Summer Wrap-up

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Kiesha

I’ve been gone way too long. But summer is coming to an end (hallelujah!) and my baking responsibilities will be picking up again, so I thought I’d do a quick photo-heavy wrap-up of what I’ve been baking this summer.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies from The Cookie Dough Lovers Cookbook. This is definitely my new favorite cookbook. I’ve made so many things from it (there will be photos of more in this post) and everything so far has turned out great.

Have I mentioned my sister-in-law is getting married on Friday?!? In June, the other bridesmaids and I threw Megan’s bridal shower and her maid of honor and I baked everything but the cake for her dessert table. I brought chocolate-dipped merengues, spiced sugar cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles! The truffles are from The Cookie Dough Lovers Cookbook and are quite possibly the most addicting and delicious thing ever. And there’s no baking at all!

Last month, the other bridesmaids and I threw Megan’s bachelorette party and I baked cocktail-inspired cupcakes. The party was great! We even got upgraded to the Presidential Suite at the Roosevelt Hotel! The cupcakes looked so at home in that lavish suite.

Mojito Cupcakes

Old-Fashioned Cupcakes

White Russian Cupcakes

Non-Alcoholic Moscow Mule Cupcakes

Non-Alcoholic Screwdriver Cupcakes

July 4th Red, White and Blue Vanilla Cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Stuffed Cupcakes (Can you guess where this recipe is from?)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Stuffed Cupcakes innards

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Thumbprint Cookies (Again, from The Cookie Dough Lovers Cookbook)

And that’s it! There have been a few other items that I didn’t photograph, but I’m getting back in the swing of things now. I’ll be providing baked goods for the first Largehearted Lit event of the season at Word bookstore in Greenpoint on Wednesday, September 19th. The book/music event is free, so come check out some great authors, music and cookies!

Carrot-Ginger Cupcakes

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Kiesha

Last week I had another Largehearted Lit event at Word bookstore in Greenpoint. It had been awhile since I made Carrot Cake Cupcakes, so I busted out my trusty copy of “Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook” and whipped up a batch of her Carrot-Ginger Cupcakes.

This is hands down my favorite Carrot Cake recipe. I omit the raisins (I am of the opinion that raisins do not belong in cupcakes), and what’s left is just fantastic.

I attempted to make a pretty orange and white swirled frosting, but I realized too late that I had run out of large piping bags. When I do swirls, I fill up two small piping bags with different colored frosting and then insert both of them in a much larger piping bag to create a dual piping bag of sorts. I shuffled through the mountain of piping bags I have only to discover that I was out of the large ones. So I tried to wing it and just put the two frostings in a small bag, but it didn’t *quite* work. Ah well. Lessons learned.

I’ll be back at Word on May 22nd for another Largehearted Lit event. My plan is to make Vegan Root Beer Float Cupcakes and non-vegan Creamsicle Cupcakes. Stop on by!

Vegan Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Kiesha

This past weekend Rob and I had a backyard barbecue for Father’s Day. We invited Rob’s dad as well as his sister and her fiance over on Sunday for some beer and grilled meats.

Well, grilled meats and a grilled black bean patty for my vegan sister-in-law.

I knew I’d be baking something vegan for dessert, so I pulled out my trusty copy of “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World”. There was a very tempting lemon and blueberry number that I almost went for, until reading that it needed to be served immediately after assembling. I planned to bake the night before the barbecue, so I needed something that would hold up for 12 hours or more.

I flipped to the beginning of the book and looked at the chocolate cupcake and noticed the Cookies and Cream variation. It’s basically a chocolate cupcake with vanilla ‘butter’cream frosting with half a package of chocolate sandwich cookies crushed up and thrown in. Sounded like something i could definitely do.

I forgot to make a turn down the organic section at our grocery store and quickly discovered that that is probably where they keep the Newman-O’s, so I picked up Oreos instead. Yes, folks, Oreos are vegan! Which means that there isn’t anything even resembling milk in those bad boys. Hooray for chemicals! Tasty, tasty chemicals.

Anyhoo, everything went according to plan, save for the fact that I used a large round tip to frost them when I should have went with a star tip. It worked out okay, I think. Everyone was very happy with these cupcakes and four of us polished off two each in short order. Rob’s dad was the only one with any restraint.

