White Cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream

Have I mentioned how much I hate the smell of butterfat? I do. In fact, as a child, I didn't like butter on anything from corn on the cob to toast. Fortunately, I have pushed past that as an adult, which has allowed me to enjoy butter on everything. But if I smell it on my skin or in my sink, I still get a little grossed out. The smell of butterfat was yet another thing that made my first job at Baskin-Robbins hard.

It is one of the downsides of this project. I always smell like butterfat these days. And it permeates my apartment.

I mention this because there is a lot of butter between the cupcakes and the buttercream in this post. Don't get scared, now.

I have discovered that, when I bake cupcakes for children, and I ask them or their parents what kind of cupcakes they want, the response is usually white or yellow. Or funfetti. For this reason, I have to stop baking cupcakes for children.

I have a child client that I am meeting with for the last time this week. Often, I bring treats when I am terminating with my child clients, and we have a mini-celebration. When I asked this client what kind of cupcakes he wanted me to bring, he responded white with white frosting. I think his parents were a little bit disappointed, too.

The good news is, I got to make Swiss meringue buttercream.

As far as cooking goes, egg whites are my Achilles' heel. I never feel like I whip them long enough. I have a hard time getting them folded in right in my cupcake recipes, so some of my cupcakes are more light than others. And the last time I tried to make Swiss meringue buttercream, it was a world class disaster.

However, on this day, things were working. I used the bowl that came with my precious, precious KitchenAid to heat up the egg whites, and I measured the temperature with my candy thermometer. I whipped the whites with the KitchenAid whisk attachment and cut in the butter. In a perfect world, the butter would have been at room temperature because it didn't blend with the whites right away. But, as I continued to mix it with the paddle attachment on my KitchenAid, it became a glorious, glossy buttercream. I have probably had other accomplishments that, by worldly standards, are more impressive, but I have never felt as good about myself as I did when the butter softened and it went from egg whites with butter chunks to Swiss Meringue buttercream.

The advantage to using this recipe is that it does not call for powdered sugar. If you are out of powdered sugar or if you do not like the taste of powdered sugar, this might be the buttercream recipe for you. The downside to this recipe is that it calls for lots of egg whites. Consequently, I have LOTS of leftover egg yolks. If you have any tips on what to do with them, I would welcome that.

Here is the link for the cupcakes. It is slightly modified from the one in the recipe book, as this recipe makes 3 dozen, and the one in my book only makes 2 dozen. Often, though, it is better to make less. In this case, I was going to take the leftovers to work, and then, unexpectedly, ended up taking a detour and having lunch with a friend. Meanwhile, the cupcakes sat in my car on a warm day for a couple of hours, and the buttercream melted, which made them unappetizing to the people I work with, and I ended up throwing them away.

Here is the link to the buttercream. Make it and be prepared to be in awe of yourself.

Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes

I've got to be honest about this project:

I am beginning to run out of steam.

Don't worry, I'm not giving up on it. But it's beginning to feel like that point on a run when you hit a wall and have to push past it to get your second wind. I'm waiting for my second wind, I guess.

As of this post, I have now made 12 recipes. I added it up, and I have used 61 eggs (sometimes just the whites, so if you have any ideas about what to do with 10 egg yolks, let me know) and 29 sticks of butter. Even though I haven't eaten all of them, I still feel kind of gross.

But I still have 62 recipes to go. Granted, I have only been at this for two months, and I feel like I am clipping along at a pretty good pace, but it is still daunting to think of how many more recipes I have to make before I am done.

Then, I start to think about how bizarre it is that I decided to undertake this project in the first place. Why am I not satisfied with the goals I am already working toward? Why do I feel the need add more goals? What will I have accomplished by doing this? Does anyone care?

Like I said, I am beginning to run out of steam. And when I run out of steam, I begin to get self-conscious about what I am doing. When I am really excited about things, I tend not to care if I am being loud and/or obnoxious. Don't try to pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about.

But, for now, I will keep going.

So I baked these on the same day that I baked the white cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream. They were going to be for our annual program picnic. The batch only made 23, so, after some contemplation, I decided to make the white cupcakes I was planning to bake early the next week to supplement what looked like a skimpy offering for 47 people.

The weird thing was, when they were displayed on my cupcake tower, the white cupcakes looked like the main event, and the chocolate chunk cupcakes looked like the afterthought. And, yes, I do think it is kind of weird that I own a cupcake tower. It seems kind of ostentatious. Of course, when I said that out loud, some people made fun of me for using the word ostentatious. Apparently, the word ostentatious is kind of ostentatious. Now my head hurts.

