Allergen Free Chocolate Cupcakes

In planning my visit to Utah, there was a crucial detail that I neglected to factor in:

It snows there.

Sometimes, it snows a lot.

I didn't experience blizzards or anything while I was there, but we did have a couple of days where we elected to stay home, rather than drive out in the snow.

So we had to come up with some things to do at home. Bear in mind that, if Kevin had his way, we would have just sat in the family room watching Cars in our pajamas for three days straight. But I came up with some other activities.

First, I had the kids model their Halloween costumes for me. That took up some time. As you

can see, Sammie took the dog thing very seriously and decided this was a good time to start drinking out of a bowl on the floor.

Then, Melanee suggested I take some time and bake cookies with her kids.

I suggested we do cupcakes, instead because I could cross another one off of my list.

Plus, it meant Sammie and I had an opportunity to dress up in our aprons. I was fortunate enough this Christmas to receive three aprons. Apparently, great minds think alike. And every one of them is super-cute. The one I am wearing in this picture was given to me by Shane and Maria, and Maria actually made it. It's hard to tell, but it is covered in cherries and, smart woman that she is, Maria made the part that goes around my neck adjustable, which is good, since that is the part of the apron that tends to be a bad fit on me. I am a big fan of Sammie's chef's hat, also.

If you're wondering, no one in the family is allergic to eggs or milk or nuts, which this cake is

free from. However, this is a great recipe to make with a young child for some key reasons:

It doesn't require any fancy ingredients.

It doesn't ask for any complicated procedures. In fact, we made these cupcakes in one bowl.

It doesn't call for any eggs. So, I guess it's also a good recipe to use if

you don't have any eggs in your house and you still want to make cupcakes.

This last part was particularly important because Sammie wanted to do EVERYTHING by herself, from adding ingredients to mixing batter to filling the tins. I can only imagine how it could have gone if eggs were involved. And she is a pretty hard person to say no to. At least, she is for me. And I feel, since I am not in charge of her discipline, and I want her to like me, that I shouldn't have to say no to her as often as her parents do. This attitude got me into a little bit of trouble with her mother, particularly because the batter is extremely thin, and it dripped all over the place when she tried to fill the liners. After we baked them, we discovered that some of the cupcakes had batter on the outside of the liners, which baked like normal and made for an interesting look.

But I thought they turned out pretty good, despite the fact that they contained no eggs or dairy. And, yes, I allowed Sammie to help me dust them with powdered sugar and cocoa, which is why they look like cocoa exploded on them. Here is the recipe. The link also adds a frosting recipe, but I thought they were fine without frosting.

After we finished the cupcakes, we decided to go outside and build a snowman. Sammie and I began the snowman together, while Melanee was inside dressing Kevin for the snow, and, apparently, fighting with him over this pair of oversized pink boots he did not want to wear, which is how he ended up wearing his tennis shoes, and why he did not stay outside for very long.

I decided initially that the snowman would be the same size as Sammie. However, by the time Melanee and Kevin came outside, the snowman was just barely at Sammie's knees, and my enthusiasm was already beginning to wane. Fortunately, Melanee decided that this snowman needed to look different from your average snowman whose body is big while his head is small. We went for the big head/small body approach, instead.

Not unlike this handsome gentleman on the right. He was slightly more thrilled to be outside than this picture would indicate, but his feet were probably freezing in their little canvas shoes, and he refused to put his thumbs in the thumb place, so he was without opposable thumbs for the moment. He kept trying to take his mittens off so that he could use his thumbs, but, of course, that made his hands cold. Then his nose started to run. Needless to say, he didn't last long.

After Melanee put Kevin down for a nap, we came back out to finish our snowman. For those of you who don't know my sister, she is something of a perfectionist. And it rears its ugly head at the oddest of times, like when it's approximately 20 degrees outside and we're trying to put a face on a snowman. We were very happy with the results, especially when we were back inside and our feet had the chance to thaw a little.

After some ethical debates, Melanee broke some branches off the tree behind her house for the snowman's arms. I would guess that the HOA would not be particularly pleased if they knew she'd done that. However, since George is on the HOA board, maybe they will cut her some slack.

