Happy Valentine’s Day!

I originally saw the idea for the surprise inside cake here and had to try it! 

It didn’t go quite according to plan, but luckily it turned out in the end. The main problem was I used a regular cake recipe when I should have used a pound cake recipe. So use a pound cake recipe. 

Basically you make two cakes. They can be different kinds or you can dye one and not the other (which is what I did).

First, you bake the one that is going to be the shape inside the cake. Once it’s baked and cooled (you can put it in the fridge), you cut it up in to thick slices and then cut the shapes out with a cookie cutter.  

Then prepare the batter for the second cake. Put the cut out shapes in the bottom of a second pan – I put a bit of  batter on the bottom first so the hearts wouldn’t tip over – and then cover them completely with the batter for the outside cake. Bake as usual, though I would recommend checking to see if it’s done often from about 30 minutes onward. 

I’m excited to try it again! (with the proper type of recipe for the type of pan I used this time) It would be great with an bunny shape for Easter or an initial for a child’s birthday. 

Ok folks, so I know it’s a week late, but I promise that doesn’t make these cupcakes any less yummy… or patriotic.

This year I decided to make some Canadian inspired cupcakes for Canada Day. I couldn’t decide on just one type though, so I decided to make both Red Velvet (red and white!) cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes with maple icing. Yum!!

I’ve decided that I can now only make cupcakes and cakes from scratch – anything from a mix just tastes wrong. To dress up these vanilla cupcakes I used maple icing (recipe can be found here). I put it in the fridge overnight (I’m a late night baker and ran out of time) and it got really grainy, I’m guessing because it was mostly sugar with little butter. I actually kind of liked the grainy texture, however if you’re after a smoother icing (as seen in bottom picture) I recommend making the icing right before you put it on the cupcakes.

I’ve never made Red Velvet cupcakes before, so naturally I went to the best. These cupcakes are from Martha Stewarts website (recipe can be found here) and were pretty tasty. Although I was disappointed with their lack of actual redness, I have been told that this is par for the course when it comes to red velvet cupcakes. After seeing the first batch I took out of the oven was lacking in the ‘red’ part of their namesake, I added more (and even a bit more) food colouring and it seemed to help. Regardless, Martha didn’t steer me wrong and they were delicious.

(the picture below is the result of adding pretty much a bottle of food colouring to the batter)

Oh! And thank you to Jen for helping me ice many of these cupcakes!

Anyways, here is a little bit more about the mini chocolate zucchini bread loaves I made for the picnic with the BFC girls last month…

This is a recipe that my family has been enjoying for many years. We normally make it in two standard loaf pans, but I thought it would be fun to try out the new ‘mini loaf’ pan I recently bought.

I wrapped the little loaves in wax paper and then a thick strip of craft paper, before finishing it off with a kitchen string bow. I love the cute, crafty and homemade look of packaging the little loaves this way. They would make great party or shower favours! 

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Beat eggs; add oil and sugar and beat well. Add vanilla, zucchini, and chocolate powder; beat well.

Mix dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and then slowly add to the wet mixture.

Add in chocolate chips and nuts if you so desire. Mix well.

Bake in two greased standard loaf pans, or mini loaf pans at 350 F.

The recipe book says to bake for 40-60 mins depending on the size of the loaves. However, I found that the size of mini loaf pans can really vary, the ones I bought made about 16 little loaves and only required about 20 mins in the oven.

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Oh and in keeping with the nostalgia kick I also mentioned before… here is a picture of me at age 5 or 6 making ‘Z bread’* as it is affectionately known in my family.

*Side note: it’s a lot catchier if you’re Canadian and say ‘zed’ not ‘zee’ 

*you can see my mom and ‘her Eltons’ – i.e. glasses – bringing me home from the hospital, along with the other BFC girls and their moms  here*

All this nostalgia has made me hungry. You see there are about five recipes that I can recall enjoying many times over my lifetime and always seem to take me back to a happy childhood place (well, at least in my heart… and stomach). One of these recipes is the super yummy chocolate cake I made into cupcakes here… another favourite are these chocolate chip cookies.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should tell you that my most favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe is from the back of the Hershey Chipits bag. But although it is not perhaps the most fancy or exclusive recipe, it still makes the best cookies I’ve ever tasted by far. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s so good they haven’t changed it in over 25 years.

Original Chipits Cookies

 - Cream together 1 cup shortening or softened butter (I use butter), 1 cup packed brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar. Beat in 2 eggs and 1-1/2 tsp vanilla.

- Combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Gradually blend in to creamed mixture.

- Stir in one package (350 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

- Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto un-greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 F (190 C) for 10-12 minutes.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

(My secret is that I add twice the vanilla, no nuts and a few extra handfuls of chocolate chips… so good)

As I said, I’ve been making these cookies since I was little, and here is the proof. This is a picture of 3 year old me and my mom following the very recipe I’ve outlined above – you can even see the tell-tale Chipits bag in my mom’s hands.

I seem to be on a Easter cupcake roll this year! First I made pink ombre cupcakes for the BFC Easter party, and then this past weekend I made chocolate cupcakes as a post Easter dinner treat.

