Honolulu Blue Velvet Cupcakes

I have a favorite football team, do you? I go to a bar every Sunday and watch them play. I am a fan even when their season is 0-16 (yikes!) I make cupcakes in honor of their first Monday night game in 10 years! I love the Detroit Lions*sigh* I'll admit, it's not always easy being a Lions fan. In fact, until this year, we always got heat for supporting them! But not anymore, they are 5-0, by the time I post this 6-0 (knock on wood) Their tickets have like tripled in price, every game is like the Super Bowl for us fans. I am loyal to them, but not as crazy as my brother about them, I bet he's probably close to being their number one fan. In fact, I bet I wouldn't even be the fan I am today if it weren't for him. So a little shout out to my brother, these cakes are for you too!

I have been waiting to make a red velvet cake just until I could make it for the Lions. Maybe a but dorky, but like I said, I'm a fan. All I did was take a red velvet recipe and switched red for blue. This is a traditional straight up velvet cake, no fuss, no muss.

I will admit, I was a bit scared to make these. I was intimidated by this oh-so delicious cake and I'm not embarrassed to say it. Hi, my name is Meghann and I am was scared to make red velvet cupcakes. As I  said I kept it traditional, even down to the cream cheese frosting. I just switched it up with a blue fondant lion with edible sparkle.

The blue I used was a combo of food gel and liquid dye, it really did make them look a little more teal than Honolulu Blue, but really it is the thought that counts.

OK-- let me just say, I'm watching the Detroit Tiger play game 5 in the playoffs against the Texas Rangers, and I swear these umps are paid... *ugh* but then again every time my team gets a bad call I think the refs are begin paid. But for reals, this game drives me nuts, they are pitching to people they should walk, pitcher keeps throwing balls (ha- cause it's a base ball) instead of strikes. I mean, c'mon man, this is your job, and this game is uber important, FOCUS!
Back to the cake... Make it, it's tasty and moist and a classic.

Velvet Cupcakes:
(Recipe from Joy of baking)
Preheat oven 350* line 8-12 cupcake wells.
1 1/4  C. Flour
1/4 tsp. Baking  Powder
1/4 tsp. Salt
1 Tbs. Cocoa powder
1/4 C. Butter
3/4 C. Sugar
1 Egg
1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 C. Buttermilk
1 Tbs Food Coloring of choice
1/2 tsp. Distilled Vinegar
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

In a medium bowl sift flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder set  side.
In a small bowl combine buttermilk and food coloring set aside.
In the mixing bowl beat butter then add sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla then egg. Scrape sides then begin alternate adds of liquids and flour mixture. In a separate small bowl combine baking soda and vinegar. Let is fizz then quickly combine it into the mix, but do not over mix.

Line muffin wells and fill 2/3 full. Bake fore 18-23 minutes. Cool in tin for 5 minutes then transfer to rack to finish cooling. Once cooled frost with your favorite cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
1/2 C. Butter
8 oz Cream Cheese
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Tbs Milk
3 C. Powdered Sugar

In a bowl combine the room temperature butter and cream cheese. Add the vanilla and one cup of the powdered sugar, mix. Next the milk and one more cup of the powdered sugar can be added, mix. Gradually add the final cup until it is spreading consistency, you may need more or less than this final cup depends on what you like!

Piece

Sweet Strawberry Cake

Tada! I'm back. I have been working on my disappearing act, what do you think. I post a few, leave, post a few, leave, but hopefully I won't keep doing that. My magic is running thin, I can't keep throwing my tricks in one pot, if you know what I mean.

This past weekend my dear friend asked me to make a cake for her baby boys baptism, I accepted.I haven't made a cake for a really long time, maybe since the baby shower? Not sure. But I was super excited and honored that she wanted me to make the cake. I asked her for a few ideas since I had no idea what a baptismal (?) cake looked like. She requested a white cake with blue flowers and I accepted the challenge. I was up for challenging myself and seeing what I could do.

I knew for the actual cake that I didn't want to cover it fondant, but I was going to have to use some for the flowers. It took a hot minute to find the right cake flavor, especially since I needed a white frosting. I thought about going traditional with vanilla/vanilla, but BORING! Just kidding, I actually didn't have a good vanilla cake/frosting recipe. Do you have one you would like to share? I'll share with you the recipe I made (wink, wink) A little quid pro quo... a nice Chianti. Alright enough Silence of the Lambs.

I went with a strawberry cake with a Swiss Meringue Butter cream (SMB). Fun fact, there are 3 different types of butter cream: Swiss, French and Italian. I'm not certain enough with all the differences but when I figure it out I will share it with you. OR if you know the differences, you can share! SMB, is so super good it's crazy, and ridiculously easy to make.

