Ladybug Cake

Yesterday, apparently, I sat gazing at my hands and cursing their flesh toned-ness... I mean, why be white when I can be red? I swear if I took photos of *just* my hands, I could pass as a red Oompa Loompa. Surely.

I decided to make fondant ladybugs. Making fondant ladybugs means dying fondant red, unless you have the financial capability and store availability to buy red fondant. I had neither, so I dyed my hands. And then with my hands I dyed the fondant. In that order, though in fairness it wasn't meant to be that way.

I made about 6 ladybugs of varying sizes. The largest one is about the size of a mini muffin, the smallest about the size of a nickel.

Instructions are:

Take a red ball, roll it between your hands into an egg shape. With a knife, press a line down into the back of the egg shape, lengthwise, press down about 2/3rds to the bottom. You're left with something resembling a red coffee bean.

Get a smaller peice of black fondant, roll it out between your hands into a short rope, fatter in the middle. Curve it backwards, put it onto the end of the red coffee bean.

Use the end of a paintbrush, toothpick, whatever - to poke eye holes in the black fondant, roll your tool around some to loosen up the hole.

Use small balls of white fondant, roll them into a teardrop shape, push them into the face holes skinny end first and press down to make eyes.

From this point on you can simply use black colour paste and a paintbrush, paint dots on the eyes and on the back of the ladybugs.

This is as far as mine got. You can also find something curved to indent a smile into the face, or use black rice noodles for antennae.

After this point, I used my apple cake (here) in a square pan. No filling, though if I'd had my apple jelly with me (I'm on vacation), I would have filled it with that. Rum butter-cream on top, and then I dyed the rest of my butter-cream green and piped grass on top, before placing my ladybugs on it. I finished it off with some red smarties that I found. I'm like the scavenger baker.

Dragonfly Cupcakes - Lemon Raspberry

Can't witty, I has teh dumb.

My mom requested these for a group she's going to, so I did my best. They're a lemon cupcake, filled with raspberry jam, decorated with butter-cream, colour spray and fondant. They take a bit of work, let me warn you.

Lemon Cupcakes

• 3 cups self-rising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest
• 1 cup whole milk, divided
• 2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line 30 cupcake pan cups with paper liners.
Sift the self-rising flour and salt together in a bowl. In another bowl, beat the unsalted butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating each egg until incorporated before adding the next. Mix in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.
Gently beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture, one third at a time, alternating with half the milk and half the lemon juice after each of the first 2 additions of flour. Beat until just combined; do not over mix.
Fill the prepared cupcake liners with batter 3/4 full, and bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes before removing them to finish cooling on a rack.

Note: I didn't have self-rising flour, so I used 3 tsp of baking powder along with the flour.

After the cupcakes cooled, I just took the wide end of a chopstick to poke a hole through the top of each one, about halfway down, and then put my jam in a piping bag and piped it in.

Then I made butter-cream, I used a couple tablespoons of lemon juice in place of the vanilla and some of the milk.

Dragonflies are as follows:

Roll out white fondant and use a small heart shaped cookie cutter, cut in half up and down for the wings. The body I just rolled out with my hands, thinner on one end, and the head is just a ball - all dyed black.

The antennae on mine are just a thin thread covered wire, but you could play around with that - try rice noodles, whatever.

Voila.

Mocha, Apple, plus Chocolate Biscotti

Yesterday I spent the day at my mother-in-laws making these cupcakes for her to bring to a church function. And since I bookmarked this page for her when I got on it to grab, of all things, my own recipe (yes my memory is that bad), I'll note how nice it was to have the use of her kitchen. No worries about kids getting into things, nobody underfoot, lots of space. Mmm. Thanks MIL!

I have no pictures yet, she took the pictures and I need to retrieve them. But like I said, I literally have the memory of a goldfish so I'd better get out the details while they're still rattling around in my brain somewhat.

To clear up any confusion, I made two kinds of cupcakes. It's not mocha and apple together, though the more I think about it the more I think that might be good.

I made a mocha cupcake, similar in looks to the previous coffee one - but more, shall I say, cost effective. There is no ganache or cream. The effect is about the same, looks-wise, but probably less rich. The night before I made mini chocolate biscotti, which I used as a garnish. So I'd suggest, if you're doing it, do these first and get them out of the way. They will keep up to 2 weeks in an airtight container, you won't even need half of them for these cupcakes and they go great with coffee.

Chocolate Biscotti
Recipe found here.

50 to 60 cookies

Use a good-quality cocoa powder. You can use natural or Dutch-process for these, whichever one you like. Just remember that the chocolate flavor of the finished cookies is dependent on the quality of cocoa powder you use. So it’s worth using a decent one. I used Valrhona. See notes below on ingredients.

