2010 in Review

Here we are at the end of 2010 and the end of 2010: A Bake Odyssey? We don’t think so! We aren’t ready to let the learning end. We’ve had a lot of fun with this baking expedition. We don’t know anyone who bakes every week as a hobby and we agree that it is kind of a lot. It was a challenge that we are happy to have taken on.

We started this blog as a way to keep us honest and to have someone to report to. It turns out we’ve had thousands of people to report to. We didn’t think that would happen. We’ve reached people in all fifty states and over seventy countries.

Our most popular post by far was the Glee cupcakes and we are happy that so many people have enjoyed looking at and making their own. We’ve fulfilled requests for over 80 of you who wanted to make the label. That’s been a really fun part of this. We loved hearing the stories of Moms making these for their daughters, friends making them for each other, and even a bakery in Arizona making them for a children’s hospital. It’s been great to hear about all that kindness going around and we’re happy to have been a part of it.

Our favorite post has been the cupcakes for Briana's baby shower. They were applesauce spice cake with brown sugar frosting. They tasted really great and the trees on top came out pretty cute too.

We want to thank everyone for your comments, suggestions and support. We hope you’ve enjoyed this experience with us.

This isn’t the end for us for sure. There is still more we’d like to do but we just can’t see continuing with the same frequency. We will forever be in love with this baking hobby and will share any new recipes and ideas that we come across. 

Birthday Baking: Us! 9/18

It's birthday time in our family. Erin's(and her twin sister Ellen's) birthday is the 20th and Sara's is the 15th. Since our birthdays are so close together and we all get along so well, we usually celebrate together. This year we celebrated on the Saturday that fell between our birthdays by hosting a movie in the back yard. We rented a screen and projector, borrowed some patio furniture, had all sorts of movie treats like candies, hot dogs, pretzels and watched "Singing in the Rain." A little over 20 friends and neighbors were there. It wouldn't be a birthday party without a cake so we made one, and 24 cupcakes, and 24 mini cupcakes. Maybe we got a little carried away.  But it is our birthday and really who doesn't want to take home a tasty treat from a party.

The best part...  You take your favorite vanilla cake recipe, our is this one, and add a row of Oreo cookies that you have run through the food processor to the desired consistency and viola Cookies and Cream Cake!

For the frosting, we used our favorite cream cheese frosting recipe.  Super easy and super yum.  One 8oz room temp cream cheese, one stick of room temp unsalted butter, 3 - 4 cups of confectioners sugar.  Again we added a row of food processed oreos for the cookies & cream taste.  This amount of frosting covered all 24 standard cupcakes and 24 minis.  We made a second batch to frost the cake.

Can't really beat Cookie and Cream Cupcakes and Cake.  Happy Birthday to us!

Lessons learned: Cookies and cream equals vanilla cake recipe and oreos.   Also, we're getting better at frosting cakes and cupcakes. Sorry there are no pics of the cupcakes but they were pretty too.

Bonus Post: Giving Tree Cupcakes 8/28

Sara helped throw a baby shower for her best friend this past weekend. The theme was bed time stories and Sara's favorite is "The Giving Tree." We decided to make applesauce spice cupcakes that look like apples a la Martha Stewart. 

To add our own little flare, we took 5 of those cupcakes and decorated them to be the different stages depicted in the book. 

We had a lot of fun turning tootsie rolls, frosting and sprinkles into an edible version of a beloved classic.

Lessons learned: We'd use a thicker, fluffier frosting next time to make the leaves look thicker. Also, tootsie rolls don't want to stand up on their own too well. Toothpicks are necessary.

Birthday Baking: Candice 7/22

Today, we are celebrating our friend Candice's birthday. Candice does not eat many sweets. She's a very healthy lady. She works out and eats right so when she asked us to bake Cinnamon Cupcakes, we knew it had to be good.

