There Will Be Cupcakes *Special Post

About a week ago I implored my scores of readers to keep on reading and pass the blog along to their friends so that when we passed 1,000 views I could post an awesome new cupcake that I'm almost positive we invented.  Well, the time has come my friends - we went over the four digit mark by about 30+ views, so I present to you... the 'There Will Be Blood' cupcakes.

So, I'll explain that.

A while ago spouse and I were at a mexican restaurant in an up and coming neighborhood in Philly. When I say up and coming I really just mean that everyone there had cut off jorts on and they were covered in tattoos. Generally, I think nothing in particular when I'm surrounded by these people - it just makes me feel significantly less cool. I'm okay with it. But in this restaurant, we were clearly sticking out a little - even though Kev had his best James Taylor tee on. (I suppose it would have been cooler if it was like an old Springsteen concert shirt? But that obviously just shows you how much I stuck out myself). When we wind up in places like these, we always do the same thing; we start scheming about grandiose situations. "Are these the same clouds that we saw yesterday?" "What if we became gentlemen farmers?" or on this particular occasion: "What if we had a cupcake truck?" At least that's how it started. But then it morphed into a whole new idea- if we had a bakery, what would be our hook? How would we make people notice our cupcakes? And then just like how we brushed aside the answer to the clouds question, we decided that the obvious answer was to make movie themed cupcakes.

Once that was decided, the ideas came fast and more ridiculous than the last. Forrest Gump cupcakes! Mrs. Doubtfire cupcakes with lemon meringue icing! Ghostbuster cupcakes that were filled with slime! They were all awesome. And as we sat there surrounded by hipsters in jorts, we created the "There Will Be Blood" cupcake.

Based on the movie "There Will Be Blood" starring Daniel Day-Lewis these cupcakes are vanilla with chocolate insides that make it look like there's oil in them there cupcakes when you cut them apart.

They're decorated to resemble Daniel Day-Lewis' character's mustache and that metaphorical milkshake from the great line "Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I'll end up drinking your milkshake".

Here's the video if you don't remember the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pik1hQsuJbA
^That line comes in around 11:33.

It's obviously a stretch, but an awesome one. We have a whole list in our brains of the kinds of cupcakes we'll make, but I had to start with this one. I always wanted to decorate a cupcake with a mustache.

I used a few different recipes to create the cupcakes. I'm going to give you the links and the recipes, along with my rag tag instructions to keep it all in one place. I used three websites all together.

For the chocolate oil insides I used the chocolate insides recipe from the Molten Chocolate Cupcake Recipe I posted last month.

The cupcakes recipe was from Tastykitchen.com: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/best-vanilla-cupcakes-ever/

The icing recipe was from The Girl Who Ate Everything: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/09/frosting-that-will-get-you-hugs-and.html


Chocolate "Oil" Insides Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of Whipping Cream
• 1 cup Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips

In a small saucepan, heat whipping cream over medium/high heat until it's hot but not boiling. Stir in the chocolate chips until they're melted and the texture is smooth. Put in the fridge for about an hour, stirring it every once and a while to make sure it thickens.


Cupcake Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/2 cups of All-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 3 whole Eggs
• 2 cups Granulated Sugar
• 1 cup Canola Oil
• 2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Sour Cream

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line your cupcake pan with liners. The recipe said you'd get 24, I got 28.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Put aside.

3. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar until thickened and the color becomes lighter. With the mixer still on, add in oil and vanilla. Beat until blended and then add the flour mixture alternating with sour cream.

4. Scoop batter into cupcake pans. **This is where I added a tablespoon of the chocolate mixture. I then added a little bit more batter on top of the chocolate. Bake at 350F for 18-23 minutes (mine were in for about 19) and let cool.

While the cupcakes were still in the oven, I tried a new icing recipe I found on the Girl Who Ate Everything blog. It was interesting because you have to cook the icing, but it promised that it would be the lightest, almost whipped creme like icing you've ever tried, and it would get you hugs. I started the icing early because it needs some serious time to cool. If you're looking for really whipped icing, this is definitely your recipe.

Whipped Vanilla Icing Recipe

• 5 Tablespoons Flour
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 Cup Butter
• 1 Cup Granulated White Sugar

1. In a small saucepan, whisk the flour into the milk and keep it over the heat stirring constantly until it thickens. Be super careful not to burn it! Remove it from the heat and let it cool to room temp. The mix has to be completely cool before you mix it with the rest.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until it's light and fluffy. Then add the milk/flour mixture and vanilla and beat it until it looks like whipped cream. Be sure to scrape the outsides of the bowl occasionally so that all of the icing gets incorporated. If it doesn't look like whipped cream at first, keep going.

