The Cupcake Addict's Cupcake Collection

Category: Mrs Shuck's Creations

• A is for … Apple Crisp

  Posted at 8:35 pm by MLea

  Jan 5th

  I am definitely going to have to plan better for the rest of the letters.  I just had a vague sense of what I was going to attempt before I headed to the grocery store.

  My faithful assistant was as organized as he could be given my haphazard planning.

  

  Mookie getting ingredients organized: click to enlarge

  So today’s cupcake started out with a vanilla cupcake recipe to which I added about a cup of chopped apple sprinkled with cinnamon.

  

  Another "helper" hoped I would drop some apple so he could help clean up.

  Cream together: 1 stick butter and 1 cup sugar.  Add 2 eggs one at a time and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

  Mix together: 1 1/2 cups AP flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, a couple of pinches salt.  Gradually add this to wet mixture, alternating with 1/3 cup warmed milk.    (Start and end with flour.)  Stir in about a cup of chopped apple.

  Mix together: 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 2 tbsp butter, and 1/2 cup oatmeal.

  Fill cupcake pans with batter and then top with some of the oatmeal mixture.  I ended up with 15 cupcakes.

  

  Batter topped with streusel

  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

  

  Apple Crisp cupcake awaiting a topping: click to enlarge

  I had originally thought about attempting a vanilla Italian butter cream because sometimes it tastes a lot like vanilla ice cream.  Perfect topping for apple crisp, yes?   As the day grew later and baking was still unbaked, I thought I’d just switch to whipped cream.  Can you believe I’ve never made whipped cream?  I think I still haven’t made whipped cream.  I think I might have churned butter, though…..

  

  A is for Apple Crisp: click to enlarge

  I’ll post the results after I get someone else’s opinion.  Mr Shuck has started his New Year’s resolutions and is passing on sweets.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged apple crisp

• Happy Boxing Day!

  Posted at 8:58 am by MLea

  Dec 26th

  Last night, I made Carrot Ginger Cupcakes.  I was making the flour/gravy base cream cheese icing as usual, but just before I was to put the flour mixture it, I realized it was still warm.  It would have melted the butter and cream cheese that I had already creamed, so I decided to leave it out.  The icing was just butter (2 sticks),  8 ounces of cream cheese, 1 tsp vanilla, and 2 cups of superfine sugar.  Creamy and delicious and not too sweet.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged cream cheese icing

• Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes

  Posted at 7:20 pm by MLea

  Nov 18th

  I was originally going to make cinnamon cupcakes with ganache icing, then I realized the recipe called for cocoa, so I adjusted my goal.  This recipe comes from Cathy P’s grandmother and was originally intended for a jelly roll pan.  I have no clue how to adjust time and temperature, so I may adjust next time.

  I didn’t really measure with the ganache:  I think I probably ended up with 7 ounces of cream and 5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate per batch.  I left one batch plain, but added 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp ancho chili powder to the other.

  Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 tsp vanilla

  Combine water, cocoa, oil and butter.  Bring to a boil and allow to cool.

  Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

  Beat eggs until pale yellow.  Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.  Turn speed to low and add buttermilk, then dry ingredients.  Mix until incorporated.  Add cocoa mixture and vanilla and blend.

  Pour into mini cupcake pans.  Bake at 350 for 18 minutes.

  

  Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes- Click to enlarge

  

  Spicy Mexican Chocolate cupcake- click to enlarge

  

  Mexican Chocolate Cupcake- Click to enlarge

  
  

  This was a really good recipe to use for filled cupcakes.  They were airy and easy to pipe ganache into.  I ended up with some naked cupcakes as I ran out of ganache.  These ended up being cinnamon chocolate cupcakes filled and iced with whipped ganache.   The recipe yielded 48 minis, 3 regular size cupcakes, a good bit of batter eaten out of the bowl and probably 1/2-3/4 if a cup wasted.   I will definitely use this recipe again, but could probably cut it in 1/2.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chili powder, cinnamon, Mexican Chocolate

• Hostess Cupcake

  Posted at 8:29 pm by MLea

  Nov 16th

  

  So perhaps as a joke, Mr Shuck brought home a box of Hostess Cupcakes for me to review.  My first observation is that Hostess Cupcakes are a bargain!  $2.99 for 8!   My initial cupcake was completely consumed, so I guess it’s not THAT bad, considering I have left some cupcakes on the plate recently.  (By this very act, I think I have demonstrated to myself that I’m not a cupcake snob.)   The cake is okay….it’s moist and chocolatey…a little sticky in the teeth.    The icing, on the other hand, is HORRIBLE!  It tastes like plastic and has a waxy texture.  The white filling doesn’t have a lot of flavor.  I assume it’s sweetened shortening or something.  It adds a nice mushiness in the center.