Sara went to work researching a recipe and found a great starting point at the blog for Pink Parsley Catering. The funny thing is that when you consider where this recipe came from, this was not the start. Behold the great mystery of blogging: it's like the game telephone. Pink Parsley changed up the recipe from Annie's Eats, who got it from Southern Grace who took it off of Epicurious. They all made their changes along the way and so of course we changed it up a little too. :o) We'll spare you the details of what changes were made when but you can track them yourself with the links above if you are so inclined.

Years and years ago, Sara got the idea that we should have a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving. Back then, Erin was the only one who baked so she took up the task. The recipe was from the Nestle website Very Best Baking. The spring form pan that was available was too small to hold all of the batter so little pumpkin cheesecakes were made with the rest. The little ones get baked for about 20 minutes and from there a tradition was born.  Friends and family beg for this sweet every year, most vocal of whom is probably Candice. These will most likely be made again this year in the Fall but not for the purposes of this blog as one of the rules is to not make something we've made before.

Candice wants these cheesecakes year round but she knows that Erin will only make them in the Fall but that's probably a good thing. Since it is her birthday though, we decided to make the frosting in the vein of her favorite sweet and went with the Pumpkin Frosting found on the Pink Parsley site. It's very similar to the frosting we used for Oliver's Cupcakes which Candice loved so it'll be the perfect treat for her if she doesn't explode from excitement.

We wanted 24 cupcakes so here's what we used:

2 Cups of All Purpose Flour

1 1/2 tspn Baking Powder

2 tspn Ground Cinnamon

1/4 tspn Ground Nutmeg

1/4 tspn Salt

1 Cup of Whole Milk

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter

4 Eggs

1 3/4 Cup of Sugar

1 tspn Vanilla

The oven was preheated to 350. We sifted the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt together (this part smells so good!) The butter was melted and combined with the milk. These mixtures were both set aside.

We used the standing mixer to cream the sugar and eggs together, then added the vanilla. The flour was mixed in like we've learned to, a little at a time. Then we mixed in the milk and butter. 

The cupcake liner were filled 3/4 full (or maybe a little less, there could have been more.) Then baked for 15 minutes. That's all it took.

We wanted to do the frosting in the morning so that it would be freshest. Again, this is Candice's Birthday and she doesn't normally eat sweets. We try to make it so that everything we bake is so good that it's worth the calories but never more so than today. So, we woke up at 5 to take the butter and cream cheese out of the fridge then went back to bed for an hour. The frosting goes like this:

6oz of Cream Cheese (or 3/4 of a package)

1/2 Cup(1 stick) of Butter

4 Cups of Powdered Sugar

2 tbspn Pumpkin

1 tspn Vanilla

1 tspn Cinnamon

Cream the butter, cream cheese and pumpkin together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and cinnamon, then slowly add and mix together the sugar. Easy! And wow, it's really good!

So there they are, Cinnamon Cupcakes with Pumpkin Frosting. They are quite delicious. Happy Birthday Candice! We hope you have a great one!

Lessons learned: These are really yummy! We might try to fill the cups a little more next time. There's nothing wrong with 22 cupcakes or 20 cupcakes. They don't have to be in dozens.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes 6/27

Last weekend we went to a birthday party in Seattle. Our cousin George is turning 70 and for such a momentous occasion, there were cupcakes! The mini cupcakes shown above are from Trophy Cupcakes and we fell immediately in love with the Salted Caramel ones. They're the ones with with the caramel drizzled on top. There were lots of dimensions of flavor, multitudes of deliciousness and those puppies went fast!
Then, one night last week during a bit of insomnia, Sara was looking through the Martha Stewart Cupcakes book and found...Chocolate Salted-Caramel Mini Cupcakes! This is a great book and many of the recipes can be found at marthastewart.com. This one isn't there but it's easily found online as lots of food bloggers have done it. There's even a Martha Stewart Cupcakes baking club. Here's how ours went.

