baking Archives - wit wisdom and food

whet your whistle wednesday: cupcakes

June 11, 2014 by anne fassnacht 3 Comments

I love cupcakes. I think they are adorable, tasty and perfect portion control. I want to improve my arsenal of cupcake recipes and decorating techniques. I have been scanning pinterest and think I have found some great ideas.

All the images in this post are from etsy stores. If you click the image it will take you to the store where you can purchase the item or just shop some of these great stores.

One of many great prints by Lily & Val available in various sizes

Decorating cupcakes is what is most fun about making cupcakes am I right? These offer some whimsy that I love for a baby shower or birthday.

Something about pennants just make me think of the word adorable these cute pennant flag cupcakes are no exception.

Since using pinwheels in my wedding decor I am a sucker for anything with a pinwheel. These would have been cute desserts at the wedding!

What could be cuter than a bunch of fishing cupcakes complete with a pole and a fish on the line?

I can think of a million uses for this next decorating technique. The bubble gum cupcakes are one of the cutest though.

print from Graphic Anthology

Can you own too many cupcake liners ? I hope not because I am want to buy all them from this Etsy store.

Do you want healthier cupcakes or don’t have the exact ingredients needed? This post has you covered with images, tips and recipes for cupcake ingredient replacements.

A cute print from eebookprints. Love the images printed on book pages.

There are no shortage of cupcakes flavors based on beverages.

I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain….Even if you don’t like coconut this is a cute decorating idea of adding a drink umbrella for a decoration.

Topped with a cherry this shirley temple cupcake is sure to please guests of all ages.

Banana and chocolate can’t ever be a bad combination. Add malt balls and I am in hook, line and sinker with these banana malt cupcake

Summery and refreshing is exactly what these pink lemonade cupcakes sound like.

Personalized cupcake cards from Celebrate the Little Things Etsy store 8 cards for $12

I am still trying to learn how to frost my cupcakes. It isn’t as easy as it looks. Seems similar to learning how to write. I am going to need a lot of sloppy cupcakes before I get it down. On the plus side they still taste good even if they don’t look professional.

The term ice cream technique perfectly describes the finished look of these cupcakes

While this post isn’t in english the visuals of frosting tips for different tips can be understood by anybody.

As always welcome to the infographic portion of you wednesday

Anatomy of a cupcake
history of cupcakes
disney cupcakes
cupcake mania

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homemade cake vs box cake showdown

June 9, 2014 by anne fassnacht 5 Comments

Do you use box cake mixes instead of making cakes from scratch? Have you tried one of the many pinterest hacks to make a box cake mix taste more like homemade? I was surprised to see that someone took the time to figure out how to make a box cake taste more like scratch. Why wouldn’t you just make the cake from scratch and skip the box all together?

It got me to thinking what the benefit would be to making a box mix over a scratch cake. It certainly could be that a box cake is faster. Is the time you save worth the quality of cake you get though? It must not be if someone went through the time of figuring out how to make their box cake taste more like scratch. So what is the difference in time? How do the taste of the two cakes differ and would anyone notice?

Here is what I found out from making my own basic yellow cake and a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix and why I think you should just bake your cake from scratch. Just like in the above photo homemade cupcake is on the left and box cake is on the right.

Homemade vs Box ingredients

The box has many ingredients you wouldn’t want in your cake including some I can’t pronounce. The cake from scratch has only the ingredients pictured above. Just what you would want in it and I can, not only pronounce them I can tell you where they came from. Don’t even get me started on the icing ingredients!

Homemade vs Box time

The start time was opening the box and the first ingredient measured on the scratch cake. The end time was after I filled both cupcake trays. No surprise the box cake took less time. I did go the extra step and sifted my flour when I made the scratch cake.

Homemade vs Box rise

In an effort to get accurate results, I used an ice cream scoop to make sure they had the same amount of batter.The had about the similar height above the cupcake liner. The homemade cupcake seemed to fill out the entire liner better than the box cake.

