Make These Mini Cupcakes, Gain Friends for LIFE

How cute is this?!?!? I made these beauties for a bake sale at work which benefits the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Unfortunately, the bake sale was cancelled because of this damn snow storm! I brought them to work anyway so my coworkers could enjoy them! See how to make them below =)


Makes about 24 mini cupcakes. Recipe adapted from epicurious.com

You'll Need for Cupcakes:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 large egg
• Mini muffin pan
• Mini cupcake wrappers

How To Make Mini Cupcakes:

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin cups with liners.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Stir together milk and vanilla in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg and beat until just combined. Reduce speed to low, then add flour and milk mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour and mixing until just combined.

Divide batter among muffin cups, filling them two-thirds full, and bake until tops are pale golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in centers comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Invert cupcakes onto a rack and cool completely.

How To Make Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
I didn't use the frosting recipe from epicurious.com. Here's how I made mine, super easy!

• 3 cups of confectioner's sugar
• 3/4 stick of butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• 1 drop of red food coloring
• Sixlets chocolate coated candies for the top of cupcake

Beat together butter and sugar. Add in vanilla extract. Add 2 tablespoons of milk at first and check consistency. If you want the frosting a little more spreadable, add another tablespoon. Mix in one drop of red food coloring to achieve the color I made above. Top with one chocolate coated candy or candy of your choice.

I think this particular frosting recipe is GREAT for piping. I don't usually pipe frosting for my cupcakes, simply because I was afraid I wasn't good at it. I gave it a whirl, and was pleasantly surprised by the results. Just one drop of food coloring gives you the most beautiful, light pink shade. My mom suggested topping them off with the turquoise candies, which was a great idea! 

Thanks for reading! Xo

Mini Vanilla Cupcakes with Bright Blue Buttercream!

I made these cute little guys for a coworker that is getting married in 2 weeks! He hadn’t eaten any lunch yet, so was very grateful for the sweet surprise! I didn’t know exactly what kind of cupcakes he liked, so I went with plain vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. I got the mini vanilla cupcake recipe from food.com. The below recipe makes 20-25 mini cupcakes (I didn’t need that many) so I halved this recipe:


• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar (if you like your cupcakes very sweet, add a little more.)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional)


Directions:
1. preheat oven to 375 degrees, line muffin cups with papers.
2. cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. beat in eggs one at a time.
3. add flour (mixed with baking powder and salt) alternating with milk beat well; stir in vanilla.
4. divide evenly among pans and bake for 18 minutes. let cool in pans


For the Buttercream Frosting, I used the recipe on the side of the Confectioner’s Sugar box:
1 box (3 ¾ cups) Domino Confectioner’s Sugar
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
3 to 4 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Again, I didn’t need that much frosting so I halved the above recipe too. I spruced up the buttercream by using my Wilton Food Gel in blue. Since I halved the batch, I put a bit too much food gel! I was going for more of a sky/pale blue but instead got this bright blue color. They are still pretty cool! I finished the cupcakes off with some candy hearts and chocolate pearls from Michael’s. You guys like them? =)

How to Core a Cupcake...and Fill it with Fun Stuff!

Hi all! This little cupcake plunger is going to change your cupcake life! Coring a cupcake and filing it with something delicious gives it an extra kick! It's very easy to use, and kinda fun too. One of my best friends gave it to me as a gift and I use it all the time. See below for step by step and some cupcake fun!

Here it is! I made chocolate cupcakes, and put them in the refrigerator overnight. You want to make sure the cupcakes are completely cooled before you remove the core, or else they will fall apart.

And off we go! For a normal sized cupcake, I would suggest going to the second line of the cupcake plunger as seen above. You don't want to take too much cake from the middle, or else your filing might come out the bottom or your cake could collapse =)

Using a twisting motion (think turning a door nob back and forth) remove the plunger from the cake. You don't need to use the top springy part of the plunger just yet. Let the extra cake sit tight in there, we are going to use it again later. And there you have it! You're ready to start filing..


Yum!!! I filled my cupcakes with Nutella - I think the chocolate cake combined with the chocolatey/nutty Nutella taste is a killer combo. I added the Nutella with a spoon, but you could also use the bag filing method (i'm sure it's a lot less messy!) There are so many other filings you could use as well - whipped cream, fruit, fudge, even ice cream if served quickly. These cupcakes are a favorite of my coworkers, so I made them again!


