Tag Archives: Mixer (cooking)

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes

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I was seriously thinking about calling these “fluffternutter cupcakes”. Like it was big, real decision. But every time I’ve heard of something being called “fluffernutter”-whatever there has been marshmallow involved.

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

This time, the marshmallow was replaced with whipped cream; however, I do fully intend on coming up with a marshmallow frosting version soon!

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

The whipped cream was a huge hit. My dad, the leading taste-tester in the family with the most honest and un-biased feedback, gave in a full-mouthed double thumbs up.

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

 

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

These cupcakes consist of my absolute FAVORITE chocolate cake recipe that I use all the time, stuffed with a delicious and super creamy peanut butter filling, and topped with a fluffy and perfectly sweet whipped cream frosting.

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

This may be one of my all-time favorite cupcake combos!

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes

(makes about 12-16 cupcakes)

FOR THE CUPCAKES: 

(My absolute FAVORITE chocolate cake recipe)

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used dark cocoa powder)

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons white sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or line regular cupcake tins.
  2. In a small bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa powder, and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool. Into a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
  3. Cream butter and sugar together with a mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture. Add the cocoa mixture. Pour batter into prepared cupcake tins.
  4. Bake in preheated oven 15-18 minutes. Allow to cool in tins, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. When thoroughly cooled, stuff with peanut butter frosting below and frost with whipped cream frosting below.

FOR THE PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING FILLING:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup peanut butter

2 teaspoon2 vanilla extract

6-8 cups powdered sugar, or until correct consistency

  1. Using an electric mixer, cream butter and peanut butter on high speed until creamy. Mix in vanilla extract. Slowly add in powdered sugar until a semi-creamy consistency that resembles frosting, but is creamy [thin] enough to pipe into cupcakes.
  2. Once cupcakes have been cooled, fill piping bag, that has been fitted with a standard-sized round piping tip, with the prepared peanut butter filling. Stick end of piping bag into the center of a cooled cupcake and squeeze filling into cupcake until small cracks start to show by where you inserted the piping bag tip. Continue with the remaining cupcakes until each has been filled, you may end up with excess filling

WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2-4 Tablespoons powdered sugar, depending on how sweet you like your whipped cream

  1. In the chilled bowl of an electric stand mixer, whip the cream using the whisk attachment for about 1 minute. Add in powdered sugar gradually to taste and continue whipping until stiff peaks form and the mixture resembles whipped cream. Pipe and frost onto stuffed cupcakes. Keep cupcakes in fridge, as it is unsafe to have whipped cream sitting out for extended periods of time.

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

 

Fluffy Nut Cupcakes | Beautiful Disasters

Random Fact of the Day: A survey reported that 12% of Americans think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Yikes

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Coconut Pound Cake

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Do any of you guys do Lent? I feel like not many people do anymore. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but my family always gives up treats for Lent.

Coconut Pound Cake | Beautiful Disasters

Yes..treats. ALL treats.

Coconut Pound Cake | Beautiful Disasters

I am sure you can all imagine how painful this is for me, the cookie dough-cake batter-frosting-licking-addict.

Coconut Pound Cake | Beautiful Disasters

This was about as close as I could come to making a dessert without the Lent police coming after me.

Coconut Pound Cake | Beautiful Disasters

I had my dad, the coconut connoisseur, just about on his knees praising me for this cake.  This recipe fell under the “Don’t change A THING” category for him and I know he is just counting down the days until I make it again, maybe I’ll give baking it in a loaf pan a go next time?

Coconut Pound Cake | Beautiful Disasters

Coconut Pound Cake

(Make one 9 or 10-inch tube pan cake)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups white sugar

5 eggs

1 cup milk (I used skim)

1 teaspoon coconut extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 1/2 oz. coconut (I used half sweetened shredded coconut and half unsweetened coconut flakes)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

  1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Grease and flour a 9 or 10-inch tube pan. 
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
  3. Using a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Add in eggs, one at a time. Be sure to scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to get everything incorporated. Add in the coconut and vanilla extract. Mix in the milk and coconut. Finally, slowly add in the flour mixture and mix until just combined.
  4. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, until about golden brown and top springs back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then invert onto plate. Enjoy!

Coconut Pound Cake | Beautiful Disasters

Random Fact of the Day: A rainbow can only be seen in the morning or late afternoon.

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Fluffy Reese’s Cake

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Fluffy Reese’s Cake? What kind of a name is that? Hopefully it sounds half as awesome as it tastes.

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I made this cake for my parents who were having a couple foodie friends over and I wanted to impress them with a knockout cake. Okay, so it wasn’t the prettiest cake…but it tastes out of this world.

