Birthday cupcakes

A few weeks ago, one of my favorite coworkers asked me to do him a favor, and it was a favor I could not refuse. His son works in our office, too, and was turning 18 the next day, so the coworker asked if I would mind making something for Ben's birthday. After a few semi-teasing exchanges demanding that this coworker make deadline or stop filing long stories, I agreed to make cupcakes. (Don't hate - I'm a sucker for baking!) I didn't have a ton of time, but I thought I had enough basic ingredients so that I could avoid a trip to the store.

I wanted to try a new recipe, so I searched the internet and found a basic cupcake recipe. I usually make the Wilton buttercream recipe but wanted to try something a bit different without the Wilton meringue powder, too (because I *knew* was out of that).

To me, the cupcakes themselves seemed to lack much of a sweet flavor, but the frosting helped bring that balance back. I might try substituting a different flavor for the vanilla or adding a bit more vanilla next time I try these to give them more of a cake flavor.

Ben loved having a baked surprise at work - he thought no one would even know it was his birthday - and he got a lot of attention once people knew the cupcakes were to celebrate his big day. (He did annoy a few of us with his "I'm so old! I'm working on my birthday" comments - cuz c'mon, kid, you're EIGHTEEN.) Ben shared his birthday treats and left me a super sweet note thanking me for them.

Easy Cupcake

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add shortening, milk, and vanilla. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scrape side of bowl with a spatula.

Add eggs to the mixture. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scrape bowl again. Beat on high speed for 1 minute 30 seconds until well mixed.

Spoon cupcake batter into paper liners until 1/2 to 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool 5 minutes in pans then remove and place on wire racks to cool completely.

Once cupcakes are completely cooled, frost with your favorite frosting recipe or decorate as you desire.

Buttercream frosting

Ingredients

* 1 cup unsalted butter or margarine, room temperature (use vegetable shortening when pure white icing is needed)
* 1/2 cup milk, room temperature
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 teaspoons vanilla or other desired flavoring
* 2 pounds confectioners' sugar

Directions

Combine all the ingredients in large mixing bowl and mix at slow speed until smooth. If stiffer icing is needed, or if the weather is very warm, add a little extra sugar. This recipe is enough to cover and fill a 9 by 13-inch sheet cake or 2 (9-inch) layers.

Sources: cupcakerecipes.com (cupcakes), Food Network (buttercream)

Banana/blueberry cupcakes and honey frosting

I recently had a surplus of blueberries. And a surplus of ripening bananas. And a desire to bake. So I headed to the internet, and my trusty friend (the Web) helped with my issues.

I made these banana cupcakes for craft party last weekend. I added blueberries and fell in love with the frosting.

Banana (Blueberry) Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 c. mashed bananas (about 4 ripe bananas)
3/4 cup blueberries (my addition)
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. (I managed to get 16 muffins from this recipe.)
-In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
-Make a well in center of flour mixture.


-In well, mix together butter, mashed bananas, eggs, and vanilla.
-Stir to incorporate flour mixture (do not over mix). Add blueberries.


-Dividing evenly, spoon batter into muffin cups.
-Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cupcake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
-Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely on a wire rack.
-Spread tops with Honey-Cinnamon Frosting.


Honey Cinnamon Frosting

Ingredients
1 1/4 c. confectioners' sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 Tbsp honey
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions
-In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat confectioners' sugar, unsalted butter, honey, and ground cinnamon until smooth, 4 to 5 minutes

Source: Good Things Catered, who used recipes from Everyday Food

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

A coworker of mine had mentioned cookie dough cupcakes to me a few months ago, and I thought they sounded fantastic. Fantastically yummy. And fantastically complicated. Surely, to get the taste of cookie dough IN a cupcake, you must have specials skills, tools, talents, ingredients, powers, right?

No.

I have none of the above (aside from the ability to roll my tongue, which some might consider a special talent). And I made them and will do so again and again.

I must be on a cookie dough kick this week. I made these for the birthday of one of Tim's coworkers. The actual cupcake part of this treat was the most moist thing I have ever eaten. It was amazingly easy to make these, and some people called it the best thing I have ever made, which is an observation I do not take lightly.

One of Tim's coworkers told me he microwaved one for a few seconds and it tasted exactly like a cupcake and cookie dough. As you'll see from my notes below, next time I make these I'm going to make some small modifications to have them be more "gooey cookie dough center" instead of "fairly baked cookie dough crust." People seemed to love the fact that they had NO IDEA there was cookie dough coming until they bit in to one.

Makes 22 to 24 cupcakes (2 1/2 inches each)
Preparation time: 15 Minutes
Baking time: 23 to 27 Minutes
Assembly time: 10 Minutes

Ingredients:

24 paper liners for cupcake pans (2 1/2-inch size)
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain yellow cake mix
1 package (3.4 ounces) vanilla instant pudding mix
1 cup whole milk
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 package (1 pound) frozen cookie dough (see "the Cupcake Doctor says" below)
Frosting (Cupcake Doctor recommends homemade chocolate buttercream, I used store-bought frosting)

Directions:

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake cups with paper liners. Set the pans aside.