It is hard to tell from this tiny picture, but the snowman's eyes are pistachio shells that we colored with a Sharpie. His nose is a baby carrot (at Sammie's insistence), and his teeth are dried black beans, which made us giggle as we thought about Mr. Heyman, the gym teacher on Seinfeld who had "little baked bean teeth."

Here's Sammie with our completed snowman. As you can probably tell, Kevin

donated his hat to the cause while he was blissfully sleeping in his warm bed, and the next day, Melanee bought him another one. We were extremely proud of our snowman in his scarf and prison snitch hat.

But we were extremely cold and tired, which is what led Sammie to flop down in the snow and make a snow angel. I think.

I have also included this picture of Brooklyn. She had already returned to California when the snow day took place, so I don't have any pictures of her playing in the snow. However, I love this picture of her for many reasons:

-She is so darn cute.

-When this picture was taken, she had just received a sweater dress from my parents--which she put on over the sweater she was already wearing--as well as a shopping cart, which she began to push. She is also wearing a hat which one of her Haynie aunts crocheted for her. Separately, each piece is fine. Altogether, though, it sort of makes her look like a tiny bag lady. And if you think I'm terrible for suggesting that, know that her parents said it first.

Also, they left the shopping cart at Melanee's house until they went home to California, but they came back the next day. It took Brooklyn a while to warm up to being at Melanee's house. I was trying to remind Brooklyn about the shopping cart by pushing it around for her. However, she took that to mean that I wanted the shopping cart for myself (because my nieces and nephew seem to think of me as part of their peer group), and she spent the next half hour looking at me suspiciously. When she finally started playing with the shopping cart, she'd race past me with it crying, "Nope! Nope!" It was about the cutest thing I have ever seen, except that she wouldn't let me come near her.

Fortunately, her dad let me bribe her with candy, and then we were friends again.

Orange Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

These cupcakes are really good. If you are looking for something a little on the fancy side, make these. And, if you have a lovely assistant like this one, so much the better. He is holding a bottle of vanilla beans, which we found at the grocery store for something like $4 for a bottle of two. Believe it or not, that is an unbelievable deal on vanilla beans at the grocery store.

My plan over Christmas was to bake a lot of cupcake recipes for the various family parties and get-togethers we would be attending. However, I have learned this fundamental principle of holiday baking: there is always way more food than you will need at any holiday get-together, and you will end up taking a lot of it home. But, heaven forbid we show up with less food, and make it look to people like there isn't going to be enough to go around. This is why people gain weight over the holidays.

Nevertheless, I was not going to miss an opportunity to cook in Melanee's kitchen and use all of her utensils and appliances.

This is Mel's microplane zester. I want one really badly.

She has more counter space in this picture than I have in my entire kitchen.
I also covet her big jars of flour and sugar. And her flat-top stove. And her spice rack. And all of her bowls. She also has a Bosch, which I was too scared to use.

Here is a link to the recipe. You may not think the candied oranges would be worth the extra effort, but they absolutely were.

These orange cupcakes were taken to the family party on Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family. It has gotten to the point where I only see my cousins on that side of the family about once a year, usually at this party. This party, like every family gathering, involves massive amounts of food. However, it is so much more than that. Traditionally, it has involved three things: a talent show, the playing of the pipe chimes, and a white elephant gift exchange. As I write this, I realize that there are probably lots of Mormon families who have family gatherings where things like this occur. So, really, you'd have to meet my family to understand why this gathering feels so bizarre. When I was little, my contribution to the talent show portion was to sing an extremely off-key rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," while my cousin Trudi danced, my cousin Brittany played the violin, and my cousin Stephanie recited a poem. My parents still have this on videotape. Needless to say, the talent portion of the evening was dominated by my youngest cousins and the children of my older cousins, but it hasn't been that many years since I demonstrated the Tahitian dance I learned in the Polynesian dance class I took at BYU.

