Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Sheridans Cupcakes

Sheridan's is a uniquely bottled liqueur consisting of two separate sections, separated by glass, but fused together. One section is filled with a black liqueur, consisting of coffee and whiskey flavors, the other is filled with a white liqueur of milk white chocolate.

Sounds good? It is! If you haven't tried it you definitely should!
We don't have any alcohol on my house, except wine and Sherindan's...
We like it so much that I decided to make it a cupcake, and let me tell you it was delicious! The coffee liqueur gives this cupcakes a very special taste, not to strong , balanced with the white part of the frosting. A very adult dessert to enjoy like a kid!


sheridans cupcakes


To make the cupcakes you will need:

2 1/3 cups of all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of very strong coffee , cold.
1/4 cup of milk
2 tablespoons of the black part of your Sheridan's ( if you don't have any, you can use any coffee liqueur, like Kahlua)
3/4 cup of butter at room temperature
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs


Procedure:

Preheat your oven at 350. Prepare your muffin liners.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
On a cup mix together the coffee, milk and the coffee liqueur.
On your mixer beat the butter and the sugar for 5 min. Or until creamy light texture. Add the eggs, one by one. Waiting for one egg to incorporate fully to add the next one. Add the dry mix, then the coffee mix, beat just until all the ingredients are icorporated.
Fill the liners 3/4 and bake for 20 min. Or until the toothpick come out clean.

For the Sherindans frosting I made two, one out of the white part and one out of the black part. If you are using any other coffee liqueur feel free to use all the ingredients of the two frostings together but adding five tablespoons or six of your liqueur, and add more icing sugar to achieve the desired consistency.

For the white part of the frosting you will need:

6 onz. Of cream cheese at room temperature
3 onz. Butter at room temperature
2 tablespoons condensed milk
1 tablespoon of the white part of the Sheridan's.
1 1/2 or 2 cups icing sugar

Cream first the butter and the cream cheese , then add the liqueur and the condensed milk. Mix well. And add the icing sugar little by little.

For the coffee part of the frosting:

7 onz. Cream cheese room temperature
2 onz. Butter room temperature
3 tablespoons of the black part of the liqueur. Or four if you want a more powerful flavour.
1/2 teaspoon of coffee ( NOT the instant one)
1 1/2 or 2 cups icing sugar.
Brown food colorant

The procedure is the same. Cream the butter and the cream cheese until you cant tell them apart. Add the liqueur and the coffee. Mix well. And then little by little and in a low speed add the icing sugar.
Color brown.

I added the colorant to give the same effect as the Sheridans, feel free to omit this if you want.


sheridans cupcakes


And here it is! A wow recipe that everyone will love!
I really hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

I will keep baking, even if my two little helpers are on vacations and dancing all around the house! My little one is walking now! I am sooo proud of her! But keeping her safe is a full time job now!

Also, I will be working with royal icing for the first time! So cross your fingers for me and expect a lot of pictures!

unique cupcakes, sheridans cupcakes, unique cupcake recipe





Friday, July 12, 2013

Coconut and white chocolate cupcakes



    So easy to make! and so delicious, this is one of my favorite recipes. Everyone loves coconut and white chocolate. The combination of both make this cupcakes crazy good!. And what if I tell you I used a cake mix box to make them? These are perfect to shine at any get together or event.

Today is my birthday!. I have to confess that each year gets harder and harder to fully understand just how old I am... I remember when my mother was my age!
I have the same friends that I had at 6 , I still hang out with my college friends, everything remains the same, except is not, we are not six or 19, we are all mothers and wifes, my eyes are different, my body carries the scars of my pregnancies, is wider, softer. I dont like to party anymore, I rather have a good dinner with good company. I love my family more than I love myself. All my money is for them, I dont care anymore if I have fancy clothes, or the latest handbag, I am all grown up and my strength is not in myself anymore, my strengh, my force, comes from my husband, my mother, my little ones. I feel stronger and wiser, but I am more afraid now, because now I am not alone.

And, to celebrate, a friend of mine came to my house and gave me a present, she came without warning  and I allways like to offer something to my guests, when I saw her on my porch I ran to my kitchen , made a list of ingredients and made her these.



coconut white chocolate cupcakes



If you want to make them too, you will need: (yields 12 to 15 cupcakes)

  • A white cake mix. ( my favorite is Duncan Hines)
  • The number of eggs that your box requires.
  • The amount of oil that your box requires.
  • 1/2 cup whole milk.
  • 1/2 cup coconut flavored yogurt.
  • 3/4 cup shredded coconut ( unsweetened).
Just mix all the ingedients together, fill your cupcake liners and bake as directed on the box!
They are that easy!

