Hello Kitty (cup)cakes

Everyone knows my fascination (read: obsession) with Hello Kitty. It's an easy guess for my friends and family, what gifts I would like to receive, so I suppose it makes me predictable and transparent.

Ever more so, with these cupcakes I made.

I had my friends over last week for a mini-celebration with my new temporary position. I'm moving departments on campus, to one that's a little more lucrative, to cover a maternity leave opening. The temporary factor of it is great, because I can transition fields a bit more easily.

I had the bubbly ready, but needed some snacks for everyone. And what better than delicious cupcakes. Made by yours truly.

I love my friends because they are an endless array of gratification for me. So many of them commented that they didn't believe the pictures were of cupcakes I made. Or does this mean they have little faith in me? Nah. Right, guys?

I made a chocolate batter this time, uncommon for me because of my love for vanilla cupcakes. I used one of my cake recipes that are a bit denser and very chocolate-y, especially with the addition of espresso.

For the buttercream, I made my espresso flavoured one used in the race car cake I made a couple months ago. My original plan was to have a coloured buttercream, so that I could cut out plain white Hello Kitty faces and it would be a good contrast. Unfortunately, I always forget that the buttercream doesn't colour enough and it wasn't a good enough contrast.

I ended up using really dark grey fondant for her faces instead.

I think it worked out great, because it was easier to see the features on her face. Since I had cut outs that imprinted her face as well, I didn't bother with food grade markers to draw on her features.

Aren't they adorable?

Since I was using a cake recipe, I decided to use my cut little 6" cake rounds to make a tiny tall cake. I didn't cover it with fondant. Instead, I tried the "paper-towel frosting" trick, which didn't work as well as I was hoping. It might be because I don't have the right paper towels, or maybe I was pressing too hard. Either way, I didn't like how there was a slight embossment when I finished, so I scrapped it and just  smoothed out my buttercream with a hot offset spatula like I normally do.

I like that when I make my home made cakes for my friends, that they look a bit more rustic. I don't mine some blemishes in them because my friends don't really care anyways. When I make them for others, I will use fondant, but it's not my favourite thing to work with. I like to keep it simple with friends.

Chocolate (cup)cakes 

1/2 cup butter
2 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 egg whites
4 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz unsweetened baker's chocolate, melted and cooled
2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup espresso
2/3 cup milk 

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. One at a time, add eggs. Add vanilla extract and beat until combined.
2. With a spatula, mix in the melted baker's chocolate.
3. In 3 additions, add the dry ingredient mixture, interspersed twice with the espresso-milk mixture (i.e., dry-wet-dry-wet-dry).
4. Pour into buttered and floured pans or into cupcake tins. Bake at 350F for 50-55 min (cake) or 20-25 min (cupcakes), or until a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Let cool 10 minutes before leaving on a rack to cool completely.
6. Frost with espresso buttercream. 

 

Espresso buttercream

1 cup butter, room temperature
 4 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp espresso powder
1 tsp hot water 

1. Beat butter until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add icing sugar, one cup at a time until well combined.
3. Add the vanilla extract, espresso powder, and water mixture. Beat again until smooth, scraping down sides as necessary.

Vegetarian chili

I wouldn't have found the pictures for my vegetarian chili, if I hadn't pulled out my camera to get some better shots of my hello kitty cupcakes (next up). Thank goodness for the delight of cupcakes!

I try not to eat processed fake meat products, or TVP, too often. But there are dishes every now and then that just need a little something added. I have a couple go-to kinds of vegetarian ground round that I go for, most commonly Yves. I like the flavour and texture in these ones, and also that there do come pre-seasoned for other uses (like chili).

Things that are texture-less are bland and boring to me. Which is why whenever I make things like casseroles, chili, pastas, I always add in a whole bunch of stuff.

In this case, I had the veggie ground round, black beans, and a smattering of vegetables. Sounds delicious already!

As with anything, I always sweat the onions out before adding the rest of my mirepoix. I am a firm believer this is the best way to start cooking. Unless I'm making a paella, in which case you'll want to make a sofrito instead.

After the carrots begin to soften, I tend to throw in the rest of the fresh vegetables (in this case, just some red pepper). When I pop in the beans and ground round is usually when I'll throw in any more vegetables, in frozen or canned state.

Let it simmer for 20-30 minutes. Be sure to add chili spices to how you like them as well. In approximately 30 minutes, you can have a delicious hot meal ready to go!

Vegetarian chili 

1/2 onion, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 box Yves veggie chili ground round
1 can black beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can corn kernels, drained
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp hot pepper flakes 

1. Soften onions, celery and carrots for a few minutes over medium heat. Add red pepper and cook a couple more minutes.
2. Add spices. and stir until coated.
3. Add box of Yves ground round, black beans, tomatoes and corn kernels. Let simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Serve over a bed of rice and garnished with grated cheese.

