The Cupcake Thread!

[Camille]

Good Looking Cake

Dandi, pink/black looks amazing

It may be too hot for chocolate but Royal Icing musical notes/lettering comes to mind. Easy to trace over wax paper using tip #4.

 

[Camille]

Date: 8/2/2009 10:21:27 PM
Author: marcyc
My favorite chocolate cake is the pound cake recipe on the Duncan Hines Devil Food Cake mix. It is very moist and always a hit.

I agree, SIL makes a wonderful cake with sour cream/butter & yellow DHines.

 

[marcy]

Date: 8/3/2009 4:35:46 PM
Author: Camille

Date: 8/2/2009 10:21:27 PM
Author: marcyc
My favorite chocolate cake is the pound cake recipe on the Duncan Hines Devil Food Cake mix. It is very moist and always a hit.

I agree, SIL makes a wonderful cake with sour cream/butter & yellow DHines.

Camille, a sour cream and butter yellow cake sounds divine. Can you get us the recipe? Please? Thanks.

 

[Camille]

Date: 8/4/2009 11:22:09 PM
Author: marcyc
Camille, a sour cream and butter yellow cake sounds divine. Can you get us the recipe? Please? Thanks.

Sure thing

1 box of Yellow DH mix
3 eggs, room temp
1 C sour cream [light ok] room temp [buttermilk is wonderful too, adjust water to 1/3 C]
1/4 C unsalted butter, soft
1/8 ts Baking Powder
1/4 C flour [I use cake flour]
1/3 to 1/2 C water

Mix all ingredients in the KA with paddle attachment using only 1/3C water first, if mixture looks a bit dry add the rest of the water and beat until it resembles whipped cream, divide evenly into two 8" cake pans or 20 cupcakes and bake as usual 350 F preheated oven for 30-32 & 21- 23 minutes respectively. Enjoy!

*Flavors to play: instead of water: 1/4 galliano liquor+1/4C OJ+1 ts orange zest or
" " " 1/4 C Amaretto+ 1/4 C water+1 ts Almond extract

 

[Mara]

ream and butter yellow cake sounds divine. Can you get us the recipe? Please? Thanks.

Sure thing

1 box of Yellow DH mix

3 eggs, room temp

1 C sour cream [light ok] room temp [buttermilk is wonderful too, adjust water to 1/3 C]

1/4 C unsalted butter, soft

1/8 ts Baking Powder

1/4 C flour [I use cake flour]

1/3 to 1/2 C water


Mix all ingredients in the KA with paddle attachment using only 1/3C water first, if mixture looks a bit dry add the rest of the water and beat until it resembles whipped cream, divide evenly into two 8' cake pans or 20 cupcakes and bake as usual 350 F preheated oven for 30-32 & 21- 23 minutes respectively. Enjoy!


*Flavors to play: instead of water: 1/4 galliano liquor+1/4C OJ+1 ts orange zest or

' ' ' 1/4 C Amaretto+ 1/4 C water+1 ts Almond extract

_____

this is basically the WASC cake that the baking communities online talk about all the time. It's 'white almond sour cream cake'. it is absolutely RAVED about for wedding cakes and stuff. Except actually they use white cake, not butter cake for it. But otherwise pretty similar.

personally (and this is just me), anything using cake mix is not homemade...it's easy to adapt cake mix and have it come out great because it already has all the sodas and powders in it for lift and rise, you are just playing with taste. it's sooo much harder to bake from scratch and have it turn out right.

not to say i don't love cake mix cakes...they have that great fake taste that i was raised with. anyway i made the WASC to check it out and while it was YUMMY, it was still def cake mix cake to me. i thought, are people seriously selling this for wedding cakes out there???? for how much?

i might have to make it again for myself, because it was tasty,and isn't as fakey as making a plain cake mix.

 

[Camille]

size=2">Marcy, the flavors to PLAY part is optional, too late to clarify/edit that part, sorry.
You know Mara I always have appreciated a slice of cake being boxed, masked or blue ribbon w/o negative criticism

I'm not familiar with WASC? so I won't go there, have no idea where SIL got the recipe from

doubt she needs to sell anything.
I see box mixes as a great tool for beginners, busy moms and those who want to share their talent w/o spending $$$. They are all made at home to me.

Just in case you didn't know, cake making is my new hobby, it all started with my sourdough instruction [another hobby of mine] Our facility started doing sweets at night and that's where it all began. As a non profit/NON paid bakers, we provide glasses, generic meds and clothes to unpriviledged children from other communities. Congrats on the baby btw.

