Why you should get an electric mixer if you bake

I have been using my new electric mixer from Christmas and I can see and taste the difference especially on the quality of buttercream icing.

Check out this buttercream I made using a whisk, by hand:

See how it is all grainy and sorta chunky? Well I'm guessing that the power I am putting in with my arms  must be around 40 Watts (tops), and I can only do it at full power for a few seconds at a time (go ahead laugh, but try it yourself).

Now compare it to my new 220 Watt electric mixer:

It is *perfectly smooth*. It makes for a much more pleasant experience in your mouth, texture and flavor wise since all the ingredients are blended much better and are less likely to separate should the temperature rise a bit.

These are strawberry champagne cupcakes by the way. I made a couple dozen today to bring to a BBQ tomorrow celebrating Australia Day.

The recipe is from a blog called Love & Olive Oil, which I use often because the cupcake recipes there seem to be pretty reliable, none have failed so far. A down side is that some of the recipes are lactose free or vegan  (no butter, no milk, no eggs, etc.) due to personal choices of the author. I don't mind at all, but I suppose some people would.

I used slightly over half of the sugar that the recipe called for in the icing. I often cut back on the sugar because most icing recipes will make my teeth hurt :-) You can cut the sugar and will still obtain a pretty nice texture. I always put the icing in the fridge for 10 minutes before I start piping to ensure the buttercream will be stiff enough to hold its shape.

A few notes on the final result:

• These were the most expensive cupcakes I have made to date because I had to use a whole bottle of sparkling wine (I made double the recipe). Bad idea but too late by the time I realized. The taste of champagne is sort of there but not really identifiable, so next time I will use a more normal/cheaper flavoring.

• There is a hint of strawberry in the cake itself, but not as strong as I would have liked so I will need to experiment more. 

• The cake is lovely, spongy, springy and melts in your mouth. I would not mess with the sugar content here, it's perfect.

Lastly, a shout out to my homey Parisa, who made a sweet looking hot pink raspberry cake!

More cupcakes!

We are attending a barbecue tonight which will also be attended by lots of men. And since there aren't a lot of men out there who appreciate vegetables, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make a couple of salads. I made a lot in hopes that there will be left overs and then I can eat them for the rest of the week... But who wants to read about salads anyway, let's talk dessert!!!

I also really wanted to make some cupcakes for tonight because... well who needs a reason for cupcakes?

These are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. The original recipe is completely vegan, but with mine I used real butter and cream cheese in the frosting instead of vegan substitutes.

Also just wanted to mention that using cream cheese makes the frosting super creamy and requires half the sugar than traditional recipes = creamier and not so overly sweet!

Check out my new carrying case, it holds up to 24 cupcakes. More goodness for everyone.

And on a side note, I was in a rotten mood last Tuesday and was super rude to my boyfriend and everyone who got on my way. Instead of getting angry M got me this:

Best. Boyfriend. Ever.

DIY cake stand

I saw this DIY on a different blog, but for the life of me I can't remember which one. I looked it up and it is actually a semi popular DIY, so no ground breaking techniques here.

What you will need:

• A plate (any plate you like, mine was $0.50 from a thrift store)
• A candle holder (any candle holder you like, mine was $0.50 from the same place)
• Strong glue: I recommend super glue or epoxy

Clean your plate and candle holder and make sure they are dry.

Apply glue according to directions (fast if you can, since it will dry quickly) on the edge where both items will come together. Place the plate on top of the candle holder and apply some pressure. Best it is when you place a heavy book or cutting board on top and leave it for 30 minutes while it dries.

Finito.

By the way we finally got our shipment from Zurich and I was able to retrieve all of my bakeware. Of course I immediately had to make cupcakes to display the cake stand in use. 

These are peach bourbon cupcakes (recipe here) and in my humble opinion they are scrumptious. The perfect hint of bourbon and peaches all in one. The recipe was for 12 cupcakes but my cups were a bit bigger than the norm so only 8 came out.

Sweets

I like cakes. Even more than cakes, I like cupcakes. I love frosting on cakes and cupcakes. Mmm...

I wanted to post some pictures of cakes I made, so that they would be on the web somewhere... And we're  going to start right here.

I made this for my last birthday:

It was chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream frosting. Covered in green fondant and the flowers are made out of marzipan.

This one was for a 4th of July bbq. It's a terrible background, but I was trying to avoid taking shots of the living room this time.

It was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Red, white and blue fondant was used for decoration.

I once also made a couple of dozens of these little guys:

I called them the mini-moccha cupcake. It was chocolate (ahem, again) with espresso buttercream frosting and some toasted hazelnuts sprinkled on top.

I want to make more. I want to make them all the time.