At least four other people rode their bikes to work today. So, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not monumental that I rode my bike to work today, but in my little world it was super exciting. And what was more exciting than that was that I rode it to work toting my April Cupcake Hero entry: Prickly Pear Lemon Cupcakes.

There was some definite engineering that happened before this bike ride began this morning. I have a front basket on my bike, so it seemed logical that I tie them to that. I also choose a cupcake caddy that had deep wells, so that they would stay in place during the journey. But the best plans don’t always work out. Some where between Chandler and Gilbert the sidewalk/bike lane literally ended and I had to go off road. You can see that there were a few of them that took a tumble.

But it was actually fun watching them bounce around. By the time I made it to the office, they had all bounced upside down and right side up again. And that caddy stayed in place the whole way. It was interesting for me to see how many different ways I could go green with this challenge. Here’s some of the eco-friendly things that went into these babies:

• Choose a prickly pear product that was bottled within 100 miles of Phoenix (eat local)
• Selected locally grown lemons from a local farmer’s market (eat local)
• Used silicone cupcake cups rather than using paper (reduce/reuse)
• Rode my bike to work to transport these little babies to the office (reduce)

Prickly Pear Lemon Cupcakes

These cupcakes were so moist and the lemon flavor zinged. I think I am officially hooked on prickly pear syrup (margaritas and iced tea posts here). The flavor is subtlety sweet. I choose a lemon cake recipe from Chockylit and made a simple butter cream and added in the prickly pear syrup. I chose this frosting because I wanted the prickly pear taste to stand out and I see a buttercream like a good paint primer, it’s a frosting that helps whatever you mix in really stand out.

Lemon Cupcakes
12 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest of one lemon

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Measure out milk and vanilla.
5. Add flour mixture and milk alternatively, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
6. Mix in lemon juice.
7. Fill the ice cream cones about 1/2 inch from the top (just over the lower ridge). Tap the cones to ensure the batter fills the bottom. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Note: The batter makes 12 regular cupcakes.

This is my April 2008 Cupcake Hero Entry for Earth Day!

“You’re so tall.” I don’t know how many times Molly must hear that in a week and for a chick, she IS tall. It’s so obvious that she’s tall, that for me it cracks me up every time someone feels obligated to mention it to her. It’s the equivalent to saying to a person, “You have two arms.”

Seriously.

But this post isn’t about what irks me about how people address Molly. It’s about MOLLY’S BIRTHDAY! She lived in Dallas at the same time I did. I lived off Greenville Ave and she lived in Uptown. The neighborhoods are different (Tudor homes versus Brownstones) but if you lived in one, you found yourself going out in the other. It’s highly likely that we were at the same places at the same time.

On Molly’s website, she states that her favorite food is Red Velvet Cake and Wingstop wings. While I can’t figure out how to ship wings, I do know how to get her the cake.

This cake was made from a Sprinkles! cupcake mix I purchased at Williams & Sonoma. At $14 dollars for the mix alone, not counting the frosting and adding in the wet ingredients.  I’ll post a review on their box mixes later. Cost aside, this cake mix is moist and tasty. The cream cheese frosting is traditional and flawless.

It’s a very busy night. I’ve got Cupcake Week on Martha Stewart on the DVR. American Idol is on and tonight is the season premier of Hell’s Kitchen! Whew! In honor of Cupcake Week however on MS, I think it’s important to talk about cupcake essentials.

My favorite kitchen essentials are my OXO non-slip bowls. I’ve got two sets of the three graduated sizes. I like that they’re light and stackable. Most cupcake (cake) recipes call for the butter and sugar to be mixed separate from the dry ingredients. These bowls are the perfect for sifting flour and other stuff. Finally, these bowls have a pouring tip on them. When I’m making a cake recipe that’s runnier, I don’t have to scoop out the batter; I can just pour it out.

