Cream Cheese Frosting

I had been wondering for the longest time how does the Cream Cheese frosting taste like. Wouldn't the mixture of confectionary sugar and cream cheese be weird? Well it turned out it's not. I made some chocolate cupcakes to use my first-time-tried cream cheese frosting. It tasted like ice cream (according to Ruben). The chocolate cupcake also turned out very moist. I am finally over the bridge of making good cupcakes. I can now bake chocolates with more confidence :) So here's how the final cupcakes looked like.

Happy Birthday Mike!

It's Mike's nth birthday today (secret raw) and I made him some cupcakes. I made him Chocolate Chip Blast Cupcakes with Ultimate Vanilla Buttercream frosting. In our office here in IDC, it is their tradition that if it's your birthday, you are supposed to bring your own cake to share with everyone. So there, I made him cupcakes to share with his PPV peers. We were all joking that I had "low yield" for my cupcakes. My overall yield is only 68.75%. For a normal recipe which yields me 16 cupcakes, I only got 11.
We all had dinner at Giraffe (Me, Manny, Ruben, Daniel and Mike) and had a whole load of dishes that turned my empty stomach upside down. We had fried rice, the "Philippine Dish" (which is not a tad bit Filipino), calamaris, chicken something and the Giraffe special which seemed to have had all their available ingredients in one big bowl. Afterwards, we went to Greg's for coffee where we stayed only for a few minutes because I had to go home (go figure why I had to go home!). It was a fun get together, with Mike sharing his and Thet's love story (hehehe). And as usual, Daniel would be in the hot seat because we keep nagging him if he has a secret girlfriend and we keep setting him up with our girl friends.
Anyway, today was a fun day. And they liked the cupcakes (or at least that's what Mike said). And since it was low yield, I was only able to pinch few crumbs to taste how my cupcakes went. :)

Irish Cream Liquer Cupcakes

Here are my cupcakes for the weekend. I had been very busy over the week so no time to bake some cupcakes. For this week, I made some Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Chips inside (as requested by Manny) and frosted with Chocolate Ganache laced with Irish Cream Liquer. I can't seem to find Bailey's here but I found other Irish Cream Liquor brands. I bought Fenney's and I used it for this recipe. The frosting does not taste alcoholic at all, but it gives the chocolate a different tanginess, making it seem like I used an expensive Belgian chocolate for the frosting. Well I did use a chocolate with 75% Cocoa content, so it's a little on the high end side. Above is my attempt at making basket weaves. It needs a lot of practice. :)
Now here's my cupcake ala-Magnolia. It's topped with Sugar Sprinkles. The sprinkles add a little twist to the frosting. The frosting is a Ganache so it's not sweet at all. The Sugar Sprinkles makes it slightly on the sweeter side.
Here's my classic swirls topped with Sugar Flowers and Dragees. I'm still on my quest for that perfect swirl. The chocolate chips inside the cuppies look like raisins. The chocolates inside were very soft and chewy.

What's For Breakfast?

Well it's actually not breakfast because I never wake up early and I don't technically eat breakfast. It's my weekend lunch, high starch, high fat, high cholesterol. It's pancakes with ham in between, bacon on the sides and an egg to top it. What a way to start my day. Hehe.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I was planning on making Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcakes but it turned out to be just the peanut butter and a mock jelly! I ended up topping my cuppies with Strawberry buttercream (which was very smooth by the way!). The Peanut Butter cupcake is Sarah Philip's recipe. It turned out to be very soft, moist and peanut-y.
The frosting is just a regular Swiss Meringue Buttercream with Strawberry puree added on it. It was very velvety and smooth and was only slightly sweet (and according to Manny, malinamnam! hehe). I'm dying to try out the buttercream with fresh pureed ripe mangoes on it.

Fall Cupcakes

Fall colors are not really my favorite but I tried it anyway on these batch of cupcakes. I had been fancying all week to try baking strawberry cupcakes so I gave it a shot. The cupcakes are strawberry cupcakes and the frosting is Chocolate Fudge Buttercream. And I topped it with orange and blue flowers.
I am happy with how the frosting turned out because it was very rich and dark. The strawberry cupcake was not bad either, it had fresh strawberry puree in it together with some pure strawberry extracts for flavor. I'll probably do away with the extract next time though. It was standing out, and I wanted it to be just all natural.

White Chocolate Cupcakes

I was (finally!) going to send my mom some cupcakes since Jon's flight was today. He was supposed to leave Israel last Friday but was left by his flight as he got stucked in traffic along highway 4. I had to bake another batch of cuppies since of course, I cannot send the first box anymore. We had to eat it (oh God, diet!) or it will perish. I also gave some to my officemates. The new batch that I made are Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes frosted with White Chocolate-Raspberry Ganache. The White Chocolate-Raspberry combination was tastier than the White Chocolate-Strawberry combo. Anyway, I hope my Mom (and Creamy Big Dog!) likes the cuppies! I so love this batch! I better stop tasting what I'm baking before I get a pot belly. :P
Roses are red (well...err...pink!) and Violets are blue. Sugar is not very sweet, and chocolates are oh so good!
The texture of the frosting was not very good because I did not have the time to chill and thaw the ganache very well. Had I waited, the cuppies will not have made it to the flight!

My Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes

I'm trying out different flavors of cupcakes for the flavors. I have found the perfect vanilla cupcake already, with a variety of Lemon, Strawberry and Banana flavors. I'm having a hard time baking chocolate cakes. The recipes that I was trying were either too dry, too bitter, or just about any other problem with it. Needless to say, all were good, but I was looking for that perfect chocolate cake which is moist and fluffy like a real homemade chocolate cake, but with commercial appeal. After weeks of searching, I found it! It's Sarah Phillip's Ultimate Chocolate Butter Cupcake. I made these with simple Vanilla Buttercream on top.

All Boxed Up

Box of Chocolate Butter Cupcake frosted with Vanilla Buttercream and Lemon Vanilla Cupcake topped with Lemon Buttercream. I will be sending this box to my Mom back home. :) I am not sure though if this will reach her. Jon's supposed to bring it but I cannot find him :) Anyway, a photo will be good enough for her ;)

Happy New Year!

For our new year get together, I made some Strawberry Cheesecakes. I used Rose Levy Berenbaum's Cordon Rose Cheesecake Recipe and it was the best cheesecake I had! No kidding! It tasted like Hagendaas Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream but better because I made my cheesecake with fresh strawberries. I poured the cheesecake fillings in ramekins so that it will already be on serving sizes and no need to slice and cut the cake. Here's what it looked like upon serving: