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.

It is my birthday.

Last weekend was my birthday and I got to spend it at the happiest place on earth! It was the perfect long weekend, I spent Saturday celebrating with family and friends and Sunday we flew down to Southern California so we could go to Disneyland on my actual birthday which was on Monday. Four days off work may have been the best part, or maybe it was getting to go to the park on a weekday when the lines are short and the crowds are non-existent.

So on Saturday, I had dinner at my parent's house. My sister baked me this absolutely beautiful birthday cake:

I just love her decorating job. It had pink frosting and pretty pastel sprinkles around the top edge. I was so proud of her decorating skills. She used Emily's Chocolate Cake recipe and it was moist and delicious as usual.

When we flew into Long Beach on Sunday, I was surprised to see that the recent rain down there had transformed Southern California (an area I generally find ugly while covered in a blanket of smog) into a truly beautiful place. The sky was clear and blue, the foothills were bright green, and the surrounding mountains actually had snow on them. Prior to this, I didn't even know there were mountains out there. I could never see that far. Check this out!

Disneyland was the best! We finally were able to get a reservation at the Blue Bayou (um, the photos on this link are pretty awesome, in a completely outdated kind of way), the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The food was SO good. I ordered the Seafood Jambalaya and Eric had the Monte Cristo sandwich. Both were prepared perfectly and got me counting down the days until my next trip to New Orleans where every meal is this good.

Thanks so much to all my friends and family for making this birthday so special!