The Cupcake Thread!

[Mara]

lol the other night greg was like are you going to get some storage for all this baking and decorating stuff you have now? hehehe. i was like OOOH storage. more shopping!!!!

i don''t remember if i said this but i found the cutest little local shop that only sells cake decorating stuff. nirvana.

i start my cake decorating class this wed, hopefully i already have everything i need or else i''ll have to buy more hahaha.

i''m taking some of the mini cuppies to work and some to my trainers (who i have been tormenting with cupcake talk)...and then we''ll pretty much only have like 2 left. which is okay because we still have mega awesome banana cake left from yesterday AND i went to the mexican bakery yest and got some pan dulce (sweetbreads) which are fab for snacks with coffee. so the cuppies gotta GO.

 

[Miranda]

MUST. HAVE. CUPCAKES.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 3/24/2008 11:43:45 AM
Author: Mara
lol the other night greg was like are you going to get some storage for all this baking and decorating stuff you have now? hehehe. i was like OOOH storage. more shopping!!!!

i don''t remember if i said this but i found the cutest little local shop that only sells cake decorating stuff. nirvana.

i start my cake decorating class this wed, hopefully i already have everything i need or else i''ll have to buy more hahaha.

I am so jealous and I hope the class goes well!

Oooh...supplies....*I* bought the Wilton 12 piece Cup Cake Decorating Set AND the 18 Piece Cake Decorating Set! Along with a cornucopia of sprinkles and glitter sugars and sweet tiny bears and dolphins and tigers and...and...and....

 

[Delster]

Date: 3/18/2008 5:18:42 PM
Author: mrssalvo
Here''s the Red Velvet Cake Recipe:
pre-heat oven to 350

Ingredients:
1/2 butter (room temp butter)
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 oz. Red food coloring
2 oz. water
1 tbsp cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. baking soda
2 1/2 cups of flour

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and blend well. Make a paste of the cocoa and food and add to the butter mixture. add flour & salt. then addd buttermild, vanilla, water, soda and blend well. stir in vinegar. Bake 350 20-30 min, let cool. (i use 3 of the small cake pans)

Frosting:

6 tbsps. flour
1/2 cups of butter (room temp. butter)
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. vanilla

Mix flour and milk over low heat until thickened. stir constantly till cool.
Cream sugar, butter and vanilla until fluffy. add to above mixture and beat well for 10 minutes. No cheating on the 10 minute thing, i promise it will mess up the frosting.

* make sure butter is room temperature. do not melt it in the microwave etc. it will make for a very runny frosting.

So I am intrigued by this red velvet cake discussion and I wanna try it out! But I''ve a couple of questions...

Can I use self-raising flour instead of ordinary flour + baking soda? I can never remember what American baking soda equates to over here - is it baking soda, raising agent, or baking powder?

And is 2oz of food colouring right? Food colouring only comes in bottles of 25ml over here, so that would mean like 2 whole bottles of colouring?

Oh and does someone care to describe how this recipe tastes? Come on, spur me on to bake

 

[Po10472]

Hey Del

Cake and all-purpose flour is essentially plain flour and baking soda is baking powder.

Here''s my cupcakes with cream cheese vanilla frosting.

 

[FrekeChild]

I HATE THIS THREAD MARA AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! It either makes me crave cupcakes or want to go into business so I can make fabulous ones. Both of which I should not be doing or thinking about.

This is awful.

And Skippy-Of course I'll need an accountant!

 

[Mara]

Po those are so cute, where''s the recipe?!??!

LOL Freke, trust me you are not alone.

I am on the hunt for a snickerdoodle recipe for when a friend comes to visit me in a week...she loves the cookie so I am going to try the cupcake. But so far I have only found one that bloggers are using from a cake mix! But I want from scratch. So I might experiement.

Also another one that makes me drool is the Chocolate Banana Cupcake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting. Ummm yeah. Decadent????

I''ve got a little list going. So many cupcakes, so little down time!!!!!

Is it wrong that I was thinking ''where can I go to get a cupcake after work today BEFORE pilates?'' Really? Wrong?

 

[Mara]

ummm and because i''m a fabulous sharer....

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/29/FDGFBHSD901.DTL

Check that article, sure it was written in 2006 but scroll down...RECIPES from some of the most famous cupcake bakeshops in the US. and a recipe for italian vanilla merengue buttercream. Have at it ladies.

Oh and calorie counts too, isn''t that awesome? Helps me to know that I can make the Banana PB one and not blow the diet, however I am NOT having the Samoas!

