Springtime Buttermilk Cupcakes

I had a custom cupcake order a couple weeks ago and made these babies with the leftover batter. It was a beautiful spring-like day (I know it's still a couple more days until the technical 1st day of spring, but if you live in Cali, spring has sprung early). These cupcakes make me smile. They are so bright and colorful and remind me of all the bright potted flowers I'm seeing all over town. I displayed them on my new cupcake tree that my buddy Monica gave me for Christmas. Fun!

So about these recipes... Emily, a friend of mine who's a cake baker, and I have been searching for a good "white cake" recipe. Just a staple alternative to our favorite chocolate recipes. This attempt came from my Martha Book. I'm sad to report that it was a disappointment. It is the 4th recipe I've tried from this book and every other one has been amazing. This one? Not so much. The cake is super dense but not moist at all. It's just heavy and flavorless. I got around 40 cupcakes out of the recipe which kinda sucks when you don't like it. I tried different things after not being happy with the first tray. I tried baking for less time, rotating the pans, turning down the oven temp, nothing seemed to make any difference.

Wedding ContenderGrade? F!

But, alas, Martha has redeemed herself with her recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This frosting is way less sweet than the usual buttercream that I've worked with. This is because it replaces buckets of powdered sugar with buckets of butter. I found that, when served at room temp, the frosting tastes almost too much like butter which is kinda gross. If you chill the cupcakes a little while, they'll taste better. A mild sweet frosting. The best part about this frosting, though? How easy it is to work with! It's a dream. It spreads beautifully and it holds its shape so well. You can see that from my cupcakes. The peaks stay stiff. To get this effect with my normal buttercream, I would have to add so much powdered sugar. Martha has some different flavor options for the Swiss Buttercream and I'd like to try them all! Definitely use this the next time you have to ice a cake, it just spreads so smooth.


Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes
from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

3 cups cake flour (non self-rising)
1 1/2 cups AP flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 tsps baking powder
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 cup + 2 Tbsps (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
2 1/4 cups sugar
5 large whole eggs + 3 egg yolks, room temp
2 cups buttermilk, room temp
2 tsps vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

With mixer on med-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium. Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add yolks, and beat until thoroughly combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Beat in vanilla.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes before removing from tin to cool completely on wire rack.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream
from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

5 large egg whites
1 cup plus 2 Tbsps sugar
pinch salt
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into Tbsps, room temp
1 1/2 tsps vanilla

Combine egg whites, sugar, and salt in the heat-proof bowl of an electric mixer. Set over a pan of simmering water and whisk until sugar is dissolved and the egg whites are hot. [The mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips]

Move the bowl from the pan to the mixer and, using the whisk attachment, beat on high speed until the whites have cooled to room temperature and formed stiff peaks (about 10 minutes.) You can tell it's cool by touching the bottom of the bowl and making sure it's no longer warm.

Add the butter one piece at a time, beating until just incorporated between additions. It may start to curdle, but keep on mixing because it'll eventually come together smoothly. Add vanilla and beat until just combined.

Beat with the paddle attachment on the lowest speed to eliminate air pockets and smooth the buttercream. If you're not using it soon, you can refrigerate buttercream (tightly wrapped) for up to 3 days. When ready to use, bring to room temperature and then beat on low speed with the paddle attachment until smooth.

Blog Adoption

I believe I've mentioned this before but, prior to me starting up Occasional Sugar, I spent a few months just reading other blogs, seeing what they were all about, getting inspiration for layout and photography, just becoming immersed in this world I would soon be joining. Around that time, there was a blogging event taking place called Adopt-A-Blogger. This was great! It gave me a list of great foodie blogs to check out, without having to do the research to find them on my own. Adopt-A-Blogger is the brainchild of Kristen of Dine and Dish. In a nutshell, a "newbie" blogger is paired up with a "seasoned" blogger to mentor them for a few months. They form a mutually beneficial relationship to help each other learn new and exciting things to apply to their own blog. It was almost a year ago when I stumbled on Adopt-A-Blogger and now Kristen is organizing a 4th round of the event.

I have eagerly waited for my chance to participate in the next Adopt-A-Blogger all year. For this new round, I have been paired with Allison of Act of Sweetness. She does some amazing custom cakes and has recently completely updated the layout of her site. I can't wait to learn more about her and grill her on things I can do to make Occasional Sugar a sweeter spot for all to visit.

This morning, while browsing through her blog, I came across a simple recipe for blueberry muffins. I thought, what a perfect way for me to introduce my new mentor - by featuring one of her recipes! These muffins turned out great. I didn't have any frozen blueberries (because I really don't like blueberries) but I did have some frozen raspberries left over from when I baked this cake. They are soft, moist, melt-in-your-mouth perfect.

I used these silicone baking cups that Eric got me for Christmas for the first time. They were fun to use and easy to clean. I don't know why I've waited so long to try them out! They are heart-shaped, so cute.


Berry Muffins
from Act of Sweetness

1 1/2 cups AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsps baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh berries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin pan with paper liners.

Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Place 1/3 cup vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the measuring cup up to the 1 cup line. Mix this with flour mixture. Carefully fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture*.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

*for my crumb topping, I combined 1/3 cup butter (cold), 1/4 cup sugar, and 2 Tbsp flour. I blended it together with a pastry cutter and sprinkled about a tsp on top of each unbaked muffin cup.

Cheers to Cupcakes

So the cupcake recipe testing continues. I think I'll choose two different cupcake flavors for the wedding and am pretty certain that one of those will involve alcohol as a main ingredient. Champagne cupcakes seemed all to perfect for the recent Hallmark Holiday.

My mom got me these cute cupcake liners. Thanks Mom!

I think the exciting part about these cupcakes is the fact that you know they have champagne in them, not that you can actually distinguish the champagne taste. I ended up brushing the tops of the cooled cupcakes with more champagne before frosting to add a little more flavor. The texture of the cake is the best part of this recipe but if you are wanting to bake cupcakes with any form of wine, I would suggest going with these red wine cupcakes as the wine taste will stand out a bit more.

Champagne Cupcakes
from Gimme Some Oven
Makes about 20-24 cupcakes

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup champagne (the sweeter the better)
6 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add flour mixture to butter in three installments, alternating with champagne.

In another large clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into batter to lighten it, then fold in remaining egg whites. Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Champagne Buttercream
3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp champagne, room temperature

With an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Mix on low until well blended, and then on medium for another two minutes. Add vanilla and champagne, beating on medium for another minute. If you are piping the frosting on, you may need to double the recipe.



Grading...

Cupcake: A
Notes: It has a slight "fermented grape" flavor but the texture was the best part of this recipe. The cake was firm, yet moist. They baked up in to beautiful domes and didn't dry out.

Frosting: C
Notes: Eh, nothing to write home about. You can't really taste the champagne, it mostly just tastes like regular-old buttercream.

Wedding Contender: C
Notes: I liked the cake and would like to try variations on it's flavor. I'm not sure if I'm up for the egg white folding in mass production but I could really tell how nicely it effected the texture of the cake. The frosting was easy but nothing special.

Let the testing begin...

Most of you probably know that I am getting married this year and most of you have probably figured out that I am planning on baking cupcakes to serve at this massive event. There has been a lot of talking but not a whole lot of baking going on and I'm starting to get anxious. The lack of baking mostly had to do with the fact that Eric and I moved a few weeks ago. Now instead of having a whole apartment to ourselves, we are renting a room from a friend's house. One of the major selling points for me on this move was the fact that our new kitchen has a dual oven! YAY! It took me a couple weeks before I was organized enough to actually tackle a baking project in the new kitchen but I'm so glad I did.

The ovens are old but they work very well. Where as our apartment oven changed temperature frequently throughout the bake time, these stay constant. My oven thermometer was happy to report that they actually run at the temperature they are set to. I never knew an oven to be this exact! I am very thrilled.

So on to the project. I am now testing cupcake recipes that will be mass produced for the wedding. For Christmas I received Martha Stewart's Cupcakes and immediately started bookmarking pages for testing. My first attempt was the Snickerdoodle Cupcakes. Snickerdoodles always make me think of my childhood and going to the mall with my parents. There was this amazing bakery there called Paradise Bakery and us kids would only put up with a day of mall-shopping because we knew the cookie reward was waiting for us. Snickerdoodles were always a family favorite so when I saw this recipe, it gave me a nostalgic feeling and I knew I had to try it soon. Here is the recipe:

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes
from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temp
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

Sift together both flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on med-high speed, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool. After about 10 minutes, carefully removed cupcakes from tins and place on wire racks to cool completely. Frost with Seven-Minute Frosting.

Seven-Minute Frosting
1 1/2 cups plus 2 Tbsp sugar
2/3 cup water
2 Tbsp light corn syrup
6 large egg whites, room temperature

Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar with the water and corn syrup in a small saucepan; clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling, without stirring, until syrup reaches 230 degrees.

Meanwhile, in the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. With mixer running, add remaining 2 Tablespoons sugar, beating to combine.

As soon as sugar syrup reaches 230 degrees, remove from heat. With mixer on medium-low speed, pour syrup down side of the bowl in a slow, steady stream. Raise speed to medium-high; whisk until mixture is completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl) and stiff (but not dry) peaks form, about 7 minutes. Use immediately.

Dust tops of cupcakes with a mixture of 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 2 Tbsp sugar.

And here is the grading system I've come up with for this and all future wedding recipe testing.

Cupcake: B
Notes: A good flavor - tasted just like a snickerdoodle cupcake. Not really soft or moist enough in my opinion.

Frosting: A
Notes: Yummy! An excellent alternative to the usual buttercream. Tastes like fluffy marshmallow. A lot of work but worth the effort.

Wedding Contender: D
Notes: Although these cupcakes were yummy and I received many compliments on them, they are much too time consuming (mainly the frosting) to bake on a larger scale.