Cupcake Sunday(ish): Half Moon Cupcakes

As I said last night, I got caught up in all of the hub-bub surrounding the health care vote and by the time the results were in it was way past my bedtime.  Yesterday's cupcake was called a Half Moon Cupcake.  It was along the lines of a black and white cookie, but it was a mix of chocolate and vanilla cake that was covered half in a powder sugar frosting and half in melted bittersweet chocolate.  Overall they were pretty tasty, but I felt like they were lacking something.  Maybe I was expecting them to be slightly sweeter (similar to the cake of a black and white cookie)?  This is what they looked like when I finished frosting all of them:

C is a good helper in the kitchen.  He's always so helpful when it's time to clean up:

And of course I have to pick one of the "pretty" ones to show you:

And last but not least, Izzy helps me write this post.  She's a good helper:

I'm not sure I would make them again because of the amount of work that went into a "Meh" cupcake, but the co-workers seemed to enjoy them!  I have a few more posts up my sleeve that I need to get out, but just a heads up that I won't be making a cupcake next weekend.  One of my bffs is getting married and I'll be in Northern VA for the bridal shower and bachelorette party.  Have a great week!

Yeah yeah, I know...

OK, so I apparently stink at making my weekly Sunday post.  I got sidetracked watching the health care debate this evening and so the cupcakes were put on hold.  I cross my heart promise to post about them tomorrow!

Pi Day

3.14159265...  Oh pi.  What a fantastically rounded number you are *duh dun chhhhhhhh*.  For those of you who were unaware, yesterday was Pi Day (March 14, or 3-14).  Basically, it's a day where closet nerds like me can geek out and celebrate a day that revolves around math.  In honor of this most circular of days, I made an apple pie!

When I told C I was thinking about making an apple pie (his favorite kind, other than 3.14 of course), it was as if Pavlov and his dogs had taught him a thing or two... his eyes got huge, he started to salivate, and his tail started to wag... OK his tail didn't really start to wag, but if he was a dog, there would have been some serious waggage going on.  Anyway, the pie idea was blessed on the condition that it would NOT be making its way to either of our offices.

Now I know many of you out there are scared of pie.  You think it's going to turn out terrible - it's too hard, the filling will be gross, and forget making your own crust!  Have no fear!  I'm going to guide you through making my grandma's apple pie a step at a time so that by the end of this post your bake-a-pie-aphobia will be no more.

First things first, you need your ingredients:

For the crust -
2c all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c shortening
6-8 tbsp ice water (yes, you want ice water - just fill a glass, put some cubes in it, and let it sit until you're ready for it)

For the filling - 
1-2 c sugar (there's a range here because it depends on how tart your apples are and how sweet you like your pie)
6 medium tart apples (peeled, cored, and thinly sliced)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp flour

Now don't panic, but we're going to make a pie crust... well, actually 2.  Combine the flour and salt from the crust ingredients in a medium size bowl.  Cut in the shortening until it looks like coarse sand (some pea sized pieces of shortening are fine - the idea here is just to get things mixed together really well.  Now you might be asking yourself (and by association, me) what "cutting in" means.   Good question!  If you have a pastry blender, perfect - use that and mash it around in the bowl until the above texture is reached.  Don't have one?  No worries!  Pull out two butter knives and act like you're cutting something up for a little kid to eat.  Cut through the ingredients enough and you'll get to the right texture. 

When your ingredients are good and cut in, add the water 1 tbsp at a time over small portions of the mixture.  You want to mix the water in just enough to moisten the part that you poured it over.  (I generally pull the moistened part over to one side of the bowl so that it doesn't get overly wet).  When all of your dough is moistened, it should look something like this:

Form the dough into a ball, divide in half, and put half onto a floured surface (a few tablespoons and no more than 1/4 cup). It should look like this:

Now comes the fun part - beating the crapola out of the dough.  OK, not really... but I find rolling the most fun part of the process.  Use a rolling pin (if you have one - if you don't a flat bottle or glass will work just fine.  Heck, I've even used a wine bottle before!) to roll the dough out into about a 12in circle.  Do this carefully.  Sprinkle flour over the dough and rub some on your rolling pin.  You'll want to rotate the dough 1/4 of a turn after rolling back and forth for the first few passes so that it comes out in a circular shape.  Once it starts to get thin, just roll in various directions to keep the circular shape that you worked so hard to get.  Dough sticking?  No worries, just sprinkle some more flour over the dough/put some on your rolling pin.  Tore your dough?  It's ok - remember that ice water from before?  Think of it like the glue of the pastry world.  Dab a little on one side of the tear, put the other side over top, and pat down.  Good as new!  Your dough should look like this:

Now comes the tricky part - you want to roll your dough around your rolling pin.  Start at one edge (I start at the far edge), wrap the dough around your pin, and then gently roll toward you (think of it like rolling up wrapping paper).  Now gently place the dough in your pie plate and smooth it out so that the dough lines the plate evenly.

