Tropical White Cake w/ Pineapple filling and Malibu rum frosting

So this was for Father's Day. My dad's favorite cake is white cake with pineapple filling. I've learned a few things during this. 1, I seriously need to work on my decorating skills. 2, Malibu rum is my favorite ingredient. 3, I need to work on photography. Maybe take a class or something.



White Tropical Cake

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 Tbsp Malibu coconut rum
3/4 cup pina colada yogurt (or plain, but I think it gives it more flavor)
1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Beat your butter, in a large bowl or stand mixer, for about a minute. Add in your sugar into the butter and cream for a little while.
3. Add one egg into the mix at a time, beating for about 30 seconds in between eggs.
4. In a small bowl, combine your yogurt, rum, milk, and vanilla.
5. In another bowl, combine your flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
6. Alternate between adding dry and wet into the mixture. Mix until well blended.
7. Grease two 8'' pans and place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of each. Divide the mixture between the two pans and shake them gently to even out (or gently spread the top with a spatula). Bake the pans in the middle of the oven for about 30-35 minutes.

Pineapple filling:
1 pineapple or 20 Oz of crushed pineapple
3 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
6 egg yolks
1 stick of butter or margarine

1. If you're using a whole pineapple, which is what I used, twist the top off, cut the top and bottom off, cut the outside off, and then cut the meat off around the core. Put chunks of pineapple into a food processor or chopper of sorts to crush the pineapple.
2. In a large sauce pan, mix your flour, sugar, pineapple, and egg yolks.
3. On medium heat, stir the mixture constantly for the next 5-10 minutes. Mine took about 8. The mixture will eventually start to thicken. Once it reaches a somewhat thickened state, take it off the heat and add slices of butter/margarine into the filling and stir. Set it to the side to cool.

Frosting:
2 sticks butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp Malibu Rum
1 Tbsp milk

1. Whip your butter together. Slowly add your powder sugar, adding one liquid at a time until you reach a consistency you like.


Construction:

Now, you don't have to do it this way, but this is how I did it. Once the cakes cooled a bit, I wrapped them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer for about an hour. After, I placed one cake on the plate, top of the cake to the bottom. Build a 'dam' around the edge of the cake with some of your frosting using a pastry bag. Fill the middle with pineapple filling, after its cooled. Take your second cake and place it on top, bottom facing towards the filling (so both bottom parts of the cake will be facing one another). Frost cake as you wish. I decorated with maraschino cherries. Cut and enjoy! This cake was rather dense, but moist and tropically like.



Etsy feature: Bellagracedesigns has various cupcake like soaps and other yummy soaps! Take a look!
http://bellagracedesigns.etsy.com/

White Russian cupcakes and Etsy

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade Stormphyre.etsy.com

Oh yes. I am on ETSY. With my jewelry. Sorry for the lack of updates on this place. I've been opening my Etsy and finishing out the semester. It looks like I'll be going to Austin Culinary Academy in the fall and be leaving my community college. A friend and I are both leaving, and our ceramic group had a party to celebrate a great, productive semester and us leaving. He apparently has an obsession for white russian drinks, and I recall seeing an episode of Ace of Cakes that had a white russian cake on it. Then they started popping up everywhere! This recipe isn't one of my originals, but I have unfortunately lost the original source. These are rather dense cupcakes, but you can taste the booze in them quite well!
Anyway, here we go.White Russian Cupcake w/ Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Makes about 2 dozen

2 cups All purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp instant coffee
2/3 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 egg whites
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup kahlua
2 oz dark chocolate, finely chopped

1.) Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2.) Chop up your 2 oz of dark chocolate finely and put it off to the side for now.
3.) Beat your butter, in a large bowl or stand mixer, for about a minute. Add in your sugar into the butter and cream for a little while.
4.) Add one egg white into the butter/sugar mix at a time, mixing for about 30 seconds in between each other.
5.) Mix together your booze and milk in a small bowl or large cup.
6.) Alternate between pouring wet and dry ingredients into the batter slowly, ending with your dry. Mix in your chocolate, mix well.
8.) Divide into cupcake cups, filling about 3/4s of the way, and bake for 15-20 minutes. You may want to rotate the pans half way through.

Frosting:
2 sticks of butter
2 cups of powder sugar
1 Tbsp Mexican vanilla
2 Tbsp whipping cream

1.) Whip the butter and add sugar. Only add a half cup or cup at a time, I find this is easier. I add in the cream, and vanilla in between sugar to help it keep moving.

