Orange Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe!!!

Hey Carnivores!! Sorry it's been so long since my last post! Life has been crazy!! Today I'm giving you guys my new favorite cupcake recipe, Orange! It's been warming up lately and I feel like my life is just screaming for summer! And what says summer quite like oranges? Maybe coconut, but that's for another time :) So let's get ready for summer people and bust out some orange cupcakes!!

 

Orange Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

WHAT YA NEED:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temp

2/3 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

1/2 tsp Orange Extract

Orange Zest (optional)

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup milk

WHAT TO DO!!

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and get your cupcake trays ready with your favorite liners. (Orange ones look awesome!)

2. Put the sugar and orange zest in a large bowl and mix. 

3. Add the butter to the sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time, don't forget to scrape the sides!

4. Add the orange and vanilla extracts. 

5. In a medium bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt together. 

6. Alternate adding 1/3 the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture and 1/3 the milk, mixing each time you add something in. Make sure you scrape the sides!

7. Load up your cupcake trays with batter about 3/4 full and throw those babies in the oven!

8. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean. 

Cream Cheese Frosting

WHAT YA NEED:

1 (8oz) package of cream cheese, room temp

2 Tbsp. butter, room temp

1Tbsp. shortening

1tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, add more to get the consistency you want

WHAT YA DO!!

1. Mix cream cheese, butter and shortening on high until smooth and creamy. 

2. Blend in the vanilla

3. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar a little at a time, adding more than the 1 1/2 cups if you want it thicker. 

That's it! Ice 'em up!!

A FEW TIPS

1.Always make sure your butter and cream cheese are room temp, but not melted. 

2.I thought these needed more orange flavor, to me it was just a hint so you may want to use 3/4 tsp of the orange extract if you want a more orange-y pow!

3.With the icing you may want to use more than the 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, i thought the icing was just a bit too thin. 

4. With timing the cupcakes, I cooked mine for 20 minutes and I thought they came out a bit dry. Partner in crime Joe (my official taste tester) thought they were fine, but he likes his cupcakes and baked goods in general a bit drier than I do. So if you like them more moist, go towards 16-17 minutes and if you like them drier, try around 20 min. 

5. The recipe says it's enough to make 12 cupcakes, but for me it made 12 cupcakes and 9 mini cupcakes! :) 

Some Pictures of My Finished Cupcakes!

Trying to get fancy on the icing!

Some of the good ones lol

The Minis! I think they look the best!

My Super Cute Liners!

I hope you guys love this recipe as much as I do!! I'll be posting more recipes and reviews soon so stay tuned!!!! BRING ON THE SUMMER!

STAY HUNGRY CARNIVORES!!

Milkyway Cupcake Recipe with a Caramel Buttercream!!

Welcome back Carnivores! As promised I will be sharing with you a recipe for Milkyway cupcakes topped with caramel buttercream frosting!

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For the past year and a half, it has become customary for me to bake cupcakes for every holiday, birthday, and occasional TV show season premiere (True Blood anyone???) to share with my coworkers, which is how this recipe came to life. It's my supervisor Rocco's birthday tomorrow and he LOVES Milkyways. He asked if I could make a milkyway themed cupcake....at which I heartily chuckled and said "ummm this is ME you're talking to...I'm pretty sure I can make this work!" I searched high and low for a recipe that didn't involve shoving a bite sized milkyway into the center of the cupcake and came across this one!! So without further adieu....THE CUPCAKES!!

Cake Ingredients:
3 Full sized Milkyway bars, and an extra one if you want to use it for decoration
1 3/4 cups milk, plus 2 tbsp to use when melting the candy bars
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups flour
1Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick room temp butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

Frosting Ingredients:
25 caramels (the chewy square kind)
1/4 cup milk
1 stick room temp butter
2 1/2 cups sifted powder sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla

HOW DO I DO IT???
1. Preheat your oven to 350 and get your cupcake pans ready with the cutest cupcake liners you can find!
2. In a medium saucepan (I used a frying pan and just kept it all on one side) melt the 3 Milkyway bars with 2 Tbsp of milk. Stir until smooth and creamy.  Pour the melty milkyway mixture into a bowl and let cool off for at least 10 minutes.
3. In a medium bowl, mix the cocoa, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt gently and set aside for later.
4. In a larger bowl cream the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until smooth.
5. Add eggs one at a time, make sure to scrape the edges of the bowl in between!
6. Add the milkyway mixture and mix on high for 30 seconds (time it! or count lol)
7. Add 1/2 of the flour mixture and 1/2 of the milk to the butter mixture and mix well until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl every once in a while and then add the rest of the flour mix and the rest of the milk. Mix again until smooth.
8. Spoon your newly made cake mix into those pretty cupcake liners! Fill them about 3/4 of the way (about one big spoonful each)
9. Bake 20-23 minutes or until a toothpick put into the middle comes out clean.
10. When the cupcakes are down cool them in the pan for about 10 minutes and then let them finish cooling on a wire rack.

