Dulce De Leche Cupcakes

These are White Cupcakes filled with Dulce De Leche and topped with Vanilla Meringue. This is the first time that I used my blow torch and at first it was scary using it but it gets fun afterwards. LOL. Meringue really tastes better torched. I made these cupcakes after 2 weeks of hectic schedule at work, and after finally releasing my test program. It was also my record breaking baking time, everything was done from the baking to the frosting after an hour!

Here are some more photos of the cupcakes. Pictures are not so good because I took it. Hehe. I keep saying must be because of the different camera, but I guess it's me. :) And of course Manny and I cannot (or should not!) finish 16 cupcakes before they perish so I brought the rest to our morning meeting at the office. Together with a hot coffee, the cuppies were a hit!

Birthday Cuppies

It's Ate Jen's birthday today and as a gift for her, I made her some cupcakes. She wanted a chocolate mousse cake, but I did not have the time to make her one, so instead, I whipped up a chocolate cupcake recipe that I could make fast. Manny's parents were already going back to San Jose today and we brought them to the airport in Tel Aviv at 2:30am. We were back in Haifa at around 6am. Being tired and all, I slept until 2pm, stayed in bed until 3pm, got up only when my stomach was already grumbling from hunger :) Plus, I ate my very late lunch for more than an hour because of the Sharapova-Radwanska Qatar Open game on TV. Having slept almost the entire day, I was not able to make Ate Jen's chocolate mousse.
Anyway, I managed to make her some chocolate cupcakes with melted chocolate filling inside frosted with raspberry buttercream and topped with some sugar dragees.
Manny and I went to her place at around 9pm. She had a party and we had some Filipino food for dinner. She liked the cakes and cupcakes that I previously made and she did not want to share these new ones to anyone! :) LOL!

Coffee Crumb Cupcakes

These cupcakes are leftovers of the Coffee Crumb cake that I made below. It is made of a butter cake in the bottom, topped with a generous layer of coffee crumb on top. It was so good! Sorry about the photos, I just had to take a picture before they're all gone! And gone they were! :) This cake is not very sweet, and has a big crunch when eaten. Definitely good with coffee too!

Cuppies Boxed Up!

These cupcakes went all the way to Eilat (southernmost Israeli city which is on the border of Egypt and Jordan) as presents for Manny's relatives living there. His parents who are here in Israel for vacation brought with them the cuppies. It seems like my Chocolate Cupcakes which is a version of Sarah Philips' UCBC are becoming bestsellers. I again made the Chocolate Cupcakes with Fudge in the middle, this time topped with Vanilla Buttercream. They said the kids loved the chocolate!

Happy Valentine!

My valentine cupcakes are made of double chocolate fudge cupcakes topped with raspberry buttercream. I brought some to the office to spread some love to my Israeli officemates who celebrate valentine's in July. :) I also gave some to Thet and little Iya who probably won't be able to eat it because it's sweet and she has coughs. I hope Iya gets well soon so she could enjoy Europe!

My New Kitchen Aid!

I bought my new black Artisan about a week ago and after staring at it for a week, I finally found time to bake something. These are the first cupcakes that I made using it. It really is the coolest mixer ever! :) The cupcakes turned out very soft, fluffy and moist.

These double chocolate blast cupcakes were made with 75% Cocoa Belgian chocolate and all natural cocoa powder. Because of all the chocolates, each tasted like it's made with some expensive European chocolate. Some Vanilla Buttercream on top.

Google Me!

If you google "odette cupcake", this blog will be the first one in the searched results. If you google "cupcake odette", I'd be the second result. Ain't that cool? Hehe, but the question is, who would be crazy enough to search "odette cupcake" other than Manny? Haha. He's the one who told me about this google thingy. :)
You can click on the picture below for a larger image.

Hey Ly and Ice!

Around the 2nd week of January (I think), Lyra told me that she is expecting and she is due again I think, around end of August or early September. After 2 weeks, Ice told me that she is also expecting and due around of end of September! You guys are going to be preggy together! I'm so happy for you two girls and I am looking forward to seeing those big bumps. :) I'll be praying for both of you that you'll have safe pregnancies and healthy babies. :)

And now for the fun part, I made you sample cuppies. Well, these are exactly not samples, these are just flavors that I haven't tried (among other to-try recipes that I have) and just needing any reason to bake. :) So ly it's plus happy birthday for you, on top of your and Ice' groundbreaking(!) news. Hehe.

I'm currently planned to go home by mid-October unless I get extended here again. I hope I'd make it home to be able to make cupcake towers for you girls! :)

These cupcakes are the "Lemon Burst" - Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes topped with Lemon Buttercream.

After 10 Years!

I haven't been able to blog for ages because of my new laptop. For some reason, whenever I open internet explorer and start posting new blogs, the tool for uploading photos (and all of the enchalada...font, size, etc) is not available. For starter, here's for you mommy myleen. Some white chocolate raspberry ganache on top of an orange butter cupcake! :) Kelan uwi mo?

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:

Pinks and Hearts