: i'm not irish, but kiss me anyway :

Every year comes a holiday that celebrates red and green*. And a holiday that celebrates pink, yellow and green**. And then there's that holiday that celebrates all things green***.

But why does it always have to be about green? What makes green so special? Why do colours like brown and black always get overlooked?

Well, I'm about turn this holiday upside down. Brown is back.

A very dark brown, to be specific.

I was asked to make some cupcakes for a St. Patrick's Day breakfast event last Friday, and I had been seeing lots of "stout cupcakes" around the blog-o-sphere. Nigella Lawson (my idol) has a fantastic recipe for a Guinness Chocolate Cake that I decided to adapt to make Guinness mini cupcakes.

I love Guinness.

I love cupcakes.

It's genius!

To make it even more celebratory, I decided to make the mini cupcakes in little cups and pipe my frosting to make it look like mini pints of Guinness.



They may not have gotten anyone drunk, but they sure did get everyone in the St. Patrick's Day spirit!


Cheers!

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake (makes approx. 30 mini cupcakes)

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Guinness (or other stouts)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups plain flour (*I used cake flour)
2 cups sugar (*I used one cup of white sugar, one cup of brown sugar)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:
1. Combine melted butter, stout and cocoa powder in a large bowl.
2. Add the eggs and sour cream and mix thoroughly.
3. Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt into the wet ingredients and combine thoroughly.
4. Pour batter into oven-proof paper cups (I line mine with parchment paper for easy removal).
5. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean (around 15-25 minutes depending on your oven).


Chocolate Fluffy Frosting

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 egg whites
1-2 T Chocolate syrup, or to taste (ie. Nestle Quik)

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, water and cream of tartar. Cook over medium-high heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is bubbly.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whip the egg whites and vanilla to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar mixture while whipping constantly until stiff peaks form, about 7 to 10 minutes.
3. Add chocolate syrup to taste.


*Christmas
**Easter
***If you don't know this by now, you don't deserve to

: rubber duckie, you're the one :

I was commissioned to bake two dozen mini cupcakes this weekend for a baby shower, and rather than the standard piped frosting, I decided to get a little creative with the cupcake embellishments.

I've never used fondant before, so naturally, I decided to forgo buying ready-made fondant and tried to make my own instead. I found a rather interesting recipe online that uses jello powder, but it didn't quite work out. I played around with the ingredients, and finally found a combination that formed something pliable. I'll post the adapted recipe sometime in the future when I have a chance to experiment again.

I decided to use the fondant to make little rubber ducks on a bed of piped blue Swiss Meringue Buttercream on Vanilla cupcakes.

Here are my ducks on the lookout:


Here are my ducks forming an army:


And here's their final resting place:


My last duckie didn't have a cupcake to sit on:




Vanilla Cupcake recipe from Joy of Baking.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe from Martha Stewart.

: good things come in extra small packages :

I've been a food blog lurker for years, but only recently started checking out baking sites and happened to stumble across Bakerella, the baking genius behind "cake pops"! I clicked through every page of her blog, growing more impressed by each culinary dessert creation. Her creativity was infectious. I too wanted to re-invent desserts into cute new packages!

I decided to start slow. I am, after all, only a novice baker!

I had some leftover cupcakes from the baby shower, so I decided to turn them into cupcake lollipops (sans the lollipop stick). So really... just extra-small chocolate covered cupcake-shaped cakes. I crumbled them up and mixed them in with my deflated frosting (it came in handy after all!).

Result?


I think I need more practice :) But hey, it's only my first time! And they're taaasty.... :)


Visit Bakerella's post for step-by-step instructions and photos! She even appeared on the Martha Stewart show last year during Cupcake Week, showcasing her "good things" :)

: baby cakes :

If you know me personally, you'll know that I am an avid cupcake supporter. I love cupcakes, possibly more than life itself! But seriously. Upon my invitation to my good friend Marta's baby shower, I decided straight away that I would bring mini cupcakes to celebrate Little Walnut's impending birth. Baby shower + baby cupcakes = cute!

I debated between making a chocolate cake and banana cake, subsequently finding out that the baby mama is allergic to bananas. Chocolate it is. I decided to try out a Devil's Food Cake recipe with fluffy marshmallow-like frosting. I adapted the cake recipe from Taste and Tell with the recipe below, and the fluffy frosting from All Recipes.



The chocolate cake turned out very light, moist and not overly sweet, so it made it very easy to eat more than a few in one sitting ;) The frosting was dynamite - really light and so yummy. I attempted to use a shortcut to make Swiss Meringue Buttercream and add unsalted butter after the frosting had been whipped, but the addition of the butter completely deflated my fluffy frosting.


While still delicious, it kind of defeated my purpose of making chocolate cupcakes with "fluffy" frosting.

On another note, I found the sweetest baby shower gift - organic teething toys in the shapes of fruit! I bought these from Grassroots in Toronto.



Cute, non?

Devil's Food Mini Cupcakes (makes approx 84)

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
1.5 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted
1 1/3 cups cold water

Directions:
1. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high for 30 seconds. Add sugar, melted chocolate and vanilla; beat until well combined. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each. Add flour mixture and water alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.
4. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.