Creepcakes

Creepcakes

Happy Halloween! These cupcakes are just two easy chocolate and vanilla recipes; it's the decorating that really matters. My mom and I did the decorations, and we really had a lot of fun with it -- it was so cool to see the different directions we went with the idea and how her monsters looked different from mine.

Vanilla Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cup cake flour

3/4 cup regular flour

3/8 tsp baking soda

1 1/8 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) + 1 tbsp butter

1 1/8 cup sugar

3 small eggs + 2 egg yolks

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Sift together flours, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, then yolks, one at a time. Add flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating until combined. Beat in vanilla.

Divide batter between 12 regular size cupcakes and 12 minis. Bake the large cupcakes for 10 minutes, then turn the tin and bake another 10 minutes. Let cool.

Chocolate Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup warm water

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, soda, and baking powder. While mixing, add eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and water until all combined.

Divide batter between 12 regular cupcakes and 12 minis. My mini pan holds 24 cupcakes, so I waited until I had it completely filled with chocolate and vanilla batter before baking. It, like the regular size chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, goes 10 minutes, turn, 10 minutes.

Let cool.

Fluffy Buttercream Frosting:

2 sticka butter

1 tbsp vanilla

4-5 cups xxx sugar

cream as needed

Beat the butter until soft, then add xxx sugar and vanilla (i don't usually measure my xxx sugar, which is why I always kind of have to estimate the amount -- I just throw it in until I judge I have enough). Add in cream, in very small increments, until you reach a spreadable texture. Add food color to tint icing as desired.

Decorating:

Ice cupcakes generously, then decorate as grotesquely as possible with various candies! We used Mike and Ike candies, gummy worms, gummy fruit slices, Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Sweet-Tarts, and decorating candies that I already had on hand -- something we didn't have, but probably could have benefitted from, was Twizzlers or some other kind of licorice rope.

Have fun! and have a happy & safe Halloween.

Cupcakes and frosting adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Mini Pumpkin Cupcakes

Mini Pumpkin Cupcakes

My mom makes these amazing pumpkin cookies, and this was my attempt to replicate them as cupcakes. I decided to do mini cupcakes on the grounds that that would get the cupcake/icing ratio closer to the ratio of the cookies. I also used a few more spices in the cupcakes themselves, but I don't think that hurt anything. The soft crumbly texture of the cupcakes goes great with the crunch of pecans, and the brown sugar icing provides moisture and some extra sweetness.

Cupcakes:

2 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cloves

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp cardamom

1/2 cup buttermilk

vanilla

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temp

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/3 cup pumpkin

1 bag (12 oz) pecans

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add eggs, one a time. Stir in half the flour mixture, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Add the rest of the flour. Fold in the pumpkin, then the pecans, stirring by hand.

Spoon the batter into mini cupcake tin. Fill cups most of the way full. Bake for 10 minutes, turn, bake for 10 minutes.

Let cool.

Makes 48.

Brown Sugar Icing:

1 cup brown sugar, packed

6 tbsp butter

8 tbsp milk

1 1/2 cups xxx sugar

vanilla

In a saucepan over medium heat, bring sugar, butter, and milk to a boil, stirring frequently to avoid burning. After 2 minutes of boiling, remove from heat and whisk in the xxx sugar and the vanilla.

Use immediately, spooning generously over each cupcake.

Decorate as desired.

Cupcake recipe adapted from The Baking Robot

Icing recipe by my mother

Raspberry Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

Raspberry Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

So here's the deal, guys. I made these cupcakes with the frosting from the original recipe, but they don't need it. In fact, I think it kind of detracts from the overall cupcake. So don't worry about frosting these. Buy or make some whipped cream (it takes three minutes, a standing mixer, a cup of heavy cream, and a tablespoon of sugar) and top it on.

Cupcakes:

3 egg whites

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/3 cup flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) + 1 tbsp soft butter

1/2 cup raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together egg whites, milk, and vanilla.

