Stinky Cheese Cake Pops
Posted on: October 7, 2010
Gavin decided to do Diary of a Wimpy Kid for his book club project at school. And being the kid he is decided the snack extravaganza was the best project to do. So this is my take on stinky cheese cake pops.
Birthday Cupcakes
Posted on: August 26, 2010
So today is my little man’s birthday. Can’t believe he is 8 already. So since school started back up on Monday, I found myself scrambling to make something to take for his classmates to enjoy.
For the first time he had specific ideas about what he wanted. White cake, blue frosting cupcakes for school and strawberry cake for his party. So seeing as I am losing my mind busy this week, I went the lazy route and used a french vanilla cake mix, but did make my own buttercream frosting.
My hand mixer hard at work... I really need to invest in a stand mixer!
As mentioned, he wanted blue so blue he got!
Ain't it pretty?
My kids seemed to really enjoy this frosting. I had sorta mixed feelings. While I really enjoyed the creamy smooth texture and I really liked that it wasn’t super sweet, for me it had a really strong butter taste, as in that seemed to be all I could taste. But then it is buttercream after all, so maybe that is the way it should be? I got the recipe here Beantown Baker and followed it exactly. Overall really happy and thankful as this is the first buttercream I have made that the kids actually liked.
Here is the final product – pretty and yummy.
Birthday Cakes
Posted on: August 8, 2010
So the month of August is rapidly dwindling which means my little man’s birthday is soon approaching. I LOVE making my kid’s birthday cakes. It means a lot to me and hopefully to them as well. This was Gavin’s cake last year:
This year he has indicated he wants a super hero cake, so that should be fun =) I am debating the direction to go with it. Any ideas?
Razzle Dazzles
Posted on: August 7, 2010
The reason I was inspired to create my own blog was the monthly cupcake hero contest that I have been following on various blog. See here for more info on the contest I ❤ Cuppycakes. This month host for the contest Amy of (vegan) Cupcakes and other culinary creations has chosen raspberries as the ingredient for this months challenge.
I was super excited to get started. I decided to go with some raspberry lime cupcakes that I call Razzle Dazzles. These cupcakes are a mash-up of a couple different recipes with a few twists of my own. Ridiculously yummy with a raspberry lime curd filling and raspberry lime whipped topping. Kinda time-consuming making the curd but definitely worth the effort.
The cake itself was AWESOME! The end result was somewhere between an amazing angel food cake and a vanilla pound cake. Seriously light and fluffy – even my husband who hates sweets loved this cake. I got the base recipe from Giada at the Food Network.
Not sure if the pictures do these amazing little cakes justice, but I assure you these are beyond yummy. Plus they are super easy to make. The changes I made to the recipe are in italics.
Ingredients
- 1 (18.25-ounce) box white cake mix
- 1 1/3 cups water
- 3 large eggs whites
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2 teaspoons almond extract I used 4 teaspoons of lime juice for this recipe.
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 (6-ounce) containers fresh raspberries, cut in half or 1 (16-ounce) container fresh strawberries, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar, plus additional for dusting
- 1 tsp lime zest
Directions
Line 18 muffin cups with muffin papers. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Using an electric mixer, beat the cake mix, water, egg whites, melted butter, almond extract, and vanilla extract in a large bowl for 2 minutes, or until the batter is well blended. Using about 1/3 cup of batter for each cupcake, spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake the cupcakes until they are very pale golden on top, about 15 minutes. Cool the cupcakes completely on a cooling rack.
For the raspberry lime curd and frosting, I borrowed the recipe from Jaime on The Family Kitchen. As she cautioned, the curd was a bit time-consuming but the result was so worth it. And the frosting was divine… fluffy, light, and just a hint of lime.
raspberry lime curd
1 cup frozen raspberries, defrosted (after they’re defrosted, they look like about 1/4 cup)
zest of 4 limes
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup lime juice (from about 4-5 limes)
pinch of salt
1. Press raspberries through a fine sieve to extract all the pulp. Set aside.
2. In a medium sized bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together zest, butter, and sugar. Incorporate eggs one at a time and mix until smooth. Add in raspberry pulp, lime juice and salt. Mixture will be curdled. Don’t freak out!
2. Pour mixture into a large saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes. Raspberry lime curd will come together and thicken. When it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, remove from heat. Strain through a fine sieve into a glass bowl and allow to cool. Refrigerate or freeze until you need it.
raspberry lime frosting
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup cold raspberry lime curd (recipe follows)
1 1/2 cups (250mL) heavy cream
1 teaspoon lime zest
1. In a small bowl, whisk together confectioner’s sugar and raspberry lime curd.
2. In another bowl, beat the cream on high until stiff peaks form.
3. Fold the two mixtures and lime zest together until smooth, being careful not to deflate the whipped cream. If mixture becomes too smooth, you can whir it around with the mixer to fluff it up.
The Beginning…
Posted on: August 6, 2010
Pretty excited to be starting my latest projest. Let’s hope the food is as good as the fun.
Kim
KC Confections 