Once the cupcakes were done cooling, I applied the frosting with a butter knife, as I was feeling quite lazy. They were very tasty! And the little bits of random chocolate were a nice addition.

Etsy feature:












By: AngelHeartDesigns
http://angelheartdesigns.etsy.com/

Malibu Coconut Cupcakes

This post was supposed to be on Cinnamon Apple and Raisin Empanadas BUT I hit some button and then another and the ENTIRE post got deleted. :/ And it wouldn't let me bring it back. So, RAR. Its gone. Oh well, now I can actually post a cupcake. I just got done baking these cupcakes and they're absolutely delicious (IMO anyway). I've been wanting to mess with booze and cupcakes for awhile now. I really wanna make a Colorado Bulldog cupcake but that'll have to wait. I've also wanted to do a coconut cupcake. And Malibu rum is just so good! I had a base recipe that I got from Washington Post but ...ended up altering it a lot. I've also discovered I enjoy adding FLAVORED yogurt vs plain. These cupcakes turned out so very moist and somewhat light and just oh so yummy! Almost don't need frosting but I am going to frost them anyway. And I have no cupcakes, but I'll post some when I actually get to frosting these.
Malibu Coconut Cupcake (makes 24)
2 1/2 AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs, seperated
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup malibu caribean rum with coconut flavor
3/4 cup yogurt*
1 cup sweetened coconut (lightly preferably)

1.) Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2.) Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
3.) Beat your butter, in a large bowl or stand mixer, for about a minute. Add in your sugars into the butter and cream for a few minutes.
4.) Add one egg yolk into the butter/sugar mix at a time, mixing for about 30 seconds in between each other. Set your egg whites to the side for now. Try not to get any yolks in your whites or else you won't be able to whip up the egg whites like needed.
5.) Mix together the yogurt, vanilla, and rum together in a small bowl.
6.) Alternate between pouring wet and dry ingredients into the batter slowly, ending with your dry. Mix in your coconut once the wet and dry are mixed.
7.) In a clean bowl (or your flour bowl), beat your egg whites on high with 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar until you get stiff peaks. Slowly, and gently, fold in your egg whites in portions to your batter, with as few strokes as possible.
8.) Divide into cupcake cups, filling about 3/4s of the way, and bake for 15-20 minutes. You may want to rotate the pans half way through.

Toasted Coconut Buttercream Frosting
2 sticks of unsalted butter
2-3 cups of powdered sugar (I used about 2 1/2)
2 Tbsp Malibu Rum
1 Tbsp heavy cream (or milk)
1/2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup coconut

1.) Preheat your oven to 300°F. On a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, sprinkle your cup of coconut over the sheet and pop into the oven for about 10 minutes, occasionally moving them around and turning the sheet half way through the time. Once done, set out to cool.
2.) Whip the butter and add sugar. Only add a half cup or cup at a time, I find this is easier. I add in the rum, cream, and vanilla in between sugar to help it keep moving.
3.) Hopefully your coconut is done cooling by now. Add it into the frosting and stir a little more to incooperate it through out.

I forgot to grab photos of these cupcakes before we ate them all. However, they were loved so much that I'll be making them again in about two weeks for a birthday! So maybe I'll remember pictures then.

*As far as yogurt goes, you can use the normally recommended, plain yogurt. I used pinã colada yogurt (it'll take one and a half containers to make 3/4 cup) but I was originally looking for a coconut pie flavored one.

Happy New Year! And Low-Fat Carrot & Nut Cupcakes

I'd like to say Happy New Year to everyone and I hope everyone had a great Christmas or other awesome Holiday! I know I did. Lots of baking involved! I also want to say thanks for the comments! This blog, unfortunately, doesn't allow me to reply directly. But I read them and thank you all for them!
I got the 500 Cupcakes book the day after Christmas and tried out the Low-fat Carrot and Nut Cupcake recipe since everyone in my family is currently on a healthy kick. No pictures right now as my camera is a current P.O.S. Foo. They were pretty tasty and yummy, though slightly dry. More muffin like than cupcake. So here we go!
I ended up with 16 cupcakes.
Cupcakes:
2 cups self-rising flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
3/4 packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or nut of preference)
3/4 cup mashed bananas (about two large)
2 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil (I acutally used butter.)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1.) Preheat oven to 350°F.
2.) There wasn't any real direction on how to combine this all except to blend all ingredients on low until mixed. I recommend putting dry ingredients on bottom and add up to your liquids.
3.) Dish out the batter into your cupcake cups and pop into the oven for about 20 minutes.

