Raspberry cupcakes with raspberry frosting

On Friday I was thinking no baking this weekend but then Sex and the City 2 is on tv tonight! I had to have cuppies while watching that!  Also received rave reviews on Friday's lemon cuppies. J said half a doz of his colleagues asked where was the website to place orders coz they thought my little sticker on the box meant I was in business :) Sorry! Made on the whim only! I adapted that lemon cupcake recipe into a raspberry cupcake.

Yup! Obsessing over dollops at the moment...

Love creaming butter & sugar, I always eat a sneaky  teaspoonful.

Tried out my strawberry sprinkles
(didn't have orange at home and this was spur of moment so couldn't use the orange sherbet sprinkles this time)

Tried the cheap Hansells raspberry flavor and
it was better than the bottle on the left which costed ten times as much!

FINALLY! A pale baby pink icing :) I love pink when it's so pale it's almost white.

Dollops of raspberry frosting

The strawberry sprinkles look very sparkly and smell like strawberries but doesn't taste strawberry.

I got round to buying lollipop sticks yesterday, so just awaiting my cake pop stand in the mail and we'll be good to go making Bakerella's spring chicks cake pops next weekend!

Lemon Meringue Cuppies for J's colleagues

Today is RWC 2011 opening day! As most kiwis would be slacking at work today :P I thought some cupcakes would go down well at J's work. My two bosses aren't really into sugary treats so none for my work. I thought about trying out an orange cupcake recipe to go with the sparkly orange sherbet sprinkles I'd purchased this week but J wanted his lemon cupcakes, so that was that....


Googled for a new lemon cupcake recipe as the last Rachel Ray recipe was a terrible - hopeless - lacked flavour and texture, the meringue was also lousy. Luckily this random recipe I tried was nice! Pretty good, a little less lemony than I would have liked, I'll add more juice next round. I also did a french meringue for the topping which was the right consistency for the cute little dollop tops I like. French meringue will definitely be my go to topping from now on as frosting such as buttercream frosting is just way too sweet, only good for occasional use.

Thought about making mini rugby balls but BLEH :P fresh raspberry tastes much better and less hassle for a work night! Glad Spring is finally here! Looking forward to all the fresh berries.

Creamed butter and sugar with eggs added

Recipe called for 2 sticks butter (226 gms), I somehow sliced 227 gms on the first go!
Been baking too much??

Finished batter

Lemon rind to add

Cuppies ready for toppings

Dollops of lemon curd

Topped with a french meringue and fresh raspberry

I find dollops cute :\

3 boxes for J to take to work. I need a reusable cupcake carrier!

Till next time! I'm having a hard time looking for more black cupcake wrappers and my cake pop stand still hasn't arrived :( so probably no baking this weekend from me!

Macarons for J's colleagues

Haven't got round to purchasing the sticks and a stand for making cake pops yet, so that will have to wait another week or two. In the mean time, J had told his colleagues he'll bring some macarons in one day, so I decided no time like the present! Made my two favourite flavors, raspberry and lemon :)

Plain shells

Making the meringue

Couldn't be happier, two great lots of shells with no dramas!

Raspberry ganache filling

Raspberry powder decorating

Lemon curd filling

Passionfruit powder decorating

And there we have it! 60 macarons in 2 hours. Wouldn't do it for money thou! It's a labour of love :) x

Chocolate Cupcakes & Raspberry Macarons

Today's adventures consisted of chocolate cupcakes and raspberry macarons!


I made the macarons first. I wanted to experiment with a different way to get the raspberry flavor, so far I've tried freeze dried raspberry powder in the shells with raspberry jam in the centre (jam by itself is too tart) and freeze dried raspberry powder in the shells with jam & whipped cream in the centre (whipped cream means it can't mature as it has to be eaten fresh).


I decided that the freeze dried powder might be affecting texture of the shell, so today I used it in a more artistic way, sprinkled on plain shells. I tried out this new raspberry flavoring I bought along with powder in some ganache but it doesn't have the intensity and tartness of the jam. The flavoring overpowered the powder too. 

