MS Cupcake Club (Bonus Recipe): Banana Pecan Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon Frosting

Made these delicious cupcakes in August, recipe is from Martha Stewart. More info will follow later!

A very late MSC: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes

I was supposed to blog about these great mini-cupcakes on the 15th of August, but somehow life got in the way: I was worried about my dog, going from one vet-appointment to another, swamped at work and the last couple of days battling a cold an fatigue.

But, finally here they are: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes for MS: Cupcake Club. As I had just started my diet I didn't try the whole finished product, I sampled a tiny bit of the cake, the frosting and the salted caramel. Everything tasted great on its own and my coworkers assured me that the complete cupcake was amazing too!

I only made half the recipe, which resulted into 32 mini-cupcakes. It's probably time to start saving up money for a candy thermometer, as I keep making recipes where I need one. This time I decided to wing it and try to make the caramel using a very simple tool: my eyes....

Check out here what everyone else thought of these cupcakes!

Missing Cupcakes and update on Scott

Yes, I know it's the 15th of August. I had joined another baking group before I came up with my resolution to lose weight: MS Cupcake Club (or MSC). Betty of Eat My Cupcake had bought the book Cupcakes by Martha Stewart and started up a monthly group to try all the recipes.

This is our first month and I already feel like a loser: Betty picked Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes as our challenge and I haven't made them yet, here's what happened:

Wednesday was my day off and I had planned on baking the cupcakes that day. However my cat decided differently: right after breakfast Senna came and sat on my lap, while I was petting here I discovered a crawly creeper on her.... a flea!!! Eeeeekkkkkk......

Further inspection revealed that Scott seemed to have the same problem, so the rest of my day was spent running to the shop to get anti-flea medicine for both Senna and Scoot, but also Joey (my parents dog that had spent the weekend at my house while my parent were out of town), changing all the bedding, putting all the pets sof toys in a plastic bag and vacuuming the entire house.

On Thursday I called the vet because they were supposed to have the results for Scotts liver biopsy. Things were not good: it seems like Scott produces too much corticosteroids which means that he probably has Cushings disease. To determine for sure if he has Cushings we now have to do a urine test. So for the next three days (today is day 1) I have to collect some urine at 8 am and on day 2 he has to take medicine: 4 tablets at 12, 4 at 18 and 4 at 24 o'clock.....

I'm sorry to dissapoint those of you who came here for the Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes, they're not here... yet!!! I will definetly try to fit this in the next week and blog about them!!

CEiMB: Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemony Cream Cheese Frosting

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

Leanne of Enjoying my Favorite Things got to pick this weeks recipe for Craving Ellie in My Belly, she picked Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemony Cream Cheese Frosting.
You can find the recipe here at Leanne's blog.

I made miniature cupcakes so that I could use my new mini-cupcake stand, isn't it cute? I got it using the gift certificate I got from my colleagues for my 30th birthday.

I was a bit dissappointed by the cupcakes, but then again maybe I'm just not a carrotcake-girl. I've never had carrotcake in my life. I had to improvise on the frosting 'cause I seemed to be out of lemons: I used lemon juice instead of zest, I needed 4 teaspoons of lemon juice to get a lemony taste to the frosting. Delicious!! The cupcakes were not my favorite Ellie-recipe so far, I loved the frosting though. Go figures: I like the least healthy part of the recipe!!

Check out what my fellow Elie-istas thought of the cupcakes here.

Next weeks recipe is Stuffed Turkey Burgers picked by one of my favourite bloggers Peggy of Pantry Revisited.

My big 30th Birthday High Tea Party

This was it, Sunday I finally turned 30 and had a wonderfull party outside my apartmentbuilding with lots of my friends and family.

Hours of preparation went into this party searching the Internet for great recipes to make just for this occasion, I even had a give-away back in April to inquire what other bloggers thought I should serve. Some of the suggestions made it and some didn't....

These strawberry cupcakes were made by me earlier this month for Taste & Create, only without the original topping, recipe to be found here. I had run out of butter so I had to come up with my own version, here's what I did:

Creamcheese frosting

200 grams cream cheese at room temperature

2 tablespoons raspberry-flavoured liqueur
1 cup powdered sugar

17 strawberries

Place cream cheese, liqueur in a medium bowl and powdered sugar in a bowl and beat just until blended. Cut thestrawberries in half. Top each cupcake with a dollop of creamcheese frosting and garnish cake with strawberry halves.

The miniature tiramisu cupcakes were such a huge succes at work back in May, that I instantly knew I had to make them again.

Shelby of The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch suggested that I make Cucumber Sandwiches. Instead of going for the traditional sandwiches I opted for these cuties, here's what I did:

Open-faced Cucumber Sandwiches

2 packs of party bread (I found these presliced at my supermarket, of course you could use rolls or baguette)

200 grams cream cheese at room temperature

1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped

1 tbsp Rosa Maria Dipper (herb mixture from Oil & Vinegar, also available in U.S.A. and other countries!!)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cucumber

dill, chopped

Mix the cream cheese with the garlic and Rosa Maria Dipper, add salt and pepper to taste. Slice the cucumber into thin slices. Divide the cream cheese mixture over the slices of bread, put one slice of cucumber on each sandwich and sprinkle some dill on top.

Chicken and Salmon wraps, easily made and gone in 60 seconds.

From left to right: Dorie's Cinnamon Squares, Ina's Lemon Cake and Ina's Outreagous Brownies.

