Candid Cinni: guest post

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Foodie Wednesdays: Guest Post by Jessica from Jessiker Bakes {Pumpkin Cupcakes}

Hello Candid Cinni followers! My name is Jessica of Jessiker Bakes and this is my guest post on Candid Cinni's blog. Every Wednesday we will be doing a foodie themed blog post to satisfy your sweet (and sometimes savoury) cravings! Everyone does love to eat, right? Great. This week, the week before Halloween, I thought I would post a delicious and very thematic treat that would be perfect for your Halloween get togethers and celebrations - Pumpkin Cupcakes! P.S. I LOVE celebrating Halloween it's such a colourful and creative holiday!

Give us your feedback so I can cater these guest posts to your desires!

Happy reading and even happier eating!

- Jessica @ Jessiker Bakes

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It's the week before Halloween! When I lived in the BVI, the custom of Halloween was definitely a tradition to look forward to! Dressing up, door to door trick-or-treating; I certainly miss it! That part of Halloween isn't that active in Jamaica; however there are several Halloween parties...

Look! A Pumpkin Cupcake Patch!

These are so easy to make! Note - maybe a little time-consuming if you tried to cram a million things into one day, but definitely worth it! I tried my best to make them look like pumpkins...

Aren't they cute? Please say yes.

These are pretty yummy too! I used the cupcakes from Kellie Cupcakes for this recipe, plus my usual buttercream recipe.

I guess you could leave out the pumpkin indentations, but I just thought it made them resemble pumpkins even more.

What I loved the most about these was that you didn't need any extra ingredients from what you would usually use for cupcakes, except green food colouring and orange/yellow and red food colouring.

Happy Pumpkin Carving!! I do hope I get to carve one soon! Looks like a lot of fun!

What do you plan to do to celebrate Halloween?

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Makes 12

1 1/2 cups cake flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 + 1/8 cup white sugar

1/4 + 1/8 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cups buttermilk, sour cream or full-fat yogurt

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake pan with liners. Set aside. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg, set aside. Cream the butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add the eggs, scraping down the sides and bottom after added. Then add the vanilla, and gently mix in the buttermilk/ sour cream/ yogurt. Stir in the dry ingredients. Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tin, about 2/3 full. Bake for 18 - 22 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Buttercream Recipe

Easy Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter (room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 1b. 10X powdered sugar
1 teaspoon milk, half and half or cream

· Using a mixer, cream softened butter and vanilla until smooth.

· Add sugar gradually, allowing butter and sugar to cream together before adding more.

· If you want your frosting a little creamier, add a teaspoon of milk at a time and beat on high until you get the right texture.

· Then, just use icing colorsto tint the frosting the color of your choice.

Decoration

Separate the buttercream - majority in one bowl (about 3/4) the other in a next.

Mix equal parts yellow and red food colouring to the 3/4 buttercream. If you want a lighter orange, add more yellow. A darker orange, add more red.

Pipe unto cupcakes (you really don't have to do this; seems like a waste of piping to me), then smooth down. Roll the sides in sugar (optional).

Colour the 1/4 buttercream with green food colouring then pipe on top of the orange frosting. Dip the tip into sugar. Use a toothpick to create the lines up the sides of the pumpkin cupcakes.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Foodie Wednesdays: Guest Post by Jessica from Jessiker Bakes {Caramel Apple Cupcake}

Hello Candid Cinni followers!My name is Jessica of Jessiker Bakes and this is my guest post on Candid Cinni's blog. Every wednesday we will be doing a foodie themed blog post to satisfy your sweet (and sometimes savoury) cravings! Everyone does love to eat, right? Great. I thought the perfect starter guest post would be one I did last week; Caramel Apple Cupcake as it is themed to the fall season. It's the perfect recipe for someone who loves sweets, but doesn't want too much as this makes one cupcake! Give us your feedback so I can cater these guest posts to your desires!

Happy reading and even happier eating!

- Jessica @ Jessiker Bakes

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There was the story of a girl who baked a lot.

A whole lot; over 300 cakes, cupcakes, and other yummy treats.

*skip a few pages in the book*

This girl had a lot of friends, who loved that she baked, but were very sad that she did not have a bakery because sometimes they only wanted one cupcake, but she couldn't bake just one cupcake for them. They were, however, very happy when she came to school with yummy treats and they could have their one cupcake and not be destitute to the terrible fortune that this girl had sometimes; several cupcakes around her and no one to eat them but her. This made her very happy while eating the cupcakes but sometimes, rarely sadly actually, afterwards. Okay truth be told she never felt bad about eating more than one cupcake ~~in 10 seconds~~ at a sitting.

Anyway. This girl came across a website called Chocolate Covered Katie and her problems were solved! Katie was a vegan, healthy baker, unlike the girl, but Katie had created a recipe for 1 cupcake! You see, the problem was that to bake 1 cupcake meant to try to split 1 egg for 6 cupcakes into 1/6th to make one cupcake, and to divide the entire recipe which would then render it recipeless!

She was so happy she was about to make the cupcake right then and there to test it out but then realized that it was night time and that she wanted to share it with ALL her friends and blog-readers (friends too!) so they could make one cupcake themself! And it would be "healthy"! Say, 120 calories per cup.

Caramel not included.

She decided to do a Caramel Apple Cupcake inspired by a cupcake post she had seen earlier that morning by The Girl Who Ate Everything since it was in theme of HALLOWEEN and FALL! and majority of her readers loved those seasons! Hehe.

She had so much fun and tweaked the recipe a wee bit and added the caramel-y part to make it even more sugar-coma inducing! Yummy!

She baked the cupcake, managed to save 1/8 of it after begging herself to stop eating it so quickly in the fridge for after breakfast. She is thinking about that piece right now. The cupcake was so yummy and cinnamon-y and she decided to do a blog post on it with full picture-by-picture details. Then she ran back to her fridge to eat the last piece!

The End.

Make one yourself and ENJOY PLEASE!

One Year Ago: Missing in Action
Caramel Apple Cupcake
Original cupcake recipe adapted from (tweaked only slightly) from Chocolate Covered Katie

You'll need 3 tablespoons of flour.

1 1/16h tsp salt (aka a shake in a salt shaker).

1 tablespoon to 1 1/2 tablespoons of delicious brown sugar.

1/4 teaspoon of baking powder.

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

1 tablespoon oil or butter.

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (or less, I love cinnamon).

Mix it all together with a fork.

Wait something doesn't look right...

Oh yes! 1 tablespoon of milk

Mix together again. That looks better!

Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of chopped apple and mix

Pour into a cupcake liner which is inside of a foil cupcake liner (the ones that can bake without the pan) and put it in a ramekin to keep the shape! Smooth the top of the batter (oops forgot to do this).

Or, if you're going to bake it in the oven just put the liner in a pan whole.

I didn't want to warm up my oven for one cupcake, so I put it into my handy dandy microwave.

Cook for 90 seconds.

Look it's GROWING! OMG!

Meanwhile, make some caramel in pan. I used a brain recipe and put two tablespoons of sugar with 1 tablespoon of heavy cream. You won't need all of it I promise! Let it heat up a bit, stirring until it becomes a little more sticky like regular caramel.