Failure...well, semi-failure

Ok, here's the deal. I got really caught up during the run of Once on this Island. I was busy, you know, singing, dancing, crying, kissing and dying. It's whatever.
Obviously, I have failed at blogging....boooo. BUT I have kept up with the baking of the cupcakes!! Yay! So I just need to blog about them!
Thank goodness for Thanksgiving...just one of the many things to be thankful for!

Soooo...



...and I will blog all of those awesome cupcake recipes ASAP!

image from weheartit

Week 35. Sugar- Free Chocolate Cupcakes (for Joe Mason)

I always like to show my appreciate for the people who make my life easier...unfortunately, they're all on diets! So, I asked our accompanist what kind of cupcakes I could make that he would eat. He said "Sugar free!" And so my long journey begaaaaaan...found this one on recipegirl.com



Sugar- Free Chocolate Cupcakes

½ cup unsweetened cocoa
½ cup boiling water
1½ cups sifted cake flour (sift, then measure)
1 cup Splenda Sugar for Baking
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract


1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake tin with cupcake papers.

2. Combine cocoa and boiling water, whisking until blended and smooth; set aside.

3. Combine flour, splenda, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add butter and mix w/ electric mixer until mixture is crumbly.

4. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, cocoa mixture and vanilla. Add 1/3 of the wet mixture to the dry mixture. Beat on low speed w/ electric mixer until blended. Beat at medium speed for an additional 30 seconds until mixture is smooth (scrape down sides of bowl, as needed). Repeat two more times, until all egg mixture has been added.

5. Scoop batter into prepared tins. Fill 10 cupcakes for a fuller cupcake, or 12 for smaller cupcakes.

6. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack.

Yield: 10 to 12


SUGAR- FREE CHOCOLATE FROSTING

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled (can use the Baker’s or Ghirardelli 1-ounce squares)
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
4 Tbs granulated splenda (6 of the little packets)
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
½ tsp chocolate extract (optional)


1. Melt the chocolate over low heat and then pour into a mixer bowl, let cool slightly.

2. Slowly whisk the cream into the cooled, melted chocolate. Using an electric mixer, beat on medium speed and add the butter, splenda, cocoa powder, and extracts. Beat until smooth and fluffy.

3. The frosting at this point will be quite thin and easy to spread. If you wish to pipe it on in a decorative pattern, place it in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes to thicken it up a bit before putting into a piping bag.

**Hannah's Hints**

* These are surprisingly good! I'm not a huge fan of baking with Splenda and stuff, but these really turned out good! Not sweet, but that nice, slightly bitter-y chocolate! YUM!

* Joe said they were wonderful and that he ate two on our dinner break. Also, he left the rest on his daughters' Tinker Bell plate for them to eat when they got home. Awww, sharing cupcake love with the family!

* If you are reading this and have any unusual requests for cupcakes like this, then let me know!! I'm always up for a challenge!

Week 34. Nectarine Cupcakes

Carly brought me this delicious looking recipe...I think her mom tore it out of the Martha Stewart magazine. And I had been craving a fresh fruit cupcake!



Nectarine Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Salt
1/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 medium nectarines, peeled, halved, pitted, and finely chopped (1 1/4 cups)

FOR THE TOPPING
1 cup cold heavy cream
1/2 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1 medium nectarine, halved, pitted, and very thinly sliced

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make the cupcakes: Sift together flour, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir together milk and vanilla.
2.Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. With mixer running, add eggs, 1 at a time. Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating twice with milk mixture.
3.Line a standard muffin tin with baking cups. Fill each with 1 tablespoon batter, 1 heaping tablespoon chopped nectarines, and an additional 2 tablespoons batter. Bake until edges begin to turn golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool in tin.
4.Make the topping: Whisk together cream, sour cream, and sugar to medium peaks. Top cupcakes with a dollop of cream and nectarine slices.

**Hannah's Hints**

* I actually used my Snickerdoodle icing for this because, well, it's the best!

* My favorite part of this recipe was actually the fresh nectarine slice on top! Oh delicious!!

Week 33. Happy Birthday, Caleb! Pop Rocks Cupcakes

It was Caleb's surprise birthday party this week and I wanted to make him a super duper awesome special cupcake. My dad suggested Pop Rocks and I took up the challenge!




Pop Rocks Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup boiling water
1 egg
1 cup sour milk (To sour your milk, add one tsp. lemon juice or vinegar to milk (low-fat will work fine) and stir. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes.)
1 tsp. (heaping) baking soda
3 cups flour (leveled with a knife to be exact)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup Pop Rocks

Mix the candy into the softened butter. Cream butter (with or without Pop Rocks) and brown sugar. Add boiling water, soured milk, egg and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour and baking soda, mixing well again. Spoon into lined cupcake pans and bake for 18-20 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. Set cupcakes on a wire rack to cool, and when they have cooled completely frost and decorate. (See below for frosting recipe.)Yields 18 cupcakes.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
2 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat softened butter on medium high speed until creamy. Reduce speed of mixer and gradually add confectioner's sugar, beating until a pale, fluffy frosting forms. Add vanilla and beat until frosting is smooth.