So in conclusion, I think the best raspberry macaron for me to stick to would be plain shells sprinkled with raspberry powder with plain ganache with a teeniest dollop of raspberry jam in the middle! :)  That shall be Team JJ's raspberry macaron combination!

XS, S, M, L, XL lol! :)

The 100% reliable appearance of feeties :)

Very very smooth exterior when no freeze dried raspberry powder is added.

Today's experimental ganache..

 Can you tell my love for raspberry flavor? I now have powder, flavoring and puree forms of raspberry! Not to mention raspberry jam can be made easily.

Might have to work on better sprinkle technique :P

uh oh! Ganache a bit on the flowy side. Hope it doesn't sink to the bottom!

J does enjoy the occasional brownie so I relaxed my no-chocolate-in-the-bakery rule and hunted for a chocolate cupcake recipe :) Could not decide whether to decorate with the glazed ganache look, ganache frosting or white buttercream frosting. In the end I decided to go chocolatey all the way and with frosting rather than a glaze when I saw lovely fresh new season NZ strawberries at the shop!

Tried dark and white couverture chocolates today.

 The white couverture chocolate used in the macaron ganache today was much less sweeter than the Cadbury white melts I had been previously using. However the couverture chocolate is a bit cost prohibitive for regular every day baking. The dark ghana is worth it as a cupcake topping thou as you can savor the fine taste!

Tried a heaped ice cream scoop and a flat ice cream scoop for quantities.

Ready!

Travel ready!

Next project, little ducky cake pops like Bakerella's! Have my yellow candy melts ready but no idea where to obtain a styrofoam block from...any clues??

Japanese Cheesecake

Finally got round to trying out the Japanese cheesecake recipe and it was worth the effort. Tastes pretty similar to the ones in the shop, if not better because of the added lemon juice. I don't know how to get the top smooth and evenly browned like the shops thou. This one was baked on Saturday and demolished by J after he came home from work.

Beating the meringue

Mixing the cream cheese mixture

Gently folding meringue into mixture. Reminds me of macaronage!

All done!

Soft and fluffy!

On Sunday, a certain somebody went out and bought more eggs coz he wanted MORE cheesecake! ;)

First sunday cake in the oven

Second sunday cake on the bench waiting

I don't recommend letting something this light sit around but I was lazy to make two separately timed mixtures. Second cake did not achieve as much height as expected :) While baking Saturday's cake I also made a batch of creme a l'angliase in anticipation of making ice cream today so I made some ice cream while waiting for the cakes to bake. Here are some pictures to share.

churning churning churning

After adding a punnet of strawberries! Filled to the brim!

Soft serve ready to freeze

I used the French Vanilla recipe from the KA handbook. However I only added 250g rather than 500g strawberries and it was already threatening to overflow! I ended up with two lots of 1 litre pots. Will try some tonight!

 

Lemon Meringue Cuppies

Hi all~ I decided to make Lemon Meringue cupcakes today so I could bring some over to my friend's place - dinner invite. The Japanese cheesecake will have to wait till next weekend. The weather today was glorious! Is it springtime already? My 12 little strawberry plants certainly thought so...

Strawberry fields forever~ 

I had ventured into the garden to harvest some meyer lemon from my lemon tree! The first things I planted when we moved in half a year ago, two topiary meyer lemon trees.

Meyer lemons from garden

At the risk of sounding like a gardening blog! Let's move on to the cupcakes. I used Rachel Ray's Lemon Meringue Cupcakes recipe and doubled it to get 24 cupcakes rather than mini cupcakes.  I shall not link the recipe because... as I sit here typing this blog entry...I've sampled one and I find the taste and texture a let down :(
Argh! Sorry T & C! I will be unleashing some below average cuppies on you.

2 doz LMCs!

Only flavorsome bit is the homemade lemon curd.... That reaffirms that I made the right choice to sit out this year's Cupcake Day for the SPCA! Please support your family and friends if they decide to fundraise for the SPCA!
I will most likely participate next year :) After only 3 batches of cupcakes, not satisfied with my baking quality to be asking money for my cuppies yet!

Some boring vanilla macarons

Dropping one lot at mom's en route :)

And that's all for this weekend! I had a little incident and sprained my neck so am taking it easy! Ciao for now!~