Alex tries to bake…Part 1

Tonight, to kick things off, for my first post I decided to try my luck at making Mint Chocolate cupcakes. I love mint and chocolate isn't so bad either so I'm hoping I can't go too wrong here. I guess I should start from the beginning and let everyone know/warn you, that I am not the best baker. Some of you may remember my infamous "valentine's day pancake cupcakes" or the dry attempt at the "peanut butter filled cupcakes" from Martha's Cupcakes that I tried to make for Sarah's going away party. (By the way-Thanks for humoring me guys, I noticed most of them were gone despite their lack of deliciousness). So what I want to get out of participating in this blog is really a reason to force myself to bake more and hopefully, with practice, get better.

This brings us to the task at hand and now, with my new Kitchen Aid mixer (I think I'll call him Big Blue) fired up and ready to go, I started by measuring everything out into dishes. I did this for a few reasons. First, like Sarah, I also like to pretend I'm in a cooking show when I try to follow recipes that aren't printed on the back of a box. And second, in the past, many of my baking woes were caused by the wrong measurement of ingredients (See "valentine's day pancake cupcakes").

So with the ingredients laid out I took our trusty recipe book and started throwing contents into Big Blue. Quickly, I realized that I need to add the special Kitchen Aid Pouring attachment cover thing to my christmas list because as Big Blue churned away, a clous of sweet cocoa powder and flour started to waft around my counter. Not entirely a bad thing but a paing in the neck to clean, so in the future, we'll try to avoid that.

This recipe was really easy despite the heck of a time I had trying to find Dutch process cocoa powder. (By the way, I went with the half and half stuff Hershey's makes that I found after going to 6 different stores-count 'em-6).

So despite my less-than cocoa ingredient, everything seemed to be going accordingly. once Blue was done his thing, I had a slight moment of panic....was the mixture supposed to be so soupy? Did I mess up on the measurements somehow?? AGAIN?!? Alas, I reminded myself of the laborious pre-measuring I had done in order to avoid this and so put my second guessing aside.

I dutifully poured the batter into the paper cups and slid the pan into the preheated oven. So far so good asides for a little burn on my thumb. (Note to self, even when sliding in a cool pan, where oven mits because those rackes are wicked hot). One halfway turn of the pan, 20 minutes passed, and voila! Do I dare say we have success? Only time will tell. Well, really the taste testers at Clark can give me their rating tomorrow but for now I'm going to sit back and enjoy the minty chocolate smell wafting around the house.

-->Editor's note here: You might as well all know now that I'm kind of terrified of the homemade frosting recipes in the back of this book. They intimidate me to no end and for now logical reason so today I decided to use store bought frosting and add some peppermint oil to it myself - a technique we use often in my house. So don't be fooled, the frosting goodness you see here and some of you will taste tomorrow was not at all made by me. Also, instead of trying my hand at making chocolate mint leaves, I decided to crush up yummy soft peppermint candies to use as a topping because well, I'm not that patient and probably not that creative.

Until next time!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

A couple of days ago I indulged in Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting. As you can see, I'm very excited to start on this adventure. Please note my wonderful & beautiful kitchen island that I got from Ikea, my flirty & fun apron that Ben got me last Christmas and the colorful flowers that we got from Emily and Nina (Thanks!).



Anywho, it definitely turned out to be an adventure baking these cupcakes. First of all, it was basically the first time I had used the stove to bake something so delicate. I think that the only other thing we've made in that puppy is good-ole meatloaf. I was also using my new muffin tins from Chicago Metallic via TJ Maxx/Homegoods (I'm a Maxxinista). I also decided to make it more...um...fun by halving the recipe. You see, this particular recipe makes 30 cupcakes which is much too much too much (Oh, Ace) for Ben and I. I thought I'd go out on a limb and see if halving the recipe could be easily done. What I realize now is that I should have baked some full recipes and then halved some to compare. At this point I've only baked the halved recipe, and it tastes good to me but that question nags at the back of my mind: What could you have been, oh chocolate chip cupcake with dark chocolate frosting? Anyway, to the recipe...



cake flour (which was a bitch to find fyi...more on that later)
baking powder
salt
vanilla extract
milk (I used 2%)
unsalted butter
sugar
egg whites
semisweet chocolate chips

Okay, numero uno thing that you MUST do is let that damn butter come to room temperature. Otherwise you will be very angry at yourself. Read the recipe ahead of time to prepare so that when you want to bake you will have room temperature butter, sufficient cake flour and your sig other will have done all the appropriate dishes and then gotten the heck out of your kitchen. :) And if you are going to attempt to halve the recipe, make sure to double check everything because wasting batter is a sin.

I found Martha's recipe easy to follow and doable without Ben's help. Like I said, it helps to read ahead of time. For example, if you know you are going to have to wield an electric mixer and pour milk into the bowl it really helps to have the milk in a container with a spout. This way, you don't have to contort you wrist or other crazy maneuvers. I am also a huge fan of spreading all the ingredients out (on a beautiful Ikea kitchen island) ahead of time, already measured because 1.) it makes me feel like a TV screen baker and 2.) it actually makes sense for efficiency purposes.



People, meet Gorgeous Grass Green Kitchen Aid. GGGKA, meet people. This baby is wonderful, and makes baking (esp large batches) a breeze.



However, I don't want to neglect another piece of kitchen lore: my grandmother's old hand mixer. She doesn't look like much but she trucks, if you know what I mean. I actually had a newer one that I gave to my little sister. She turned her nose up at this one, but that's because she doesn't know how much this one has been through. This one has quite the resume.



Anyway, back to the actual baking/eating of the cupcakes. Easy peasy recipe to get the muffins, although I filled each cup about 3/4 of the way and they didn't get quite up to the right spot. I'll probably fill each a bit more next time to experiment. I want the finished product to hit right at the top of the muffin paper and these fell a bit short, as you can see over the next few pictures. Right out of the oven, these are a dream. The chocolate chips are melty and the cake is vanilla-y. I did notice that the chocolate chips fell a bit, so I might be inclined to use some of the mini variety if I do a redo. Here are some action shots:









Now let's talk about the frosting. I halved that recipe too. Oops. I don't think that this was a good idea. Something happened. This frosting was too liquid, almost like the consistency of softened butter (which, incidentally, was the most plentiful ingredient). Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but I would stick to the recipe Martha gives me in the future. I do give it high marks for chocolatey goodness.



Drum roll...finished product...to be had with glass of milk. [Do not neglect to notice the cute green and blue plaid muffin papers that I chose.]







So, what do you guys think? Any thoughts for improving the posts in the future? I kind of winged it, so let me know.

:) Sarah

So, this is my first post...

Let's start where Martha starts, with "swirled and sprinkled" cupcakes. We aren't necessarily going to go in order, but we'll stick to this section till we've baked them all. Wow, this is going to be awesome.

Here's the way things will go. Each week either Sarah or Alex will bake some cupcakes, take extensive photographs and then share them with you. Then, she will bring them to work, take extensive photographs and share them with you. Oh, she will also share the basics of the recipe, like ingredients, but not the entire recipe in case Martha's goonies are trolling blogger.com. She'll write about her experiences with the recipe (problems, tips, tricks, etc).

The last part of the puzzle is that Sarah and Alex are going to freeze one cupcake from each recipe, and then Sarah is going to tote hers back to Massachusetts in a cooler during the holiday season. Then, one wonderful day, they will reunite (with some friends from Clark) and eat cupcakes. Yummy.