Spring Flowers!

I feel like a bear that just came out of hibernation.

The weather has been soooo unpredictable! Back in fall, people were saying that we were going to have one of the hardest winters ever. So obviously I went and bought a really warm (and expensive) coat and a really sturdy (and expensive) pair of waterproof boots.
And then winter didn't come.

But I'm not disappointed. As I might have mentioned before, I wasn't really built for winter. Not one hair on my head likes winter or snow or cold.

And then all of a sudden it became really warm and breezy and sunny and just DELICIOUS!

After a long time, I was able to try something new in terms of baking and decorating to celebrate the good weather.

I baked some chocolate peanut butter cupcakes with a recipe I found in a cupcake book. I have to do a review on this book sometime soon.

I also watched a video on some pretty fondant flowers and was inspired to recreate the look. I gave it a try and it was pretty easy!! It took me a few tries to get the hang of it but the outcome is quite pretty.

If you want to try this and think the video is a little unclear, let me know and I'll do another post with step by step pictures and explanations.

I'm also really happy with how I photographed these. Obvious credits go to the sunlight but I like to think I had something to do with it too :)

Happy Baking!

Why Some Things Need to be on Paper and Not in My Head

Another post about a lesson learned, although this one not as harsh and ugly as the previous one :)

I recently made a bunch of cupcakes and a small cake for a friend's birthday. I used my usual chocolate cake recipe but for some reason, it didn't turn out the way it usually does. It was good...but just not as chocolatey.

I also made a small 6 inch cake because a birthday is not complete without cutting into a cake while everyone sings a very off key but loving rendition of Happy Birthday...in fact the only part of that song that everyone sings in sync is the very first Happy...if your lucky, it might be Happy Birthday toooooo.....

But I digress.

Initially I had wanted to design the cake to look like a falling spatter of tiny little flowers. Kind of like this.

And that's how the cake looked in my head.

However, since I was pressed for time and ASSUMED that it seemed like a simple design, I didn't draw a sketch or look up tutorials or helpful hints like I usually do.

The look I was going for didn't really translate onto the end cake I made. It doesn't look bad...it just wasn't the look I was going for. I guess I overestimated my abilities...it tends to happen. I also think the design would work better for a multi-tier cake.

Anyway...the cake still looked cute...the cupcakes also looked cute. And I loved the teal colour of the buttercream.

And I haven't given up on the splatter design...I will recreate it one day.

Moral of the story: plan, research, plan, sketch, and plan!

And thank you to my friend Emily for the pictures!!! You give my cupcakes a touch of magic :)

Happy Baking!

Whipped Cream Frosting: Take 2

I love whipped cream way too much. I like it a lot better than buttercream frosting. After my first failed batch of whipped cream frosting, I decided to try again with a little more patience. I baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes to which the recipe is below. This is such an easy recipe and it tastes amazing! I ate 3 in one sitting....okay you caught me, it was 4.  I've made them a few times and each time think of trying a different recipe but just cant bring myself to.

The frosting came out much better too. I remembered to stop whipping as soon as the cream started forming stiff peaks. The peaks weren't as stiff as some pictures I had seen on the internets but I didn't want to overmix. After mixing, I put it into the fridge for half an hour to firm up a bit so that it wouldn't melt when I piped them. This frosting doesn't seem to be ideal for piping. It doesn't hold its shape very well. It would be much better for spreading even using just a round tip for blobs of icing. Next time I think I might try to add a stabilizing agent to help it become more stiff. It tasted great though, not too sweet and not too plain.

Recipe for Chocolate Cupcake

Ingredients
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking power
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 3/4 cup AP flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Beat eggs, vanilla, milk, and vegetable oil
3. Sift and combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and beat until combined
5. Stir in boiling water until well combined and batter is thin
6. Pour batter into prelined baking tray
7. Bake 25 minutes and remove after testing with toothpick

Recipe for Whipped Cream Frosting

Ingredients

1 cup whipping cream

2 1/2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Procedure

1. Pour cream, sugar, and vanilla into a bowl. 

2. Start blending with mixer.

3. Stop blending when mixture becomes thick and forms stiff peaks. Take care not to over mix!

4. Chill in fridge for 30 min and then pipe onto cupcakes

You can adjust the sugar to your taste. I also added some food coloring to mine. 

Bon appetite!

Whipped Cream Frosting:Take 1

Frosting for cupcakes seems simple enough. However, there are many variations of different types of recipe and its kind of hurting my head trying to decide which to use for which cupcake. I thought I would try a basic buttercream first but upon perusing through a few recipes decided not to. Maybe its the cheap-o side of me that cries at the price of butter, or the side of me that doesn't really like a lot of frosting to begin or maybe just the fact that all the professionals on Youtube seem to be doing it with a stand mixer and I just have my measly hand mixer *pouts and runs into a corner to cry*

So anyway, my sister wanted me to make some cupcakes for her class pot luck and we decided to do a simple chocolate cupcake with a whipped cream Oreo frosting. I love whipped cream and who doesn't love Oreos? I figured I would just throw all the ingredients together and beat away until the cream was....well...whipped. Biggest. Mistake. Ever.....okay maybe not ever...but still pretty big.

I won't bother to post the recipe because it didn't work so well. I started to whip the cream after adding in icing sugar and it wasn't really taking a stiff whipped cream form. So then I started to add in more icing sugar. Some sort of divine being should have struck me with a thunderbolt right then because that was NOT a smart idea. Within seconds, the whipped cream turned into cheese. Lets have a moment of silence while we picture my very shocked face......

I don't think it was because I added more sugar but more so because I whipped it too long. As I was frantically searching on Google how to reverse the cheese concoction that I had made, I learned that a) the curdled cheese was here to stay and b) you must stop whipping as soon as you think its ready...don't give it a few more seconds thinking it will help...it won't...it will disintegrate before your eyes.

By this point I had also added in the Oreo crumbs and pretty much ended up with a grey mushy lumpy mess that started to 'weep'. Weeping means that water starts to leak out when the whipped cream starts to separate.

Since I was making this for my sister, I had to get some sort of frosting on them. So I whipped up a new bowl of frosting. Somehow these things always happen to me at night because once again I was up quite late praying and coaxing the frosting to come out semi-decent which it did. It wasn't stiff and didnt hold for piping but it didnt taste that bad. It looked.....weird....but at 1 in the morning, it could have looked like mud for all I cared.

I will definitely be trying this frosting out again. Hopefully, it turns out better. In the mean time, I'm staying away from Oreos!