For the White Chocolate Frosting:

  • 7 oz white chocolate for baking, chopped. 
  • 8 oz ( 250 gr) softened cream cheese.
  • 1/4 cup ( 50 ml.) softened butter
  • 1/ 2 tsp ( 2 ml.) vanilla 
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
Melt the white chocolate on the microwave making 30 second intervals , stirring it every interval. Let the chocolate cool a little. Meanwhile, on your mixer cream butter and cream cheese until uniform in color and texture. Then add the chocolate and vanilla, mix until well blended. Slowly add the powdered sugar, beat well. 

coconut white chocolate cupcakes


This is my absolute favorite frosting ever! I don´t lie, I love it! I could eat it with a spoon directly from the bowl ( well, in fact I do that) . I found this amazing recipe on the  Pampered Chef . I just use more powdered sugar to make it thick and I use 1 oz. more of white chocolte so the sugar wont drown the flavor. This recipe makes white chocolate cupcakes too! and they are good, but they require inserting white chocolate truffles. Yumy! right? But I found that all that white chocolate on one bite can be to much for some people (well, most people) so I like to keep it a little less sweet. ( just a little! haha)

I used a 2E noozle to pipe them and added just a dash of edible golden glitter to make them special. 
Happy Birthday to me! 

If you want to make this with the glitter , this is how I made them:

Once you have the noozle on your piping bag, open your piping bag as opened as you can , and with the help  of a spoon, put some frosting on just one side in a very thin line, start the closest to the noozle as you can and continue your frosting line to the top of your piping bag, stop when you reach the middle or a little more. then grab with your fingers your edible glitter and let it go on the line (just like a glue and glitter DIY proyect) trying to stick as many glitter as you can to your frosting line. Stand your piping bag on top of a plate because all the non sticked glitter is going to fall!, then fill your piping bag as usual and pipe as desired. 


coconut white chocolate cupcakes

edible glitter cupcakes






Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The best vegan coconut frosting recipe



Creamy, rich in flavour and texture, this frosting is a delight that will enhance any cupcake or cake. If you are vegan you will love this! And if you are not, you will love this too!

My husband is my toughest critic, he allways give me a straight opinion, and he was blown away by this! I also had the fortune to share my creations with a very popular vegan coffee shop owner and she praised my cupakes a lot! She wanted to buy them for her clients!



vegan coconut frosting


I've been busy creating splendid vegan cupcakes for this vegan coffee shop. I felt like a mad scientist making all this experiments, taking notes, testing the product and everything a good baker is required to do... I am exausted but joyful
to share all my "findings" with you...

So here it is: The best coconut frosting ever! For the vegan and the non vegan too!
A little warning here: the coconut will make hard the task of piping, I spread it on my cupcakes, but if you wish to do a more fancy piping I would recomend you put the coconut on the food processor until the consistency is very very fine... maybe that could help. When you taste it you will not care at all that you can't pipe coconut roses!

Ingredients you will need: yields 12 cupcakes depending on your piping

One stick of good quality margarine at room temperature
3 tablespoons of coconut milk ( or a little more to thin the consistency)
2 cups icing sugar
7 onz. Unsweetened shreded coconut
1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract

Procedure:

Start by beating your margarine until light and creamy.
At a low speed add the coconut and beat well. At this point use the vanilla and the coconut milk to thin your mixture, mix well.
Then, at the lowest speed of your mixer add the icing sugar one spoon at a time so you won't end up with a sugar cloud on your kitchen, until firm. If you think the mixture is very very thick add coconut milk one teaspoon at a time. If you feel the mixture is too soft abd runny, add some more icing sugar one tablespoon at a time.
Spread on cupcakes or cake and enjoy the party in your mouth! Hahaha.

Once my cupcakes were frosted I added some more coconut on the top, just to make them pretty, you can add grated white chocolate ( if you don't care much for the vegan twist) or any other yummy ingredient you can think of!


vegan coconut frosting


What do you think? If you are making this please let me know if you liked it as much as I did!
Share your ideas to improve this! ( if you can) remember I want to make the best vegan cupcakes to share with all of you!

In the next posts I will be sharing more of my vegan creations... And non vegan too!