Frosting:
1 cup fat-free cream cheese
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (or however much you prefer)

1.) Beat together you ingredients.
2.) Take a butter knife and frost away!

Note: The book says that these cupcakes, unfrosted, can remain in the fridge in an air-tight container for up to 3 days, or frozen for 3 months. Pft. Mine don't last that long. Lol! Didn't really have any issues with this recipe, except they were a little try and not very cupcake like. But again, still tasty!

If I get some time, I'll post the recipe for my yule log from christmas.
Hope everyone has a great year!

Cinnamon Glazed Cinnamon Chocolate Donut Cupcakes

The end of the semester is here. Its cold outside and my guinea pi--I mean ceramic class enjoys coffee. And by enjoy, I mean we are coffee fiends! Our coffee bar, however, is across campus. I don't know what they were thinking when they stuck it in the technology building instead of the art building.

I had a fairly difficult time trying to figure out what to bake for our last critique. I wanted something kind of warm. Something that went well with the season. I had recalled seeing this recipe on I♥cuppycakes and the thoughts and ideas eventually fell into place. Her original recipe did not have chocolate in it, however. But lately my thing is to add cinnamon into my hot chocolate (or coffee). Its just a great combination, IMO. If I ever host a brunch party, these WILL be in it.

And while I should be studying for finals, these just turned out too awesome and thus I could not wait to post it. They didn't take much time to make either. Really quite simple. Now I did have to fiddle with the recipe some. I'll explain this in the notes. Oh. I would also like to mention my birthday was last Sunday (Nov 30th) and my parents came barging in singing Happy Birthday (the Wednesday before) in the middle of my prepping for Thanksgiving. And then I squeed joyfully as my dad hauled in my beautiful stand mixer (now named Roberto)! Roberto is damn awesome! Anyway. Onward with the cupcakes!

This recipe makes roughly a dozen, though I got three extras out of it.

Cinnamon Chocolate Cupcakes

Originally from I♥cuppycakes.com

2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

*2 eggs*

1 cup low-fat yogurt

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp oil

2 Tbsp butter

1 tsp vanilla

1.) Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk together your dry ingredients.

2.) Whisk together your eggs, yogurt, sugar, oil, butter, and vanilla in a seperate bowl.

3.) Slowly add dry to wet until all is moist, but not until its smooth.

4.) Add about two and a half Tbsp of batter to each regular cupcake cup. Pop into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Cinnamon Glaze

Originally from Alton Brown

1/8 milk (I used half heavy cream, half 2% milk)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup conffectioners sugar

1.) Combine milk, vanilla, and cinnamon in a small sauce pan over low heat until the mixture is warm.

2.) Whisk in your sugar until the mixture is well combined and remove from heat.

3.) Set a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet and dip cupcakes in one at a time into the warm glaze and set on the rack. Let sit for about 5 minutes before eating. Spoon on more glaze if needed.

Notes: Oh where to start... Well, I did half of the cupcakes without chocolate. So I had half the batter, and thus only used a 1/4 of a cup, but the half that did have chocolate were great. On that note, it also dried out my batter too much and I had to add some milk. Which also on that note, as I went to comment on the original recipe and its greatness, I realized that I had left out the eggs! However, even without the eggs, it was good. Also, I realized that one of those little cups of yogurt is only about half a cup. So I mixed in some sour cream. My batter was very thick (due to not having eggs). But all in all, turned out tasty. Tasty tasty. I want more. They remind me of Starbuck's top hole donuts!

Pumpkin cupcake with Cinnamon Ginger Cream Cheese filling and frosting

Its fall. Fall is for pumpkins and apples. And I have the apple cupcakes done already, just not posted!
My neighbor and sister had me bake them cupcakes for Halloween parties. I made them chocolate cupcakes with a little cinnamon (couldn't really taste it) and then for frosting, I did vanilla with 1 Tbsp of MEXICAN vanilla. If you haven't had Mexican vanilla, its a lot stronger than regular like.. McCormick. And has a cinnamony taste to it. But gah! It was tasty. I dyed the buttercream orange and yellow and got some pumpkin candies and decorations and made the cupcakes into pumpkin patches complete with pathetic vines. I need to work on my decorating skills x_x'
In anycase. Stressfull week is relieved by none other than cupcakes. And I was on a bit of a pumpkin kick after carving out a pumpkin! No pictures of that as it didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted.
Nor did my cream cheese frosting for these cupcakes, for that matter. Thus! The cupcakes got filled. Or sorta. The one in this particular picture didn't get a whole lot. Booo. This also taught me the lesson of actually measure out the vanilla instead of trying to eyeball it (attempting this I dropped too much vanilla in and couldn't get my frosting thick enough again).


