Month: February 2009

Valentine’s Day Cupcakes – Valentine’s Week Day 6

Here’s the last Valentine’s day creation of the week. Just plain old cupcakes decorated like crazy! All of the cupcakes are red velvet, but I used two different recipes. The darker cupcakes are red velvet cake mix from the store. The from scratch recipe for the bright red cupcakes came from Joy the Baker:

Bright Red Velvet Cupcakes
— adapted from Gourmet Cookbook and makes 2 dozen cupcakes
Print Recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
scant 1 cup milk
1 Tablespoon red food coloring

Put a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners and set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside . Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute in between each addition. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture alternately with the milk and red dye in 3 batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and beating until just incorporated. Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes, or until the cakes a pick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes then remove cupcakes from muffin tin and let cool on a wire rack.

Now comes the fun part: decorating. I used store-bought frosting — chocolate and vanilla. I dyed some of the vanilla pink. Just because. The decorations are sprinkles, M&Ms, Good ‘n’ Plenties, Runts, etc. Aren’t they pretttttty?

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

Yield: 2 to 4 dozen mini cheesecakes

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

A rich and luxurious bite-sized treat!

Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 pkg. (8oz.) cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • Nilla wafers
  • 2″ aluminum mini baking cups (I only had the regular-sized baking cups, which will work!)
  • 1 can cherry pie filling

Instructions

    1. Mix the cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice.

    2. Place a vanilla wafer in each baking cup (since my baking cups were too large for this, I crushed the Nilla wafers and put a layer of crushed cookies at the bottom of the baking cup).

    3. Spoon approximately 3 Tbsp of cream cheese mixture over each wafer (I used just a bit more than 3 Tbsp).

    4. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

    5. Let cool and top with cherry pie filling. Refrigerate.

Notes

Your yield will depend on whether or not you use mini baking cups or regular-sized baking cups. If you use the minis, you'll have about 4 dozen mini cheesecakes. If you use the regular-sized cups, you'll have about 2 dozen mini cheesecakes.

XOXO Cupcakes – Valentine’s Week Day 4

These are a perfect example of an idea going awry. I was originally going to top these cupcakes with brownie bits cut with a heart cookie cutter. That was a disaster — the brownies fell apart and looked nothing like the heart they were cut from. So…improvise! I decided to make XOXOs!

The cupcakes are Betty Crocker dark chocolate cake mix, and the frosting is butter cream from scratch, colored with 3 drops of AmeriColor neon pink coloring. The O’s are the brownie bites cut in half and the X’s are M&Ms. I bought the Brownie Bites from the grocery store — hey, I have no problem with going the store-bought route every now and then! Here’s the recipe I used for the to-die-for frosting:

Buttercream Frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1b. 10X powdered sugar
1-3 teaspoons milk, half and half or cream

1. Using a mixer, cream softened butter and vanilla with a mixer until smooth.
2. Add sugar gradually, allowing butter and sugar to cream together before adding more.
3. If you want it a little creamier, add a teaspoon of milk at a time and beat on high until you get the right texture.

Razz-Ma-Tazz Bars

 

Yield: 9 bars

Razz-Ma-Tazz Bars

Razz-Ma-Tazz Bars

Raspberry and almond flavors make this the perfect summer treat!

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 2 cups vanilla or white chocolate chips, divided
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tea. almond extract
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tea. salt
  • 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam or preserves
  • 1/2 cup sliced almonds

Instructions

    1. Preheat oven to 325F and grease a 9×9" baking pan.

    2. Melt butter in the microwave for one minute at high heat. Stir. Add 1 cup white chocolate chips and let stand. Do not stir.

    3. Beat eggs in a mixing bowl until foamy. Add sugar; beat until thickened and lemon-colored. Beat in chip/butter mixture and almond extract. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture.

    4. Spread 1/2 of the batter into the greased pan and bake for 17-20 minutes or until golden brown.

    5. Remove from oven and spread jam over the warm crust. Stir the remaining white chocolate chips into the remaining batter. Drop spoonfuls of the batter over the jam. Sprinkle with almonds.

    6. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until edges are browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack; cut into bars.

Notes

Your yield will depend on how big or small you cut your bars.

Conversation Heart Cupcakes – Valentine’s Week Day 2

This idea and recipe came from Bakerella and the modified cake mix recipe she used was from the Bundt Classics Recipe Book.

Rich Chocolate Cake
Print Recipe

1 (18.25 oz.) pkg. dark chocolate cake mix
1 (3.4 oz.) pkg. instant chocolate pudding
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup warm water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line cupcake pans with baking cups.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except chocolate chips.
4. Mix 2 minutes on medium speed.
5. Increase speed to medium-high; mix 3 minutes.
6. Stir in chocolate chips.
7. Spoon into cupcake pans.
8. Bake at 350 for around 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Buttercream Frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1b. 10X powdered sugar
1-3 teaspoons milk, half and half or cream

1. Using a mixer, cream softened butter and vanilla with a mixer until smooth.
2. Add sugar gradually, allowing butter and sugar to cream together before adding more.
3. If you want it a little creamier, add a teaspoon of milk at a time and beat on high until you get the right texture.

*I used AmeriColor neon purple food coloring on some of the cupcakes. Only a few drops were needed to make pastel purple.