MSC: Triple Citrus Cupcakes - My Pick!!!

This month it was my turn to pick the recipe for Martha Stewart's Cupcakes Club. Since it's August I tried to pick a cupcake that represents summery flavours, so I chose Triple Citrus Cupcakes that are found on page 64 of Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Because most of my coworkers were on vacation I decided to make 1/3 of the recipe, half of the batter I used to make miniature cupcakes and that made 24 miniature cupcakes that baked for 10 minutes.

The other half of the batter I used to make normal-sized cupcakes and ended up with 6 cupcakes, that were perfect after baking for 20 minutes.

Both the coworkers and my parents loved these. In my opinion the cupcakes definitely needed the glaze, they tasted quite plain without it. But with that glaze they tasted phenomenal! Check out MSC to find out what the other bakers thought of my pick!

Triple-Citrus Cupcakes

from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, page 64; makes 36

3,5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons coarse salt

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (from 3 lemons)

3 tablespoons finely grated orange zest (from 2 oranges)

3 tablespoons finely grated lime zest (from about 3 limes)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

9 large eggs, room temperature

Citrus Glaze (made with lime juice and zest; page 315, recipe below)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour and salt.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl every few minutes. Add citrus zest. Reduce speed to medium, and add vanilla. Add eggs, three at a time, beating until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in four batches, beating until completely incorporated after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full; tap pans on countertop once to distribute batter. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored up to 2 days at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

To finish, dip tops of cupcakes in glaze, then turn over quickly and garnish with zest. Cupcakes are best eaten the day they are glazed; keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

Citrus Glaze

from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, page 315; makes about 1 cup

1,5 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted, plus more if needed

1/4 teaspoon finely grated citrus zest

3 tablespoons fresh citrus juice, plus more if needed

Whisk together all ingredients until smooth. If necessary, add more sugar to thicken or more juice to thin the glaze. Use immediately.

MSC: (Naked) Strawberry Cupcakes

On May 29th I read an article online at www.nu.nl in which the author wrote about how healthy strawberries are: apparentlty they protect against nutritional diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart and vascular disease.

How fortunate that Sherry of Sherry Starts Cooking had selected the Strawberry Cupcakes for this month’s Martha Stewart Cupcake Club! This is the first time I visited Sherry's blog and in the first sentence of this post I found out we have something in common: she got her wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday, one of mine was pulled today: no fun!!!!

These cupcakes were a breeze to make, I halved the recipe and ended up with 24 cupcakes instead of 16. I guess the Dutch eat smaller cupcakes than the Americans. I made the recipe on Tuesday and wanted to bring them into work on Thursday. So when the cupcakes had cooled down completely I popped them into the freezer. I pulled them out early Thursday morning so that they could thaw while I made the Strawberry Meringue Frosting to go on top.

Unfortunately the strawberries I had saved to go into the frosting had gone bad and were of no use to me whatsoever. What to do?? It was to early to go to the supermarket to buy some whipped cream for topping instead, as it wasn’t open yet. I decided my coworkers would have to eat naked cupcakes! And they liked them a lot, they didn’t even feel there was something missing!! Check out the recipe over at Sherry Starts Cooking and visit MSC!!

P.S. Stay tuned for a couple of giveaways this week!! One will be posted tomorrow, the other on Friday.

TWD: Cocoa-Pecan Marbled Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche Buttercream

Another week, another Thursday. This week was different though: this week I attended my brothers graduation! He finally finished college and is now officially graduated as a journalist! So I baked this weeks recipe especially for him.

Congratulations Harm!!

Erin of When in Doubt...Leave it at 350 picked Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake for this weeks TWD recipe. I used Pecans instead of Walnuts and cocoa instead of the coffee, I also turned the bundt cake into cupcakes and to make them extra special I topped them with Dulce de Leche Buttercream.

Go check out Erin's blog for the recipe. Find out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the bundt cake here!

TWD: Coconut Tea Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing

This weeks pick for Tuesdays with Dorie made my mom really happy. I was on the lookout for a recipe I could turn into cupcakes for her birthday and because my mother loves coconut this was perfect!! Carmen of Carmen Cooks singled out Coconut Tea Cake, which can be found here on Carmens blog or on pages 194 and 195 of Baking From my Home to Yours.

The entire recipe made 36 mini cupcakes that needed 14 minutes in the oven and 18 regular-sized cupcakes that needed to bake for 20 minutes. I topped the coconut cupcakes with white chocolate icing that I found at Technicolor, then dipped them in toasted coconut. They looked pretty and tasted absolutel divine!

White chocolate icing

adapted from Technicolor Kitchen in English

500g white chocolate, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

140g unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups flaked coconut

Place the chocolate, cream and butter in a small saucepan over low heat

Stir until melted and smooth.

Remove from the heat and set aside to cool completely.

Once cool, beat with a hand-held electric mixer until thick and fluffy.

Ice the cool cupcakes and top them with the flaked coconut

Strawberry Cupcakes

Here's another round of cupcakes that I baked up for my Mom's birthday on March 5th. This recipe is by Martha Stewart, she calls these Sprinkles' Strawberry Cupcakes. The cupcakes are topped with Sprinkles' Strawberry Frosting. The recipe for the cupcakes can be found here and the frosting here.

