Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Oh Martha, where did I go wrong?

As I was making these 'peanut butter cup'-like cupcake, I thought to myself, wow...this is the most intricate cupcake recipe yet! Between the 'bain mari', whisking, stirring and layering of the batters...Well you can image my horror when opened up the oven to the peanut butter filling spilled right out of the tins! Thank goodness this recipe only makes 12 cupcakes! I might try this recipe again but without trying the marble effect

on the top.

SAYKS RATING:

Difficulty: ****

Taste: *** (even if alot of the peanut butter spilled out)

Appearance: *

Occasions: Desert! (these cupcakes are pretty rich)

Who I made them for: To celebrate the end of 'March Madness' at Greg's office.

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

Martha says :"you will likely make these cupcakes again and again" .... and I agree! I decided to make these my next cupcake because I wanted to use up the rest of the LITRE of buttermilk I bought to make the brown sugar pound cake, and I'm so glad I did! PS- the buttermilk people should really consider packaging the buttermilk in 500ml instead of a litre...who's with me?!? LOL

These cupcakes were a breeze to make; I even ran out of unsalted butter so I just used salted instead and omitted the salt, and they turned out just fine (phew!) I topped these cupcakes with Martha's "Fluffy Vanilla Frosting" ...Literally the simplest and easiest frosting EVER!!!! and topped the whole thing off with classic sprinkles!!YUM!

SAYKS RATING:

Difficulty: *

Taste: **** (you can add ANY frosting to these classics)

Appearance: ****

Occasions: these are so versatile..so Anytime!!!!

Who ate them: I made them for my colleagues, but forgot them at home :( But my dad made an impromptu visit, and I was ready!!! ( the cupcakes were 3 days old and STILL delicious!)

St. Patricks Day Cupcakes

What better way to celebrate the Luck of the Irish than with Cupcakes! Martha has themed cupcakes for almost every holiday, which she shares in chronological order in the Chapter called "holidays" (how convenient!)

This cupcake combines the Brown Sugar Pound Cake with a Baileys Irish Cream Frosting. Let me start off by saying that this batter was the best I've ever tasted! brown sugar and butter, mmmm! The batter also calls for buttermilk, which is not something most of us have 'on hand', but all together it was pretty simple. Being a pound cake, it was obviously pretty dense, but the winner in this cupcake was definitely the icing! who new only 3 tablespoons of Bailey would give so much flavour!

Martha suggests decorating these sweet treats with crystallized three leaf clover springs...Since St-Pattys day is in March, and my living in Canada, this was not a possible task, however, I used tinted piping gel to 'draw' a three leaf clover on about 1/3 of the cupcakes.

SAYKS RATING:

Difficulty: *

Taste: *** (I'll definitely use the icing again)

Appearance: ** (probably would have been nicer if I had the crystallized clovers)

Occasions: St-Patrick's day!

Who ate them: I wanted to bring them to work but didn't think it was a good idea to serve booze flavoured icing to pilots and Flight attendants! So Greg brought them to work :)

Jumbo Cream-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

My husband was going through Martha's cupcake book and insisted that I make these! They were very easy to make, and decorate! I just had to go out and buy a jumbo muffin tin ( a good investment, I thought!) and marshmallow fluff (which took me forever to find in the grocery store!) You can't go wrong with these folks! But maybe I'll try making 'regular' sized ones next time, so that there are more to go around....

SAYKS RATING:

Difficulty: *

Taste: *****

Appearance: *****

Occasions: Desert, or any time you want to show off!

Who ate them: My husband's family came to town for a weekend visit...there are only 2 left!

Triple-Citrus Cupcakes

I love everything citrus, so I was really looking forward to making these scurvy fighting cupcakes! The recipe itself is pretty easy, but the one thing that jumped out at me was the 9 , that's right NINE eggs needed to complete the recipe! This made one dense batch of cupcakes!

Martha suggests dividing the glaze in 3 and flavouring them with each citrus used in the cupcake; lime, lemon and orange, so that's what I did. I think it was a good idea because A) it gave a little variety to the cupcakes, and B) it gave everyone an excuse to eat 3 cupcakes instead of just one!

SAYKS RATING:

Difficulty: *

Taste: ** (loved the flavour, but very dense, however the glaze did complement it)

Appearance: * (might have looked better if I had a real zester, but otherwise plain...)

Occasions: Brunch, showers, and afternoon tea

Who ate them: Brought some over as a house warming present to friends, and the rest we had for desert!

Mocha Cupcakes

I'm not going to follow any particular order when choosing which cupcake I want to try...If I'm in the mood to make it, or if I have an occasion to make a certain cupcake, that's what I'll make!

So the first cupcake I tried from "Martha Stewart's Cupcakes" was the Mocha Cupcake. It seemed pretty basic and I already had most of the ingredients. Everything went pretty smoothly until I got to making the icing. I made sure I had all the ingredients before I started, but what I didn't do was read HOW to make it. Martha suggests making a coffee-flavoured seven minute frosting, which she frosts in peaks and tops with a coffee bean. It makes for a really simple yet dramatic effect that I was really looking forward to trying and showing off... The problem was I didn't read the recipe to see what TOOLS I needed...and for seven minute frosting, you need a candy thermometer, which I don't have :(

Luckily, Martha had my back, as she offers alternatives to the icing in this recipe. So my cupcakes were saved by Martha's coffee variation of Swiss meringue buttercream! I didn't have enough unsalted butter, so I substituted for Crisco, and it worked out just fine! I topped it off with a mocha flavoured coffee bean and Voila!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: *** (because you have to make so much espresso)

Taste: ****

Appearance: ****

Occasions: morning office meetings, brunch, coffee-tea parties.

Suggestions: make the icing ahead of time so the coffee flavour has time to develop.

Who ate them: My husband brought them to the office where they were devoured in 30 minutes (at 9 am)!

"Martha Stewart's Cupcakes" Challenge

Hello All, Let me start off my saying that I'm not a Chef...I just LOVE to BAKE. And after seeing the movie 'Julie and Julia', I got inspired. Last year, I received the book "Martha Stewart's Cupcakes" for my birthday. I love everything Martha does ( yes, we're on a first name basis here)... So why don't I bake through the "175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's favorite Treat"! So if anyone wants to follow along, I'm using "Martha Stewart's Cupcakes", from the editors of Martha Stewart Living, Clarkson Potter/Publishers, New York, 2009. Here I Go!!!!