particular one, I think I ended up adding a little more vanilla which then required me to add some more confectioner's sugar so it wouldn't get too runny.

So of course I was making these cupcakes at the last possible second because I was trying to get out the door and make it on time for work. Unfortunately, I was a bad little blogger so I didn't take any pictures.

Here is an example of how I wanted them to look:
source: living artfully

In all honestly, my cupcakes were not decorated with love. My last frosting bag busted, so I had to frost them old school with a spatula. I did, however, throw some red and green christmas sprinkles on there to help add some color.

Enjoy!

A week in review...

Oh last week was so hectic! Even though I had quite a lot going on, there is always time to be crafty...

Last Monday, my mother and I were in the car and we happened to pass by a wicker armoire that someone was throwing out. It was sitting on the curb all lonely and abandoned, so we rescued it. It really was the moral thing to do. Eight, yes I said eight, cans of white spray paint later and voila! I ditched my old broken bureau and I now was a fancy armoire.

Please don't mind the mess around it. The photo was taken before I finished cleaning and rearranging my room. Which by the way, made me realize that I'm a HOARDER!

Here's another inside shot. I haven't hung up any clothes yet, but there's potential.

Unfortunately I forgot to take some before pictures, but originally the paint was all chipped and it was a very dingy, yellowed color.

The next crafty thing of the week was a gift. My wonderful boyfriend bought me What's New Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.


It's an amazing book with so many really cute ideas. On Friday I decided to make one of the designs that were classified as "EZ," meaning they were not only relatively simple, but they also only needed a few ingredients. The cupcakes that I made used M&M's to look like bake sale pies. My only regret is that I forgot to buy silver foil cupcake liners, as recommended by the book.

The book recommends cutting the corner off of a ziplock bag and using that to pipe the "crust" around the pie. I couldn't quite get the hand of it, so I cheated and used a star tip and a pastry bag. However I did use the ziplock bag method for the lines across the pie.

Instead of buying a bag of M&M's in a single color, which were really pricey, I went with two bags of the regular kind. I did get to spend some fun time separating the candy by color into bags.

Enjoy my cherry, blueberry, and lemon pies!

Recipe: Tiramisu Cake/Cupcakes

Tiramisu is my absolute, all time, hands down, favorite dessert! I just love everything about it. The flavors, the textures, the caffeine... (I'm a coffee junkie, by the way).

On Saturday nights, we have "dessert night" at the place I work. The lucky baker this week made tiramisu cupcakes. They were so delicious that you couldn't eat just one. The cake was very light and fluffy which complimented the rich filling and frosting.

I was dying to get my hands on the recipe. I wondered if my coworker had some fancy cupcake book that I would begin to obsess over. NOPE! The recipe was printed in Wednesday's newspaper.

I very happily found it on my local newspaper's site. It so happens that the recipe is from "The Cake Mix Doctor Returns" by Anne Byrn. Because I am never content, I googled this Anne Byrn and saw that her books have a ton of reviews on Amazon.com. I need these books!!! Although I recently enjoyed making cupcakes from scratch on St. Paddy's day, sometimes tweaking a cake mix would be so much more convenient.




Also, I do not yet have my highly coveted Kitchen Aid Mixer which would make "from scratch" baking much more palatable.



So here is the recipe. My coworker only modified by making cupcakes inside of a round cake. I can't wait to make these myself! Also, these lovely confections caught me off guard this evening, so I did not have my handy dandy purple camera at the ready, so I will be sure to post pictures of the finished product when I make these on my own.

Recipe: Tiramisu Cake

For the cake:
Vegetable oil spray, for misting the pans
Flour, for dusting the pans
1 cup water
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain chocolate cake mix
2/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream
3 large eggs

For the frosting:
2 cups heavy (whipping) cream (divided use)
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1/4 cup granulated sugar

For the filling
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup marsala wine or cream sherry
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Make the cake: Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly mist two 9-inch round cake pans with vegetable oil spray, then dust them with flour. Shake out the excess flour and set the pans aside.

Bring the water to a boil and stir in the 2 tablespoons of instant coffee until it dissolves. Set the coffee water aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Place the cake mix, sour cream, eggs, and cooled coffee water in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until the ingredients are combined, 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat until the batter is thick and combined, 1-1/2 minutes longer. Divide the cake batter evenly between the 2 prepared cake pans, smoothing the tops with the rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side.

