Fluffy Lemon-Rosemary Cupcakes

So I'm staring out the New Year with the promise to post something at least twice a month! Living with someone that (A) doesn't like sweets and (B) only eats once a day makes it difficult to whip up an amazing meal. But now my co-workers will be happy!

So let me begin!

For the dried goods!

• 2 1/2 Cups Flour 
• 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp Baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt

• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract 

• 10 tbsp butter (softened)
• 1 1/12 tbsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp rosemary

Preheat oven to 350F. 

In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 1/2 cups sugar. In another bowl whisk together the melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, lemon zest, rosemary and egg yolks.

Add flour mixture to the empty stand mixer bowl fitted with whisk attachment. With mixer running at low speed, gradually pour in butter mixture and mix for about 10 seconds. Stop mixer and thoroughly scrape down the bowl. Mix again on medium for 20 more seconds just until combined.

Fill cupcake pans with cupcake liners and fill about 3/4 full of batter

 Bake on the center rack in the oven at 350F for 20-25 minutes, rotating halfway through. Around the 20 minute mark stick with a tooth pick. If clean pull them out! if not leave them for another 5 minutes.

Cool cakes in pans or on wire rack for 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely (about 1 more hour) before frosting.

For the frosting I tried something new!

Ingredients:

• 8 oz 1/3 fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. First cream the cream cheese. You want to make sure there are no bumps or you'll have chunks of cream cheese in your frosting!

2. Add in your vanilla extract. Be sure to scrape the sides of your bowl so the extract can get all up in your cream cheese!

3. Add in the powdered sugar! It should take long for it all to combine!

This frosting isn't as thick as normal cream cheese frosting but it still tastes good and its a little bit better for you. I put in in the fridge for and hour just to harden it up before I iced it! 

And there ya have it! 

Favorite Beverage Turned Cupcake

If you are not a root beer fan this might not be the post for you. 


How often have you been out to lunch or dinner and seen a root beer float and wanted to order it so badly. But you just knew you would be made fun of for being a little kind or it not having alcohol in it. I know I have. I absolutely LOVE root beer, although now its more of a novelty thing for me. I don't order it every chance I get but if I walk into a store that has some of the wall brand in a glass bottle six pack you better believe I'm buying it. So when I saw this recipe I knew it would be in the first top five cakes I would make. And sure enough it's number 3. It turned out being a lot more work than I thought. (you have four different things to whip up)


So lets get on to the recipe! 
Preheat your oven to, you guessed it, 350 degrees.
Here is what you'll need for the cakes:

• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter temperature
• 2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 1/2 teaspoon root beer concentrate
• 1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

1.  Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 

3.  Beat in the root beer concentrate.

4.  In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
5.  With the mixer on low speed (if you go higher to "preserve time" you WILL get flour ALL OVER YOU)     alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. 

6. Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes. Alternate rack half way through for the perfect bake!

What you'll need for the cream filling:

• 3 T Flour
• 1/2 C milk
• 1/2 C real butter
• 1/2 C sugar (that’s granulated sugar, not powdered sugar)
• 1 t vanilla extract, or other flavor if you wish.

PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO INSTRUCTIONS!!!!

I messed it up the first time :-(

1.  Whisk together the flour and the milk and Heat in a small sauce pan on MEDIUM heat.

2.  DO NOT STOP WHISKING! Whisk continuously until it starts to thicken. Let it cook, STILL WHISKING, until you can start to see the bottom of the pan.

It’s okay if you have some lumps, because you're gonna strain those out. 

3.  Place the mixture in a mesh strainer and stir with a rubber spatula to push it through.
You should end up with a nice, smooth mixture, like pudding before it’s set.

Put it in the fridge to cool.  I suggest making the glaze and icing and then finishing the cream. 

4.  So once it it cool enough, make sure it's not warm,  beat the butter and the sugar for a minute or two until well combined and fluffy. Then while beating, add in the thickened milk mixture and the vanilla. 
Beat on med-high for 7-8 minutes.

Here is what you will need for the Root Beer glaze:

• 2 T confectioners’ sugar
• 1/8 t root beer concentrate
• Milk to your likeness

Just mix it all together, start by adding a teaspoon of milk at a time

Here is what you will need for the butter cream frosting:

• 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine softened
• 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
• 4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar 
• 2 tablespoons milk

1.  Mix shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. 

2.  Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. 

3.  Once that is done add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. 
Keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. 

So now that you have all four things here is how to put the cupcake together

1.  Cut into the cupcake diagonally  to make a little crater. 

2.  Take the Cream Filling and fill the crater, replace the cut off part

3. take Root Beer Glaze and drizzle over the cake.

4.  Ice the cupcake with the butter cream 

And there you have it! Root Beer Cupcakes

Hope you like them! I got great reviews from my friends so woot woot!

Keep Mixing,

J-Bolt

2 of 50

I AM A TERRIBLE BLOGGER!

I got all the way done with my cupcakes and realized I hod only taken one picture!!!!

Even though it's the cutest way to separate egg yokes, what is that supposed to show you!?

