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I know I'm generally all about cake, but muffins are sort of like cake, right? Cupcakes are just preppy muffins, anyway. So, after a long absence from this blog, I'm coming back to shake things up with these apple, pear, and spice muffins:  These are super-easy to make, and are great to have with your morning cup of coffee or tea. This batch had 2 apples and 2 pears chopped (all peeled and cored) as tiny as I could get them chopped, and rough teaspoons of cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves (adjust the measurements so that the spices you like are the ones that shine in your muffins). Mix all of this with your favorite muffin recipe (store-bought muffin mix will work, too!), place paper liners in a jumbo muffin tray, load 'em up with batter, and top each cup of batter with a thin slice of apple. Melt down some butter, and brush the tops of the apples with butter for flavor, but also so they'll be golden brown when they come out of the oven. Bake at 350-degrees Fahrenheit until you can stick a toothpick into your muffin, and it comes out clean. Let the muffins cool, and enjoy! :) I'm really pleased with how these turned out, and they taste so good! Plus, a bunch of fruit gets packed into these, so you trick yourself into eating fruits. ;) |
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I went to a Bengali wedding (think Bollywood) a couple weeks ago, and I was asked to bake cupcakes for it. I needed to make the end result colorful, tasty, and unique, and below, you see the end result. I think I did a pretty good job! The cupcakes are red velvet, and the frosting is cream cheese-based.  Roses look to be pretty difficult to mass produce for a bunch of cupcakes, but like anything, practice makes perfect (I remember my first time making frosting roses, I tried 50 times, and was only able to salvage 8 roses!), and it's a good trick to know. They look intricate and cool, and on cupcakes, they make everyone feel special. |
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Someone I work with introduced me to almond bark recently. Greatest. Thing. Ever. You can dip practically anything in it; strawberries and pecans are popular, but another great idea is to dip spoons in almond bark, and then serve them with a cup of hot cocoa. You can also create some fun splatter designs with them:  Featured above are red velvet cupcakes, topped with cream cheese frosting and almond bark. Creating abstract almond bark designs is completely easy. First, melt down at least a couple blocks of almond bark (you can find it with the chocolate chips at your grocery store) in a small saucepan. Then, dip a spoon into the almond bark, and start drizzling/splattering the almond bark onto a sheet of wax paper. (I like to place the wax paper on a cookie sheet because it's easy to transport). Once you finish splattering, let your designs harden (about 10-15 minutes), and then peel/break them off, and stick them on top of your baked creations. :) |
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Yesterday, I baked my very first sheet cake:  As you can tell, the theme was bugs. The cake is chocolate, frosting on top and in-between the layers is chocolate, and the grass and writing is buttercream. The "dirt" is crushed up Oreoes, ladybugs are handmade from M&Ms, and gummy worms and plastic bugs are store-bought Anyway, one of my biggest concerns baking a cake so large was handling the layers. It's so easy for a cake to break, even when it's a manageable round 9-inch cake (I know this from experience!). In the end, I used a tip from my mom. I used Crisco to grease the bottom of my pan, and then I lined the bottom of the pan with wax paper, and then I poured the cake batter on top of the wax paper. After the cake was all baked and cooled, all I had to do was run a knife along the edges to make sure they didn't stick to the pan, and then I used the ends of the wax paper to very easily lift the cake out of the pan. Even if you're not baking a cake this big, you should give it a go next time you're baking. Makes clean-up extremely easy, too! |
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Once you're done looking at a cake, the next best thing (if not the best thing) is eating it. Some cakes come with inedible decorations on top, which is fine. You just pick them off. But one of my favorite things to try to do is make all decorations on my cakes completely edible. Not only is it impressive, but it means more sweets for you in the end (hello, leftovers). Check out this movie theatre cake I baked yesterday for a little girl who is celebrating her birthday at the movies today:  The sides of the cake are lined with Kit Kats, which not only cuts down on your frosting efforts on the sides (the frosting needs to be there, but it doesn't have to look nice and smooth because the Kit Kats go over it), but it oftentimes looks even nicer than regular frosted sides. In my case, I chose to use Kit Kats because I thought it might give the cake a more building-like appearance. For the seats in the theatre, I used scissors to cut up Twizzlers, and just stuck them straight in to the cake, kind of like candles. And the edible princess icing fixtures are from Michaels. The only thing on the cake that isn't edible is the picture of Mr. Scrooge, but I must say I am not skilled enough to pipe a tiny Mr. Scrooge onto any kind of cake, and it's easy enough to peel off before eating. Next time you're decorating a cake, before you plop on a toothpick with a picture on top, or a plastic toy, see how you might be able to manipulate candy to make your treats extra special. Check out some of my cakes in the gallery if you need ideas on how to do this. You can also see a picture of the white raspberry-pecan cake I baked earlier this week. |
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Howdy! My baking site is officially open, and to commemorate its opening, I've decided to share a pretty easy cupcake recipe with yall. It's practically fool-proof! When I first started baking, I used boxed cake mixes. They're super-easy to use. Toss in some water, oil, and a few eggs; mix, bake, and bam! You've got yourself a pretty decent treat. Ingredients- 1 Betty Crocker boxed cake mix and all ingredients required to prepare the cake mix - 1 12-ounce tub of Betty Crocker frosting - 1 8-ounce tub of Cool Whip - Optional: Sprinkles and Color Mist food spray Directions1.) Follow the instructions on the back of the Betty Crocker box to prepare your cake mix. 2.) Place cupcake liners in an oven-safe cupcake tin, and then fill the cups 2/3 full with batter. I've found an easy way to get the batter into the cups is by scooping some batter onto a spoon, and then using another spoon to push the batter into the cups. 3.) Place filled cupcake tin in the oven, and bake as instructed on the back of the Betty Crocker box. 4.) While your cupcakes are baking, place equal amounts of Betty Crocker frosting and Cool Whip in a large mixing bowl, and use a wooden spoon to mix these together. The Cool Whip makes this mixture fluffy, while the Betty Crocker frosting gives it a frosting-like flavor. 5.) Once your cupcakes are finished baking and they have cooled, either use a spoon or knife to apply frosting to your cupcakes by hand, or, if you know how, put your frosting in a pastry bag and pipe frosting onto your cupcakes. 6.) Spruce up your cupcakes now. Use Color Mist food spray (I buy mine from Michaels) and/or sprinkles. Arrange your cupcakes on a platter, and you're all ready to share them with some friends. Bon appetit!  If you'd like to keep up with when I update, you can, of course, visit Sweets-and-Treats.net every so often, or you can keep up with cakebyjoya.livejournal.com. Both addresses are updated simultaneously. :) |
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