Rainbow Cupcakes

Photo source: http://befickle.blogspot.com/2011/03/rainbow-cupcakesquestions-answered.html

ST PATRICKS DAY CUPCAKES!!

Starting to think about St. Patrick's Day cupcakes... Have a pinboard on pintrest (see the right hand side) to see some of my ideas.  Loved the RAINBOW cupcakes.  My mom gets the magazine, Family Fun and they have the directions to make rainbow cupcakes:

Instructions

1. Prepare your favorite white cake mix, then divide the batter evenly among six small bowls. Following the chart below, dye each bowl of batter a rainbow color.
   
   

   RAINBOW COLOR	DROPS OF FOOD COLORING
   Purple	9 red and 6 blue drops
   Blue	12 drops
   Green	12 drops
   Yellow	12 drops
   Orange	12 yellow and 4 red drops
   Red	18 drops

2. Line 16 muffin pan wells with baking cups. Evenly distribute the purple batter among the cups, then the blue, and so on, following the order shown. As you go, gently spread each layer of batter with the back of a spoon to cover the color underneath.
3. Bake the cupcakes according to your recipe directions. Before serving, remove the paper wrapping, and if you like, top each cupcake with a whipped-cream cloud.
4. Source: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/taste-a-rainbow-cupcakes-842128/

Sleepover CUPCAKES!!

Today is Saturday and my friend, JoJo and I decided to bake a batch of cupcakes.  It was fun because we split the recipe in half.  JoJo added 1/2 the flour and I added the other half.  She added half the sugar and half the oil.  I added my half.  Then, once the ingredients were in the batter she mixed the cake while I added the eggs (one at a time) and then I mixed while she added the milk (1/2 cup at at time). 

Finally, we used the batter tool to fill the cupcakes.  JoJo never used one of these and she liked it a lot.

The best part of the process was piping the buttercream!  JoJo had never used a piping bag before!

We decided to leave the frosting white and to add chocolate hearts.  JoJo got to see the doubleboiler for the first time too!! The hardest part was finding room in the freezer!!

I like piping the buttercream on the cupcakes!  It is very fun and I am getting better (mom says) every time we make the cupcakes!

The last step will be adding the chocolate hearts we made! We got PINK to make pink chocolate hearts for our decorations!! It was a lot of fun and we think a GREAT idea for a sleepover activity... Don't make US cupcakes (are you listening moms??) Let US make OUR OWN cupcakes... JoJo's mom said, "it is the memories they will have from these activities that will last!"  Just think, if you made us cupcakes we would enjoy eating them, if you let US make our own we will remember making them with YOU!

 

XOXO MYA

It's RAINING cupcakes!!

No, it isn't really raining cupcakes!!

The new book I am reading is called this.  Chapter 1 is RED VELVET CUPCAKES and Chapter 2 is Strawberry Lemondade cupcakes and Chapter 3 is peanut butter and jelly cupcakes.  The author is Lisa Schroder and her book questions and answers are here: http://www.lisaschroederbooks.com/2010/08/its-raining-cupcakes-questions-and.html

This book is a good one and I like it so far.  I am on chapter 3 and thinking about trying some of the recipes I am learning in this book!
XOXO Mya

Buddy taught me about BUTTER!!

I learned a new "trick" with butter!  The last batch of cupcakes I baked were amazing.  I understand what Buddy means when he descibes his cupcakes as fluffy.  Mine were the best texture I have ever had in a cake, was it the cake flour or the new mixer?  Not sure but I do want to make them like this again.  When people tasted my cupcakes they all said, "Yummm the buttercream is lemony" What did I put into the cake to make it lemony? Nothing!  I made the Vanilla cake recipe on page 296 and the buttercream frosting from page 312. There is nothing like lemon in the cake or the frosting. 

I decided to read the beginning of the book again.  This is where Buddy taught me about BUTTER!! He even told me things my GRANDMA BETTY doesn't know about (butter!).  He has a section in the book called Notes on Ingredients.  It talks about a lot of things but I want to talk about butter.  Buddy teaches, "butter is a sponge for other flavors in your refrigerator" p. 23.  My mom stores the butter above the crisper and she buys a lot of it so she had 8 packs of 4 sticks stored up there.  Under it she had a bunch of lemons.  She had 12 lemons in the crisper. 

I think the butter absorbed the lemon flavor.  It was very light and yummy.  Will have to try to do this again when I substitue the veg oil in the cake for coconut oil.  (the coconut oil gives the cake a great taste and it is still fluffy!! This is how I did my Mom's birthday cake!  It might be really good with a coconut oil in the cake and this lemon-butter flavor in the frosting...

Buddy says in his book, "bakers keep a notebook full of hard-won baking wisdom--" (page 8).  I think I am keeping a book, this online blog.  I might have to keep some of my secrets but this butter secret was too big to share!!

Readers (if you're out there...), have you ever flavored your butter?  Tell me about it (you can comment under this post!)

XOXO Mya

Valentine Day Sale!! (Sold 12 cupcakes)

Today I found the PERFECT chocolate molds.  We were shopping at Barnstead Pantry and they had heart molds.  We bought two sets of 18 and both red and pink chocolate.  It was fun to use the double broiler and then melt it down and put into the molds.  I was able to melt the chocolate and put it into the frig but my mom had to help with filling the chocolate molds (they were HOT!).  When we tried to take them out of the molds later I learned not to bang them out on granite countertops.  Unfortunately (yeah right) I had to eat the broken ones!! They were GREAT!  I am proud of my creations!  We used conversational hearts for some of the ones I baked for school.

These are the ones for school valentine's day party.

These are the ones I baked for the "sale" she bought 12 cupcakes and I had to write my first ever invoice.  12 cupcakes at $.50 = $6.00

These were the "leftover" ones I made for the brothers... They didn't make it through the night!

These are school cupcakes!

I love my homemade chocolate decorations.... YUM!

Melting down the chocolate!

Mixing up the cakes (all by myself)!  I am mixing two batches of them to make 48 cupcakes... 24 X 2 = 48

XOXO Mya

Will you be my VALENTINE-?

Getting ready for Valentine's Day.  Made supercute Valentines for my classmates.  They are ILOVE Valentines.  I love the playlist and the apple on the back.  Will share some pictures here.  The box is either sweethearts (pink box) or sweet-tarts (red box). 

XOXO Mya

Mixer #3 is all burned up!

Today we decided to frost the cupcakes that we have frozen so that we could sell them.  Mom stopped after work and bought another mixer.  Last time we baked and frosted cupcakes we burnt up Mom's mixer.  She got it for a wedding present in the 1990's so it was kind of old anyway.  After she burned up our mixer then she went to my Grandma's house and took their mixer.  It was a brand new mixer and it lasted one mix of frosting before it burned up.  Today we burned up another new mixer... Wondering what we are doing wrong with the frosting, or is it the mixers??  My great grandma's mixer is still working so it can't be that.

The top picture has only hot pink sparkles!  The picture below has additional red hearts.

XOXO Mya