Fried Cupcakes?

This morning I made it through a half hour of school before going to the nurse and finding out I had a fever...so I got sent home!  When I reached my couch, I curled up with my comforter and feel asleep to the Today show.  When I woke up I flipped through some channels to find my home girl Paula Dean was on!  And what was she making when I turned her on?  FRIED CUPCAKES.  I watched, and I have decided that I will never embark on making a fried cupcake.  That just crosses some lines that should not be crossed, in my opinion. 
I haven't blogged in a while, so let me catch you up on what cupcakes I made last week. 


Chocolate Cupcakes with a Strawberry Butter-cream Frosting
These were delicious.  Nothing more can really be said.  My favorite part was the frosting, which I made a day ahead!   The strawberry did not taste artifical in any way and was not overpowering in any sense like canned strawberry frosting tends to be. 

Devil's Food with Chocolate Ganache Cupcake
These were also great.  I only had a bite of one because I was in love with the strawberry buttercream, but people seemed to really enjoy it.

I had great success with these two recipes, and both the buttercream and the ganache turned out the way they should have!  I'm still pretty sick so I'm going to be lazy and not go into great detail here tonight, but very soon I will tell all of you 13 followers how I obtained a wonderful butercream and ganache.

The Pefect Chocolate Cupcake

It was a really weird week, and an even weirder day.  I've had a disgusting headache since Wednesday that has not let up and I have been waking up every morning at 5am automatically (just to name two out of the ordinary occurrences).  Over the past 24 hours I have had way too much caffeine between the three cups of coffee I drank at breakfast yesterday, the big travel mug of green tea this morning, and the mate drink I had at noon today.  Yet, I have still taken naps the past two afternoons...which could explain the waking up at 5am...
Yet, on top of being tired I have also been sort of twitchy in a way and I have gotten many random bursts of energy, one of which resulted in me dancing all the way to my car when leaving school while swinging my running shoes in every which way, which of course eventually resulted in me hitting myself right in the face with one of my shoes.  The side of my eye still hurts from it when I touch it...
Anywho, even with the weird week I felt the need to throw together a batch of cupcakes this Friday night.  I wanted chocolate, so I made chocolate because what I want I get (except not really at all).  I failed to take pictures of the process so I will just describe the process to you in a few words (click here for the real recipe):
I combined boiling water with cocoa powder.  Then I creamed some butter and sugar.  Added some eggs and vanilla.  Combined that with flour, baking soda and salt, and then with the cocoa water.  Filled up 15 cupcake liners and in 18 minutes babycakes were born from the depths of my oven.
They cooled while I ate some dinner.  Then I made some chocolate fudge frosting, which consisted of 4 ounces of melted bittersweet chocolate, powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla all mixed together at a high speed by a KitchenAid Mixer.  Finally I piped that onto the 15 cupcakes and sprinkled them with some snazzy pink sprinkles (sprinkles are one of my favorite things ever)!
Then I ate one, along with my dad, my Marianne, and my darling sister.  They were the PERFECT chocolate cupcake.  Everything was right about them, nothing weird what-so-ever (except for the one that somehow ended up with a little bit of white batter).  So while my whole week may have dragged out in a painful fashion and while I may be planing on going to bed at 8:45 on a Friday night, at least I had a normal and amazing cupcake to end my week.

 My dad greatly enjoyed the cupcake and a photo op.

Cake in an Actual Cup...Well a Mug

So all week so far I have been thinking about chocolate cupcakes.  All the vanilla/white cake from last weekend out did me.  Since it is a Wednesday night, I did not have sufficient time or patience to embark on a batch of cupcakes (even though it was a half day, but I chose to sleep that away).  I remembered this chocolate cake in a mug thing that my friend Sachi blogged about (check it by simply clicking here!) last Friday and that my other friend had previously made once.  So, I decided I would hit that up tonight for a chocolate fix!  And hey, it's a CAKE in a CUP!  Flip the order of the words and mash them together and poof! you have a CUPCAKE! 
My craving hit mid AP Calc homework...

So, I wrote everything I would need right on my homework (I saved a tree)!  I halved the original recipe because I didn't want to digest 3 tablespoons of oil at 8pm (and it ended up being the perfect amount).  Basically all you need for this lovely creation is a microwave, cocoa powder, flour, sugar, egg white, oil, milk, any extract you like (I picked almond for tonight), and some chocolate chips!

 All you have to do is throw it all in the mug and then pop it in the microwave!

After 1 minute and 11 seconds (for the halved recipe) you have a perfectly delicious chocolate cake!

 

I topped mine with a little powdered sugar and then some lactose free chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (it was all that there was in the freezer).  Clean up was a breeze and the cake satisfied my sweet tooth for the night!  And, anyone can make this, even if you are living in a dorm at CU Boulder like my buddy Faulkner (check out her blog on her adventures to create yummy food out of a closet sized dorm kitchen by clicking here!)

Well, that sums up my 1 minute cake adventure on this Wednesday night!

Dos Batches en un Fin de Semana

This past weekend was filled with cupcake time.  I made two different recipes, mainly just because I was super duper excited about cupcakes (that excitment dwindled down as I realized how much time I was wasting on stupid cupcakes). 

Cupcake #1

The first cupcake recipe came from What The Fruitcake?!, a vanilla cake with a white chocolate ganache filling, and a vanilla swiss buttercream frosting. It looked so wonderful from the picture and description, but I am still a wee but frustrated by it. 

