Fall-Fabulous Eats!

So after my INTENSE last post, I thought I should probably lighten things up a bit and talk food.  My family loves food, especially desserts!  As I've mentioned before, Madelynn and I have been experimenting with cooking and baking.  Our favorite thing to bake is cupcakes and we are always searching for new recipes to finesse and make our own.  I absolutely love spending time with her in the kitchen!  Those are memories that I will cherish forever and I hope she does as well.

Last Friday, we decided to bring a little Fall into our kitchen and try out a recipe I found on Pinterest for Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing.  We played with the ingredients a bit to make it our own and Oooooh are they fabulous!  They were a hit at our small group meeting and they are quickly disappearing here at home.  Here's our recipe:

Cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 sticks unsalted butter softened
1 cup white granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 1/2ish cups pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin pans with cupcake liners (for ours we used super cute Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin liners that I found at Michael's craft store).  Combine all dry ingredients (including spices) in a medium bowl and set aside.  Cream together butter and both sugars.  Add eggs one at a time.  Gradually add dry ingredients and milk (I add a little dry, little milk, little dry, etc. until both were gone).  Mix with hand mixer on medium speed until well incorporated.  Add in pumpkin and mix until smooth.  Fill liners 2/3 full and bake for about 18 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center of one cupcake comes out clean.  Allow to cool in pan 5 minutes then move to wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Icing:
1 1/2 sticks butter softened
8 oz cream cheese softened
4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon

Beat butter and cream cheese together until well incorporated.  Gradually add in sugar.  Mix in vanilla and cinnamon.  Beat until smooth and creamy.  Ice cupcakes.  This icing pipes really well.  Because I have not invested in fancy piping bags and such, I just fill a gallon size plastic storage bag, snip a bit off one of the bottom corners, and pipe the icing onto the cupcakes with that.  I think it still comes out pretty!

After we piped on the icing we added on cute jack-o-lantern decorative picks that we found at Wal-Mart.  Voila!  Fabulous pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing!  I love how you can see the flecks of cinnamon in the icing.  The cake was very moist and tasted like lighter, slightly sweeter pumpkin bread and the icing was just sweet enough, with a subtle cinnamon taste.  If you are a cinnamon lover, you could probably add a bit more to the icing without overpowering the cake.  This recipes makes around 30 cupcakes. 

Bon appetite and happy Fall, with love from our kitchen to yours,
Madelynn & Erin

Mmmm Cake!

So Madelynn and I are dabbling a bit in baking.  We are having so much fun experimenting with different recipes and ideas!  Of course my ulterior motive is creating memories with my daughters.  Madelynn loves to help in the kitchen and I am taking full advantage of it while I can.

Since it is Easter, we decided to try a new recipe for a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and make it festive by using yellow marshmallow Peeps to turn it into a sunflower.  I'll be honest and admit that the recipe came from Food Network and the Peeps idea came from Pinterest, though we did add a little "oomph" to both.

Here's the recipe:
cake
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup real fine sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa powder
dash ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp strong brewed coffee
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups milk chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350.  Spray two 9 inch round pans with cooking spray.  Sift together first 6 ingredients in medium mixing bowl and set aside.  In a large mixing bowl beat together vanilla, coffee, eggs, buttermilk, and oil.  Slowly add in flour mix and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Batter will be very thick.  Pour into baking pans and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Let cool completely.

One layer of baked cake

frosting
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 lb milk chocolate morsels
Bring cream, sugar, and salt to a boil.  Remove from heat.  Add in chocolate morsels.  Let sit a minute then whisk in.  Refrigerate for about an hour whisking occasionally, until spreading consistency.

I frosted the cake with slips of wax paper under the edges to protect the cake plate.  I frosted in the usual way - a blob on the top of the bottom layer, flopped on the top layer, a blob on the top of the top layer, then smoothed around the sides.

cake with frosting

After the cake was frosted, we added yellow marshmallow Peeps around the top edge to look like a sunflower.  I found it easier to keep them connected and kind of sculpt them around.  Someone with a steadier hand might be able to separate them and put each on individually.  We then, dropped leftover milk chocolate chips into the center to make it look like the center of the sunflower.  After removing the wax paper, I piped green leaves around the cake plate using a store-bought bag of green-tinted cookie icing.  And voila!  Not bad for our first attempt!  We think it's cute anyway.  Happy Easter!!!

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