2. Place the cake mix, pudding mix, milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. The batter should look well blended. Spoon or scoop a heaping 1/4 cup batter into each lined cupcake cup, filling it two thirds of the way full. (You will get between 22 and 24 cupcakes; remove the empty liners, if any.) Cut the frozen dough pieces in half to make 24 pieces. Place a frozen cookie dough piece on top of each cupcake (see "Kristin I. Cupcake Maker says" below). Place the pans in the oven.

3. Bake the cupcakes until they are golden and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 23 to 27 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edges of the cupcake liners, lift the cupcakes up from the bottoms of the cups using the end of the knife, and pick them out of the cups carefully with your fingertips. Place them on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes before frosting. They may sink a bit in the center.


4. Frost and serve!

Store these cupcakes, in a cake saver or under a glass dome, at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Or freeze them, wrapped in aluminum foil or in a cake saver, for up to 6 months. Thaw the cupcakes overnight in the refrigerator before serving.

The Cupcake Doctor says...

If you use the 18-ounce logs of refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough (instead of the 1-pound packages of frozen dough), cut them into 24 equal pieces and freeze them before using them in this recipe. It's important to use frozen dough, because you don't want it to bake completely and become a cookie. You want the center to be gooey when you bite into it.

Kristin I. Cupcake Maker says ...

I used the 18-ounce log and froze it first. When I make these again, I am going to keep the pieces frozen til the last possible second. In the little time I needed to cut the frozen log, I think it defrosted just enough to start baking and become a cookie while in the cupcake. When I make them again, I'm going to push the piece of cupcake dough in to the cupcake because it seemed to just bake at the top instead of become a gooey ball inside of the cupcake. It made for a yummy cookie dough topping, but it wasn't the gooey center I was expecting.

Source: The Cake Mix Doctor

Oreo cupcakes with Oreo buttercream

Full disclosure: I am not a big cupcake person. I am realllly not a big chocolate person. Give me vanilla any day, but chocolate is usually not something I crave/request/desire.

This being said, I have no idea how I arrived at wanting so desperately to make the Oreo cupcakes I've seen on Heather's blog.

Tim went to a Guitar Hero party this weekend, so I volunteered (OK, demanded that I be allowed) to make something. A girl has got to blog, after all.

So I used the recipe that Heather found/adapted and had great success. I even purchased a teeny-tiny food chopper for the Oreos. (This was the highlight of my week.) The only issue I had was that I made 24 cupcakes, like Heather did, but I had a little bit of batter left over and put it in a pie pan. But the cupcakes still overflowed. I think I could easily have made 30 cupcakes and still had batter left over. Next time I make these I will not fill the cupcake tins so full, and I will make more of them. I think I also need a new decorating tip for the frosting, but that was a minor detail for this time around. Half of the cupcakes were delivered to Tim's party and half went to my coworkers.

I'm not going to kid you. The Oreo buttercream? DE-LIC-IOUS. I didn't have any vanilla, though (I ran out the day before, I swear!), so I used 1/2 teaspoon of Wilton butter flavoring and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract.

A good tip from Heather that I didn't see until after I made my cupcakes: Cut your Oreos in half to garnish the cupcakes FIRST. Some will crack or break and not split in to perfect halves, so you can use the cracked/broken ones to grind up for your cake batter and buttercream instead of wasting them. (I found it handy to pop 'em in my mouth if they were broken, but I think Heather's approach is better for my waistline.)

I'm also going to use the cake recipe for a baby shower I'm co-hosting early next month. (I'm doing a chocolate cake and a vanilla cake, and I have some leads on some mighty promising vanilla cakes.) And I'm making another recipe from Heather's blog for the craft party I'm hosting next weekend. Get. Excited. And that's just what I have PLANNED, not including spontaneous baking that might appear in the blog!

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

(Source: Hersheys.com)

Ingredients:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water
- 8-10 Oreo cookies, crushed or put through food processor (optional) - Heather's addition

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans (For cupcakes or other pan sizes, see variations listed below.)


2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, Oreo crumbs and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes. (Note from Heather: I filled my muffin cups about 3/4 full to get bigger cupcakes, so I only got 24 out of the recipe.)

Oreo Buttercream

Ingredients:
- 1 cup shortening or butter (I use shortening so it doesn't have to be refrigerated)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp. water
- 1 lb. confectioner's sugar (if you don't have a scale, it's approximately 4 cups)
- 1 tbsp. meringue powder
- 12-14 Oreos, finely crushed in food processor

Directions:
1. In bowl of stand mixer, cream shortening, vanilla, and water.

2. Add confectioner's sugar, meringue powder, and crushed Oreos. Mix until well combined.


3. At this point, your frosting will be very thick. To top cupcakes, it's better to have medium to thin consistency icing, so you'll have to add more water. I probably added another 2-3 tbsp. to get the desired consistency, but you'll want to add the water little by little to make sure you don't add too much. When it's the right consistency, it should be pretty easy to stir by hand (think about whether you'd be able to easily squeeze it out of a piping bag). If you accidentally make it too thin (runny), add more confectioner's sugar.

Once cupcakes were completely cool, use a piping bag to add a decorative swirl on top of each one. Then push one half of an Oreo cookie into the frosting for garnish.