Special Teatime Treats

     It's starting to get into that time of year when you are going to be having company over more often. Between Christmas and New Years it seems that people start to drop by more often than the rest of the year. Entertaining your friends and family can be a lot of fun. You get to catch up with people, maybe have something to drink, and of course serve and eat good food. Cupcakes are a treat that you can whip up in no time, and I don't know anyone who doesn't like a cupcake with tea!
  For this post I have decided to make a cupcake with warm flavourings that go well with a cup of tea or coffee. But I also have made them just a little special too since it is getting close to the holiday season. So drum-roll please!..... because here is my post for spice cupcakes with Baileys Irish Cream icing.

Spice Cupcakes
*Recipe by Martha Stewart [8.]

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg and mace
• Pinch of ground cloves
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners. Set aside.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, mace, and cloves by sifting it into a bowl. Set aside
3. In another, large bowl beat the butter, brown sugar and eggs together until fluffy.
4. Now you are going to add the flour mixture and the milk to the butter. Add the flour in three separate additions and the milk in two additions; alternating between the two. Make sure to mix the ingredients together after each addition.
5. Pour batter into the lined muffin cups, filling them 2/3rds full. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick poked into the centre comes out clean. Let cool completely before icing.

Baileys Icing
Makes enough to ice 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients: 

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 2 tbsp Baileys (or more, depending on your taste)

Directions:

1. Beat the butter in a medium sized bowl until fluffy. Add the vanilla and mix in.
2. Add icing sugar to the butter 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.
3. Add the Baileys to the icing and mix until combined. You can add more if you like, according to your taste; just make sure to add more icing sugar if the icing starts to get to wet.

And there you have it! A very special cupcake for special occasions. A treat to enjoy with friends over a cup of coffee and a conversation on a wintry afternoon.

Turkey Time!

    For Americans, it is almost that time of year again where everyone gets together with family and friends to think about what they are thankful for in the passing year. A big celebration is had by all because most people watch the great Macy's parade; whether in person or by t.v. Then after watching all the pretty floats and bands march the streets of New York city, everyone goes home to enjoy a great big traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce, home made gravy, mashed  potatoes, corn and pumpkin pie! But pumpkin pie isn't for everyone. So this year instead of the pie...or even with the pumkin pie, why not serve turkey twice??! :D ..... But in cupcake form! Yes, I just said to serve turkey cupcakes. The trick is that this turkey cupcake is made of caramel sheets and icing.

I found a picture of these cupcakes in the book What's New Cupcake, and I thought they were just the coolest things! Thanksgiving cupcakes always seem to end up being decorated like cartoon-like turkeys. This roasted turkey decoration is new and fun and I have given it a shot!

Turkey-Day Cupcakes*
*Designed by Karen Tack [1.]

What you'll need

• 1 batch of cupcakes (I would make a batch of 12), whatever flavour you like.
• 72 square caramels
• 1 batch of icing
• Pretzel stick (like Pringles pretzel sticks)
• Candies for making salad leaves or any other decorations you chose to add
• Coffee crisps bars 
• Miniature marshmallows

Making the turkey

Step 1: Start off by taking four caramel squares and place them in the microwave to soften them a bit. Heat them for no more than 5 seconds. Roll the caramels together into one large ball in your hands. Now place your caramel between two sheets of parchment paper or saran wrap and roll the caramel ball into a large flat disk.

 

Step 2: Take a circular cookie cutter and cut a circle out of your caramel. You could also use the rim of a glass if you don't have a cookie cutter. This piece of caramel is going to make your turkey (the skin at least).

Step 3: Take the cookie cutter/glass rim you used to cut the caramel disk, and cut a half circle out of one edge (like in the picture). This will be the neck of the turkey.

Step 4: We are going to step aside from that for now, and we are going to make the turkey drumsticks before we start to make the body. Take a pretzel stick and snap it in half. Now take one caramel square and roll it into a ball, then poke a hole into one end of the ball for you to put your pretzel stick into.

Step 5: Mold the caramel around the pretzel and shape it into a drumstick. Repeat steps 4 - 5 for the other drumstick.

Step 6: Take a cupcake and put a nice blob of icing on top. Make sure to use a stiff icing for this (like a thick butter cream). It needs to be stiff to support the turkey's body. Spread the icing out to the edges of the cupcake. Now take your caramel disk and lay it on top of the icing on your cupcake.Gently, on either side of the neck opening, make indents to mark where your drumstick are going to sit.