Well anyway todays cupcake is number 19 off of the list Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes.

I'm not going to lie to you folks, these were not my favorite for two reason:

1. Once the cake was baked it was just a bit too moist. 

2. I'm not sure if it was something I had done, and not to toot my own horn but I rarely mess up, but once again the icing wasn't the consistency that I wanted.

BOO!

I think I'll have to take a day perfect some icing recipes, although wonderful J-Rita found out if you add a little bit of vegetable shortening it helps thicken it up...which it did. I'll go over it in detail in a bit.

So here is what you need:


1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 egg yolks, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tsp Instant Pink Lemonade Mix 
8 large strawberries


The reciepe I took this from was only for 9-10. Who make ONLY 9-10 cupcakes? So I doubled everything.


PREHEAT!!!!!! 350 degrees...I feel like it's always 350, thats weird.

1. Cream butter, sugar and lemonade mix until fluffy. 
2. Add vanilla, soda, salt and eggs yolks. Mix in buttermilk and gradually add flour.
3. With a very sharp knife slice the berries and then dice into 1/4″ pieces careful to not crush the berries. If the berries are crushed and then added to the cupcakes, there will be too much moisture and your cupcakes will not bake properly. (maybe this is where I went wrong :( )
4. Fill each baking cup with about 3/4s batter. Then sprinkle in each cup 5-6 pieces of fresh strawberry. Then add more batter per cup filling each to about 2/3 full.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until a test straw can be cleanly removed.

REMEMBER: alternate racks half way into the baking!

Now for that damn frosting!

 16 (2 blocks) ounces cream cheese

2 stick butter, firm but not cold
1 teaspoon salt
2 pound powdered sugar, sifted (yeah I know its a lot)
1 teaspoon vanilla

maybe:

4 tablespoons vegetable shortening 

Combine butter, salt, and cream cheese in mixer and beat on medium speed 2-3 minutes. Add sugar until just incorporated. Don’t over mix. It should be thick but not fluffy. Add vanilla. If the icing isn't think enough then add one tbsp of shorting at a time until you get the thickness you desire. 

interactive photo! You can put anything behind my cupcake!

That perfect pink flavor is 45 drops of red and 8 drops of yellow.

These are very VERY sweet cupcakes so watch out. you can always cut back on the powered lemonade that will make it less sweet.

Hope you likes them and you have better luck on the icing 

:-)

Keep Mixing,

J-Bolt

The 1st of 50

Ladies and Gents the first cupcake in my Cupcake Challenge:

ORANGE CLOVE CUPCAKES!!!!

This is number 3 on the list and I have to say I really enjoyed this one for two reasons

one: I got to make my own candies

&

two: I baked with my best friend and blog mate J-Rita

We haven't back with each other in a while so it was lovely plus we cracked open a bottle of wine and thats always a good time.

Any who,

Now when I saw the recipe I was a little worried, so much oil and 5 EGGS yikes. But whatevs I'll do what the recipe tells me.

The first thing we did was peel the oranges, I took a vegetable peeler and that worked just fine. We then cut them in to strips about a centimeter thick and plopped them in to a bowl with 4 cups water a tablespoon of salt. Which we set aside and left over night.

On to the cakes!

PREHEAT!!!!! 350 degrees (hard parts over)

What you will need:

• 3 cups of flour
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons of grated orange zest
• 5 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup of orange juice (no pulp)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cloves

1. Combine flour, ground cloves, salt and baking powered and set aside.

*SIDE NOTE* if you look at the recipe it says to put the orange zest in there as well, but i found a better way.

                                       Stay tuned so see what happens!

     2. Pour sugar into a bowl along with the orange zest, continue to fold the sugar and zest until                   sugar in moist.

Now you may think this is weird, because I did the first time I did it, use a big spatula and keep folding and pressing...you'll see what I mean.

     3. Pour in the eggs and beat for 30 seconds until fluffy. Then add vanilla and oil until its all    mixed together.

    4. Alternate adding the dry mix and the orange juice. Once all is added beat for another 30 seconds.

   

    5. Scoop into cupcake papers (I like to use a 1/4 cup measuring cup, it's the perfect amount) Bake for 18-22 minutes.

J-Rita taught me to rotate the pans half way threw the backing process. If you are just making one pan turn it 180 degrees and move it to the other rack. 

Oh Snap! Fish Eye Lens!

So I think it's time to admit that frosting is the bane of my existence . No matter how carefully I follow instructions it's never right. So I always end up doing my own little concoction and for the most part the turn out ok. 

So here is what you'll need:

• 1 cup butter, room temp as per always.
• 6 cups of powdered sugar, I know I know its a lot but after the 4 cups it asked for it just wasn't the consistency i wanted :-( but just keep adding until you are happy with it. 
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup whipping cream, this is also something I added in
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract, it was vanilla put screw that! vanilla get to have all the fun. Other extracts need to shine too!

So....

1. Beat the butter until soft

2. Add sugar, milk, whipping cream and extract until soft. AGAIN keep adding sugar until you have the consistency you desire.