Bake the cake layers until the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a finger, 25 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the frosting: Place a large mixing bowl and a clean set of electric mixer beaters in the refrigerator to chill. Measure 1/4 cup of the cream into a glass measuring cup and place it in a microwave oven on high power until hot, 30 seconds. Stir in the 1 tablespoon of instant coffee until the coffee dissolves. Place the coffee and cream mixture in the refrigerator to cool.

Transfer the cake pans to wire racks and let the cake layers cool for 5 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the edge of each cake layer and give the pans a good shake to loosen the cakes. Invert each layer onto a wire rack, then invert it again onto another rack so that the cakes are right side up. Let the layers cool completely, 20 minutes longer.

Remove the chilled bowl and beaters from the refrigerator. Pour the remaining 1 3/4 cups of cream into the bowl and add the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, and the cooled coffee and cream mixture and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form, 2 minutes. Measure out 1-1/2 cups of this coffee whipped cream, place it in a medium-size bowl, and set it aside. Refrigerate the remaining whipped cream mixture for the frosting.

Make the filling: Add the mascarpone cheese, marsala or cream sherry, and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar to the bowl with the reserved 1-1/2 cups of coffee whipped cream mixture. Mix well with a wire whisk until smooth.

To assemble the cake, using a long, serrated knife, carefully slice each cake layer in half horizontally to make 4 layers. Or, don’t slice the layers in half and make a 2-layer cake. Suit yourself (see note). Place the bottom half of one layer cut side up on a cake plate and spoon 3/4 to 1 cup of the filling on top, spreading it evenly to the edge. Place the top half of this layer, right side up over the filling. Add another 3/4 to 1 cup of filling and spread it to the edge. Place the bottom of the remaining cake layer on top and spread it with the remaining 3/4 to 1 cup of filling. Place the top half of the second layer, right side up, on top of the filling. Remove the frosting from the refrigerator and spread it on the top and around the side of the cake.

Keep It Fresh! Store this cake, in a cake saver, in the refrigerator for up to four days. Freeze only the layers, wrapped in aluminum foil, for up to six months. Let the layers thaw overnight on the counter before making the frosting and filling and assembling the cake.

How to garnish tiramisu
The traditional topping for tiramisu is unsweetened cocoa powder. Along with a dusting of cocoa either unsweetened or sweetened-you can also garnish this cake with a little cinnamon or shavings of dark chocolate. Any way you garnish it, it is delicious.

Note: If you decide to make this a 2-layer cake, you’ll need less filling. Just divide the measurements in half.

From Anne Byrn’s “The Cake Mix Doctor Returns”

Enjoy...

happy st. paddy's day!

As an individual with a smidge of Irish heritage, I decided to be festive. I donned my green sweater, green earrings, and obnoxious green argyle socks. I also wanted to make a fun and festive treat to share with my coworkers. I did some searching and just by pure Irish luck, I stumbled upon a recipe for "Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes" from smitten kitchen. Other websites and blogs also refer to them as "Irish Car Bombs" after the cocktail.

So I diligently made my shopping list and I trekked over to the grocery to get all my essentials. I wanted my cupcakes to taste yummy, so I forked over the extra $.75 for the "good" chocolate. Sadly, my local craft store didn't have any St. Patrick's Day cupcake liners, so I was forced to go with plain white, but I grabbed some green sugar sprinkles to dress them up a bit.

Early this morning, I was ready to start my baking. I pulled my hair back, put on a special apron, and gathered all my bowls and ingredients. I even turned on the Food Network for some baking inspiration. I read through the beginning parts of my recipe and it suddenly dawned on me that I have never made a cake or cupcakes from "scratch" before. I usually rely on my best buds Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines.

At this point I was really nervous. What if the cupcakes were dry and dense? Yuck! The recipe had a lot of positive comments, so I thought that hopefully if I followed the directions to the letter, everything would turn out fine.

After three and a half long hours, I baked 20 cupcakes, cut out their cores, filled them with chocolate ganache, and then piped on the buttercream frosting. Behold the fruits of my labor:



I think they came out rather pretty! These cupcakes were my first try at piping frosting, and they don't look to shabby. I used a Wilton #12 tip for both the ganache filling and the frosting.

The only changes that I made to the recipe were that I baked the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, and instead of regular Bailey's Irish Cream, I used the "coffee-flavored" variety because that's all the liquor store had in nip size.

I definitely recommend this recipe. Those cupcakes were scrumdiddlyumptious, if I do say so myself.

Top of the mornin' to you!