Dah dah dah dah... It's Elmo Time!!

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Red, White and Blue Cupcakes!

This post has moved to the Sunny Side :) Click the link for the recipe, I promise it's worth it!

Do these look familiar to you?

Every so often a recipe or idea makes it's way around the food blog world. This is one of those ideas. I'm sure you've already seen it on other food blogs but I just had to give it a try because it is too darn cute! And, I wanted to make something fun to celebrate. I finished my first quarter of nursing school!! And I am *hopefully* going to be getting straight A's! So these are celebratory cupcakes.

It's hard to really cite one source for this idea because I have literally seen it everywhere so I will just link the website that pushed me over the edge today, Beantown Baker. I used the filling and ganache recipe found on her blog but I used a different recipe for the cupcakes.

Hostess Fake Out Cupcakes

Cupcake
Source: Hershey's, This is a recipe I have actually made quite a few times but surprisingly I have never blogged! I think this recipe is a great staple for any kitchen. For these cupcakes I cut this recipe in half.

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water


1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3.Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Filling
Source: Beantown Baker

2 large egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Combine filling ingredients with a pinch of salt in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water and beat with a handheld electric mixer at high speed until frosting is thick and fluffy, 6 to 7 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and continue to beat until slightly cooled. Reserve 1/2 cup of the filling to use for piping the swirls on top of the cupcakes at the end.

Chocolate Ganache
Source: Beantown Baker

1/4 cup cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

In a small saucepan, heat cream until steaming. Remove from the heat, add chocolate and let stand for 5 minutes. Add the butter and stir until smooth. Transfer the frosting to a small bowl and dip the top of each cupcake to thoroughly coat.




Assembly

Cut a hole in the top of the cooled cupcakes (about the size of a quarter). Remove that part of the cupcake. I cut the top off of each "hole" to put over top of the filling once piped and set aside.

Fill the hole in the top of each cupcake with the filling. Then put the hole top over the filling.

Dip the top of each cupcake in the chocolate ganache. Put the cupcakes in the fridge for about 5 minutes to set the ganache.

Pipe the swirls on top of the ganache. Then put back in the fridge to set again for 10-15 minutes.

Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes

As soon as I saw a picture of these cupcakes on Annie's blog a few weeks ago I knew that I would have to try them. I'm not usually a fruit dessert person but for some reason this combination sounded really good to me, plus the recipe calls for the berries to be pureed so there was no risk of me biting into a big chunk of fruit.

I really enjoyed these cupcakes. The flavor was excellent and they were really moist. However, when I first took them out of the oven I was worried because the color was sort of a non-appealing gray and the tops just looked funny (I'm pretty sure I over-mixed the batter). Then came the icing.... That started out as a major disaster. My plan was to use my star tip but the icing was so incredible runny that it just ran all over the side of the cupcake. After adding a LOT more confectioners it was better but in the end I just ran a spatula over the tops and swirled them because they were looking sad and droopy. So beware, these are not the right cupcakes for a star tip swirl on the top. Despite all of that these were a big hit and I would definitely consider making them again.

I doubled this recipe but below I am posting the original recipe. I also added the beans, from the vanilla pod used to make my vanilla sugar, to the batter. Other than that I made the recipe exactly as stated.



Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes
(Source: Annie's Eats)
Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup vanilla sugar*
Beans scraped from 1 vanilla pod
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup blackberry puree (fresh or frozen blackberries, pureed in a food processor or blender and strained through a fine mesh sieve)

*If you do not have vanilla sugar, you can substitute an equal amount of regular sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla extract, added to the batter after the eggs.

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted (I doubled the recipe but in the end I used closer to 8 cups of powdered sugar!!)
5 tbsp. blackberry puree

For garnish:
Fresh blackberries (optional)

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners. In a small mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions. (This is when I added the vanilla beans)

In another bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the milk and blackberry puree. Add half of the dry ingredients to the bowl of the mixer and mix on low speed until just combined. Mix in the blackberry puree/milk mixture. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients on low speed just until incorporated. Do not over-mix.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared paper liners. Bake 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and blackberry puree in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until smooth and well blended. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired and garnish with fresh blackberries (optional).

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I used the same recipe from a previous post but this time I decided to make it into cupcakes. I think it turned out much better this time. Very light and fluffy and just moist enough. I fixed most of the problems from last time and this time the frosting came out perfectly! The original frosting recipe called for melted butter and cream cheese over low heat. I found that to be WAY to runny. So this time I just used softened. Much easier to work with!