A Day Late, But Not a Cupcake Short

Yes, I normally post on Sundays, but this Sunday someone threw a monkey wrench in my plan. I worked until 8pm last night and was going to get to blogging when I got home from work, but while still at work I got a text message from Bobby and the conversation went like this...

Bobby: "How much do u love me?"

Me: "I'm marrying you, so I guess that means I love you a whole lot."

Bobby: "Ok well I locked my keys in my car at Fishers."

Me: "So I'm marrying an idiot."

Bobby: "Yes lol... buuut if you drive over my spare set you will get a home-cooked meal by chef Pedrozov."

So clearly you can see what happened. I left work, stopped at home, fed Rollins, got Bobby's keys and drove over to our friend John's house. I did get dinner, but they had all already eaten without me, and I had to reheat my food. It was good, don't get me wrong, and it was nice to not have to cook for myself, but at the very least my beloved fiance could have waited for me. I ate, the Sunday Night Football game was on, so we watched that and I indulged in some leftover Halloween candy the boys still had. Mini Twix are delicious and my downfall. But, today is a new day, and as far as I know Bobby hasn't locked his keys in his car.

Now, to the important part... the cupcakes. Ladies and gentlemen, it's official. The first phase of project cupcake has concluded. The baking of the peanut butter and jelly cupcakes has resulted in the completion of the swirled and sprinkled portion of Martha's cupcake cookbook. 18 cupcakes are in the books (no pun intended), I can't quite believe it either. In honor of this momentous occasion I thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane to relive some of the highlights, the low lights, and everything in between.

To get it out of the way... let's start with the "bad" news, and my least favorite (and also ugliest, two for one!), tres leches cupcakes.

The horrible picture speaks for itself. Next time around these bad boys will get less tres leches (and much better lighting) and maybe I'll like them more.

Of course, there always has to be a beauty queen on the bunch, these blueberries-and-cream cupcakes were the best looking in my opinion. But then again, it may just be that I'm partial to purple. My bridesmaids will be wearing that color after all.

Most surprising cupcakes goes to...

... rhubarb cupcakes! I had no idea what to expect with these cupcakes, and I thought for sure I wouldn't like them. I had never worked with or even eaten rhubarb so my expectations were low. Turned out I really liked the taste and thought they were quite pretty as well. Too bad I couldn't convince anyone else that they were delicious. As soon as anyone heard rhubarb they ran. They didn't know what they were missing.

Most likely to never make again goes to...

... date-nut mini cupcakes! It's not that these cupcake weren't good, because they weren't horrible, it's just that if I had to pick one of these to never have again, I wouldn't be sad to miss out on these. We already know I'm not a big fan of nuts in my cupcakes and after making these we also learned that I'm terrified of dates because they look like giant slugs. That's an image I'm not going to be able to get out of my head, and to be honest, when I think of these cupcakes I just see a giant slug in my mind. Not the mental image you want when you're eating something.

Last, but not least, the favorite. This shouldn't be a shocker. The winner is...

... carrot cake cupcakes! Carrot cake is my favorite cake, hands down. I love it. It's my dessert of choice if and when I get dessert at a restaurant. While this recipe is different from the recipe that I use when I make carrot cake it's still just as tasty. And, out of the 18 cupcakes I've made so far, I would pick carrot cake first every time I had to choose.

Hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane. It made me want a carrot cake cupcake. What's coming up next? You'll just have to wait and see.

Tres Leches Cupcakes

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, these pictures are not the best, that's what I get for not being patient and taking them when the lighting wasn't so good. There's only so much Photoshop and my Photoshop skills can do.

Tres leches... that means 3 milks for all of you non-Spanish speaking readers. For the first time in awhile I finally had a recipe where I didn't have to search for an ingredient I didn't have! It was nice for a change. Scavenger hunting for ingredients isn't always fun. My streak of reading through the entire recipe before starting to bake is still alive (the same cannot be said for the Patriots 15-game win streak against the Bills... go Bills!), even for a recipe as easy as these tres leches cupcakes (the link provided is for tres leches cake, that's all Martha had on her website).

I'm particularly proud that before I started baking I did all the prep work. I started melting the butter and while the butter was melting I separated the eggs that I had left out during the day so they were at room temperature. While the butter was cooling I used my beloved stand mixer to whisk the egg whites until they formed soft peaks and then whisked in the egg yolks and sugar. Once the butter had melted and cooled I folded that into the batter and then folded in the flour. At that point the cupcakes were ready to be baked. The recipe said to fill the liners halfway, and while I tried to do that, I think I filled them a little too full since after all the baking was said and done I got 5 less cupcakes than the recipe said I was supposed to. Oops. It could also be that I ate some of the batter... it happens.

