Under the Sea Strawberry Cupcakes

Strawberry Frosting Recipe:

1 cup unsalted butter

3 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

4-5 large strawberries (diced super small)

1. Whip the butter and salt until it is soft and fluffy.

2. Slowly add the sugar and vanilla, beat on high speed for about 1 minute.

3. Scrape sides of bowl and add diced strawberries mix on high speed until completely incorporated.

Lemon Curd Tutorial!

Lemon curd is sweet, tart, and super smooth. It's like sour lemon pudding and it makes the best filling for cupcakes and lemon meringue pie. YUM.


4 oz. room temp unsalted butter1 cup sugar 
1/2 tsp salt
2 whole eggs 
4 egg yolks 
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice 
zest of 2 lemons

1.  Cream the butter and the sugar in a mixer until it's super fluffy.
2. Add the salt, eggs, and the yolks and beat on high for 1 minute.

3.  Slowly beat in the lemon juice. (at this point it might look curdled and really gross. That's okay)
4. Pour the mixture and zest into a saucepan on medium heat and whisk slowly until it reaches 160*F. If you don't have a thermometer you can tell it's done when you can drag your finger across the back of a spoon and it leaves a clean line.

5. Chill until its cold.

Anniversary Cake and Mermaid Cake

Anniversary Cake, made to resemble the top tier of a friend's wedding cake

Mermaid cake. Made for a girl's birthday party. Has a sculpted fondant mermaid, and white chocolate

seaweed, coral, and dolphins

These are the first really decorated cakes I have ever made, with the exception of Addie's 1st and 2nd birthday cakes. I think they turned out great and the mermaid cake was so much fun to make. 

Addie's 1st Birthday

The Yo Gabba cake was so stressful. I seriously reconsidered my profession after that cake. Haha. but, at least it tasted good! 

 Addie's 2nd Birthday Yo Gabba Gabba Cake

Dr. Seuss Themed Cupcakes

I was recently asked to make 250 Dr. Seuss themed cupcakes for a party at Quest Academy on Wednesday evening in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. This is the first time I have ever made anything in bulk. It was a really fun challenge for me.

Here are a few pictures of the process and the individual cakes

288 Baked Cupcakes

All set up. It looks like there are a lot fewer cupcakes than are really there.

So these were supposed to have silly rainbow frosting, 

but, my hands were too hot and the colors melted and mixed together.

But, it was still good.

Oobleck Cupcakes. Based on the Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

A classic story about owning up to your mistakes

They were chocolate cake with bright green "Oobleck" pastry cream filling

Thing 1 and Thing 2 

Rainbow cake with bright blue crazy hair resembling 

the "Things" from the Cat in the Hat

Green Eggs and Ham

These turned out the best by far.

Green vanilla cake with ham colored frosting

and fondant green eggs and hams on top

                                                                    

Turtle Cupcakes

I used a brown sugar cupcake recipe (which is my favorite) and a cream cheese frosting which without the powdered sugar makes an AMAZING caramel apple dip.

I completely forgot to take a bunch of pictures while making these, but there are a few. 

Brown Sugar Cake

(This recipe is slightly modified from the cupcake bakeshop)

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

¾  teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
3. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds after each.
5. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
6. Measure out milk and vanilla together.
7. Add about a fourth of the flour to the butter/sugar mixture and beat to combine.
8. Add about one third the milk/vanilla mixture and beat until combined.
9. Repeat above, alternating flour and milk and ending with the flour mixture.
10.  Scoop into cupcake papers and bake at 350*F for 16 minutes

Caramel Frosting

8 oz. block of Cream Cheese

8 oz Dark Brown Sugar

6 oz. Powdered sugar

½ bag of heath “bit’s o brittle”

½ tsp. salt

1.       Cream the cream cheese and brown sugar together until you can no longer see the granulations of the sugar.

2.      Mix in the powdered sugar, heath bits, and salt

Pecan Turtles

1 cups sugar

½ cup light corn syrup

¼ cup water

1 cup cream, heated to a simmer

1/2 cup butter, cubed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup chopped pecans

Chocolate for dipping

1.       Mix sugar and corn syrup with the ¼ cup of water, mix to combine in a heavy bottom sauce pan. Bring to 300*F.

2.      Remove from heat and carefully add butter, simmering cream, vanilla, and salt.

3.      Once mixture has turned thick and creamy add in pecans.

4.      Wearing latex gloves lightly butter your hands take about ½ tsp roll into ball and dip in chocolate with a toothpick. Allow to cool on parchment paper or wax paper

Top each cupcake with frosting and one turtle 

Chocolate Cupcakes with French Buttercream and Strawberry Mousse Filling

This recipe makes 4 dozen cupcakes, but it can easily be halved.

2 1/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/4 cups dark brown sugar

6 large eggs, room temperature

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup dark cocoa powder (I use Hershey's Special Dark)

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup milk

5 teaspoons vanilla

1.  1.  Preheat oven to 350*F.

2.  2.Cream butter on medium high speed for about 5 minutes

3.  3. Add eggs  one at a time until fully incorporated.

4.  4. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda.

5.  5. Combine milk, vanilla and salt.

6.  6. Add the flour mixture alternating with the milk mixture starting and ending with flour. (This should be done in 3 additions)

7.Scoop into cupcake papers and bake for 16 minutes. 

      Strawberry Mousse

8 oz. Mascarpone Cheese

6 oz. Heavy Whipping Cream

2 oz. smashed strawberries

2 oz. powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1.    Mix the mascarpone and the whipping cream together until there are no lumps.

2.    Add the sugar, whip on high until it is thick and stiff

3.    Fold in strawberries

To assemble cupcake cut a 1 inch hole in the top of each cake (save and freeze scaps for other uses). Fill each hole with about 1 to 1 ½ tsps. Mousse.  Pipe buttercream to cover the hole.  Garnish with fresh strawberries.  or Cherry Heads candy

St

To Dye (free) For Strawberry Cupcakes

I really wanted to make pink cake for our Valentine's Day party in kindergarten, but we have one little boy who is allergic to red food coloring. So I made a naturally pink strawberry cake with a naturally yellow buttercream.

Strawberry cake:

1 box Duncan Hines white cake mix (The best tasting boxed cake)

2 Tablespoons oil

3 egg whites

1 1/3 cups strawberry puree 

1. Make the strawberry puree I used about 10 large strawberries and a few teaspoons of orange juice blended in a food processor and pushed through a fine mesh metal strainer.  

2. Make the cake according to the directions on the box substituting the strawberry puree for the water.

3.  Scoop equal portions (I think the #20 scoop is perfect for cupcakes)  into cupcake wrappers and bake for 20 minutes at 350*.

French Buttercream

1 lb. Granulated Sugar (about 2 cups)

4 oz. Water (1/4 cup)

2 oz. Corn syrup (1/8 cup)

6 oz Egg Yolks (about 12)

1 lb. 4 oz. Butter (5 sticks)

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Measure all the ingredients into individual bowls except the sugar, water, and corn syrup go in a large pot.. 

2. Thoroughly combine the sugar mixture and heat it to 240* F (DO NOT STIR)

3. When the sugar reaches about 230* F begin mixing egg yolks and salt in a stand mixer on medium high. 

4. When the sugar reaches 240*F SLOWLY pour down side of mixer bowl with mixer on medium low speed. When all the sugar has been mixed in turn mixer back to medium high and beat until bowl is completely cool.

5. Cube butter and add one cube at a time until in is completely incorporated. Mix in vanilla. 

6. Put buttercream in a pastry bag to pipe on to cupcakes, the easiest way to add anything to a pastry bag is to put it in a tall container.