Butterscotch Cupcakes

My oldest daughter is such a butterscotch lover that when I made pecan pie she would beg me to put butterscotch chips on the bottom of the filling. When my girls were growing up I didn't have much spare time or interest in baking. Occasionally I would make a pie. It was only after they were done with college that I began to pick up this hobby. (Poor deprived children!) So when she came to visit last week, I knew I was gonna indulge her with some BScotch Cupcakes.

A few months ago I found Mercken's Butterscotch wafers at the cake store. I am now using them in most of my recipes that call for butterscotch chips (except for Oatmeal Scotchies). They have a less "fake" taste than the chips, that's the only way I could describe them. They are sooo good!

The Northern Ohio summer day was quite warm and we were having a busy time but these were really easy since I used a boxed cake mix (doctored up of course). Actually, I used a Cupcake mix. Some people complain and wonder why anyone would buy a cupcake mix when its the same thing as a cake mix. Well, the reason I like it is that it is HALF the size of a boxed cake mix, which means if I just can make a dozen instead of 2 dozen cupcakes.

Anyway, these were ButterScotch all the way- BS cake, BS icing and BS glaze. Here's the blueprint-
Cake- Make cake according to box recipe, but add almost 1 box instant sugar free butterscotch pudding plus 2 tablespoons applesauce.
Icing- Simple buttercream with a bit of the BS glaze added.
Glaze- Heat a small amount of heavy cream, remove from heat and add enough wafers to make an almost ganache like glaze. (I'd guess I used maybe 2-3 T of cream and probably 1/3 C of wafers.)

Oh yeah, I added pecans to some of the batter and topped these with pecans.

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

I made these Chocolate cupcakes with PB chips and topped with PB buttercream and a Reese's PB Cup for a library cakewalk tomorrow.

Since I (like most people) have precious little time to bake in the summer I started with a box of Duncan Hines Dark Choc Fudge cake mix made according to directions, but I added a single serving container of unsweetened applesauce to add moistness. This little tip works so well!

Here is the PB Buttercream recipe

2 1/2 sticks butter, softened 2/3 c. Crisco shortening 3 Tbs heavy cream 2 lbs powdered sugar (about 8 cups) About 1/4 cup Reese's PB Ice Cream Topping a little at a time

Cream together butter and shortening until smooth. Slowly add 2 T. topping and 3 tbs. heavy cream. Gradually add the powdered sugar and scrape down the bowl very well once it's all added. Slowly add topping a Tbs at a time until frosting reaches desired consistency.

My first "Wedding" Cake

My friends, Barbara and Gary were married in a small ceremony at our church last week. We were having our Bible study tonight and it is the first one since their wedding so we had dinner at Gene's home. My contribution was the celebration cake!
I wish I would have taken a picture of the cut cake. I layered my Madagasgar Vanilla Bourbon buttercream inside with fresh strawberries, so it was very pretty. Apparently very tasty, too. All the men had 2 pieces each! :D I love it when that happens.
I used a new cake recipe that I found. It is a cake mix based recipe called White Almond Sour Cream Cake. You can find the recipe here. I used a new recipe for the buttercream icing also. All in all a perfect combination which I am certain I will use again and again. The cake is tasty and perfect in texture for a wedding cake. It can also be flavored differently if you wish. The icing is now my favorite to use for decorating- not too sweet, but just sweet enough with a light butter flavor.
Best Wishes to the newlyweds!

Wilton Course 2 Finale- Banana Cupcakes

Ha Ha Had to post my cake! It actually came out not looking TOO bad.
I baked a banana cake and had to use class buttercream to ice it. I was burned out on chocolate and decided to make banana, but Mark hates bananas so I made just a little cake to decorate. But I chose to make a 3 layer 4 inch cake and make cupcakes to take to work. Yes there are 4 inch cake pans. HeHe So cute. The cake is pictured above.
Anyway, Mark told me no one would eat nasty banana cupcakes. He thinks no one likes banana. Of course he was wrong. I iced the cupcakes with buttercream I made using the recipe from the Opera cake, but flavored with bourbon vanilla. Fantastic! I took a dozen cuppies to work and brought home the empty container! Everyone had more than one! The cupcake and the buttercream combo was really a winner. Here are the recipes.
Banana Cupcakes

1 (18.25 oz.) box yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 oz.) box instant banana pudding
4 eggs
1 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mashed banana
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with papers.
2. In a large bowl combine cake mix and pudding mix. Stir together and create a well in the center.
3. Add eggs, banana, water and oil to the center. Use a mixer to combine. Scrape sides down, and mix for about four minutes on medium speed.
4. Pour batter into muffin tin, until about 2/3 filled with batter.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until tests done.

