I'm back! Lemon Rosemary Cupcake

Hello! After a long hiatus I am back!

I made these cupcakes multiple times and I love them more every time I make them. The sweetness of the lemon cake and the fresh rosemary work perfectly in a way I would never have imagined. When I made these for my Mom's birthday the reaction I got from certain family members was something along the lines of "lemon rosemary CUPCAKE?! Are you sure?" but in the end the combination of flavors won everybody over!

The lemon cupcakes are from Better Homes and Gardens, instead of a glaze I made a lemon cream cheese frosting from Real Simple .

Lemon Rosemary Cupcake:

1/2 c. butter (softened)

2 eggs

1 3/4 c. flour

2 tsp. finely chopped rosemary

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp. lemon extract

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2/3 c. milk

2 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel

3. tbsp. lemon juice

1. Let butter and eggs stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. If you are impatient like me you could place the eggs and butter on top of the oven while it is preheating, and the heat the oven gives off will warm them up quicker. While you are waiting line muffin tins with cupcakes liners.

2. In medium bowl combine flour, rosemary, baking soda and salt. In a pinch you can use dried rosemary, but fresh is much sweeter, and the texture of the dried rosemary is a little bit crunchy.

3. In a large mixing bowl beat butter on medium-high for 30seconds. Add sugar, lemon extract, and vanilla. Beat on medium-high for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.

4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

5. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk to the sugar-butter mixture. Beat on low until just combined. Stir in lemon peel and lemon juice.

Spoon batter into muffin cups until 3/4 full. I have found that a 1/5 measuring cup is the perfect size for scooping batter.

5. Bake 22-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove from muffin pan.

The cupcakes are a pretty light yellow color, and should be springy to the touch when they are fully cooked.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 8oz. package cream cheese (room temperature)

1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

zest of 1 lemon (grated)

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1. with electric mixer beat the cream cheese until softened.

2. Slowly add sugar, zest and juice. Beat until creamy, about 5 minutes. I found adding the zest and lemon juice first worked well because you were able to adjust the amount of sugar depending on consistency.

I used the 1/3 fat cream cheese and it tasted exactly the same as using regular.

The first time I made these cupcakes I placed a candied lemon peel on top, but they did not turn out great. I do not have a candy thermometer so I could not tell when the sugar was at the proper temperature, and the peels ended up just being sticky and not getting firm. I will not post the recipe, because the one I used was unsuccessful.

These are the perfect cupcakes for spring/summer, they are light and refreshing and delicious!

Happy Baking!

The first batch I made, with the lemon peel on top. Aren't they so pretty

Strawberry Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting!

Thanks to all who voted in my poll! Strawberry nutella and banana nut tied so I made strawberry. Unfortunately I did not have my camera, so please bear with the webcam photos. Again I combined 2 recipes so here is the Strawberry cupcake recipe and here is the Nutella frosting recipe.

Strawberry Cupcake:

2/3 c. frozen strawberries, thawed

1 1/2 c. flour, sifted

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. coarse salt

1/4 c. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 c. sugar

1 egg

2 egg whites

1. Place strawberries in a food processor and puree, you should end up with about 1/3 cup strawberry puree. I actually used fresh strawberries, and used 2/3 cup strawberry puree. Stir in milk and vanilla to strawberry puree, set aside.

2. In a new bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. The original recipe did not call for baking soda, but after reading the reviews I decided to use it, and the cupcakes came out nice and fluffy.

3. In a third bowl cream room temperature butter until light and fluffy with an electric mixer. Slowly add sugar and beat until fluffy.

4.Add eggs and whites one at a time, mix until just blended.

5. Add about half the flour mixture into the butter and mix until just blended. Next add all the strawberry puree mixture and mix until just blended. Add the last bit of flour and mix until just blended. The mixture was very airy and fluffy, if you over mix the batter will become dense, and the cupcakes will not rise. This is the cause of dense cupcakes.

6. Preheat oven to 350. Spoon batter into muffin tins, I used a 1/5 cup and it worked perfectly. This should have made 12 cupcakes, but due to the extra puree I made 14 cupcakes instead. Bake for 22 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from pan to cool. Once cool frost!

Nutella Frosting:

4 oz. Cream cheese, room temp

1/4 c. Nutella

2-3 c. Powdered sugar

1. Stir together nutella and soft cream cheese. Next mix them with an electric mixer just to incorporate some air into the mix.