If you like extra-crisp biscotti, you can flip each one over midway during the second baking, in step #6. I sometimes smear one side of the cookies with melted dark chocolate. When dipped in a warm espresso, I can’t imagine anything better.

For the biscotti

• 2 cups (280g) flour
• 3/4 cups (75g) top-quality cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup (200g) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup (125g) almonds, toasted and very coarsely-chopped
• 3/4 cups (120g) chocolate chips

For the glaze

1 large egg
2 tablespoons coarse or crystal sugar (see Notes)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C) degrees.

2. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a large bowl, beat together the 3 eggs, sugar, and vanilla & almond extracts. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, then mix in the nuts and the chocolate chips until the dough holds together.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into two logs the length of the baking sheet. Transfer the logs onto the baking sheet, evenly spaced apart.

5. Gently flatten the tops of the logs. Beat the remaining egg and brush the tops of the logs liberally with the egg. (You won’t use it all). Sprinkle the tops with the coarse or crystal sugar and bake for 25 minutes, until the dough feels firm to the touch.

6. Remove the cookie dough from the oven and cool 15 minutes. On a cutting board, use a serrated bread knife to diagonally cut the cookies into 1/2-inches slices. Lay the cookies cut side down on baking sheets and return to the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the baking sheet midway during baking, until the cookies feel mostly firm.

Once baked, cool the cookies completely then store in an airtight container for up to two weeks. If you wish, the cookies can be half-dipped in melted chocolate, then cooled until the chocolate hardens.

Notes:

1. I did not use the glaze at all, I didn't have any coarse sugar. I don't know that it's necessary, but might be a nice touch.
2. I made 4 logs out of this, not 2 - since mine were mini. For the purpose of this cupcake they need to be small. But if you like larger biscotti, I'd suggest you break into 2, make one regular log and two of of the remaining half.

These only took me about an hour, hour and a half maybe, all totalled. Plus, the scraps you get before the second baking will make you popular around the house, everyone here loved them.

Okay! On to...

Mocha Cupcakes
Recipe found here.

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup cold brewed coffee
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 3 teaspoons cider vinegar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup baking cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, coffee, oil, vinegar and vanilla until well blended. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into coffee mixture until blended.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool.

I baked these, like I said, in the coffee cups. The link has a mocha frosting, I didn't use it - I used strictly butter-cream that I piped on. On the top I put the chocolate crunch sprinkles again, and then a biscotti at edge of the cup on each one.

For the apple cupcakes, I used my apple cake recipe that can be found here.

Then I made a caramel apple filling that unfortunately you are not going to get exact measurements on, but I'll do my best.

Filling

• 3 apples, diced (I used Gala apples, Granny Smith would probably be better)
• 1/4 cup plus a handful of white sugar
• 2 or 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp (or so) pumpkin pie spice*
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 3 tbsp flour

*Failing pumpkin pie spice, use a dash of ginger, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat to boiling, stirring frequently. Keep boiling until the mixture thickens and caramelizes, the colour will turn dark. Remove from heat and cool. It will be syrupy, not hard or very thick. Set aside.

Apple Cake

• 2 1/4 cups cake flour (all purpose can be used, I didn't have cake flour)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup powdered apple cider mix (or 3 individual pouches)
• 3/4 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp rum extract (or 1 tsp rum)

I substituted almond extract for rum this time, and butter for shortening. Same measurements.

Preheat oven to 375*F. Prepare pans; first grease and then flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

Into a large mixing bowl, measure all ingredients except frosting and jelly.

With mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, scraping bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium; beat 5 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl.

Drop one full spoonful into each cup of a paper-lined cupcake pan. Cover with 1 tsp of caramel apple sauce, try to get more apple and less sauce. Drop one more spoonful of batter over each to cover.

Bake at 375* for about 20 minutes, or until browned. Cool 5 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto cooling racks.

I ended up with about 18 cupcakes out of this recipe.

When they cooled, I piped butter-cream on them, sprayed with pink, and garnished with chocolate pieces I'd made.

That's it, that's all - I'll add photos when I have them!

Edit: And now I have them. Here they be, enjoy.

Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes/Lemon Crunch Parfait

I made both of these today for an event that turned out to be cancelled. C'est la vie. I get to keep all my sugar. ^^

The first one is a coffee chocolate cupcake. I found the recipe here. I decided I wanted to make them in coffee cups, and I searched high and low - everywhere I went the cups were plastic, too big, made for water... whatever. Dollar store to the rescue! I found these cute little coffee cups, about espresso-shot sized, 20 for a buck. I bought 100. I plan to keep doing this.