French Buttercream

2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
½ cup (60 grams) water
1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1¾ cups (7 ounces; 200 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
flavouring of your choice (a tablespoon of an extract, a few tablespoons of melted white chocolate, citrus zest, etc.) I used Madagasgar Bourbon Vanilla.
Combine the sugar, water and vanilla bean seeds or extract in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves.Continue to cook, without stirring, until the syrup reaches 225^◦F (124^◦C) on a candy or instant-read thermometer. Once it reaches that temperature, remove the syrup from the heat.While the syrup is heating, begin whisking the egg and egg yolk at high speed in the bowl of your mixer using the whisk attachment. Whisk them until they are pale and foamy.

When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature and you remove it from the heat, reduce the mixer speed to low speed and begin slowly (very slowly) pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl being very careful not to splatter the syrup into the path of the whisk attachment.
Raise the speed to medium-high and continue beating until the eggs are thick and satiny and the mixture is cool to the touch (about 5 minutes or so).While the egg mixture is beating, place the softened butter in a bowl and mash it with a spatula until you have a soft creamy mass. With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding in two-tablespoon chunks. When all the butter has been incorporated, raise the mixer speed to high and beat until the buttercream is thick and shiny. At this point add in your flavouring and beat for an additional minute or so.Refrigerate the buttercream, stirring it often, until it’s set enough (firm enough) to spread when topped with a layer of cake (about 20 minutes). Note-This buttercream will not hold up well in warm weather.

I'm Fixated here....Almond Buttercream plus more!

Do I detect some obsession here? Another set of cupcakes???!! Hmm, I am getting so many ideas for new flavorings. Here are the ones I took to my church picnic today. They were getting snatched off the table as I was putting them on! Squueeeeeee!!!
First up, Chocolate CC with my Aunt Mary's Almond Cream Cheese Buttercream. This is Mark's all time favorite combination. The recipe is below.

Next- Chocolate- filled with Choc. Hazelnut Creme -topped with Hazelnut Creme. The filling was made by mixing Nutella with Rich's Bettercreme, about equal parts of both. For the icing, I added Torani Hazelnut Syrup to taste to the Bettercreme. OH so yummy!

Last the flowered one is Chocolate with Choc. Chips topped with Malted Creme. This icing is like CRACK!!! It's so simple. Just add Hershey's Whoppers Malted Syrup to Rich's Bettercreme. Addicting!!!

Almond Cream Cheese Buttercream

4 oz Cream Cheese Softened
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 box (1 lb) 10 x sugar (may need slightly less)
1 tsp pure almond extract
Beat cream cheese and butter together till well mixed, add sugar in small batches and keep beating until fluffy and well blended, add extract and beat 1 more minute. ENJOY!
This tastes really good on your favorite chocolate cake.

Butter Pecan Clown Cake

I am taking a Wilton cake decorating class and as all good students do in Lesson 3, I made a clown cake. You can't see the whole cake here, but this picture is the top before it was totally done. I'm still in new blog mode and forget to take pictures. I added more balloons and balloons to the side.

The cake itself is from the Taste of Home website, but I cut the recipe in half which still made one pretty tall 9" layer, especially when I cut it in half and filled it with buttercream. The flavor was pretty good, not a real sweet cake, more like a nut cake, which went well with the sweet buttercream.

I used a different buttercream than the Wilton one, since I don't like the way it tastes. My recipe is below. You can find the cake recipe here.

BUTTERCREAM ICING (makes a medium consistency icing)

1 cup shortening

1 cup butter (salted or unsalted)- softened

1/3 cup hot water

1 Tbl powdered coffee creamer

1 tsp popcorn salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp butter extract

8 cups powdered sugar

Using a stand-up mixer, cream together the butter and shortening until nice and fluffy. Measure out the water in a standard measuring cup and dissolve the creamer, the salt in this water. Add the extracts to the cup. Stir well with a spoon.Turn your mixer speed to the lowest possible setting and add in the powdered sugar slowly. Alternate back and forth with the water mixture. Keep the mixer on low until all liquid and powdered sugar are combined. Once combined, turn the mixer up a notch and mix well. Approximately 2-3 minutes.