Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Tags

baking, cream cheese, cupcakes, dessert, food, lemon, recipes

Cupcakes are little bundles of happiness.

And lemon cream cheese frosting is quite literally the icing on the cake.

My best friends (my bridesmaids) (my old, lovely college roommates) were turning the big 2-5 this past weekend. As is my tradition (and duty) as best friend/food blogger/lover of cake and cupcakes, I volunteered to host the party and provide the treats.

Lemon desserts are a favorite of one of my friends, so I had the idea of pairing lemon with chocolate. After taking a survey of my fridge and cabinets, I found 1 lemon, 1 package of cream cheese, lots of sugar, and 1 package of cake mix.

And, as I often say on this blog, magic happened.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting (Adapted from Real Simple)
Frosts 12 cupcakes
>> Click here for printable recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1/2 a lemon

Directions:

1. Beat the cream cheese in an electric mixer until the cream cheese is soft.
2. Slowly add the sugar, zest, and juice and beat until creamy, about 3 minutes.

My Two Cents: Look at those sparkles of lemon zest in the frosting That’s real lemon flavor right there.

Everyone at the party was raving about these cupcakes. The lemon in the frosting wasn’t overpowering, and wasn’t too subtle. It was pure perfection.

I used a box chocolate cake mix for this recipe, and there’s no shame in that — especially if you have a killer frosting to go on top. This frosting would also be perfect with vanilla cupcakes or lemon cupcakes.

If your cream cheese is not at room temp when you want to make this, you can defrost it in the microwave for 15 second intervals until it is soft enough to beat.

Beware, though. The frosting only makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes. So double it if you have 24 or if you’re planning on frosting a cake.

Might I also suggest investing in silicone cupcake wrappers? They’re cute, reusable, green, and you’ll never have to buy cupcake wrappers ever again.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Tags

birthday, cupcakes, reflections

And another year has gone by! Today is my 24th birthday!

I’m grateful to have had another year on this Earth and another birthday. I may not be old and/or close to death yet, but being alive is a pretty awesome thing when you think about it. So I’m always thankful for experiencing life!

I’ve grown a lot in the past year, and lots has happened. Did you know that one year ago this blog was still primarily a baking blog? I was just starting to get serious about cooking one year ago, and look at me now! I’ve learned so much, met so many new people, and found my true passion in life.

I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for me!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Tags

chocolate, cream cheese frosting, cupcake wars, cupcakes

These days, I only bake when there are a bunch of people to help eat what I make. (Sorry for the lack of posting!) In this case, I was going to a surprise birthday party for one of my best friends. And she deserves only the best of the best. So this is what I created.

When I bake cupcakes, it’s nothing like what you see on Cupcake Wars. I don’t think I could infuse my cupcakes with alfalfa sprouts and still have them taste good…but I don’t make them from the box, and I like to try out different frosting recipes to kick it up a bit!

Frosting the cupcakes is my absolute favorite part of this process. Ask Chris, he witnessed me piping these cupcakes and getting incredibly giddy over the process. Anyone need a cupcake baker in their bake shop??

The Cupcake:

Ingredients: (I found this recipe on Joy of Baking)

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Stir boiling water and cocoa powder together until cool. Let cool.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3. Beat together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating until smooth. Add vanilla. Then slowly beat in the flour mixture. Then add the cooled cocoa mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until smooth and incorporated.

4. Pour into cupcake tins lined with muffin liners. Fill the liners 2/3 of the way up.

5. Bake at 375 for 16-20 minutes or until springy to the touch. Let cool on a wire rack before frosting.

This will yield about 18-20 cupcakes. (I didn’t have enough room in oddly shaped muffin tins to make all of them, and was far too lazy to put in 2 more cupcakes, so I poured the rest of the batter in a mug and put it in the microwave for 1 minute. Instant cake. Also delicious.)

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients: (I found this sugary delight on the side of a Domino’s Confectioners sugar box)

1/2 cup butter, softened

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

3 3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

Directions:

1. Combine butter, cream cheese, vanilla and salt. Beat until light and fluffy.

2. Add confectioners sugar slowly, beating on low speed. Stir in 1 tbsp milk and melted chocolate. Beat until fluffy. Add additional milk if it is too stiff.

3. Scoop the frosting into a 1 gallon ziplock bag. Snip off a tiny bit of a corner of the bag. Then pipe away!

To. Die. For.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Tags

cupcakes, my birthday

Today is my birthday, and for the occasion I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting!

I have always wanted to make these because they’re so pretty, but just never got around to it. Then yesterday I thought to myself, you know, tomorrow’s my birthday, I’m going to treat myself to these delicious looking cupcakes. And so I did.

I searched for the recipe in Google and found a rather tasty looking one from Joy of Baking.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 tbsp red food coloring
• 1 tsp white distilled vinegar
• 1 tsp baking soda

For Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
• 2-3 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and either butter two 9 inch cake pans or line muffin tins with muffin papers.

2. In mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and cocoa powder. Set aside.

3. With an electric mixer, beat butter until soft and then add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat until combined.

4. Measure out the buttermilk in a measure cup and mix in the red food coloring.

5. With mixer on low, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter/sugar mixture. It will look like Christmas if you mix it in a green bowl!

