Category Archives: Cupcakes

Buttered Nipple (Butterscotch and Irish Cream) Cupcakes

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I go to trivia ever Wednesday with a great group of friends. We used to attend trivia at a bit of a rowdier, louder bar but have since found Moose’s Down Under. This bar truly makes us feel like home, we know all the staff, they know us, and Corina, the owner is absolutely fantastic. Erin runs the trivia night and does a wonderful job. Anyway, it is an awesome way to get together with all our friends once a week and I thought that there would be no better place to bring some donation-encouraging mini cupcakes! I made up the poster below and baked up two shot-themed cupcakes, the Piña Colada cupcakes and Buttered Nipple cupcakes. I offered the cupcakes in exchange for a donation of any amount, and the wonderful trivia goers answered in full-force! We made $240.70, including the jackpot that the winning teams (they joined together to guarantee a win) donated to us. I was so thankful for such a supportive group of people and for Corina letting me set up there!

DadPosterNoQr

Anyway, we had a great time and are really looking forward to the Spring Sprint this coming Sunday, May 26th. My sister, mom, nieces, and a bunch of our wonderful friends are coming into town for the walk, so it is going to be a great time!

ButteredNipple

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Black Forest Cupcakes for my beautiful mother’s birthday!

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Black Forest Cupcakes

My mom’s birthday was on December 21st, and aside from wanting to spend some time with her family, she said that her favourite cake was black forest. Mom suggested making the black forest cake into kid-friendly cupcake portions, and this awesome dessert creation was born. These treats are perfectly portioned, not-too-sweet treats that have all of the black foresty goodness, without the black foresty effort! Happy Birthday to our wonderful mother whose love and support has gotten us through this difficult year and who, with our amazing father, made us into the women we are today.

Black Forest Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder (regular is fine too)
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk (make your own with 1/2 cup milk and 1 tsp white vinegar, let sit for a few minutes before adding to recipe)
  • 1 can of cherry pie filling
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled
  • 1 1/2 tbsp icing sugar

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat oven to 375°F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.
  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla. Beat until well combined.
  3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.
  4. Scoop 2 tablespoons of batter into the bottom of each paper cup, allow it to spread across the bottom. Dollop a heaping tablespoon of cherry pie filling on top of the batter (include 4 cherries in each scoop). Top with another 2 tablespoons of batter, or enough to fill the cups 3/4 of the way. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are firm to the touch. Allow to cool before topping with whipped cream.
  5. When ready to top the cupcakes, whisk together the heavy whipping cream and icing sugar until stiff peaks form (this will allow the cream to hold its shape in the fridge). Dollop a generous bit of cream on to the cup cakes and top with a spoon of cherry pie filling. Serve immediately, or refrigerate (these keep well in the fridge for a couple days).
Cherry layer.

Cherry layer.

Topped with batter, ready for the oven.

Topped with batter, ready for the oven.

Little pockets of cherry deliciousness.

Little pockets of cherry deliciousness.

Ah, so wonderfully decadent.

Ah, so wonderfully decadent.

My lovely niece Brooklynn demanded that sprinkles be added! She did a wonderful job of decorating for Grandma.

My lovely niece Brooklynn demanded that sprinkles be added! She did a wonderful job of decorating for Grandma.

Chocolate Chai Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting — 100th post! HUZZAH! HURRAY!

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Well, time flies and so do posts! I can’t believe this is my hundredth post, and squashing 100 posts into a year filled with grad school, internships, and family devastation has been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve loved almost every post, and am looking forward to 100 more! I was going to do a giveaway for this occasion but have to amass things to give away first, though I have some book-like ideas, but also I have NO activity in the comments, for all the lovely readers I have. Hmm. I must need to be more provocative in my posts, thought provoking rather. Still figuring out the engagement bit of all of this.