This recipe made 36 miniature cupcakes that needed 15 minutes in the oven. Again these were a big succes with my moms colleagues!

No TWD - instead: Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Irish Buttercream

No TWD for me this week, I was pooped from my cupcake bake-a-thon. This weeks recipe for TWD was picked by Mike of Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude, he chose Thumbprints for Us Big Guys. The recipe can be found on page 164 of Baking: From My Home to Yours or over at Mike's blog. Check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the thumbprints here.

As I mentioned in my last post my mom asked me to bake her cupcakes for her to take to work for her birthday. Because my mom works at a call center she has lots of colleagues, which meant that I had to bake loads of cupcakes. I gave my mom several options for the miniature cupcakes and she picked three of them: Strawberry Cupcakes, Coconut Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing and these Chocolate Guiness Cupcakes with Baileys Irish Buttercream that I found over at Le Petit Pierogi.

This recipe made 36 miniatures (that needed 12 minutes in the oven) and 18 regular-sized (requiring 17 minutes in the oven) for me.

Ingredients

adapted from Le Petit Pierogi

For the Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

1 cup Guinness

2 sticks unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

For the Baileys Irish Buttercream

3 to 4 cups confectioners sugar (I used about 3 1/2 cup)

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 to 4 tbsp Baileys Irish Cream (I used 4 tbsp)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line cupcake bakingtray with liners. In a saucepan over medium heat melt butter and add Guinness, bring to a simmer. Whisk in cocoa powder until mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl mix together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In another bowl beat eggs and sour cream until thoroughly combined. On low speed drizzle in Guinness-cocoa mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture, a little at a time, and mix briefly on low speed until the mixture comes together. Using a rubber spatula fold the batter until completely combined. Divide batter over cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, the mini's needed 12 minutes and the regular-sized needed 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

To make the buttercream, whip the butter in a bowl until the butter is very light and fluffy. Slowly add the confectioners sugar, a few tablespoons at a time. When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys and whip it until combined. If this makes the frosting too thin, beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

Ice and decorate the cupcakes.

Adopt-A-Blogger + Sticky Toffee Cupcakes for my Mom's Birthday

The time has come to tell you about Adopt-A-Blogger! Kristen of Dine and Dish first came up with Adopt-A-Blogger a couple of years ago and this is round #4. I actually already wanted to sign up for round #3, but I missed the deadline back then so I had to wait for the next one. Now my time has come! Adopt-A-Blogger is about 'veteran-bloggers' helping 'newbees' out with all their questions and giving them advice. Now I don't consider myself a veteran at all, in my opinion I still have a lot to learn about blogging, but I feel that everyone can learn from everyone and this event seemed like a great way to meet new bloggers. Now let me introduce you to my two adoptees:

First there's Molly, from Duchess of Fork, who is starting a new career as a teacher in Northwestern Florida. She's married to the Duke of Pork and they have a Maltipoo called Ruby. Molly started blogging in July 2009 after drooling over other cookblogs for a while. She cooks up delicious meals. In fact her first post looks like the perfect dish for me: Chicken Fajita Pizza with Avocado Cream.

Then there's Sarah, who writes catch a cub in it's den, who lives in California and she and her boyfriend recently moved into their new appartment with a kitchen to die for! Sarah started blogging back in July 2008, she blogs about her travels as well as recipes. I love the Challah French Toast she cooked up for her boyfriend on Valentine's Day.









Now on to today's recipe: Sticky Toffee Cupcakes. My mom asked me to bake 15 regular-sized cupcakes and about 90 miniature cupcakes that she could take to work with her on her birthday. Last week I saw this recipe for Sticky Toffee Cake over at Marie's blog The English Kitchen last and I immediately knew this was the pefect recipe for my mom, I just had to transform the cake into cupcakes!

The cupcakes needed about 25 minutes in the oven, the recipe made exactly 15 cupcakes! These were a big hit, even if they were a bit sticky: but that's to be expected from something called sticky toffee cupcake :) The recipe can be found here.

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins

I love doughnuts, I also love muffins; but what do you think about: Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins.... Sounds great huh? It is absolutely fantastic! The first attempt was a big succes with my col-workers. The second attempt I added some cinnamon to the batter, because I am a huge fan of cinnamon. This resulted in an actual wedding proposal!


The orginal recipe I found on Laura's beautiful blog: http://laurarebeccaskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/06/cinnamon-sugar-donut-muffins.html

This is my version:

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins (appr. 12 muffins)

Batter
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
4 to 8 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla

Topping
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Position oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 205 degrees Celsius. Line a standard muffin pan with paper cups.Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, yogurt, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix with light strokes until the dry ingredients are just moistened. Don't overmix; batters should not be smooth.

Divide batter among the muffin cups and bake until a toothpick inserted in one or two of the muffins come out clean, 12-15 minutes.

While the muffins are baking, melt 1/2 stick butter and place in a bowl just large enough to hold a muffin. Combine ½ cup of sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon in a small, shallow bowl.

As soon as the muffing are done, dip them one at a time in the melted butter and then roll in the sugar mixture.

Set on a rack to cool.