Kiwi Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

This was a week-late birthday present for my friend Phuoc. He's turned...30-something, I forgot. He's our Golden Gate Regional Advisor, but he's a great Kiwanian and person. He used to be in Circle K as well so he's got stories for us about when the club started once again and became what it is now - a powerhouse!

Anyways, back to the cupcakes, I made these late Monday night. I got them out of the oven and my roommate, Kimberly, and I each tried one that night and the chunks of kiwi were the only parts that had lots of kiwi flavor, the rest of the cupcake was pretty lemon-y. The next day, although, after the cupcake was allowed to rest, the kiwi flavor was apparent in the cupcake as well. As a suggestion though, I would puree the kiwi and put it into the cupcake instead of chopping it up. It seems like this way, the kiwi flavor will be there more.

I topped these cupcakes off with some cream cheese frosting. I used ones out of the can, but that is only because I still had lots of it left and I was being lazy. In addition, I don't have cream cheese around typically so it was just a lot easier. I topped them off with a bit of sprinkles because everything is better with sprinkles!

Kiwi Cupcakes

[adapted from couture cupcakes]
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 ¼ cup SR flour
1 tbs lemon juice
1/2 cup sour cream
2 kiwi fruit finely diced

1. Preheat oven to 180 (350).
2. Line a muffin tray with cupcake liners.
3. Cream butter, lemon zest and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Beat in the flour until just combined, add the sour cream and lemon juice and beat until well incorporated.
6. Fold in the finely diced kiwi fruit.
7. Evenly divide the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 20 - 22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Banana Butterscotch Bread

So I know that I normally have quite a few pictures, but sorry, I was not able to take pictures of the bread myself since I brought it to a "banana" breakfast. It was super fun to eat with my friends in the morning after a couple hours of class. I love these guys. The bread was delicious and a great addition to the breakfast. It was great to sit there and talk and hang out. The banana bread had a great banana flavor, but also, the butterscotch added a great flavor to it without overpowering it or anything.

We also made some banana pancakes with some chocolate chips - they were super delish!

Banana Butterscotch Bread [adapted from allrecipes]

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
4 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup butterscotch chips

Directions
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pans. Set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a bowl. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color.

Beat in the egg, then stir in the mashed bananas.

Pour in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated.

Fold in the butterscotch chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 50-60 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Apple Banana Crumble Pie

This pie was really delicious. It was super easy to make as well.

I brought this with me when I went to a Life Beyond Ramen. This time around we made Japanese curry. It was really delicious as well.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
3 md Apples; cut in chunks
2 md Bananas; cut into chunks
2 tb Lemon juice
1 c All purpose flour
1/2 c Sugar
1/2 c Brown sugar; packed
1/2 ts Cinnamon
1/2 ts Nutmeg
1/2 c Butter or margarine; soften
1 9" pastry shell; unbaked

Directions:

Combine fruits and lemon juice; let stand 10 minutes. Combine flour, sugar and spices; cut in butter till crumbly. Arrange fruit in pastry shell. Sprinkle with crumb mixture. Bake at 400F for 35-40 minutes. Cover top lossely with foil if crumb mixture browns too quickly. Cut in wedges to serve.

Chocolate Walnut Brownies [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Chocolate Walnut Brownies, was chosen by Tiffany of A Spoonful & a Heap.

They were super delicious and fudgy. I really enjoyed them and so did my friend who came from Southern California to visit for her orientation here at Cal. We certainly had fun while visiting SF.

slideshow | Viewer

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

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes [msc]

I had made these cupcakes soon after the June cupcake. My friends and I were getting together for a sleepover. One of our guy friends had never painted his nails before and we decided one weekend would be nice and we would just talk and paint nails and get facials - normal sleepover stuff. This bond we had was formed over a long car talk around probably 4-5 hours. It was wow. We talked about everything. This sleepover's conversation was mostly about relationships, but I feel like most conversations I have are about relationships.

