Mini Brownie Cupcakes

As much as I love pastry, it just can't pay my bills yet, so by day I work in GIS doing nerdy geo-stuff for a small training and consulting company. This week, all of my co-workers were able to get together (which is a rare occurrence, because we are all off at different sites and in different cities). They have got to be one of the most awesome groups of people I've ever had the privilege to work with. So, to celebrate the occasion, I baked them goodies!

I decided on miniature brownie cupcakes because they're cute, bite-size, and fun to decorate. Also, I love making these brownies because they are so gooey and delicious and you can't even tell that they're gluten-free! I dipped them in some of my trusty dark chocolate ganache and topped them off with some vanilla buttercream and rainbow nonpareils.

So much fun and so tasty!

WoW Cooking Hour: Tasty Cupcake

Sometimes you just want a delicious pastry, you know? It was on this rainy Sunday afternoon that I decided I was in the mood for a cupcake. A tasty cupcake. Well, isn't it lucky, then, that WoW has a recipe with that exact name?!



And look! The cupcake makes you happy! Such fantastic luck that I sh--

WTF is this? Ingredients: simple flour and an egg? Flour. Simple flour. And an egg. That's it? And this is going to make a tasty cupcake that will make me happy?

I have to admit that after my last WoW baking adventure, I was slightly optimistic, yet also a bit leery about these in-game recipes. Certainly there was some magic involved in turning two gooey spider legs into a delicious pie! But folks, I just couldn't bring myself to believe that any kind of Blizzard magic would turn simple flour and an egg into anything tastier than the most boring "bread" anyone's ever tasted.

Because I always give the benefit of the doubt, I decided I'd at least try this "recipe".

Mise En Place

Well, there's not much to it, is there? Simple flour and an egg.

(I actually added a little water to make it a somewhat decent consistency, but don't tell anyone.)



What do you know? It made enough for TWO cupcakes! Maybe this will turn out all right after all...

The Finished Product

I don't know about you, but I don't think this looks much different than it did before I put it in the oven. (In case you're wondering, it was hard as a rock, and I couldn't even bring myself to taste it.) Well, let's see what the final product looks like in-game.



Okay, this looks nothing like that. And on top of that, it's supposed to yield FIVE cupcakes, not two! What a rip-off! I found this whole thing rather unacceptable, friends. So unacceptable, in fact, that I decided to let Blizzard know about it.



Ahhh.... After letting off some steam (even though my message got cut short, god damnit), I decided to make myself a cupcake that was actually tasty.

A Real Tasty Cupcake

And since I'd been looking at, and expecting, a cupcake that looks like the one in the picture, I decided to make mine look like that. Once again, it's a chocolate-looking cake and a berry-looking topping. Well, I deviated a slight bit; hope you don't mind.

Rich Brownie Cupcake with a Red Buttercream Rosette

A REAL Tasty Cupcake (excuse the poor image quality; my camera's battery died so I had to take this photo with my phone.)

I used this Best Cocoa Brownies recipe, using my own gluten-free flour mixture as usual, and baked it in mini muffin tins instead of in a brownie pan. I made a pretty typical American buttercream, colored it red, and piped little rosettes on the top.



These are so effing delicious, it's a good thing I made them in miniature size so I can ration them out!

I also made some with a fresh banana buttercream glaze (which doesn't look that pretty, sorry), which you can see here.

Gluten-Free Cupcakes from Whole Foods!

I visited Whole Foods today in search of some potato starch and did a double-take when I passed by the small gluten-free baked goods section. Did I see... cupcakes? Cupcakes! Obviously, I had to try them out! They looked so pretty, too. :)



I kept them in my refrigerator all day and finally have had a chance to taste one. The cake is a bit on the crumbly side, but it is moist enough (it's a bit dry, but not overwhelmingly so) and full of vanilla flavor. It tastes like vanilla bean, too, not vanilla extract! The frosting is a lovely vanilla buttercream with a light hint of lemon. Really, when I take a bite of the cake and the vanilla together and I greeted by a lovely, full vanilla bean flavor. So enchanting!

You know, each time I take a bite, I think that it's too dry, but by the time I'm swallowing, I'm thinking of how amazing the vanilla flavor is. I'm not sure if I will buy these again, but I'm glad I got to taste them this time. :)

Ticklebelly Red Velvet Cupcake

I bought this cupcake in the bakery section at Target. The containers have a sticker on them that says Ticklebelly, but I can't find any information about them anywhere! They're so adorable with the little candy dots on the top, and each one is filled with cream! They had a variety of flavors: chocolate, red velvet, vanilla, key lime, etc.

