Strawberry Shortcake...ghetto stylez!

Yesterday I made a strawberry shortcake. I'm not sure where the idea came from but let me tell you folks, it was easy, delicous, and gorgeous...everything you could hope for in a confection.

I've mentioned before that I use box mix as the base for my cupcakes and this time was no different. In defference to my diet and the number of people that were coming over I figured that the standard sized 9" springform pan would be far too large and leftover cake is kind of evil. OK, so it isn't take over the world and enslave the human race evil but I'm sure that if it could it would...it just sits there in your fridge looking as tempting as the day it was made but you know that if you don't eat it right away it will start to get stale which is just depressing. Like the last few un-purchased christmas trees in the no-frills parking lot on December 26, it will be thrown into the trash without knowing it's lifes purpose; bringing joy to innocent children the world over.
Oh, ok, wow, that was a lot of information about evil cake...ah hem... so I made a mini strawberry shortcake. I live super close to the St. Lawrence Market so I look myself for a wander down to the market and lemme tell you, FAR easier to negotiate on a weekday. anyhoo, in almost the direct center of the market on the upper level there is a kitchen supply store with just about any kitchen/baking gadget that you could dream up. I grabbed me a 6" springform and a few icing tips (just cuz I couldn't help myself :D) and stopped at metro for 35% whipping cream(on sale, sweet!) and a basket of yummy yummy ontario strawberries which are officially in season and oh so delish.

Step one: bake the cake. Sounds simple but I always manage to make things a little more difficult than they need to be, le sigh. So I used the Betty Crocker angelfood cake mix, which, I know from experience, rises like crazy. Well I'm making this teeny tiny cake onle so I measured out 1/4 of the box (108g) and mixed with 1/4 of the suggested water (75ml, e.g. 1/3 cup) and voila, had the perfect cake amount. I pammed my springform, poured, baked, and was horribly dissappointed. My cake didn't rise. Infact, it fell. Effin bullsh**!

OK, deep breaths, repeat Step one but this time read instructions on box: "do not grease pan" is written multiple times in bold all over that friggin box! OK, wash pan, remeasure, rebake...AH HA! The cake is perfect! carefully remove from pan, and air out!

Step two: Prep the strawberries. Easy peasy. Wash, thinly slice, coat lightly with sugar, mix. This should sit for a half hour so that the sugar will set with the strawberry juice making a light syrop.

Step three: sugar+cream, then whip. I recently acquired a second, perhaps third-hand handmixer. It's one of those handmixer things that looks kinda like a mechanical toilet brush and vibrates all the way up your arm, but damn it if it isn't a sight easier than whipping cream by hand...that's just crazy talk! So, first time using this thing I pour my cream into a large bowl and start the mixer. OH crap! turn it off, turn it off! After getting covered in cream in less than a second I remember that this thing came with a tall narrow cup thing that you are supposed to use for this sort of thing. Next best thing: coctail shaker. Hey, stop giggling, it worked.

Step four: stack it! Tip your cake onto its side like a wheel and using a serrated knife, gently slice through the cake to make two layers. If you press too hard you will squish the cake, if you saw too fast you will maim it. OK, so, Bottom of cake, half the strawberries spread evenly, a few dollups of whip to cover the strawberries, top of cake, remaining strawberries, a few more dollups of whip.

Voila. You have a gorgeous masterpiece that looks and tastes like you bought it at one of those fancy bakeries.

A few things to remember:Make and serve on the same day for best affect. Don't cover the sides, this way you can see the layers from the side. Do not grease the pan. the whip will not set like icing so don't cover it with cling wrap. You can set one strawberry aside at the beginning and without removing the top cut it into slices down the length, fan out and place on top of the cake. Everyone will think you are a kitchen goddess. Lick fingers, repeat.

My not so triumphant return

Howdy folks! At this point it's been over a month since I've had anything interesting to say and frankly, I'm sick of it...time to stop resting on my lorels (whatever that means) and get back in the game. In the intervening time I've had a myriad of personal situations that have taken me away from my love of cupcakes but I'm ready to start decorating again.

The first item on the docket is Coffee Cupcakes. One of the last things that I talked about before my abrupt departure was a coffee cupcake which I did in fact try my hand at shortly following my last post. I began with a good dinner with a dear friend, added a bottle of red wine and got creative....kinda....