But in any case. These cupcakes were damn tasty!



In any case, here we go!
Cream Cheese Cinnamon and Ginger frosting/filling
(Originally Paula Dean's cream cheese frosting)
1 lb (or 2 8oz packs) of cream cheese
2 sticks of butter
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups sifted confectioners/powder sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger

1.) Beat together the cream cheese and butter.
2.) Blend in the vanilla
3.) Slowly add the sugar. If you go too fast, this goes EVERYWHERE.
4.) Add in your cinnamon and ginger.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
(Originally from Cupcake Bakeshop)
2 cups AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
4 large eggs
15 oz pumpkin puree (or canned pumpkin)
1/2 tsp vanilla

1.) Preheat to 350°
2.) Whisk together your dry ingredients in a medium bowl: flour, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. Set aside.
3.) Cream together your butter and sugar.
4.) Add in egg yolks to the butter and sugar, one at a time, beating for roughly 30 seconds in between. Set your egg whites to the side.
5.) Add in dry ingredients slowly to your wet and then add in your pumpkin. Mix until well combined.
6.) Whip your egg whites until stiff and fold in to your batter.
7.) Fill the cupcakes 3/4 of the way and bake for roughly 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8.) Once cupcakes are cooled, you can fill them either doing one of two methods. Cut a small cone out of your cupcake, spoon in or using a pastry bag, fill in the cavity with cream cheese and cover, then frost. Or, the method I used, jab your poor cupcake with a pastry bag of your cream cheese and inject the cupcake with cream cheese. Don't do it too roughly or else you'll blow the bottom out of your cupcake. Then you'll have to come up with a new name!

Notes: MEASURE YOUR VANILLA! Particularly with cream cheese frosting. Surprised I didn't have the issue with butter cream. Pumpkin turns out such a pretty color.

Strawberry Chocolate w/ Chocolate Ganache

A friend of mine has just opened her Etsy shop for Bath and Body stuff with aromatherapy kind of things! Her blog can be found here: http://nickileigh.blogspot.com/


And her etsy shop here: Bare with me on this one, I didn't exactly write the recipe down. Whoops! Oh well. This came about when my sister's boyfriend wanted a strawberry and cream kind of dessert, and I originally was gonna plan on some kind of strawberrys and cream cupcake (or peachs and cream). However, being a woman, there was a need for chocolate. And a white cupcake with chocolate topping just wasn't gonna do it. In any case, here we go!
As usual, I recommend making the frosting first,

Chocolate Ganache:

• 5 oz bitter sweet chocolate
• 2 oz unsweetened
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 cup powder sugar
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Chop the chocolate and put into a heat proof bowl.
2. Heat cream until bubbles form around the edge of the pan and pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for about a minute and then stir until combined.
3. Add butter to chocolate, and stir.
4. Whisk together sugar, salt, milk, and vanilla.
5. Pour the sugar mix onto the chocoate and stir until combined and smooth.
6. Let it sit at room temperature until it has thickened. Stir occasionally.
7. Once at room temperature, beat with a mixer until fluffy. (Though mine never turns fluffy.)

Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 3/4 cups or 1 1/2 sticks of butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp instant espresso
• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup cream (you can use milk, I just had cream at the time)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 - 1 cup of strawberries, finely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Beat butter until soften and add in sugar. Beat until light and fluffy, roughly about 3 minutes.
3. Add egg yolks in one at a time, beating for about 30 seconds in between. Put egg whites aside for now.
4. In another bowl, sift and/or whisk together your dry ingredients.
5. In a measuring cup, measure out your cream and vanilla.
6. Add in about 1/3 of your dry mixture to your butter mixture and mix. Add in some of your cream mix.
7. Alternate between these two and end with your dry mix.
8. Mix in your strawberries.
9. In a bowl, beat your whites until fluffy. Gently fold in the whites into your batter.
10. Fill the cupcake holders to about 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 minutes and test with a toothpick to make sure they are baked completely.
11. Set on a rack to cool completely before frosting.

Notes: This made about 2 1/2 dz cupcakes. Oddly, some of mine collapsed in on themselves! Go figure. However, it still tasted awesome!