After my weekly free saturday yoga class at Yoga Vermont I had a lovely breakfast with my pals Sachi and Atiya and then we wondered our way to City Market to pick up some white chocolate and heavy cream for the ganache...which really is just cream and chocolate.  After a few other adventures, we all ended up in my kitchen ready to make some cupcakes.

The actual cake was easy to make and ended up tasting great.  Filled 24 cupcake liners perfectly and cooked pretty much to perfection...

BUT, the silly ganache screwed me over big time.  I had to babysit at 4, and we started this cupcake endeavor around 2.  I only skimmed the recipe, so I missed that the guanche would need to chill for a very, very, very long time (it was suggested to leave it overnight in the fridge).  So, it was decided we would put the ganache in the freezer to spead things up, which it did not.  Soon enough 3:30 rolled around I had to shower and Atiya and Sachi had to leave, so I decided I really would let the ganche chill overnight in the fridge.
When I got home from babysitting (which was wonderful because we watched High School Musical, the sing-along version), I looked at the ganache and it was still liquid, so I threw it in the freezer overnight.  When I woke up Sunday the ganache was actually hard(!), so I moved it into the fridge again.  When I came back to it a few hours later, it was liquid again, so I just decided to screw it and use it as a liquid.  It was challenging to get it into each cupcake, but I managed to somehow.

Then I moved onto the frosting...which had four and a half sticks of butter.  This was a pain to make and looked really messed up at times.  First you have to boil sugar and eggwhites together, then you beat up it into a meringue.

I was fine up until this point, but then I started to add the butter a tablespoon at a time.  The frosting looked curdled, lumpy, and plain out disgusting.  I wanted to quit and just not do a cupcake blog anymore. After leaving the mixer on high for 10 minutes it finally took shape into somewhat of a frosting, so I piped that crap out of my new frosting bag (it probably has some fancy name, but who cares about that). And then bam!, I had my first batch of cupcakes after 24hours...

They tasted pretty good, very rich and you could sort of tell there was a crap load of butter in the frosting, but they were finally finished.  Not sure if I would suggest the whole cupcake, but I definetly suggest the cake part.

Cupake #2

Carmel cupcakes were the next task.  Much easier to make, and a lot less frustrating.  I wipped up the batter pretty quickly.  These are pretty cool because they actually have a carmel candy baked into them.                                     

The frosting was pretty simple too.  First I made my own caramel sauce pretty much, then put it into the stand mixer, then threw in some butter and some powdered sugar and it was done!  I frosted up the cupcakes with a plain old butter knife and I was finished!



 With some of my babysitting money from Saturday night I bought this snazzy cupcake holder that looks like a cupcake!  Since I had a total of 48 cupcakes, I filled up the container this morning with 22 to bring to school to get rid of.  As I was walking out the door, my hands were filled with tea, car keys, and this container.  I was doing a little dance out of excitment (in which I was sort of swinging the cupcake container back and forth) down my front walkway to the car, and of course the top to the container flys off and half of the cupcakes fall out onto the pavement.  Luckily I was in a good mood so I saw it as funny instead of devestating.  My sister, my neighbor/friend/carpool buddy (Catherine), and I picked up and inspected the cupcakes that had fallen on the ground, but none could be saved.  I still managed to get rid of 11 or so cupcakes at school though!  

The cons to these two recipes are pretty much this:

• Vanilla Cupcakes
• Very very very very very very rich
• Holy butter
• Carmel Cupcakes
• Candy stayed hard in the cupcake
• Very very sweet

But, in the end I think they were both pretty good and definitely filled up my weekend time wise.  I only managed to watch 3 episodes of SVU!







Heyo

I am Gabby.  I have never gotten into anything involving writing, reading, or anything along those lines.  Yet, here I am starting up my very own blog...I'm not sure what will come of this or if it will even stick.
To me, the whole blogging thing seems weird.  You make a pretty page with a nice background, colorful fonts, and then you write and write and write on whatever you want to focus on.  Yeah, it's all fun, but is it really worth the time and energy....?
But hey!  I'll give it a try!  I'm in need of some new hobbies because watching Netflix off of my family's new TV is becoming a little bit addicting; I don't want to turn into a couch potato who watches the messed up dramatized lives of fictional characters all day (even though it is fun).  And a person can only run so much, go through x-number of Sun Salutations, snack, and nap in one day.  Oh, and homework is now minimal, being I am around 4 months from high school graduation and having a free block a day in school to get done what needs to be done. So, here I am and I have cupcakes on the brain.
Recently, I've been exploring the world of cupcakes (mainly just through random pictures and recipes I come across online).  From my internet-cupcake-adventuring, I have become inspired to take up the art of cupcakes.  There are so many places a cupcake can go, and I want to attempt to take them to some of these places.  I will do it all from scratch (usually), because I'm not a fan of cake mixes (the concept scares me that all you have to do is add water, oil, and eggs to a package of some sugary/floury mixture and then bam! you have a cake).
I have no history with cupcakes.  I do have basic baking skills down, but I am by no means a pastry chef.  I suck at frosting cupcakes compared to any pictured cupcake as of now and I tend to over-beat everything because I like to watch the mixer go round and round on its own.  But hey, I have all the time in the world to improve this crap now since it's my hobby.
I am promising myself to make one cupcake recipe a week (at least).  I will feed my family, friends, and random children of the halls of BHS with these.  Some will fail and others will hopefully be yummy.  And with my journey through the land of wittle baby cakes, I will document my every move on this thing.  My grammar won't be fancy, I will probably misspell words, and I will never use big words, but at least I will be doing something other than watching 10 episodes of Law and Order SVU on Netflix....