Homemade vs Box color/texture

The homemade cake has a light color that is consistent over every cupcake. It is soft and smooth to the touch. The box cake has some spots that browned more than others. The box cake texture was one of the things I like the least about the box cake. It was sticky. It had a tacky feel like paint that isn’t quite dry yet.

Homemade vs Box crumb

Even with my macro lens it is hard to show the difference in the photo. The biggest difference was the homemade cupcake was fluffier and lighter.

Homemade vs box taste

It is a shame you couldn’t have stopped by and tasted them both. Take my word for it the scratch cake was much better. It just melted in your mouth. The box cake was good but left and odd coating in my mouth.

All the cupcakes went to work. The homemade was the bigger winner. The icing on the homemade version was a seafoam icing. It is a boiled icing made with only 6 ingredients; egg whites, sugar, water, light corn syrup, cream of tartar and vanilla. Using brown sugar instead of white is what makes it a seafoam icing and gives it a caramel flavoring. Boiled icing has a sort of marshmallow consistency that makes it one of my favorites.

The differences weren’t drastic in the finished products but for me and mine the extra minutes are worth it. I think the homemade cake tasted so much lighter and delicious compared to the box cake. Plus I like knowing exactly what is going into my cake. and it feels like more of a labor of love to make it from scratch. Bonus is that when you tell someone you made it from scratch they will inexplicably be awed.

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16 cookie recipes perfect for gift giving

November 25, 2013 by anne fassnacht 4 Comments

Last year at this time I was making preparations for my marathon of baking that would ultimately become tasty packages sent across the country. I had hoped to get 85 dozen cookies baked and fell a little shy. I still managed to beat the previous years record by 500 cookies. I tripled the output from the previous year. I started preparing refrigerator dough on Thanksgiving. Since Tom will be working on Thursday night it seems that Thanksgiving baking is becoming a habit. The majority of my baking will happen on two days. I will start on December 13th and everything will be ready for the post office on the 16th.

I am excited to see if I can break the 1,000 cookie mark this year. I have been on the lookout for some great additions to the cookies I made last year. My favorite from the last two years are Martha Stewart’s Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread cookies they are time consuming though so I have to round it out with some quick and tasty options. Including a couple hundred spritz cookies for fillers. Below are 16 new cookies I wouldn’t mind taste testing while I bake.

You can never go wrong with a peanut butter blossom cookie. The traditional recipe you can find on a bag of hersey kisses. With all the kiss options now you can expand on a timeless favorite. I would really like to try one with the carmel filled kisses! What follows are four that caught my eye

clockwise

nutella banana blossoms from a dash of cinnamon

candy cane blossoms from baked perfection

mint chocolate crinkle cookie from knead to cook

chocolate peppermint blossom from my kitchen addiction

I love oatmeal cookies. I make chocolate chip more often but I could eat more oatmeal cookies in one sitting than any other cookie. These are few of the oatmeal variations that caught my eye. The carrot cake oatmeal cookies might be a fun option for crew members at work. What would make them even better would be this paper sleeve packaging idea.

clockwise

peanut butter oatmeal from mandy’s recipe box

iced oatmeal from mother thyme

monkey cookies from domestic adventure

carrot cake oatmeal from tammilee tips

Winter and the holidays welcome the addition of some cookies with spice. These four all sound like they would be good with a hot beverage on a chilly day.

clockwise

mexican mocha from a spicy perspective

chai tea sugar cookie from sweet lavendar bake shoppe

carmel stuffed apple from inspired by charm

gingerdoodles from budding baketress

Similar to the blossom cookies are the thumbprint cookies. The traditional jam filled version is an all year round favorite. I have some leftover jam from my canning this summer that would be especially tasty in these little cookies. The peanut butter and jelly thumbprints make me want to start singing….It’s peanut butter jelly time!

clockwise

chocolate almond thumbprints from running to the kitchen

jam filled thumbprints from love and olive oil

strawberry nutella thumbprints from desi fiesta

peanut butter and jelly thumbprints from thrifty jinxy

I will keep you posted on my progress to break the 1,000 cookie mark this year. Do you give homemade? What is your favorite cookie? Which recipe will you try?

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