This recipe is actually one of three that were designed to look/taste like cookies. The other recipes will, I'm sure, appear later on. It seemed safe and kid-friendly.

And I got to pull out my Trader Joe's chocolate.

I love Trader Joe's. If you live near one, be very grateful. There is not one in the entire state of Texas. Grrr. We do have Whole Foods, but don't even mention how far away the nearest one is from my apartment.

I bought this Belgian chocolate at the Trader Joe's near Shane and Maria's house. Maria was nice enough to take me there, even though, for her, it meant chasing her daughter up and down the aisles trying to stop her from grabbing things.

I chopped it up myself with my Miracle Blades. Despite the fact that I nearly lost my finger using the filet knife when I first bought them, I love these Miracle Blades. They made great chocolate chunks.

Here is the official Martha link to this recipe. I want to be on the up and up with this website. The resulting product is great with vanilla ice cream, which I discovered when I took them over Alden, Garrett, and Charlie's house. I also discovered that Charlie doesn't even like cupcakes, which is a subject for another post.

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes

I am getting really behind on blogging about these cupcakes. I blame my life. Rest assured that, while it is taking me awhile to get blog posts about the cupcakes up, I am still baking the cupcakes.

These cupcakes appeared at Enrichment this week. Sadly, I did not appear at Enrichment. Because I work for an employee assistance program, by definition, my clients all have jobs. Consequently, most of them need to be seen in the evenings, which makes it hard for me to follow TV shows (thank goodness they have started making them available on the internet) or attend night activities during the week. However, when they announced in Relief Society that there would be cupcakes at the upcoming Enrichment activity, it went without saying that I would contribute.

I picked this recipe because it made me think of an old-fashioned soda fountain. Also, I haven't made any chocolate cupcakes out of this book yet, which I think is a crying shame, since I love chocolate. And I made this recipe on the heels of a killer weekend which included some school disappointment, some depressing singles' activities, and a really bad BYU loss. Thank goodness for cupcakes.

This recipe includes some fun ingredients like

and

Chocolate malted cupcakes

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 c. unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (I could not find this in the store. Apparently, the Dutch processing removes some of the nutrients, so most stores sell natural cocoa powder. Thanks again, Martha. However, I did find this Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, which blends natural and Dutched cocoa together. In case you are wondering, Dutch cocoa is darker than natural cocoa).

1/2 c. granulated sugar

3/4 c. packed light-brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. milk

1 1/4 c. malted milk powder

1 c. vegetable oil (this is maybe the first Martha recipe I have made that calls for oil instead of butter)

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 c. sour cream, room temperature

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract (I plan to use the imitation stuff until it runs out)

Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk flour, cocoa, both sugars, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together milk and malted milk powder until powder is dissolved.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat flour mixture, milk mixture, and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add sour cream and vanilla, and beat until just combined.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups (should fill about halfway). Bake, rotating tins halfway through, about 20 minutes. Makes about 28.

Frost with fluffy vanilla frosting.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting

This is a lot like what I would consider a buttercream frosting. I used my KitchenAid to whip it to a fluffy consistency.

1 1/2 c. (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (I know, I know)

1 lb. (4 c.) confectioners' sugar, sifted (I did not sift mine. I feel okay about it).

1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add confectioner's sugar, 1/2 c. at a time, beating well after each addition, and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. After every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.

Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. Spread with a knife or pipe with pastry bag.

I really liked the way this frosting piped on the cupcakes. I haven't decided if I think it is a good thing or a bad thing for my cupcakes to look store-bought.

Applesauce-Spice Cupcakes

There are some recipes that I am more excited about than others. This was not one of those recipes. Hence, this will probably not be a very exciting post.

I flew home from California on Friday, an hour late for my shift at the temple. On Sunday, my branch became a ward, at long last. A new bishopric was called, and I felt very fortunate that I was there for it. On Monday, I turned in my rewritten qualifying exam and immediately went to work on my dissertation proposal. On Tuesday, I got the urge to bake again.

I always think of apples in the fall. It seemed like, as a kid, there was at least one day in school where we did something with apples, just because it was fall. Some years, Melanee and I have made shrunken heads out of apples, which is a pretty good use for them, I think. Also, tons of people in New York grow apples, and, in the fall, as missionaries, we always got lots of cider and apple crisp.

So, now that the days are finally starting to cool down, it seems like a good time to make an apple recipe. There are no weird ingredients in this one, like Meyer lemons or crystallized ginger. It's a simple recipe that could have come from anywhere, and took very little prep time.