I used my standard box mix and where the recipe calls for water I replaced it with espresso...same deal with using espresso instead of vanilla in the icing mix. mixing the batter and pouring it, the espresso turned the mix to a lovely shade of latte and post baking I iced and topped with chocolate covered coffee beans...OMG, can you say "yum?"

The whole process was delectable and Vee and I consumed the whole batch...soooooo many cupcakes....nyumyumnyumnumnummmmmmm


Lol, so I whipped up a batch of mini vanilla cupcakes for a girls night which was my standard batch with coloured sugar crystals in fun colours to sparkle up some pretty plain designs. The easiest way to quickly and cutely cover a cupcake is to use a ziplock bag for an icing bag with the corner cut off. make a swirl on top of the cake and once it has dried for a few minutes you should dip the top into a bowl of coloured sugar crystals. It's super fast and quite cute.


My next mission was to edit my icing recipe. I know, I know, my fabulous icing recipe is what brought me to this point in the first place but still...it wasn't perfect. Yes, the flavour is undeniable but it isn't super easy to work with. With just butter, sugar, and flavour the consistency is a bit ridged for fancy decorative work...for flowers and such the butter just isn't smooth enough. You see, the temperature plays a big role in working with butter. Too cold and trying to pump the icing through the bag is like pulling friggin' teeth, too hot and the icing doesn't give consistent results and ends up slightly greasy..Yuck, right?

My next big mission with the icing was to try it with vegetable shortening. After reading several online reviews it had become apparent that shortening is a lot smoother and more consistent so I figured I deserved to give it a shot. Ug, I'll let you know straight off that it was an epic fail...ick. I googled something along the lines of "vanilla shortening icing" and came up with a bazzilion entries. After reviewing the first ten or so I figured I had gleamed the common thread which include shortening, salt, water, vanilla, milk and I decided to find a medium between the new recipe and the old, it was a win/lose. On the upside the recipe was far more mailable and gosh weren't those cute lil' flowers oh so pretty but blech! WAY TOO SALTY!!! and I only used the tiniest little bit of salt, I swear!

Yick! Well, clearly I still have some work to do but in the mean time I'll try to keep you more in the know. Cheers folks and happy baking!

Sorry I suck @blogging...

Wow, so clearly I suck at blogging; what happened to the enthusiastic trice per week posting? Like a startled souffle, how the mighty have fallen...

I'm my defense I have been super busy with work/wedding planning/ Passover/ Easter etc., however I have managed to make the time to watch re-runs of Big Bang Theory so I definitely need to get my act into gear. Last weekend I had a slumber party planned with Vee and Jay and, of course, I offered to make cupcakes. My big plan was to make up a batch of mini cupcake cakes and do an array of pastel coloured cupcakes with geometric lines and dots on them. You know, to make them look like Easter eggs. Like a champ I rushed home from work and mixed up a batch of minis and got to work blending the icing.

Those of you who know me are aware that I'm a lazy sod; Lazy Sod meaning that I, not unlike grass, flourish under frequent watering and the opportunity to lay around and do nothing. So keeping that in mind you'll understand why I got as far as making pink and white icing and called it a day. In my defense I was quite short on time and have to blend everything with a fork since my electric mixer has been missing since I moved last fall.

So with the only offerings on tap being pink and white icing the only logical step was to make clouds and hearts cupcakes which honestly made it look like I had head trauma on February 13th and still thought it was Valentines day, but what-evs, they were adorable.

Here's my fave pic and tomorrow, unless my turf genes kick in, I'll be making cup'a'coffee-cakes...Yum!

Ooh, and special thanks to Dee for picking up a pack of disposable icing bags for me even though he had the sniffles, and to Vee and Jay who ate every last crumb.

Vajazzle my sweetcakes!

As a nine year old I Bedazzled my jean jackets, my neon coloured hats, and yes, my scrunchies. Can anyone say "child of the eighties?" Those little faceted "jewels" with their little rivets and the bright pink riveting arm all in super cheap plastic. I mean, those were the days...you see something that needs to be a little bit more special and you add some sparkle! Whatever it is, it can "Be" "Dazzled!" (btw I heart snap bracelets, Polly Pocket, trolls, Alf, care bears and all things eighties nostalgia)

A time of innocence.

