#Workshop - Cupcakes! - January 30th @ 7pm EST

Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
Finally, I’d like to share a delicious homemade dark chocolate cake recipe. This cake is very heavy, unlike most cakes. However, this heaviness works great when stacking cakes up and frosting them, as they come out perfectly even, rather than rising ... more
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Nom.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
I usually end up bringing stuff like that to my weekly Denny's gathering. The servers don't usually mind, especially if we bring enough for them.
I usually take cakes or cupcakes to work if I bake. Everyone loves it and it gets rid of extra cupcakes that would just sit at my apartment. I've been trying to avoid eating too much sugary stuff
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
I usually take cakes or cupcakes to work if I bake. Everyone loves it and it gets rid of extra cupcakes that would just sit at my apartment. I've been trying to avoid eating too much sugary stuff
Ooh, that's another great idea! Unfortunately I work from home, so taking them to work is letting them sit in the kitchen
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
Ooh, that's another great idea! Unfortunately I work from home, so taking them to work is letting them sit in the kitchen
I wish there was a way to bake just like one or two cupcakes. I usually make as few as possible, but there's a point where dividing the measurements just gets too difficult or is impossible, like dividing one egg by three or something.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Now I'm going to show you how to make my favorite cupcakes, the Totally Lemon Cupcakes. The cupcakes are super sweet and their icing on top is sour, like lemon flavored candy. When I made them the first time, I halved the recipe because I didn't want a whole ton of cupcakes sitting around my apartment. I wasn't paying attention and accidentally added in the whole amount of milk called for in the recipe. This actually turned out great, because my cupcakes were super moist and they had a small dent inward in the middle of each cupcake. Before it hardens, the lemon icing is very runny. This dent allowed the icing to sit on the cupcake rather than run off all over the place.



The recipe calls for lemon candies shaped like lemons, but really I think any lemon flavored candy should do fine. We've used some Wonka candies that are hard on the outside and jelly-like on the inside and found we kind of preferred those.




I recommend not icing more cupcakes than you will be eating right away. Unlike frosting, this icing gets funky after a while. The hard candies that sit on the icing also get very soft from the icing, which is gross.



Looking at these pictures, yes, the icing does look granulated and funky. I do have yellow sugar crystals on them, though, which is the darker yellow spots.



For the record, I'd like to say I am terrible at taking pictures.

These cupcakes are great for pretty much any sugar-loving crowd. They're pretty light tasting and, unfortunately, it's easy to eat more than one in a sitting.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
I wish there was a way to bake just like one or two cupcakes. I usually make as few as possible, but there's a point where dividing the measurements just gets too difficult or is impossible, like dividing one egg by three or something.
Yeah. I was watching Bridesmaids and saw the main character bake just one cupcake, and that would be fantastic.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
For my final recipe, I'm going to show you how to make Swirled Peanut Butter & Chocolate cupcakes. These are absolutely delicious and very chocolatey. I brought them to work one day and everyone loved them.





When I made these, I used one cup of unbleached whole wheat flour with the peanut butter cupcake batter recipe. It gave the peanut butter batter a thicker, grainy texture that was great with the peanut butter flavor. I also ended up using more milk than the recipe calls for, about 1/8th of a cup more.

I followed the dark chocolate cupcake recipe exactly. When I tasted the batter, it tasted like a yummy chocolate malt.

I halved both cupcake recipes and got about 24 cupcakes out of the batter.



When the batter is gently swirled together, it will not look like much. Mine just looked like a big bowl of chocolate batter. All of the peanut butter batter ended up being much heavier and didn't sit at the top of the batter. When I scooped it out with a spoon, though, I ended up getting about equal amounts of peanut butter and chocolate, which was gently swirled together.

I baked my cupcakes in parchment paper liners, which I had not tried yet. The packaging for the boasted that they would come off of cupcakes more easily and wouldn't have as much cupcake stuck to them as regular liners. They did work, but they ended up coming off the cupcakes very easily as I was trying to move them around.



As you can see, the tops of the cupcakes aren't very smooth. This is because of the difference in batter textures.



I decided to just frost my cupcakes in the chocolate frosting. I halved the batches of batter but did a whole batch of chocolate frosting. I decorated them with some 16-inch decorator's bags and a large 1M star shaped tip. Since this used up a lot of frosting, I did not have enough frosting for all of my cupcakes, only about half. I suggest doubling the frosting if you use a decorator's bag. If you just spread on the frosting with a knife, you should have enough from one batch of frosting.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
For my final recipe, I'm going to show you how to make Swirled Peanut Butter & Chocolate cupcakes. These are absolutely delicious and very chocolatey. I brought them to work one day and everyone loved them.





