Friday, September 26, 2014

Candy Corn Cupcakes

It's that candy corn time of year! Cooler weather (ha! We got a whole 2 days of it), county fairs, and pumpkin everything! I'm not making any guarantees for or against a pumpkin creation showing up on the blog but my goodness Pinterest has been on pumpkin overload for about 2 months now.
Have you noticed how this time of year there are so many good baking flavors to use? Pumpkin, pecan, cinnamon, apple, not to mention fair food inspiration. Any good suggestions you'd like to see me try?



I've got a cute candy corn cupcake for you today. I'll tell you what I did, and give you a suggestion for what will probably be an infinitely easier way!

For the cake:
1 box white cake mix and required ingredients
1 bag candy corn (about 1 cup for the cake, 1 cup for the frosting)
red and yellow food color (1 drop red, 2 drops yellow)

What I did: Melted the candy corn (with oil to keep it soft) and mixed it in with the other *warm or room temp* ingredients. This was mostly a disaster. Candy corn melts great, but it is less than great at staying that way. As soon as it hit the other ingredients we had a solid lump of candy corn goop. So I mixed the mess out of it and got it to workable sized chunks.

Probably a better option: Mix either whole candy corn or chopped candy corn pieces into the prepared batter. Honestly not sure why I thought the other way would be better!



For the frosting:
Since the melted candy corn didn't work out for the cake I decided not to attempt that route for the frosting.
1/2 Crisco bar
1 stick butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 tbsp milk
powdered sugar
red and yellow food color

Mix butter and shortening then add other ingredients. If you want to spend a little more time on it you could separate your frosting into 3 bowls and color one orange, one yellow, and leave one white. You could then frost the cupcakes to resemble candy corn. But since I topped the cupcakes with candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins I opted for just orange frosting.

- Happy Baking!

Monday, September 22, 2014

Pomegranate & Papaya Cupcakes

Pomegranate. Papaya. Both weird fruits that are kind of fun to say. So I decided to throw them together in a cupcake. And it was delicious!


For the cake:
1 box white cake mix
ingredients listed on box, sub milk for water
2 tsp pomegranate flavor
1/4 cup diced dried papaya
Mix it all up, pour in cupcake liners & bake for about that long.



For the frosting: *NOTE* this is a fairly small batch of frosting. I had enough to do about 18 cupcakes, and I didn't put a ton of frosting on them.
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
juice from removing pomegranate seeds (mostly for color)
I also added 1 tsp pomegranate flavor
powdered sugar to reach desired consistency
Mix all this together, frost, and top with pomegranate seeds.

To get your pomegranate seeds (and juice) slice your pomegranate crossways (not through the stem) and whack the back of each half with a spoon. Your seeds will fall into the bowl along with the juice. I suggest straining the juice through a paper towel or something because there will be some little pieces you don't want.

You should try these. They are pretty amazing if I do say so myself.

-Happy Baking!