Margarita Cupcakes

This is for you lil' sis - Happy Birthday!!! Can't believe you are turning 23 this year... how time flies! I'm glad I had the opportunity to send you a nice birthday treat through our middle sis, so I hope you enjoyed it.
With your standing request of green treats, this time I made a margarita cupcake - although not entirely green (the green curd was made by adding artificial coloring, or else it would just look like lemon curd), you get a nice surprise green middle. And limes are green, so that counts right? :)
Here is my wish/hope that you have a wonderful birthday, and that this coming year is as exciting and fulfilling as you want it to be!

Ingredients:

For the curd: 

• 2 whole eggs plus 8 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup fresh lime juice (about 6 limes)
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, at room temperature
• a tiny bit of green food coloring (optional, add a little at a time)

For the cupcakes:

• 3 cups AP flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 100g (about 1 1/4 cup) unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup lime juice (about 4 limes), zested and juiced
• 1 1/4 cup buttermilk

For the frosting:

• 2 cups sugar
• 8 large egg whites
• Pinch fleur de sel (coarse salt)
• 1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
• 2 Tbsp. tequila

Directions:

1. Lime Curd: combine whole eggs and yolks, sugar, and lime juice in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat back of a spoon. Remove from heat. add butter, a few pieces at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Cover with parchment paper or plastic wrap, pressing it directly on surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled and firm, at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days).
2. Cupcakes: preheat the oven to 325˚ F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, coconut flakes, and salt; stir with a fork to blend.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes.  Blend in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Beat in the lime zest and lime juice.  With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Beat each addition just until incorporated.2. Divide the batter between the prepared cupcake liners, filling each about ¾ full.  Bake 20-24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  If desired, brush the cooled cakes with tequila to emphasize the true margarita flavor.3. Frosting: combine the sugar, egg whites, and salt in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water.  Heat, whisking frequently, until the mixture reaches 160° F and the sugar has dissolved.  Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Beat on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled to room temperature, about 8 minutes.  Reduce the speed to medium and add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, adding more once each addition has been incorporated.  If the frosting looks soupy or curdled, continue to beat on medium-high speed until thick and smooth again, about 3-5 minutes more (don’t worry, it will come together, though it may take a very long time!)  Stir in the lime juice and tequila and mix until fully incorporated and smooth.4. Keep buttercream at room temperature if using the same day, or transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat with paddle attachment on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.  Frost the cooled cupcakes with the buttercream.  Garnish with a dot of lime curd.

Recipe adapted from Annie's Eats (for cake and frosting) and Martha Stewart's Cupcakes (for lime curd)

Triple Lime Cupcakes

Hello everyone! Today's sweet treat was planned for a very special occasion: six years ago today, I married my best friend. It has been a very busy six years, with so many changes in our lives. Six years ago I had no idea that we would be where we are today... I feel so truly blessed to have my amazing husband by my side through thick and thin. 

Us on our wedding day - first dance!

To celebrate this occasion, I knew I wanted to make cupcakes, but I just had to figure out the flavor. He has been asking for something citrus-y for a little while, so I gave him the option of either lemon or lime. He chose lime! I think he would have preferred key lime, but in good ol' Indiana I haven't found a reliable fresh key lime source yet (if you know of any, please let me know!)
So I came across this recipe from She Makes and Bakes for a key lime cupcake, so I just adapted for regular limes. The cupcake itself though I used my recipe from Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting recipe since I love it so much! The lime curd came out very creamy and with the right amount of tangy-ness. Since I didn't want a regular cream cheese frosting, I added 1 Tbsp of the curd that I made to it to give it just a hint of lime too. All in all, a very successful recipe, if I may say so myself!

 Look who I had eyeing my cupcake while I took pictures!

Now the recipe below made 24 cupcakes, plus an 8-inch cake (just a little on the thin side). I doubled the original recipe for the curd, and I still wish there was a little more. I may increase it a little more next time, and if I have extra I can always save it for some yummy toast! I also wish I had more frosting... so therefore the little cake I made especially for my husband and I to share is not covered completely in frosting (like I would want it to be). I filled it with half curd and half frosting.

Triple Lime Cupcakes
~makes 2-3 dozen cupcakes~


Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
Same cupcakes from my Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting recipe

For the lime Curd:
1/2 cup lime juice (about 2-3 limes)
1 Tbsp lime zest
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened and cut into 4 pieces

For the cream cheese frosting:1 package cream cheese (8 ounces)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter1/8 teaspoon salt
1 Tbsp of lime curd
3 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

Bake the cupcakes according to the directions in my  Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting recipe. Let cupcakes cool completely to room temperature before cupcake assembly.

To make the curd, whisk together the lime juice, zest, eggs, and sugar in a mixing bowl set on top of a saucepan with simmering water (this is the double boiler method). Add butter and whisk until thickened and smooth (a thermometer would read 160-170 degrees). Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap to chill. It will pipe into your cupcakes much easier if it's chilled. Once chilled, set aside 1 Tbsp of the curd for the frosting.