Alright ladies, take your wands out, is the boxed or not? Fork test:

 

[Lulie]

Wow, you're one nice lady Camille......
Not boxed [?]

 

[Mara]

Welcome to the world of baking Camille. You are a braver girl than me if you have mastered sourdough, I am going to just start on breads this fall and I am sure it won't be easy. I love the idea of your baking crew.

I admit, I am pretty critical of baked goods in general...I went to a red velvet cake bakeoff recently and only ate 3 out of the 6 because the others were visibly dry to me. I have spent a year perfecting recipes by making them over and over, it is hard work but I am extremely anal. For me baking is largely scientific.

I agree, boxed cake mix has its place in the baking world... I was raised on it by my own busy working Mom but she didn't call it homemade, hehee.

It was a treat though. I LOVE the uniformity of cake mix cakes. It's hard to mess up. Inspired by your posting recipe, I actually made adapted yellow BC cake mix cupcakes tonite....so easy! Loved them for dessert hahaa. Your sis prob found the recipe online like I did...those baking blogs are nuts for it.

For your image...hmmm I would say that perfect uniformity looks cake mixy... or it could be a very fine spongey cake recipe using cake flour. That frosting looks like SMBC or some version of a merengue buttercream, silky.

Oh and Dandi I meant to write to this earlier but I would get a cookie cutter musical note and make fondant notes. You could go black on hot pink frosting or something fun.

 

[marcy]

Camille, thank you so much for the recipe.I will try it.How cool to provide sweets at night.I have some scratch cake recipes but I value my time and don’t have much to spare to sprucing up a cake mix is right up my alley.I have no idea on your cake; it just looks good to me.

Mara, have fun venturing in to breads this fall.I’ve been thinking of brewing up a batch of cinnamon rolls.I might save it for a chilly weekend this fall with a big pot of homemade soup.

 

[Mara]

Marcy you should try Dorie Greenspans pecan sticky buns! You can prob Google for the recipe and find it... I made them for a baking community thing about 6 months ago and they were soooo good. BUT it's a brioche recipe and it took forever to make, like 1.5 days...and it broke my KA mixer (hahaha), but seriously they were the best rolls I have ever had.

Alternatively, I just got the Art and Soul baking book from Sur La Table (to bake from this fall) and there is a yummy cinnamon roll recipe in there I am dying to try. I am excited about breads this fall and winter, I figure when I am totally big and unwieldy I will just hang out in the kitchen making myself happily fatter!

 

[Camille]

Hi Mara, I started breadmaking as a kid in Australia, my true passion is Artisan Bread, catching wild yeast in a room is heaven for me lol.
I agree w/you on that one Mara, baking it''s def scientific. I can''t honestly remember where SIL got the recipe from, with 4 kids...there''s no way she spend that much time online, 2 y/o twins, most likely to be cakedoctors

 

[Camille]

You''re welcome marcyc, 1 night per week [4 hour shift] is not bad, all kinds of people join in, is all sweet.
Thank you for your beautiful comment Lulie.
The cake is basic buttermilk yellow [faint] made from scratch [ cake flour] and stabilized coco/whipped cream w/2oz of mascarpone.

 

[Dandi]

Mara, thanks for the idea!! I mentioned pink foils with alternating purple and blue icing with black musical notes and Bron nearly fell over with excitement!!

Methinks that''s the go!!

I''m doing cuppies for a going-away do next month for a girl who is OBSESSED with red, yellow, orange and hot pink. I don''t think I could handle all four colours together, so I thought red foil tins with alternating yellow and orange (and maybe pink??) frosting, perhaps topped with a purple flower to break up the autumny colours. AHHH this colour thing kills me!!!!

 

[Mara]

ha ha i don''t typically like when people want a lot of colors for their cupcakes, too much can be chaotic for sure, but then my fave colors are neutrals!!

what about doing the liners and cupcakes/frosting one color like just plain white or a foil to make a base, and then doing flowers in diff colors on top of the cupcakes. so the flowers could be the color pops? too boring?

 

[Jas12]

Hi gang. I just got back from a long weekend in NY and of course, ate my way thru that fantastic city and sampled both Magnolia and Buttercup cuppies. I actually ordered a box of assorted flavors for my DH, who was celebrating his 30th b-day, from Buttercup so we had many to try while picnicing in central park

They were all good but certainly not as good as mine. Not to say that i am a master chef or anything close, but there is something about making smaller batches with super fresh ingredients and that extra attention that makes a homemade cuppie so good.

