Angel Food Cupcakes

With all the heavy eating we had planned for the 4th of July weekend, I struggled to think of something that would be sweet and desserty at the end of the day with out being too heavy...so I thought angel food cake would be light and still substantial enough for our sweet tooth after a long day of bike riding in the sunshine...

I came across The Cupcakery Blog , where Wendy had highlighted the Angel Food Cake recipe from the Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook, which was, as promised, easy to prepare.

We are talking MAJOR egg whites here...2 cups, which is about 14 eggs worth...Wendy suggests just purchasing the carton of egg whites (which I didn't do this time, but that would make it even easier, so I will do this next time...)



This made 24 mini cupcakes and 12 regular size…

1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
14 egg whites (2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 375° degrees and line the muffin tins with paper wrappers.
In a medium bowl, combine flour with one cup of the sugar. Sift these together three separate times. ( I am pretty sure this is essential, so you will need a sifter for this recipe…) Set the sifted whatnot aside and put remaining sugar in a separate cup for later use.
Pour the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer and use the whisk attachment, mix on lowest setting for about 1 minute. Then add cream of tartar, vanilla and salt.
After another minute of beating, turn the mixer to medium speed and gradually add the 1/2 cup of remaining sugar. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula after all the sugar is added. Resume beating until the whites are stiff but moist. (This should take about 5 minutes.)Transfer the egg whites to a large bowl. Sift the flour-sugar mixture over the whites and gently fold until all the dry ingredients are mixed in. Using a ladle, fill the cupcake liners about ½ full, or a little less than ½ full.
Bake about 8-10 minutes, but not any longer to prevent the bottoms from burning.
Cupcakes will be done when a toothpick comes out of the center clean. Remove cupcakes from the pan and place on a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.
I made these and took them (un-frosted) with a big bowl of fresh strawberries and a container of Cool Whip to our HB 4th of July gathering at Jeff & Lia’s and they made a great late night (meaning 9pm) sweet treat!

Housewarming Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

I am not so much "boxed cake mix" type of gal. Don't get me wrong, I do use it, eat it and use it as a base for other fun stuff. My homie Naomi LOVES Funfeti...and there is only one Funfeti, even if you bust it out "from scratch", we're sure it's still good, but it's not actual FUNFETI unless it has the Doughboy on the box.
She recently moved into a new place and made us all a KICKASS Carribean-Style-Thanksgiving FEAST of a party. I was going to be making guac, but should have gone to farmers market because the grocery avacados were not buneo.



After a memory jogging convo with my mother, I can inform you that this is OLD SCHOOL. We used to make these together (how can anyone wonder how I ended up loving creative food) when my sister & I were little. I thought these would be fun twist on her favorite cake mix, and decided to bring these to the gathering...I was a little nervous because once they were made and gorgeous, I had to get them from my apartment to Naomi's with out dropin the cones!




Fortunately Nate hooked up a brilliant tote using a disposable cookie sheet and 4 plastic cups...we cut holes in the cookie sheet and he taped 4 plastic cups to the bottom...I should have snapped a pic of it, but could draw it for you in a pinch~

This made 12 Ice Cream Cone cupcakes and about 20 mini cupcakes
What you'll need
1 box o Funfeti cake mix (plus the eggs and oil required by said cake mix)
12 ice cream cones
paper cupcake liners for the cupcakes
1 container of FUNFETI frosting
Sprinkles!!

Line a muffin pan with paper cupcake liners (12 regular size and about 20 mini, so prep both pans...)
Preheat oven & make cake according to pacakge...how mellow is this recipe so far??
Fill the cupcake liners about 1/2 full of cake batter and on the 12 full size cups tip an ice cream cone, upside down (BOTTOMS UP!!) into the batter..on the minis just fill em about half full...if you can find mini-ice-cream-cones...then by all means cone them ALL!
Bake according to package for cupcakes, and let cool for about an hour on a cooling rack, with the cones still bottoms up. When they are cool, flip them so they are standing up and peel the paper liners off the cupcakes. Frost with funfeti frosting and decorate like crazy with sprinkles!!

Coffee-Cake-Cupcakes, my Hero!

For a few months I've been watching and LOVING Laurie's monthly event CUPCAKE HERO over on her fabulous blog, the QUIRKY CUPCAKE!



This month was SUPER busy for me at work and I have been seriously neglecting my kitchen, so I thought I was going to have to admire from afar for one more month and hope to get in a good entry for February....BUT THEN, I decided there was not one good reason why I couldn't bust out a batch of creative coffee cupcakes Thursday night to get my submission in by the Friday 1/25 cutoff. So I started thinking (on my drive to work Thursday morning) of what kind of coffee cupcake I could make...something simple, but yummy, and creative but not too crazy.....and here is what I came up with- COFFEE CAKE! Why not?! I found a good recipe for coffee cake on ALL RECIPES and did a little modifying so there was actual COFFEE in the CAKE! I had no idea how this was going to turn out and these are not the best cupcakes ever, but they were tasty, and a fun breakfast-cupcake to boot!I 'm definitely excited to see the other submissions to this fabulous event.
Check them all out at THE QUIRKY CUPCAKE.





Coffee Cake Cupcakes
Inspired by THIS RECIPE for Coffee Cake on ALL RECIPES

2 c. pastry flour
3/4 c. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup cold butter
1 egg
1/4 cup brewed & cooled espresso or coffee
about 1/2 c milk- a little more if needed
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 and place cupcake cups on foil covered cookie sheet or grease a muffin tin. In a large food processor fitted with dough blade combine flower, sugar and tsp cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Crack the egg into a measuring cup. Add espresso until it equals 1/4 cup, then add milk to make it measure one cup, then stir in vanilla & whisk until egg is incorporated. Pour the crumb mixture into a large bowl and stir in the egg/espresso/milk until just moistened. Fill cupcake cups about 1/2 full & bake for 20-25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

For Cream Cheese Frosting
The perfect amount of cup cake frosting :)

1 8oz pkg softened, room temp cream cheese
1/4 c. softened, room temp salted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 c. confectioners sugar
1 tsp hot chocolate mix
1 tsp instant espresso

Using an electric hand mixer, cream together the cream cheese and sugar. Mix in vanilla until incorporated, then slowly sift in confectioners sugar until smooth. Frost cooled cupcakes & dust with hot chocolate mix and instant espresso.
keep frosted cupcakes in the fridge :)