In a large bowl, sift together flour and baking powder, then whisk in sugar. Add the butter and beat until combined (the mixture will form fine crumbs, like sand). Add in the egg white mixture gradually.

When ingredients are all combined, the dough will be slightly sticky and thick, like biscuit dough.

Fill cupcake tins about 2/3 full. Bake for 13 minutes, turn, bake 13 minutes. Let cool.

Makes about 12.

When the cupcakes are cool, core them gently using a serrated blade or apple corer. Spoon jam into the hole. Cover with whipped cream.

Frosting:

Seriously, don't make the frosting. But if you want it for another recipe someday (and it is pretty tasty, just not with these cupcakes), here it is:

(don't make it)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup raspberry jam

2-3 cups xxx sugar

Beat butter until fluffy. Add jam. Beat in sugar until you reach the desired consistency; add cream to thin if necessary.

Recipe adapted from The Baking Robot.

(Cupcakes or cookies? It's a tough choice. Click click click)

Marzipan-Filled Chocolate Almond Cupcakes with Marzipan Frosting

Marzipan-Filled Chocolate Almond Cupcakes with Marzipan Frosting

A few weeks ago, my friend Joyce bought me a cupcake pan specially for baking filled cupcakes! It has spines in the center of each cup to impale something that will then be secured in the middle of the cupcake (rather than sinking to the bottom during baking)! I've been dying to try it out, so this week I decided to do something filled.

Cupcakes:

1 cup blanched almonds (blanching removes the skin; you can blanch regular almonds yourself by pouring boiling water over them and letting them sit for a minute, then slipping off the skins)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

4 eggs

1 1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla

4 oz marzipan (about 2/3 of a 7 oz stick)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

There are two methods you can use to prepare tins with spikes. The first dozen I did butter and flour, which is the best and most reliable method of getting cake to come out of the pan in one nice piece. Cooking sprays are never as good. The second dozen I didn't have the patience to do this way, so I just poked holes in the bottom of cupcake liners and used those.

In a food processor, process the almonds and 1/2 cup of sugar until fine ground. Transfer to bowl and sift in flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time. Add in chocolate. Alternate in milk and flour mixture and mix until just combined. Add vanilla and mix briefly.

Roll the marzipan into small, marble-sized balls.

I tried adding the batter to the cups in two different ways. The first time I made the marzipan balls first and poured the batter around them. 

The second time I poured the batter in first and poked the marzipan balls on top.

I think the second method worked best; the first way caused the batter to weight to marzipan down to the bottom of the cupcake, even with the spike to sit on.

Bake for 12 minutes, turn tins, bake for 13 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Makes 24.

One more note: the original recipe I used called for coconut milk instead of buttermilk, but I didn't want that extra flavor competing with the marzipan. However, coconut milk is more oily that buttermilk and I think the cupcakes came out a bit dry as a result. I would recommend substituting 1/2 cup of buttermilk with 1/2 cup oil, or using the original measure of coconut milk to get a more moist texture.

Frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

4 oz. marzipan

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

3-4 cups xxx sugar

2-3 tbsp cream

1 tsp almond extract

Beat butter until fluffy; add marzipan and xxx sugar. The result will resemble a thick, white paste. Add chocolate and cream and beat until the frosting reaches the desired consistency. Add the almond extract and beat until mixed.

I more or less invented this frosting for the recipe; I included the 2 oz of chocolate because nice chocolate like Ghirardelli typically comes in 4 oz bars, so this will use up the extra chocolate left over from making the cupcakes. However, if that's a bit too much chocolate for you, you can definitely leave it out. The marzipan adds more texture and body to the icing, but the almond extract is where the flavor really comes from.

Frost your cupcakes generously.

Use any leftover marzipan to make decorations. Marzipan is easy to dye using regular food dyes, and you can roll and shape it like modeling clay. I used pie crust cutters to make colored leaves for decorations.

Cupcake recipe (considerably modified) from Epicurious.com

Frosting recipe by me.