**Hannah's Hints**

* Ok, so these only kind of worked...the pop rocks started popping the minute I added them to the butter. And continued to. But apparently there was still some pop when they were eaten.

* I waited till the very last minute to put the pop rocks on the top, and that was good. I actually bought dollar store pop rocks, so there were 3 or 4 different flavors. Exciting!

Week 32. Really Fruit-y Cupcakes

I've had this recipe in my binder for a while...basically just waiting until I got a blender! And then it worked really awkwardly..but I just did what I could.



Really Fruit-y Cupcakes

4 oz frozen fruit (I used raspberries)
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
1/8 cup sugar
3 squares of white chocolate

Puree raspberries in a blender and press through a sieve to remove seeds. Beat egg and sugar until white and foamy. Add raspberry puree and flour and mix on lowest speed for a few seconds to incorporate.
Grease and flour cupcake pan and pour batter in. Or use cupcake cups. Place one square of chocolate on top of each cupcake and press it inside with a toothpick.
Bake in a preheated oven on 200 degrees CELSIUS for about 7-8 mins.

**Hannah's Hints**

* Ok, this is the most awkward recipe ever. YES, it was all in metric making it very difficult to switch over.

* I put too many raspberries in because I approximated, but it was ok. Aaaand...I didn't put it through a sieve because I didn't care about seeds in the cupcakes.

* YES, this recipe does yield 3 cupcakes. Silly. I managed to get 4. But I chopped up the white chocolate squares so they weren't so big.

* These were surprisingly good, considering the craziness of them- very potent. Yum.

* I used the Snickerdoodle icing for these...because I love it:-)

I have no excuse. I'm just lazy.

It's been weeks since I've blogged. I promise I've kept up with the baking of cupcakes...but I'm certainly behind on my blogging. However, now that I've caught up I would like to present a few examples of things I might have been doing instead of blogging these past three weeks.


Mom and I went to Conway, Arkansas to visit one of our foreign exchange girls. In Little Rock, we went to Orange Leaf FroYo... I am obsessed. I had four kinds of froyou with amaaazing toppings. My favorites were gummi bears and fruity pebbles!


The boy had his birthday and I made his rainbow cake which he asked for. It was wonky at first, but once we cut into it, we loved it. Beautiful and delicious.


Playing with this sweet guy. I miss Duke when I'm in Cape, so I like to play with him lots when I'm at home.


Going vintage shopping. A lot. I have many new dresses and these lovely pink glasses!


I dyed my hair pink!! I'm in love with it. Totally depressed I only get to have it for two weeks! Who says I can't audition with pink hair?


Made these dough-knots...yuuuuuummm. I tried to make them again in Cape, but didn't watch them and ended up burning them. Wa waaaaa. Oh well, they're easy enough to make again.


Introduced the boy to bison jerky from Nature Girls health food store. Now, before I was a vegetarian, I used to walk to this little cafe from my Dad's store and get bison jerky. Like, every day. I miss it, sorta. It smelled and looked exactly the same- but worry not, I did not taste it again.

Week 31. Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes

I've had my eye on a few nutella cupcake recipes lately...so I thought while I was home I would utilize my parent's resources (let them buy the ingredients... thanks, Mom!) This recipe looked easy and yummy, so I went for it. Nutella is yummsters.



Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes

10 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup Nutella

Preheat the oven to 325°. Lined muffin pans with muffin/cupcake paper liners.
Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar together.

Do this until light and creamy. About 2 minutes or so.

Add one egg at a time.

Beat the mixture after each egg.

Add vanilla, then the flour, baking powder and salt. Continue to mix everything together until well incorporated.

The mixture would be sort of lumpy like it would be hard to pour. Don’t worry, that’s how it should be. As long as it’s not hard as rocks of course.

Use an ice cream scooper to fill up the cups with the batter. About 3/4 full.

Top each batter with 1/2 tsp of nutella.

Use a toothpick or a satay skewer to swirl the nutella in with the batter.

Make sure a little bit of the batter comes on top. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Serve cool or a slightly warm.

**Hannah's Hints**

* It is fun to lick the nutella off of whatever you use to scoop it.

* If I made these again, I'd made sure the nutella gets swirled in through the whole cupcake, mostly because I looooved the tops of the cupcakes. But the bottoms didn't thrill me. SO...be a better swirler than me and you will get great satisfaction from your nutella cupcakes.

* Eat the rest of the nutella...I repeat, DO NOT WASTE GOOD NUTELLA. Eat it on toast. Eat it with fruit. Eat it with vegetables. Eat it with a fox. Eat it in a box. Seriously...don't let it just sit there. Nutella must be eaten.