To make the cream cheese frosting, in your mixing bowl fitted with the whisk attachment, cream together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the lime curd and salt and mix until incorporated. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time and mix until smooth.

To assemble the cupcakes, use an apple corer or a knife to cut a hole in the center of your cupcakes (cone method - for directions, check out this link). Fill the hole with the chilled lime curd. You can do this with a spoon, a pastry bag, or a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off. You don't need to place cake over the hole as the frosting will cover it (I'm sure you can find plenty of mouths to eat those cones!). Pipe frosting on top of the cupcake. 


Lime curd and frosting recipes adapted from She Makes and Bakes

Happy Anniversary to my parents!

Thirty years ago on July 11^th, 1981, my wonderful parents made their vow to become husband and wife. Today my sister and I threw an anniversary celebration party for my parents and invited some of their closest friends to join us. It was a wonderful party with great food, good laughs, and many fun moments.

We celebrated this party at Piepers Gourmet Catering, a local restaurant/caterer in Columbus, IN. I must tell you; their food is delish! I frequently eat lunch there during the week, but when I saw that they also cater for parties, I got in touch with the owner and planned my parents’ anniversary party.

Here is some of the yummy food provided by PGC:

Caprese Salad

Greek Salad Bruschetta

Rosemary Lemon Chicken

Fruit Salad in Lime-Mint Syrup

Now for such a special occasion, I just had to make my own cupcakes! To make it more bite-sized, and of course, so people won’t feel guilty of eating several ;), I made mini-cupcakes. 

I used my favorite Red Velvet Cupcake recipe, the Lime Cupcake with Strawberry Frosting I made for my sister this past spring (and I tweaked the recipe to make it fluffier!), and a not-yet posted recipe for Coconut Cupcake (well, now it is posted below).

This Coconut Cupcake recipe is from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat recipe book, and it is one of my favorite cupcake recipes from this book! I got this book for Christmas this last year from my mother in law and I have been slowly making my way through the recipes. I did tweak the recipe just a tad bit (increased shredded coconut, decreased sugar, and changed egg requirements), but all in all it’s pretty much the same. It is fluffy, moist and wonderfully coconut-y! Any coconut lover MUST try this recipe! I dare you!!!

Coconut Cupcake with Coconut Frosting

Makes about 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cup sweetened shredded coconut (I use Brazilian shredded coconut)

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 ¼ cups sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Pulse shredded coconut in a food processor until finely ground, and whisk into flour mixture (if you use American shredded coconut; the Brazilian coconut is already pretty fine so I leave it as is).

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs and vanilla, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of coconut milk, and beating until combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each ¾ full. Bake rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester (good ol’ toothpick) inserted in centers come out clean, about 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven; turn out cupcakes onto wire racks and let cool completely.

Coconut Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 Tbsp meringue powder (optional)

2-3 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp coconut extract

Directions:

With an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat butter and meringue powder (optional) on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners’ sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. After every couple of additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium. This whole process should take about 5 minutes, and frosting will be very pale and fluffy.

Add coconut extract, and beat until frosting is smooth.

Happy 30 years mae and pai!

Que? Lime Pie

Like the name for my pie? I have been watching “The Next FoodNetwork Star” show, and in one of the episodes, a team of chefs wanted to make a key lime pie, but could not find any key limes, so they made a regular lime pie, but added the “Que?” as in “What?” in Spanish. I know, I know… it’s a bit corny, but I love silly jokes! I’m one who laughs her head off at the silly jokes on Laffy Taffy candy wrappers… *head slumps down in embarrassment*

Anyways, back to the pie. I made this pie for this year’s 4^th of July gathering at my mother-in-law’s house. Both my husband and his mom love key lime pie, so I thought I would attempt making one. The key limes at the store weren’t looking so hot, so when I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman Cooks, I knew I had to make it! I modified it a little bit by decreasing the amount of crust that it originally calls for, and I also added the meringue topping, as my husband INSISTED on a meringue topping. Now if you know my husband, you can attest that he is very laid back and doesn’t put his foot down for much (usually that’s my job), so when he was so adamant about the meringue topping, I just had to oblige. And I must say it was a good change! The meringue topping recipe is from Paula Deen’s lemon meringue pie recipe.

I want to try this same recipe one day and actually make it with lemons instead, to see how it turns out. I think you could make it with either key limes, limes, or lemons and it would be wonderful. Bom apetite!

A half eaten pie was all I could get in my camera, sorry!

