Vanilla Cupcakes w/ Fudge Frosting (Reposting the recipe)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

From: Cooking on the side

yields: 1 dozen cupcakes

Cupcake:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 sifted cake flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

Frosting:

3 3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 stick butter, softened

4 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate,melted and cooled

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin pan with liners.

2. Cream butter and slowly add in sugar until fluffy in a medium bowl. Add in eggs one at a time until incorporated. 

3. In another bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt. 

4. Mix the milk and extracts in a small bowl.

5. Add flour mixture alternately with milk mixture to the butter mix, beating after each addition until smooth.

6. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for about 17-20 minutes of until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean. 7. Cool in pans for 10 minutes and then remove from pans and cool completely on cooling racks.

Frosting:
1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until creamy. Add in the chocolate  and beat until blended.
- If necessary add more milk 1 tbsp at a time until to get desired spreading consistency. Using either a piping bag, a spoon, or an offset spatula to frost the cupcakes.

Notes:
- I only got 1 dozen regular cupcakes out of the batter
- My cupcakes were done at 17 minutes instead of the original 20.

Cinnamon Sugar Apple Cake

I have been wanting to publish some new recipes, but the weather here has been anything, but pretty. The days have been switching between 70 to the 40's, raining off and on, and the last few days have been extremely foggy which is not a good thing when needing natural light for photos. My mom actually bought me a inexpensive indoor lighting set, but I need to put stronger bulbs in and I haven't really put the time into experimenting with it lately. 

The fog makes everything look a little creepy.

  Last week my spring class started, but it wasn't until Thursday that I could actually do some work since the online site was having problems and both students and teachers were locked out for several hours. I've been spending most of my time printing and going over specific instructions for each class, compiling all of my due dates into my Iphone calender, and working on a few simple first assignments. Work has been going much better thankfully and I can also start taking my laptop to work on school during my lunch break or it I finish work projects early. Since the new system is up and running, I have been organizing and scanning customer information for my mom along with helping some other coworkers organize their paperwork and help with projects.

I used my Canon 430EX II Speedlite. 

Apple Pecan Cake

  I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this recipe today or one of the other dozen recipes that I have saved as drafts including one for delicious raw brownies, but I picked this recipe since it would be a simple breakfast cake for the holidays. Last week my mom reminded me that it was once again time for me to find a recipe to bake for the church breakfast for Sunday. So far when I have made something it has been these pumpkin muffins which were a hit so I've brought them many times, this zesty lemon blueberry bread, a buttermilk blueberry cake,a cream cheese coffee cake, and a few other treats that I never took pictures of which meant no blog post.

  I wanted to make something with apples since they are in season and one of my favorite snacks. The orange zest and fresh juice gives this cake a slight tang while helping cut through the richness of the cake. I cut a small corner slice from the cake when it was still warm, tasted it, went off to give my mom a small piece and we both felt the same way about this cake..we loved it! I was tempted to keep the cake for us at home and pick up something from the store before church for everyone else, but I didn't.

Peanut Butter Cake Bars

Need a quick, last minute dessert for the family or potluck? 

We were having family out for our usual Sunday Supper and I had no idea what to make for the dessert so searched around Pinterest and found this easy recipe.

Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake

I wanted to share this recipe today since this is going to be a busy week for me and I probably won't have time to post anything again til Thursday or next Monday. 

 It was once again time to make a breakfast item to take to church. I wanted to choose something that was portable, simple, and used fresh summer  fruit.  I found a recipe and seeing that it had over 900 comments and rave reviews I decided to pick that recipe to make. I ended up making 2 cakes since I was sure 1 wouldn't enough for church and I figured that any leftovers would be taken home by the pastors.

 The first cake I made turned out having a little more color on the top and was a little dryer than the second because I added just the amount of buttermilk listed  instead of adding a tab bit more. Even though this cake is labeled as "breakfast" it's basically a cake that you can have it any time of the day since it is slightly sweet.  This cake is dense,  loaded with blueberries, has a good tang from the buttermilk, and the lemon zest lightens it up.

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

    Its time again for me to make something for church. My mom's class usually has a small breakfast of coffee with a sweet store bought item. People take turns bringing breakfast and when it's my mom's turn, I volunteer to bake something. I've made pumpkin muffins, lemon blueberry yogurt bread, and Sunday morning muffins (pumpkin cream cheese muffins).

    I wanted to do something different, but something that everyone would like. For a while I have found recipe that I wanted to make, but didn't because they contained nuts. I like baking with nuts (especially pecans), but I was always worried to make something for Sunday with nuts if anyone had a nut allergy because I didn't want someone to have a reaction or not have breakfast because they don't like nuts. Well, this week I decided to make a recipe with nuts; I chose walnuts since my mom hates pecans.