Another cupcake essential (or pet peeve) is good baking cups. I hate it when a cake sticks to the liner. I’ve had my share of using Reynold’s Baking Cups and I think that if I was only making cupcakes every now and again, they would be fine. But I’m baking every week and I’m not always baking the nice and simple box cake recipe: Sometimes cake recipes are dense, sometimes they’re sticky and other times they’re just messy. My favorite baking cups have been Beyond Gourmet Unbleached Baking Cups and for fun these Fluted Baking Cups. I’ve got two sets of silicone baking cups, but I think they’re a pain to wash.

Finally and I blame this blog, for my mostest essential baking item. My camera. I use a little point and shoot Kodak and I love it. It’s got two settings that I use most when shooting food; Auction and Bright Flower. I feel that it shoots a picture that’s clear and I don’t have to play with too many settings. I use a few free photo editing packages to clean up the pictures, but for the most part I like how it takes pictures. You might like to read this blog post about how to take pictures of food too, Photojojo.

So, what I want to know from you is what can you not live without in your kitchen?

…so you know it’s going to be a good thing!

I’m so excited that it’s going to be Cupcake Week on Martha Stewart. I’ve set my DVR and I’m ready to see what’s cooking in the kitchen and who she’ll bring on to interview. And because it’s Martha, you know that the decorations will be perfect and the flavors will be decadent. And there’s even a Cutest Cupcake Contest this week. I’m going to be so stoked if one of the blogs I read has a winning entry!

If you’re so inclined, here’s my entry into the contest. You can go to the Martha website and vote or comment on my entry.

Do you have an entry? Let me know!

Oh Cupcake Hero Challenge, you almost got me on this one. I joined during peppermint, caught my stride during coffee, said cheers during liquor but this one was not an easy challenge for me. I struggled with what approach I wanted to take and I wanted a challenge. But how much can you do with a marshmallow?

I started making a list of all the desserts and dishes that have marshmallows (s’mores, Peeps, rocky road, sweet potato pie). I was actually committed to one of those desserts when I had a dream (some may even call it a premonition) about what cupcake I should make for Cupcake Hero: Marshmallow.

I had a dream about cupcakes. It’s the first time for me. Any who…

You see, I had been thinking about my grandmother (Moo Moo). I didn’t go home this year for Easter and she always puts together the best Sunday lunches. One of her signature dishes is Old Fashion Fruit Salad. It’s a simple cut fruit salad with homemade whipped cream and marshmallows! Ah-freakin-ha! There was my challenge. How could I turn her salad into a cupcake?

I started with the Strawberry Cupcake recipe from Sprinkles that I found on the website All Things Cupcake. This is the second Sprinkles recipe I’ve made. They’re good. It seems that most of them follow more of the chiffon cake method rather than traditional Betty Crocker recipes.

For the fruit in the salad I went with apples, pears and bananas. I also added in pecans and a small squares of vanilla marshmallows. I thought that adding juicier peaches would make the frosting too runny. And as you’ll read on later that was a good move.

See that ooey gooey frosting? Um, my original intention was for the frosting to actually stay on the cupcake, not run all the way down it. I had made a cream cheese frosting that had whipping cream in it also, which made the mixture too thin once I started mixing in the fruit. It could have been better to go with a firmer frosting and put the fruit on the top.

But that didn’t really stop me from enjoying every bite of it. The cake recipe called for fresh or frozen strawberries. I only had fresh ones and the flavor was good, but I think that using frozen strawberries would have made the taste more pronounced. I also added red food coloring to add more color and pop.

And we’re finished!

Fruit Salad Cupcakes

For the cupcake I followed the Sprinkles’ Strawberry Cupcake recipe posted on All Things Cupcake.

What I suggest you do for the frosting (not what I did)

Make a firm frosting like cream cheese or a buttercream frosting. Chop fruit and mix with the juice from 1/2 lime. This will help prevent it from browning. Add homemade marshmallows and pecans.

I can remember when I was little making sure that the night before St. Patrick’s Day that I had green on my pajamas because I knew that if I didn’t that my dad would be in my room bright and early looking to get in a pinch. I love that St. Patty’s Day is a day where people who are Irish pull out all the stops and people who aren’t Irish pull out the “Kiss Me, anyways!” t-shirts.