Whew, half done!  At this point your kitchen should look something like this, and if it doesn't you've gone terribly terribly wrong:

Now is a good time to preheat your oven - set that bad boy to 375 degrees.  Alright, now for the apples.  Remember everything from your filing list?  Dump it in a huge bowl, mix it together, and dump half in the pie shell.  Sprinkle a little more flour (maybe 1 tbsp) over the apples, then add the remaining apple mix.  Don't worry if it looks like it's going to overflow.  It's supposed to look like that since it will bake down in the oven.  See?

Now put some pats (small pieces) of butter on top of that, roll out the other half of the dough the same way you did for the bottom crust, and then lay it on top. 

Fold the top crust under the bottom crust to form an edge, then use a fork to press the dough together.  THis creates a seal that keeps the ooey gooeyness inside of the pie and not on the bottom of your oven.  You'll also want to cut a vent (aka holes) into the top of your pie to let steam escape while it's baking.  The one on my pie is something we do in our family called the "tree of life," but feel free to make whatever design you want.

You can brush the top with an egg wash or milk if you want it to glaze over, but I opt to leave mine naked for the more rustic, au naturale appearance.  Put this sucker in the oven for 40-45 min until the top is nice and golden (or until the boy starts asking every 30 seconds if the pie is done), like this:

And voila!  You made a pie!  Now I know this will be difficult, but you need to let it rest for about 30 minutes so that you don't cut into soup pie.  Patience will pay off, I promise.  Enjoy!

Cupcake Sunday: Honey, Banana, and Macadamia Cupcakes

Whew!  What a busy weekend.  Mama came into town for the weekend, so I've been running around doing fun stuff with her which = late Sunday post.

This week's cupcake was a Honey, Banana, and Macadamia nut cupcake.  In all honesty it's more like a muffin than a cupcake, but it's not bad.  The ingredients are basically what the title indicates, but it ninja'd some grated carrot in there...

         So yeah, word to the wise: Always set a timer.  I totally forgot about the second batch that was in the oven as I was cleaning up and then starting this post.  Whoops... but no worries cupcake fans, they're OK!  A bit darker than the first batch, but not burned.

Now that the crisis is averted, time for pictures!

And now a profile shot: 

And now the top:

I'm feeling lazy after spending so much time in the kitchen (it is Pi day, ponder on what that means for your reading and food porn future), so if you want the recipe just let me know. 

I almost forgot!

I meant to put this in the last post, but I'm dumb and forgot.  In case you were wondering what my view usually is from the kitchen while I'm baking:

Oh puppies...

What does V-E-G-E-T-A-B-L-E-S spell? Cake, dear. It spells cake.

From my experience, many adults and kids have a lot in common.  They're up early (whether it's for cartoons or to go to work depends on the age of the person, and of course the quality of the cartoon), most would prefer chocolate for breakfast if mom (or in the case of the adults - the guilt of other people watching them) would let them, and vegetables are something that they eat because they have to, not because they want to (show me a kid who "loves" vegetables and I'll show you a well fed dog).

So how do you get your kids (or co-workers) to eat their veggies?  Well make it into something sweet, of course!  (In other words, I'm telling you to lie...)  No, I'm not going to make candied cauliflower (*gag*), parsnip puree, or some other horrific Iron Chef display of secret ingredient use... I'm talking about zucchini bread.

Think of zucchini bread as banana bread's more socially awkward sibling.  It has the same main ingredients as banana bread (flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, eggs, etc.), but uses uses grated zucchini (aka the weird green vegetable) instead of mashed banana for moisture.  I know, I know, your inner 5 year old is probably thinking, "Gross... I'm not touching a bread that probably tastes like squash." Ah, but this is where you would be wrong, little grasshopper.  Zucchini bread tastes NOTHING like zucchini.  Nope.  It's a delightfully moist bread that is full of cinnamony goodness that makes your taste buds dance like little leprechauns doing a jig (ok... maybe I took that one too far, but admit it - you saw leprechauns dancing on your tongue).