The pipe chimes are something that was actually started by my mom, although, for years, my Aunt Mary Ann has been the driving force behind this tradition. My maternal grandfather made the chimes by taking metal pipes and cutting them to various specified lengths. Each pipe has a different number, and sheet "music" is provided in the form of a giant posterboard with the numbers written on it so that, when the number on the board is pointed to, usually by my Uncle Roger, the person who is in possession of that chime hits it with the handle of a butter knife. If everyone is paying attention, the tune of a popular Christmas song eeks out slowly and arrhythmically. If everyone is not paying attention, someone usually starts yelling. This year, my dad and

some of my cousins mysteriously disappeared during this portion of the evening, leaving me, several small children, and my elderly grandmother as the lead musicians. Also, this year we tried to do a song that had chords, which meant TWO people had to be paying attention to hit their chimes simultaneously. Then, my cousin Erin's youngest daughter, Paige, came into the room with a dirty diaper, which her mother immediately apologized for, in the middle of the song, causing me to start giggling and miss a cue. And things went downhill from there.

This year also featured some other, nontraditional games. But the way we always finish the night is with the white elephant gift exchange. This is similar to the gift exchange that occurs in the Christmas episode of the Office where Michael goes overboard and buys Ryan an iPod, only to receive a homemade oven mitt from Phyllis. It's sort of like that. Only, with my family, everybody brings multiple presents. Tons of presents. They are all wrapped, and they are usually pretty crappy, so, in recent years, it has become more about what things you can get rid of than it has about what you might end up with. Everyone sits in a circle, and several pairs of dice start circulating. If you roll a 7 or an 11, you get to take a present. When all the presents are gone, a second round begins where, when you roll a 7 or an 11, you can steal a present from someone else in the circle. I think the best thing I came away with this year was a pocket electronic Battleship game, which I ended up playing the last time I was stuck waiting for my tire to get changed. But I was pretty proud of what I was able to give away.

Here's my cousin Erin holding a copy of the Lubbock 5th Branch Movie. In case you are wondering, I am still in possession of four copies myself.

A few days before I left for Christmas, I ended up going to an ugly sweater Christmas party. I won some game we were playing and ended up with a giant trophy. Rather than throw it away, I decided to pack it in my suitcase (no easy feat) and take it with me to Utah, to be wrapped up and entered in the white elephant gift exchange. Just thinking about it made me smile on my plane ride out there.

The trophy ended up with Zack. He is the oldest of my grandma's great-grandchildren, and the only person in the room who was old enough to know what it was and still young enough to think it was cool. Plus, his parents are both doctors and were working pretty hard not to end up with too much junk to take back home, so it was pretty funny, too.

Ginger-Spice Cupcakes

Remember Geri Halliwell, Ginger Spice from Spice Girls? I googled her to see what she was up to these days. Apparently she has recently written a series of children's books.

It has been so long since I made these that I have forgotten a lot of what was going on at that time. I made these right before I left for Utah, with the idea that I would freeze them, pack them in my suitcase, and take them the to the family party the night that I arrived in Salt Lake.

There are two recipes for ginger cupcakes in this book. The other one is more like gingerbread. This one calls for fresh, grated gingerroot, which gives it quite a kick.

A tip for this recipe: I used my food processor to grate the gingerroot. It did not go as well as when I grated zucchini, but it was infinitely better than the time I grated all the carrots.

It also calls for molasses, which I hate the smell of by itself, but seems to do wonders in the recipes that call for it. For some reason, the jar specifies that this is blackstrap molasses. I don't know what that means, but I find it kind of scary.
While going through my photo files, I discovered I took no pictures of the cupcakes before I froze them. Also, I took no photos of the cupcakes when I pulled them out of my suitcase and they were smashed (my mom made fun of me because I put them in Ziploc Bags to transfer them cross-country. I didn't have enough room for anything with more structure than that, so I guess I should have seen it coming). Before the family party, we stopped at Grandma Oka's house, where I managed to salvage a few cupcakes that looked okay, and cover them with fresh whipped cream and a dusting of ground ginger.

So, here is a link to the recipe, as well as a picture, which, let's be really clear, looks nothing like what mine looked like, even at their best. But the truth is, I don't make them so that I can enjoy them. I usually do enjoy them, but I make them for other people. And, truth be told, the person I most want to please when I bake is my mother. She has very sensitive taste buds, and can taste stale food where most people can't. And she likes desserts. I have earmarked several recipes especially for her, and this was one of them. She loved it. We ended up with lots of leftovers after the party (it's one of those things where everyone brings way too much food and eats way too little, so I wasn't too offended).