The cakes were easy enough. We've never made mini ones before but there's a first time for everything. We had to buy new pans and get the smaller paper liners. We do believe there is an appeal to smaller cupcakes though. They're pretty high on the cute scale. Then we took them and stabbed them with a knife and ripped out their insides. Well, made room for caramel is more like it. It was a great start but then on to the hard part.

Another first for us with this recipe was homemade caramel. The Martha Stewart book said to use a candy thermometer. We didn't have one of those so we consulted Joy the Baker's blog. There's a video there on how to make the caramel. It was very helpful. 

First, we had to take the water, sugar, and cornstarch and get it boiling. It all melts down and we had to be brave and let it go. No stirring after it gets boiling. It should keep boiling for about 10 minutes or until it gets brown and nutty in aroma.

We could have probably let it get a little darker but it was still tasty. We'll try it next time. Next step, add the cream. You thought we were wimps for being scared to burn sugar, you should have seen us when the cream went in.

We had to pour it in slowly because it all just boils up in the pot. We missed the best picture moment but you can get an idea here of what it did. It was very exciting! Then it gets some salt added and it all goes into the cakes. Lots and lots of cakes. 

These got topped with a little bit of sea salt and then frosting went on top of that. The frosting recipe was a little rich. It called for a whole pound of melted semi-sweet chocolate. We also had a lot leftover because the recipe makes over 50 mini cupcakes and we threw in the towel at 36 which we thought was quite respectable.  They came out pretty gorgeous if we do say so ourselves.

As you can see, the tops get a little more salt. The salt draws out another dimension of flavor in the caramel but we felt it was a little too much salt. We'd scale it back next time. A lot of the time, you can end up with something pretty terrific that's homemade, better than from a store or bakery but in this attempt, we stick with Trophy Cupcakes. Now, if only we lived near Seattle...

Lessons learned: For next time, reduce salt, extend caramelizing time.  We also had a snafu with the quantity. These cupcakes are to be consumed within a day of making. Normally, we can rely on Sara's co-workers to enjoy the treats. Though some of them absolutely loved these cakes, a majority of the treats went untouched. We believe that we have reached the tipping point of goodies overload. It's not bad for 6 months in and a good thing that Erin starts a new job next week. :o)

Welcome Baby Oliver 6/10

Our cousin Bryan and his wife Katie welcomed a new member of the family last week. Oliver was born on June 2nd and to celebrate, we made Carrot Cake cupcakes. Now, how does that relate you might ask. Well, these baby carrot cakes were made with carrot baby food.

This is a technique that we've been wanting to try and the arrival of Oliver was a perfect opportunity. Katie has been an avid supporter of this blog so we dedicate this post to her and her new family.
The recipe was taken from allrecipes.com. Now, when the recipe is for cake and we want to make cupcakes, we get a little apprehensive. It took making quite a few of each to understand the difference but there is one very big one and the conversion of a recipe from one to the other can be a crap shoot. Why you ask? Because a cupcake is finger food and a cake is fork food. Can you imagine trying to eat a piece of cake with your fingers? It would all fall apart. And conversely eating a cupcake with a fork just seems ridiculous. We took the risk with this recipe because the reviews said that the cake was moist and dense and others had had success with the conversion. SPOILER ALERT: We did too. :o)
Here's what you need for the cake:

• 2 cups white sugar (we used 1 1/2 cups white, 1/2 cup of brown) 
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 (4.5 ounce) jars carrot baby food
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• Preheat to 350. Put your cupcake papers in the tins. Combine the sugars and oil in a large bowl and beat well.
• 
  

(Yes, it's a lot of oil)

Add the eggs, baby food and vanilla. Beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine the sifted flour, salt, baking soda and the spices. Enjoy the smell. Combine it all together and beat well. Fill the papers 3/4 full.