2. Slowly add powdered sugar. I did not measure how much I used, because I ran out. I just started pouring some sugar into the mix and mixing then adding more until I got a consistency I liked.

3. Frost cooled cupcakes, either by piping or spreading. You will use more by piping the frosting, and you also will need to make it stiffer.

I love my roomies! Notice Nikkie and Morgan in the corners watching the cupcakes with anticipation!

These cupcakes came out great. Now I understand why commercial bakeries add food coloring, the strawberry turned brown while baking. It tasted great, but the color was a little off putting. Although, these were the fastest eaten batch of cupcakes so I guess the color wasn't that off putting! Happy Baking!

First Post! Smore's Cupcakes

Hey I am hoping this works, this is my first time posting anything in blog form so I am going to start with I think my favorite cupcake to date the smore's cupcake. I had more issues trying to make this one, but it was so worth it in the end! I combines a few different recipes to make my version because I came up with a vision (with Steven's help), but nobody had made them exactly like I wanted. So I got creative! Here are the 2 recipes I pulled from.

Cake and ganache and crust and frosting.

I started by making the crust:

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp graham cracker crumbs (I food processed these babies)

2 Tbsp sugar

5 Tbsp butter, melted

6 oz. bitter sweet chocolate, chopped (I found it easier to food process these too)

1. stir together graham cracker crumbs and sugar in a bowl. Pour melted butter on top and stir to combine.

2. Scoop about 1 tablespoon of the mixture

into your lined muffin pans, flatten the mixture into the bottom. I found the bottom of a flat spice jar worked the best, make sure you wash it before using.

3. Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of the chocolate on top of the graham cracker mixture, making sure it is spread evenly.

4. Bake at 350 for 5 minutes

Next I made the ganache:

8oz bittersweet chocolate

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1. Boil cream. When cream starts to boil pour over chocolate pieces and let stand for 1 minute. Stir until smooth. Refrigerate until lukewarm.

Note: I had trouble making this the first time (for a different project). I am not sure if it was a bad recipe or me, but I found out this time that the more chocolate you have to harder the ganache will be when it cools and the more milk you add the less solid it will be. When spreading this as an icing (which i did not do in this recipe) make sure to wait until it really is lukewarm. The ganache ran all over the place on my last project because I was too impatient.

Now time for the cake mix:

1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup milk

1. Whisk graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt together.

2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time beating in between to mix well. Stir in vanilla.

3. Take turns mixing in dry ingredients and milk making sure to start and end with dry

ingredients. I did 3 parts flour and 2 parts milk.

4. Divide batter among muffin cups. I have found a 1/5 cup works perfectly, but and ice cream

scoop works as well. Bake at 350 for 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center

comes out clean.

My favorite part, the chocolate center:

1. Once cupcakes are cool make a hole in the center of each cupcake. A fruit corer works the

best, but I had to improvise. I used a combination of knives, forks, corn on the cob holders

and fingers.

2. Pipe ganache into the holes of each cupcake. Make sure not to fill higher than the top of the

cupcake because we still have to frost the top.

Here they are all filled!

Last but not least the frosting:

5 large egg whites

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla

This was the hardest part for me to make. I tried making the marshmallow icing from the

recipe but it was a complete fail so here is my own recipe.

1. Whip egg whites and cream of tartar starting with the lowest speed on your mixer and

working your way up until you reach the highest speed (about 1 min per level). Beat

until stiff peaks form.

2. Make a simple syrup (probably before you beat the egg whites) dissolve sugar in about

1 cup water and bring to a boil. The syrup should be fairly thick, boil down if needed.

Stir in vanilla.

3. Add hot simple syrup to egg whites and beat until well mixed. The heat from the syrup

will cook the eggs. This will soften the egg whites so if needed add a handful of

confectioners sugar to stiffen the icing.

4. Pipe the icing on to cooled cupcakes. If the cupcakes are warm this icing will run all over

so it was very important that they were cool.

5. Now for the fun part! Take your kitchen torch or blow torch and toast the icing. This will

stop it from running down the side of the cupcake if you are having that issue. If you don't

have a torch that is ok too, the broiler of your oven can toast the icing as well. WATCH

CLOSELY so you do not burn the icing too much, unless you like it really toasty!

Here is a look at the finished products: