Chocolate Butterscotch Cupcakes

Hope everyone had a wonderful Saint Patrick's day on Thursday! For our pot of gold after our meal, we made these wonderful cupcakes! Enjoy!

Chocolate Butterscotch Cupcakes
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp almond extract
1 cup boiling water
1 Butterscotch pudding cup

Directions:
Mix together all the dry ingredients.
Add in the eggs, milk, oil, and almond extract: beat until smooth
Add the water and pudding and mix until blended
The batter will be watery so you will have to ladle the batter into your liners.

Bake at 350* for 20-25 min. Cool in the pan 5 min, then remove and cool completely.
Frost cooled cupcakes and top with butterscotch chips. Yum!

For the frosting, use our Marshmallow Frosting recipe and simply add Cocoa powder:

Marshmallow Frosting
Ingredients:
4 sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)
2 cups powdered sugar
20 oz marshmallow cream
2 tsp cocoa powder

Directions:
Beat butter until creamy
Add sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beat until fluffy
Stir in marshmallow and cocoa powder.


Catch you on the sweet side!
Marcie and Katelyn

Green Dragon Cupcakes

Its only a week away from St Patrick's Day and in honor of the holiday we decided to create what we like to call our Green Dragon cupcake. Yes, we got our cupcake name from the best beer song in Lord of the Rings, but what can we say..."You can drink your fancy ales you can drink them by the flagon but the only brew for the brave and true.... comes from the green dragon!" :)


Green Dragon Cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 cup Guinness extra stout beer
1 cup 4 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions:
1. Heat guiness and butter in a sauce pan until the butter melts
2. Add in cocoa and sugar
3. Combine the buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla in a bowl and whisk.
4. Combine the flour and baking soda
5. Alternately combine the liquid mixture and the flour mixture into the original mix.
6. Poor into cupcake liners and bake for 18 min at 350*

Top cooled cupcakes with our Guinness Cream Cheese Frosting.
Ingredients:
1 8oz package of cream cheese (softened)
1 tbsp Guinness
2/3 cups powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients together, stir in green food coloring until you reach your desired shade, and enjoy!

Catch you on the sweet side!
Marcie and Katelyn

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

You can never go wrong with a classic, and everyone should have a vanilla cupcake recipe to fall back on. Our ballerina cupcake post was so popular, we thought we'd share our Classic Vanilla Cupcake recipe with you.

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter                               2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar                           1/2 tsp salt
3 stiff-beaten egg whites                2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla                                   1 cup milk

Directions:
1. Cream shortening and sugar
2. Add in vanilla extract; beat until fluffy
3. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk; mix thoroughly after each addition
4. Fold in egg whites
5. Bake for 20-25 min at 350*

Enjoy,
Marcie & Katelyn

To line, or not to line...we found out.

Marcie and I like to wonder about things, we also like to rebel. So one day we found ourselves pondering why we had to use a cupcake liner when baking cupcakes. We figured they would come out basically the same, maybe a little yummier. But in reality, they baked almost completely differently.

For starters, we noticed that when we baked a cupcake without a liner, the form of the cupcake was different in two ways. It created a crusty edge on the top of the cupcake and there were visible air bubbles. The shape of the cupcake was also different, when you bake in a liner the cupcake comes out perfectly placed. It will fill out the liner. Without a liner though, and you're taking your chances on the shape. Some of ours came out close to similar in shape while others couldn't stand up straight.
 
So our next experiment? We want to try baking our cupcakes in some bright colored parchment paper kind of like these cuites here --------------->

We found these cupcakes at Natalie Blake's blog. (click here to check it out). 


Happy Baking!
Marcie and Katelyn

Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Marshmallow Frosting

For this delicious cupcake, we use a simple, fluffy chocolate cinnamon cupcake, a super yummy peanut butter marshmallow frosting, and top it all off with a Snickers. :)

BAKEs Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcakes (adapted from The Farm Chicks chocolate cupcake recipe):
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Directions:
Mix together all the dry ingredients.
Add in the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla: beat until smooth
Add the water and mix
The batter will be watery so you will have to ladle the batter into your liners. Be sure to have something like a paper towel ready because it will drip everywhere.

Bake at 350* for 20-25 min. Cool in the pan 5 min, then remove and cool completely. Then frost to your hearts delight! For our Peanut butter marshmallow frosting, click here.


This recipe is one of our favorites so far. In fact a friend of ours is having a birthday on Wednesday and for his present, we're going to make him these cupcakes topped with a snickers piped with frosting so that they look like little presents. Should be cute!

Enjoy!
Marcie and Katelyn

The Ballerina Cupcake: In honor of the Sacramento Ballet Company

"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!/ For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Who doesn't love a little Romeo and Juliet? Even you boys out there can't deny you get a little teary eyed at the end. (Admit it, we all know you do). Well in honor of next weekends performance of Romeo and Juliet by the Sacramento Ballet Company, I felt I needed to create a cupcake. (Yes, a cupcake).

And behold...the Ballerina Cupcake!

When I thought of what a cupcake had to be in order to capture the feel of the ballet, I knew my honorary cupcake needed to be light, fluffy, and most importantly pink and white. So naturally I took our signature vanilla cupcake, added some food coloring, topped it with a light marshmallow frosting and admired my work. I really wanted some little ballerina shoes to top it off with but they were no where to be found. Not even in the Barbie section! I went to three different stores and no luck, talk about disappointed. But hey, I still think it turned out nice. :)

So next weekend (February 10-13th), if you are in the Sacramento area be sure to support our wonderful ballet company and catch a performance of their telling of Romeo and Juliet. They wont let you down.

Follow this link for more information.

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend!
-Marcie and Katelyn