I decided that since I just got my new place, we could use that place since it will be empty. It would be great since we could just all sit there or be in our sleeping bags and just talk. So we ate some food and hung out and ate my flourless cupcakes. They were pretty good, but they never got the shells like they were on Martha's book. They were a dense little cake of chocolately goodness. The ice cream on top was wonderful as well.

The recipe for this month's Cupcake Club is found on page 146 of Martha Stewart's Cupcake book or here. Thanks to Lauryn of Bella Baker for choosing this.

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes

As I start to clean my new apartment, I realize that I have loads of food that I brought up when I started summer school. Mostly my mom made me bring apples up. I also bought a whole bunch of fruit recently, too. I'm also trying to make room for my roommate who is going to be moving in soon. With all that, the next couple of non-group posts should be able random fruit that I have in the fridge.

Like I said before, I had loads of apples, I thought that I could make some apple related items. Last year, I made some mini apple pies and this apple dapple cake that were both well received. This time I decided to make some cupcakes with it.

I found this recipe off of Tracey's blog. She's a great blogger and I just love all of her wonderful recipes. She had made this in the fall which makes sense since it does have some wonderful fall flavors, but the weather in Northern California has been fall-like so it just made sense.

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes
[adapted from Everyday Food]

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup [half a stick] butter, melted
1/4 cup natural (unsweetened) applesauce
3/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup of cubed apple [I'm not sure what type of apple I used, but it was pretty good]

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper liners (or butter the pan).

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

In a large bowl, combine butter, applesauce, brown sugar, and eggs. Whisk until smooth.

Gradually whisk in dry ingredients just until combined (do not overmix). Using a rubber spatula, fold in cubed apple.

Spoon approximately 3 tablespoons in each cupcake. Bake until a tester inserted in cake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan on rack 15 minutes; remove cupcakes from pan. Enjoy!

Honey Mango Pie

So this one time, my friends and I were talking about pies and one friend said that he likes a mango pie. Although he's never had one, he thought that it would be nice.

I decided that it would be nice to try a mango pie for a Vietnamese food night since it would be interesting and I've never made that before, but also because it would kind of follow the theme - Vietnamese like mangoes, I think. Anyways, I brought it and it was a hit at the party.

Honey Mango Pie
Ingredients:
pie crust [I bought one]
4 mangoes
14 oz [1 can] sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract
Directions:
Prebake crust at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes.
Peel, pit, and puree the mangoes with the rest of ingredients.
Pour into crust. I had a bit extra; I placed it in a ramekin and made a pudding.
Bake it at 350 degrees F for about an hour.
Place a baking sheet underneath just in case it poofs up too much and makes a mess in the oven.

Blueberry Cupcakes

These blueberry cupcakes were a wonderful summer cupcake to make. I found a wonderful recipe on a wonderful blog and I decided to make it for some friends.

These were a great cupcake and delicious. The blueberries were really cheap and since I got a whole lot of them, I decided to make some cupcakes with it.

Blueberry Cupcakes
Ingredients:
1/2 cup [1 stick] unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk or yogurt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Insert liners into a regular muffin pan.
Cream sugar and butter together.
Add eggs one at a time to the mixture and beat well.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add flour mixture in portions alternating with yogurt/milk.
Fold in vanilla extract and blueberries.
Fill cupcake liner with about 2 Tablespoons of batter.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool cupcakes in pan.

North Fork Peach Raspberry Pie [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, North Fork Peach Raspberry Pie, was chosen by Rebecca of Beurrista.

It was a pretty quick make, but it was a bit harder to find tapioca pearls, but I just subbed them with flour. I also changed the proportions of raspberry to peach. I didn't have enough peaches, so I just added more raspberries. It was delicious!

I might have kept it in the oven for a bit too long. I'm still trying to get used to the new oven at my new place.

Happy 4th of July everyone!