Tag: Cupcakes’
(Healthier) Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- by Liz
Omigoodness I love these. I was trying to come up with a way to fancy-up carrot cake cupcakes, which turned out to be much harder than I expected. You can’t really use sprinkles or chocolate shavings or anything like that, and putting actual carrots on top would be completely awful.
But then I was inspired by my little sister, the other writer on this here blog. She was piping melted white chocolate onto tarts and used the leftovers to draw letters and hearts on wax paper, then let them set in the fridge. I did the same thing, only I added gel food colouring to make orange and green, and formed carrots. Voila! Super easy and super adorable.
This recipe is adapted from The Looneyspoons Collection, which we highly recommend, especially if you are interested in healthier eating. These cupcakes are full of nutritional goodness and they’re way lighter than normal carrot cake (which is typically doused in oil).
English Toffee Cupcakes | Olympic Cupcakes
- by Torie
I love the Olympics. Even more than the Olympics, I love a really great clip montage set to inspirational music. And the Olympics are FULL of them.
Liz and I have been looking forward to the Olympics starting for a while. For me, I have been waiting since Vancouver 2010. Last night we watched the Opening Ceremonies and mowed* down on these bad boys. They are English Toffee Cupcakes in honour of London hosting the games, but I think that might be a bit of a stretch. They are really just toffee flavoured. The British aspect comes from the flags- which I also made by hand, because when you are a blogger, you find yourself making tiny international flags.
*Correct pronunciation rhymes with loud, not code.
Point is – the cake is awesome and delicious and a recipe I would definitely make again, regardless of international sporting events.
Chock full of wee bits o’ toffee…That’s my British accent attempt
Regular toffee cupcakes……….. Dressed up & patriotic English Toffee
Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Frosting
- by Torie
Vanilla cake is not as easy to accomplish from scratch. Not the way chocolate cake is. It’s easy for vanilla to seem bland or dry. However, these cupcakes received a very good seal of approval. “I think this is the best vanilla cake I’ve ever had from scratch that didn’t come from a bakery.” I’ll take it.
But my favourite part of this recipe is the frosting. It’s half whipped cream so it’s light and fluffy and it perfectly complements the strawberry flavour.
Oh my other favourite part? These adorable cupcake wrappers, making them the perfect treat for Mother’s Day. We gave them to my mom early since it was her birthday yesterday (Happy Birthday Marm!) and she thought they were adorable.
S’more Cupcakes
- by Liz
Sometimes I want to bake treats that will make the people who eat them think I’m awesome.
Sometimes I want to set things on fire.
S’more cupcakes satisfy all three of these criteria. These cupcakes are a project (albeit not a difficult one), there was lots of fire involved, and I think I achieved a solid level of awesomeness. One person actually said these were the best cupcakes he’d ever had. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’re almost bakery-worthy – these things are that good.
While I adapted the proportions and a few ingredients, all credit for this concept goes to Cookies and Cups. The cupcakes, the icing and the assembly are all from them, so go take a look. For the chocolate cupcakes and marshmallow icing, see this post.
Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Buttercream Icing
- by Liz
Torie and I both seem to be venturing into uncomfortable baking territory these days. While she’s started using Nutella – which we both agree is not breakfast food, because, really, it’s the inside of a Purdy’s hedgehog – I found myself purchasing a jar of marshmallow fluff last week.
I don’t know why, but I am adamantly against marshmallow fluff. There’s something about it that just seems awful. I have no issues with regular marshmallows, but somehow, in jar form… I don’t know. But I was planning to make s’more cupcakes (look for that post in a couple days), and in order to make marshmallow buttercream, there was no option but to buy marshmallow fluff. So I did, and now there’s half a jar of it left in my pantry, staring at me everytime I open the door. Ugh.
On the bright side, marshmallow buttercream is really good! And it pipes beautifully. So I will reluctantly say that this is likely not my last encounter with marshmallow fluff.