Untrue to form, I'll give you the pictures first.

Now that that's out of the way, here's the recipe:

Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup instant coffee powder
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter -- at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup coffee beans -- crushed
8 ounces milk chocolate -- finely chopped
2 cups mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar -- sifted

To make the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 30 standard muffin cups with paper liners.

Combine the milk, cocoa, coffee and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, constantly whisking, until the cocoa and coffee have dissolved. Let cool and pour into a liquid measure.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk mixture in three batches, ending with the liquid. Fill each muffin cup halfway with the batter. Bake 18 to 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the mocha ganache and mascarpone cream:

Combine 1 cup of the heavy cream and coffee beans in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat, cover, and let infuse for 10 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean sauce-pan and bring back to a boil. Put the chocolate in a medium bowl and pour the hot cream over it, stirring slowly, until the ganache is smooth. Spoon enough ganache over each cupcake to fill the liners to the rim.

Using a whisk or in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the remaining 2 cups of heavy cream to stiff peaks. Add the mascarpone and confectioners sugar and whisk until smooth. Spoon the mascarpone cream into a pastry bag fitted with a medium round tip and pipe the cream on top of the ganache in a circle.

Notes:

1. This says it makes 30 cupcakes, in my cups it made 20.
2. I didn't have marscapone cheese, I substituted cream cheese and it worked just fine.
3. I made chocolate covered plastic spoons to serve with - I won't bother to include instructions on that unless anyone asks.
4. Chocolate crunch on top again, cocoa could be used, sprinkles, whatever. Play, experiment, have fun.

On to the parfait. This was surprisingly simple, and it looks simple, but it tastes SO good.

Shyah my cups were too big. Next time I'd get smaller ones. And I just realized I can see myself reflecting in them, haha.

Lemon Crunch Parfaits

Makes 6 servings

1/4 cup whipping cream
1 can apricot halves in light syrup, drained

Lemon Curd:

3 egg yolks
1 egg
1/2 cup and 1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1/2 cup lemon juice
pinch salt

Almond Crunch:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp large-flake rolled oats
1 tbsp packed brown sugar
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp slivered almonds

Almond Crunch: In bowl, stir together flour, oats and brown sugar. Using pastry blender, cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in almonds. Spread on parchment paper-lined baking sheet, bake in 350*F (180*C) until golden and crisp, 12 minutes. Cool.

Lemon Curd: In heatproof bowl, whisk together egg yolks, egg, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice and salt. Place over saucepan of simmering water; cook, whisking often, until thick enough to coat a spoon, 8-10 minutes. Strain through a sieve into a bowl. Place plastic wrap on surface. Refrigerate until cold and set.

Loosen curd with spoon. Whip cream; fold half into curd. Fold in remaining cream.

Divide apricots among glasses; divide lemon mixture over top. Sprinkle almond crunch over each.

So-o-ooo, that's my desserts for the day. Good stuff, both most likely things I will make again. Hope everyone else makes and enjoys them too. ^^

Cream Cheese Crater Cupcakes

Some days you wake up and think, I could really use some espresso. With sugar. And chocolate. And cocoa. And butter, more sugar on top and more butter. No? Is that just me? I guarantee if you eat one of these for breakfast you won't feel tired. At least until the sugar crash.

Regardless I have the solution.

I made these yesterday, they came out of a little booklet I got with a Canadian Living magazine. There was no image and no frosting/decorating involved in the recipe, so I made all that up myself.

This says it makes 12 cupcakes. I doubled it and got maybe 18, so I'm not too sure... maybe they made puny cupcakes. I do no such thing.

Cream Cheese Crater Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes (apparently)

• 1/3 cup (75 mL) boiling water
• 1 tsp (5 mL) instant espresso powder
• 2 oz (60 g) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) buttermilk
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) vanilla
• 1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch salt

Filling:

• 1/2 cup (125 mL) cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) vanilla

FILLING: In bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla; set aside.

In small bowl, whisk boiling water and espresso powder into chocolate until smooth. Let cool slightly. Stir in buttermilk.

In large bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy; gradually beat in sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt; beat into butter mixture alternately with chocolate mixture, making three additions of dry ingredients and 2 of chocolate.

Divide evenly among 12 paper-lined muffin cups. With a spoon, make indentation in center of each. Spoon about 1 tbsp (15 mL) filling into each.

Bake in 350*F (180*C) oven until tops are firm to the touch, about 20 minutes. Let cool.

