74 graduation cupcakes!

I was asked by one of my coworkers "Since you love to bake cupcakes, could you make some for my husband & daughter's graduation party...I'll pay you?" "Of course" was my answer! Here was her criteria...

1) Two different cupcakes one for her daughter graduating from Crescent Vally High (maroon & gold/yellow) and the other for her husband graduating with his PhD from OSU (black & orange)

2) Do what you think is best I need about 72 cause there are around 100 people invited to the graduation party!

Holy cow lol! I got right to work on the trial cupcakes! After 2 batches of test cupcakes I finally found the recipes I was going to use with some tweaks of my own! Here are the test cupcakes, not quite perfect. Red velvet was too dry & butter cream not quite right...

Decided to go with Red velvet cupcakes with yellow/gold cream cheese frosting to represent Crescent Vally High! Then dark chocolate cupcakes with orange butter cream frosting to represent OSU! Please realize how hard it was for me to make these cupcakes being a U of O fan! Now here are the actual cup cake recipes I used, how I mixed them and what the final product looked like!

Kitchen prep-had to make more room on the counter lol!

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

by: browneyedbaker

makes about 36

preheat 350*

3 sticks of butter

1/2 cup dark Hershey coco powder

2 1/4 cup cake flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

6 eggs

2 1/4 cup sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups sour cream

*Beat butter & sugar together until creamy (very important) always takes longer than you think. In separate bowl measure out your cake flour & coco powder. To your butter & sugar mixture add in eggs one at a time & mix well. Mix in sour cream & vanilla extract, blend in salt, baking soda & baking powder than slowly add flour & coco mixture 1/2 cups at a time letting each blend. Fill cupcake cups 3/4th full & bake 18-20 mins!

Butter Cream Frosting

2 sticks of butter

1/4 cup + 2T milk

5 3/4 cup confectioners sugar (to the consistency you want)

1teaspoon vanilla

Orange food coloring (in my case)

*Mix butter & sugar until well blended then add milk, vanilla & food coloring  (my case orange) until consistency you like.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

by browneyedbaker

makes about 36

preheat to 350*

1 1/2 sticks of butter
2 1/4 cups of sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup coco powder
red food coloring (in my case I used Burgundy frosting coloring form Michale's)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 cups + 6T cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 1/2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

*Cream butter & sugar until fluffy and blended. Add in eggs mix than turn to hi speed & completely mix together. Coco powder, vanilla, red food coloring (to color) mix until color is completely blended. Even scrap sides & blend more. 1/2 buttermilk & cake flour stir. Than salt, baking soda & vinegar blend. Add remaining buttermilk & flour slowly letting each blend.

Cream Cheese Frosting

3 pkg cream cheese softened

3/4 cup butter softened

3 cups confectioners sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

food coloring (in my case)

*Cream together cream cheese & butter until creamy. mix in vanilla (yellow & tiny orange food coloring) than gradually stir in confectioners sugar.

It was a very fun adventure to make a TON of cupcakes and Mike helped me out a lot! Maybe a bit more practice and we have a good cupcake gig going! Here is a picture of me 'riding dirty' to drop off my stash!

    Congratulations to all the 2012 graduates!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Its not even 8am and I am already procrastinating the making of homemade rolls and individual lemon cheese cake fruit tarts. oh man I have to get going lol! I just don't want to move from my couch with my warm coffee! I wish I had some pictures of Easter through the years but none that exists on computer yet...

2hrs later...I am done with the fruit tarts and they are chilling in the fridge, Mike and I make a good team! I will post recipe later on my whats cooking page.

The roll dough is rising and i am back to relaxing on the couch with Mike before I have to shower bake rolls and get ready for Easter lunch/dinner with mikes sister (Angela) and brother-in-law(Travis)! Its going to be a nice Easter, we get to see Angie for the 1st time since her big baby news and soon we get to find out the sex!! than its quilt making time for me!

Enjoy your Easter everyone! I know Tajuan did!

Tajuan waiting so patiently for his Easter gift!

Really enjoying chewing on his Easter bunny!

An exrta day at Home!

I had today off which is a rare thing now a days so its kinda like my spring break! What did I do with my day off? Well I made taco soup in the crock pot, baked lemon blueberry crumble muffins using my own version of Oregon Transplant recipe! She inspied me to make them!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tbsp lemon extract
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup canola oil applesauce
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour through lemon zest. In another bowl, mix oil through egg. Add liquid into flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin pan 3/4 full (I recommend using liners on this recipe).
3. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on baking rack until muffins are completely cool.

