Greetings and Pineapple cupcakes

Greetings cupcake fans!
Allow me to introduce myself and how this blog came to be.

My name is Megan, however, my online persona/handle/whatever you may call it is Stormphyre (or variations of). Stormphyre is actually a small dragon of sorts. And as dragons like to hoard shiny things, this one enjoys hoarding cupcakes too! (Some of them are shiny!) I enjoy art, particularly fantasy, dragons (obviously), mythology, ceramics, herpetology, field herping, pet care, reading, roleplaying of sorts, and baking (apparently). I'm still in college for a business administration and originally had dreams of opening my own pet store of awesomeness. Now its become a dream to open a cupcake store. Or both!

Now why am I making this blog? Some months ago, some random spur had me wanting to make cupcakes. A friend introduced me to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. And on I went on a search for the golden vanilla vegan cupcake mix, and thus tracked through a few blogs. There were so many nifty cupcakes and on I went on a cupcake binge and have yet to come off! Pity my family, however. This happened in the middle of the summer when everyone was watching what they ate. Oh well!

I consider myself a noob at this all, and my decorating skills rather suck. The last two batches of icing before these pineapple cupcake turned out very runny and not so happy like. At the moment, my advanced ceramic class is my set of guinea pigs when it comes to testing cupcakes.


I think that's all for now. Now, On to the cupcakes!



Hurricane Ike was expected to hit where I live, but now hits up in Houston instead, putting us on the south side. Baking has become a stress relief for me (too bad its fattening, but oh well!) and after finding that we weren't going to get hit as much as we anticipated (and stressed out about), cupcakes had to be made! A neighbor and I went to go hunting for food and drink mixing stuffs. Fast food. Lo and behold, several places were open. In particular, our local HEB grocery store! In we went and out I came with pineapples, as she had been talking about making pineapple drinks of sorts.

Anyway, I like to make my icing first so it has time to set up, and I find it seems to work better.

Original source and deviated from Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella.

Vanilla Butter Cream:

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) + 3 Tbsp of unsalted butter at room temperature (I used lightly salted for the 3 Tbsp and didn't seem to have a problem, but I don't recommend using anything highly salted.)
• 3 cups confectioner's or powder sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp heavy whipping cream (You can also use milk, but I find the cream has a better flavor)

1. Cut butter into smaller chunks, it makes it a little easier and messier to blend. Cream the butter and sugar together until well blended.
2. Add vanilla and blend.
3. Add cream (or milk) and blend until well mixed. If too runny, add more sugar; if too thick, add more cream.

Cupcakes:

• 2 sticks/1cup of butter, unsalted (or lightly), room temp
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 1/2 cups All purpose flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice
• 20 oz or more crushed pineapple

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
   
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar for about 3-5 minutes.
   
3. Add in egg yolks (set whites to the side) one at a time, beating in between for about 30 seconds.


4. Add in vanilla, mix.


5. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.


6. Slowly add dry mix with the wet, alternating between dry and milk. Add in pineapple juice slowly after the milk is used, and end with dry.


7. Optional: I ran the crushed pineapple through a food processor so it was even smaller, and add into the mix.


8. Whip the egg whites until you have stiff peaks. Gently fold in the whites into the mix.


9. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake for about 20 minutes. Run a toothpick through the center of the cupcake to test it. Make sure the toothpick comes out clean; if not, continue to bake for a few minutes longer. Let them cool completely on a rack before frosting.
   
   

Originally I had only added 3 cups of flour and when I took the cupcakes out of the oven, they shrunk a good bit. I'd say about 1/4 of the size they were right when I pulled them out. So I added roughly about 1/2 cup more of flour and the next group did wonderful. Now, these cupcakes did not turn out horribly sweet or have a lot of pineapple flavor to them. I plan on adding more pineapple next time and seeing if I can't get the to have more pineapple. However, the frosting is definitely very sweet, so they turn out nice between the cake and frosting.

This recipe makes about 30 regular sized cupcakes.