  Last night, I made ganache as I intended to make cupcakes tonight, but am not in the mood now.  I made 1/2 with cinnamon and ancho chili powder and the other half just plain.  It hardened up a bit too much, so I added some warm cream today in an attempt to increase the fat content and have it cool down softer for baking tomorrow.   The last 2 Hostess cupcakes ended up drenched in warm ganache: plain for me and spicy for Mr Shuck.  I must say that a Hostess cupcake topped with slightly warm ganache is AMAZING.   You can’t taste the plastic icing when it’s covered with Callebaut bittersweet chocolate ganache.

  I wish I had taken the time to take a picture before cramming the yumminess down my gullet.

  Posted in Miscellaneous, Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged Hostess

• This week’s cupcake by Mrs Shuck

  Posted at 7:33 pm by MLea

  Nov 15th

  I think this week I am going to attempt Mexican/Mayan Chocolate cupcakes: cinnamon cake with cinnamon and ancho pepper infused chocolate ganache icing. I may make some plain ganache for those timid of spiciness.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged .

• Baby Shower

  Posted at 11:07 am by MLea

  Nov 5th

  So, last night I made 3 different kinds of cupcakes for a baby shower: carrot with cream cheese icing, strawberry with strawberry icing, and vanilla with chocolate ganache.    I normally don’t taste the raw batter when I’m baking unless it’s chocolate.  I don’t know what made me taste the carrot cake batter (after I had it already in the liners), but I’m glad I did.  I realized that I had forgotten the sugar!  What a disaster that would have been!  I scraped the contents of the liners back into the bowl and added the sugar.  I will always taste my batter now.

  Thanks to the ladies for trusting me with their cupcake needs!  And for $$!

  

  Vanilla with Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache- Click to enlarge

  

  Strawberry with Strawberry Buttercream- Click to enlarge

  

  Carrot Ginger with Cream Cheese Icing and candied Carrot- Click to enlarge

  
  
  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations

• Reattempting Strawberry Cheesecake

  Posted at 9:52 pm by MLea

  Nov 2nd

  So today I made Strawberry Cheesecake cupcakes for the second time.   I wanted to see if I could make any flavored variation of the cooked flour frosting.  That was a bit scary since I had no idea how it would turn out or if it would stay put on the cupcake overnight.    I couldn’t remember what recipe I used last time for the cake, so I just used one on Martha Stewart.com.

  Crust:  All I had in the house was some vanilla wafers.  I forgot to get graham crackers at the store, so I made do.  I crushed up 15 wafers and added about 2 tablespoons melted mutter, then mixed well.   I placed about 1 tablespoonful in each cupcake liner, then smushed it down with a juice glass sprayed with non-stick spray.  Bake at 350 for 5 minutes.

  

  Vanilla wafter crumbs for crust- click to enlarge

  Add the batter on top of the crust and cook as directed.

  

  Strawberry Cupcakes- click to enlarge

  Frosting:  Will it work?

  • 1/4 cup strawberry puree
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 5 tablespoons flour
  • 1 stick butter, softened
  • 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar (I used superfine)

  Add the strawberry puree to the milk.  Mix a little of the milk mixture with some flour in a jar and shake well to blend.  Add to a saucepan over medium heat.  Rinse the jar out with the rest of the milk mixture and slowly add to the pan.  Whisk to blend.    Heat until thickened.  Remove from heat, place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or so until cooled.

  Cream together butter and cream cheese.  Add sugar and whip at medium high speed until light and fluffy (about 6 minutes).  Add the cooled flour mixture and whip until uniform and fluffy.   Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

  

  Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake- Click to enlarge.

  When I next make this cupcake, I will use only cream cheese in the icing.  This version of the icing was very good: not too sweet, very creamy, stayed attractive through the next day.  However, more cream cheese flavor would be better for a “cheesecake” flavored cupcake.   Overall, I love this icing.  It’s creamy and soft and not overly sweet.  I’ll have to experiment more with flavors, but I would imagine, I could substitute any other fruit puree for the strawberries.

  The cake was good, but the strawberry flavor was a little too subtle.   I will use more strawberry puree next time.

  Rating for this version:  ♥♥♥.  (Mr Shuck agrees.)

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged strawberry cheesecake

• Strawberry Cheesecake where are you?

  Posted at 7:30 pm by MLea

  Oct 30th

  I realized today that I never photographed my strawberry cheesecake cupcakes.  They were the 2nd cupcake I baked and were quite delish, although the frosting was waaay too sweet.

  Graham cracker crust with strawberry cake topped with strawberry cream cheese icing.    Why did I not photograph?   I don’t remember it being especially ugly…

  I guess I’ll have to make it again so I can document it.

   

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations

• Ginger Molasses Cupcakes with Fluffy Lemon Icing from Mrs Shuck

  Posted at 9:49 pm by MLea

  Oct 27th

  So, today I baked….