My super secret chocolate chip cookies

The first thing I learned to bake was chocolate chip cookies. With this exact recipe.

I still remember it like it was yesterday.

I am in my brother's best friend's kitchen. We're sitting at the kitchen table, and his older sister is somewhere else in the house. She mentions she made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and they're sitting in the kitchen pantry. Up until that point, I had only had Pillsbury and store bought bakery cookies, so I couldn't believe the soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

I spent the new few months begging and pleading for my the sister to teach me to make them, but she jokingly strung me along, all the whilst feeding me more cookies.

I eventually got the recipe from her after a couple months, after her wedding and she moved to the states for her new job. Since she guarded it so closely, I have done the same since. This is the first time I'm revealing my recipe!

It's been a long time since I've eaten her version of the cookies, but I think I've master getting them like she does.

A few years ago, I also had the chance to make these exact cookies with her brother. He does it differently than I do, but the great thing about this recipe is how resilient the batter is. They come out great every time, but they do require a bit of tweaking to get the temperature right on your oven.

Chocolate chip cookies 

1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
chocolate chips 

1. Cream butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla extract together until fluffy.
2. Add flour and baking soda, mixing until almost combined. Add as much chocolate chips as desired and mix until combined.
3. Roll out 1" balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 375F for 6-8 minutes*. 

* The time to bake differs depending on your oven. My oven takes 10 minutes, but my parents' takes 7 minutes. Use discretion, and take them out when they are slightly underbaked, so they are soft and gooey when cooled.

Banana muffins

Banana bread is my such a delicious comfort food, and I always seem to have a surplus of aging or frozen bananas in my house. The thing I don't like about it, is how it doesn't come in individual servings.

I changed up my traditional go to banana bread recipe, to make them a bit fluffier for my muffins, and it turned out great!

I always forget that I need more bananas than I originally wrote down, so they never turn out as banana-y as I like. The recipe at the bottom has the corrected amount of bananas you should use!

Feel free to spice things up with a variety of other flavours: nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, anise, etc. Alternately, you could add fruit or nuts, such as blueberries, strawberry bits, walnuts, or pecans.

Banana muffins 

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup milk 

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating until just combined.
2. Sift together dry ingredients, mix together wet ingredients.
3. Starting and ending with the dry, mix in the the flour and bananas alternately until just combined.
4. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full of batter and bake at 350F for 20 minutes.

Mint cupcakes - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope everyone has fantastic plans for this weekend to celebrate St. Patrick's Day! Whether you're Irish or not, I hope you settle down to eat or drink something of a artificial bright green colour.

This year, I went with a classic vanilla cupcake with green coloured mint flavoured frosting.

Once again, I used my trusty vanilla cupcake recipe (see vanilla cupcakes). Buttercream is a standard recipe that really doesn't change no matter who you talk to.

With this buttercream, I wanted to make it green in the spirit of St. Patrick, so I used Wilton's icing colour in Kelly Green. Be prepared to use a lot of this. To make the standard 1 cup butter equivalent of buttercream, I went through nearly a whole teaspoon of colour to get the vibrant green colour I wanted.

After several toothpicks dripping with green colour, I was finally satisfied with the colour / sick of adding more colour / losing feeling in my beating arm.

As usual, I used my Wilton 1M tip to get my buttercream swirls. I tried to do some shamrock fondant cut outs (as you can see in the first photo, with my green fondant and fondant mat out), but I didn't have the best of luck with my cutters to get a shamrock shape I was happy with. I eventually left it out, so I'll save the fondant for when I need to cover a green cake.

Vanilla cupcakes

3 cup all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 cup sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk (I used unsweetened almond milk)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together.
2. Beat the butter until creamy. Add sugar and cream until light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes.
3. Beat in one egg at a time, mixing thoroughly in between each.
4. On low, mix in the dry mixture and milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
5. Beat in vanilla.
6. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full of batter. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes and cool on wire racks.

Green mint buttercream

1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
4 cup icing sugar, sifted
1-2 tsp milk, if needed (I used unsweetened almond milk) 

1. Beat butter until creamy. Slowly (1/2 cup at a time) add in icing sugar, mixing thoroughly and scraping the bowl as you go.
2. Add vanilla and peppermint extract.
3. If needed, thin out buttercream with milk, 1/2 tsp at a time until desired consistency is reached.
4. Pipe onto cupcakes with a Wilton 1M tip fitted in a pastry bag.