When I made ... more
I am drooling over these right now, seriously.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
I want to take a moment real quick to thank you for hosting, darthkitt3n. I had a great time and I know I'll be adding these to the recipes I bake from in the future!
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Where do I get my cupcake recipes? I found the best book for creative, cute, and easy cupcake recipes is Crazy About Cupcakes, by Krystina Castella. It can be found on Amazon.com here.

This book includes plenty of helpful information, including substitutions and some basic baking tips. It doesn't really show you how to make elegant or fancy-looking cupcakes, mostly cute ones. I think it would be a great book to use with kids, since a lot of the decorating is basically placing on candies or other little edible pieces.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
I want to take a moment real quick to thank you for hosting, darthkitt3n. I had a great time and I know I'll be adding these to the recipes I bake from in the future!
Thanks
01/30/2012
Contributor: Diabolical Kitty Diabolical Kitty
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
Where do I get my cupcake recipes? I found the best book for creative, cute, and easy cupcake recipes is Crazy About Cupcakes, by Krystina Castella. It can be found on Amazon.com here.

This book includes plenty of helpful information, ... more
Thank you this was amazing!
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Does anyone have any questions?
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
Where do I get my cupcake recipes? I found the best book for creative, cute, and easy cupcake recipes is Crazy About Cupcakes, by Krystina Castella. It can be found on Amazon.com here.

This book includes plenty of helpful information, ... more
Ooh, thanks for that as well! That will definitely be very helpful!
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
Does anyone have any questions?
Yes, the cat in your avatar is adorable. Is it yours?
01/30/2012
Contributor: Diabolical Kitty Diabolical Kitty
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
Ooh, thanks for that as well! That will definitely be very helpful!
I wish they had this book in Kindle format! I can't afford the book in print
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
Yes, the cat in your avatar is adorable. Is it yours?
Yes. That's my cat Snot. He looks adorable when he's sleeping, but he can be a little snot sometimes.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Diabolical Kitty
I wish they had this book in Kindle format! I can't afford the book in print
That would be nice. It looks like there's a few other similar books on there that are available for the Kindle.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
Yes. That's my cat Snot. He looks adorable when he's sleeping, but he can be a little snot sometimes.
Haha, that would explain the name then.

I want a cat, but until my husband and I get our own place that's not going to happen. Until then though, I will dream of the adorable little sweaters I will get for my future Sphynx cat, Mr. Fluffington.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
Haha, that would explain the name then.

I want a cat, but until my husband and I get our own place that's not going to happen. Until then though, I will dream of the adorable little sweaters I will get for my future Sphynx cat, Mr. Fluffington.
I want a Sphinx, but my fiance doesn't. He says they're all creepy and wrinkly.
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
By the way, the PhotoBucket album with all of tonight's pictures and recipes can be found here.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
I want a Sphinx, but my fiance doesn't. He says they're all creepy and wrinkly.
Haha, that's what my husband said too. But my husband also wants me to be happy, so as long as I don't just dump all the care on him, he doesn't mind. He's started to grow on how they look. Although this is the same man who said that even if he was allergic to the cat, I could still get it and he'd just be miserable until it died, so he may be lying to me..
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
Haha, that's what my husband said too. But my husband also wants me to be happy, so as long as I don't just dump all the care on him, he doesn't mind. He's started to grow on how they look. Although this is the same man who said ... more
We'll probably get one once we get a house. We have two cats already and our apartment is barely big enough for them to run around.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
We'll probably get one once we get a house. We have two cats already and our apartment is barely big enough for them to run around.
We're in a house right now, but since we're not paying the bills, we don't get pets. But we should hopefully be in a house of our own by the end of summer. *fingers crossed*
01/30/2012
Contributor: darthkitt3n darthkitt3n
Quote:
Originally posted by Jul!a
We're in a house right now, but since we're not paying the bills, we don't get pets. But we should hopefully be in a house of our own by the end of summer. *fingers crossed*
That's cool. We probably won't be in our own house for another few years.
01/30/2012
Contributor: Jul!a Jul!a
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
That's cool. We probably won't be in our own house for another few years.
We've been saving for a while. Realistically we should probably stay where we are and keep saving but I'm a bit antsy, lol.
01/30/2012
Contributor: biancajames biancajames
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
I wish there was a way to bake just like one or two cupcakes. I usually make as few as possible, but there's a point where dividing the measurements just gets too difficult or is impossible, like dividing one egg by three or something.
I once tried to make a half recipe of croissants. Disastrous.
01/30/2012
Contributor: dhig dhig
these all look awesome. i'll have to show this to my gf
01/30/2012
Contributor: destinationtwilight destinationtwilight
Quote:
Originally posted by darthkitt3n
I love to bake, especially cupcakes. They are fun, easy to make, and their size means you can have a couple of them without feeling too guilty! Baking cupcakes is also an awesome family activity. Why settle for a premade cake from the ... more
Do we view the info in these posts?
01/31/2012