  Mr Shuck sent me an email last week with Martha Stewart’s recipe for Ginger Molasses cupcakes.  Original recipe is here and  suggested whipped cream as a topping.  I got a can of RediWhip (actually Mr Shuck bought the RediWhip for me) in case the icing didn’t work out.  I didn’t want an overly sweet icing, so I hoped the flour/milk recipe icing I had been given recently would work out.  Not the most beautiful cupcake I’ve made, but very tasty!

  

  Ginger Molasses with Lemon Icing- Click to enlarge

  My version (slightly altered)

  Ingredients

  • 3 cup(s) all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoon(s) baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon(s) salt
  • 8 ounce(s) (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted (I actually just softened it in the microwave, but not all the way to melted)
  • 1 1/2 cup(s) sugar
  • 1/3 cup(s) unsulfured molasses (I used Jack Rabbit, full flavored.  The original called for 2/3 cup, but batter smelled very molasses-y after 1/3 cup, so I stopped and added more hot water instead: 2/3 cup instead of 1/3 cup)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2/3 cup(s) hot ginger water  (see note in instructions)
  • 2 piece(s) (6-inch, 4 1/2-ounces each) fresh ginger, peeled and pureed

  To prep the ginger: the original recipe called for minced ginger, but I was not about to mince 9 ounces of fresh ginger, so I put it all in the blender with some water and made a ginger puree.  After it was pureed, I strained the pulp out and used the water for the hot water.  A problem I experienced is that most of my ginger was of the “older” variety and fibrous, so my cupcakes turned out a bit “hairy”.  See photo

  

  "Hairy" ginger- Click to enlarge

  Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add molasses. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition.
  2. Reduce speed to low. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with hot water and ending with dry ingredients. (I didn’t end up with dry ingredients.  Oops!)  Stir minced ginger into batter. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.
  3. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks.

  Icing:  (Thanks to Cathy P for sending me her grandmother’s red velvet cake icing recipe and to my aunt for suggesting citrus)

  Ingredients:

  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/2 pound butter (softened)
  • 1 cup sugar (granulated)
  • Lemonade flavor Crystal Light® to taste (this is the only “citrus” I had in the house, next time I will use lemon zest/juice)

  Directions:

  1. In a sauce pan, add enough milk to the flour to make a smooth paste.  Slowly heat and gradually add the rest of the milk, whisking constantly, until all the milk is added and mixture is smooth.  Heat over medium heat until mixture is thickened (like gravy).  Let cool completely.  (This will lump up a bit as it cools, I re-whisked it before adding it in the next steps.)
  2. Whip butter until creamy.  Add sugar and beat at medium speed for 6 minutes, until fluffy.
  3. Add cooled flour/milk mixture and beat until fluffy.  (Original recipe warned to not overbeat.  I don’t know what happens or how you know if you’ve over beaten.)
  4. Add lemonade mix a bit at a time until lemony enough and not too lemony.
  5. Put on cupcakes and munch away!

  Rating:  ♥♥♥, but I think it could be ♥♥♥♥ if I find a way to have less hairy ginger.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged ginger, Lemon, molasses

• Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes by Mrs Shuck

  Posted at 8:03 pm by MLea

  Oct 18th
  

  Chocolate peanut butter- click to enlarge

  Mr Shuck has eaten 3 already and has given them ♥♥♥ 1/2.

  I used a chocolate cake recipe found on Allrecipes.   I was led to this recipe by The Red Deer and I attempted her recipe for Swiss Meringue butter cream, replacing 4 tablespoons of the butter with 4 tablespoons of peanut butter and using meringue powder instead of the egg whites.  I realize that I shouldn’t be changing recipes that I have never attempted.

  Ingredients:

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • Reece’s miniature peanut butter cups (the ones wrapped in foil)

  

  Unwrapped Reece's cups- click to enlarge

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare cupcake liners in pans.
  2. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients, alternately with the milk. Once all of the ingredients have been incorporated, mix on high speed of an electric mixer for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour batter into the prepared cupcake tins then drop a Reece’s miniature into each one..
  3. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  I probably used only 1 cup of milk, instead of 1 1/2 cups.  The batter seemed really runny at that point.  I was afraid the Reece’s cups would sink if the batter was too thin.   It ultimately didn’t matter as they did sink.  The 1st problem that I’ve experienced with these cupcakes is that the Reece’s cups have sunk to the bottom and when you try to peel off the cupcake liner, the peanut butter cup comes with it, resulting in a bottom-less cupcake.  Maybe I should have chopped up the peanut butter cups.  Maybe I should have used foil liners, since they don’t seem to stick as much.

  The 2nd problem I had is that the Swiss Meringue butter-cream was too runny.  I attempted to use meringue powder instead of egg whites because I never like the taste of meringue I’ve made myself.  I put it in the frig for a bit and was able to pipe it after it chilled some.  Hopefully, I won’t wake up to icing dripping all over the cupcakes.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chocolate, peanut butter

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