I decided to go for the red velvet flavor since I keep seeing it everywhere lately and I've forgotten what it tastes like. Unfortunately, these cupcakes aren't gluten-free, but I only took two bites (shhh don't tell). It was tasty. The cake was moist, the cream was very sweet, and the cream cheese icing was just perfect!

This entry was featured at Cupcakes Take the Cake!

Geode Cupcakes!

So Kim, my BFF at work and fellow rock-nerd will no longer be my work-spouse (she's moving to a different job), so I wanted to make her something special.

They didn't turn out as perfectly as I'd envisioned, and some are more just minerals and rocks than specifically geodes, but... here they are.

The cupcakes are gluten-free honey-vanilla cake, iced with a combination of vanilla frosting, nutella, various decorating sugars, edible glitter, and chocolate. (I really wanted to use some pearl sugar but couldn't find any on short notice. Boo.)

Dark Chocolate Challenge

Kim and I decided that we needed a little baking challenge. We asked our co-worker to choose an ingredient that we would both have to use in a baking creation. He got together with some of our other co-workers and they came up with our mysery ingredient: dark chocolate. Immediately, we knew this was going to be a challenge for both of us, since neither of us like dark chocolate! That night we went home to make our plans. The next night was for baking. And the following morning we had to bring our creations to the office for tasting and judging.

Kim's Creation: Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Bars with Fresh Berries
[no photos! boo.]
Despite the fact that she doesn't like cream cheese, and thus doesn't like cheesecake, Kim made the most delicious chocolate cheesecake I've ever tasted. The crust was crisp and chocolaty, and the cake was made with raspberry yogurt and chocolate, so it had the most wonderful flavor! We all took one bite and were in heaven.


Kelley's Creation: Dark Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Mint Creme Filling

I was struggling on what to do with this dark chocolate, and finally decided that if I was going to experiment, I might as well go out on a limb and make mint cupcakes. I've never baked with mint before, and while I know chocolate+mint is a winning combination, I didn't know how it would turn out in cake form.

For the cake and mint creme filling, I used a recipe from my Chocolate and Coffee Bible. Of course, I used my gluten-free flour mixture for the cupcakes, and I have to say that I am very pleased with the results. This is probably the best gluten-free cake I've made so far. It was moist and springy, and had a great consistency all the way through. And the hint of mint was very nice. The mint creme recipe I used from the book wasn't very satisfactory in my opinion. It was basically whipping cream and mint extract (with some green food coloring, which I added). It quickly sunk into the cakes. I think next time I will add a little powdered sugar and maybe a bit of butter to give it some more flavor and consistency. The frosting was a complete experiment. I melted a bar and a half of Ghirardelli 70% chocolate with a stick of butter, then added two cups of powdered sugar and some mint extract. It turned out rich and delicious, although I didn't have enough to cover all 18 cupcakes - I got about 15 of them.

I am also pretty pleased with the way they look. They taste wonderful right out of the refrigerator, since you get that rush of coolness not only from the temperature but also from the mint in the cupcakes. I also nuked one of the non-frosted ones for about 10 seconds and it was delicious warm, too. The mint creme melted into the cake and gave it a nice added moist, minty flavor. Yum!


And the winner is: Kim!
We handed out samples to all of our co-workers and students that were in the office. Although we didn't have an official vote (everyone was preoccupied, preparing for Hurricane Ike), I think the answer was clear. Even I voted for Kim's cheesecake! It was to. die. for. (I mean, really, who can win against cheesecake?!)

Cupcakes Make Everything Better!

Today is Memorial Day, but it's also my dad's birthday. In lieu of a birthday gift this year (I never know what to buy him anyway), I decided to bake some cupcakes - which is way better than some store bought cake anyhow.

I saw Chockylit's recipe for chocolate cupcakes stuffed with strawberry chocolate ganache and frosted with chocolate glaze and buttercream and I was in love.



The cupcakes came out sunken in the middle, which created a bit of a predicament when trying to fill them. In the end, I decided to just pour the filling into the sunken middles instead of cutting off the tops. But they were so messy and somewhat ugly that I decided to use a store-bought cake mix for a second batch. The results? The store-bought ones look pretty, but the from-scratch recipe tastes SO much better! My family loved them. They are the first thing I have baked that wasn't gluten free in a year and a half (the store-bought mix, anyway).