How to videos

About a year ago I went to a studio and did three instructional "how to" videos.  The first, me making one bowl chocolate cupcakes, the second making marshmallow icing and third, me frosting the cupcakes.

I had a great time but they were my first videos so they are quite awkward and I'm very stiff.  I hope you have a laugh!

Enjoy!

Prosecco Cupcakes

Happy New Year's, well I guess it isn't really that new saying it's mid-Janurary so maybe Old Year's instead.  One thing I did learn from New Year's is that I love Prosecco and Campari (with a little orange juice), it might just be my new favourite drink.

My Mom and I decided for our New Year's party we'd do an Italian theme saying a bit of my background is Italian.  While I was trying to figure out what we were going to have for dessert I came across a traditional drink that is served at New Year's for good luck in the coming year, called the Venetian Spritz. All it is, is 2 oz. of Prosecco, 1 oz. of Campari, a lemon twist and a green olive.  I thought to myself what don't I make this drink into a cupcake.

The cupcake base uses the Prosecco and the frosting uses the Campari and Prosecco, the cupcake was gorgeous and light, the bitterness of the Campari offset the sweetness of the Prosecco made a great combination.  This cupcake could be made with any type of sparkling beverage, including Champagne.  Here is the recipe.

Cupcake

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1-3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Prosecco

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, whisk together and set aside.  Cream butter for about 1 minute and add sugar, mix for about another minute. Add one egg at a time and mix until fully incorporated.  Add vanilla and sour cream.  Add the dry ingredients and alternate with the Prosecco.  Mix until the batter looks smooth.  Using an ice cream scoop (or spoon if you do not have one) scoop the batter into a lined cupcake tin.  Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Frosting/Icing

3/4 cup butter

2 Tbsp. Prosecco + 1 Tbsp. Campari

2-2-1/2 cup icing sugar

Cream butter for about two minutes, until fluffy.  Add the liquor.  Add the icing sugar in one cup increments until the consistency is how you like it.  Mix until light and fluffy.

Time to decorate!  My colour theme was gold so I used some gold piping icing, putting stripes of it along my piping bag then putting my frosting in the bag.  The light pink frosting came out with nice little gold stripes.  The decorating opportunities are endless.  

Hope you enjoy!

"Half Baked" Cupcakes

So, by half baked I don't mean stop baking them half the way through the baking time.  I mean Ben & Jerry's Half Baked Ice Cream.  Which just happens to be my favourite.

If you don't know what half baked ice cream is, it's premium vanilla ice cream mixed with raw cookie dough and brownie chunks.

I decided to make cupcakes based on this combination, and might I say while they are very rich and require a glass of milk, they are the best damn cupcakes ever.

The idea behind the cupcakes is a brownie base and a raw cookie dough frosting.  You can either make your favourite brownie recipe (it's fun to make with blondies and caramel brownies too) or use a packaged option.  All though I don't use a package too often, there is one that far surpasses the others. The Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate mix is amazing.

To make the cupcakes, prepare your recipe or mix to the instructions and fill cupcake liners to just over 1/2 full as they don't rise too much.  I usually put mine in the 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or a little more.  It's hard to tell when the using the above mix is done because of all the chocolate chips in it (but no one got hurt from a little underdone brownie).  

Once your brownie cupcakes have cooled it's time for the frosting.  I found this recipe from Cupcake Project, I halved the recipe as you don't need a lot of this frosting, just enough for a nice taste.  What's awesome about this recipe and why you need to make it is because there is no eggs and saying that there is no cooking going on you need to shy away from using eggs.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough frosting

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 cup melted butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract

1/4 - 1/3 cup milk or cream

as many chocolate chips you want, remember the large ones have a hard time passing through the piping tip.  

Mix all together and add more milk or cream until the frosting reaches the correct consistency you prefer.

Pipe the frosting on the cupcake and add a cookie or chocolate chips on top for decoration.  These also make great mini-cupcakes, they seem to be just the perfect amount of sweet in a mini .  I found the larger ones were really hard for people to finish.  

Mini Half Baked Cupcakes

My favourite cupcakes so far.

The following are some of my favourite cupcakes that Cupcakes and Sundry have made over the past 2 1/2 years in business.  *In no particular order.

Blood Orange and Olive Oil

Peanut Butter Madness

Lemon Poppy Seed 

Halloween Spiders

S'more

Chunky Monkey Banana Pecan

Cotton Candy Angel Food Cake

Rainbow

Birthday Cake Ice Cream

August 2nd was my boyfriend’s 30th birthday, I had promised I’d make him a birthday cake. As I usually do I got a little sidetracked and decided instead of decorating a cake I’d use the cake in some sort of birthday ice cream. I had to think of what I’d put into a birthday cake ice cream, it really didn’t take me that long as I make cakes all the time. Frosting, sprinkles and cake, that was the easy part but I wanted to make the ice cream base a little different. My boyfriend loves sweetened condensed milk so I made the base with that.

The ice cream turned out really nice, although not enough fat content (will definitely change that for next time), I used light cream which in Ontario is 5%, I ideally didn’t want to use anything under 10% but the cream was already bought when I noticed the difference. What was my saving grace was that the frosting added a little extra creaminess.

This ice cream tastes awesome, it’s like a giant birthday party in your mouth. Here’s the recipe if you want to try it too.

1 cup sweetened condensed milk
2 cups light cream (I’d use whipping cream next time)
1 cup of pre made cake
1/2 cup buttercream frosting
2 T. sprinkles

Whisk the condensed milk and cream until it is fully mixed together. Add the liquid to your ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s directions. With about 2 minutes left add the sprinkles. When complete add the frosting and mix throughly then mix in the cake. Transfer into an air tight container and put in freezer until the ice cream sets to your desired consistency.