Craving Review - Mr. Cupcake

I've been dying to try Mr. Cupcake in Clifton, NJ for a while and this past weekend, a cupcake craving hit hard. You can see my full review at Yelp.com

I think Mr. Cupcake does smart advertising. I got a coupon in the mail for two free cupcakes, no strings attached. It was enough to push my craving over the edge, and just so I didn't look cheap -I paid for two additional.

Overall I gave them four stars. I found their cupcakes to be slightly undercooked - but not necessarily in a bad way. Some people make them dense, others make them fluffy. I would say these definitely lean towards dense. I missed the cupcake wars show on 6/27 but plan to try and catch the re-run on DVR.

From Top Left - PB&J, Carrot Cake, Oreo Cheesecake, French Toast.

An excuse to celebrate...

A dear friend switched apartments in NYC and had us all over for a housewarming. The evite said there would be cake, to which I interpretted that I should bake her a cake.

I used graham crackers and royal icing to make the house perched on top of the cake. Surprisingly easier than expected. The cake consisted of yellow cake with Martha Stewart's chocolate icing. This IS my new favorite icing recipe (see below). It was a Dark Chocolate frosting, and tasted like a chocolate candy bar on cake. Thanks Martha. Delish!

I then garnished with a white chocolate fence (which could have been easier if i'd just piped on the fence, but my initial idea was to have it stand out from the bottom of the cake, but it didn't materialize), a chocolate chip driveway and some green icing shrubs. To make the fence I outlined it in pencil on wax paper, flipped it over and used a new kids paintbrush dipped in melted white chocolate to paint within my outlines. I rested it on the cake mold (to get the right bend of the cake) in the fridge for a couple of hours.

My friend was thrilled and it tasted great - and well - thats all that counts.

Martha Stewart's Dark Chocolate Frosting
1 pound semi sweet chocolate (I used to chips so I didn't have to chop)
6 tbsp Cocoa Powder
6 tbsp Boiling Water
3 sticks butter
1/2 conf sugar
Pinch of Salt (I used salted butter so I skipped this)

Use a double boiler to melt the chocolate, stir until chocolate is completely melted (about 15 mins). Let chocolate cool to room temperature (take off the stove). Combine Cocoa powder and boiling water.

In electric mixer beat butter, conf sugar, and salt until light and fluffy (3-4 mins). Add melted chocolate, beat on low (1-2 mins). Beat in cocoa mixture. Serve!

Happy Healthy 30th!

This has to be one of my most ambitous cakes. My friend in Boise turned 30 last Thursday. All she asked for was to be rich and skinny. I wanted to make her a cake for her surprise party but needed to keep it healthy and had to get it from NJ to Boise. I found this cake as an inspiration online:

I'm pretty sure the baker in this photo used white chocolate around the edges. I used a similar technique with one and 1/2 cans of Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies cut in various lengths. I baked up some angel food cakes (4 in total), wrapped them in a ton of saran wrap, and packed them in my carry on. I had my friends boyfriend pick up 2 cans of Pirouette's, lots of fresh berries and cool whip. My grand idea was to icing the cake with cool whip and have it all stick together perfectly. Luckily I also had the foresight to pick up some whipped icing in case my grand plan went hay wire. Normally I would make my own icing - but I was getting off a 9 hour flight and had only a couple of hours until the big party and a million things to do.

I can tell you that cool whip does not work well on a defined cake, especially when your friends freezer is completely full of lean cusines. It starts slipping everywhere and needs to be in the freezer ASAP. I ended up using it on the bottom to ensure healthyness, but quickly threw the regular icing on the top half, hence why it looks sooo much better.

Either way my friend loved her cake, the whole thing was devoured and that makes me happy too! Here's my throw together traveling 30th birthday double decker recipe:

2 boxes Angel Food cake prepared in 4 cake pans (2 larger, 2 smaller)
2 cans of Pirouette cookies
Various fresh berries
4 containers of whipped vanilla icing or coolwhip (if you dare) - (I will find a homemade healthy whipped icing, but i'm going to need to experiment and update)
Fun Candles and ribbon for the finishing touch

Icing cakes and place cookies around the outside. Top with berries and candles and then tie the ribbon around the outside of the cake, if using cool whip stick cake in the freezer - perfectly level immeadiately to stabilize the cake and cookies. Otherwise the cookies will slide all over and you'll be playing Mr. Fix it with frozen icing. Keep cool whipped cake in the freezer for at least two hours.

Place the smaller cake on the larger cake and serve! Watch your guest smile.

Kraft Food & Family

Does anyone else get this magazine? It used to be free and now its something like $7 a year. Its a magazine that Kraft publishes with quick and easy recipes all filled with Kraft products. Some recipes are pretty darn good, other times this magazine makes me laugh. They actually had the Kraft Mac & Cheese directions as a recipe one month, nothing added, just literally straight from the box. They also recycle the recipes way to often. For instance the Angel Lush cake (see my pic of this recipe baked for a friend's birthday below) was now Angel Lush cupcakes in the most recent issue.

Maybe this post is confusing. Yes, I'm knocking it, but giving it praise at the same time. There are simple recipes with easy to find ingredients and they even specify which one's are healthy with a small shining sun over the recipe. However, sometimes I think they take their readers for granted, if they don't think I've noticed the same cake at least once a quarter published. My mom buys me the subscription and its nice to glance through - worth the $7 for one year. Then just save your copies and you've probably collected the entire population of recipes. But thats just my advice.