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Take my word on this one, because I’m like the expert on every component of this cake. I ate basically half the batch of peanut butter swiss meringue filling (scrumptious on steroids), ate the leftover cake batter (no shame at all), and taste tested the whipped cream frosting…just to be sure it was perfect.

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And then when it was all put together and I finally ate a slice of the real cake, I think I heard angels singing (not to toot my own horn).

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So you can bake this cake for your next guest, for a party, or just because it’s Monday. Whatever works.

Chocolate Cake

(Makes 1 thick 6-inch spring form cake)

(How could I possibly use anything but my go-to favorite chocolate cake recipe?!)

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup dark cocoa powder

1 cup plus 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 1 (6-inch) springform cake pan.
  2. In a medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa powder, and whisk until smooth. Set aside.
  3. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside
  4. Cream butter and sugar together in mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture. Pour batter into prepared cake pan. There will be extra. You can either make cupcakes, whoopie pies, or freeze the batter for later use with the extra batter.
  5. Bake batter that is in prepared cake pan in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until top springs back when touched and toothpick comes out clean when inserted in center. Let cool on wire rack for 25 minutes. Invert out of cake pan and onto wire rack. Cool an additional 30 minutes. Pop in fridge for 15 minutes. Cut in half lengthwise. Assemble with peanut butter swiss meringue filling, then frost with whipped cream, and top with chocolate ganache.

Peanut Butter Swiss Meringue Buttercream

(Makes enough for the filling of about two layers of a cake)

3 egg whites

5 oz. white sugar

3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter, cubed and softened

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

  1. In a double boiler, whisk together egg whites and white sugar. Put double boiler over heat and whisk constantly until mixture reaches 150 degrees F. 
  2. Pour egg white-sugar mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on high until stiff peaks form. Switch to paddle attachment.
  3. With mixer running on high, add in butter 1-2 cubes at a time until it is completely incorporated. Mix in peanut butter and vanilla extract and continue mixing until frosting is desired consistency

Whipped Cream Frosting

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar until it forms stiff peaks and becomes whipped cream consistency. I used this to frost the top and sides of my cake. Keep cake refrigerated.

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup heavy cream

  1. Place chocolate chips in a heat proof bowl and set aside.
  2. In a small saucepan, heat cream over medium-high heat unit it is boiling, bubbling, and expanding in size. Quickly pour over chocolate chips, mix with wooden spoon until thoroughly combined. Top cupcakes with ganache and enjoy!

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Random Fact of the Day: Of all the words in the English language, the word “set” has the most definitions

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Chocolate Biscoff Whipped Cream Layer Cake

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As unbelievable as it may seem, I have finally entered adult-hood. Legally, at least.

Last Friday, I turned 18! The most exciting part about turning 18 for me was that I was finally able to change my name to Crasey Rich. It’s just like Casey Ulrich, but just a couple confused letters.

KIDDING guys!! Sheesh, I hope you would never believe me that I’d change my name to that…especially considering I made like negative dollars the past year.

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I guess to some people, turning 18 means tattoos, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. Let me share my view of these shiny, brand new privileges. I would rather clean port-o-potties with a toothbrush everyday for 2 months then have a needle, NEEDLE :0 inject stuff into me…and then it’s permanent! Oh gosh, I think they look cool on other people, but for me oh no, nope, no chance that I could ever be convinced to pay to have a needle in me. Shots and when I have to get my blood drawn for allergy tests are my worst enemies. Cigarettes, are another fear of mine. I would prefer to wait to start my personal voyage to cancer. No need to buy it. Lastly, I don’t have many bad things to say about the lottery because I don’t even know all the ins and outs of it. I got 3 tickets on my birthday, buttttttt how the heck do you find out if you won?! Heck I could have won 300 million dollars right now and I have no idea.

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Anyways, the real exciting part of my birthday was my cake. Yes, I made my own birthday cake. I’m a little weird, but if you haven’t noticed that by now, I’m not exactly sure what you’ve been doing with your life.

This was my first time successfully making swiss meringue buttercream. Notice: “successfully”. I attempted swiss meringue buttercream about a year ago and it was more than hot mess. It was like a hot mess caught on fire, married another hot mess, and had hot mess babies. It was bad. But I digress.. I re-attempted and my cooking powers prevailed!

