Cupcakes and Buttercream

Not doing too much baking these days. I save it for special occasions like a recent birthday celebration. Didn't get the best photos, but they were truly outstanding cupcakes...I think it was the buttercream! If I share like this I'm not as tempted to eat them all myself. Would like to look OK in a bathing suit this summer...no, not a bikini...it would take forever to get that slim!

I decided to do cupcakes since they are easy serve and can be cut in half if the celebrants want a small dessert. The buttercream is a recipe that my daughter gave me. She has been baking amazing layer cakes as a hobby and giving the cakes to co-workers and this is the buttercream she uses. The cupcakes are from the book Perfect Cakes by America's Test Kitchen. On page 70 there is a cupcake recipe that produces a lovely yellow cupcake that is moist and fine textured. You can use it for cupcakes with any frosting, not just this buttercream. You use a stand mixer, start with the dry ingredients in the bowl, add the butter a piece at a time and the paddle combines it with the dry ingredient until it looks like sand, then you beat in the eggs and, finally the milk and vanilla extract. I added a bit of lemon oil, too, since I wanted lemon flavor. There was also lemon in the buttercream. Ignore the chocolate mini muffins in the photos...they were purchased and a lot were left over because, hello, buttercream!

Vanilla Cupcakes

Makes 12

1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened
3 large eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Adjust the oven rack to middle position and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line 12-cup muffin tin with paper or foil liner cups.

Using a stand mixer and paddle attachment, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together on low speed. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, and mix until mixture resembles coarse sand, about 1 minute. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined and scraping beater and bowl as needed. Add milk and vanilla, increase speed to medium, and mix until light and fluffy, with no lumps remaining, about 3 minutes.

Portion batter evenly between the 12 lined cups. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Rotate pan about halfway through baking. Cool cupcakes in the tin 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove cupcakes from tin and cool directly on the wire rack until fully cool, about 1 hour.

Frost with favorite frosting and decorate as desired.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting
from Kate  - enough for a layer cake - divide in half for 12 cupcakes
(Note: 4 sticks of butter and a 32 oz bag of powdered sugar will yield enough frosting to crumb coat and frost a 3-layer 6" cake. Use 1 cup powdered sugar to every stick (8 tablespoons) of butter.)

8 cups powdered sugar
4 sticks salted butter at room temperature (1 pound)
1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream 
lemon extract to taste (for vanilla frosting use vanilla extract)

Use the paddle attachment for your stand mixer and whip the butter well, scraping down the sides as needed, until it is uniform and fluffy and light colored.

After the sugar is all mixed in, add 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream and about 2 teaspoons flavoring, then whip that together. If consistency doesn't seem right, add additional whipping cream 1 tablespoon at a time, whipping well after each addition. Use to ice cupcakes. Use pastry bag and tips to do decorative icing. Add color to buttercream if desired.

Gel or powder food coloring is best for coloring the frosting. A splurge is oil-based coloring brand Colour Mill - the best and some very cool colors...found on Amazon.

Chocolate Beet Cupcakes #TheCakeSliceBakers

I am enjoying baking from the Cake Slice Bakers' current book The Perfect Cake by America's Test Kitchen. The recipes are well thought out and the results so far have been great.

This month has been full of all sorts of things, but one is the seemingly endless work on the garden as well as setting up our outdoor living room on the front porch. We have a white rocker with a comfy cushion, a wicker sofa and matching chair, both of which have comfortable seats that wipe down, plus lots of cushions for the back. There is a low wooden bench which can be used as a coffee table or as a bench to sit on, plus a mosaic topped table to the right of the sofa (I made the mosaic top and it is funky but fun), plus a tea cart on the other side of the sofa which can be used for serving things or just as a side table. Tying this all together is an aqua outdoor carpet with a trellis pattern. We have been spending very pleasant time here, drinking water after attacking thistle plants with shovel and machete for instance. Pi loves to hang with us there, too. At the far south part of the porch we have a round table with an umbrella where we eat sometimes. Hope to entertain some this summer on the porch. The photo below is of the garden just below the eating area and the steps leading up to the porch and front door.

When I looked at our choices for May the one that called to me most was the Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes. I love chocolate and have had chocolate-beet cake and found it delicious. What put me off a bit was that the recipe calls for using fresh red beets. I've baked with them before and they are really, really messy and stain things. When I have busy days it is hard to imagine adding to my workload by having to do extra cleanup due to fresh beets. I had visions of the shredded beets erupting in the microwave and having to clean out the scattered beet threads, then wash out the whole inside of the microwave. No thank you. Soooo I ended up using small whole canned beets (which can still get messy, but not nearly as much as fresh beets). I shredded them and skipped the cooking part of the recipe. Worked like a charm and very little mess.

I also made a half recipe because there are only two of us. Sweetie has tried one to make sure it isn't poison, but the other five are above. Besides halving the recipe, I followed the recipe with the exception of using soy milk instead of regular milk.

I would have changed one direction if I were writing the recipe. As written you place the shreeded cooked beets in the bowl of the food processor and then melt chocolate in the microwave. Once the chocolate is melted you whisk in cocoa powder and vegetable oil.  I would change the steps. Once the chocolate is melted, I would add that to the beets in the bowl but not process it, then use the same bowl the chocolate was melted in to mix together the oil and cocoa, then add that to the beets in the processor bowl. Once it all gets processed I think the result would be the same and mixing just the cocoa and oil would be far easier than mixing three different textures...melted chocolate, dry cocoa, and liquid oil.