 

[FrekeChild]

I have to confess I bought two things of cake mix today because at the end of the day I just do not have enough time that I want to focus towards baking. I''m such a weenie.

But I''m a weenie who has time to devote to other things AND eat red velvet cupcakes!

And cupcakes BEFORE Pilates Mara? You''re a nut.

 

[bebe]

OooooH !! thanks for that Mara.

Daughter and I made cupcakes this past weekend. Basic vanilla cake with a tiny drop of lemon extract added.
And vanilla buttercream frosting with toasted coconut on top. She likes different combos, but this one was tame
and really yummy.

And thanks for this thread. I have really enjoyed it (but not the extra pounds all these yummy recipes are
bound to add to me!!)

 

[FrekeChild]

Guess who is eating red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting?

 

[Mara]

lol freke you bad girl (but so good hehee)...how did they turn out? i want photos!!!!

i''m eating TJ''s pizza and we''ll have banana creme cake leftover from yesterday for dessert. it''s like a cupcake yet in cake form...so tasty hehee.

 

[FrekeChild]

Ok. You get a photo...maybe two...

Keep in mind I was being lazy and used a box mix for the cake and even used a jar of frosting

. I know I know, the horrors. And I''m the crazy "Italian buttercream is best" lady. But I only put a thin layer of the super sweetness on there. When I was 5 I would have had the whole jar on one cuppie if I had had my way. lol.

These haven''t been decorated-these were "It was the first day back from Spring Break and I''m TRAUMATIZED and MUST EAT cupcakes" cupcakes. And don''t mind the spiky retarded one on the right back. I started putting the frosting on when they were still hot.

 

[FrekeChild]

Ok. And there is another short story to go along with this mess. When I got home and was getting read to make them, I look in my stash of baking stuff-and find only 8 cupcake/muffin tin liners. So I end up making 8 cupcakes and a 8x8 inch (and 3 inches tall) red velvet cake. What a mess. Anyway, here is another pic. This shows how little frosting I put on there.

And my poor camera sounds like it wants to die, but I'm not surprised, because it just took it's 5,999th pic.

 

[pennquaker09]

Mara are you taking Wilton classes? OMG it is soooo much fun! I don''t know what made me want to take Cake decorating classes, but I suppose it''ll come handy, I don''t have to buy my kids birthday cake.

 

[Mara]

i love them freke!! how much red food coloring did you put? and did you use cocoa?

and even though i love homemade stuff big time...i am such a sucker for Betty Crocker yellow cake mix (nothing else tastes like it right? what is that????) ... AND the milk chocolate frosting in a container. seriously...that is what i was raised on...and that is how i thought you made cupcakes for many many years. my mom would make them for my class and for her class (she's a teacher)...so i grew up loving cupcakes over cake big time!

penn...no i am taking classes at a local cake making place with some friends. they do their own classes....it should be fun. there are 4 gals i know doing it.

and totally funny, but one of the local gals on yelp is a huge cupcake maker, and sometimes sells them on the side to friends, but she has a regular job too. anyway i heard raves about her cuppies from some gals i know on yelp who bought some for a party, and then later i was on her page looking at her pictures of cupcakes, and i saw she had a westie!!! like our portia. so anyway later i posted in a talk thread asking if anyone knew of cupcake decorating classes. she said come over and we'll do a playdate and i'll show you how to decorate. and her stuff is AMAZING...her pictures of her cupcakes. so we are totally going to get together in april. i am so jazzed about learning more about decorating. plus i just love finding other local westies too. portia will be so excited. seriously it's such a small world.

 

[pennquaker09]

Here are some cupcakes I made for a shower.

 

[pennquaker09]

And the matching cake.

 

[FrekeChild]

Mara! It''s all from a box. I added olive oil, water and eggs. And I have to tell you that my teeth are now red from eating some of them.

That''s hilarious that you love Betty Crocker yellow cake mix because I bought some of that today too! My favorite favorite cake is yellow cake with milk chocolate frosting! So much so that when I make our wedding cake (yes I''m crazy-but I don''t feel like anyone can do it as well as I can for as cheaply! Plus it''s a labor of love!) I want one tier to be yellow cake with milk chocolate buttercream as the filling because it''s a crowd pleaser and because it''s my childhood favorite, another tier is BFs choice-but probably spice cake, and the last tier will be hazelnut cake with hazelnut buttercream because that''s my "adult" favorite.

