Merry Christmas Cupcakes!

I know I haven't baked much in the last couple months but that's because school and work have been insane. So instead of squeezing it in and not doing what I want, I waited for the semester to be over and then baked with a vengeance. For the holidays, I thought it would be great to bake for the people I love. I decided to make 3 varieties of cupcakes, box them up and deliver them! I went and got 30 cake boxes and 30 cupcake inserts and a ridiculous amount of baking supplies! The rest were cute cake boxes full of red velvet, yellow and peppermint mocha cupcakes! Cupcakes! A lot of cupcakes!

Like I said, I started with a TON of supplies. I used 6.5 pounds of butter, 23 cups of flour, 8 cups of buttermilk, 9 pounds of powdered sugar...just to name a few!

I did all of my baking at my parent's house because they have double convection ovens and an additional kitchenaid. I had two ovens and two kitchen aids going at once! I was a baking machine!

I did a triple batch of Red Velvet which was taken from Cooks Illustrated:

·         2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

·         1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

·         1 pinch salt

·         1 cup buttermilk

·         1 tablespoon white vinegar

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·         2 large eggs

·         2 tablespoons cocoa powder

·         2 tablespoons red food coloring (one 1-ounce bottle)

·         12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)

·         1 1/2 cups sugar

Directions:

Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.

Whisk buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla and eggs in large measuring cup.

Mix cocoa with food coloring in small bowl until smooth paste forms.

With stand mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as necessary.

Add one-third of flour mixture and beat on medium-low speed until just incorporated, about 30 seconds.

Add half of buttermilk mixture and beat on low speed until combined, about 30 seconds.

Scrape down bowl as necessary and repeat with half of remaining flour mixture, remaining buttermilk mixture, and finally remaining flour mixture.

Scrape down bowl, add cocoa mixture and beat on medium speed until completely incorporated about 30 seconds.

Using rubber spatula give batter final stir.

Scrape into prepared pans and bake at 350* until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

The second cupcakes were Peppermint Mocha and they were delicious!

This recipe was taken from Annie's Eats Blog:

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 tsp. espresso powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 cup whole milk
1 cup strong brewed coffee
1 tsp. peppermint extract
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs

For the frosting:
6 large egg whites
1¾ plus 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tsp. peppermint extract
1-2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir together.  Combine the milk, coffee and peppermint extract in a liquid measuring cup.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugars.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Blend in the eggs one at a time.   Alternately mix in the dry and liquid ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and mixing just until incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners.  Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.   Let cool in the pan 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I then frosted them with a peppermint buttercream frosting.

Lastly, I made a yellow cake with green butter cream:

The recipe for this cake can be found on a previous post!

I ended up making 235 cupcakes! It was an amazing process! It took me about 3.5 hours to bake and another couple hours to decorate everything. 

Here's the before:

and after:

Teresa took pictures of all the cupcakes for me and me with them all!

I'm lost in a sea of cupcakes and I'm loving every minute of it!

I honestly couldn't have asked for them to turn out better. I hope that everyone who got some enjoyed them. I loved making them and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a great New Years!

Also a big thank you to my parents for letting my turn their house into a bakery for a couple days! 

Thank you to Teresa for taking pictures of the cupcakes and making the awesome Warhol like cupcake art for me with my own cupcake! 

It really couldn't have gone better! Eat up! 

A Night at the Masquerade

I just wanted to start off by wishing one of my best friends, Tara, a wonderful 25th birthday today! We celebrated the day of her birth a night early last night and went out on the town all dressed up donning our masks. We fit in well due to the fact that there were scads of prom groups out as well. To help Tara celebrate her masquerade birthday I made her a cake to match. I really hoping she enjoyed it! It fit her theme and tasted yummy to boot.

Tara enjoying her cake in her lovely mask!

For this cake I used my favorite yellow cake recipe. It is great for a cake that needs to feed a lot of people. The recipe is originally for 2 9x13" pans, however I split it between 6 9" cake pans so my baking time is dramatically lowered than one the recipe calls for. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9x13 inch pans. Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

This is my go to recipe for a delicious cake. It is very dense but still very moist because it has so much buttermilk. So for this specific cake I split it evenly into three bowls so that I could individually color the layers. 

I then used colors that I thought would work well with the masquerade theme...

The batter ended up looking a little bit like this...

I baked 6 different layers. Two of each color. Since each pan only had about a cup and a half of batter in it, it only took about 15 minutes to bake each layer. 

After all of the layers cooled I stacked the cake with yellow frosting in the middle.

I then frosted the entire cake in a purple frosting. I used a bowl scraper to make the sides even with frosting. I let the cake then set in the fridge before I decorated the rest of the cake. 

For decorations I the cake I made roses out of butter cream in red and black. I also made gems and stars out of white chocolate with molds and sprayed them with an edible pearl dust so they looked more realistic. After I had all of these things ready to go it was just a matter of getting it all on the cake!

I think it turned out well. It would double well as a Phantom of the Opera cake with a different mask on top! I like how it turned out. The inside was also a colorful surprise!

All in all, happy birthday to Tara! I hope you had a great birthday. I had a great time and I thought we all looked amazing in our masks, including the cake.