I can't recommend this icing recipe enough, although since it's so warm I would move quickly when using it. It's not sweet, but paired with this cupcake recipe it's amazing.


So here they are, the "There Will Be Blood" cupcakes. They have a rough name sure, but these mustachioed and milkshaked cupcakes are keepers. If I ever had a bakery, these would be sitting right next to the dreamy Inception cupcakes. Or would they?

Check them out and let me know what you think!

Daniel Day-Lewis probably would approve this message.
But I didn't ask him.

Sources:
Molten Chocolate Cupcakes: Betty Crocker: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/molten-chocolate-cupcakes
Vanilla Cupcakes: Tasty Kitchen: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/best-vanilla-cupcakes-ever/
Vanilla Icing: The Girl Who Ate Everything Blog: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/09/frosting-that-will-get-you-hugs-and.html

Coming to terms, or Margarita Cupcakes

I've always been disappointed with myself because I don't like traditional margaritas. I love strawberry ones, I will partake in one of those any time, but something about traditional ones just turns me off. Or as my Dad says, makes me feel like I'm eating bathroom cleaner. He really has a way with words.

So I should have known that I would just love margarita cupcakes. Sometimes, my smarts even surprise me. This recipe was me coming to terms with this fault of mine.

The whole thing started because my sister Allyson was returning home from a trip to Mexico, and since she started galavanting across the border and back she's picked up an affinity for tequila. I am personally not a fan of it; it never ends well for me. You can put it right up there with Twisted Tea, gin, and shots of just about anything.

We had missed celebrating Allyson's birthday, and decided to celebrate when she got back into Philly about a month later. Baking with tequila sounds challenging at first (or the greatest way to mask a drinking problem), but I found a pretty great recipe and decided that even though I generally don't like margaritas, this would work and I would love them. Maybe I was inhaling too much powdered sugar.

The main ingredients.

The cupcakes turned out awesome. The batter tasted really good, it was accented with just enough lime juice and bits of lime zest. They made the whole house smell like Disney World.

The icing was probably the fluffiest icing I ever made, it's a great recipe. And I really liked it until I put the tequila and lime juice in. I have to mention that people actually liked these cupcakes (probably should have mentioned that earlier) -- it was me who didn't like them. Maybe because I poured the tequila in, I could taste it more than anything else... but people seemed to really enjoy them. I would suggest that if you don't like the margarita DRINK, these cupcakes are not for you. Even though they looked awesome.

See?

I used the icing gun to swirl around the icing for the tops of the cupcakes, and sprinkled more lime zest over the tops.

They look good right?

Here's the recipe if you want to give them a try: http://thefrostedcupcakes.blogspot.com/2011/05/margarita-cupcakes-for-cinco-de-mayo.html

^^That Frosted blog is awesome, by the way. I would highly suggest subscribing to it if you like this blog but wish that it was better maintained and more clever. That's the blog for you!

In other news, YeahI'dBakeThat is huge in Indonesia this month! I totally get that.

In other other news, we're quickly approaching four digit views, and to celebrate I've got a ONE OF A KIND cupcake coming your way. The parts themselves will be lifted from other recipes, but it's never been done before (that we know of). Once we break that viewing record, I'll bake them up and share them with the eagerly awaiting masses. If you want to see the recipe tell your friends to check out this blog already. Seriously, it's getting ridiculous.




Source: Margarita Cupcakes for Cinco de Mayo
Frosted! Gourmet Cupcakes, Cookies & Treats
http://thefrostedcupcakes.blogspot.com/2011/05/margarita-cupcakes-for-cinco-de-mayo.html

The Best Damn Banana Creme Pie

If you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time in the baking aisle at the grocery store. I am that annoying person who just stares at the shelves. I can't help it. Most of the time I'm looking for something but I never know what it is until I actually find it. One Saturday I stood in the baking aisle at an Acme in South Jersey for almost 25 minutes. I was looking at all of the graham cracker pie crusts because there's hidden recipes on the back of all the paper lids. Don't worry, I carefully put them all back in and I bet they went off to all their respective homes as happy pie crusts.

For me, grocery shopping is more like a fact finding mission than an easy trip to the store. If I'm making a particular recipe, it probably takes me two separate trips because chances are I started wandering down aisle 7 looking at cereal and I totally forgot about the eggs and butter. I always forget about the butter.