The best part of this recipe was the brown sugar cream cheese frosting. I used part brown sugar and part raw sugar, as I realized late that I was almost out of brown sugar. Also, the applesauce makes the cake very moist (I apologize to those of you reading who hate that word), and the spices are wonderful. It's a good recipe to make.

Applesauce-Spice Cupcakes

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg (I did not grate my nutmeg, but I was still pleased with the results)

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 c. granulated sugar

1/2 c. packed light-brown sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce

1 c. pecans (about 4 oz.) toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 350 (someday I'll learn how to make the degree symbol on blogger. In the meantime, call me lazy). Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. These spices alone make me think of fall and homemade applesauce.

With an electric mixer on high speed, cream butter and both sugars until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add applesauce and then flour mixture, beating until just combined after each. Stir in pecans by hand.

Divide batter among cups. Bake about 20 minutes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature or frozen for up to 2 months in airtight containers. Makes 24.

When cool, frost with brown-sugar cream-cheese frosting.

Brown-Sugar Cream-Cheese Frosting

1/2 c. (one stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1 c. packed light brown sugar

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in butter and brown sugar until smooth and well-combined. Use immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Because nothing exciting happened during the baking of these cupcakes, I thought I would finish off this post with a little bit about what I do with all of these cupcakes.

Typically, I try to time my cupcake baking around a food assignment at church, such as our monthly Mix-and-Munch, or Linger Longer or Snack and Mack or whatever you want to call staying after church to eat and talk. When I teach Relief Society, I usually bring cupcakes. I tend to have some sort of treat when I meet with my child clients for the last time. Also, I bring them to work, to school, and, if there are any leftover, to institute. This time around, I brought some to work, and tried to pass them off as a birthday treat for my boss. When he asked if I really brought them for his birthday, I came clean and told him I forgot, and it was just a lucky coincidence. I kind of wished I'd lied.

Sometimes, I have visions of handing them out to random people on the streets, or generating a new friendship with them, or just finally connecting with the girls I visit teach by bringing them the perfect treat. I do occasionally find myself passing them out to security personnel and patients on the way to work, but, more often than not, they end up going to the people I see all the time--the people in my ward, people I work with, fellow students, etc. They are the people who are most important to me here in Lubbock, so I feel okay about that.

And I got very positive reviews from the other MFT students for these particular cupcakes. Make them if you are feeling like it's fall.

Carrot Cupcakes and Disneyland

During the week I was in California, I had grand plans to bake four different kinds of cupcakes with my family. However, we ended up being pretty busy most of the time I was there, and I only baked one batch of cupcakes while I was there. But, I have to say, they turned out to be some of my favorites.

Before leaving for California, I talked to my sister-in-law, Maria, about which cupcake recipe she wanted to make. She decided on carrot cupcakes because carrot cake is my brother's favorite, and that's the kind of wife she is. I would also like to point out that, since I started the cupcake project, Maria has been one of my most loyal supporters, and it was a blast to get to bake these with her. Someday, perhaps, I will live closer to her, and I'll get to bake cupcakes with her and play with Brooklyn all the time. In the meantime, though, I'll take what I can get.

Of all the recipes I have ever made, this might be my favorite. It is incredibly moist and uses vanilla bean rather than vanilla extract, which gives it a great flavor.

Carrot Cupcakes

1 pound carrots, peeled and finely grated

3 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 c. buttermilk (this can be made using a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice per cup of regular milk)

2 c. sugar

1 1/2 c. vegetable oil

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved (or 1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract)

1/2 c. golden raisins (Maria and I did not put raisins in our cupcakes, as she does not like them. Later on, when Shane bit into his first cupcake, he said, "You know what would be great in these? Some raisins.")

3 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 325. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together carrots, eggs, buttermilk, sugar, oil, vanilla-bean seeds, and raisins. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Stir flour mixture into carrot mixture until well-combined.

By far, the hardest part of the recipe was turning this:

into this:

If you're lucky, you'll have some great helpers.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, 23-28 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely.

To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with a mound of frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temperature and, if desired, garnish with toasted coconut before serving.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 c. (2 sticks unsalted butter)

12 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1 lb. (4 c.) confectioners' sugar, sifted (I did not sift mine)

1/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Actually, I usually beat the cream cheese by itself first, and then add the butter. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1/2 c. at a time, and then vanilla, and mix until smooth and combined.

Toasted Coconut

Preheat oven to 350. Spread coconut evenly on a rimmed baking sheet; toast, stirring occasionally, until starting to brown, about 10 minutes (or longer if darker color is desired). Transfer sheet to a wife rack; let cool completely.

