Celebration Cupcakes

Happy 4th of July friends!  I hope you are enjoying it. 

Source

This weeks recipe is inspired by one of my favorite treats growing up, the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream bar.  This was and still is one of my all time favorites when I opt for a bar.  A few weeks ago we were visited by an old childhood friend, the ice cream man.  Since we were feeling frisky, we decided to indulge ourselves with these sugary treats.  (Yes we could have easily bought these from the store, but its not the same as from the ice cream man)

While I was eating devouring my ice cream, I started thinking about how delicious it would be to have those flavors in a cupcake.  I could tell the one key flavor, strawberry powdered milk. 

I searched online to see what types of recipes are out there using the powdery mix, but nothing to my liking.  So I improvised.

Strawberry Cupcakes (Nesquik Style)

This recipe makes 12 or 13 cupcakes, depending on how your fill your pans. 

1 cup white sugar

3 tbs Nesquik powder (strawberry flavor)

1/2 cup of butter, softened

2 eggs room temp

1 1/4 cup + 2 tbs sifted cake flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup whole milk, room temp

1/2 tbs vanilla

In a large bowl, cream your butter, sugar, Nesquik until it is light and fluffy.  Then add your eggs one at a time, making sure they are evenly incorporated after each add.  

In another bowl (because I like to keep things separate sometimes, but you dont have to), combine flour and baking powder.  Stir your batter and milk with egg mix alternately.  Then add your vanilla.  

This time I used our meat thermometer to track the temps in the oven.  I didnt want to have dried out cupcakes.  Heat your oven to 350 and bake for 25-30 mins, but start checking around 23 mins. 

My oven was playing a few games with me when I made these.  I had the temp set at 325 since the last time 350 dried out my cupcakes.  The thermometer said the temp inside was around 370.  So I turned it down to 300.  After 22 minutes my cupcakes were a runny mess and I had to crank it back to 350 (which this time ended up being accurate).  Of course this cooked it much faster and made the edges a little crispy.

While these were baking, I decided to take a new frosting route and rely more on cream cheese than powdered sugar.  I thought the cream cheese would act as the ice cream flavor in the bar. 

Cream Cheese frosting:
1/4 cup of butter at room temp
1 8 ounce box of cream cheese at room temp
2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

Cream the butter and cheese.  Then add sugar.  This called for 3-4 cups of sugar, but I am not a huge fan of powdered sugar flavoring, plus I liked the consistency with 2 1/2.

I mixed and mixed and mixed.  Of course with all this mixing, it was melting the frosting a little (friction=heat=runny cheese).  To thicken it up, I tossed it in the freezer for the length of a shower (hey, baking is dirty work).  Then I mixed a little more to incorporate more air and warm it up a little. 

The verdict:
3 of 5 stars.  I was happy with the shape of the frosting (although I would like it to be a lllliiiittttllllee fluffier).  The cake sort of crumbled which was strange.  The flavor had hints of the strawberry, but I feel like if salt or something acidic were added, the flavors would have been more dominant.  Like I said before, having to change the temp of the oven crisped up the edges, but the middle was moist.  The flavor of the frosting was pretty dominant, but I love cream cheese so it did not bother me. 

Did it taste like the Good Humor Strawberry shortcake bar? Not 100%, but with tweaks we will get there!  And hey, the next day it was even better tasting. 

In even better news.......look what I got for my early birthday present:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Starting with the Basics: Yellow Cake and Chocolate Frosting

Officially I have started baking for the purposes of creating FTLOB into something bigger.  Yesterday I sat down and tackled the basic of the basics: yellow cake. 

I could have started with all the crazy, delicious flavors I wanted to start with, but at the end of the day yellow is the most common. 

For this recipe I decided to halve it because we cant eat that many cupcakes.  But either I didnt fill my cups up enough (which I think I did) or one full recipe makes 40 cupcakes. 

Recipe for yellow cake: Makes one cake of 22-24 cupcakes (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

4 cups + 2tbs of cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted room temp butter

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 large eggs room temp

2 cups buttermilk, well shaken

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter or line pan with parchment paper (or cupcake liners)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl.  

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Then add vanilla.  Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well incorporated and scraping sides.  

At low speed, add buttermilk until just combined.  Your mix looks curdled and very liquidy.  Dont worry

Add the flour mixture in three batches mixing until just covered.  The key is to not OVER mix.  

Fill your pan and bake 30-45 mins ( I would start checking around the 25 min mark)

While those were out cooling, I decided to make a chocolate frosting.  Who doesnt love chocolate and yellow cake?

Recipe for Chocolate Frosting: (I also halved this) (adapted from Crazy About Cupcakes)

6 tbs butter, room temp

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups confectioners sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey unsweet)

1/2 cup milk (use as much as you need to get your consistancy)

Cream butter and vanilla together in a bowl.  Better yet, dont run out of vanilla.  I did.  In separate bowl, combine sugar and cocoa.  Add dry ingredients to butter mix.  Then add milk slowly while mixing.  Add as much or as little as you need.  I needed more than what it called for. 

Mix mix mix.  

Here is the final product:

For me, I am not into towering frosting that takes over the cake.  BUT I also like frosting that holds its shape.

Verdict: Its time to invest in a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and an oven thermometer.  I personally do not like working with confectioners sugar for frosting because its way too sweet.  A mixer would have come in handy here because the frosting needed to be mixed for a long time.  It fell flat. 

An oven thermometer would have been nice because until I can buy an oven I know will work, I am stuck with a 30 year old apartment oven that does not heat well.  The outsides of the cupcake were a little too done, while this inside was moist. 

They were still really good!

I am going to start experimenting with different techniques on how to make the perfect moist yellow cake.  Not bad though for the first run.