3. Put that bad boy on your COOLED cupcakes.

I can tell you how many times as a young baker I iced to early. Even slightly warm cakes will melt the frosting and cause it to fall right off your cake. Have patience it's totally worth it in the end.

I also thought to put some food coloring in there to add a little zaz! I found this awesome food coloring chart that shows you plenty of beautiful colors that you can make from a simple standard (red, blue, green, yellow) food color box. I chose a nice light orange color, 6 drops of red and 8 drops of yellow.

So there are the cakes.

CUT TO:

My alarm goes off at 6:30, I wake up having NO IDEA why I am up so early. And if you know me you know that if I have to be out of the house at 8 am my alarm will go off as late as 7:45. I like my sleep. So this 6:30 crap threw me off, them I remembered, THE CUPCAKES.

So I went down stairs and began something I had never done before: "Candied" I don't even know if thats a proper term but I'm using it and if it catches on I want my money!

So remember that bowl of peels I had you set aside...I assume you did because if you are reading this and NOT baking I don't think we can be friends anymore. So yeah the bowl...drain it. Now in order to et the salty bitter taste out throw the  peels in a pan and pour two cups of cool water over them. place on the stove and wait till the water boils, then drain again. REPEAT THIS 3 TIMES, don't be lazy or you'll have Nasty things on your cupcakes and then everyone won't like you.

For the next step you need:

• 2 cups of sugar plus a 1/2 cup for rolling
• 1/2 cup water
• a pinch of ground cloves

1. In a sauce pan combine the 2 cups sugar, water and the orange peels. Heat and stir until the sugar had dissolved and the peels have become slightly translucent. This can take about ten minutes and you have to keep stirring.

2. Drain the liquid, be careful it will be hot and sticky, think of tasty hot glue... NOTE this will be messy, really messy.

scoop the peels into some form of Tupperware that has a lid and  that contains the other 1/2 cup of sugar and the pinch of cloves. You may think it will be one big clump but if you shake it hard enough it will all seperate. You might have to pull a few apart from each other but not many. 

And they have become edible!

Once that is done place them on you're cupcakes and you are done!

Yay!!!!!

These were an awesome first cupcake challenge cupcake. I hope you make them and enjoy them as much as I did!

Stay tuned! There are more cupcakes to come!

Keep Mixing,

J-Bolt

It's been over a month...

So I started a new job and it has just taken me over. Sorry to the few people that actually read this.

I've decided to add on to my already busy schedule and bring to you my personal challenge.

Thanks to a post by Restless Chipotle I am determined to bake ALL 50 of the Cupcake Recipes

It's going to be an extreme challenge and all of my friends are going to hate me because they wont be able to resist something like Chipotle Cinnamon Chocolate Cupcakes, I mean what the frak is that?! 

This is also an attempt to maybe getting paid for baking...eventually...one day. I will be strategically placing cupcakes all over my work with cute little cards so people can contact me. You know for parties, events, eating their feelings.

I also, in detail will be blogging about the baking experience and the step by step process.

And will hopefully get more readers out there to actually read my shiz!

So thats it, wish me luck and the courage to not gain 50 pounds!

Keep Mixing,

J-Bolt

6 Loads of Dishes.

Well as the title might tell you, two weeks ago was a blur in my kitchen. Three different kinds of cupcakes were made and I also had Family Night Dinner. So you can excuse my absence for the blogging word as I am still recuperating. The first batch was made strictly for homework. Three days of pretending I knew how to use a camera and shot a stylized baking video. It's myself making the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. My co-workers were pretty happy since most of them didn't get any for St. Paddy's day. 

Next up was Family Night Dinner. I had asked my Honey Buns if there was anything he likes that I haven't made yet. He sent me a link to a dish where the name says everything: Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread. I cringed when I saw the pictures of the ingredients. Frank's Red Hot Sauce is the one thing that can turn me off from a dish, and this had it all over. But I sucked it up because love knows no bounds... 

I's actually quite simple. What you will need is the following

• uncooked pizza dough
• Frank's Red Hot Sauce
• Ranch Dressing 
• Mozzarella Cheese (pretty much an entire block, but who complains about to much cheese)
• Cheddar Cheese (again the whole block)
• Chicken 

Now for the chicken. I was feeling lazy that day so I bought pre-cooked chicken and cut it up. if you want to get fancy and you have the time cook your own damn chicken! 

Also you can add blue cheese crumbles or sub the Ranch out for Blue Cheese Dressing, 
experiment! 
First we must pre-heat! 425 ladies and gents.
So what you do is roll out the dough in a flat bread type manner a.k.a. rectangle, try and get it as long and wide as you can. Next, 1/2 cup of ranch or blue cheese and a half to whole tablespoon of Frank, or if you're crazy as much as you want mix those bad boys together and spread it on the dough like pizza sauce. Easy right? 
Shred your cheese and sprinkle those bad boys all around top it with the chicken maybe and some more cheese.
Once that is done, from the shorter end begin rolling it, and roll it and roll it till you can not roll any longer.

Now put that sexy lump in oven for 20-25 minutes and there you have it.


See I told you it would be easy.


Hope you enjoy!


Keep Mixing!
J-Bolt