Pineapple Upside Down Cupcake

It's been almost six months since my last blog.  I've been baking a little, but I haven't created anything new....until today.  A few months ago, my 9 year old asked me to try to make a Pineapple upside down cupcake.  Yesterday my husband bought me a new muffin tin that holds 24 cupcakes.  I couldn't hold out any longer, I had to make the cupcake.  It was kind of a challenge in the fact that it's an upside down cake, which means I couldn't use a cupcake liner.  I had to bake the cupcakes right in the tin and then flip them out and hope and pray that they didn't stick to the sides of the pan or fall apart!!  Luckily, they turned out great.  I made a whipped cream cheese frosting and garnished them with toasted coconut and toffee bits and put a cherry on the top.  They are delicious!

Chocolate Drizzle Cake

I was asked to make a white cake with chocolate frosting for a baby shower.  It needed to feed 15 people.  This is a triple layer white cake with chocolate frosting, drizzled with chocolate ganache and garnished with strawberries.  It looked so good, my family asked me to make one for them!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcake

I had Valentine's Day on my mind when I came up with my new cupcake.  I always make chocolate covered strawberries for the holiday, so I thought, why not make a cupcake around that?  I made my normal chocolate cupcake, but I realized too late that I didn't have any sour cream (it's the secret to the moistness of my cake).  Then I realized I could use buttermilk instead.  Guess what?  No buttermilk!  This was not a problem as I happen to have whole milk and vinegar on hand.  The two can be combined to make buttermilk.  That problem was solved, but now I needed to figure out how much buttermilk to add to my batter.  I decided on 1/2 a cup and crossed my fingers.  That seemed to be the perfect amount.  I think I like this cake better than the sour cream version.  I love it when that happens!  Next, I pureed and cooked the strawberries.  I used some of the puree for the frosting and the rest for the cupcakes.  I dipped the tops of the cakes into the puree.  Then I frosted them with strawberry whipped cream cheese frosting.  I topped each cake with a chocolate dipped strawberry and drizzled them with chocolate.  YUM!

Peanut Butter Pattie Cupcake

This cupcake was obviously inspired by my favorite Girl Scout cookie, the Peanut Butter Pattie.  It's a peanut butter cake filled with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, frosted with peanut butter frosting, drizzled with dark chocolate ganache, and garnished with a Peanut Butter Pattie.  This version has a lot of peanut butter, so if that is your thing, you will love it. 

Blue Moon Cupcake

In October, while attending an Emporia State Alumni event at The Boulevard Brewery, someone asked me if I could create a Wheat beer cupcake.  I told him, "Yes," but I never followed through.  Finally today I decided to attempt it.  Since I am a Blue Moon fan, this is the beer I chose to use.  The cake is made with orange zest, coriander, buttermilk and Blue Moon.  It tastes very similar to a spice cake.  The frosting is made with cream cheese, orange zest and a little Blue Moon.  It's garnished with an orange wedge with the peel left on.  I think it's delicious, but I am a fan of coriander.  My tongue is still tingling from the spice.

My daughters like to make Cupcakes too!

So it's been three months since I baked a new cupcake.  I did one new cupcake a week for eight weeks and I guess I got burned out.  I've still been baking, I just haven't come up with anything new in awhile.  Haven, however, has been decorating like a star!  I am posting her MINI FLOWER CUPCKAKE.  She saw a picture of this cupcake and then figured out how to make it completely on her own.  She even made a "how-to" video.

Briley made a lot of awesome cupcakes too.  This one below was her favorite design.  We had a fun time decorating on New Year's Day.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake

Enough with the chocolate!  I love fruit flavored desserts and cheesecake, so I created the strawberry cupcake filled with cheesecake frosted with cream cheese whipped cream frosting.  I used a strawberry cupcake recipe I have used before.  It's always gotten good reviews, but I still think I need to work on it.  It calls for strawberry puree.  I think next time I will cook down the strawberries and make more of a jam to add to my batter.  I filled the cupcake tins half way with strawberry batter, made my cheesecake, dollped that on top of the batter, and finally topped the cheesecake layer with more batter.  The cupcakes came out perfect.  They were more dense than usual because of the cheesecake.  Now for the frosting.  I love whipped cream on my strawberry cheesecake, so the trick was to make whipped cream frosting that wouldn't melt at room temperature.  I whipped cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.  While the whisk was going, I added two cups of heavy cream and whipped it for about a minute.  The result was awesome!  I added some strawberry puree to the frosting, but I didn't add enough so you couldn't taste it. I frosted the cupcakes really high.  These cupcakes were delicious at room temperature, but even better chilled overnight.  I used a fresh strawberry for a garnish and it tasted really good with each bite of cupcake.