Step 7: Dab a very small bit of water onto each dent that you have just made; this will act as a glue and will make your drumsticks stay in place. Attach your drumsticks to the turkey, crossing the legs and angling them upward - like a real roast turkey! Tuck in the edges of the caramel circle around your turkey, either with your finger or a knife. Plump up the caramel to make the body of your turkey

Step 8: Now you can decorate around your turkey however you like with whatever candy you want. For my turkey, I did what the What's New Cupcake author did, and I made my turkey look like it's sitting on lettuce. I did this by taking bran flakes and coating them in green royal icing and let them dry.

Step 9: We are almost done, we just are missing one thing: the stuffing! For this, take a coffee crisp bar and crush it up. Place the crushed candy bar into a bowl with a few mini marshmallows added to it. Place this mixture into the microwave for a few seconds; just long enough to melt the marshmallows a bit to make them sticky. Quickly mix the coffee crisp crumbs and the marshmallows together, like when you make rice krispie squares. Place little chunks of this mixture onto the neck of the turkey above the crossed drumsticks.

Step 10: Lastly to finish everything off, take a small dab of white icing and pipe or dab onto the ends of the drumsticks to make little white turkey cuffs.

 

And there you go! You have just made a really cool looking, unique Thanksgiving cupcake. I can almost guarantee that none of your friends or family have ever seen Thanksgiving cupcakes like this before! So if you are looking for something different and fun to do for Thanksgiving, something that will impress even the pickiest of aunts, try making these Thanksgiving turkey cupcakes!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!   : )

Red Velvet Romance

        Fluffy red cake flavoured with a hint of chocolate and finished off with an airy white icing. The deep red cake against the snowy white frosting is what makes a red velvet cake so well known and popular today. Recently I have noticed that red velvet cake has become all the rage on  t.v. Popular celebrity bakers on reality t.v. shows, like TLC's Cake Boss or the ladies from DC Cupcakes, seem to be making these cakes all the time now. I've decided to give these little red cakes a shot. In this post I'm going to be making red velvet cupcakes with white icing; but with a little twist. Even though it's not Valentines Day, there are many other days of the year that you might want to make a romantic treat for someone you love.  I have topped my red velvet cupcakes with pink jelly roses to add that special touch. They are actually pretty simple to make and they look lovely :)

To make this post a quick read, I have decided to just show you how to make a candy rose. But I won't leave you high and dry without a recipe for the cupcakes! Here is a good one for red velvet cupcakes: http://www.marthastewart.com/317517/red-velvet-cupcakes

How to make Jelly Roses

  Making jelly roses may seem like it would be something hard to do, especially for people who aren't very artistic. But I can assure you that you will be surprised to learn that making jelly roses for cake decorating is not really that hard. :)

How to make Fondant/Gumpaste/Gumdrop Roses: The Wilton® Method*
* The Wilton Cake Method: Candy Roses [12.]

    The Wilton cake company's method for making fondant roses by hand is actually the first way that I learned how to make roses for cake decorating. You can use this method to make roses with fondant, gumpaste or in my case, sugar coated gumdrops. If you follow the instructions, you will be able to make lovely little roses that will impress anyone :D

Step 1: Start off by making the base of your rose. Make a small ball of fondant (or whatever you are using), it should be about 3/4 in in diameter. Then roll one end of the ball into a tip that is about 1 1/2 in. high.

Step 2: Now for the petals! Make a 3/8 in ball of fondant and press it flat into a little disk. The disk should be about about 1/4 in thick. This is going to make a petal, and should be about the size of a nickel in diameter. Make 3 more petal disks (4 in total).

Step 3: Take a petal and wrap it around the tip of your rose base to form the centre of the rose (the bud).

Step 4: Wrap 3 more petals around the rose bud to make the inner ring of petals. Make sure to gently press each petal into the base of your rose. **Note: When attaching petals around the bud, you can lightly dab a little bit of water onto the rose base where you want to attach each petal. This will help make the petal stick. Gently curl back the edge of the petals with a toothpick, using the rounded edge.