Both places were a tad too dry and although the buttercream was tasty it wasn''t anything extraordinary. We can all make this quality at home!


Mara--funny you should mention bread. I look fwd to fall for this reason. I have been obsessed with bread making for years and don''t buy bread any longer b/c it simply doesn''t compare to what you can make at home. Just yesterday an older polish woman i know gave me some started for a flax & rye sourdough bread. She believes that this ''starter'' (which is taken from the last loaf that was made) literally goes back several hundreds of years b/c she got it from a baker in poland who had it in his family for many, many generations --he gave a bit to her great grandmother in exchange for some service and she actually brought it from poland to canada. Incredible ! I was privileged enough to get a jar of the starter from her after giving her a handful of dried pole beans that my grandfather brought in his pocket from italy as a teen (they too have been in the family for dozens of generations and just recently ''arrived'' in poland). I am so excited to go get the ingredients i need to bake this bread....just waiting for my son to wake up so we can head out.
Get some of your baking experimentation done before baby arrives, b/c that is probably the thing i miss most about my childless days...the hours i had to devote to cooking involved meals are few and far b/w, but when u do find the time, your kiddie to be will love you for it

here''s a pic of the buttercup cuppies with DH

 

[AsscherGirl]

Date: 8/6/2009 12:17:29 AM
Author: Mara
Marcy you should try Dorie Greenspans pecan sticky buns! You can prob Google for the recipe and find it... I made them for a baking community thing about 6 months ago and they were soooo good. BUT it''s a brioche recipe and it took forever to make, like 1.5 days...and it broke my KA mixer (hahaha), but seriously they were the best rolls I have ever had.

Alternatively, I just got the Art and Soul baking book from Sur La Table (to bake from this fall) and there is a yummy cinnamon roll recipe in there I am dying to try. I am excited about breads this fall and winter, I figure when I am totally big and unwieldy I will just hang out in the kitchen making myself happily fatter!

Ooh - Mara you should try the Challah bread recipe from smittenkitchen. It is soooooooooo good and you get delicious bread AND the perfect base for Sunday French toast. YUM YUM YUM.

My other favorite is the Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread from the King Arthur website. It''s PERFECT for PBJ or just PB sandwiches and if you want to be really bad, you can whip up some Alton Brown Honey butter and smother it on the bread.

Those are my two personal faves - obviously I eat bread like it''s dessert!

Back to cupcake talk!

 

[Lulie]

Jas, that starter sounds wonderful, wondering if you have to feed often? hope to see some pic

One tiny question C, marble recipe: would it be a bad idea to replace the cake flour with self rising or regular? don''t have cake in the pantry. TIA.

 

[Mara]

i have to admit the starters totally intimidate me. not to mention greg might die if i was growing stuff in our kitchen, i will have to hide it from him or he would prob toss it out.

danielle that challah sounds like HEAVEN! i love smittenkitchen. i can't wait for the colder weather to come so i can get to baking, it just seems wrong to be making breads in summer hahaha. plus i always get more of a cooking/baking bug in winter when i am nesting. and yes Jas i hear ya re getting it all out of the way now, i will miss my long afternoons of experimentation on weekends when i have nothing else to do. it's so relaxing to just veg out in the kitchen.

lulie, you can def replace cake with A/P but you have to do something else as well, like add something additional, i can't remember what it is but google it, and you will prob find the answer. a lot of times i am lazy though and just use A/P for almost everything. cake flour is such a pain to me...i feel like if you don't put the EXACT amount of moisture needed that you can easily end up with a slightly dry cake. whereas A/P seems to be more forgiving?

oh and jas my friend who tried magnolia and buttercup liked buttercup better. she brought me home 1/2's of 3 of them, i loved their lemon.

 

[tlh]

Those are awesome. Marcy love the royal icing!

Those cupcakes are super fun too!

 

[Lulie]

Thanks for replying mara, not sure but I think starters are stored in the fridge shut.
I know what you mean, cake flour seems to compact itself on the measuring cup, got ressolved with the flour dispenser from King Arthur, it works like a charm, sprinkling flour or Icing sugar 5lb capacity without any spills. Can't google from work

I'll try to catch C at the bistro.

