When Gesine Bullock says that your friends & family will “Go Crazy” for these, she’s not lying. These were SO good and SO easy! We thought we had our favorite yellow cake recipe, but not anymore! This cake is so delicious. It’s even more delicious when dipped in butter and then cinnamon sugar.

Yes, we did say dipped in butter! Don’t let that scare you. Just make these so you can try one and give the rest to your family like how we did!

Please don’t get scared with what we will tell you next…….We want to let you know that majority of what we post from now on will be healthy recipes! The way we see it is, if you eat really healthy most of the time, and occasional treat won’t hurt! We’re training for a few months so we have to eat extra healthy to see maxium results! 

Stay tuned for next week!

This little cupcakes are moist, full of flavor and will not disappoint. Make these ASAP!

For the Cake:

• nonstick baking spray
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ¼ cups nonfat buttermilk

For dipping the eggs:

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsaltedbutter, melted
1 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon mixed together in a small shallow bowl

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray your cupcake tins with nonstick spray.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.
In an electric mixer fitted with either the paddle or the whisk attachment, whip the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
This can take up to 10 minutes, depending on the temperature of your butter.

As you’re whipping away, stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the butter is incorporated into the sugar.
You can’t make magic without a lot of patience. So keep whipping and keep scraping.
Add the eggs one at a time, whipping after each one until the egg is fully incorporated into the batter.
Scrape down the bowl every now and again as well.
Add the vanilla.

Once all the eggs are incorporated, alternate adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk, mixing slowly.
After they are well incorporated but not overbeaten, take a rubber spatula and fold the batter a few times to make sure everything is evenly distributed and the batter is smooth.

Distribute the batter into your tins,  filling each cavity halfway.
Bake for about 15 minutes. Baking time varies depending on the size of your mold, so check for a very light golden brown color and make sure the cake springs back when you touch it.
Unmold your little cakes and while they are still warm, dunk them quickly in the melted butter, then dredge them in the cinnamon and sugar.

Yesterday was our nephew Nico’s 7th birthday. Nico is such a great little nephew. We don’t know another little boy that smiles as much as he does. Since the day he was born, Nico would smile non stop. Not only does he love to smile, but he has a great little laugh too. If there’s one thing to know about Nico, it’s that once you get him to laugh, he won’t be stopping anytime soon! We remember when he was a baby, he’d laugh so much that we’d have to make him stop because he couldn’t catch his breathe!

Nico is such a happy kid and we love being around him. Since he was a baby he’s been super affectionate and loves to give you hugs and kisses. We all know that at a certain age boys stop kissing and hugging you, but never with Nico. You’ll always get a hug and kiss from him. He has such a big heart and we couldn’t imagine our lives without Nico.

Here’s a picture of Nico with Maria on her wedding day. This was one of her most favorite pictures. You can just tell what a loving kid Nico is!

Recently Nico has really been into soccer. He joined a team this year and did great. In fact, he did so well that his coach would have to take him out of the game, because he was scoring all of the goals! We can just imagine what a great soccer player he is going to be when he grows up! We love you Nico!!

Since we’ve been making so many cupcakes lately, we thought it’d be fun to change things up a bit. We were getting tired of the the same old cake cupcakes with buttercream frosting. We came across this recipe on Joy the Baker’s blog and knew that we had to make them. What kid doesn’t like ice cream? We knew Nico loved it for sure.

Here’s the Step by Step Situation:

Adapted from Joy the Baker

First make any brownie box mix.  Line two cupcake pans with the foil cupcake liners.  Into each cupcake liner, scoop 1 heaping Tablespoon of brownie batter.  Bake at 350 degrees F for about about 10 minutes or until the brownie is cooked through.

Let the brownies cool in the cupcake pans to room temperature.  Once cool, place in the freezer (still in the cupcake pans) for 30 minutes.  When you place the cupcake pans in the freezer, remove the ice  cream you’re using and place in the refrigerator to soften.

When ready to assemble the cupcakes, remove the cupcake pans with foil lined brownie cups from the freezer.  Remove the ice cream (we did half cookies and cream and half jamoca almond fudge) from the fridge.  Run the ice cream scooper under hot water and working quickly, portion a small scoop of ice cream into each foil lined cup, while still in the cupcake pan.  The cupcake pan will help the Ice Cream Cupcake hold its shape.  You may need to rinse the scooper under hot water in between scoops for easy portioning.  Quickly smooth the scoops of ice cream with the back of a small spoon also rinsed in warm water and return the ice cream cupcakes quickly to the freezer.

Let the newly formed Ice Cream Cupcakes refreeze for 45 minutes to an hour.  In this time you can make the chocolate ganache (recipe below).  Let the ganache come to just around room temperature.