  

Step 5: Now make 5 more petal disks, but make the ball you start off with a little bigger so that your petals will be a bit bigger than before. With your fingertips, press the outside edge of the petal disks to thin it out on one side. This will help to make the rose look more lifelike. Then take your petals and wrap them around your rose to finish it off. When doing this, you want to place the petals so that the lower edges of the petals tuck into one another a bit to create that nice layering effect that real roses have.

  

* All photos used for these instructions are thanks to Wilton Ind. [12.]

There you have it! A pretty little rose to place on top of your cupcake :) If you find that you have built up excess fondant/gumdrop at the bottom of the rose, you can trim it down a little.

Top off your iced cupcake with one, two or as many of these as you like. It's sure to win over anyone you make it for :)

Bigger Isn't Always Better!

    I was sitting in bed a few days ago trying to figure out what kind of cupcakes I wanted to make for my next posting. I wanted to come up with something that was different from the other cupcakes that I have made for you so far. While my T.V was playing in the background, I was thinking about what flavour combinations that I like in sweets and baked treats. Next thing you know there was a Christmas add on the T.V, and while I was thinking up ideas, I drifted into thinking about all the delicious chocolates that I get around the holidays; like salted caramel chocolates ...............  Salted caramel chocolates??! Hey! What an idea!  And so as of that moment, thanks to a Christmas add, I decided what cupcakes I would make today, and they are mini salted chocolate caramel cupcakes! Who would have thought?!

   So after this terrific idea, I ended up actually finding a recipe for said cupcakes from the Martha Stewart  Cupcakes book. But, I decided to only use her recipe for the chocolate cupcakes. The icing I made is actually a recipe from TLC's Cake Boss: Buddy Valstro, and personally, I think it is THE BEST chocolate icing recipe ever! It tastes soooo good!

Mini Salted Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk
• 1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup warm water          

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 24-cup mini muffin pan with paper cupcake liners.
2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
3. Now add the eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and water to the dry ingredients.
4. Beat the mixture together with an electric stand mixer or hand mixer until all the ingredients are combined.
5. Pour the batter into your lined mini cupcake pan, filling each cup about 2/3 full.
6. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cupcake comes out clean.

       *Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book [8.]


Buddy's Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Makes enough icing for 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4  cups butter, softened
• 5 cups icing sugar
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder (Dutch cocoa powder is best)
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp milk

Directions:

1. Place butter into a mixing bowl and beat for three minutes until creamy and light yellow.
2. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time, making sure that it is well combined after each addition.
3. Next, add the cocoa powder, salt and vanilla extract and beat on a low speed for 2 minutes.
4. Add the milk to the icing mixture and beat for another 3 minutes.
   
   * Recipe adapted from Buddy's chocolate fudge frosting recipe [2.]

Now to put it all together......
You will need:

• 24 mini chocolate cupcakes
• 1 batch of Buddy's chocolate frosting
• Some sea salt and kosher salt
• Dulche de leche caramel spread, (it comes in jars and is thicker than caramel topping. It is quite common in stores).
• A small melon baller or a round 1/2 tsp measuring spoon.

Assembly:

1. Start by taking your cooled cupcakes and scoop out the centre of each cupcake. Don't dig really deep into the cupcake when you do this; you only need to scoop out as much as the melon baller/ teaspoon measure will hold.
2. Next, take a small teaspoon and fill each cupcake hole with caramel spread so that the caramel is level with the top of the cup cake.
3. Take a small pinch of sea salt and lightly sprinkle the top of each cupcake with a tiny bit of salt. Sprinkle the salt over the caramel part of the cupcake; this will make it stick.
   
   
   
4. Ice the tops of the cupcakes. You can pipe the icing on like I did with a piping bag and a large star shaped piping tip if you want, or just simply ice the cupcakes by hand.
5. Lastly, when you are ready to serve the cupcakes, finish them off with a light sprinkling of some kosher salt, or any other salt that it a bit on the coarse side (pink Himalayan salt is great on chocolate, and makes for an extra special treat if you have some!) Do not salt the icing of the cupcakes until you are ready to serve them because the salt will melt if you do.

      And violà! You now have a batch of the yummiest and cutest cupcakes on the block!  These little sweets are perfect to serve if you are having a girls night in watching movies. I served them to my friends and they just loved them! You could make these as regular sized cupcakes if you want to (remember to adjust the baking time), but personally I think these cupcakes are perfect in miniature form. They are really rich, and so a little cupcake goes a long way!

Happy baking!