Remember the excess cake that the plunger removed? We're going to put it back in on top of the filing. Using the springy part of the plunger, simply hold it over your cupcake and push the spring all the way down. This will cause the extra cake to be pushed out and added back to the top of your cupcake. After all, we want to salvage every last bit of cake we can get right?


Almost done! All cupcakes have been cored, filled, and topped off with the excess cake. Too bad they look a bit ugly, no? We can fix that...

With icing! Simply frost over the cracks left by the cupcake plunger, and you will have a gorgeous, magnificent cupcake! I applied mine with a knife, but it's of course your preference. I got this buttercream frosting recipe from the side of the sugar box, and I'm really happy with the way it came out! See below for recipe.


The frosting is very creamy and light, exactly what I was going for. I wanted the Nutella to be the star of this cupcake, and didn't want the frosting to be too overpowering. This buttercream was a nice balance.

Off to work we go! I commute into Manhattan for work every day, and this cupcake carrier has been a life saver! It holds 24 cupcakes, and is very sturdy. I bought this one at Target.

That's all for now, hope you guys enjoyed my post! Comment with any questions or cupcake love! xoxo

A Few Baking Adventures Thus Far...

Hi dolls! My very first baking post, so exciting! This post is just a kick-off to my new blog. I thought it would be fun to show a few things i've baked in the past.

There are so many new things i'd like to try making, and of course many things I could possibly improve on. For me, baking is about relaxing, enjoying your craft and making others happy. I'm in no way a professional, and have a long way to go! I have many excellent bakers in my family, I can only hope that some of it rubbed off on me. See below for some fun baking, much more to come!

Mini vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting

When I found the mini cupcake papers, I couldn't wait to get home and bake these little guys!

One batch of batter goes a long way with these...

Chocolate Raspberry "Rockstar" Vodka Cupcakes

I made these for a holiday cocktail party I had at my apartment, they were a big hit!

They're dark chocolate cake with a little vodka, and a raspberry-chocolate icing

I got the recipe online, and kept it because I'd like to make them again

This was my first experience baking with alcohol, let's just say I will be doing it again =)

Mom's famous birthday cake!

Since my brother and I were little, my mother always baked the same cake for our birthdays

Whether it's 3 or 4 layers, this light and fluffy chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting is simple, but just SO good. Definitely a crowd favorite in our family!

Lemon cake with lemon buttercream frosting

I'm a huge chocolate fan, my boyfriend isn't.

I've been trying to make alternatives, like these lemon cakes.

He liked them so much that i've made them a few times.

I thought the frosting came out especially well in this batch!

Lemon cake pops with a vanilla glaze

So this was my first go with cake pops.

As you can probably tell, my "decorating" needs a little help ha!

The cake itself wasn't bad, I just think I made my glaze too thick,

making it difficult to coat the whole pop.

Determined to master cake pops soon!

Pink - Red velvet with cream cheese frosting

Purple - Dark chocolate with vanilla frosting

One of my besties and I created these pretty cupcakes for my company's

bakesale to support the BCRF. We were really happy with the flavor,

as well as the decorating! Despite staying up until 1am on a work night

and being pratically delirious towards the end, we successfully made

3 dozen cupcakes for the bakesale. And they were all sold by the end of the day!

PIGGYS! Red velvet with cream cheese frosting

Probably one of my favs! This was the 3rd batch that my friend and I made for the bakesale

1 hour into the bakesale they were sold out complete. I mean come on, LOOK at them! =)

We had to improvise with our ingredients a bit:

Marshmellow for the nose

Whoopers for the nostrils

Black licorice for the eyes

Swedish fish (just the nose!) for the ears

Pink, white and blue cupcakes - chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting

One of my good friends was returning home from being overseas in the army.

We had a little get together for his homecoming, and I tried making red, white and blue frosting

Well, we see this did not happen friends. Although a pretty pink, I was clearly going for red!

OK so I didn't "bake" these, but I bought these cute little lipglosses home

with me from a trip to Brazil. I keep them on my desk at work and smile when I see them =)

That's all for now! Just wanted to give you all a little taste of my life. I'll be back with another post soon - most likely cake pops! If you also have a baking site, please post it in a comment and I will be happy to check it out!

xoxo Majesty Bakes Cakes