Coconut Chick Cupcakes

Coconut Chick Cupcakes

These cuties can be made with any type of cake, to be honest, so use your favorite flavor! You just want to make sure it's something with a firm, sturdy texture that will stand up to be unwrapped, flipped over, and decorated.

Cupcakes:
3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together flour and baking powder. In another bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time. Add in flour mixture and buttermilk in alternating batches. When everything is well mixed together, beat in vanilla.

Line your cupcake tin with plain paper or foil wrappers. Since you will be discarding them, make sure they're not pretty ones you like. Fill each cup about 3/4 of the way, although you can vary the amount you put in each cup to create different sized chicks.

Bake 10 minutes, turn, bake 10 minutes. Let cool.

Makes 22.

Icing:
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups xxx sugar
Vanilla

Beat butter until soft. Sift in sugar, and beat, adding in vanilla as needed, until frosting is creamy and spreadable.

Toasted Coconut:
Take about one big package of sweetened shredded coconut and spread it about 1/2 inch thick in a 9x11 baking dish. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Stick the dish in, and let the coconut toast, stirring about every 2-3 minutes. You'll know when it's done because it will be lightly browned and sort of crispy. This can take a while, depending on how thickly you have the coconut in the baking dish.

Decorating:
Icing
Toasted coconut
Red jellybeans
Marzipan, dyed yellow (large amount) and black (smaller amount)

Form small beaks and feet out of the yellow marzipan. My sister, who is a genius at marzipan sculpting, did the honors for this, and she is pictured here in triumph. You will want to make the beaks and feet ahead of time because the icing sets up fairly quickly and you want to be able to stick them on while it's still soft and adhesive.

Remove each cupcake from its wrapper and turn it upside down.

Ice it everywhere except the side that it stands on.

Using a serrated knife, slice the jelly beans in halves to make a comb on the head.

Gently push a beak into the icing,

 then take cupcake to the dish of coconut. Using your hands, pat coconut onto the sides until the chick is coated and looks fluffy.

Then put the feet on the plate and set the chick down on top of them.

Use a little extra icing to adhere the eyes (little balls of black marzipan). Voila!

These are super fun cupcakes and people get very excited about how cute they are. If you are not a fan of marzipan, you can try using almonds for the beaks and pushing tiny pieces of black licorice lace into the icing for eyes. Mix it up! There are no rules about what candy you need to use for decoration, so pick stuff you like.

If you toast the coconut ahead of time, instead of doing it at the last moment (as I did) the process will go a lot faster, too.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Thin Mint Cupcakes

Thin Mint Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

5 egg whites

12 thin mint or other chocolate-mint cookies, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together flour and baking powder in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together one cup sugar and oil. Alternate whisking in the flour mixture and the milk. Add the vanilla, then the cookie pieces.

In a metal bowl, whip the egg whites until they are foamy. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar into the egg whites while continuing to beat them, until they form soft peaks -- if you lift the beater out of the bowl the egg whites should hold their shape. When they're ready, slowly fold them into the batter. You want to do this as gently as possible, and be careful not to over mix; the egg whites make the batter fluffy, but if you mix them in too hard it will negate the fluffiness.

Divide the batter into cupcake tins, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake for 10 minutes, turn tins, bake for another 10 minutes. Let cool.

Makes 24.

Ganache:

1 cup heavy cream

8 oz bittersweet chocolate

1 tbsp butter

Bring cream to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat, add chocolate and butter. Let sit for a little while, then whisk until smooth. Let cool.

Mint Icing:

1/4 cup flour

1 cup half-and-half cream

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temp

1 cup superfine sugar (also sold as baker's sugar or extra fine sugar; you can make your own by putting regular sugar in a food processor)

2 tbsp Creme de menthe

Green food color

Sprinkles for decorating

Whisk the flour and cream together in a bowl over medium heat until it thickens. This happens fairly quickly, about five minutes. Move it to a container of some kind and put it in the fridge for about twenty minutes until cool.

Meanwhile, beat the sugar and butter together until fluffy. When the flour mixture is cool, whip it in until the icing is smooth. Add the Creme de menthe and food color.

To combine:

Using a spoon or spatula, spread about 2 tbsp of ganache on top of the cooled cupcakes.

Put the icing in a piping bag with a star tip and pipe a spiral of icing on top of each cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles and leftover thin mint cookies.

