Raspberry Chocolate Ice Cream Cupcakes

These were made for the Dmitriy, my "husband." I think the only reason why we're "married" is because we do act like a married couple sometimes. This only happens because we fight and we just know each other pretty well, but of course, I have my own boyfriend, Brent. It's cool haha. ♥

Picture of Dmitriy and I from like March 2009

So yeah, his favorite berry is blueberries, but he likes raspberries too so I decided to make this fancy shmancy cupcake for him. I was inspired from this ice cream cupcake entry that had caught my eye. It was very interesting and I thought I could make something like this, but my version. [Number 10 out of 10! which means I had finished my goal!]

These cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes filled with a raspberry preserve, topped with ice cream shaped in a heart. On top of that, is a bit of chocolate frosting and a raspberry.

Recipe for the chocolate cupcake
(taken from here)
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened [I melted mine]
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract [I used 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract instead]
1 cup milk [I used half cup buttermilk, half cup soymilk]

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla.
Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well.
Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full. [I filled mine half full and got 24 of them]
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

To make the ice cream topper:
Put melted vanilla ice cream into a pan.
Then, sprinkled some hazelnuts and chocolate hazelnut truffles in small pieces in the melted ice cream.
Drizzled caramel and hot fudge all over in crazy cool designs.
Then place back into the freezer for it all to set.
Later, use a cookie cutter to cut out the shapes desired. I had used a heart.
To easily cut the ice cream, put the cookie cutter in some warm water and then use to cut.

To put the whole thing together,
Cut a cone from the cupcake and place the preserves/jam inside and replace the top.
Refridgerate the cupcakes and make sure to cut out the shapes from the ice cream.
When serving, place the ice cream on top of the cupcake, frost and serve with some fruit.
Enjoy!

Snickerdoodle...Cupcakes [sms]

This week's SMS is hosted by Spike of Spike Bakes. This yummy snickerdoodle recipe was a favorite among my friends. They had all liked the cinnamon-y goodness that exists in this snickerdoodle.

I had made some changes to the recipe itself. I added one more teaspoon of cinnamon, added 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract [I used imitation since I'm a college student and that's basically all I had on hand.] I bake these for 11 minutes instead of the 12 suggested in the book. I also sprinkled some extra cinnamon sugar on top of the cookies.

Being me, I could not just stop at just making these cookies regular cookies. I decided for the 24-hour service-a-thon to make some cupcakes to go along with it. It's just a regular cinnamon cupcake with a honey-cinnamon frosting. On top, I garnished with part of the cookie.

Recipe for the cupcake:
[taken from here]
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup whole milk [instead I used 1/2 cup of soy milk]
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temp.
2 large eggs
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. sugar [I had subbed one tbsp of sugar for cinnamon sugar]
1 tsp. grated orange zest [I omitted this]
1/2 tsp vanilla extract [I added 1 tsp of imitation vanilla]
Instructions:
Preheat oven at 350. Line your cupcake pan with paper liners.
Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.
Stir milk and butter over low heat until butter melts.
Add in sugar and eggs. Mix.
Beat in vanilla.
Add in the flour mixture; beat until just blended.
Divide among the cupcake pan. [I just used 2 tbsp per cupcake]
Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, mine took about 12 minutes.
Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes and transfer onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Recipe for the honey-cinnamon frosting:
[taken from here]
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar [I used approx 1 1/2 cups]
1 tablespoon honey [I ended up putting 2 tablespoons in]
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon [I added 1/2 teaspoon instead, I like my cinnamon]
[I also added 1 teaspoon of vanilla]
Directions:
Beat all the ingredients until smooth, 4-5 minutes.

Recipe for the snickerdoodles here! Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll!

Mango Cupcakes

These mango cupcakes were on my to do list since my friend Maverick wanted me to make them for him. Since I was not able to see him during the summer when I was at home in Brea, I decided to make these for Mimi. The last post was about her midnight surprise, but this one is for her surprise birthday party. Although I did not have to bake for both of them, I like to bake so I decided to do so and it's the summer, and my one of my classes had gotten canceled, so it was perfect. These were really simple to make. [Number 9 out of 10!]

Recipe for the cupcake:
[taken from here]
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup self rising flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
2 eggs
2 tbsp. milk (if the mixture is a bit dry)
2/3 cup diced mangos or you can use mango puree [I used 1/3 c of mango juice from the mango, and then put a piece of mango in the middle of the cupcake]
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners
Cream the butter and slowly add the sugar and cream until the sugar are dissolved.
Add the egg, one at a time into the mixture and beat well.
In another bowl, measure the flour and the baking powder.
Slowly pour into the wet mixture and mix well. Then add the diced mangos.
Pour into pan and bake for about 20 min. or depends on your oven temperature. [Mine took 15 minutes.]

Recipe for the mango buttercream:
[taken from here]
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup mango puree
Zest and juice of 1 lime [I subbed it with 2 Tablespoons of OJ]
2 tablespoons honey (any mild-flavored honey will do)
4-5 cups of powdered sugar
Directions:
In a mixing bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy.
Add mango puree, zest and juice (or OJ) and honey. Mix well.
Add powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until desired spreading consistency is reached.

Apple Crisp [mbs]

MSB - Midnight Birthday Surprise. I know too many acronyms, but that's how I live my life.
So at Berkeley, normally we go at midnight and surprise the birthday person. Sometimes we make the birthday person wait for a couple of minutes before we go and surprise them with song and something made by me. This time it was Mimi's turn.
This is Mimi.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The crisp was nice and crispy but the apples at the bottom were nice and tender. YUM!\

recipe for the apple crisp
(inspired by the one found here)
Ingredients
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon [I used 1 teaspoon]
1/3 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cups KELLOGG'S* RICE KRISPIES* cereal
6 cups sliced, peeled cooking apples
Directions:
In large bowl mix together sugar, flour and cinnamon. Using pastry blender, cut in margarine until resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in cereal.
Spread apple slices evenly in 23 cm (9-inch) square baking pan. Sprinkle cereal topping over apples. [I used a 9in circle baking pan and added more cereal on top of the topping already made.]
Bake at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) about 30 minutes or until apples are tender. Serve with frozen yogurt or whipped topping, if desired.

*I would have more pictures, but I only had my phone on me when they cut open the crisp, so no good pictures*

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies [sms]

So I decided to tackle this as I normally do, on Tuesday nights before the Circle K meeting on Wednesday. This week's SMS was chosen by Stephanie of Ice Cream Before Dinner. The funny thing is that she is actually the one that got me into sms. I was following her blog on google reader, and she had this new thing that she was in. I knew that a lot of people were into TWD (Tuesdays with Dorie), but I saw that she was in something new and they were still accepting members so that's when I joined. I've loved everything so far. It's been a challenge, but in a good way.

Anyways, these peanut butter cookies were easy. I had doubled the recipe because I knew that I wanted both peanut butter cookies without chocolate chips, but since I love chocolate chips, I decided to do a batch with some.

Whilst making the recipe, I decided to add two pinches of cinnamon and two dashes of vanilla which would equal out to one of each per recipe.

I don't think it had made too much of a difference, but they definitely smelled really good. My crosshatch didn't work out as much as I had hoped, but that's okay.

The chocolate chip ones were the friend favorite since those were gone in like 10 minutes. I had made my two into an ice cream sandwich.

recipe for the chewy peanut butter cookies here.