Strawberry Swirl Cake

Strawberry Swirl Cake

Summertime means Strawberries!

This recipe fits into the “semi –homemade” category of my recipe box. But don’t let that trick you, it tastes 100% homemade and delicious! The combination of strawberry, vanilla, and whip cream will have everyone begging for more. I promise!

What you will need:

1. One box of Duncan Hines Vanilla Cake Mix
2. One Box of Duncan Hines Strawberry Cake Mix
3. 6 eggs
4. Vegetable Oil
5. Water
6. 3 Cups of Chopped Strawberries
7. 1/2 Cup of Marshmallow Fluff

Frosting:

1. ½ Block of Cream Cheese
2. 2 Sticks of Unsalted Butter
3. 4 cups of powdered sugar
4. 2 tbs of Strawberry Jello Powder
5. Remaining Strawberry Puree

What your cake should look like before you bake it.

Directions:

• Grease a cake pan (use any size you want. I used a small pan and only used half of the batter. It just depends how much cake you want J)
• Preheat your over to 350 degrees
• Prepare both cake mixes according to directions on the back of the box
• Pour the marshmallow cream and chopped strawberries into a food processor. Process for 1 full minute.
• Pour some of the vanilla batter on the bottom of your pan
• Pour multiple lines of the strawberry cake batter on top of the vanilla batter.
• Add 6 spoonfuls of strawberry mixture on top of the batter. Place the spoonfuls in various places around the pan. You want to use about half of the strawberry puree you previously made.
• With a knife, swirl the batter and strawberry mixture together.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Frosting Directions:

• While yours cake is baking, you can make the frosting.
• In your mixer, cream together the butter and cream cheese. Whip until fluffy.
• Slowly add in the powdered sugar. Mix well
• Add in the remaining strawberry puree
• Add in 2 tbs of Strawberry Jello Powder – Mix well.

Once your cake is cooled, frost the cake, cut and serve. Finish each slice with some whip cream and enjoy!!

Have a sweet Tuesday friends!

xoxo, Jill

Orange Vanilla Cream Cupcakes – Easy!

Orange Cupcakes - Photo by MyBakingAddiction

Happy Monday!

Today I have a special recipe for all of you busy moms who still want to bake delicious cupcakes but don’t have the time to make them 100% from scratch. This recipe is easy, delicious, and still has that homemade taste!

Orange Vanilla Cream Cupcakes

What you’ll need:

• 1 box of Duncan Hines White Cake Mix
• 3 Egg Whites
• 1/3 Cup of Veg Oil
• 1 cup of water
• ¼ cup of orange soda
• ¼ cup of Orange Jello Mix (dry)
• 1 box of   Instant Vanilla Pudding

Directions:

1. Ignore the directions on the box 🙂
2. Combine Cake mix with Egg Whites, Veg Oil, Water and Orange Soda
3. Mix Well
4. Add ¼ cup of Dry orange jello powder
5. Mix well for 2 minutes
6. In a separate bowl, make your instant pudding mix (just follow the directions on the box – all you will need is Milk)
7. Fill your cupcake liners a little over halfway with batter
8. Place 1 TBS of Vanilla Pudding in each cupcake liner (The pudding will bake into the center of the cupcake and create a delicious filling!! Just don’t use more than 1 TBS)
9. Bake at 350 for 18 -20 minutes.
10. Let cool before you frost

I like to finish these off with my traditional buttercream and some white chocolate chips. Yum!

Now who says those aren’t homemade?? Every mom needs a quick cupcake and these are perfect because they are so delicious and kids and adults alike will gobble them up!! Enjoy.

Xoxo, Jill

*This recipe is a Stay Calm Cupcake Original. If you would like to feature this recipe on your blog or website, please contact me at staycalmcupcake@yahoo.com.*

I Need a Cupcake Fix!

Apple Spice and Buttercream

As much as I’m loving being part of the Shop Til You Drop Blog Crawl, I am desperately missing the sweet presence of cupcake on my blog! So I am going to remedy that with a delicious recipe for Apple Spice Muffin Cupcakes. Yum!!

