chocolate peanut butter crap

So, on Tuesday I was so excited because I was making my next set of cupcakes. This time it was going to be chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.  Sounds wonderful, right?!  Well, ended up being wrong, all wrong.  They were gross.  I was so sad because not only did I make a double batch, but I also spent a long time making them because they were more involved than I thought they were going to be.  Although they look okay, when you taste them, they are a mixture of too salty, but too icky sweet, bitter, and a little dry.  Not a good combo in my book, and they had such potential, I mean with a combo like chocolate and peanut butter you wouldn't think you could go wrong.  Mark didn't like them either.  I didn't even want to bring them to work for my official cupcake testers.  Well, hopefully the pumpkin ones I make this weekend are better.

new fun stuff

So, yesterday Mark and I went to the Mall of America for a little while.  While we were there we went into the le gourmet chef store.  We weren't planning on going in there, and honestly, Mark said, "hey maybe we should go in and see if they have samples."  They ALWAYS have samples, so we went in.  What happened next was that I went hog wild in there, not over samples, I actually didn't even eat any.  I did however go hog wild over all the stuff that they sell there.  As you can see above, I purchased a sassy little apron and lots of cute little cupcake wrappers (I had actually purchased some cupcake wrappers earlier in the day and I got more today, but what can I say, I am going to go through a lot of cupcake wrappers!!  I was actually thinking about getting some silicon ones to save money and the planet)  Anyway, I am so excited about my new little purchases and can't wait to wear my new apron.  Stay tuned for my next post about the next cupcakes I make.  I am planning on doing some chocolate peanut butter ones early this week!  Until then!!

chewy chocolate mint brownie cupcakes

So, I decided that I definitely needed to make some sort of chocolate cupcake this time, and I really wanted to use the dutch cocoa.  Once again I decided to pick another one that seemed simple.  These were very simple to do, but messy.  Mark was home when I was making the cupcakes this time, and he gave me some helpful tips and also made me feel good to know that anytime you work with chocolate and cocoa like this it DOES get messy.  I swear there was cocoa all over the darn place.  I also got to use my new tool this time which is my sifter.  Mark said I could just use a mesh strainer, but come on, a sifter is so much fun and Target sells them for 6 bucks.  Pretty inexpensive if you ask me!  Anyway, back to the cupcakes.  These I guarantee are not good for the waistline because my double batch included 16 oz (which is 4 of those big bars) of semisweet chocolate (I used ghiradelli), 2 sticks of butter, and the cup and a half (I think that is how much it was) of the dutch cocoa.  Plus, in the middle you put a peppermint patty.  Pretty much chocolate overload.  So far Mark, my mom, and I have tried them.  They are very good, but VERY chocolately and rich.  I am only able to eat a half at a time. I guess I would give them about an 7.5 on the yummy scale.  Below you can see a picture of them.  Stay tuned for next week's cupcake experience.

streusel cupcakes

So, I decided to make my first set of cupcakes today. Now, you must know that I am not going to go in the order of Martha's book. I look around and pick in different ways. One way is by what I might be in the mood for, another say is if I think the cupcake might work for some celebration coming up, another way is the amount of time I think it is going to take may, or sometimes it might be the ingredients involved, etc. Today it was a mixture of the ingredients involved and how easy I thought it was going to be to make them. These streusel cupcakes had pretty much run of the mill ingredients, plus I didn't think they were going to be that difficult to make, which, they weren't! The only thing I ran into for difficulty was that I didn't read all the directions carefully ahead of time and just started making the cupcake batter first which you would think would be the thing to do. Well, the last step of the cupcake batter was to put the streusel on top before baking. So, I look at how to make the streusel recipe and see that it is supposed to be refrigerated for a half hour before using.  Oops!  No biggie though, I just made it and then put the streusel and the batter in the fridge for a half hour.  The other thing is, that I think that I put too much batter in each cupcake wrapper so it took them longer than the 20 minutes to cook they really muffin topped out.  Oh, and the fact that the recipe was supposed to make 24 and I only ended up with 12 regular sized ones and two monster ones (I must remember to buy another regular sized muffin tin).  Now, the recipe also calls for the baker to make a glaze, but I didn't do that yet because the glaze only lasts for a couple of days, and I want to bring these to work, so I think I will make the glaze on Sunday night.  I know for sure that the cupcakes will disappear right away at school because us teachers are scavengers for food in the workroom.  So, here are the cupcakes without the glaze.  Turned out okay I think.  Oh yeah, and I am going to have a Kari's cupcake yummy scale for each cupcake.  One will be for "yuck, I would never eat or make this cupcake again" and Ten will be for "Oh my gosh, I think I am in cupcake heaven and I never want to leave!"  So, I would say that these are a 6 on the scale.  They were nice, light and very buttery, plus they had streusel, but they probably will not be my absolute favorite.  Anyway, here is the picture below, it is not the best because the lighting was bad and I think the cupcakes would look cuter with the glaze on them.

before getting started

So, Martha, I love you, but why do you have to have so many fancy ingredients in your recipes? I know, I know, it probably makes the cupcakes taste so much better, but do you know how hard it is for some of us to find these ingredients? Or, that when we do find them we have to pay an arm and a leg for them?! Yeah, so the two main ingredients in a lot of the recipes which were hard to find were pastry flour and Dutch cocoa. Just use all purpose flour and regular you cocoa you say? Nope, because most of the recipes ask you to use those in the recipe as well. Plus, my cute chef husband asked his pastry chef about the Dutch cocoa and he said the whole thing about how the flavor would be so much better with that, etc. So, we finally found the ingredients at Byerley's and the Wedge, but of course this little dinky box of Dutch cocoa was 10 bucks and the pastry flour (which can be found in bulk at the Wedge or box at Byerley's is about double the price of regular flour and you don't get nearly as much. Stay tuned, my first set of cupcakes will be made this weekend, just in time to bring in to my school on the first day!

a new project

Okay world, I am taking on a new project here. I do have to say that I may have been inspired by a certain movie dealing with a girl who blogged about cooking her way through a certain famous female chef's cookbook. I thought to myself, hey is a really good idea. Take on something that interests you, or that you think may interest you, and go for the gusto and share it with others. What is my gusto you ask? Cupcakes. First and foremost, I have to say that I LOVE cupcakes, and not just how they taste (which I do have to say is like a little piece of heaven) but also just how cute they are. I mean they are such a happy little dessert! I mean, who can't resist the frosting and sprinkles (or jimmy's as we had discussed at work which is what they are called in certain parts of the country, *cough cough North Dakota cough cough* even though that term is also used as slang for something else, but we aren't going to get into that right now!) Anyway, back to the story, cupcakes. So, a couple weeks back, my wonderful husband Mark wanted to do some research at Barnes & Noble for some of his upcoming menus. I went along, and while he was picking out his cookbooks to look at, I feasted my eyes on, in my opinion, one of the greatest cookbooks ever! Martha Stewart's cupcake cookbook. I couldn't resist it, I was actually drawn too it, and as I flipped through the pages of decadent, fancy little cupcakes I got the idea to take on Martha's cookbook and try to make all the cupcakes in the book. I am going to try to make a cupcake a week and share my experiences them on here as well as sharing the cupcakes with the people I love. I am not the best cook, (but who needs to be when you are married to an amazing and cute chef?!) but I think I bake better than I cook and I would love to learn some new things. An so, it begins, the first cupcake will be made this weekend and we will go from there!