I adapted this recipe from a cake recipe that has been eaten and enjoyed by my family for years – it is  the cake that makes birthdays complete and occasions really feel like a celebration. I was originally going to make the cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, but ran out of time before the party (she had a cake though don’t worry!) and so the ingredients I bought wouldn’t go to waste, they became Easter cupcakes instead (since there’s usually a lack of chocolate at Easter and all…)

Both the cake part and the icing are made from scratch, so this was no easy feat, luckily I made sure my mum (the baker of almost all cakes previous) was on hand to help put out any fires that arose (figuratively thank goodness). It turns out that I’m a messy baker, especially when baking from scratch in a small kitchen, and in the interest of not completely ruining my phone or camera there aren’t really any pictures of the baking process. To make up for it, I shall share my most favourite chocolate cake (and now cupcake) recipe with you all.

Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake

• 2  1/2 cups all-purpose flour (sifted)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk (or yogurt – if neither is available, then you can add milk to 1 tbsp vinegar to make 1 cup; let stand for 10 mins)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2  1/4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup boiling water

Frosting

• 1 package (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate pieces
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk (though, you can use normal and it will taste just as good)
• 3/4 cup butter
• 2  1/2 cups icing sugar

]]> http://hellolittlewren.com/2012/04/10/easter-cupcakes/feed/ 1 littlewrendesign Eastercupcake1 chocolatecupcakes2 http://hellolittlewren.com/2012/04/08/pink-ombre-cupcakes/ http://hellolittlewren.com/2012/04/08/pink-ombre-cupcakes/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:55:17 +0000 Little Wren http://hellolittlewren.wordpress.com/?p=235 ]]>

looks yummy from the outside...

...but everybody knows, it's what's inside that counts!

It’s been far too long since I blogged! I have been meaning to do this post for about a week now, but have been busy with the Easter party, birthday celebrations and, oh you know, life. Anyways here are the pretty pink (almost) ombre cupcakes I made for the BFC Easter Party! To up the pink factor I used the cupcake liners I made before.  Just like the liners before them, the cupcakes didn’t turn out quite like I thought they would (I’m not sure if I’m liking this trend that seems to keep happening) but they looked pretty – and tasted yummy – all the same!

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make the cake batter from scratch, so a box mix had to do. I just followed the instructions on the box, divided the mixture in to three bowls, added different amounts of food colouring to make the varying degrees of pinkness and then scooped them in to the cupcake liners from darkest to lightest, baked and voila!

I would however recommend doing a dark bottom, medium or light pink middle and a plain top. As you can see the two lighter pink shades just kind of blended together and so it didn’t really look ombre… hence the quotation marks in the title.

A few tips:

I would recommend leaving the most batter in the plain or lightest batter colour bowl, because it’s far easier to just make the batter darker rather than lighter. Trust me.

 Try to find a thicker cake mix – it makes things much easier when trying to layer the colours. I used Betty Crocker French Vanilla mix for these pink ones and it was thicker than the plain ‘White Cake’ mix, which I used for the disastrous purple ones (not even going there) and the pink ones actually look like they have layers.

Although there was one success story…

Julia got the best one of the bunch! If you look closely you can see all three colours – yay!

first few attempts

We’re having a little Easter party with some of the girls from work this week and I’m so excited! We have a little after-work get together every few months, the excuse for us to meet up and laugh – and have a drink or two – varies (past gatherings have included pumpkin carving and a cookie exchange) but one thing that remains the same is that we all bring something yummy for the group to enjoy. Since Easter is arguably the prettiest holiday – so many pastels! – we thought we would try to make this the prettiest party yet.

I am really loving the ombre trend currently (well, at least I’m assuming it’s a trend… I feel I see it everywhere lately) so I thought it would be fun to try and make some ombre pastel cupcake liners to match the ombre cupcakes I’m planning on bringing to the party. I scoured the internet for a DIY, but sadly to no avail, so I had to make it up myself… a daunting prospect.

The cupcake liners didn’t soak up the dye like I thought they would, so they ended up being more dip dye than ombre… but despite not turning out quite as planned, I am definitely pleased with the results. I know I’m a bit biased, but I think they turned out really well. They’re prettier than plain white cupcake liners, but far less expensive than the printed ones that are available.

all finished

What you’ll need:

- white cupcake liners

- food colouring (I used red, blue and green)

- water

- bowls for mixing the dye in that are wide enough on the bottom to fit the top of a cupcake liner

- newspaper or an old sheet to protect the surface you’re working on (it can get messy)

It’s pretty simple actually, all you have to do is mix the food colouring in a bowl with some water (use more water for lighter shades) and then dip the top of the cupcake liner in it. I tried dying the bottom of the liner and it didn’t work so well, but perhaps you’re more talented than me and can pull it off. Also, as I mentioned the cupcake liners don’t soak up the dye very quickly, and since I’m rather impatient I ended up just swishing them around in the dye so the process would go much faster. Swishing them around means that the colour at the top won’t be even, but I kind of like it that way.

After you’ve put the liners in the dye mixture, there will be some excess on them (as you can see above). You can either just wait it out and it will dry eventually, making the colour a bit darker… or you can gently tap the liners on the edge of the bowl to shake off the excess dye. Just make sure you have something underneath, because as you can see below, it can get a bit messy.

The colours I chose to do were pink, purple and seafoam. Mixing up all the colours brought me back to elementary school – it was fun! 

Pink was just red dye and water; Purple was a mixture of blue and red (though I think I might have accidentally used more blue than red); Seafoam was a mixture of blue and green (think it was pretty equal that time).

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