White Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream

First of all, please excuse my pictures! Someone who was "helping" me in the kitchen managed to knock 2/3 of my cupcakes off the counter and onto the floor. Let's just say I wasn't a happy camper. These cupcakes are seriously so good and I just could not believe 16 of them were now dead. done for. gone. It really was tragic. But anyways... 

To make things easy I started with a cake mix, now you could do it without a cake mix, but why do that when it was so easy?!

I not only melted and mixed in the white chocolate chips but also added some that got mixed into the batter whole. 

I just used a spoon and mixed them into the batter as best as I could and then threw them in the oven. 

I don't have a picture of them coming out of the oven because I'm a knucklehead and forgot to take one! 

I decided to make a buttercream and mix in melted white chocolate chips, make sure your chocolate is as cool as possible so it doesn't just melt the buttercream. 

Since these were all that was left I added a little frosting and made some homemade caramel to add to the top. 

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White Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

1 box mix

3 eggs

¾ cups heavy cream

¼ milk

½ cup butter, melted and cooled

1 bag of white chocolate chips

­Frostings:

½ cup of butter, softened

1-2 cups of powdered sugar

3-4 tbsp. of heavy cream

½ cup white chocolate chips, melted and cooled

Directions

Cupcakes:

1.     Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

2.     Place most of the white chocolate chips in the bowl and melt in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring well after each 30 seconds until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool.

3.     Add mix, eggs, heavy cream, milk, and butter to bowl of your stand mixer and beat on medium for 2 minutes.

4.     Add melted white chocolate and mix well.

5.     Divide batter between pans and then divide remaining white chocolate chips between cupcakes. Stir to combine.

6.     Place in oven and immediately turn down to 325º.

7.     Bake for 18-22 minutes.

Frosting:

1.     Beat butter until fluffy.

2.     Add powdered sugar and heavy cream, mix well.

3.     Stir in melted chocolate. 

Thanks for coming, stay awhile, and return often! xoxo 

Bats, Mummies, and Spiders.. OH MY! Halloween Cupcakes!!

When we were kids there was a Halloween ding-dong ditch game that went on... basically you pick someone you like, create a treat, take it to their house at night, put it on their porch and then ring the bell and run as fast as you can to get away unseen! Now that we're in our 20s and trick-or-treating is really not an option and Halloween parties really aren't our thing we've decided to enjoy Halloween a different way! By scaring all the kids when they come trick-or-treating! Oh, and by bringing back "Boo-ing" people!! We picked 4 people, 2 of our new neighbors with kids and our Bishop and one of our visiting teachers. This gave me a perfect excuse to create fun Halloween cupcakes! 

I like creating toppers for cupcakes that are edible, non-edibles can be cute-- but the fact remains, you can't eat them! So I set out to make edible toppers, I melted some chocolate, put in a piping bag with a #3 Wilton tip and got to work! I added candy pearls I had on hand for their eyes and then popped them in the freezer to harden. 

 Please don't laugh at my spiders.. they're cute, right?!? Ok maybe they're just funny looking.. but luckily it's Halloween and they'll due. Unfortunately their little legs are very fragile and I accidentally broke a few off when adding them to the cupcakes. I made these the same way as the bats I just used candy eyes instead of candy pearls for eyes. 

My favorite, if I had to choose, would be the spider webs! On top of the black icing they looked so good and they're made from white chocolate which is my favorite! They're also very fragile but luckily I realized and didn't break any of them! 

I started the mummies by adding black behind their eyes and then white to make their wrapping. They're actually very easy and look great. 

To make things simple I used only 3 frostings-- and only 2 flavors. Orange and white is standard vanilla buttercream and in order to ensure the black frosting was actually black I made a chocolate buttercream and then added some black Americolor gel.

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Ingredients

1 bag of white or milk chocolate chips

Directions

1. Pour chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl.
2. Cook in 30 second intervals, stirring after each 30 seconds until melted and smooth.
3. Let cool briefly and then pour into decorating bag fitted with a coupler so that you can change the tips based on the size you need. 
4. Pipe design onto parchment paper, put parchment paper into freezer and let them set.
5. Pipe frosting onto cupcake and then add frozen design. 

Pineapple Cupcakes with Pineapple Whipped Cream

I love Hawaii. I love it. Everything about it. The people, the culture, the weather... and did I mention the beach?!? Amazing. All of it. One of the many things I love to do on Oahu is visit the Dole plantation. I love pineapple, especially fresh- Hawaiian fresh- pineapple! In my post vacation depression I am doing everything I can to hold on to the Aloha spirit. So here you have it... pineapple cupcakes with the most delicious pineapple whipped cream frosting! 