I also skipped the frosting because even halving the recipe I would have a cup of leftover frosting...what on earth would I do with that?

These were delicious cupcakes all on their own and a dusting of powdered sugar made them even prettier. I tried to dust the sugar through a paper doily but it didn't work too well. The cupcake itself was not too sweet and was a nice deep chocolate color and had true chocolate flavor...no taste of beet that I could identify. It was also very moist...yum!

I don't post the recipes from this book. Do yourself a favor and purchase a copy of the book. It has classic and original cakes and is a keeper.

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through.  This year it is The Perfect Cake from America's Test Kitchen #atkcake.  We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes, or visit our blog where the links are updated each month. If you are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The choices this month were Cream Cheese Coffee Cake, Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes, Rainbow Cake, and Swiss Hazelnut Cake.

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Fall Fun

Just back from a visit to Seattle. We were lucky (or perhaps brought California sunshine with us?) because all the rain that had been called for as I packed never happened. It was great fall weather with a nice chill to it. That's probably why the fall color was fantastic!

One of the places I visited was the U Dub (as it is known around here) Arboretum where there were lots and lots of fully colorful trees of all sorts. Bliss for me since our fall color is more muted.



We also made sure to check in at Trophy Cupcakes so that we could try the current seasonal one...Candied Yam with a Toasted Marshmallow topping. It was sort of like a good carrot cake but with yam flavor. We also shared a Mocha Chocolate one that was amazing. They really know how to do butter cream frosting at Trophy. They are shown in the photo at the top, surrounded by the leaves we collected on the walk near there. We used to collect fall leaves when the kids were young and iron them between sheets of waxed paper, then hang them up in the windows on cords to let the sun shine through.

All of this indulgence had been preceded by two good sized walks, not counting the walk at the Arboretum the day before. One of the things I love about Seattle is that is seems like a really walkable city to me.

I'm going to be making a dish (or my version of it at least) that we tried at a restaurant in Wallingford area called Smash. I'll post it in the next day or two. It involves two of my favorite flavors: butternut squash and spinach.

XO Elle

Yes, We Have Cupcakes

Amazing as it may seem to those of us who know how to bake cupcakes, on the retail market people are willing to pay over $3 per cupcake and I know of a place that gets over $5 per cupcake. I think that makes this a craze...a cupcake craze.

What is the appeal of cupcakes?

For one thing, most cupcakes are pretty, even fanciful. Adorned with swirls of icing, sprinkles, coconut or nuts, sparkling sugar in clear or colored form, and cute candies or candied flowers, too, they look good enough to eat.

That's the second part...they are a small indulgence. If you cut them in halves or quarters, you can share them with friends. If you buy four kinds and have four friends, each of you can taste four flavor combinations!

A variety of flavor combos is another part of the appeal. One place might combine chocolate and peanut butter for a proven pairing of compatible tastes, while another place might combine salted caramel and peanut butter for something a bit trendier.

Another winning notion is that these beauties are portable and usually less expensive than a whole cake...but cuter than a cake slice.

Last, but certainly not least, they look like a party! How many of us remember cupcakes as the main attraction at school birthday parties? Since busy Moms could purchase them at a bakery but stay at home Moms could make a batch themselves, it was a treat that provided equal opportunity to Moms...and we got to eat cake!

So no matter what reason you like for enjoying a cupcake, I hope you will find one so that you consider making a batch yourself.

Last week I made a batch of chocolate ones to celebrate a friend's birthday. I used packaged chocolate cake mix (but I added more dark cocoa and some additional vanilla extract and almond extract to mask some of the chemical taste that is often found with commercial cake mixes). I really didn't have the time to make from scratch cupcakes since I needed the time for the frosting.

One of the best parts of a cupcake should truly be the frosting. In this case it really was! I made Coffee Rum Buttercream and piped it on in a nice swirl. Notice that this recipe allows you to make really well defined swirls of buttercream. Since I'm in a fall mood already, I added orange and chocolate sprinkles and popped a candy corn in the middle of each.

Pretty?...check. Dividable?...check. Interesting flavor combo?...check. Cute and portable?...check. Looks like a party?...absolutely!

Since you probably have your own favorite chocolate cake recipe or cake mix, I'm just going to give you the buttercream recipe. You can use the photos for inspiration to make them cute, or create your own decorations. It's hard to go wrong with cupcakes.

Coffee Rum Buttercream

4 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
24 tablespoons (3 sticks or 1 ½ cups) unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons espresso powder
2 tablespoons rum

1. Whisk the egg whites and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer. Set the bowl over simmering water (but don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water) and whisk gently until the sugar is dissolved and the egg whites are hot, about 3 minutes.

2. Attach the bowl to the mixer and whip with the whisk on medium speed until cooled, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddles and beat in the softened butter a few small pieces at a time, and continue beating until the buttercream is smooth, about 6 – 10 minutes. While the buttercream is becoming smooth, dissolve the espresso powder in the rum in a small bowl. Once the buttercream is smooth, add the espresso mixture, a little at a time and beat until everything is smooth again.

3. Put the buttercream in a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe swirls of buttercream on the top of each cupcake and decorate as you like. Any leftover buttercream can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.