We boxed some up to take to Maria and Shane's neighbors.

But, after a couple of unsuccessful tries at catching them at home, we had to eat them. Really, we did. We had run out already, and by that time, my mother and Melanee had arrived, and were expecting to get to eat cupcakes.

PS. After I made these, I found out you can buy grated carrots at the grocery store. Just a small tip.

Lest you think I did nothing on my vacation but bake cupcakes, here are some more pictures:

Here's Brooklyn, ready for church and eating an apple while she waits for the rest of us to finish getting dressed.

We spent a day at the L.A. County Fair. The funnel cake was the highlight of the day.

Here's a shot of Kevin. He loved everything we did that week, with a few notable exceptions:

• He hated the petting zoo part of the fair. He refused to pet any animals until George petted them first (no small feat for George, I might add).
• He hated the ocean. Maybe it's just me, but I believe he grasped the vastness of the ocean and realized his insignificance beside it. He also became very concerned about his hat.
• He did NOT want to meet the Disney princesses. Below is a shot of him clinging to Uncle Shane in an effort to be hidden from the view of Belle.

Below is a shot of him as the day wore on, and his enthusiasm was overtaken by his fatigue.

Here's a shot of Sammie at BJ's restaurant, where we had wonderful pizza.

Dad, showing off his strength at lifting two of his grandchildren. Ignore the one picking her nose. Sorry about that, Brooklyn. And the one sucking his thumb. Sorry, Mel.

Sammie, eagerly anticipating visiting the Disney princesses. If you visit Disneyland and have a huge desire to meet a Disney princess, prepare to stand in a really long line. And if you have a three-year-old with you, be prepared to dance around with her in your arms. Also, have someone there to hold your place in line in case one or both of you has to go to the bathroom.

Here she is with Belle:

And here she is with Maria, Brooklyn, and Ariel (we had some trouble figuring out who she was at first).

The funniest thing about the princesses was that, while they made Kevin nervous, Sammie loved them. Conversely, all of the rides Kevin loved, like Dumbo, Sammie did not enjoy. However, by the end of the day, everyone was having a pretty good time. All in all, it was a great week, and I look forward to seeing my family again very soon.

Blondie Cupcakes

I know it seems as though I have been slacking on my cupcake project as of late. First, there were quals, immediately followed by a family vacation, and then more quals. It seemed ludicrous to me to try to bake cupcakes in between everything. However, I did, anyway.

When I first moved to Lubbock, I found myself surrounded by a wonderful group of graduate students and young professionals in my branch. People looked out for me, and made sure I was included in whatever activities were going on. Because of school, I often had to decline their invitations, but I was always grateful to have friends who were looking out for me. One of those friends was Jenny Jo. Jenny Jo and I see eye to eye on many things, and have enjoyed many inside jokes together over the two years we have been in the branch together. She recently finished her master's in soil science, and moved back to Orem, Utah to look for a job.

Here is Jenny Jo with Chief at his barn during a Halloween dance.

The day before I left for California, we had a party for Jenny Jo, and I felt like the best way I could show my appreciation to her was to bake some cupcakes. Also, it's getting to the point where if I showed up with brownies or something, people would just look at me funny.

I picked blondies because I was almost out of eggs, and this is one of the few recipes that only calls for two. These turned out really well.

They had exciting things like cashews,

butterscotch chips,

and toffee bits,

They were a little more dense than most of the cupcakes I've made, but they were really good. I think, next time, I'll serve them with ice cream and some kind of maple cream sauce, like the ones you get at Applebee's. Also, they were pretty easy, which is not always the case when you are making a recipe from Martha Stewart.

Blondie Cupcakes

1 2/3 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. (1 stick) plus 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 c. packed light-brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature (for the record, I don't pay a lot of heed to whether or not my eggs are room temperature)

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract (still using imitation)

1/3 c. butterscotch chips

1/2 c. unsalted cashews, coarsely chopped (3 oz.)

1/4 c. toffee bits

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners (if I didn't write this, would people just do it?). Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

With an electric mixer on medium high speed, cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, and beat until incorporated. Fold in butterscotch chips, cashews, and toffee bits by hand.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers come out with only a few moist crumbs attached (but is not wet), about 30 minutes. Transfer tin to a wire rack to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Makes 12 (this is why it only uses 2 eggs).

Here is a shot of the finished cupcakes. By the time I got to the party, things were beginning to wind down, but the cupcakes were a hit nonetheless. Either that, or people have just gotten really good at giving me external validation.