I had a box mix on hand and decided to use that as my starting point-- whenever I use a box mix I like to use butter instead of oil and milk or heavy creme instead of water. I find that it makes a fluffier moist cupcake. 

I started by using my emulsion blender to beat the eggs really good-- I didn't want any eggs showing through the white cupcake so I wanted to make sure they were beat really well. I then added the milk/heavy creme mixture and the melted butter to the eggs and gave it a quick stir before mixing it into the dry mix. 

I used canned crushed pineapple because I didn't have any of the fresh stuff available. I strained the juice from the pineapple and saved the juice for the whipped creme. 

I added about 1 cup of crushed pineapple and mixed it in at the end. You could add more or less depending on your preference. 

I used my ice cream scoop to fill the pans and then put them in the oven! 

I turned the oven down to 325º and baked them for about 22 minutes and they came out a delicious golden brown! They are so good! 

The whipped creme frosting was super easy! Heavy creme, sugar, and pineapple juice-- that's it! Just whip it still stiff peaks form, but not till it makes butter. I've done that before. Turned on the mixer and got busy cleaning up and doing something else and before I realized, I had homemade butter. It was good, but not exactly what I was going for. Now, I watch it whip very closely! This whipped creme frosting is probably one of the best frostings I've ever made. It is light, creamy and has a strong pineapple flavor. Reminds me of Dole Whip! Yumm! 

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 Pineapple Cupcakes with Pineapple Whipped Cream

Ingredients

Cupcakes:
1 box of cake mix
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter, cooled
1 cup pineapple chunks, drained

Frosting:
1 cup heavy creme
2 tbsp. white sugar
10 tbsp. pineapple juice

Directions

Cupcakes:

1. Beat eggs until smooth and no more yolk shows
2. Mix eggs, milk, and cooled butter. Stir.
3. Add to dry mix in the bowl of your stand mixer.
4. Mix on medium for 2 minutes.
5. Stir in pineapple chunks.
6. Divide between cupcake pans.
7. Put in oven and immediately turn down to 325º.
8. Bake 20-25 minutes.

Frosting:

1. Chill bowl and whisk attachment in freezer for 30 minutes, or at least 15 if you don't have 30 minutes.
2. Add sugar, whipped creme, and pineapple juice to the bowl of your stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment.
3. Whip until stiff peaks are formed. 
4. Icing cupcakes and top with leftover pineapple chunks. 

Thanks for coming, stay awhile, and return often! xoxo

Marshmallow Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

I love to bake and I am always baking, coming up with new ideas, recipes, figuring out tricks and tips and more. Luckily I have built in taste testers thanks to my mom and best friend who live with me. Every once in awhile I'll get a text from my best friend when she's at work begging for requesting a certain cupcake, or can you try and make this or that, etc. Well, this time it was the request for a Hostess  Cupcake knock-off. Is it just me or are you always left wanting more creme when eating those? So I set out to make just that with a twist and extra creme in the middle!

I started with my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe because really-- you just can't fail with it. I am not a chocolate fan, I don't really care for chocolate cake, candy, ice cream-- any of it, but this cupcake I will eat. Always. So good! 

I decided to use marshmallow fluff to fill them since it is both delicious and easy. Since it is so thick I knew I wouldn't be able to use my Wilton Round Decorating Tip 230 that I normally use to fill cupcakes. So I decided to use my mellon baller instead. I started by taking off a little "hat" and some more cupcake inside and discarding the crumbs but saving the "hat".

I filled a decorating bag with marshmallow fluff and just cut off then end to pipe the filling into the cupcake. I filled them as much as I could and then some! 

Next, I put their little "hat" back on to cover the surprise that's in the middle. 

I decided to top them with caramel buttercream because I just love it! It is so delicious and goes perfect with a chocolate cupcake. However, you could top them with a chocolate ganache for a more Hostess Cupcake look if you wanted! 

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Marshmallow Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients 

Cupcakes:

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup Hershey's cocoa

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

3/4 cup heavy cream (you could use all milk or all cream, I only had fat free milk so I mixed the two)

1/4 cup fat free milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

Filling:

1 1/2- 2 cups Jet Puff Marshmallow Creme

Frosting:

Caramel Buttercream 

or 

Chocolate Ganache

Thanks for coming, stay awhile, and return often! xoxo