Tuesday, January 18, 2011

"Healthy" Carrot-Coconut-Pecan Cupcakes, 01/19


Ok I lied a little bit, and made these cupcakes for the 18th, but the 19th is a finals day and we don't have lunch. So these are for the WEEK of the 19th, ok??? So I tried a new recipe with new flavors, and one I had seen demonstrated on Paula Deen's show on the Food Network. These are carrot cupcakes with coconut and pecan, but because it's Paula Deen, let's face it, these are not the healthiest cupcakes in the world. And I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that--but at times I need something a little healthier. :) Since it is post-holiday, and people are all on the healthy kick for the moment, I "healthified" these cupcakes. So I used her recipe, but made a few key changes. First of all, I switched 1/2 of the flour to whole wheat. The eggs were replaced with Egg Beaters, and the oil replace with applesauce. I also only used half the sugar, and you really cannot tell. The rest remained the same, except I also toasted the pecans first (yummmmmmy). Maybe because of the substitutions, I only baked these for 20 minutes. Who knows. The frosting is my own cream cheese frosting, made with non fat cream cheese too keep it healthy-ish. The "carrot" on top is composed of a dried apricot, cut into a triangle, and although Paula Deen calls for a mint leaf to represent the stems on the carrots (which I think is SO CUTE), I was lazy and dyed some frosting green. Oh well. Then, with my leftover pecans, I rolled the edges and ta-da!!! Cute!!
These cupcakes came out very moist, rose to perfection, and were excellent with the chopped pecans! I would like to try to add crushed pineapple some time, or maybe golden raisins, but the basis of this cupcake was very good, a definite keeper (it earned a few "favorite" comments from the cupcake group), and one that could have many many additions and variations!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Cupcake NEW YEAR!!


Happy New Year! No, New Year's Eve did not fall on Wednesday, but no one is going to paint me into a corner as to when I can make cupcakes (didn't you hear--"no one puts baby in a corner"). The design is super simple--I made mini chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and frosted them with chocolate fudge frosting (because sometimes a girl just wants chocolate cake :)). I piped on the numbers for the clock and arranged them to look like a clock. The middle cupcakes are frosted white for some alternating color in the arrangement and then the clock hands are just chocolate frosting piped on. And while the clock says midnight, we did actually celebrate ALL the new years for the United States (ok, continental US)...but hey, it's midnight SOMEWHERE :)

Cupcake Christmas! Snowmen and Reindeer, Assorted Flavors and Frostings


For the festive holiday spirit of Christmas, I found two designs of iconic holiday characters (snowmen and reindeer--duh) from the Hello, Cupcake! series, and did my best to replicate them. The snowmen are a white cupcake with peppermint frosting and then rolled in coconut to give them a "flaky" appearance. Make sure you roll them in the coconut RIGHT AFTER you frost them or nothing is sticking. The noses are cut up Starburst, the eyes are mini chocolate chips, and the rest of the decorations are assorted candies (Runts, Airheads). I'm not going to lie, these were not the easiest cupcakes I have ever decorated--the scarves are sticky and pulled apart and they toppled over during transportation.
The reindeer are gingerbread cupcakes with cream cheese frosting dyed brown. Now, you are supposed to roll them in brown colored decorating sugar (NOT brown sugar, DAD), but Michaels refuses to carry that color, so I was stuck with darkening the frosting as best I could. The eyes are chocolate chips, and the nose is a red hot (because they are all Rudolph, of course). The antlers are made of melting chocolate piped into a design--I let them dry in the refrigerator and then stuck them into the sides of the the mini cupcake, which is turned on its side for the face. These were much easier, both to design and transport, but they are both equally cute!!