Cupcakes on Kitchen3N

Chocolate Candy Cupcakes

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

After a startling reading on the weight scale towards the end of December, I swore off sugar. Just two years prior I worked so hard to lose my baby weight. Inspired by beach body coaches in my network, I vastly cut down sweets, decreased portion sizes, drank tons more water, swapped quinoa for rice in many of my meals, and began to regularly exercise using Fitnessblender, the only exercise I’ve been able to stick to thanks to the fact that I can choose from workouts of different durations and can do it from the convenience of my home. So I lost the 9 pounds of lingering weight, and 8 pounds on top of that.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I usually shy away from pumpkin spice anything. It’s just not my cup of tea. But a few weeks ago our family went to Wightman Farms in New Jersey, where they attempt to ameliorate the hurt inflicted on your wallet from overpriced hay rides with complimentary pumpkins. Thus, I had 4 pumpkins and a whole lotta cooking to do. I made a pumpkin bread which was a bust (recipe said to bake in two 8x4 loaf pans; I brazenly baked it in a single 10x5 in pan and sadly watched through the oven door as it never rose), a pumpkin pasta which was delish, and finally, these fabulous little bites. Important to note that my homemade pumpkin puree is thinner than the canned ones, but I think since this recipe uses vegetable oil and not butter, you should be fine. I whipped these up without a recipe to refer to (hence most of the amounts are 1, 1, 1 [1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup pumpkin, etc.] but hey, it works!) and without even being sure if the end result would be a cupcake or a muffin. Since I wanted to practice my piping, I frosted them with a cream cheese frosting - so I guess they are officially in Camp Cupcake! They are so moist you can serve as a snack without the frosting.

Caramel Cupcakes

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My sweet friend Rabia is expecting her second baby and one of the organizers of her baby shower, another long time friend, Nargis, tapped me to supply the cookies and cupcakes for the event! It was such a treat to experiment with new cupcake recipes, challenge myself with making sugar cookies shaped like books (theme was bring a book for baby), and contribute to such a lovely tablescape (made by Nargis!).Instead of doing the usual chocolate/vanilla selection, I decided to try a caramel cupcake recipe that’s been sitting on my shelf for years. It’s from a magazine from Fine Cooking entitled “Celebration Cakes” (that I think I got from a Lowe’s or Home Depot). If you’ve never worked with caramel, it might be a little tricky to get it right. But a little practice with caramel is so worth it for the world of concoctions you can make. The burnt sugar added some wonderful deep notes to the cupcake. And it came out moist and perfectly tender. Along with the cupcakes, I made sugar cookies in the shape of books by slightly bending my square cookie cutter to a rhombus shape. And, because everything tastes better with chocolate, I applied a chocolate glaze made out of 10 tbsp butter and 10 oz of semi sweet chocolate chips (melted). I did the outline of the book with a ziploc bag with the tip cut. I filled in the “cover” by applying a dollop of the glaze and smoothing it out with the back of a spoon. I applied the “pages” with a simple powdered sugar/milk concoction. And the lettering - traditional buttercream. For the frosting, I used Ina Garten’s cream cheese frosting from her Flower Cupcakes, tinted in blue and pink. Recipe for the caramel cupcakes from Fine Cooking below. Their suggested pairing is a butterscotch frosting. If you’d like for me to share that recipe, just let me know. Enjoy!

Ladybug cupcakes

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

For my daughter’s first birthday, I decided to use her ladybug halloween costume as inspiration for the theme. The result: garden party, complete with ladybugs and butterflies galore. Most aspects of the party were standard fare: food, family, friends and goody bags. However, I wanted to share the centerpiece/dessert for the afternoon, ladybug cupcakes:

I started off with Martha Stewart’s recipe and in fact followed her directions for the ladybugs themselves (7 oz of marzipan, half tinted black, half tinted red then roll into dozens of tiny balls to make about 36 ladybugs). However, as a chocolate lover, could not bring myself to serve only vanilla cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream as directed (though I was ECSTATIC to get the SMB down on my first try during the trial run). On the flip side, anyone who has entertained South Asians knows you can’t serve just chocolate for dessert and get away with it.