mascarpone frosting
I don’t like cream cheese (yes, I realize I am the only one) something about that tangy–ness. So this is my go to alternative for frosting. Mascarpone is like an Italian cream cheese – it’s smoother, richer. Rico sauve.
ingredients:
8 ounces mascarpone cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
In a medium bowl combine mascarpone cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir together until smooth, and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form – don’t overdo it, the last thing you want is for it to curdle. Then fold the whipped cream, into the mascarpone mixture until combined. If you get it just right, you will get a nice sweet fluffy frosting.
Sooo much better than cream cheese, who’s with me?!
Coffee & Donuts Cupcakes – link
There is a list on the internet of the “20 Most Inventive Cupcakes Known to Man.” Guess who is number 19?!? My Coffee and Donuts Cupcakes! Very cool! Only the link is wrong so here’s the actual link to the instructions…
Of all my cupcakes, these are my favorite. Donuts and cupcakes, what’s not to love?
Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
I am not the biggest fan of cream cheese, hey – I like my bagels plain!! But seeing as how everyone else loves cream cheese, I had to come up with something. By adding a touch more vanilla, the cream cheese frosting just steps it up a little bit more and makes it a nice compliment for any cake you may need to frost!
ingredients:
8oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1-1/2 tsp vanilla
Beat together the cream cheese and butter. Slowly add the confectioner’s sugar, then the vanilla. Once it is combined and spreadable…go to town!
Coffee Buttercream Frosting
I LOVE the flavor or coffee, and wanted to make frosting that had just enough coffee flavor but still had great texture. This frosting tastes great on any cake or cupcake.
ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2-1/2 Tablespoons coffee
1 Tablespoon milk (as needed)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
In the bowl of an electric mixer cream butter, carefully adding the sugar, coffee, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. Add a little of the milk at a time to get the right consistency. Turn the mixer up to high and beat well.
Chocolate Whipped Cream
This works great for topping cupcakes, cakes, pies – anything you want to make DELICIOUS. (Maybe not fish.)
ingredients:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon Valrohona Cocoa Powder
In the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, starting whipping the cream on low, add the vanilla, powdered sugar and cocoa.
Once combined turn the speed up to high, like 6 or 8 – and really let that cream have it. Watch it though, go too far and you’ll have butter. So just until you start to get stiff peaks – then turn the mixer off.
This doesn’t do well sitting out for long, so I suggest you serve it immediately.
Chocolate Root Beer frosting
This is my variation of the Baked cookbook
ingredients:
2.5 ounce bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons root beer
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the butter and the cocoa powder until combined. It will be thick.
Add in the melted bittersweet chocolate. I really love the smoothness of Scharffenberger. It adds just the right chocolate-y flavor.
Add the salt, then alternate the root beer and the powdered sugar. Once you get everything in there and combined without making a giant mess (it’s hard to do) crank your mixer up to a medium high speed and whip it up good – just a few minutes – until you get a nice light chocolate-y consistency and you’re ready to use it!
Stencil lettering for cakes, how-to
The morning of the Kid’s birthday I threw a Rainbow Cake together right quick, there was no planning so I didn’t have time to roll out fondant and do a whole thing. Writing on a cake with frosting is easy. But sometimes you want things to look a little cleaner – as if you really put in a lot of effort….but in reality you are just kind of lazy. Here’s a good way to fake it.
Since I wanted to stick with the Star Wars theme, I printed out wording in Star Wars font on heavy cardstock. Using an x-acto I cut out the letters.
Now you have a template. I laid this on top of the already frosted cake, and using a different color of frosting, I just went through and tried to stay within the stencil. Even if you go over or screw up it doesn’t matter, the beauty of it is when you lift the stencil off, you’ll have clean lettering – honest!
This is a super quick way to get fancy lettering done fast!
(Fondant lettering how-to is similar)
Cinnamon Buttercream
I love this frosting – I use it a lot because it has that perfect sweetness!
ingredients:
1/2 C. butter , softened
3 C. powdered sugar
3 Tbs. milk
1 Tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp.cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Beat the butter, adding the powdered sugar slowly. Add the milk slowly, then the syrup, cinnamon and vanilla. Speed up the mixer to a nice beat until fluffy. Frost the cupcakes and DEVOUR.
Hawaiian Chocolate Dobash Cupcakes
If you are from Hawaii, have visited Hawaii, or heck even go to the King’s Hawaiian bakery – then you know about Dobash. It’s a light chocolate cake, but what puts it over the top is the pudding like frosting. It’s surprisingly not as rich as it looks – just the right amount of sweet.
Usually it’s a layer cake but I thought just a cupcake would work out fine, turned out to be the best thing ever – easy to transport and still cute and tasty.
cake ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
frosting ingredients:
1-1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners (makes 24)
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat eggs whites until frothy. Gradually add in only 1/2 cup of sugar, until the whites are stiff.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, the other 1 cup of sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa. After making a well in the center, pour in the oil and some of the milk. Mix well and add the remaining milk and egg yolks until smooth.
Fold the egg whites into the chocolate batter. Pour into cupcake pan and bake for 15 mins depending on your oven. Cool and rest on a wire rack.
While they are cooling make the frosting. In a saucepan combine the water, sugar, salt and butter – bring to a boil. In a small bowl mix together the 1/2 cup of water and the cornstarch to form a smooth liquid. Once the sauce pan starts to boil, add the cocoa carefully, then slowly pour in the cornstarch mixture. This process should happen quickly, and the frosting will seize up. Let the frosting cool. I usually pour it into another bowl to cool.
Since Dobash is traditionally a layered cake, I tried to incorporate the idea of frosting throughout by making a hole in the center of the cupcake. That way the frosting tunnels down through it. Once the frosting is cooled, fill/frost the cupcakes and serve.
Marbled Cupcakes (for the Lakers)
This marbled cupcake is special because the colors are gold and purple for the Lakers. Even if you aren’t a Laker fan you can still do this for your fave team with a quick color change. It’s so easy and fun AND tastes great with Champagne Buttercream – frosting of choice for all (hopeful) champions of course…
ingredients:
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
1-3/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of kosher salt
1 cup whole milk
gel food coloring
champagne buttercream (recipe here)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl whisk together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time until combined, then add the vanilla. Alternate the flour mixture and the milk until combined.
Now set aside one cup of the batter, in a small bowl. Here’s where you add food coloring. I prefer gel because it doesn’t mess with the liquid in the batter. Now I picked up this ‘royal purple’ at the store, and it was BLUE. Unfortunate. So I used my skillz, and added some red to get just the right purple.
Now in your prepped liners, alternate the two batters by spoonful until you get to about 3/4 of the way full. To get the nice marbled look, take a knife, toothpick, chopstick – whatever you have and make figure 8s in the batter. You’ll be surprised how well this works.
Bake for 17-20 minutes until you get a clean toothpick. Let cool on a wire rack.
These are delicious as is, but go ahead and top them with some Champagne Buttercream for that perfect punch!