Like the upcoming s’more cupcake recipe, both the cupcakes and the icing are adapted from Cookies and Cups.
Chai Latte Cupcakes
- by Torie
I love a good Chai Latte. Heck, some days I will even settle for a bad Chai Latte. But a good one just seems to hit a sweet spot inside me that makes me happy. And if I have a cold, a Chai Latte is the first thing I go for. Since I love them, and my husband also loves them, we typically pick up a package of Tazo Chai Latte Concentrate from Costco over the winter, but inevitably, we end up heading to Starbucks anyways, and the last carton seems to sit in the cupboard for too long. But I found something else to use up the last of the concentrate! Cupcakes, of course!
I went looking for a recipe for something special to make as a birthday treat for a friend. I wanted something a bit more interesting than plain old vanilla. And since that friend also loves tea, Chai seemed like a good one to try.
Most recipes I found use a combination of spices or 4 tea bags steeped in milk, but I wanted to use the actual concentrate and this is what I came up with: a light, but flavourful cupcake, and a tasty buttercream using more concentrate for extra zip.
Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
- by Torie
Hello pretty lady, got any plans for Valentines?
I don’t even know what to write about this cupcake because it’s having a bit of an identity crisis. I set out to make red velvet cake, but getting three ingredients into the recipe I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to make. I get it..it’s red because of food colouring, but I just can’t deal with an entire bottle of red dye in my cupcakes. And yes, cake has a lot of fat in it, but using 1 1/2 cups of oil in a single recipe? I don’t think I want my heart turning extra oily, and extra red this Valentine’s day. So I decided to make Devil’s Food Cake. Which according to science, turns brownish red due to the reaction of cocoa and baking soda…but these are the darkest, blackest cupcakes I have ever made. These aren’t red!
So Devil’s food felt quite misleading, so instead these are Dark Chocolate (but without the bitterness of dark chocolate) Just a dense, rich chocolate cupcake.
So whether you’re celebrating your Valentine’s with a boy, a girl, a dog or a bag of jubejube hearts, have a cupcake!
Gingerbread Cupcakes with Ginger Cream Cheese Icing
- by Torie
So I’m writing this after Christmas to update a previously written post, so this likely won’t be read until next Christmas. But Christmas of the Future, have we got a treat for you!
Nom Nom Nom…
These gingerbread cupcakes are amazing. And topped with ginger cream cheese icing just puts them so over the top. They’re spicy, moist and flavourful. And adorable! Even without the tiny adorable gingerbread men toppers, these will still be a major hit with the lucky people you choose to share them with.
Chocolate Chip Cookie-bottomed Chocolate Cupcakes
- by Liz
Let me tell you a story of how these somewhat ridiculous cupcakes came to be.
It started with this post from How Sweet It Is for Snickerdoodle Cookie Cupcakes. I thought, hey, I can put cookies on the bottom of cupcakes! Easy! So I did.
Now that I’ve written out the story I see it is less exciting than it seemed in my head. Will a picture make it more exciting?
Regardless of my story-telling abilities, the result was great. I combined two of my favourite recipes – one from my trusty Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and the other from Joy the Baker.
The chocolate chip cookie recipe is my standard, and makes a nice dense cookie. The chocolate cake recipe from Joy is one of the few scratch cake recipes I’ve ever found that is better than a boxed mix. Cakes from mixes are so delicious but I always feel like I should bake from scratch, so I love this simple, delicious chocolate cake recipe.
I imagine you could easily do this with a chocolate cake mix. However, given the density of the cookie, and the typical lightness of mix cakes, they might be a little weird. The chocolate cake recipe I used is just a smidgen denser than a mix cake, and that smidgen is important to match the cake to the cookie. I feel as though this may be confusing, so, seriously, just go combine cookies and cake and I’m sure it will work out fine.
Also, one of these was fed to a toddler, who thoroughly enjoyed it. So if you have similar taste to a 21-month-old, you are sure to be pleased with these.