I baked the cupcakes for 24 minutes with a turn halfway through the total baking time. The recipe said 25 minutes, but as I've stated before, my timer only works in whole minutes so I always go less because you can't un-bake something. While the cupcakes were baking I whisked together the tres leches so it would be ready to brush on the cupcakes when they were done. As soon as the cupcakes were baked to golden-brown perfection I took them out of the oven and immediately poked them with a skewer, make that toothpick. Because Martha told me to, I kept the cupcakes in the tins and brushed on the mixture. I gave each cupcake 10 brushes and then placed the cupcakes in the fridge for 30 minutes so the cupcakes could absorb the mixture. In hindsight I wish I had stopped at 10 coats per cupcake, but I'll get to that in a minute.

After the first batch of cupcakes had set for 30 minutes I took them out of the tins and baked the second, very small batch. When that batch was done I repeated the brushing process. Now that each cupcake had been given 10 coats of the tres leches mixture I continued brushing the cupcakes until the mixture was gone because that's what Martha said to do. I stopped after each cupcake had been given 20 coats because I didn't want the cupcakes to become soggy. They were already extremely heavy, and I also figured that since I didn't get 20 total cupcakes, I should account some of the mixture that I had left for that cupcakes that I didn't have.

These cupcakes were to be topped with whipped cream, which I have made several times up to this point with these rhubarb cupcakes and these blueberries-and-cream cupcakes. It is very easy to make and I like using a Ziploc bag to pipe the whipped cream on top so I did that again this time. I also garnished the tops with cinnamon (tigers love pepper, hate cinnamon... name that movie!). While taking the pictures for these cupcakes (which I'm unhappy with as previously mentioned) I gave them a taste test and they were too soggy for my liking. I wish I had stopped at 10 coats each. Even though that wouldn't have used all of the milk mixture I feel like they would have been more enjoyable. They tasted fine, I just wasn't happy with the consistency. Perhaps they would have been better if I had eaten one immediately after taking it out of the fridge. But, I wanted to bring the cupcake to room temperature for photographing purposes and Martha also said to serve them that way. Maybe she doesn't know everything (still love you Martha!).

Blueberries-and-Cream Cupcakes

I'm finding myself caught in the same conundrum (I spelled that right on the first try!) I was when I made the banana pecan cupcakes. Though the fruit in this case is a blueberry as opposed to a banana, the question remains the same... when does a muffin become a cupcake? I'm still going to maintain what I said before, that it's the frosting that turns a simple muffin into a cupcake. But, in the instance of these blueberries-and-cream cupcakes (no link on marthastewart.com) they were much more cakey than your average muffin. This could mean it's more than just the frosting that transforms a muffin into a cupcake. Jury's still out.

I still haven't learned to read through an entire recipe before I start baking, but in this case, it didn't matter. This was a fairly simple recipe, nothing too tricky involved. I was surprised though, that I didn't have to toss the blueberries in flour before folding them into the batter (like I did with these chocolate chip cupcakes) to help them "float" in the batter so they wouldn't all sink to the bottom. But, I didn't. Turns out blueberries are less dense than chocolate chips, who knew?

Like I said, nothing too tricky about these cupcakes, the batter was done relatively quickly and ready for the oven. I filled the liners about three-quarters full and for the most part was happy with the size of the cupcakes when they came out of the oven. Only a few were a little larger that I normally like, and they were all flat. Not the rounded beauties that I strive for. Martha said to bake these cupcakes for 25 total minutes with a turn halfway through the total baking time. Since my oven timer only works in whole minutes I baked in 12-minute intervals and the cupcakes came out perfectly, with a lovely golden hue.

While the cupcakes were baking I made the whipped cream that was to accompany them. Normally I wait a little while to give myself a baking break before making the cupcake's topping, but since whipped cream is very easy I found the energy to get everything done at once. It took less than 5 minutes (thank you stand mixer with whisk attachment) and it was done. I put the whipped cream in the fridge to keep cool while the cupcakes continued baking, and then cooled.

The last time I made whipped cream was for these rhubarb cupcakes and for those cupcakes I piped the whipped cream onto the cupcakes directly from the Ziploc bag I stored it in. Since I liked how those cupcakes turned out so much I did the same thing with these cupcakes. Unfortunately my piping this time around wasn't as good as the last time. I think I cut the hole in the bag a little too big this time. The cupcakes looked fine nonetheless, just not as good as the rhubarb cupcakes. Like the rhubarb cupcakes these cupcakes also got a little garnish, naturally blueberries would make the most sense and that's precisely what the garnish was. I had a good amount of blueberries left over, turns out my eyes are not very good measuring cups, so I liberally gave each cupcake 4 berries. I thought 5 might be a little overkill. The garnish on top definitely gave these cupcakes a little something extra, but my favorite part of these cupcakes was the blueberries that you can see through the cupcake liner. Like a pretty little secret.