Treats for Valentines...?

Yep, Christmas & New Years are gone. The time honored tradition of "moving to the next money making holiday" began probably Jan 2nd. I believe the first stores I noticed it in was the dollar stores. Anyway, it's my aunts birthday this Thursday. My mom plans on having something of a party at the house for her on Saturday. I offered my services (instead of ordering cake) but shortly after doing so, remembered that Friday I have an appt to have my wisdom teeth pulled. Not a good idea.

Originally, I had brownies planned for the hubby this Valentines. However, after careful consideration I've decided to go with another route. The route I would have traveled by making my aunt something yummy for her birthday this Sat. I'm not going to go into to much details; I'd like it to be a surprise for him and others :) But this sweet treat will be in cupcake form...possibly including cookies...

Need I say more? :D

Chocolate Truffle cupcakes w/Candy Cane Crackle buttercream

I know! 3 months since my last post. I haven't been very active in the kitchen, I've been to sick. Its been a very boring couple of months. Anyhow, I made these beauties for a group of friends and everyone fell in love! Including myself ^^ So the cupcake recipe is the same as I used for the ice cream cake. It's already become my favorite cake recipe, it's so moist and it tastes heavenly. I'll re-post the cake recipe, I made it the same way minus the peppermint extract and added almond extract. Why? well I added the extract to the buttercream and I think if the cake had it, it may have been over kill. And I know I mentioned this before, but I LOVE almonds and their taste.

So here it is, let me know if you tried it and any variations you might have :)

Cake Ingredients

• 3/4 cup hot brewed coffee
• 1 1/2 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup regular cocoa powder (not Dutch pressed)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Yields (at minimum) 24 cupcakes
original recipe courtesy of Anna Olsen

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and add paper liners to your muffin/cupcake pan. Pour freshly brewed coffee over chocolate and gently stir to melt. Set aside.

2. Sift sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside. In a large bowl, beat eggs on high speed for 1 minute.

3. While beating, slowly add oil, buttermilk and extracts. Alternate adding flour mixture and chocolate mixture and beat until combined.

4. Pour batter into prepared paper liners (half way mark for each), bake for 25 min or until a tester inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow cake to cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then remove to cool completely.





I found this recipe online (can't remember where) But I've been using this forever! And everyone loves it. This isn't the original, I've made my own tweaks over the years. Enjoy!

Candy Cane Crackle buttercream icing

Ingredients

• 16 tablespoons butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
• ½ cup peppermint candy (about 8 large peppermint sticks), finely crushed
• 5 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 4 to 6 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract

Yields (at minimum) enough for 24 cupcakes

Directions

1. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, 30 seconds. Stop the machine and add the peppermint candy, confectioners' sugar, 4 tablespoons milk and 1 teaspoon peppermint extract.

2. Blend with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is well incorporated, 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting lightens and is fluffy, 1 minute more. Blend up to 1 tablespoon milk or peppermint extract if the frosting seems to stiff.



To finish it all off, I microwaved and drizzled an ounce of the semi-sweet chocolate on top of the buttercream. It's of course optional, but it gives it that extra pretty look and taste :)

Birthday Stache Bash!

So next month is my birthday *yay* hah and I've decided to have a Mustache theme! Funny right? I haven't had a birthday party in years and as I'm moving far away from most people I know in the new year (more about that later) why not have a party with style?

We're doing the party at a hotel as we don't currently have our own space; kinda sucks but it also means minimal clean up hah. So how did I get to the stache bash? I was surfin Esty; something I do often as I love it to no end, and I was looking for a gift for the other birthday boy (He's a day older then me so we're doing one party for the both of us ^^) and I saw these stache's for a photobooth prop. And it just blossomed from there hah

So since then I've been getting these ideas for things to do. I have a few people who occasionally look at this blog who are going so I won't go to much in detail, but I've got some games planned and prizes; all stache themed. I've already ordered a bunch of stuff off of etsy for the occasion. I cannot wait hah I'm not sure anyone understands how excited I am about this...lol

I think I've decided to go with cupcakes, it's just easier all around on me and for eating. Especially in a hotel; I'm going to do some finger foods for it as well...I'm not 100% on what those shall be just yet, but something simple and not to messy. If you have any suggestions I'm more then willing to accept them =P

I have a lot of craft projects to do for this, all of which I shall post about after the fact =P Any comments, questions or suggestions are welcome. I could use any and all help ^^

Lavender Honey Cupcakes

Happy belated mother’s day everyone! Hopefully everyone had just as much of a delightful day as I did.

As promised, I made dessert for everyone yesterday. It went over quite well! And without further ado….

Lavender honey cupcakes! Oh they were so darn good; super moist and it was a nice change from vanilla or chocolate. Everyone loved them, the look and the taste. I got a few head turns when I mentioned that it was lavender flavored; they knew there was a different taste to it but didn’t realize it was flower flavored hah. Regardless it was loved by all.



As you can see I got impatient and over filled the cupcake liners hah, notice the “muffin tops” I won’t be doing that again. They didn’t turn out horrible or anything because of it but I would have preferred no overhang for the sake of prettiness. I was also very sad decorating these; I used to be able to decorate cakes and anything else I wanted with ease and precision. It’s not the case anymore; ever since I got sick I’ve had uncontrollable shakes. I hate it for many reasons, but this is at the top of the list. So please don’t judge me too harshly on that, I’m going to try and work on it slowly and see if I can improve it somewhat.




See! I over filled them...didn't change how awesome they tasted!



So here’s my recipe, please feel free to tweak it to your liking.


Lavender Honey cupcakes (double for cake)

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cups flour
• ½ cup honey
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 ¼ cups lavender sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract OR Butternut Extract (so much nicer)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Leave honey separate for the time being. Set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream, buttermilk, and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Add honey in near the end. Do not overbeat. Spoon batter into 30 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely. Frost with whatever topping you’d like.


Let me know what you think, or any changes you made for the better or otherwise hah