Making Treats Special with Washi Tape

I was bringing treats to a friend's celebration and wanted her to feel especially loved.

And you know, for us crafty types, nothing says love like tiny washi flags. LOL.

I wasn't going to post this because it's a well-known idea at this point but just in case, I thought I'd share anyway. All you do is trim the end off a skewer with scissors, sit it in the middle of a piece of washi tape,  line up the short edges and seal the tape into a two-sided tab, trim a notch in it for the flag shape. Done!

As far as cupcake toppers go, they are the most effective in my opinion. 

Don't they just scream, "PARTY"?

(does your fridge have a giant coil in it? It's so weird!)

These look great in mini sausages, holding finger sandwiches together or skewering veggies in a bloody mary. Put all that washi you're hoarding to good use and make someone's day :-)

Cake #45 Maple Pecan Cupcakes

I've been looking for a good recipe for a maple pecan cake and while a lot of them have potential, they are consistently not maple-y enough. My suspicion is that the trouble lies in using maple syrup in the batter. Recipes generally called for two cups... TWO CUPS... of maple syrup. Which is crazy, expensive and kind of gross. To add all that and still not be strongly maple-flavored seems like a waste to me. So I went with maple extract, which is very effective in providing big maple flavor. And did it ever deliver... after a half-hour or so. 

Confession: When I dreamt up these cupcakes in the bakery part of my brain I was thinking about pralines and butter pecan ice cream and how I love all things maple. Then they came out of the oven a teensy bit flat (not terrible, just not tall) and I bit into one and it tasted like a bran muffin. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

So I was a little annoyed. 

I ditched my plan to toast pecans for decorating, using baking tips, obsessing... and just slapped on some maple caramel frosting with a butter knife; thinking the boys will be happy enough with them regardless of how they looked. * Then I threw them in the fridge and went to do something else. 

Well, you wouldn't believe how they tasted when I bit into one a half hour later.

SPECTACULAR!

AMAZING!

JUST HOW I IMAGINED THEM!

Except now, instead of being pretty and fancy they had set up rather...er... rustically.

*sigh*

Patience is not my strong suit.

So if you want a lovely maple and pecan flavored cupcake please try these. They're a real hit with our crew and they have a lovely flavor and texture. 

And please ignore how they look :-)

Maple Pecan Cupcakes

Makes: 12 cupcakes

1/3 cup frozen pecans

1 cup milk: soy milk, skim milk, whatever you like.

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cups flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup canola oil

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoons vanilla

1teaspoon maple extract

I batch of caramel fudge frosting but replace the vanilla with maple extract.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin pan with paper liners.

Chop the pecans in your food processor or blender.

  I was trying to get nut flour but mine started to turn into nut butter quicker then I'd hoped so I went with it. And it's delicious so... YAY! 

Chopped nuts would be great too but my kids don't like the "distracting texture". I've heard you should always add ground up nuts to your sugar to absorb the nut oils but since I was about to toss it all into a bowl, together, I didn't see the urgency.

Whisk the (soy) milk and the vinegar together and let sit a few minutes until curdled.

See, nice and chunky. Ew.

Whisk together the soy milk mixture, oil, sugar, vanilla, and maple extract.

Mix in the pecan nut bits

Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix until no large lumps remain. 

Now I am a lazy baker and I'm always trying to cut time out of recipes. Plus I hate making extra dishes. With all that in mind, I'm asking you to sift your dry ingredients. Yes, you can whisk them together but then you run the risk of someone biting into your luscious cupcake and getting a little pocket of baking soda. Which is gross. And that someone will be me. It always is. And I'm telling you... GROSS! So sift, it's really not a big deal.

And while we're discussing sifting, lots of recipes say to sift into your wet ingredients. Are those recipes written by octopi? I do not possess the manual dexterity to hold a sifter in one hand while scooping and measuring ingredients with the other hand while balancing the whole she-bang over a bowl of wet stuff. Not gonna happen. So do yourself a favor, grab a second bowl and sit your sifter in it. Makes life so much easier and you'll save yourself a mess.

Since this recipe is egg-free you can taste it and see how it's coming along. This batter tasted delicious and the pecans were fine enough that they didn't settle at all. 

Fill cupcake liners and bake for 20 to 22 minutes until done. 

Cool completely before frosting.

See all that gorgeous texture. Yum!

You can see the rest of our 52 Cakes HERE

*Note: I didn't chose to not decorate them because they were 'just for the kids', our family doesn't like a lot of frosting so I usually make a couple thickly decorated for my blog and the rest with a lot less frosting for us to enjoy. Since I thought I'd probably not be blogging these, I didn't make any fancy ones.

Linked Up With:
Whipperberry

Cake #21 Chocolate Buttermilk Candy Filled Cupcakes - By Brayden

My son Brayden is helping with today's post. You see, something went very, very wrong in my back and I've been stuck, lying flat since Monday morning. The doctors have me on a handful of things, including Prednisone, in hopes of driving off the rampaging barbarian hordes that are ransacking my spinal column.

