Phish Food Cupcakes

This is my last ice cream cupcake that I have made. So this is marking the end of the annual Ice Cream Cupcake competition by Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. This is inspired by the wonderful Ben and Jerry's flavor Phish Food. It's one of my boyfriend's favorite ice cream flavors and I love the combination of chocolate, marshmallow, and caramel.

I started out with a chocolate cupcake. I used the Martha Stewart 1 Bowl Chocolate Cupcake Recipe. It's super simple and easy to clean afterward baking.

I topped the cupcakes with some marshmallow fluff to imitate the marshmallow in the ice cream.

I then added some caramel flavored ice cream on top. I would have made my own, but alas, I have no ice cream maker. In addition, I found this place near my house that sells a scoop of ice cream for a dollar and they're also homemade.

I topped the ice cream with some homemade marshmallow fluff frosting. I took some of the extra marshmallow fluff and made Marshmallow Fluff Frosting. It's super delicious!

To recreate the fish that are IN the ice cream. I piped some melted chocolate onto some parchment paper in the shape of fish. When they set, they made the perfect topping to the cupcake.

I had a super fun time making, creating, and eating all these ice cream cupcakes.

ps. feel free to look at my other creations that I didn't end up entering.

Coconut Custard Pie [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Coconut Custard Pie, was chosen by Ruby of I Dream of Baking. This is the first recipe I've made in a while since I've been busy with ice cream cupcakes. I apologize to Tess and Carmen, but I hope that I can make those recipes soon! Now that I'm on "vacation" in Southern California, I don't exactly know how much I'll be baking. I should be back in Berkeley by the first full week of June - I got to start moving into my new apartment a couple blocks from my current one.

This pie was made on the same day the Pina Colada cupcakes were made. I used the same whipped cream and topped it off with some toasted coconut.

I actually don't know how it tasted because at the party, everyone had the cupcakes, but no pie. I hope that everyone else tasted their pie and hope it was amazing!

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Cupcakes

In addition to the previous post about ice cream cupcakes, I've decided to make another ice cream cupcake for the Ice Cream Cupcake contest. I was shopping in the store and I was inspired by the angel food cake mix that I bought. All I needed was to add some water to the. mix.

Easy enough. Baked the cupcakes.

Then add some strawberry sherbet.

Place the top back on.

Then put some strawberries on top...and some whipped cream.

Simple and easy as that. It was quite delicious.

Now I can't stop eating strawberries mixed with a bit of sugar. This isn't good.

Pina Colada Cupcakes

So, in honor of my friend's 22nd birthday, I made these Pina Colada cupcakes. I was planning on making some margarita cupcakes because he's Mexican, but I couldnt find the necessary items before making it all.

I was searching the web for an easy way to make them. Some required 5 eggs, while others were in the metric system which made it a lot harder for me to convert over. Finally I found one that used a box mix. Typically, I don't like using box mixes, but the kickback was planned the night before and I just didn't have the time for effort to make the cupcakes from scratch. I topped these cupcakes off with a rum whipped cream and some toasted coconut.

I brought them to the party and everyone loved them! My friends said that you could taste the rum a bit in the cupcake and in the whipped cream - not enough to make it taste like alcohol though.

Pina Colada Cupcakes:
[adapted from Betty Crocker and iheartcuppycakes]

Cupcake:
1 box of yellow or white cake mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons rum
1 can [8oz] crushed pineapple in juice, undrained
3 eggs
1/3 cup shredded coconut
Directions:
Preheat oven at 350F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
Add 2 tablespoons of rum to the pineapple and let sit for a couple of minutes.
Mix together cake mix, oil, 1/4 cup rum, and eggs.
Take 2 tablespoons of the pineapple juice rum mixture out for the whipped cream.
Mix in the pineapple and shredded coconut.
Place about 2 tablespoons of batter for each cupcake. [For easier placing, spray the tablespoon with Pam or soak it in vegetable oil.]
Bake for about 15 minutes. Cool in pan.

Whipped Cream:
1.5 cup of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of pineapple juice rum mixture from above
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
Directions:
Whip all three until stiff peaks form, about 5-10 minutes.

Toasted Coconut:
shredded coconut either cooked over stove top or baked in the oven until toasted.

To assemble:
Take the cupcake and using 1M or other star tip, pipe the whipped cream onto the cupcake. Add some toasted coconut on top and ENJOY!

Half Baked Ice Cream Cupcakes

So, the beginning of this month marked the beginning of the annual Ice Cream Cupcake competition by Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. I wanted to make a couple of different for my friends to try to see which ones are best. Since this is the only week I'm basically going to see my friends who tried my first ones, I have to make all my best combinations this week.