But anyway, the 25 minutes I spent in the baking aisle that one time resulted in the best damn banana creme pie I've ever tasted. Now, you're probably asking yourself (perhaps even out loud) "Danielle, why the profanity? This is a family blog" Well, inquisitive stranger, you've obviously never tried this recipe - it'll make you want to use profanity and maybe even join a motorcycle gang.

A lot of my surprise about this recipe came from the fact that I'd never had a piece of banana creme pie before. So, automatically, I was happy with it because it tasted good. I'm posting it today because it's actually 100 degrees in Philadelphia right now, and way too hot to put anything in the oven because we're actually living in an oven at the moment. This recipe is excellent for warm days because the thing spends more time in the refridgerator than anywhere else. The final product tastes amazing, as witnessed by the guests at our Christmas party this past year. Was it seasonally appropriate? No. Did it taste good? Hell yes.

So I urge you to try it if you need to make a dessert when it's hot out. It's only got 5 ingredients!

Here's the recipe: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/easy-banana-cream-pie-51072.aspx

No photos on this post, it's too hot :)

Source: Kraft Foods' Easy Banana Creme Pie Recipe

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/easy-banana-cream-pie-51072.aspx

Cookies and Creme Cupcakes

When I first decided to start chronicling my baking ventures in a blog I promised myself that I wouldn't say things like "hubby approved!" and "kevin loves it!" Thats just not me. And if Kevin knew what were good for him he'd like everything I baked - which he does with the exception of anything with mint. (i rediscovered this fact when i made these) The reason I even mention it is because this story all started with a slip of Kevin's tongue. <-- that's the last time I'll mention him by name, I promise!

We were driving home from the movies the other day when my spouse said "i'm looking forward to your first real fail." This came at a break in the conversation, and while I first thought he was talking about general life fails, he was really talking about baking and my blog posts. There are a few things wrong with this sentence. 1. Why would you say that to someone?! Actually, that's about the only example I need. You just don't wish failing upon people spouse, you just don't.

So somewhere in the back of my mind, in a little cob-webbed corner I hid that thought away. But in reality, I was just waiting for it. It was only a matter of time. Spouse had cursed me, cursed me good.

I was making cookies and creme cupcakes for a friend's birthday, and was looking forward to trying out this recipe because there's oreos inside. Even the icing has oreos in it! The party was hinging around a game of frisbee golf, so I decided early on that I would make the icing look like grass and lodge one half of an oreo in the top of the cupcake to look like a frisbee. This is what I was going for:

It's not the clearest image, but it worked.

The plan was simple enough. The recipe for the cupcakes worked out great, and the icing was extremely complementary. The problem was that the recipe said you should just spread the icing on the cupcakes, and now that my icing was green there was no turning back from piping it to make it look like waves of grass. This is where the problems started, THIS is where my fail began.

Behind the cupcake you can see my icing gun - this thing does everything. I have about 6 different tips I can put on it that will make different designs. I opted for the second largest one because I wanted smaller pieces of grass. Fail. The cookies that were in the icing were getting lodged in the tip, so I put the bigger one on. Bigger fail. There was actually a minute where I thought of aborting the whole mission and throwing all of the cupcakes in the garbage.. because I have a temper.

It's these kinds of situations where I have to walk away and figure out why it's not working. But in this case- I yelled to my spouse that he better come to the kitchen and help me out of this jam because he jinxed me. Not the fun kind of jinx where we laugh and owe each other cokes - I was on the edge and had to finish 28 cupcakes with icing that just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. Fast forward an hour later, and we had iced them all one. at. a. time. We'd ice one, clean out the cookies and then move on to the next. An awful lot of work just to see one fail. I hope you're happy you who shall not be named.

In reality, this really wasn't a huge fail. It could have been a lot worse. The recipe is actually pretty great, and the cupcakes certainly tasted good. They were a little dry for my taste, but I'm chalking that up to the amount of crushed oreos that were inside. Not my anger.

You can find the recipe I used here: http://javacupcake.com/2009/12/cookies-n-creme-cupcakes-2/
There are a lot of other cookies and creme cupcakes I'd like to try, but this was a good beginner one.

Here's a few pictures of the final product:

Here's the pink cupcake stand I made.

I wanted to give a cupcake to my neighbor, and found these little cupcake boxes on Amazon. 

Give them a try! And if you have better results than me, just don't tell me.


Source: Java Cupcake: Cookies-n-Creme Cupcakes
http://javacupcake.com/2009/12/cookies-n-creme-cupcakes-2/