I'm not going to lie, I think these were some of the best cupcakes I have made so far in this project. The icing especially is totally amazing -- it has a wonderful airy texture but it tastes great, and it holds its shape perfectly, plus it really has no flavor until you add extracts or liqueurs to it so you can make it to go with any type of cupcake you want. I'm definitely going to be using the recipe again.

Adapted from Zoebakes.com

Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes with Candied Flowers

Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes with Candied Flowers

Happy Mother's Day! You'll want to make the candied flowers the night before so they have time to crystalize properly.

Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups + 4 tbsp flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) + 5 tbsp butter

7 oz unsweetened chocolate

2 2/3 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together flour and baking powder.

Melt butter and chocolate together. If using a double boiler, have water simmering and stir periodically; if microwaving, make sure you remove the mixture and stir often to prevent it from burning. When combined and smooth, remove from heat.

Beat in sugar until combined, then eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Reduce speed and beat in flour.

Fill cupcake tins about 2/3 full. Bake for 15 minutes, turn, bake 15 minutes. If the cupcakes are not baked through, continue at 5 minute intervals until a knife stuck in them comes out clean.

Let cool. Makes 24.

Icing:

1/3 cup whole milk

1/2 tsp dried lavender

4-5 cups xxx sugar, sifted

2 tbsp butter, soft

Almond extract

Hazelnut extract

Violet food coloring

Bring milk and lavender to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and steep for 10 minutes. Strain out lavender. Taste the milk. Does it taste like lavender? If yes, whisk in sugar, butter and food coloring and omit extracts.

I'll confess, I basically didn't measure anything that went into this recipe; I tossed in liquids and then added the confectioners' sugar until I got the consistency I wanted for the icing to be spreadable. I also was unable to get the lavender flavor to come out at all, and I had to add in the extracts to keep it from tasting just like confectioners' sugar (which has kind of an unpleasant, chalky-sweet taste on its own). I'm not sure what went wrong, but lavender is a nice taste, so if you get this part to work for you then go for it! Otherwise, either almond or hazelnut (I used both!) are equally tasty.

Candied Flowers:

50 violets, pansies, or other small edible flowers

1 egg white

1 tsp water

Superfine sugar

Make sure your flowers are clean from dirt and have the stems removed. Be careful not to use flowers from an area where you might spray your garden or lawn.

Whisk egg white and water in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush (or paint brush), paint the surface of each flower with egg wash. Sprinkle or dip the flower in sugar, then lay it with the petals spread out on wax paper to sit overnight. A pair of tweezers can be very helpful here.

Not all your flowers need to be full bloom. Some buds can be very pretty!

Frost your cooled cupcakes, then add flowers immediately. Press them very gently into the icing to make them stick. Ta-da!

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Brown Sugar Pound Cakes with Brown-Butter Spice Frosting

Brown Sugar Pound Cakes with Brown-Butter Spice Frosting

After doing a lot of complicated recipes in April, I wanted to start out with something nice and easy for May. Voila!

Cupcakes:

3 cups flour, sifted

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed

4 eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and bp.

Cream butter until light and fluffy, then add brown sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. Add flour alternating with buttermilk.

Fill cupcake tins 3/4 of the way full. I overfilled, and that was not a great life choice, since these rise outward rather than upward and you will end up with those giant cake rims overflowed on the pan.

Bake 14 minutes, turn tins, bake another 15 minutes. Let cool.

Makes between 24-30, depending on how full you fill tins.

Icing:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

2 cups xxx sugar, sifted

2 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp cinnamon

Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it is brown and melted. Be careful, it burns easily -- I burned my first batch. Remove from heat, and strain into a mixing bowl to remove sediment.

Sift in sugar and spices. Add vanilla and milk, and beat until smooth and spreadable. If the icing is too thick, add more milk a little at a time. Use right away, as it sets up pretty quick.

I added the spices to this recipe because otherwise I think it can be somewhat bland. Cardamom is a huge favorite in our family, so I put in more of that than the other spices. You should definitely feel free to season this recipe to taste -- add spices you like, cut out ones you don't, and leave them out altogether if you'd prefer to have just the praline taste of the browned butter.

I only had 24 cupcakes because of overfilling the tins, and I ran out of icing, so you may want to make 1 1/2 recipes of the icing. You wouldn't think so, but sometimes Martha can lead you astray.

Both recipes adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.