Photos!

So stunning in black and white!

Vegan Orange Cupcakes with Orange Pudding Filling and Orange ‘Butter’cream

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Kiesha

On Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I threw our first barbecue of 2011. We fired up our grill and made some delicious Pat LaFrieda burgers and invited over our friends Brian and Alison and their three kids.

The two eldest kids have some dairy sensitivities, so I decided to make vegan treats for them. A chance view at a baking blog revealed Orange Cupcakes, which I realized came from “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World”. They looked delicious, so I decided to tackle to them.

These are fairly simple to make, if a little time-consuming. And they’re soooo tasty. We all really enjoyed them and they’ve made the list to be repeated.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Kiesha

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody! Hopefully you have all overcome your hangovers and packed away your green shirts until next year. But if you’re not ready to let go quite yet, here’s a cupcake that you can make any day of the year that will bring a little luck o’ the Irish to you.

This, my friends, is an Irish Car Bomb Cupcake. It’s based on a drink. A drink that requires work, coordination and determination. You start with a 3/4 full pint glass of Guinness and a shot glass full of Bailey’s Irish Cream and Jameson whiskey. You drop the full shot glass in the glass of Guinness and shotgun the whole thing before it has a chance to curdle from the Bailey’s. I’ve never had one of these drinks and don’t ever plan to. For starts, the smell of Guinness is a little too close to feet for me, and the idea of chugging a full glass of beer, cream and whiskey makes my stomach turn.

But holy cow, when you combine those flavors in a cupcake, it’s amazing. Smitten Kitchen seems to have the definitive recipe out on the web, which is what I used to make these cupcakes. And they turned out great. I’ve worked with a few recipes lately where I had less than stellar results, but this recipe was just so perfect.

The cake is chocolate and Guinness. These flavors work so well together. Guinness lends the chocolate such a richness. Once the cupcakes are baked, a ganache consisting of chocolate, heavy cream, butter and two teaspoons of whiskey. You wouldn’t think two teaspoons would lend much flavor, but you get hit in the face with that whiskey as soon as you bite far enough into the cupcake to taste it. And the frosting is butter, powdered sugar and Bailey’s. Delicious.

I found those cute shamrock sprinkles at NY Cake and Baking. I’m pretty sure I’ll still be using those sprinkles on St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes in 2025.

Awesome cupcake designs from around the Internet

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Kiesha

One of my co-workers stumbled on this web page today and immediately called me over to have a look. The “Hello, Cupcake!” book has nothing on these bakers.

This one is my favorite:

But I want these at my next birthday:

(But with purple masks of course. Donatello all the way.)

Buddy vs. Duff: Which reality baker rules?

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Kiesha

Back when “Aces of Cakes” first started on Food Network, I was all over it. It was one of the first reality shows that focused on baking, and I was always impressed with the level of craftsmanship that went into the products made at Charm City Cakes.

But sometimes, I would get annoyed with the people on the show. I’ll always have a soft spot for Geoff, but Mary Alice and especially Duff would start to grate on my nerves. Especially when Duff would make some stupid comment and then laugh his crazy laugh. My husband likes to say that Duff loves stating the obvious to the camera; “The thing about cake is that kids love it!”

duff doof

So imagine my delight when “Cake Boss” debuted on TLC. The tendency of TLC to rip off other network’s successful shows aside, “Cake Boss” is totally more my speed. An old-school bakery in old school Hoboken, New Jersey, with a boss who seems super fun, but also ready to beat his employees if they mess something up. And yeah, Buddy can be really goofy sometimes, but his staff is so much more real and serious about their work than the staff at Charm City Cakes.

cake boss

We’ve been in Brooklyn for seven months now and we still haven’t made it out to Hoboken to try some goodies from Carlo’s. And unfortunately, we’ll be in Washington, D.C. when the annual Cannoli Day happens Friday, April 9.

From @CakeBossBuddy on Twitter:

Canolli Day is back – but a little different – this Fri we’re doing Cupcake Day – starts at noon for the first 2000 people! Come on by!!

What do you think? Do you love the BFF vibe in Baltimore or the family teasing and torment in Hoboken?