I thought I would also include a picture of my second bridal bouquet. I don't love it, but I made it entirely out of inexpensive artificial flowers, which is a story for another time.

maple cupcakes

This recipe calls for grade B maple syrup. My only other experience with grade B maple syrup was when my parents and I did a body cleanse, where you drink nothing but lemonade made from maple syrup, distilled water, and pure lemon juice for two days, and you drink Smooth Move (a laxative tea) to "cleanse" out your impurities. I apologize for you casual readers who may have just gotten more information about my family than you needed.

Just a warning: grade B maple syrup is not cheap. In fact, it may be the most expensive ingredient I have bought to date.

And Martha suggests you frost them with maple buttercream. I did not do that for two reasons:

1) I only bought enough maple syrup for the cupcakes.

2) After all the trouble mint buttercream caused me, I decided to ignore Martha and go with my gut, which said to make brown sugar cream cheese frosting instead because it was easier.

The recipe

Maple Cupcakes

2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour, sifted

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temperature (This is actually really important in baking. It changes the consistency if the butter is too cold or melted).

2 c. pure maple syrup, preferably grade B

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 c. milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together dry ingredients. Cream butter until smooth. Add maple syrup, and beat until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. Add flour mixture, and beat well to combine. Beat in milk and vanilla until combined. Fill each cup 3/4 full. Bake about 20 minutes.

Brown-sugar Cream-Cheese Frosting (makes 2 1/2 cups)

1 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 butter, cream cheese, and brown sugar until smooth. Use immediately, or refrigerate up to 3 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat on low speed until smooth.

After frosting my cupcakes, I added this small, completely unnecessary detail: marzipan maple leaves.

I used a cookie cutter to cut out maple leaf shapes.

And here was the end result:

I realize that these cupcakes look a little odd, like the maple leaves don't really go with the snowman cupcake papers. It reminds me that you can't always tell, just by looking at something, whether it's going to work or not. Life is full of surprises.

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

These sounded simple enough.

Life has been pretty busy this last couple of weeks with final projects, massive rewrites on my dissertation proposal, and holiday parties. I have learned one new thing about holiday parties this season:

When you are asked to make some kind of food to take, don't make very much. The more food there is, the more you will have to take home. I had planned to use the Christmas season to make lots of different cupcake recipes, with the idea that, by the time I had to start back into school, I would have knocked out a considerable amount of recipes, and be able to limit myself to one a week. Unfortunately, I've had some trouble getting rid of the last three batches of cupcakes I made, and I end up schlepping them from party to party.

As I write this, I have four different kinds of cupcakes in my tiny apartment. 83 total. I think I went overboard.

But this recipe takes the cake. So to speak. It starts out with a simple, one-bowl style chocolate cake base, to which you add peppermint extract. This was slightly complicated by the fact that I dropped an eggshell into the batter and had to use a colander to strain it out, which I did.

Then, it starts to get difficult. The frosting is a mint buttercream. It seems like I should have been able to add mint extract to a batch of Swiss Meringue buttercream. I'm sure there's a reason that Martha did not have me do that. It can't just be that Martha wants to make things extra difficult for people attempting this recipes. It can't. Because in order to make mint buttercream, I had to cook egg yolks and sugar with mint leaves and milk, and then whisk in egg whites cooked with more sugar.

Then, I added the butter and held my breath while my KitchenAid combined all the ingredients. At first, I wasn't sure that it would ever look like buttercream.

You'd think that I'd get over the fascination of watching my mixer churn out buttercream, but it gets me every time. But it doesn't end there.

For some reason, the only way Martha could think to finish off this recipe is to melt chocolate and brush it on the underside of a mint leave, chill it, and pull the leaf away. It was at this point that I started calling her by her new nickname "Stupid Martha." Clever, I know.

This process was complicated by the fact that I dropped my candy thermometer and broke it. This made melting and cooking things on the stovetop slightly more difficult.

After making this recipe, I have to say that, were I to make it again, I probably will skip the mint buttercream in favor of a mint cream-cheese frosting. It would definitely be easier, and I actually prefer the taste of mint cream-cheese frosting over buttercream anyway.