“Que?” Lime Pie

Ingredients:

Crust

·         1 1/2 cup Graham Cracker crumbs

·         ¼ cup sugar

·         6 Tbsp unsalted butter (3/4 stick), melted

·         One 9-inch pie plate (I used a glass one)

Filling

·         4 whole egg yolks, room temperature
·         3/4 cup lime juice (~ 3 limes juiced)
·         1 Tbsp lime zest

·         1 can (14 Oz) sweetened condensed milk
·         1/3 cup heavy cream

Meringue Topping

·         4 egg whites, room temperature

·         1/2 tsp cream of tartar

·         6 Tbsp superfine sugar (if not available, process regular sugar until fine in a food processor)
·         1/2 tsp cornstarch

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the crust:
Crush crackers in a food processor or Ziploc bag. Pour them into a bowl and stir in sugar and melted butter with a fork. Press mixture into bottom and sides of pie plate and bake for 5 minutes or until golden and set. Remove from oven and set aside to cool to room temperature before adding the filling.

For the filling:
Beat egg yolks in a mixing bowl until smooth and slightly lighter in color. Add in lime juice, lime zest, condensed milk and heavy cream and mix on high until smooth and thick. Pour mixture into crust and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool slightly before adding the topping.

For the meringue topping:

Mix sugar and cornstarch together; set aside. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar mixture until stiff peaks form. Spread over filling; seal to edge of crust. Set oven to broil mode and bake for 1 minute or so (don't take your eyes off; it browns very fast!) Alternatively, bake for 10 minutes on 350 degrees F or until meringue is golden brown.

Remove from oven, allow to cool, then refrigerate for at least 1 hour—more if possible.

Recipe adapted from the following recipes:

Pioneer Woman Cooks

Food Network – Paula Deen

Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Hi everyone! This past week was our city's spring break and I had the opportunity to be at home Wednesday-Friday from work! Man was I needing a little time off :) Not that I don't like my work, I absolutely love what I do, but sometimes you want to take a breather. Why the need to share about my past week, you may ask? Well, two wonderful things have happened: we have made huge progress towards potty-training our 20-month old daughter (super yay!!!!!!!!!!) AND my middle sister got engaged (double super yay!!!!!!!!!!). With the potty-training, well, if you have had any experience with children, you'd know that not having to change a diaper is an amazing thing. I definitely worked with my mom this last week on tips and ideas to make sure we could survive it. I must tell you, it takes an IMMENSE amount of patience and positive reinforcement to get through it. There were times I felt like giving up, but you know what? Since starting it Wednesday, today she finally started getting the hang of it and did not have any accidents! It's the little things in life, but it made me so proud to see her achieve yet another milestone in her life.

Okay, now to the other wonderful event - my middle sister's engagement! My soon-to-be brother-in-law (man that is a mouthful!) told us ahead of time that he was going to propose to my sister when she got back from her spring break from Florida on Friday evening. I told him I would make the celebratory cupcakes for this special occasion! I knew my sister likes fruity things, so I thought something fruity and sweet would be perfect. Since I had some limes at home, I searched for a recipe with limes on Foodbuzz and came across this wonderful recipe from Ryan Bakes. This recipe was wonderful: the cupcake had a nice hint of lime with the use of both the fresh squeezed juice and the zest. The frosting.... oh man, the frosting. It was strawberry heaven! So fluffy, smooth, sweet... just perfect. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it hehehehe.

*Note (7-9-11) - I modified the cupcake recipe a little bit since I made it again. Instead of milk, I used buttermilk. To counter-balance the buttermilk, I added 1 tsp. baking soda. The result? A fluffier cupcake! :D

So in honor of the newly engaged couple: to a life full of happiness and prosperity!

Lime Cupcakes:

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tsp. freshly grated lime zest

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare 2 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners. 

Blend butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 to 3 minutes); add eggs 1 at a time beating after each addition.  Sift flour, salt and baking powder.  Add dry ingredients to wet, alternating with milk. Be careful not to overmix.  Add in lime juice and zest and mix.  Fill each cupcake liner about 3/4 of the way full. 

Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 


For the Strawberry Buttercream:

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup fresh or frozen strawberry puree
pinch of salt

Directions:
In a food processor place fresh or frozen strawberries and puree the strawberries until there are no visible lumps. Set aside. *Note: I chose to not pass the puree through a strainer because I like my frosting to have the strawberry lumps, but you could make a strained puree if you so choose.

In a large mixing bowl add the butter, 2 cups of the sugar, pinch of salt, and a couple of Tbsp of the strawberry puree.  On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.  Continue to add more strawberry puree into the mixing bowl until you reach your desired amount of strawberry flavor.  Start by adding the puree Tbs. by Tbs., taking care not to add too much or your icing will be runny (which mine did a little, I got a tad strawberry-happy). Then, add the remaining 1-2 cups of powdered sugar and blend until your icing is stiff enough that it will be able to spread on your cupcakes.  If you've added too much puree, just add a little more powdered sugar to make your icing more firm.  

Cupcake and Buttercream recipes adapted from Ryan Bakes

Look at that bling!