green velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

the goods:

cupcakes:

2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 oz. green food coloring

frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 to 1 bag powdered sugar

milk as needed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners. Lightly whisk eggs in a medium bowl. Add in oil, buttermilk, vinegar, and vanilla and whisk until blended. Add food coloring and stir to combine. Place flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, and baking soda in the bowl of a stand mixer and stir together well. Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or two until well combined and green! Scoop 1/4 cup batter into each cupcake liner. Bake for 17-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in cupcake comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool 10-15 minutes, then remove from pans.

While cooling, prepare frosting: Cream together cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Gradually add powdered sugar until the desired consistency is achieved. Add milk as needed.

Top cupcakes with frosting. Now, here's where I blew it. I bought these adorable shamrock sprinkles and I waited too long to put them on my cupcakes and they wouldn't stick to the frosting. So if you have some cute toppings, put them on immediately.

DIG IN!!!

cool mint oreo brownie cupcakes

the goods:

1 package Cool Mint Oreo cookies (don't let your husband get to these and steal 3 - you need all of them!)

1 box brownie mix

(ingredients on the box to make the brownies)

frosting:

1/4 cup Crisco

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk

dash of salt

6 drops green food coloring

Prepare brownie batter according to package instructions. Place half the Oreos (about 15) in a quart-sized Ziploc bag and crush (I used a rolling pin). You want them to be chunky pieces. Fold the crushed cookies into the brownie batter. Place liners in a muffin tin and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Fill the liners with about 1/4 cup of batter. You should get about 15 cupcakes. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. Let cool for 20-30 minutes.

While they cool, mix together frosting. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and Crisco with a mixer. Add sugar 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition to make light and fluffy. Add extract, food coloring, and milk and beat until incorporated and fluffy. Pipe or spread frosting onto cooled brownie cupcakes and place a cookie from the remaining package on top of each frosted brownie cupcake.

heart cake

Ok, usually I am a "from scratch" kind of girl, but when I decided to tackle this heart cake I decided to spend all my energy on making it look great, so I cut some corners and baked some box mixes (my family is all gasping right now, I just know it!)... try not to judge me too harshly!

 the goods:

4 white cakes (8" rounds)

1 red velvet cake (9x13 sheet)

frosting of your choice (I used 3 to 4 large cans of cream cheese)

Level all four white cakes. Add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup frosting to 2 white cakes and then put the second cake on top. You want two separate two-layer cakes at this point. Freeze the layer cakes for a couple of hours, this will make carving them so much easier!

Run a fork through the red velvet cake and add about a cup of frosting and combine well.

Take a knife and draw a shallow border on each cake (or if you're nervous, you can tie 2 toothpicks together with a string in between, place one toothpick in the middle of the cake and drag the other one around to make a perfect circle). Carve a v-shape out of one of the cakes (this should look like a big cone). On the second cake, start with your knife in the middle and carve out a little island (like an upside-down cone). Then move back to the outside border and carve a channel that meets the center cone. (I really should have taken pictures as I was doing this as I'm now realizing how hard it is to describe!) Now use a spoon to make your channel a little more rounded (think heart). Now fill each cake with the red velvet cake. Add some frosting to the edge of the bottom cake (make sure you remember which is which!). Now carefully flip the channel cake on top of the v-cake. Add some more frosting and do a rough crumb coat over the whole cake. Put this in the fridge for at least a half hour, or as long as overnight. Add more frosting and smooth it out, I had leftover red velvet, so I used that to garnish the cake, but if you don't you can always do some piping work! ;)

red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

the goods:

cake:

2 and 1/2 cups cake flour

1 and 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 and 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons (1 oz.) liquid red food coloring

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

frosting:

16 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 cups confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup cupcake tins with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combing the cake flour sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt; whisk to combine. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. With mixer on low, gradually add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly among prepared pans. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 18 minutes.

Let cool in pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. While cupcakes cool, combine cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until totally incorporated, increase speed, then beat until smooth.

Frost cooled cupcakes as desired. I used a star-tipped piping tip to pipe frosting, but spreading it works fine too. Top with your favorite sprinkle, candy, or decoration!

strawberry heart-shaped oreos

the goods:

cookie:

1 package strawberry cake mix

2 eggs

3/4 cup shortening

filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 cups confectioners' sugar

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, combine cake mix, eggs, and shortening. Roll dough into balls.

Place two balls next to each other and pinch the bottom to create a heart. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

My hearts came out a little round, so immediately after pulling them out of the oven, I used a spatula to push the sides flat a bit more. Immediately transfer to a rack to cool.

With an electric mixer, combine cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add vanilla. Slowly add sugar, one cup at a time, until creamy.

When cookies are cool, with an offset spatula, spread frosting onto back of one cookie side, and sandwich with a matching heart.

blueberry-orange cornmeal muffins

the goods:

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 cup fine yellow cornmeal

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup low-fat plain yogurt

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest, plus 2 teaspoons orange juice

1 and 1/4 cup blueberries (7 ounces)

1/3 cup confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 12 standard muffin cups with paper liners. In a large bowl, whisk together 1 cup flour, cornmeal, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together yogurt, butter, vanilla, and orange zest. Add to flour mixture, stirring until combined (do not overmix).

In a medium bowl, toss blueberries with 1 tablespoon flour to coat, then fold into batter. Divide batter among muffin cups.

Bake until puffed and set, about 20 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. Let muffins cool in pan on wire rack.

Stir together orange juice and confectioners' sugar. Drizzle over muffins and let glaze set, about 10 minutes, before serving.

vanilla surprise cupcakes with fruit glaze

The surprise? Cannellini beans replace some of the butter in this recipe cutting the fat from 9g to only 3g per cupcake!

the goods:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 can (15.5 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs, plus 2 large egg whites

1 cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/4 cup fruit puree (from 9 ounces fruit, thawed and drained if using frozen, then puree in blender until smooth and pass through a fine-mesh sieve.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 standard muffin cups with paper liners. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a food processor, combine beans, butter, and granulated sugar; process until smooth. With machine running, add eggs and egg whites and process until incorporated. Stir into flour mixture until well combined. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla.

Divide batter among muffin cups and bake until puffed and set, about 17 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to wire racks and let cool completely.

Whisk together confectioners' sugar and fruit puree until smooth. Dip top of each cupcake into glaze, letting excess drip off. Let glaze set 15 minutes before serving.