So far not so good.

Knowing I've been working hard to keep up with the 52 Cakes Project, my youngest whipped up a recipe and tutorial for everyone. He's a really neat person and to him I offer my most sincere thanks. So without further preamble - here's Brayden.

Chocolate Buttermilk Candy-Filled Cupcakes

Recipe:

1 box Devils Food or Chocolate Cake Mix

1 cup buttermilk (to replace the water on the box)

Vegetable Oil (the amount on the box. We use 1/2 oil, 1/2 applesauce. Mom buys the individual serving size ones just for baking)

4 eggs (in place of the number on the box)

Mix together well.

Spoon half the batter into a large ziploc bag, snip off end and fill cupcake pans.

Fill 1/2 of the pans 2/3 of the way full and half 1/3 way through. For the 1/3 full ones, drop in a mini candy bar (Milky Way, Snickers etc) and then cover with batter.

Tip: Not everyone likes candy in their cupcake or the added calories so color code your cupcake liners so people know what they're getting. Like this:

Red are filled, green are plain.

Bake as directed. The buttermilk makes the cupcakes really moist and delicious.

Simple Frosting:

2 sticks of butter
4 cups icing sugar
Fat-free half 'n' half, cream, milk, coffee creamer, coffee - something wet as needed.
extracts: vanilla, butter extract, mint, almond etc.

Put butter in the mixer and beat until fluffy

Add icing sugar a little at a time until all combined

Beat until really, really light and fluffy

It'll be delicious but really stiff. So you need to add a little liquid until the consistency is spreadable. Add your extracts. I used vanilla and butter extract.

Spread on your cupcake

(It's hard to spread and take pictures. You should see all the icing on the camera!)

Top with chopped candy bars.

Mom and my brothers said some of my ideas look like they'd been handled too much - like this one, where I decorated with the chocolate off of chocolate bars. 

And you're done, so get someone to take pictures of you and your dessert. Avery and Trenton took these:

Thanks, Brayden. You're a great kid and your cupcakes were delicious.

Rainbow Party Cones & Time Out

Our family has a wonderful tradition; when someone goes on time out, the non-offending children get to do something really fun. This is very effective because the person in trouble is doubly punished and it helps them be mindful to not break the rules in the future. It all started years ago. My eldest is a pretty self-contained unit and he made the terrible mistake of asking me what was the big deal with time out. The way his six year old brain saw it, time out was an oasis of quiet and a break from his brothers. This would not do. The next time he was sent on time out, I popped popcorn with my younger two hoping that the smell of his favorite food wafting up to his room would make my point. The next infraction, we skipped school and watched a cartoon - suddenly the point was much clearer to him.

This message has been played out many times over the years and I think it's a good one. Sometimes doing the wrong thing doesn't just cause you to receive punishment (like being fired) it can also cause you to lose blessings (like a raise or an opportunity). My boys understand this through and through - as a mom, what more can I hope for.

Now what does this have to do with the pretty vanilla cone at the top of this post? Everything. My 13 and 12YO got into an argument last week. We don't allow quarreling in our house as a considerate exchange of ideas is a lot more effective way to get through life than say, punching someone in the nose. Since their conversation was escalating, I put them both on time out to think about how they could have handled things better. Now I had to find something AWESOME to do with my 11YO. He isn't a TV kid at all so movies and video games were out. I'd been wanting to make cupcake cones with him for at least six months so we got to it. Sorry, I completely spaced on getting a picture of my cute boy.

Step One: Place the cones in a muffin pan. I've tried cookie sheets and its been a tippy disaster. 9x13 pans work well too.

Step Two: Make your favorite cake batter, we used Vanilla Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Separate it into three bowls and color each batch of batter with food coloring. Be mindful of the batter color - yellow cake will turn blue dye green etc.

Step Three: Each cone holds about three tablespoons of  batter so gently layer one TBL of each color into the cones:

Now they're ready to bake. Afterwards they should look like this. Cool completely before frosting:

We frosted ours to mimic favorite ice cream flavors like chocolate chip mint. All this required was mint frosting and mini chocolate chips. They looked real enough that they fooled my husband :-)

As things inevitably go, Brayden and I got tired of making ice cream cones after about this many:

So we decided to try a multi-colored piping technique I'd seen on TV. All you need is a zip loc bag (or disposable pastry bag), paste food color and white frosting. 

Paint lines of food color up the sides of the bag:

Add frosting:

And pipe your heart out, cool 'eh?

Want to see these babies in action? I call the first one Psychedelic Chomp:

Thanks everyone for hanging out to the end of this tutorial. Hope you make these with your family (without someone needing to be on time out first).

Linking to:

Friday Fun Finds at Kojo Designs

Spotlight Yourself: Santa's Gift Shoppe and Ideas

cupcake , parenting