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Guinness Cupcakes with a fluffy Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting “Head”

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Oh my. OH MY. These are so frigging tasty. I already loved the Guinness chocolate cake recipe, as evidenced in this really early post, but this light, fluffy, erethreal frosting brings them to a new level. They are not weighed down by sweetness. Oh man, so delicious. Guinness brings a deep, dark, stouty note to the chocolate cake, and the whipped cream and mascarpone frosting is rich and lightly sweet, avoiding the too-tangy zip of cream cheese frostings. The fluffy, cloud of frosting becomes on the rich Guinness cupcake.
These cupcakes are part in honour of the Olympics in London… but truly they are in honour of my wonderful friend, Caelin who horribly left me to live in London, yesterday. She loves her a pint of Guinness, and I love me some Caelin. I think these would’ve been more appropriate an honour had I baked them in time for her to have one, but she can eyeball them from across the pond and weep at all the mistakes she’s made (ie. leaving me). Anyway, the cupcakes are the same that I used before, just halved, though it still made 22 (I made them smaller this time).

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/5 cup dark brown sugar, packed
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cup room-temperature Guinness

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place the rack in the middle, and prepare muffin tins by lining with papers.
  2. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
  3. Beat together butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one and at time, beating well. Beat in vanilla.
  4. Add flour mixture and beer alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, and mixing until just combined.
  5. Fill cups 2/3rds full and bake until the tops of the cupcakes are spongy to the touch, 18-20 minutes.
  6. Cool on a rack for at least 30 mins until cool before frosting.
  7. Feel free to eat one while still hot, sans frosting, these are DELICIOUS.

Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting

From justJENN.

INGREDIENTS

  • 8 ounces mascarpone cheese
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a medium bowl, combine mascarpone cheese, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir together until smooth, and set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, whip cream to stiff peaks. Fold the mascarpone mixture into the whipped cream until combined.
  3. Keep refrigerated, this isn’t a frosting to stay out overnight. That said, it keeps on the counter for a few hours if you are setting them out for people to munch on. Also, fold in some nuts and/or coconut for a funky, fun fruit/cookie dip!

Guinness, cocoa powder, and flour. Ready to go!

Poured and ready to bake!

DSCF4319

Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes for my 25th!

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It was my 25th birthday on Tuesday (that’s right, mark your calendars!) and I decided on Monday night that I would bake up a batch of cupcakes to covertly celebrate. I didn’t mention the reason for my cupcake-offerings and none was asked (as they are used to weekly baking) but I was happy to see smiles all around. Gen took me out for a lovely jaunt to Granville Island and we had a romantic dinner up on The Sandbar’s patio.

 Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes

Made about 26 cupcakes.

Ingredients

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup white sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 6-8 cups whole cherries (to be pitted and chopped… I didn’t measure the post-pitting/chopping amounts)
  • 3/4 cup of raspberry port (or some other fruit liquor that would be lovely with cherries… Kirsch perhaps)

Directions

  1. Do the cherries first, if only to avoid the frustration in the midst of baking. If you have a cherry pitter, make use of it; if not, use a bobby pin! Really, it worked for me. Rip the stem off and jab the rounded end of the bobby pin into the centre, moving it around to loosen the pit, extract pit, place pit-free fruit in bowl, grab new cherry, repeat process. Be careful, cherries are squirt-y and the juice is stain-y.
  2. Once the pitting is complete roughly chop the cherries (set aside 26 or so whole cherries for popping in the top of the cupcakes before baking) and place back in the bowl, pour your port over your cherries and allow them to soak while you prepare the rest of the batter.
  3. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line your cupcake tin.
  4. In a medium bowl, whisk your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Set aside.
  5. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy, or at the very least, well combined.
  6. Pour off the port and cherry juice into the butter and sugar mixture. Add the eggs, coconut milk, and vanilla and combine.
  7. Slowly  add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined.
  8. Fold in your cherry pieces.
  9. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 and push a pitted-whole cherry into the top.
  10. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, OR until the top springs back when poked.
  11. Cool on wire racks for 20 minutes and then frost. I frosted mine with Dreamy Buttercream that I doused with about 3/4 cup of port… not the brightest idea as it started to separate, but with some vigorous mixing it stayed together and tasted great. Wash a bunch of cherries with nice stems, pat dry, and plop into the icing for a fancy-looking treat.

Up close and personal with a classy cupcake.