Here's my favorite recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I leave these out because I have a very strong personal stance that nuts have no place in my quick bread.... or in my brownies for that matter!)

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool. 

When it comes out of the oven it should look something like this:

And when you cut into it, it should look something like this (don't worry if a little heavenly music escapes when you cut into it; that's normal):

And when your kids (or co-workers who are at the moment double fisting pieces of the bread) ask you what the little green specs are (because they will... they're kids and heaven forbid they eat something other than chicken nuggets or french fries - which ARE NOT a vegetable I might add), tell them it's dehydrated leprechauns waiting to dance on their tongue (c'mon, you didn't think I'd let that one go so easily, did you?).

Enjoy!

Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!

Spongebob Squarepants!

So hopefully you're aware that I've started taking on small baking projects for money. One of these projects was a Spongebob cake that was commissioned by one of C's co-workers. The real cake was due this past Friday.  I was very glad that I decided to do a trial run before the due date ( I posted about the trial run here).  From the trial run I knew that decorating the cake was going to take me at least 3 hours, so I baked the cake on Wednesday (carrot cake - who orders carrot cake for a 3 year old's party?), let it set in the fridge overnight (C was warned on pain of no more baked yuminess should he attempt to sneak some), and then decorated it on Thursday when I got home from work.  I also learned that using the leftover cake for hands was a bad idea, so instead I piped hands onto the cake board.

The little boy's name is Darryl, but his mom calls him "Nuk," so I thought it would be nice to have a more personal touch on the cake board.

 

The woman liked the cake so much that she paid me more than I asked for it.  Awesome!  More moolah for the vacation spending money jar!  :-)  

Cupcake Sunday: Jam Doughnut Cupcakes

It's that time of week again!  Cupcake Sunday is here!  This week's cupcake is a good placeholder for the doughnut's that I've not been letting myself have.  They were very simple and super yummy!

The batter for this week's cupcake was a little different than that of most cupcakes/muffins.  It was yeast based dough that was fairly wet (and stupidly difficult to pour neatly into the mini muffin liners). When they came out of the oven I brushed them with melted butter and then dipped them in cinnamon sugar.

 

  

They're chewy like a doughnut with a delightful strawberry jam filling.  The cakes stuck to the liners a bit, but a little more cooling time will probably solve that problem.  Here's the recipe for anyone who might be interested.  Enjoy!

1 1/2 c self rising flour

1/2 c powdered sugar

1/2 c milk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp dried yeast

1/2 c strawberry jam

1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 tbsp cinnamon sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line 18 standard muffin cups with paper liners.  

Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl.  Make a well in the center.  Combine the milk, eggs, vanilla, and yeast in a small bowl. Pour into the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.

Divide half the mixture evenly among the paper liners.  Top each with 1 tsp of jam, then cover with the remaining mixture.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of a cake.  Brush each with a little melted butter, then dip into the cinnamon sugar.  Serve the cakes warm.

Cupcake Sunday: Peanut Butter Mini Cupcakes

I know, I know, it's technically Monday.  You probably sat around all day yesterday - waited with baited breath - hoping that the post would come.  You probably refreshed your browser every 30 seconds thinking that maybe there was something wrong with your internet.. surely there were pictures of baked yumminess in the form of cupcakes posted and you just couldn't get to them.  Alas... no post...

My apologies, faithful readers!  Life happened yesterday and I spent most of my day running errands, making party favors, and entertaining friends of Colin's family who were in town.  I did make the cupcakes last night, but I was too tired by the time I was finished to post about them.

This week's cupcake combined 3 of my favorite things: Peanut butter, nutella, and snickers.  OMG. All I have to say is that these cupcakes are like crack for my inner fat kid. 

The frosting on these is amazing.  It's about a 2:1 ratio of nutella:natural crunchy peanut better.  It's ooey gooey hapiness in spreadable form. 

And a piece of snickers on top?  Are you kidding me??

I halfheartedly tried to talk C into letting me take these into work, but he loves the key ingredients in these as much as I do, so we weaseled these cupcakes away.

Mmmm... I think it's cupcake time!