• We found that this recipe makes 20 cupcakes so we had 4 empty spots. We put a little water in these to make sure the pan didn't warp. It's not likely that it will but we wanted to be safe. Speaking of which, we only advise doing this if you are extra careful not to get the hot water spilled onto you or your freshly baked goodies.
• 
  

And now for the frosting. Most carrot cake recipes use a cream cheese frosting. We don't disagree. The recipe for this frosting is the easiest yet:
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
1 tblspn of vanilla
4 cups of confectioner's sugar
Beat the cream cheese and butter in a mixer till fluffy. Add the vanilla and sugar leave the mixer running till smooth.
Even though these are made with baby food, Oliver obviously can't eat them yet. And I know some people are turned off by the idea of baby food in adult food but the ingredients in the baby food are carrots and water. Nothing else and nothing to worry about baking with. We wanted to make them into cupcakes because #1 Katie loves cupcakes, and #2 we thought they would be easier to ship. Katie and Bryan live in the Bay Area and we are in Los Angeles. We won't get to see them till next month and that's just too long. It just is.
We found these little boxes to help us get the cakes to them. They're called Cup-a-Cake and you can get them here.

We froze the cupcakes Wednesday night and then overnighted them the next day. They should be getting them today. We hope they enjoy them and welcome Oliver!

Lessons learned: Hopefully shipping works... We will add shredded carrots to the batter next time. The flavor is good but could be more carrot-y.

Glee Cupcakes 4/13

Update: Our Glee Cupcakes were named #2 on the "20 Most Inventive Cupcakes Known to Man" by koldcast.tv Also, due to the response and requests to make these cuties, there's another update further below to help explain the process.

We are Gleeks and we are proud of it. We are fans of Glee and enjoy every second of it. Glee returns today and we couldn't be more excited. To celebrate its return, we are dedicating a Post to it. We present to you: Glee Cupcakes.

On the show, the Glee kids are considered unpopular and targets for teasing. The main attack is what is called a slushie facial. The football players throw slushies in the faces of the poor Glee Club students. So, not that we condone this sort of behavior but our cupcakes are meant to look like the slushies. We even watched the episodes closely to see that they are called "Big Quench" as opposed to "Big Gulp".

We've been planning this for months. The cupcake challenge was involved too. As has been said before, we do not believe in looks over flavor. We could not let the presentation be better than the taste.  The cupcake challenge yielded a chocolate cupcake as the winner. That doesn't work so well for a slushie cupcake. The vanilla cupcake came in last place at the challenge but we liked it. We did some research, made some improvements and went for it.  Our recipe was a combination of the amended Magnolia Bakery recipe from Cast Sugar and the highly praised one from 52cupcakes.blogspot.com. We went with the following ingredients:

1 3/4 cups cake flour

1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tbspn baking powder

3/4 tspn salt

1 cup unsalted butter

4 eggs

1 cup yogurt

2 tspn vanilla extract

Then we followed the steps on the 52 Cupcakes site. 

The decoration was the next big step for us. We made the frosting and then split it into 3 bowls. We planned on dyeing one blue, one red, and one purple to match typical slushie flavors.

Then we topped them with colored sanding sugar in the same color. 

UPDATE (more details): Then they went into the cups.

Here's a link to a search for the cups. Go for the $3.19 ones.

We cut down 9oz plastic cups to the point where the cupcakes don't slide into the cup anymore. Then we wrapped the labels that we made around the cups and tucked the ends into the cup.

We have to say they came out super cute!!

Happy return of Glee, everybody!

Lessons learned: We don't use as much frosting as most recipes call for, we ended up with A LOT left over. Cake flour is great for cupcakes, we ended up with a nice soft texture that we were aiming for.

1st Quarterly Challenge

Ladies and Gentlemen, we'd like to proudly present our first of the Quarterly challenges. Mostly it's a competition in recipe choice because we just can't help but assist each other but it's a bigger baking endeavor than our usual weekly posts.