Now, I have always been more of a green beer than Guinness girl. I know, there’s some cussing Irishman rolling his eyes as I type these words, but the beer is just too, um, stout? So, when cupcake bloggers started posting their Guinness cupcake creations, I knew I had to join in.

A few baking notes on the recipe from Fabulous Foods.  The batter was very runny. So much so that I was nervous and wanted to do a test batch. They turned out perfect and you can fill the cups 3/4 full and not worry about them baking over the edges of the tin.

Guinness Cupcakes
Makes 30-ish cupcakes

1 bottle (12 ounces) Guinness stout
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for garnish
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the Frosting
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 pound confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the Guinness, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the sour cream.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, and baking soda. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet Guinness mixture.

Butter 24 muffin tins and divide the batter among the muffin tins.

Bake 25 minutes until risen and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out of the tins.

Make the frosting:
Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the heavy cream. Slowly mix in the confectioner’s sugar.

You know she’ll pull out the rock fist at her wedding. That’s a given. I wanted to do something special for Karrin’s birthday and I had this grand idea of making rock fist fondant cupcakes with sparklers and they were going to be the most rad cupcakes ever.

One problem…I’m not really a cupcake artist…I’m just a baker. But inspiration came and hence came the Karrin Rock Fist Commemorative Cupcake Collection. From left to right we have Karrin moving into her new house throwing I have a huge mortgage OMG double rock fist, Karrin at an elegant party throwing the couture rock fist and finally Karrin at the hospital carrying around an oxygen bag rock fist. Happy Birthday Karrin!!!!!!!!!!

So, in the spirit of rocker girl cupcakes. I need some help. I haven’t updated my iPOD in a year. I need some new tunes. What are some of your favorite songs to have playing when you’re cooking or working out?

I’ll post more on these later, but the picture turned out too pretty not to share! Happy Friday!

…And HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYDNEY!

Of all the days to have a major flop, Sunday night was not the night for it to happen. You see today is a day that falls in the middle of three birthdays at work. And these aren’t any birthdays, these three people collectively put the ‘aholic in chocaholic.

We’re not talking “I enjoy chocolate chip cookies,” but “I eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast before my chocolate cheese cake, chocolate french toast.”

I have this problem every time I make a cake that calls for both baking powder and baking soda. I think…I’m not going to over fill the tins this time and what happens. I over fill them. This sour cream chocolate recipe from Cupcakes by Elinor Kilvana made 18 cupcakes. I made 17 and plop; Big fat cupcake heads.

In a few months it’ll be 120 degrees in Phoenix, but for now it’s absolutely amazing and 70 degrees and sunny. It’s easy to get Spring fever right dab in the middle of February. I’ve already started planning out my Spring schedule with minor league baseball games, farmer’s markets and gardening.

It’s this time of year in Phoenix that the citrus trees ares are loaded with tangelos, oranges and lemons. People practically walk into the office with crates full of fruit to give away in hopes that it won’t all be wasted.

So, I’ve been toying around with what my Cupcake Hero entry should be for February’s theme of LIQUOR. First I started trolling mixology websites; B52s, Mint Julips, Purple Hooters were all options for a cupcake variation. Heck, I could go easy, make a chocolate cupcake with some Bailey’s frosting and call it a day. But that wasn’t really inspiring any creative juices in the kitchen.

Saturday morning came (only a few days till the deadline) and while I was making my grocery shopping list a little cookbook (drink book) caught my eye. Sangria: Fun and Festive Recipes. Rock on, right? It’s perfect. I’ve got tons of citrus that needed to be used and inspiration.

Here’s how it went:

For the cupcakes: I used an Orange Chiffon Cake recipe from the cookbook cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans. When I pulled them out of the oven, I brushed the tops of the cupcakes with Triple Sec an orange flavored liquor.

For the sangria inspiration: I used a mixology book called Sangria by Mittie Hellmich. I chose a white citrus sangria recipe that featured oranges and berries.

For the Frosting: I used a standard buttercream and added orange zest, homemade pomegranate grenadine and another 2 t. of Triple Sec.

Okay and one last close up simply because with produce this fresh and tasty, it deserves it.