Here's a link to the recipe and the buttercream, which saves me typing it out and makes me feel less guilty about making so many of Martha's recipes available to the public.

As of Saturday night, these cupcakes have made an appearance at a work party, an ugly sweater party, and a baptism. If there are any left, I will be taking them to Mix and Munch tomorrow.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

One of the first weeks after I moved to Lubbock two-and-a-half years ago, I was invited to dinner after church by Evonne. I was grateful that, after only being in Lubbock a short time to have people who were looking out for me. She has since become a good friend, and is one of the nicest, most thoughtful people I know.

Evonne just finished her master's degree, and will be leaving Lubbock as she begins looking for a job. We had a farewell party for her Saturday night, and the theme was Aloha, because Evonne was born in Hawaii.

These hummingbird cupcakes seemed perfect, since they had coconut and pineapple. In addition, Evonne spends her summers in southern Texas studying and tagging birds, so there was that connection, too.

There is much debate in the Martha Stewart book as to why they are called hummingbird cupcakes. It is a Southern recipe, and it is thought that it may be because they make you hum with delight. Or, possibly, it is because they are sweet like the sugared water used to attract hummingbirds. In either case, they are sweet and very dense.

Hummingbird Cupcakes (makes 40)

3 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 c. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 c. sugar

3 large eggs

2 c. mashed ripe banana (about 3 large bananas)

2 cans (8 oz. each) crushed pineapple, drained

1 c. walnuts (about 3 oz.) toasted and coarsely chopped

1 c. unsweetened desiccated coconut, which looks like this, and differs from regular coconut because it is not sweet and completely dry.

cream cheese frosting

dried pineapple flowers

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together dry ingredients.

Beat butter, vanilla, and sugar until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Continue beating until mixture is pale and fluffy.

In another bowl, stir together banana, pineapple, walnuts, and coconut. Add to egg mixture, beating until combined. Stir in flour mixture with a flexible spatula.

Fill each muffin cup three-quarters full. Bake 25 to 28 minutes. When cool, frost with cream cheese frosting, garnish with dried pineapple flowers.

As for the dried pineapple flowers, I am not sure if I made them poorly, or if they were just a colossally bad idea.

To make them start with a fresh pineapple, and cut the top and the skin off. Preheat the oven to 225 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. I used wax paper, which may have been the problem to begin with. Use a small melon baller (I used a paring knife) to remove the "eyes." Using a sharp knife, slice pineapple crosswise into very thin slices. Place slices on baking sheets. Bake until tops look dried, about 30 minutes. Flip slices and bake until completely dried, about 25-30 minutes more, or longer, depending on their thickness. Pinch center of each pineapple slice to shape into a cone, let cool in a clean muffin tin to form flower.

Mine never got completely dry, and stuck to the wax paper. I tasted one, and it was like pineapple jerky.

One-bowl Chocolate Cupcakes

Of all of the recipes I have made, this is one I envision using a lot after this experiment is over. It's very similar to a cake mix, in that you combine everything except for the eggs, oil, and water first. Like the name suggests, you make it all in one bowl. I even used my hand mixer for a change of pace.

I made these for an MFT program party. Sadly, there were about 10 desserts at this party, and, even though people said they liked my cupcakes, there were still a ton left. Fortunately, I taught Relief Society on Sunday, and managed to get rid of the rest of them.

Here is a link to the recipe, which is super easy. Make it, and you will be amazed at how easy homemade cupcakes can be.

This is a versatile recipe. To add a festive air, I took one of Martha's decorating suggestions, and piped little wreaths around each of them. Okay, I piped wreaths around 15 or so of them, and then my hand started to cramp, and I had to stop.

I used a Wilton cake tip #352 to pipe three rings of individual leaves around each cupcake. When I took them to work, my friend Amanda suggested I just use a large star tip (#23) to pipe a circle around the outside and dip it in green sugar crystals. That ended up being less pretty, but much easier.

Almost unanimously, the favorite part of these cupcakes was the frosting, which was Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is extremely light and almost velvety, and it pipes very well. Also, it's pretty exciting to watch it go from clumps of butter and egg whites to frosting in my KitchenAid. It's my go-to recipe for decorating, which, after these wreaths, I have decided is highly overrated.