Once the cupcakes are refrozen and nice and firm, remove from the freezer and top with a teaspoon of chocolate ganache.  Smooth over the cupcake.  Return once again to the freezer.

Before serving, remove the foil liners and serve on a platter!

Chocolate Ganache

3/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips (I used chocolate chunks)

1/4 cup heavy cream

Put chocolate chips in a small bowl.  Bring cream to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan.  Pour cream evenly over chocolate.  Let stand for one minute to soften, then stir until smooth.  If frosting is too loose to spread, let it sit at room temperature for 10 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, frosting will continue to thicken as it stands.

These cupcakes are from this past Sunday. Our best friend’s brother was graduating from High School and we offered to make him cupcakes for his party! He graduated from the same high school we did, so it was fun to make these cupcakes special!

GO TITANS!!

We’ve known this family since the second grade and they are the closet family we know outside relatives. We’ve had such great times with them and they are truly great people. FUN too!

As for the cupcakes, we decided on vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and chocolate cupcakes with an Oreo frosting.

This oreo frosting is new to our menu and it’s seriously TO DIE FOR!

We had fun making these cupcakes and got great reviews from Farah!

Good luck with everything Farah! We can’t believe you’re off to college!

]]> http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/2010/06/15/congrats-farah/feed/ 0 http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/2010/06/01/butterfly-1st-birthday-cupcakes/ http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/2010/06/01/butterfly-1st-birthday-cupcakes/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:22:54 +0000 admin http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/?p=614

We had another cupcake order this weekend. It was for a baby girl’s 1st birthday party! The theme was spring and butterflies so we did our best to incorporate the two!

The cupcakes were half chocolate and half vanilla and they all were topped with colored vanilla frosting.

We made the chocolate butterflies by hand. Yes, all 72 by hand!

Annie’s Eats has a tutorial here that can show you how to make them! Click here!

Piping flower petals on cupcakes does take time, but the better you become at it the faster you will get!

We won’t be having anymore orders soon since we are super busy getting Lisa ready for her wedding! We hope to continue after the summer!

Stay tuned for our everyday recipes tho!

This weekend we had our second order for cupcakes. The orders just keep getting larger and larger. A good friend of our sister Phyllis was throwing her sister a baby shower. She asked us to make cupcakes and we said OK right away!

We decided on chocolate cupcakes with two different shades of pink frosting.

Half were a bright pink that were piped to look like flowers.

The other half were pale pink in color and piped into simple but elegant swirls.

We had a lot of fun making these cupcakes!

We made a total of 60 cupcakes! Here they were all ready to go!

We have an even larger order for next weekend and we’re so excited! Just wait till you see how cute they’re going to be!

If you haven’t already heard, we’ve started to make cupcakes for sale upon request! This was our first event and it was for a baby boy shower. Overall, we were very happy how everything turned out. We tried countless recipes so find our go-to recipes. We’re glad to say we found most of them!

Our client wanted all chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and half of them tinted blue. We’ve had our go-to chocolate cake recipe for a while but it did take some time to find the perfect buttercream. Traditional American buttercreams and very sweet and we didn’t like the fact that they “crusted.” The buttercream we use is very creamy and fluffy and has the perfect amount of sweetness to it!

Those cute toppers are from Sweet Hailey Grace. This is the second time we’ve used her. Her toppers are always so cute!

Here are the cupcakes all ready to go!

They won’t move an inch in these boxes!

We have 2 large orders for May so stay tuned!

If you’d like to order from us email us at

info@theartoftwotarts.com

 Our youngest niece, Priscilla turns 4 years old today!  Shes the cutest little girl ever, and not just because she’s our niece!  Remember Marilena and Izabela? Well, this is their youngest sister. If we had to describe Priscilla in one word it would be “Daddy’s girl.” (Okay so that was two words). It’s so cute to see her following our brother around. She wants to go everywhere with him and always craves his attention. On Easter, we had the chance to ask Priscilla what flavor cupcakes she would like. She requested strawberry or chocolate. As you all know, we are trying to eat food that is light and healthy to get in shape for bikini season. We figured it would be easier to make  light strawberry cupcakes versus chocolate. We decided to make a light angel cake cupcake and top them with a strawberry flavored whipped cream.

Here’s a picture of Priscilla from Maria’s wedding in September. Isn’t she just a doll? We will be celebrating her birthday tonight and we hope everyone will enjoy these cupcakes!  We can’t believe that our youngest niece is already 4! There are no more babies around!

Happy Birthday Priscilla! We love you!