 

[Mara]

lulie the starters i have read about actually ''start'' in the warmth of the house before they move to the fridge if i am not mistaken. people put theirs on top of the fridge or similar to help the yeast grow. that is when i think my hub would be prone to find it and toss it out and then go ''i tossed hat gross mold thing you were growing!''

 

[Camille]

Hey Lulie

please don't use self rising, it has Bsoda, salt and Cacid, cupcakes may explode in the oven. AP sub can be used but not 100% for one reason, crumb.
For that specific recipe I'd sift 3x=1C AP minus 2 Tb [105g] + 2 Tb[30g] cornstarch plus 2C aditional AP to make 3C asked for. Keep in mind that AP aside of being higher glunten [prot] is a bit hevier too [.5 oz per C] so sifting is important, I'd also beat at a lower speed to prevent gluten development. Good Luck

You're both right, there are houndreds of starters out there ie Levain Starter [white flour/no yeast] needs to be refrigerated within 7-8 hours or you'll have bad bacteria or pinata glue.
Other poolish/vigas [little yeast] ferment anywhere from 8-14 hours
Sourdough Mothers [no yeast] ferment 30-48 hrs.
Ideal temperature is 75/77 F cooler ok, warmer is not [wild yeast in the air will rot]. All flours have different flavors/odor= complex flavor. Just my .02

 

[Camille]

hevier? lol heavier

 

[Jas12]

i bought all the stuff i need for that bread and may attempt it tomorrow. It was hard to find everything organic around here but i finally got it.

Mara, i''ve only used a starter a handful of times so it intimidates me too. There is no real recipe so i am going on instinct and the verbal directions/ ingredient *estimates*. Bread is more on the ''art'' side of cooking, but i wish i had a little more to go on. It would be such a shame to waste this starter.
Also, this starter is obviously old, so when it is passed from loaf to loaf it is stored only in the fridge. Only once the ingredients are mixed for the newest loaf will it sit out in a warm spot for approx. 9 hours. It is very dense bread so it''ll probably get little rise. When baked in a square loaf pan it should retain most of its shape. Very different from what i normally do, but i am excited to try it!

Do we have a bread thread?
love to get Camille''s insight into artisan bread making

 

[Mara]

ha ha jas i was thinking of starting a bread thread like the cupcake thread when i start to get into it more but you should def do it!! then i can piggyback on knowledge so that i am armed come fall.

 

[Dandi]

Hehe, well I photoshopped the colours that the lady from work wants her cuppies to be, and man it gives me a headache!

I think I''ll do red cases, and 1/2 orange, 1/2 pink, all with a yellow flower. That''s more than enough colour for me!!

 

[vip0802]

Date: 8/9/2009 1:39:41 AM
Author: DandiAndi
Hehe, well I photoshopped the colours that the lady from work wants her cuppies to be, and man it gives me a headache!

I think I''ll do red cases, and 1/2 orange, 1/2 pink, all with a yellow flower. That''s more than enough colour for me!!

they look amazing and i love those colors! what flavors will you be using?

 

[vip0802]

my girlfriends and i are having a potluck dinner tomorrow and i opted to bring some cuppies. since the hostess is a devoted Starbucks lover, i decided to make some white chocolate mocha cupcakes which is the coffee she always gets.

basically i''m going to use my chocolate cake recipe and add some instant espresso powder to it, and make white chocolate whipped cream as the frosting. my question is though, have any of you ladies used instant espresso in baking before? i know it''s supposed to bring out enhance the flavor of chocolate, but i''ve never tried it before. i''m curious as to if i should just put the powder directly into the batter, or mix it with water and then add to the batter. i''m worried if just use the powder, the flavor might not be as strong as i would like. however, i feel if i mix it with water, it might be too much liquid.

 

[Dandi]

Date: 8/9/2009 5:28:15 AM
Author: vip0802

they look amazing and i love those colors! what flavors will you be using?

Hehe thanks!! It''s a bit much colour for my liking, but I''m not the one who has to like it!

I was just going to do all chocolate mudcake with vanilla cream cheese or buttercream frosting and colour it. Then I thought about making the orange icing orange flavour, and the pink strawberry, but not eveyone might be into that on top of rich mudcake. What do you think?

 

[Dandi]

vip I''ve used recipes that call for liquid coffee and dry coffee, it depends on what''s already in the mixture. Is there water in the recipe that you can substitute for made up coffee?