I started this week off with relaxing since I just finished finals, but I have started to get back into baking again.

This is my first ice cream cupcake to try. This was inspired by the Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor Half-Baked.

It starts out with a brownie cupcake [recipe below].

I added chocolate ice cream and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Then I topped it off with some homemade whipped cream.

It's a great alternative to the real ice cream flavor and my friends and I thought that they were an AMAZING combination.

Brownie Cupcake Recipe

adapted from All Recipes

[makes 5 cupcakes]

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/6 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a cupcake tin. You probably only will need 5 cupcake liners.
In a large saucepan, melt 1/4 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, egg, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

Beat in 1/6 cup cocoa, 1/4 cup flour, salt, and baking powder.

Add approximately 1/8 cup of batter in each of the cupcake liners.

Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Do not overcook.

Tres Leches Cupcakes [msc]

These Tres Leche Cupcakes were the choice of my CNH Circle K District Board loves! They had the choice between these and the Orange Blueberry Muffin and the overwhelming vote was for the tres leche cupcakes.


Since you probably can't read that, mainly they're fighting over what I should make for them for their Officer Training Weekend which was a couple weekends ago.

Anyways, I had a bit of trouble with these cupcakes when I was trying to eat them because they were stuck to the paper liner and that made me kind of sad. Also, did anyone else find the liquid that they mixed up was like outrageously a lot? I couldn't use all of it and I threw the rest away. I also made them half the size they were supposed to be. I had made about 40 even though the recipe says 20. Regardless, they were pretty good.

Anyways, I had made them for the Officer training weekend, but they forgot to refrigerate it so it went bad =[. I think I was the only one that really got to try it. Oh well. It was pretty good!

The recipe for this month's Cupcake Club is found on pages 48 of Martha Stewart's Cupcake book or here. Thanks to Lisa from Smiley's Sweets and Creations for choosing this.

ps. To Betty: I tried to email you my choice, but the email would not go through =[

Strawberry Muffins [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Orange Blueberry Muffins with Pecan Crumble, was chosen by Chaya of Sweet & Savory. I actually only made strawberry muffins with a sugar topping because two words - FINALS WEEK. Next week is finals so all I've basically been trying to do is sleep, eat, and study.

I made half the recipe and ended up with 8 and used a basket of some farm fresh strawberries from a place near campus for a $1. I also added more butter and cream to make up for the fact that most people found this recipe to be too dry. I also pulled them out at about the 20 minute mark. I have a few left for the next couple of days - NO TIME TO EAT...STUDY STUDY STUDY.

I gave a couple of these to my friend who is also studying lots...like everyone else. So onwards to sleeping and studying!

SORRY for the super short post, but I'm just super tired right now. It's been a crazy day and I just want to sleep and study for the next 4 days for my finals. THEN I'll be [basically] free!

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

PS HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Peanut Butter Truffles [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Peanut Butter Truffles, was chosen by Mara of Love Your Mother Earth.

I had actually made these late Friday night, I just never got around to photographing it and getting to it until today because it's been a super busy weekend. I'm really sorry that I don't have more pictures, but I'll make it up by giving you pictures of what happened this weekend!

First, Friday night was UC Berkeley Circle K Banquet. As many of the constant readers of my blog know, it's a community service organization that I am a part of on campus. Therefore - banquet season! It was about 5 hours of eating, writing notes to people and other amazing things that I can't particularly think of.

Family picture!

Saturday was spent in Davis for something called Spring Training Conference. Therefore, lots of helping out, setting up, and just basically helping the person in charge running the event as smoothly as possible.

Old District Board

Sunday was spent going to various stores and buying stuff for the last family social on Tuesday and also Wong Fu Productions showcase. For those who don't know what Wong Fu is, it's 3 guys who started a video making production company that shoots a lot of short videos to put on youtube. They've recently worked with AJ Rafael, David Choi, and KevJumba [Youtube Celebs]. So yes, we got to see a couple of their more recent, unreleased works...WHICH WAS AMAZING.

I got to take a picture with them!

WONG FU PRODUCTIONS!

I actually meant to give these to them, but I decided instead to make them brownie cupcakes which were amazing!

Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

For Major Lee Byall [bfs]

This past weekend, we baked for a major serving in Iraq and these are some of the cookies we made him! I'm starting a new series, Baking For Soldiers or BFS. It'll probably be monthly...or whenever I get together with Circle K and bake for soldiers!

Decorated Sugar Cookies - These girls are seriously a lot more creative than I am with decorating sugar cookies!

To these amazing girls, you did an awesome job decorating!