Then I spoke with some girl friends about the newest trend to hit Jennifer Love Hewitt since Party of Five, it's called Vajazzling. You see, the concept is exactly the same, it's just a different canvas for the art. The canvas is your vagina. I'm no saint but I do plan on wearing white for my wedding, so from here on in I'll be referring to this zone as "gits" or girl-bits. So JLH was interviewed recently and spoke about her own vajazzling experience and how it was somewhat of a cathartic experience for her...she loved it. The process begins with a tub of hot wax. After some very thorough landscaping Swarovsky crystals are applied to the gits and they will remain there for several days before falling off on their own...

I don't get it... I'm not letting anyone glue anything to my gits. I really don't care how cool a B-list celebrity thinks it is. My fiance has lead me to believe that my gits are just fine without Little Mermaid stickers, bedazzling or any other embellishments.

My cupcakes however crave a little something special. Two weeks ago I got a cake decorating kit that includes 2 icing bags, 24 icing tips, a coupler, a flower nail, and a tip cleaner. I know nothing about any of these things...probably less then any you fine readers...but my cakes needed some vajazzling, and by George, I'm going to figure this out! First things first, I once again turned to the mystical interweb and clicked to YouTube and searched "cake decorating." Lemme tell you, there are some weird and totally unhelpful videos...I don't need to know how to make a cake into an old fashioned carousel...I need to know how to make roses and daisies and all things purty. I whipped up a batch of vanilla icing and got to it. In most of the videos the decorator will make roses (the most common demo) on the icing nail. It is a post with a wide slightly convex top. It actually looks less like a nail and more like an over sized thumbtack. Once the flower is finished being shaped you can use a pair of scissors to lift the flower off of the raised surface.

I decided that I don't really have the skill yet to maintain even bag pressure with one hand while spinning the nail in the other so I practiced some more mundane designs and managed to master swirls, shell borders and a basic flower or two. I need to rework my icing recipe before I start on anything more complicated but for now I think I'm doing pretty good. I would try to describe them but seriously...just YouTube it. Anyhoo, there have been specific requests for more personal pictures and teaching cake decorating so I'm definitely going to work on both but you'll have to be patient, I'm learning right along with you. Let me know what you think of my blog or any topic suggestions...right now I kinda feel like I'm talking to myself so let me know that you're out there.

~The Cupcake Queen

Citris Blitz

So today I got to enjoy my not so secret passion; today I made cupcakes.

My big plan for today was to check out the first Iron Cupcake Toronto Challenge. Started in Milwaukee it has become a franchised competition held across Canada and the US. One month before the competition date they post a secret ingredient and theme online. I found out about the contest on Tuesday and, well, I was thrilled...then I got freaked out. See, I thought this would be my chance to, you know, enter the world stage. The problem is that the more I read about it the more I realized I was utterly unprepared to enter it. It is open to competitors both amateur and professional, and despite the fact that I truly love cupcakes, I don't think I'm quite on the same level as the likes of Cupcakery. What's more, the secret ingredient for the month of March is beer. I've heard of stout cakes but baking with carbonation is just a bit beyond anything I've done before. I don't know, I guess that March just isn't my month.

Instead of going to a contest that I probably would have bombed, I made cupcakes for fun. I was invited to Bee's for afternoon tea with the girls and needed to bring some treats so I set to work. I contemplated my new recipe for flourless cookies but I'm making them for a celiac friend of mine next week so those were out, then I figured apple pie but I didn't have enough apples, then I just figured "fuck it, I'm gonna make cupcakes!"

Of course, how did I ever think that I would end up making anything else right? With cupcakes in mind, I figured that I should go with mini cakes as I didn't know how many ladies would be there, and lemon to be all fresh and springy, I call this flavour "Citrus Blitz." So with two hours to shower, dress and bake I got to it. I made some fluffy lemon icing by using the basic vanilla buttercream icing from my second post and adding extra vanilla and fresh lemon zest. You can zest a lemon with a fancy lil' lemon zester from William Sonoma or by grabbing a fine (rather than wide holed) cheese grater. If you don't have a fine grater then you can use a serrated knife and flick it against the peel while applying pressure.

For the cakes themselves I used a standard Betty Crocker White cake box mix. This is what I use for most of my cupcakes. I'll make small variations like adding flavour extracts or in this case more lemon zest and about 1 tsp of lemon juice. Realistically the lemon juice wasn't really needed as the oil in the skin is the most potent flavour in the lemon, but I did it anyway...I just really like lemon. Some of you (my maybe faithful/mostly anonymous readers) maybe thinking, "Seriously? A box mix?" But screw you all, it's cheap, easy, fast, and consistent.