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Some things that helped the process go smoother this time around were that I had a candy thermometer. Turns out sticking your finger in a mixture doesn’t magically tell you when something hits 150 degrees. Weird, I know. Also, patience is a key ingredient, so if you think your buttercream is starting to look like cottage cheese, it’s okay. Mine looked like cottage cheese’s ugly stepsister, so you’re golden. Just keep mixing and don’t worry about it. I had the Ellen show on while I made mine, and I do think she secretly had some voodoo that made mine workout this time, so I would recommend doing that too ;)

Chocolate Cake

I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe, seriously once you try this baby you’ll never go back to your old recipe! Click here for the recipe

Biscoff Swiss Meringue Buttercream

5 eggs whites

1 cup white sugar

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups butter, room temperature

1/3 cup biscoff spread

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar, and salt. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk constantly until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture reaches about 150ºF.
  2. Take the bowl and attach it your mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk the egg white mixture until it reaches room temperature and stiff peaks have formed, about 5-10 minutes. At this point the mixture will be thickened and white.
  3. With the mixer on low speed, add the butter, 2 tablespoon as a time. Once all the butter is added, raise the speed to medium high and mix until the mixture starts to come together. Remove the whisk attachment and replace with the beater attachment. At this point, my mixture looked a little bit like cottage cheese, but don’t worry!! Beat until the buttercream comes together fully and is smooth.
  4. Once the buttercream is silky and smooth, mix in the vanilla. Beat in the biscoff until thoroughly combined. I used this as the filling of my cake.

Whipped Cream

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

2-3 Tablespoons powdered sugar

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar until it forms stiff peaks and becomes whipped cream consistency. I used this to frost the top and sides of my cake. Keep cake refrigerated. 

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup heavy cream

3/4 cups plus 2 Tablespoons chocolate chips

  1. Place chocolate in heat proof bowl and set aside. Make ganache by heating cream in saucepan until boiling and it starts increasing in size. Pour hot cream over bowl of chocolate and stir until fully incorporated. Let cool for about a minute before pouring on chilled cake.

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Random Fact of the Day: The Earth’s atmosphere weighs about 5.5 quadrillion tons.

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Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies

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For all you bloggers out there, I’m not sure if you ever pay attention to what is most commonly searched on your blog but I happen to look every now and then to see what is popular and what not.

I have mentioned before that I have had some pretty strange searches that are commonly searched here.

I decided today that I would address a few more of these common searches because apparently that is what the people want. Some things the people want are…

  • “puffin tattoo” (10 people searched this)
  • “lollipop stand” (I guess that’s not too weird)
  • “lip allergy”
  • “swollen lip allergy”
  • “spider army”
  • “josh klinghoffer 2012″
  • “guy bathing suits”
  • “there are vending machines in japan made to give out the telephone numbers of random girls” (4 people searched this..)
  • “can you stuff cupcakes with moose”

Those are about 1/10 of the super weird ones. And then there are some that are just way too wildly inappropriate to share.

So here we go, I’m gonna be super straight forward. Some of you may find this humorous and maybe some of you may find it informative, but here it is… puffin tattoo. There you go. Click this link.

Next up: lollipop stand. Hm, sorry I have no idea what the heck you’re looking for. Maybe a cake pop stand? If so, click on this link.

Aren’t I just a wealth of information?

lip allergy, this one actually does somewhat make sense. I had a post a way while back where I talked about my weird lip allergy, so you can read about that here.

If you want to learn more about spider armies, this post explains it all.

I’m not sure if Josh Klinghoffer was running for office or something…but I know he is the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, so as of 2012 that’s what he is doing.

Here are some nice guy bathing suits, for those of you who were looking for that sort of thing. Ha!

I think the Japan thing was a random fact I may have had once.. Not sure, but that sure is a strange one.

Last but not least…no, you may not stuff cupcakes with moose. I don’t think the moose would like that and I’m not sure if you would exactly enjoy eating antlers.

I did not just post this to talk about the unique searches of readers, but I DO have a recipe for you!! What’s better than Christmas put-out sugar cookies? Chocolate cut out cookies. That’s what is better! Because everything really is better with chocolate. Let’s be honest. And eat some more cookies. Super easy, super tasty, and adorable. Perfect to add to your Christmas cookie platters!

Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies

(adapted from Our Best Bites)

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used dark cocoa powder)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

pinch of salt

1 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a medium bowl, mix together flour and cocoa powder. Using a stand mixer, cream together white sugar and butter. Mix in egg and vanilla extract. Beat in salt. Slowly mix in flour-cocoa powder mixture until fully combined.
  3. On surface that has either been dusted with flour or cocoa powder (or mixture of both), roll out cookie dough until about 1/8 inch thick. Cut out cookie dough into desired shapes and bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, or until dough no longer looks wet and the edges of the cookies hold up. Let sit on cookie sheet for 2-5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack.

Optional- I decorated mine with royal icing and sprinkles. By themselves, these taste just like the cookie part of an Oreo.  They still taste like that with the icing too, but I think the icing makes them taste even more like an Oreo, especially because the royal icing is somewhat reminiscent of the Oreo filling. And of course the sprinkles are always a fun touch to make them more festive.

Random Fact of the Day: Racehorses can wear out new horse shoes in one race.

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