Notes:

1. I thought I had chocolate, turns out my youngest ate it all (except what he dumped on the floor, joys of parenting and all). So I used cocoa, and I found this handy conversion on using cocoa for chocolate: Cocoa/Chocolate Conversion. In my recipe I used the formula for semi-sweet chocolate. Their steps yield 6 oz of chocolate equivalent. This recipe calls for 2, but I doubled it. So if you want to make this substitution, use 3 tbsp cocoa, 2 1/4 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp shortening (or butter) for each 2 oz.
2. I found my cupcakes a tad dry for my liking, not crumbling dry, but I would've liked a bit more moisture. I'm not sure if it's that I left them in a minute too long or because of my chocolate substitution, but I feel like if you use real chocolate you might get a moister cupcake.
3. This batter comes out sort of like store-bought whipped frosting in consistency. It's more elastic though. When I was making the indentations I found the way to do it was to first use the back of the spoon to smooth the batter out (it won't simply fall into place in the paper cup). Then tilt it up at about a 45 degree angle, still using the back of the spoon, twirl in a circle in the center of the cupcake. It'll push the batter out toward the edges and create a well. If I didn't smooth the batter out first this worked horribly.
4. Finally - after making these, I think that in the future I might actually put the filling right in the center. Fill the cups halfway, put a dollop of filling in the center, fill the rest of the way. I think it'd work much the same but leave the tops smoother, and the filling more central. Just my thought.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, I piped butter-cream on them and coated with chocolate crunch sprinkles. They're really good, these sprinkles, by Wilton. The butter-cream I made had rum extract in it rather than vanilla, and it was quite good. This is a very rich cupcake, lots of flavour, so I found the butter-cream lightened it up some.

Picture time!

Apple Cake

Back in February when my baby turned 5, I mostly cried and lamented the fact that my baby wasn't a "baby" anymore. But aside from that, and more relevant to my theme, I asked him what kind of cake he wanted. It has become my own tradition to never buy a birthday cake, instead I make one that's very customized to what the birthday boy/gal wants - I consider it part of my gift to them, and I guess it's become a matter of pride to me.

My youngest boy (I really can't say baby anymore, sigh) is an apple fiend. I mean, he can eat 5 or 6 a day if I let him. Nothing makes him happier than when he says "Can I have a snack?" and I say "Go get an apple." So I should've seen this coming. He insisted on an apple cake. Not a cake shaped like an apple, a cake that tastes like apple. And I was determined to give it to him.

When I scoured the web, I found one of two things. Either a) cakes shaped like apples, or b) apple coffee cakes. Nothing suitable for decorating, to be sure. So I had to make up a recipe, or rather, tweak a recipe a bit, to get some apple flavour in there and I have to say it was a huge hit. Everyone loved it, especially the birthday boy. When I asked him if he liked it, he squealed "It tastes like APPLE!"

And so, I'm going to pass on the recipe for anyone else who wants to use it.

Apple Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour (all purpose can be used, I didn't have cake flour)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup powdered apple cider mix (or 3 individual pouches)
3/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp rum extract (or 1 tsp rum)

Butter-cream frosting
Apple jelly

Preheat oven to 375*F. Prepare pans; first grease and then flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

Into a large mixing bowl, measure all ingredients except frosting and jelly.

With mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, scraping bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium; beat 5 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl.

Pour batter into prepared cake pans, smoothing the top with rubber spatula. Cut through the batter with a knife to remove any air bubbles.

Bake layers for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted deep into the center comes out clean.

Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely on racks.

Butter-Cream Frosting

1 16-ounce package confectioner's sugar
6 tbsp butter or margerine, softened (I find butter works better)
3 to 4 tbsp milk or half-and-half
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

Note - I often use salted butter even though it's not called for, and then I don't add any extra salt. I also don't use this recipe, or any recipe, but my method is not precise so I figured I'd dig one up for this purpose.

In a large bowl with a spoon or with a mixer at medium speed, beat all ingredients until very smooth, adding more milk as necessary to make the icing a good spreading consistancy.

Extra note - if you are using a mixer, add the sugar to the wet ingredients slowly. If you put a mixer into a bowl full of an entire package of powdered sugar, there will be a powder explosion.

So - once the cakes are cool, cut and level as needed. Spread a thin layer of butter-cream over the top of each layer. Cover this with 3 or 4 tbsp of apple jelly on the bottom layer, then invert the other layer so that the jelly is sandwiched in between the butter-cream. The remaining frosting can be used to cover and decorate.

On my cake, I used fondant so I used the butter-cream for a crumb layer, then covered in fondant, then used a bit of buttercream for decorating. In that sort of instance you would defininately not need as much as the recipe calls for, but this does keep fairly well in the fridge for a week or two if you plan to bake again.

This is how my cake turned out:

I wish I'd thought to get pictures of the inside once it was cut. C'est la vie, next time.