Frosting?? WHAT DO I DO??
1. In another medium saucepan (or frying pan) melt the caramels over low heat stirring often. Take the pan off the heat and add the milk, stirring until smooth. Poor into a bowl and allow to cool to room temp.
2. In a medium bowl cream together the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla for 3 minutes on high (time it!!!)
3. Add the room temp caramel and mix for 2 minutes on high (time it!!)

Well that's it!! Frost those babies!

Some tips when making these:
1. Make sure your butter is room temp! It really does make a difference, especially with the buttercream.
2. Make sure the caramels are completely melted and liquidy...if you half ass melt them they will glob up when you add the milk (yea...i did that). If this happens, put it back in the saucepan and put it on low heat, stirring often until the mixture is completely smooth.
3. DO NOT ADD THE CARAMEL MIXTURE TO THE BUTTERCREAM HOT!! It HAS to be room temp, if its even a little bit warm it will RUIN the buttercream! Don't make this mistake!
4. About cooking times...the original recipe I used for this said to cook them 28-30 minutes. The first dozen I cooked for 28 minutes and they came out dry as a bone. The second batch I cooked for 23 minutes and they came out better, but not perfect. The third batch I cooked for 20 minutes and they came out perfect! Play around with times until you find one that works for you. Remember if you are using dark coated pans or dark/thick cupcake liners your cupcakes will cook faster, so you should reduce your cooking time. If you pull them out and they aren't done yet, put them back in for 1-2 minute increments until done. Don't walk away! Cupcakes aren't a set it and forget it kinda deal :)

Here are a couple of pictures of the finished product!! The icing is really a light caramel color but my phone couldn't quite capture that, so keep that in mind :)

Some of my "Fancy" icing work, I'm still new to this!

A couple more :) 

Well, that's it for now Carnivores!! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I now do! I'll let ya know in my next post how Rocco and the rest of my coworkers liked them :) If you have questions about the recipe or anything else leave me a comment, I'll be sure to get back to you. 

Stay Hungry Carnivores!!

Sweet Tease Desserts! Review Time

Today I visted  Sweet Tease Desserts in Manasquan, NJ. It's a tiny little Tea shop which I think is awesome because there are a million coffee joints out there, but how many places do you see that are dedicated to tea? They have a decent selection of home-made cupcakes and a giant variety of drinks.  As usual my partner in crime boyfriend joined me and we tried these cupcakes!!

The one on the left is a s'mores cupcake and the one on the right is lemon with raspberry filling. Here are our thoughts!

Has it got the look?- Sweet Tease had several cupcakes to choose from, some looked awesome and professional (like the s'mores cupcake) and some of them looked like they came out of anyone's kitchen, not very artistic (like the lemon raspberry). They had most of the cupcakes in regular size and then a mini size, the mini ones looked more put together than most of the regular sized ones. They get a 3 on this.
The yum factor:CAKE-The cake for both cupcakes was moist, but not as moist as I like cupcakes to be. The s'mores cake was delicious and unique, it was some kind of graham cracker flavor and I loved it! It also had a really unique texture, kind of crumbly while still being moist. I'm going with a 3.5 for cake taste.
The yum factor:ICING-The icing on the s'mores cupcake was of course, marshmallow!! It was nice and creamy, And even toasted which was a GREAT touch! The lemon icing was definitely homemade and had a real lemon taste to it, not artificial at all. The filling was raspberry jam which PIC Joe said was good, not overly sweet. 3.5 for the icing as well.
Money money money!- The cupcakes were only $2.25 each which is the cheapest price I've seen yet, and they were definitely good so they are getting a 4 for value.
Vibe- Sweet Tease is really cute inside, definitely a 'hipster' kind of place, and very laid back. The tables are decorated with cute little fake flowers the whole place is accented with things relating to Tea! The girl at the counter was very friendly and helped us pick out some cupcakes. I really love when employees suggest favorites because they are usually really good! This got them a 3.75 on vibe.
To infinity, and beyond!- Sweet Tease has over 40 varieties of tea that you can get by the cup or in larger amounts to take home! I LOVE LOVE LOVE tea as does PIC Joe, so this definitely gets them some extra credit. In addition, they offer Vegan cupcakes. So they get an extra point for these extras.

Total Points: 18.75/25

Rating: 3.75/5

Sweet Tease is a cute little place with lots of options and events!! They have some delicious drinks (try the Nutty Irishman Chai Latte!) and TONS of tea. They have a monthly "High Tea" and also have "Tea and Sweets Tastings" which I'm definitely planning on checking out soon. Also as I said before they offer Vegan cupcakes which I think is a great option because there aren't many vegan sweets out there. I plan on going back to try some, maybe when I check out the High Tea :) This is a fun little place and I suggest you go check it out if you're in the Manasquan, NJ area! 

Be sure to follow me on Twitter to see where I'll be next!

Stay Hungry Carnivores!