Angel Food Cupcakes
Adapted from Annie’s Eats

Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
12 large egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

Directions:
Adjust oven racks to the two lowest positions.  Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.   In a small mixing bowl, sift together the flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar and the salt; set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites with the vanilla and cream of tartar on medium-high speed until soft-medium peaks form.  Gradually add the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold in the dry ingredients using a rubber spatula, being careful not to deflate the batter.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners and bake for 12-15 minutes or until light golden.  Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Serve with whipped cream and fresh fruit, if desired. 

Strawberry Whipped Cream

First make the strawberry puree sauce:

1 – 20 ounce bag of frozen unsweetened strawberries or 20 ounces of fresh strawberries

1/3 cup granulated white sugar

Freshly squeezed lemon juice, optional

Place the unsweetened frozen strawberries in a large bowl and thaw. This may take a few hours. Once thawed, put the  strawberries and their juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender and process the berries until they are pureed. Pour the puree into a 2 cup measuring cup. You should have about 1 1/4 cups of puree. Add 1/4 cup of the sugar to start and stir until the sugar dissolves. Taste and add more sugar if needed. Can also add a little lemon juice to taste.

Now go ahead and make the whipped cream:
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

2 cups heavy whipping cream

 In a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, vanilla extract, and sugar and beat with a wire whisk attachment the mixture until soft peaks form. Then add the sweetened strawberry puree a little at a time, and beat just until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Taste and fold in more sugar or puree, if required.

Don’t you guys hate it when you make a recipe one time and it turns out perfect, and then the next time you go and make it, it turns into a disaster??..

Yah, well that’s what happened with these cupcakes. The yellow cupcakes themselves came out great and we really liked them. When it came to the frosting, we planned on making that meringue buttercream that we made here. All we wanted to change was to add some raspberry puree to it.

Well, the puree never got added to it because the buttercream never worked out. We whipped the egg whites until fluffy and when we added the butter the entire thing turned into soup. Yes, BUTTER SOUP! We don’t know what went wrong. We let it beat for an hour trying to get it to thicken up again, and as soon as we thought it was getting thicker, it was back to being soup the next second…

So, we raided the fridge to see what our Plan B would be. Luckily, Maria had some extra whipped cream siting in the fridge. We decided to whip some of that up, sweeten it, and add the raspberry puree to it.

It turned out FANTASTIC! We don’t need any stinken soupy buttercream! Everyone loved these cupcakes! The topping ended up being so light and fruity. We loved giving the guests the option of having a rich chocolate ooey gooey indulgent cupcake or going the lighter fruitier way! Depends what they were in the mood for!

Yellow Cupakes

Makes about 18 cupcakes

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup Crisco shortening (white only)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Set oven to 350 degrees. Line the cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium or large bowl, with an electric mixer, cream the sugar and shortening until no granules remain (about 4 minutes). Add in eggs; beat very well for 5 minutes on high speed.

In a small bowl sift together flour, baking soda and salt.  Add to the creamed mixture along with the buttermilk; mix well until blended (about 2-3 minutes). Transfer to the prepared cupcake pans. Bake on second-lowest oven rack for 20-25 minutes (check for doneness after 15 minutes, these  bake fast!).

Let them cool on a baking rack.

While the cupcakes are baking, go ahead and make the raspberry puree.

Fresh Raspberry Puree

Puree the raspberries along with the water in food processor until puree is smooth. Strain raspberry puree through fine-mesh strainer, pressing on solids to release as much liquid as possible; discard solids in strainer. Stir in sugar and fresh lemon juice until blended.

Fresh raspberry sauce can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.

The last step is to make the whipped cream frosting.

Raspberry Whipped Cream Frosting

• 1-1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
• 5 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
• Raspberry Puree (above)

In a large bowl, beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar and beat until medium peaks form. Incorporate the raspberry puree and gently fold into the mixture.

Once the cupcakes are cool, pipe frosting over the cupcakes and top each with a fresh raspberry!

We hope you enjoyed this recipe! We will definitely be making them again!

Well, our first pick were the S’mores cupcakes. They were a huge hit! It makes us wonder, how have we lived 24 years without having them before?! If you like s’mores then you will LOVE these!

Our second pic was a vanilla cupcake with a raspberry whipped cream frosting. Those were delish as well! Today we will share the S’more cupcake recipe with you.

We came across this recipe on www.MarthaStewart.com. The only thing we altered was the chocolate cupcake recipe. The one we used was none other than our favorite Ina Garten chocolate cake recipe. We’ve used it time and time again, and its never failed on us. It’s seriously the best chocolate cake we’ve ever had!

Since we didn’t have a torch, and have bad luck with browning things under the broiler, we didn’t toast the marshmallows. Besides, we think they look prettier this way!

Stayed tuned for the vanilla\raspberry cupcakes!