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup finely chopped, peeled apple
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups applesauce
• 1/2 cup melted butter

Directions

Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Add eggs, butter, and applesauce.  Mix for 2 minutes at slow speed.  Scrape bowl.  Mix at medium speed for 1 minute.  Scrape bowl, and stir in chopped apples and walnuts.

Your oven should be preheated to 350 degrees.  spoon cupcake batter into cupcake pans lined with paper or foil cupcake liners.

Bake your cupcakes for 15-20 minutes.  Remove from pan, and cool completely on a wire rack.

Top with Buttercream Frosting and Enjoy!

Classic Buttercream

*Image from weheartit.com*

I realized the other day that I don’t have one single post that gives a very basic buttercream recipe.  Shame on me!

Buttercream is perfect on any flavor cupcake, and is great for cake decorating as well. I love this recipe because I can easily adapt it to make any other flavor I dream up.

So here it is, my favorite buttercream frosting recipe!

Stay Calm Cupcake Buttercream

Ingredients

• 1 stick of unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 stick of salted butter (softened)
• 4 cups of powdered sugar (sifted)
• 3 tbs of half and half
• 1 tbs of vanilla

Directions

1. In your stand mixer, cream the butter on medium high until it turns white and fluffy (about 5 minutes)
2. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time- mixing on medium speed
3. Add the half and half and the  vanilla – mix well for 2 minutes or until well combined
4. If you want thicker buttercream – add more powdered sugar.

This is a perfect base frosting for many other yummy frosting flavors.

Add any of the following ingredients to change the flavor:

• Fresh raspberry puree
• Mint Extract
• Peanut Butter
• Lemon Zest
• Lime Zest
• Orange Zest
• Apricot Jam
• Oreo Cookie Crumbs
• And lots more – just get creative!

Stay Sweet,

xoxo Jill

Coconut Cream Cupckes

A perfect little getaway!

Coconut is the type of food that people either LOVE or HATE! I fall on the LOVE side of the argument. I love everything about coconut, from the texture, to the flavor, to the smell. I can’t get enough of it. If you are like me, then this cupcake is the perfect way to indulge in your coconut obsession. A moist coconut cupcake filled with milky coconut cream, and topped with vanilla buttercream and toasted coconut flakes. Divine!

Coconut Cream Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen

• 3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 8 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups shredded sweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two standard 12-cup muffin pans with paper liners; set aside.

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

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla.

With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until just combined. Transfer mixture to a large bowl; set aside.

In the clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites on low speed until foamy. With mixer running, gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar; beat on high speed until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 4 minutes. Do not overbeat. Gently fold a third of the egg-white mixture into the butter-flour mixture until combined. Gently fold in remaining egg-white mixture; stir in shredded coconut.

Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake 20-23 until the cupcakes are golden brown.

Coconut Cream Filling

5 tablespoons of heavy cream

1 can of cream of coconut – Blend well so the large coconut bits are dissolved

½ cup of sweetened coconut flakes

1/2 cup of cool whip

½ cup of cream cheese

1. In a blender, mix the cream of coconut to get rid of large coconut chunks
2. In a mixer, beat together the cream cheese, cool whip, and cream of coconut
3. Add to the mixer 5 tbs of heavy cream – beat until you get it to the desired consistency. You want it thick, but not too stiff.
4. Add is the coconut flake and beat until well mixed.
5. Put your filling in a piping bag and fill each cupcake with this yummy coconut cream

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

3 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tbs of heavy whipping cream

1. With an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Mix on low until well blended.
2. Continue mixer on medium for another two minutes.
3. Add vanilla and whipping cream, beating on medium for another minute.
4. Frosting should be light and fluffy.

For toasted Coconut Flakes, simply heat your oven to 350, spread the sweetened coconut flakes out evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes. Keep a close eye on them though, they burn quickly! Use the toasted flakes to top your delicious cupcakes.

Share with some friends and enjoy!

