Kiddie Party Cupcakes Part 2: Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Aside from the Devil's Food Cake Cupcakes I made, I also made Vanilla Cupcakes. They did not turn out as well as I hoped. The recipe I used made cupcakes that were lacking in vanilla flavor. Maybe I should have used better quality vanilla, I don't know. But next time, I'm using my tried-and-true Yellow Cake recipe instead.

The Vanilla Cupcakes looked good, though. And I think the buttercream compensated for it. And besides, you know how kids are. Serve them anything sweet and they'll eat it.

They look good, don't they?

Hmmmm....come to think of it, maybe I should give this recipe another try.

I took this picture in the fridge. I didn't have time to take proper pictures as the kids were already in the house and causing havoc. My hands were full.

I am so out of practice! But the colors came out nice. The pink looked nice and sweet, the yellow looked alive and perky.

Disaster. The color came out 'lacking' and the piping.....shame, shame, shame on me.

Kiddie Party Cupcakes Part 1: Devil's Food Cake Cupcakes

We hosted a party last Saturday for kids and some friends. For weeks now, I've been itching to bake something, anything. And this party was the perfect excuse to tinker in the kitchen again. My family is not so big on sweets/dessert (gasp!). So whenever I do bake something we end up giving it away. And that's why I love parties. I get to bake anything I want and I know people will eat and love it and not rot away to oblivion in our fridge. The original recipe is posted in Cupcake Bakeshop's blog, click here.


Devil's Food Cake Cupcakes
makes 24 cupcakes (mine only made 23)

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup salted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs

(These are the original instructions. I don't have a stand mixer, only a hand mixer. And I don't think the poor ten-year old mixer could handle it. So I mixed it differently. See below.)

Original instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Measure out everything but the eggs directly into your mixer bowl. Mix on low speed just until incorporated. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs, beat on high speed again for 2 minutes.

Alternate Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare your pans, line with cupcake liners.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together. Stir until it's evenly mixed. Mix in the sugar.
3. In a Pyrex cup mix the milk, vanilla and eggs.
4. Now, mix the butter with the flour-cocoa mixture.

My flour, cocoa powder and baking soda are mixed and the butter is in the bowl. The milk, eggs, and vanilla are measured. Ready to start mixing.

The butter is mixed in.

5. Mix in the milk-eggs in 3 additions. Scrape sides of the bowl everytime.

I'll just scrape the sides of the bowl and I'm ready for the last addition of the milk-egg mixture.

6. Ladle the bater in the pans.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool in the pan for a minute or two then transfer on wire racks.

These cupcakes are asking for it.

Chocolate Buttercream
enough to lightly frost 24 cupcakes

1 stick butter
1/2 cup cocoa
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup milk

1. Beat butter on high for about 30 seconds until soft.
2. Sift the cocoa powder and confectioner's sugar together and beat in 1 cup at a time of this in the butter. Alternately add milk. You may need to add more milk. I did. I think I ended up adding 1/4 cup more milk. Oh, I forgot to write. I added about 3 ounces melted chocolate to the mixture which made the frosting sort of fudgey. Yummy. This is probably why I needed more milk than the recipe called for.

Green cupcake liners look so pretty, don't they? I got a friend to help pipe the frosting on the cupcakes.

These cupcakes are really asking for it. I wonder if there'll be any left for the poor kiddies.

Lemon Bars and Tea

One of my all time favorite snacks/dessert is Lemon Bars. I just lovelovelove the combination of tangy lemons and a sweet crumbly crust. Many of the store made lemon bars here, unfortunately, are sickeningly sweet. There's just a hint of lemon in the bars and you can mostly tell that it's a (surprise!) lemon bar because of the freakish yellow color. So I set out to find a "real" Lemon Bars recipe; one that captures the tangy-freshness of lemons, with a sweet crumbly crust that compliments it. I found just the recipe. Here it is:

Lemon Bars

PHOTO BY: deepoopsie

Crust:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

Filling:
6 eggs
1 3/4 cups white sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar for decoration


1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. Combine the ingredients for the crust: flour, confectioners' sugar, and butter. Pat dough into prepared pan.
3. Bake the crust for 15 minutes. Take out of the oven.
4. Mix ingredients for the filling: eggs, sugar, flour, and lemon juice. Pour the lemon mixture over the crust and bake 20-25 minutes. Start checking at 20 minutes. Do not overbake unless you want it crunchy!
5. Dust with confectioner's sugar.

Lemon Bars.
These are store bought ones. Yes, I am quite aware of what I just said about store bought lemon bars -- their sickening sweetness and freakish yellow color. But when I get that craving for lemon bars and I don't have time to make my own, I give in and just buy from the store.



Lemon bars make me crave for tea, too!

Bananas!

So, we just harvested some bananas from our very own backyard and oh my goodness...they taste really good. Very sweet and plump. There are a lot of variety of bananas here. For example we have lacatan (this is the variety that comes to mind when I think of bananas), senorita (really cute and tiny bananas), latundan (yummy!), saba, etc.

Saba. You need to steam or boil this first before eating. Yeah, they look but they taste good. In a bowl pour some cold milk add sliced saba and some sugar....mmmmm.

Latundan. They are small, usually only about3-4 inches long, they're round and fat. Very sweet and the meat is 'denser' in texture than your normal banana. Twin bananas are normal to this variety.

Senorita. They're so cute! Talk about bite-size. Many are no bigger than my pinky.

I could several of these...

Applying Blush According to Your Face Shape

Where you apply your blush depends on the shape of your face. Blush does more than just puts color on your cheeks, it can also contour your face.

To determine your face shape go to this website.
( http://www.hairfinder.com/tips/faceshape.htm )


It is equally important to have a good Blush Brush and a blush color that matches your skin well. It is said that the color of your blush should be more or less the same as the color of your cheeks after you exercise. That's your natural color. Personally, I think you can experiment and try other colors just as long as you do not stray too far from your natural cheek color. I use Vanora from Ocean Mist Cosmetics and a medium pink blush.


Vanora



Blush Brush




Flawless Face Brush



Now that you know what your face shape is, you are ready to apply your blush. in this interactive webpage it will show you where to put your blush and highlighter.

Go tot his website
( http://www.laurenscarlet.tv/makeup/5-03_faceshape.html )



I hope this helps!