Oh yeah and I bought the yellow cake mix because my birthday is coming up and I plan on making my own cake-but it''s on a Tuesday and with school I''m not going to want to spend the rest of the day in the kitchen. Maybe I''ll make yellow cake cupcakes with milk choc frosting for my birthday instead of a cake.

And "Gold" cake is the closest thing I have found to yellow cake mix. It''s got a bunch of egg yolks in it instead of the whole egg. If you want I can post the recipe later. It''s one recipe I have that isn''t in weight measures.

 

[pennquaker09]

I started with the Wilton classes and then I started takeing some at a local community college when I was 18.

 

[Mara]

freke, yes please do post the recipe that you think is closest to the yellow cake mix! it''s interesting that it takes so many egg yolks for the yellow but makes sense when you think about it haha!

penn quaker, super cute!!

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 3/24/2008 4:27:11 PM
Author: Delster

Date: 3/18/2008 5:18:42 PM
Author: mrssalvo

So I am intrigued by this red velvet cake discussion and I wanna try it out! But I've a couple of questions...

Can I use self-raising flour instead of ordinary flour + baking soda? I can never remember what American baking soda equates to over here - is it baking soda, raising agent, or baking powder?

And is 2oz of food colouring right? Food colouring only comes in bottles of 25ml over here, so that would mean like 2 whole bottles of colouring?

Oh and does someone care to describe how this recipe tastes? Come on, spur me on to bake

Ok Miss Del! American flour....All Purpose flour is similar to our plain flour, the type we would use to make pastry. Self Rising is the same as self raising - cake flour. I used half of each in the recipe ( I tend to do this with US recipes where the type of flour isn't always specified) and it came out luuverly! PERFECTO! And yes, you do need a lot of red food colour. I just had a teeny bottle so I used all of it, with the bit of cocoa it made the cakes a brownish red.

So if I was using Brit flour, I would use half plain and half self raising. See this link for info on baking powder and baking soda.

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm

The recipe tastes smooth and sweet and cakeish with a hint of chocolate....

 

[Po10472]

the recipe for my cakes is here.

this is the first time i''ve baked in 10 years!!! I''ve always told myself i''m a rubbish baker so didn''t try. these came out yummy and i''m soooooo happy with myself.

 

[Dandi]

Aaaaahhh!!! Penn you are so clever, they all look gorgeous!!!

 

[Mara]

wow Po...for a 10 year hiatus those things sure look yummy!!!!!

we need to have our oven cleaned out because i am such a messy person that i am always dropping stuff on the oven floor while putting things in and out or things bubble over...Greg said he would do it, so hopefully once he does i can bake even more. right now when we use the oven things smell a little knarly!!! at least it doesn''t permeate the cupcakes.

i want to see more cupcakes. who else is baking ???

 

[Mara]

okay so i''ll post one.

this is the cover of a new book that either just came out or is coming out soon called Hello Cupcake.

that''s a westie on there!

 

[FrekeChild]

Gold Cake
Preheat to 375 Fahrenheit
I''m just going to post the ingredient amount because I have to get ready for school...

1.5 cups sifted cake flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
12 Tablespoon (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
1.25 cups sugar
8 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup milk

I don''t think I added the lemon juice when I made it, so I don''t know that it makes any difference. I made cupcake with this recipe when I made it and they were pretty awesome. Mara, I figure that if they don''t come out just perfect--we can mess with the recipe to make it perfect.

And the mixing method is just like any other cake recipe.

Oh! I think I used half and half when I made it the first time because we didn''t have milk around and the crumb came out a little bit more dense than when I used milk the second time.

 

[Lorelei]

Thanks for that recipe Freke! That is an excellent way for me to use up egg yolks from other recipes, I normally put them in the freezer as I can''t abide wasting them!

 

[belle]

i''ve been sick all weekend and didn''t take part in any easter festivities

but someone sent me these leftovers from easter dinner. it looks like all of the cute little garnishes were swiped and some were halved (maybe in anticipation of multi- tasting?) but i thought it was toooo funny that i ended up with all of these cupcakes when all i have been thinking about is cupcakes!

i''ve been too sick to even tell anyone else about my recent cupcake obsession....it was just a crazy coinkydink that these showed up!
a funny coincidence that i thought i would share!

 

[lili]

Date: 3/25/2008 11:29:59 AM
Author: Mara
okay so i''ll post one.


this is the cover of a new book that either just came out or is coming out soon called Hello Cupcake.


that''s a westie on there!

Hehe, those are so cute.
I was going to say that they look like your Portia.