6. In a small cup, combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter.

7. Spoon batter into muffin tins (or spread evenly in cake pans). Bake for 25-30 minutes or until done.

8. Stick the cupcakes in the freezer and then make the cream cheese frosting:

9. For frosting, mix the butter and cream cheese for 3 minutes until smooth.

10. Add vanilla and mix. Slowly add the confectioners sugar until you get desired sweetness and thickness.

11. Take cupcakes out of freezer and frost them either with a piping bag or with a knife.

12. Eat them!

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

Tags

cupcakes, decorating, peanut butter, piping

Tomorrow is the celebration of birth for two of my best friends. And they deserve only the best baked goods after baking with me every week since our solemn departure from the land of college. And since someone is already making a heart-shaped cake for tomorrow, I figured I would spice it up with some birthday cupcakes.

I found a really simple but delicious recipe on Buns in My Oven. She took a Hershey’s Chocolate Cake and topped it off with a rich peanut butter frosting–all in cupcake form. I had to try it.

Ingredients for Chocolate Cake:

• 3/4 cups (1 1/2 stick) butter softened
• 1 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cups cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/3 cups water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 muffin pans with muffin liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix on high speed for about 3 minutes.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Add that to the butter mixture alternately with the water until well blended.

4. Pour evenly into cupcake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. (I personally baked them for 23 minutes and they were absolutely perfect…)

5. Let them cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

6. While cupcakes are cooling–you can get started on the peanut butter frosting.

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Frosting:

1 stick butter softened

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tbsp heavy cream (I substituted plain greek  yogurt for this)

1/2 tbsp vanilla

pinch of salt

3/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Beat the first five ingredients until they are smooth.

2. Scoop in powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. It should be able to make a peak.

3. Now here’s the creative part. Instead of just taking a knife and spreading the peanut butter frosting onto the cupcake, why not pretend you are a master baker and pipe some creativity onto them? I decided to do this tonight because my cupcakes usually look like saggy pieces of poop with frosting hanging off of them. They taste great, but I want them to look great too. I don’t have any piping bags though, or piping tips. So…I dug around the kitchen and found some cake decorating tips (the ones that you find for a dollar next to the cake icing). Then I took a plastic bag and cut off a tiny bit of the corner and stuck the cake decorating tip at the end. Then, like a real pastry chef, I scooped some frosting into the bag and started piping away. It wasn’t perfect. Totally makeshift. But it worked

Here’s my piping bag.

And here are my slightly imperfect piped cupcakes.

Garnish with a few sprinkles and you’re good to go. Also, it’s probably best to keep these refrigerated–besides, cold cupcakes taste the best.

Anyway, I think they’ll like them. Don’t you?

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Tags

boston cream pie, cupcakes

Heaven, meet your match.

These cupcakes look mildly complicated and really fancy, but they are so easy to make. Actually, they’re probably one of the easiest things I’ve made on this blog. Why? Because Kraft came up with the recipe and they know everyone is pretty lazy, but who doesn’t like eating?

I found this recipe by once again searching through my mom’s stack of Kraft’s Food and Family Magazine. (Note that all of these recipes can also be found at their website.)

Ingredients

1 package of yellow cake mix

1 cup cold milk

1 package (4-serving size) Jello Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding and Pie Filling

1 1/2 cups thawed Cool Whip

4 squares semi-sweet chocolate

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 pans of muffin tins (12 muffin centers each).

2. Prepare the cake batter as directed on the box and pour evenly into the muffin tins. Bake the batter as directed on the box. Let the muffins cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then remove them and let them cool completely on wire racks.

3. Once the cupcakes are cooled, or while they’re cooling, whip together the middle — the “boston cream”. To do this, pour the milk into a large bowl. Add the dry pudding mix and beat with a wire whisk for 2 minutes or until it’s well blended. Let this stand 5 minutes to thicken.

4. Gently stir 1/2 cup of Cool Whip into the pudding.

5. Cut your cupcakes horizontially in half with a serated knife. Then spoon about 1 tbsp of the putting mixture onto the bottom half of each cupcake. Cover with the top of cupcake.

6. Microwave the remaining one cup of Cool Whip with the semi-sweet chocolate on High for 1 1/2 minutes. Stir after 1 minute. Then stir the mixture until the chocolate is completely melted and well blended.

7. Frost each cupcake with a nice heaping spoonful of chocolate. Refridgerate the cupcakes before eating for that true cold Boston Cream Pie feeling. Or, if you’re completely and utterly impatient like me, take a giant bite into the cupcakes, get chocolate sauce all over the front of your teeth, and laugh about how you look with your friends.

8. Play Scattergories. For the category “Excuses for being late” with the letter “O”, write down “Ostrich ran into my car.”

See how easy that was? And fun

For a lower fat option to this recipe, substitute the regular pudding for fat free sugar free vanilla pudding–same thing with the Cool Whip. You feel less guilty when you eat it, but it still has just as much flavor in it.

I brought the leftovers again to work today, but this time, everyone was on a “diet”.

Technically, I shouldn’t be eating these delicious slices of Heaven either. So why, dear self, did you pick this utterly tempting and fattening hobby to pursue outside of work?

Because it’s fun.