Moving on, turns out making flowers with fondant is way more difficult than I thought. It was probably made more difficult with the fact that I used marshmallow fondant and didn't have any of the right tools. I attempted fondant roses- you can see those on the cake- and those are alright, nothing fancy and definitely not AWESOME, just pretty cool. I ended up doing a tile-like design for everything and I liked it. I also used a little food coloring, rum  and edible sparkle to "paint" the tiles to look mosaic-ish.

It was a lot of fun and her little boy is just too cute! Make this cake for any occasion, it's so good, even 4-5 days later, still tastes amazing.

Strawberry Cake (makes one 9 inch cake or a dozen cupcakes)

Pre-heat oven to 350*  line a dozen muffin wells or grease a 9in cake pan.

1 1/2 C. Flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2/3  C. Strawberry puree (I used slightly thawed frozen berries, but you could use fresh)

1/4 C. Milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C. Butter

1 C. Sugar

1 egg

2 egg whites ( Whipped)

In a medium sized mixing bowl sift baking powder, salt and flour, set aside.

In another bowl combine pureed strawberries, milk and vanilla, set side.

In a mixing bowl start fluffing room temperature butter then add sugar and beat till a light shade of yellow. Add egg until combined then add fluffed egg whites. Alternately begin adding liquid mix and flour mix. Remember to scrape the sides as you. Stop mixing as soon as everything is combined. Divide amongst wells or pour into pan.

For cupcakes bake for 22-25 minutes.

For cake bake 25-30 minutes.

Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes in pan then transfer to rack to finish cooling. Once cooled frost!

Swiss Meringue Butter Cream:

Used from smittenkitten

1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
26 tablespoons butter, softened (3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk egg whites and sugar together in a big metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk occasionally until you can’t feel the sugar granules when you rub the mixture between your fingers.
Transfer mixture into the mixer and whip until it turns white and about doubles in size. (Here’s a tip: when you transfer to the mixer, make sure you wipe the condensation off the bottom of the bowl so that no water gets into the egg whites. This can keep them from whipping up properly.)
Add the vanilla.
Finally, add the butter a stick at a time and whip, whip, whip.
To layer the cake I did a line layer of the frosting, layered with fresh strawberries then atop goes the next cake.

Seriously -- so good!

Piece!

Rootbeer Float Cupcakes

Note- My camera deleted all my rootbeer float pictures (bummer) And these photos were super awesome, so sorry about that. And I don't havea recipe on here... apparently I'm all sorts of disappointing, but I will get these last 3 recipes up, I promise! (I just don't know when)


I love a good rootbeer. I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I rarely say no to rootbeer. Do you call it soda or pop or even soda pop? I was raised saying soda, but then moved to the mid-west where it is called pop. I still call it soda, but some of my siblings switched to calling it pop. Its good that I call it soda becuase I moved south and in the south it's soda. In the south, a lot of things are different than the north. I'm leaving the statement at that, I don't want to start and animosity

Last week RJ and I  made rootbeer floats but didn't use all of the rootbeer. And you know how it goes, if you don't finish a 2-liter right after you open it, it goes stale, bleck, flat soda. So, what do you do with half a 2-liter? I decided rootbeer float cupcakes would be a good idea, afterall I have the vanilla ice cream to put in the frosting. I searched around for a recipe and found one I really liked, unfortunately I don't remember the website I found it from, but I do know that their version was adapted from the gentlemen at Baked.

Baked is (what appears to be) a super cool bakery in NYC. I am dying to check it out. OH but wait, they just opened a second store in Charleston, SC, so much closer than NYC for me. I'm going to go one of these days, it's a bucket list thing. Anyways, I've seen these guys on Food network and they look so hip and cool, kind of what I aspire to be, especially when it comes to my baking. They have printed 2 cookbooks and I am waiting to get my hands on a copy of them. I'm not sure if the recipe I used came from their first or second book, but it is fan-flippin-tastic. The frosting is my doing but the cake is theirs. It is incredibly moist even after 3 days, maybe even longer but I'm not sure.

The cake is a dark chocolatey- rootbeer and the frosting is a vanilla ice cream butter cream. There is a faint rootbeer flavoring, nothing over powering. But I think next time I will put rootbeer extract in the frosting to make it a bit more rootbeer-y. Or maybe I will drizzle some of the A&W icecream drizzle over the frosting...maybe. Anyways, I think this cupcake is a definate hit, a little obscure but really excellent. Enjoy it and let me know what you think.

Piece.