Topping-
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp butter, cold
To make topping, combine brown sugar through cinnamon. Cut in cold butter until it resembles coarse sand. Fill cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle topping over batter.

Lets see what else..Oh yes I read while bubba napped in the sun..

I know its a hard life for us lol! It just felt so good not to have to go to work today! I got all my work papers organized for the past 3 months cause I have been bad and been behind. I just needed a breath and to step away from the shop for a bit! Having your month by month planed out into the fall can be a little over whelming for a 25 year old. So I have to take these random days when I can! And today has been lovely!

April Fools!

Well I have no jokes to play on anyone today (sad face) but I have been busy baking up a storm and revamping the blogs look! I loved how it looked before and it was totally my style but I also have a softer side, plus my old eyes were having trouble looking at it all the time! So walla I came up with a theme that had some of my favorite color combinations on it!

I added a new treat to my Whats Cookin page! Its peanut butter chocolate chip mini cupcakes!

Oh they were so tasty!

I can not believe its April already I am having a very hard time keeping up on this calender day/week thing I think my mind is still stuck back in the middle of March (hurry up mind my body needs you lol)! I am hopping spring is right around the corner, this rainy gray wet snowy stuff ain't cutting it. let me give you an example of what happened to good old Oregon valley peps on March 21st-22nd..

Woke up on Wednesday 21st not really expecting anything out of the ordinary. Looked outside to judge the weather and bam was hit with a bright white light (no I was not having an out of body experience) but in fact it had snowed ALL night! WTF..

Not just a light dusting either

My poor tulips

I ok well its not so bad and the roads were clear enough that I had to still make it to my doctors app this day. Blah blah after all that and I got to work most of my clients for that day started canceling boo on them. At worked it snowed all dam day, non stop not one break but it was not sticking on the ground cause it was too wet & warm. later that night when I got home (7:30) still no stopping & the temperature was dropping and now the snow was starting to stick to the roads..

Wednesday evening out our front door

 Where dose the yard & sidewalk stop and the street begin? Yes it continued to snow non stop, it was beautiful but not what I really was hopping for as the weather for the 2nd day of spring. Lets move on to Tuesday morning...

Eye popping 4" of snow right out the door

The street was much and driving to work sucked! but by 2:00 it was mostly all melted and we were having non stop rain with lots of flooding! Yeah!

Rainy/Windy Oregon Day

Sound familiar? Yes another nasty day here in beautiful Oregon. AHHHHHH where is Spring already I want some sun any sun, cold sun is just fine! But there is good news..Mike and I were running around doing our errands, well and our power went out for 3hrs so it forced us to go do something. As we were running around Mike found a shamrock cookie cutter that he just had to have! He is just a giant kid at heart its so cute! So as the story goes we got home put everything away and made Irish Whiskey sugar cookies with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting! Yes in spirit of St .Patricks day! Oh did they turn out Om Nom Nom!

Rolled sugar cookies with a twist!

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1egg

1/2 teaspoon Irish Whiskey

1-1/4 cup All purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon backing powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream together butter and white sugar.

Add in egg and blend well, while still mixing on low add in Irish Whiskey.

Add all dry ingredient and mix.

Cover and Chill dough for a least 1hr.

Preheat Oven 400 degrees

Roll dough out on floured surface about 1/2 inch thick and cut into shapes

Place cookies 1inch a part and bake for 6-8mins let cool before frosting.



Bailey's Irish cream Frosting

• 1cup confectioners’ sugar         

 • 1/4 unsalted butter, room temperature

 • 1T Baileys Irish Cream

Cream butter untill fluffy

Add in confectioners sugar a little at a time

Than add in Baileys Irish Cream

Oh yes & 5 drops or so of green food coloring!



Toasted Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been baking like a made woman! I just made as the title says Toasted Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies! I am on Pinterest and love seeing the recipes people find and this one I found which took me to Chef in Training blog and I wanted to try it! I added some directions that I thought needed to be there but I put them in Bold so you could tell what I added!

Toasted Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

3 cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

semi-sweet chocolate chips

Shredded Coconut

Put shredded coconut on a cookie sheet and broil until toasted.

It was my 1st time toasting coconut and it took me two tries before getting it right.. The thing that final worked for me was putting parchment paper on a baking sheet and only putting a little coconut so it is all spared out not lying on top in piles than only putting them in for like 1min @ 375 degrees. Check them often and kinda shake them around on the pan!

Cream butter and sugars together.

Add in eggs & vanilla blend well.

Add all dry ingredients and mix together.

Add semi-sweet chocolate chips

Roll into 1-inch balls and press some of the toasted coconut on top.  I use a cookies scoop!

Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes.

Enjoy!