This time we chose Cupcakes. Those omnipresent little pastries that seem to gain in popularity no matter how many bakeries specializing in them pop up. Sara maintains a strong fondness for them though I struggle to understand their appeal. I can't help it, I'm a cookie girl.
The rules:
As usual, they had to be made from scratch.
We were allowed to make 24 cupcakes and present 12 for competition.
There were 8 non-biased judges to decide the winner based on overall enjoyment.
The winner gets to write the post and pick the flavor of cupcake in a future post (you'll see).
The contenders:
Sara made a beautiful Cherry Limeade Cupcake with a lime cupcake infused with juice and cherry frosting.
I made a chocolate cupcake with Vanilla frosting. Sounds boring but the secret ingredient was...mayonnaise. Sounds even worse now but you'll hear more later.
The third entry was a collaborative effort between the 2 of us: a vanilla cupcake recipe from Magnolia Bakery (famous in NYC) with Dark Chocolate frosting.
The results:
The third sounds like the second just opposite but we wanted to make a different kind of frosting and the vanilla cupcake recipe sounded so great to us. When we tasted it, Sara thought it tasted like a sprinkles cupcake. It came in third...

Second place went to the Cherry Limeade cupcake that Sara made. Although most judges remarked that the look of the cupcake was most appealing and moistest, they went for a more classic flavor.

The winner was the Chocolate Mayo Cake. To be fair, the judges were not told what they were tasting when they tasted them. They felt tricked when the truth was revealed. A couple proclaimed a hatred for Mayonnaise but they couldn't taste is because they voted for it anyway. 

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of mayonnaise either. In fact, it was the only ingredient on the recipe list that I didn't already have.  I had heard about it from a friend who had cupcakes at her wedding and her guests went crazy over the Mayo cake. I thought it was an interesting idea and did some research.

The problem with a lot of online recipe reviews is that most people exclaim about how excited they are to try it or how yummy it looks. There are very few about how it actually came out for people. A lot of people made comments about how Mayo Cake was something their mom used to make. Not our Mom. And not anyone I know's mom either. I took from this that the use of mayonnaise is an old fashioned technique and grew even more intrigued. 

The recipes that I found on Food Geeks and Pastry Wiz except the latter served about a third more and the measurements were about a third more. I took this to mean that this may be a popular recipe and the one to try.  The recipe on the Food Network Site however was different. It called for Buttermilk which we have discovered we aren't big fans of so I disqualified it. I did see however that they used more cocoa and one reviewer noted that the cake wasn't chocolatey enough and would add mini morsels the next time. I decided to try that since my chosen recipe had less cocoa.

It all went fine. I had my doubts while mixing in the mayo. It looked gross, it smelled gross.

But there was hope to be found with the vanilla extract and water.

Then it started smelling and looking like cake. I added the morsels to all but one cupcake just to see and boy did that ever save it!

The came out beautifully and I frosted them with from scratch vanilla frosting. Perfect!

Lessons learned: Extra chocolate never hurts. You don't always need to "Hold the Mayo."

Birthday Baking: Brandon 1/17

Brandon is our brother-in-law. A week before his birthday we were having dinner at a restaurant and we got Boston Cream Pie for dessert. He had never had it before and quickly proclaimed it his new favorite dessert.

We decided that we should make him Boston Cream Cupcakes for his b-day. We used a Cook's Illustrated recipe because it looked better and sounded tastier than the other recipes we found online.

It gets made in three parts and then put all together. We made the filling first, the night before the rest of it. Then came the cake and the chocolate topping. It was odd that the cake mixture came out more like bread dough than batter but it baked just fine, maybe a little tough though.

We refrigerated it for the minimum amount of time because we cut it a little close to when we had to leave.

As Gordon Ramsay says "Taste everything", we did. We tasted the pudding, the cake, the chocolate and then all of it together. We were very sugared up but feeling that the cakes came out tasty but little thick.

We didn't have any of them right away. They were consumed that evening after we went home. As I understand it, multiples were consumed by each person.

Lessons learned: Letting the pudding soak into the cake may be the key. Next time, we may try to use cupcake papers to keep the cake soft even though the recipe doesn't call for it.