The Brooklyn Baker Bakes! Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Kiesha

I actually have been doing some of my own baking so far this year. I’ve made a Ginger Honey Apple Pie, and some awesome Hostess Cupcake-style cupcakes for my husband’s birthday. Now that I’m blogging again, I’ll be able to share all my goodies with you!

Last weekend, Rob and I went over to my sister-in-law’s apartment for dinner and board games with her and her boyfriend. I decided to bake some cupcakes for dessert, and after much deliberation, settled on a recipe from How To Eat a Cupcake: Devil’s Food Cake. I was in the mood for something chocolately, and this certainly fit the bill!

My Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting didn’t quite turn out the way I had hoped. It never thickened up the way I thought it should have, but remained slightly runny. I popped the frosting in the refrigerator for a while, which helped when I piped the it onto the cupcakes, and then I refrigerated the cupcakes until it was time to leave for Astoria. The frosting never ran off the cupcakes, so I’m happy about that, but it didn’t get the height that I wanted it to achieve. I prettied it up a little with some pink coloring and pink sprinkles. Very cute.

If you’d like to make these beauties (and improve upon my frosting attempt), you can find the Devil’s Food Cupcake recipe here. The Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting recipe is here. Happy Baking!

Magnolia Bakery’s recipe for success

Posted on March 20, 2010 by Kiesha

Investors.com posted an article about Magnolia Bakery, its rise to success and its plans to expand into several cities (including Boston and Chicago) by 2012.

If you’ve spent fifteen minutes talking to me, you’ll know that I love Magnolia Bakery. It’s the reason I started baking. And say what you will about dry cupcakes (I personally think the cake part is amazing, but there’s too damn much frosting!), but if you try something other than cupcakes, you’ll find an amazing assortment of homey baked goods, including an ooey-gooey lemon bar that is just awesome.

I don’t know how I feel about the expansion though…especially a certain line in this article that explains that each bakery will produce the exact same cupcakes as the original NYC location with no local variations. No variations? Ever? That seems weird to me. I firmly believe that every city has its own distinct tastes and flavors that it loves and support. By making the same exact things everywhere, Magnolia might as well rename itself McMagnolia.

I wish Magnolia all the success in the world, and I’m not one of those people that gets upset when her favorite things become accessible to all people, I just want this amazing bakery to become as much a part of their new local neighborhoods as they are in New York.

Week Thirty-Seven: Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Kiesha

(This week’s recipe came from Culinary in the Desert.)

After taking in last week’s S’mores Cupcakes to my coworkers, one of them, Colleen, requested something with caramel. So I came home and started doing some research to find a good caramel-y dessert. I didn’t want to just make the Salted Caramel cupcakes again, so I found a recipe for these Caramel Apple cupcakes and it looks awesome.

The recipe used applesauce rather than chopped apples. If I ever make these again, I might consider using applesauce and some chopped apples just to amp up the apple flavor:

The wet ingredients were added to a flour mixture that included a heavenly mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Mmm mmm!

The batter was scooped into cupcake tins:

Once the cupcakes had cooled, I melted down some caramel candy cubes in a saucepan. Once they were melting, I added in some heavy cream to get a smooth, buttery caramel sauce, which was spread over the tops of my cooled cupcakes:

As soon as the caramel went down, I dipped the tops of several of them in chopped Reese’s Pieces or M&Ms, to mimic the chopped peanuts or chocolate that you might find on a fair-style caramel apple:

They were so beautiful! I was so proud of myself:

And then the next day happened. The recipe instructs the baker to store the cupcakes at room temperature. Which I did. The next morning when I got up and checked on them, the caramel had melted and oozed down the cupcakes. The toppings went with them. They weren’t ruined; there was still caramel on the cupcakes, but it was melty and no longer that shiny veneer of caramel. I was so disappointed.

My coworkers, however, loved them. Colleen was thrilled that I’d brought in something caramel, as she much prefers it over chocolate.

This past Friday, I baked Pink Lemonade cupcakes, which I will be posting about sometime mid-next week. Tomorrow I will be baking some more cupcakes and on Monday we are finally (finally!) moving into our new apartment in Brooklyn. That will take up some of my time, but I promise to post before I bake my birthday cupcakes on Friday!

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