Stay Sweet, xoxo

Jill

Chocolate Mousse

Hello readers! I trust you all had a good weekend, made it through Monday,  and are ready to tackle another week. HA! Who am I kidding, right? Weekends just never seem long enough, especially when you pack them full of activities (or hours of baking), and Monday’s never seem short enough.

I had a friend’s dinner party to go to this past weekend, and I was pretty excited about it because I was asked to bring the dessert. I was anxious to try out some new cupcake recipes, and there is no better place to do that than at a dinner party with friends.

My ambitions, though not thought to be too high, were to create two types of cupcakes. One, which I had made before – Vanilla Pineapple Cream – and another, which I had not tried but was “sure it would be easy”. I should have known better…..

Chocolate Buttercream frosting…it just sounds delicious, doesn’t it? I had to have chocolate buttercream on my cupcakes – there was no going around it. Besides, how could I possibly impress my friends if I didn’t make chocolate buttercream?! Come to find out, I could have fed those boys canned frosting and they would not have known the difference. Ahh, hindsight is 20/20

I found a buttercream recipe at tastepotting.com (by far one of the BEST recipe sites EVER! It’s worthy of having it’s own blog entry, and one day I will get around to that.) I spent at least an hour sorting through hundreds of chocolate frosting recipes. Who knew there were about 500 variations of the very basic and traditional chocolate frosting? It was exhausting! Anyways, I found the one that seemed simple and delicious. It was time to bake!

I followed the recipe extremely close – at times questioning some of the steps, but never deviating. I’m known to disagree with a recipe and do it “my way” – problem is, my way doesn’t always work out – so I stuck to what I was told to do.

2 hours (that’s not a lie) and several back-up plans later, I had some form of chocolate frosting sitting in my mixing bowl – not chocolate buttercream, not really regular chocolate icing, kind of an airy, light, fluffy blob. It was pretty disappointing to be honest. I let it sit for a bit and decided I had to use it because I was running out of time before the party started. Luckily it piped pretty nicely onto the cupcake. Once I realized that it tasted REALLY GOOD on the cupcake, and didn’t look bad either, I felt better about my new “creation”.

I have to say  though that by the time I was done with the frosting I had added several new ingredients into the mixer in order for it to thicken enough to stay on top of a cupcake. I also realized that I was right the first time and should have made it my own way when I saw that things on the recipe didn’t add up.

Overall, the cupcakes were a hit. I call my new and improved recipe “Chocolate Mousse”. I am proud to say that this recipe has been perfected through trial and error and tastes absolutely delicious. Enjoy!

Vanilla Pinapple Cream - Chocolate Mousse - Vanilla and Chcolate Mousse

Chocolate Mousse Buttercream

yield: about 5 cups

• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 T. Dutch processed cocoa powder
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 6 sticks (24 0z)of cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 12 0z semisweet chocolate, melted 

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and cocoa powder in the metal bowl of a stand mixer.

Fill a large saute pan with hot water and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.  Place the mixing bowl in the water and whisk the egg mixture constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is thick and fluffy and very hot, 3-4 minutes.  The temperature should be between 120-140 degrees.

Remove the bowl from the water and using the whisk attachment, beat the eggs at a medium-high speed until they are tripled in volume and form very soft peaks.  The bottom of the bowl should be completely cool to the touch, about 10 minutes.  Beat in the vanilla and salt.

Switch to the paddle attachment on your mixer and turn to medium-high speed.  Add the chucks of butter a couple at a time.  Once all is added, turn the mixer on high speed and let it mix until the buttercream comes together and is shiny and smooth…don’t worry if it separates at first, it will come together!  

Add the buttercream to another bowl (not metal…it is too cold and will seize the chocolate) and then add 1/2 of the warm chocolate and stir to incorporate.  Add the remaining chocolate and stir to fully incorporate.    Place the chocolate buttercream in a pastry bag fitted with a #807 tip and pipe your buttercream onto the cupcake.  To get the swirl effect, simply start at one end of the cupcake and pipe in a circle.  Continue piping until you have two layers of frosting.  Stop squeezing the frosting and quickly pull tip away from cupcake.