Saturday's with Dorie: Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

It's been a year exactly (well, 360 days if you want to get technical) since Clara at i heart food 4 thought chose Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes for the weekly Tuesday's with Dorie recipe. I seem to remember being in some sort of snit at the time and didn't make these.

Bad call on my part!

These were really good... and this from someone who's not a huge cupcake fan. They were moist and light, perfect for a big dollop of vanilla icing (and sprinkles, of course!). I thought they could have been a big more chocolaty. But really, let's face it, cupcakes are all about the icing anyway, right? So it wasn't a big deal.


Dorie mentions that these cuppies are more suited to adults, being less sweet and made with dark chocolate. However, I needed these for a kid-friendly event, so I used semi-sweet melted chocolate and increased the sugar by a few tablespoons.



(I couldn't pass up these Halloween themed cupcake liners, by Martha of course. No one but me will probably notice them, LOL. They've got spiders on the bottom too.)

Anyway, kudos to Clara for a great pick and (as *always*) to Dorie Greenspan for another fabulous recipe from her book "Baking, from My Home to Yours". For the recipe, check out Clara's site or better yet, Dorie's book.

Rainbow Cupcakes and some Awards

We're on the homestretch, folks! One more day of school and then (sing Alice Cooper style with me, now) ... "schoooooool's out... for.. the sum-MER!". Three months of not getting kids ready for school, not supervising homework, and not getting up so early.

Of course, there's also the flip side of "not having a moment's peace" for three months, but I'm sure it will be at least a week before I notice that.

I thought I'd share some cupcakes I made for one of my son's school parties.

There's really not much to them. I piped a circle of white icing onto a cupcake using a large star tip. (I think it's a "1M" tip.) Then comes the spray color. If you're lucky enough to have gone through a serious cake decorating phase like me, you might have an airbrush (by far my all time *favorite* cake toy). If not, you can pick up the canned sprays wherever Wilton products are sold, plus I think maybe Betty Crocker makes some sprays, found in the baking aisle at the grocery store.


To make them, you first line your work area with newspaper or a plastic tablecloth to catch the overspray. (Seriously, don't skip this step or you'll be cleaning food coloring off your counters for weeks.) Next, arrange your cupcakes, kind of scrunched close together without actually touching. Then you get busy with the spray color. I sprayed in wide lines that that covered maybe half the cupcake, but you can do whatever suits your fancy. Don't get too close with the spray or you'll blow holes in your icing.

While these colorful treats might not be your first choice when entertaining your country club friends, they're easy and a big hit with the elementary school set.

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I also wanted to give a shout-out to a couple of really sweet bakers, Marthe and Carly.

Marthe of Culinary Delights shared not one, but two awards with me.

Thanks, Marthe! (Lucky girl is in Paris right now.) Marthe lives in The Netherlands and always shares such interesting recipes and history too, be sure to stop by and give her a holler.









The rules for both awards are:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Carly of Carly's Kitchen was nice enough to pass along this award:


Aaaw, thanks Carly!

You must stop by Carly's site. Besides being a serious sweet tooth and passionate baker, this girlfriend's got some great travel photos to drool over.

The rules for this award are: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I'm going to pass each of these awards to one person. Awardees, do with this what you will. If you want to pass them along as instructed, please do. If not, don't worry about it. As you can see, I'm not much of a rule-follower myself.

I'm giving the "Friends" award to Megan at My Baking Adventures.
Uber Amazing Blog to Wendy at Pink Stripes.
Triple Awards to Avanika at YumsiliciousBakes.

The rest of y'all, please pay these three wonderful bloggers a visit, they all have lovely yummy-filled blogs.

Birthday Cupcakes

OK, raise your hand if you were like me and never had a school birthday party because your birthday was during the summer? (Aaah… come here… there, there, it’s OK) Ahem, anyway, nowadays the summer-birthday kids like my youngest get to have a “1/2 birthday” party at school. (Which is only right!) I missed my baby’s real ½ birthday, but thank goodness I didn’t miss out altogether, which would have happened here in another week.

I tried a new vanilla cupcake recipe, but honestly, I wasn’t in love with it so I’ll pass on posting the recipe. (Still in search of the world’s greatest vanilla cupcake... sigh.) For the icing, I used one of my favorites, by Michelle at Cakestrings.

It contains some shortening along with butter, so it’s lighter in taste and it’s not real sweet. There’s just one catch, and I apologize ahead of time if you’re in the no-trans-fat-allowed-ever camp (you might just want to skip this part because I’d hate for anyone to get upset) but this recipe doesn’t work as well with zero-trans fat shortening (this is true of many decorator icings that contain shortening.) I have heard that Wal-Mart brand shortening works , or there is “high-ratio” shortening that you can find at cake decorator supply stores.

Michelle P’s Buttercream

¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup boiling water
¼ tsp. salt
¼ cup meringue powder
1 lb. sifted powdered sugar
2 ½ cups shortening or 1 1/4 shortening and 1 to 1 1/4 butter *(I use the shortening – butter combo)
1 Tbsp. vanilla
½ tsp. almond extract

Dissolve granulated sugar in boiling water. Add salt. Using the whip attachment, stir in meringue powder (yes...that much!!!) until moistened, and then beat on high until peaks form. Switch to the paddle attachment, and in the same bowl, right with the meringue mixture...add in powdered sugar, and then beat on high until smooth. Last, add in the same bowl with everything else, shortening and butter, and beat until smooth and creamy. Flavor with your choice of extracts...Michelle says she generally uses 1 Tbsp butter (if she did not use butter in the recipe), 1 Tbsp vanilla, and 1/2 tsp. almond extract.

Enjoy!