These Cranberry Scones were amazing, my mom actually made them after the recipe suggested by Steph from Obsessed with Baking. They were quite easily put together, we left out the orange glaze and served them with orange marmalade, strawberry jam and Clotted Cream from Devonshire. Delicious!!

I also served two fruit salads: one with red fruits and one with green/yellow fruits, but I forgot to take pictures!!!
As the following pictures show we had a lovely afternoon with great weather!

I hope all my birthdays to come will be equally wonderful!!

TWD: bite-size Tiramisu Cupcakes

Tuesday is the sweetest day of the week! And this week I was extra excited because Megan of My Baking Adventures chose Tiramisu Cake as this weeks recipe. Tiramisu is one of my all-time favourite dessert, I love tiramisu! Last year I made about 3 different variations of tiramisu: the standard tiramisu, an orange tiramisu (these were made before I was into blogging) and a strawberry-white chocolate tiramisu. I really like making tiramisu because you can make them in advance and the tastes will only get better when it sits in your fridge for a day.


I thought the cake would be a bit bland, so I added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the flour. Instead of kahlua or amaretto I used Bayleys caramel, I found the cutest little bottle at the liquor store that contained exactly 3 tablespoons of liqour: 1 for the syrup, 1 for the filling/frosting and one for me to enjoy (I felt like rewarding myself for losing two kilos last week and thought one tablespoon of liqour wouldn't do to much damage....).


I didn't feel like making one big cake and thought that a regulat cupcake would still contain loads of calories, so I decided to make bitesize cupcakes. After the second batch of minicupcakes however I ran out of minicupcakeliners, so I ended up with 24 bitesize cupcakes and 12 normal cupcakes. I didn't fill the cupcakes, add finely chopped chocolate or add the espresso syrup to the mascarpone mixture. I simply topped the cupcakes with the filling and decorated with chocolate coffeebeans and cocoa powder.

At the P&Q-section for this recipe Lindsey of Cafe Johnsonia suggests making your own mascarpone as it can be an expensive ingredient, she talks about a recipe form Addicted Sweet Tooth. I don't know the prices over in USA, but over here 250 grams of mascarpone cost € 2,39, which would be $2,95. Not very expensive in my opninion compared to creamcheese, however I am intrigued by the thought of making my own mascarpone so I might give it a go next time!

Also next time I make these cuties I will probably double the filling as I thought the ratio cake:filling was too small..... I prefer more mascarpone and less cake! The coworkers really loved these as did I. I'm thinking about tweaking the recipe to make it more summery so I can make them for my tea party in July, so if you have any suggestions: I'm open to them!

The normal-size cupcakes are 5,5 WW Points a piece, the bite-size cupcakes are 2,5 WW Points a piece. If you want to know what the other 229 TWD-bakers thought of this recipe, go here.

Now on to a different topic: Natalie of What's for Supper is hosting a fabulous giveaway in celebration of Mother's Day, she's giving away the cutest pink and brown purse from her moms Etsy shop Flying Needles. Go check out the giveaway here, just don't enter: that purse is mine!! Can't you see my name is written all over it???

TWD: Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

Tuesday again, the last time that I'll be able to bring a TWD-challenge to the office where I work now: my last week has arrived so fast all of a sudden...

This week it was time to make Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes and I looked forward to making them. But while I was busy planning what treats to make for my colleagues for my last workday I almost forgot all about the cupcakes, but fortunately Clara of I heart Food 4 Thought reminded me of them, she's the one who picked them! You can find the recipe here, on Clara's blog.

At the TWD-site I read that a lot of TWD-ers had problems with them baking time and thought that the cupcakes were too dry. So I decided to pull my cupcakes out of the oven after 17 minutes, like most of them did. I also may have added just a touch more butter in the batter, but certainly not a lot.

For the glaze I used half bittersweet chocolate and half milkchocolate, Dorie adviced us to dip the cupcakes into it and turn while pulling them out: that way we would create a nice swirl on top. My glaze was already thick to start with, so dipping was no option. Before I put the glaze on, I filled the cupcakes with a vanilla cream filling by popping the tip into the cupcake and filling it with cream untill I felt some resistance, I used the recipe that I found at Baking Bites:

Vanilla Cream Filling

3 tbsp all purpose flour

1/2 cup milk (low fat is fine)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together the flour and milk and cook in a small saucepan over medium heat until thick. This will only take a few minutes. Sir continuously to prevent the mixture from clumping and do not bring all the way to a boil. When thickened (consistency will be that of a thin pudding or custard), strain with a mesh strainer into a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool completely to room temperature.When the milk mixture is cool, cream the butter (or shortening) and sugar together in a medium bowl until lightl. Add in the milk/flour mixture and the scraped vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract) and beat at high speed with an electrick mixer for 7 minutes, until light and fluffy. Scrape into a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip, or a large ziplock bag with the corner cut off, and set aside until ready to fill your cupcakes.

These cupcakes were delicious: the cake was nice and fluffy, the glaze was perfectly chocolate and the filling just added that little bit of oompfh to the cupcakes. I would rename these Heavenly, almost better than sex chocolate cupcakes. And my coworkers agreed...... :)



To end this post with a slightly less naughty subject: doesn't Pien, my brothers Dachshund of 11 weeks old look cute and sweet when she's asleep??

P.S. Check out my fellow TWD-ers cupcakes here.