Pumpkin Cake

  A few months ago, I decided to try  find serveral different pumpkin recipes to make during the fall and winter months. I found pumpkin recipes for cookies, pumpkin chip granola bars, a pumpkin roll cake ,muffins and many more that I still haven't tried yet.
I'm a pumpkin addict, I admit it.
 
  A family friend who travels for work recently came home for a short vacation. Dennis (the friend) has a huge sweet tooth- I think that is one reason we get along so well. Well I decided that if we were going to visit them, then I would want to make Dennis a treat. From my search of recipes involving pumpkin, I came across a recipe for Pumpkin Bars with a Cream Cheese Frosting from Sweet Pea's Kitchen. This recipe is called Pumpkin Bars, but it is more of a pumpkin cake than anything else. No matter the name, this recipe is a winner! The batter took only minutes to make and the frosting is addictive without being tooth-rotting sweet like some frostings. Plus, if you make the frosting by hand (which is what I did) it makes wanting another peice of cake less of a bad thing.

I added some orange, red, & yellow sugar sprinkles to make it look pretty

Thanksgiving Dessert: Pumpkin Roll cake

   This year, we had Thanksgiving out at our house and I decided to make everything -except for the turkey; thats my mom's job.
I decided that I would make a pie, but use store bought crust and filling since you generally think of pie for the holidays. I also wanted to make a pumpkin roll cake. I had never before made a roll cake of any kind, but that didn't seem to bother me.

   On thursday (Thanksgiving) I decided to make the pumpkin roll cake. One reason being that they can be chilled or frozen after being prepared and another being if it didn't turn out or it cracked then I would have enough time to either make another cake or go to Plan B (I didn't really have a plan B, but I knew it would be another pumpkin dessert.)
The batter itself was very simple and fast to prepare. Our kitchen was filled with the aroma of pumpkin and nutmeg while the cake was baking.
The filling was very tasty and can be prepared ahead of time and just whipped again before filling the cake. I used vanilla that a friend brought back from a recent trip to mexico. It has a sweeter flavor than the stuff you buy at the store.
But there were some bumps in the road....
1. I kinda went overboard with the powdered sugar on the towel to prevent sticking and ending up getting powdered sugar on one whole side of the kitchen and floor. I later resembled an archaeologist dusting off extra powdered sugar off the nuts (#3) and the outside of the cake with a pastry brush.
2. I hesitated to roll the cake at first due to fear of breaking it, but it turned out good; even though it did have a slight crack- just 1 inch or so,but nothing that anyone, but me would notice.
3. I did roll it "backwards" though- I made the side with the nuts on the outside instead of the inside.
Filling the cake with the cream was actually very easy and I didn't have any cream seeping out the sides when I rolled the cake up again.

New York Cheesecake

Hi.
Im back.
Sorry I haven't felt like cooking since I'm still not feeling 100% and I also had a doctor's ap. yesterday.

Cheesecake. Its amazing. Period.
Even though Im not a big fan of dairy, cheesecake is my favorite dessert, though I don't eat it often.
This is the only cheesecake recipe I have ever used and it's always a hit!
If you opened my cookbook  and turned to the cheesecake page, you would see 2 pages that has stains from the cheesecake batter and vanilla extract.

Red Velvet Cake w/ Fluffy Frosting

Red Velvet Cake.

YUM!!

And Sprinkles!

My mom (a yankee) has never tried red velvet cake! Ever. And she has lived in Texas for what twenty-something years! Well, this came about after I wanted to make buttermilk biscuits and where my mom was, they only sold 1/2 gallon sizes so I needed to use the rest of the buttermilk.

Also I wanted to make it as a present to my self for finishing all of my tests and essays for this grading period.

And because I was a little bummed that Texas A&M Vet school was completely completely out of my future.

Its like being in science class again.

Vinegar + baking soda = bubbles

This is the flour/milk "pudding" after its finished cooking

Add the cooled "pudding" into the whipped butter and sugar

Magnifique

Birthday Cake

I dont recall ever having a birthday cake. Maybe It was because our family always went out to dinner instead of having a party. Well this past weekend, we broke tradition! The family came out to the ranch and we had a party for my 17th birthday. I decided that I wanted to make my own cake.from scratch. I wanted to make a yellow(or butter or golden-whatever you chose to call it) since it is one of my favorites. I soon realized that there we not a whole lot of recipes from scratch on yellow cake online.
I thought that I finally found one, but this cake is more of a white cake instead of a yellow cake.