Anyway, my big revelation came when I was tossing ingredients into the bowl and realised that, OMG I've been making it wrong. I've been tossing in eggs but it's really supposed to be egg whites. Yeesh. My vanilla cakes have always been a bit dense and crumbly but let me tell you, this was awesome, they came out perfect. I decorated the mini cakes with cute little icing swirls and a sprinkling of coarse white crystal sugar, very pretty.

My novice tip of the week is to make sure that your cakes are cooled before icing. The icing is butter based so if you haven't cooled the cake the icing will separate and you'll get what looks like oil separating from the icing as you decorate. My second novice tip of the day is to make sure that your icing is a smooth consistency and at least room temperature. Chunks in the icing will clog the icing tip and if cool it will be too thick to pipe. Today I tried to pipe the icing when if was too cool and I actually popped the seam on me cheapy icing bag...Le Sigh.

At the end of the day the treats were a hit and I can't wait until I get to do it all again.

Cheers folks, enjoy the cupcakes.

Makes me want a cupcake REAL bad...

Ok, so I know this statement will seem kinda self-evident but right now I want a cupcake. I want to pick out a lovely little pastry of glory, peel back that soft waxy liner, and take a bite out of that soft smooth cake topped with sweet creamy icing. Mmm, can't you just taste it right now, sitting there in the centre of your mouth, all the sweet goodness just melting right into you?
Wow, I just re-read that and I think maybe I have a problem; does my fiance know that I'm cheating on him with a baked good?
I was just walking home from a 12 hour shift and realized that I desperately needed a yummy-yummy confection; trouble is that there are no cupcake shops in my neighbourhood, infact the only place between the subway and my front door is a Tim Hortons. I'll admit it, I gave in, I ate (gasp!) a doughnut. I know, I know, I cheated on my beloved cupcakes. Does it count as cheating if I spent the whole time thinking of you, my dearest?
I'll admit it, that shiny vanilla glaze and colourful sprinkles gently drew me in, but it wasn't anything like buttercream or chocolate ganache or any of the delightful toppings that make me love you. And I do.
Ah my sweet cupcake, I'll be thinking of you...I'll taste you again very soon.

In the beginning there were cupcakes...

Ok, so my very first blog post was a total bust. It had no actual information, no points of interest, and was exactly two sentences long...maybe three; either way it blew chunks.

Basically all you need to know about me is that I love cupcakes. I know, I know, everybody loves cupcakes. What I mean is that I LOVe cupcakes. I don`t just eat them, I sniff them, touch them, study them, and most of all I bake them. Enter the quest for "The Perfect Cupcake." (add fading echo here)

My name is Mandy but I aspire to one day be the Cupcake Queen of Toronto, no wait, The World! Ah hem...maybe just Toronto.

So my journey, technically, began back in November last year when my friend Vee came over to my place to bake a cake for her Husband's surprise party. She brought a box of Betty Crocker confetti Angel Food Cake and two springform pans. The fun part about this particular cake mix is that it expands like nobodies business and makes a ridiculous amount of batter. So much in fact that once it was done expanding we filled both springform pans almost to the top (silly us, we thought it couldn't possible expand more) and then each ate enough batter goo that we were sick and then still had enough to fill the cupcake pan I pilfered from an old roommate (Thanks Jay). This was how my first ever batch of cupcakes were born.

This might have ended simply as a happy accident except that we didn't have any icing. You see, neither of us had ever iced a cake with anything other then canned Duncan Heinz frosting which incidentally tastes like hydrogenated death sauce. That's right, "Hydrogenated Death Sauce."

Not as good as you'd think, right?

Anyhoo, by the time we finished our sugar-induced giggle fit and peeled ourselves off the floor the grocery store had closed for the night.

Well, it was time to do what my generation does best, I puled up my browser and googled for all I was worth. Eventually I came up with this:

Classic Vanilla Frosting - The Cupcake Book by Susanna Fee

6 oz. (175g) butter, softened

3 cups (350 g) confectioners' sugar

2 tbsp. milk

6 drops vanilla extract

and thus an obsession was born.

Those glorious cupcakes were the first batch of cupcakes I had ever made in my adult life, but it was only the beginning. Since then I have begun the quest for the perfect cupcake. (start music now...think 1980s John Williams) Join me as I take my journey through bad recipes, burnt offerings and smushed travel containers. I may not be a great blogger, but I make damn good cupcakes.

Cheers,

The Cupcake Queen