White Almond Wedding Cupcakes with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

(Click here for White Almond Wedding Cupcakes)

I was a little hectic at first you know. I didn’t exactly knew if this frosting was gonna work but I read a million reviews about it saying it was creamy, buttery goodness and well, I couldn’t say no.  It talked about whisking the egg yolks over a simmering sauce pan and even though I’m always up for something new, this had me a little bit scared.

I didn’t wanna waste 5 egg yolks, ya know? I’m saying this because from here on now i’m gonna buy every ingredient, ever supply I need to bake my goods and as a 18 year old with no job, this is a little hard. Like I said a few posts back, my family isn’t exactly rich so I can’t always depend on Ma to buy everything I need for baking as there are other more important things. That’s why I’m trying to save my allowance and scholarship money to invest in supplies, ingredients, etc.

So for my inauguration I made my favorite vanilla cake recipe with the new twist: Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is by far the best buttercream I’ve tasted! Not to buttery, not too soft, just perfect. Like I said earlier, I thought it was gonna be disastrous but it was actually pretty simple.

I bought the cupcake tins, gel food color and sprinkles at LayerCakeShop.com

(Recipe found at Annies-eats.net, adapted from Martha Steward)

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp. sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 lb. (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions: (taken from Annie’s Eats)

To make the frosting, combine the egg whites, sugar and salt in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water.  Heat, whisking frequently, until the mixture reaches 160° F and the sugar has dissolved.

Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Beat on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled to room temperature, about 8 minutes.

Reduce the speed to medium and add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, adding more once each addition has been incorporated.  If the frosting looks soupy or curdled, continue to beat on medium-high speed until thick and smooth again, about 3-5 minutes more (don’t worry, it will come together!)  Stir in the vanilla extract and mix just until incorporated.  Tint with gel icing color as desired.

Keep buttercream at room temperature if using the same day, or transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat with paddle attachment on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

Yield: about 5 cups (good for a hearty 36 cupcakes)

(This cupcakes were originally gonna be for St. Patrick’s Day but since my supplies arrived late, they became  regular cupcakes. Still, they were delicious.)

For more photos of this recipe visit my  Flickr.

Open for business!

So, guess what?! Since I fee like I’ve had a lot of practice lately, I decided to start selling! Yeah, it’s not like I have this huge ordering business but I can bake some homemade goodies but only for people who reside in Puerto Rico. My list consists of:

• cupcakes
• cakes
• cheesecakes
• brownies
• custards (flan)
• puddings
• Candy Melt Pops

Those will be up for ordering. Any flavor, any size, any occasion, I can make ‘em. I didn’t include cookies since I still need practice with those and it can take a while but my goal is to be able to do perfect sugar cookies for any occasion and chocolate ship/m&ms/confetti cookies.

I will be taking into consideration the amount of ingredients or molds(not always) I have to buy to do your order and of course, the handiwork. Right now, for example, i’m selling 1/2 dozen regular cupcakes with frosting and one topping at $6 and a dozen at $10. I’ll later put up other prices as I do more orders. I’m still getting the hang of this but hopefully i’ll be able to buy more cooking supplies and of course buy a camera that I desperately need for college and a netbook.

Again, thanks to all the people who has supported me into going on with this, I really love baking as I no longer do it for myself, but to make other people’s stomachs very happy. :)

Money’s tight.

I really wish I could at least update this blog once or more than once a week but I find myself currently with a lot of money issues. My family’s economic stability isn’t so stable you see? I’m keeping a savings account but it’s only 10 dollars a month, barely enough for buying all the ingredients I use in a recipe.

For now, i’ll hold on to my trusty pastry book and read it all over again. :) Please be patient, i’ll come up with something delicious in no time!

Cream Cheese Frosting and Yellow Cake Cupcakes

I’m not gonna rave about them cupcakes in this post since well, I kinda cheated today (I just wanted to have something sweet without spending A LOT of money) so a yellow cake mix recipe had to do. The only thing I didn’t buy pre-made was the cream cheese frosting which I made myself and it was DIVINE.

Since it was made from a Cake Mix I won’t post the details, just look at the back of a Duncan Hine’s Yellow Cake Mix box. Personally, I wasn’t too fond of this particular cake mix because I thought it was too dry (no pudding) and since my family will eat practically anything I bake they weren’t much help for rating. I like cake mixes and don’t see any problem in them, the people who can’t stand them are either too stuck up to actually try some or I don’t know. What I’m saying is, you don’t have to bake everything you make from scratch if you don’t want to, it’s OK to ‘cheat’ from time to time, what matters is that you do it with love and everybody who eats it will love it too.

5-Cup Cream Cheese Frosting (original from the book Classic Southern Desserts)

Ingredients

• 2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 (32-oz) package powdered sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

makes about 5 cups

prep: 10 minutes

Directions

1. Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until fluffy. Stir in vanilla.

Yeah, my cupcake tins suck I know.

Japanese Rare Cheesecake

Sounds exotic, no? Well actually, Japanese rare cheesecake is just the no-bake cheesecake of Japan. They are dense,

...with whipped cream and cherries for topping!

cold and delightfully bittersweet if you use the recipe I used. A lot of people know about no-bake cheesecakes but my story behind this awesome pastry is that a year ago I didn’t have an oven because mine broke *tear* and we couldn’t get it fix until late 2010. So, because I couldn’t contain myself from making sweets I looked back at my old recipes and found this one that I used for a Japanese -themed party YEARS ago. The downfall was that I did with with strawberry gelatin (My friend couldn’t find plain gelatin mix so she gave me that) and it tasted weird, like Strawberry Cheesecake but…weird. I didn’t want to do it again but I decided to give it one more chance (with the right ingredients this time).

I made this recipe for a special occasion this time. Me and J. had our one year anniversary in July ’10 and I wanted to make something for him that we would both love so why not cheesecake? Like I said before, it wasn’t ultra sweet since I used limes and a little lime zest to kick it up a notch but you don’t have to add it in if you don’t want to.

Here’s the recipe I used(Original: About.com)

*They have a video tutorial for making this cheesecake as well, so check it out.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup and 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (I used limes)
• 1 tbsp powder gelatin
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 package of graham crackers
• 3 tbsp butter
• fresh fruit/whipping cream for topping (optional)
• Rolling pin/large cup
• plastic bag

Directions:

Make the Graham Cracker Crust

Take a package of graham crackers and place it in a plastic bag. Roll over it with a rolling pin mashing it into the crumbs. Melt the butter in a microwave. In a medium bowl, add your freshly made graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and a tablespoon of sugar and mix it together. Press the crumbs into the bottom of a round cake pan (8 inch).

(You can always put the graham crackers in a food processor so it’s chopped up finely but I prefer to do it this way)

Make the Cheesecake Filling

Mix powder gelatin and water in a small cup and set aside. Stir cream cheese in a bowl until softened. Put water and gelatin mixture into microwave and heat for a minute. Add yogurt, sugar, lemon juice, and gelatin into softened cream cheese and mix well. Pour the filling into the crust and spread evenly. Refrigerate for 3 hours.

Serving Japanese Rare Cheesecake

If your pan has a removable bottom, place it on a large can, and pull down the sides. Slide the cake into a serving platter and cut it into wedges. Serve with your favorite fruit or jam.

Of course, there isn't a party without wine.

...it was a nice cheescake. So nice that there wasn't any by the next day.

Mini Key Lime Cheesecake Cupcakes!

I made this for a Christmas dinner my family was having and since everybody was bringing something over I thought might as well try this recipe from my new cookbook Classic Southern Desserts from the editors of Southern Living. So this was the winner: Key Lime Cheesecake. The recipe calls for strawberry sauce but since I don’t like strawberries I dropped a cherry in them with some Cool Whip and they tasted great with it. I went  a little overboard with the lime juice and added a little too much, making the cheesecake taste more bitter than sweet but it was still delicious. With this recipe I made two medium-sized cheesecakes and 2 batch of mini cheesecakes with Oreo and Nilla wafers.

Sadly, I didn’t took pictures of the cheesecakes but I did took some (bad) pictures of the mini cheesecakes bites which is why I’m going to put more emphasis on them.

Here’s the finished result:

I hate my pocket camera.

A little more detailed please:

You can see the crust better in this picture. It's Oreo!

Now, for the original recipe. Later I’ll put how to make these babies specifically.

Key Lime Cheesecake With Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients:

For crust

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)

For Cheesecake

• 3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened (room temp.)
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 (8-oz) container sour cream
• 1 1/2 tsp. lime zest
• 1/2 cup Key lime juice (fresh would be better)
• Garnish: Strawberries, Strawberry Sauce

Makes 10 to 12 servings

prep: 20 mins * cook: 1 hr., 13 min * other: 8hr., 15 min

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Stir together first 3 ingredients (for crust) and press on bottom and 1 inch up sides of a greased 9-inch spring form pan. Bake at 350° for 8 minutes; let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 325°.
2. Beat cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy; gradually add 1 1/4 cups sugar, beating until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in sour cream, zest and juice. Pour batter into crust.
3. Bake at 325° for 1 hour a 5 minutes* ; turn oven off. Let stand in oven, with door partially open, 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and immediately run a knife around edge of pan, releasing sides.
4. Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack; cover and chill 8 hours. Garnish, if desired, and serve with Strawberry Sauce.

Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups fresh strawberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. lime zest

Directions

1. Process all ingredients in a food processor/blender until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides.

*Time may vary depending on the oven you have. For example mine didn’t take that long to bake, if I would have left it in the time the book said it would have burnt. *sad face*

For MY version of this cheesecake, check this out:

1. Do everything the recipe says and calls for (including ingredients) except maybe put 1/3 or 1/4 cup of lime juice instead of 1/2 if you don’t want a very bitter taste and more sweet.
2. Put a Nilla Wafer/Oreo in each cup OR do like I did: put a few Oreos or Nilla Wafers in a blender and crush them until they are a little fine but with little crumbs sticking out. Take a spoon and put 1/2 or tbsp in each cup. I believe this is better, don’t ask me why.
3. Fill the tins with the cheesecake filling and bake at 325° for 15-20 mins; let cool on the oven (don’t worry, they wont crack) and set aside on a wire rack. Chill for 4 hours or until completely cold.
4. Fill the top with Cool Whip and top it with a cherry.

As you can see, I had to take a picture before they were all over.

If you love lime, this recipe is for you. You can always cut off the lime and put any flavor you want or just leave it plain and simple (click here for a plain mini cheesecake recipe) but for me, as a lime lover, is p e r f e c t!

Enjoy!

White Almond Wedding Cupcake with a surprise inside…

Who says baking with pre-made mixes was always cheating? Sure, if you just use the ingredients that the box tells you…or if you go as dirty as buying pre-made pastries and disguising them as your own. Shame on you!

Anyways, I was browsing one of my favorites blogs one day (Heidi Bakes) and as I was lurking in her tags I found this peculiar White Cake recipe which caught my eye, it had sour cream! And by looking at the pictures by themselves it just looked marvelous, aside from the fact that she gave the recipe an awesome review so a few weeks later *ahem* today, I decided to make them for a gift to J for Valentine’s Day. Sure, I’m a little early but that doesn’t really matter to us at all. We just wanted an excuse to indulge in sweet and tasty meals, is that so bad?

But I forgot to mention, I was also browsing this new website I found (Bake it in a Cake) which is fairly new but with an amazing success (I suggest you check it out, this girl’s amazing creativity is mind blowing!) and I found one recipe in specific which called for Raffaello baked into a White Cupcake with Coconut topping and my mind was blown. J LOVES Raffaello, it’s his favorite chocolate indulgence so…I made the cake recipe with the Raffaello inside of them and BAM!

Ain’t it beautiful? Here’s the recipe!

White Almond Wedding Cake (Taken from Heidi Bakes, original at Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 egg whites

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour an 11×13 inch cake pan.
2. Stir together the white cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl until well mixed. Pour in the water, sour cream, vegetable oil, almond and vanilla extracts, and egg whites, and beat with an electric mix on low until all the ingredients are mixed and moistened but some lumps still remain, 4 minutes.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, and bake in the preheated oven until the top is a light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Allow to cool before frosting.

Buttercream (Taken from Bakeitinacake.com)

Ingredients

• 3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup shredded coconut (for topping)

Directions

“Whip up the butter to get it good and creamy. Then add the powdered sugar a cup at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions (to make sure everything is getting incorporated). Drizzle in some vanilla, mix some more, and give it a taste to make sure you have enough vanilla and sugar. Once you have the desired texture and taste, pipe a mound onto all the cupcakes. Then roll the tops of the cupcakes in a bowl of coconut to give them the snowy effect.”

You have to fold in the chocolate with the mix like in the picture

Some were with Raffaello inside and some were just plain.

I also made an alternative to the Raffaello cupcakes for my nephew, with rainbow sprinkes.

Happy Valentine’s Day!