Red Velvet Cupcakes

My best friend's birthday is tomorrow. She's taken an obsession to red velvet cupcakes ever since she saw a picture of one topped with a strawberry. She immediately posted the picture on her LJ and said "Someone has to make me this."

She's never had a red velvet cupcake. I've never had a red velvet cupcake. We've both always wanted to try one. So I figured, why not?

So after weeks of dreaming about them and how I would decorate them, her birthday has finally arrived! I made them and I'm proud of them :)



They taste great too, though the chocolate taste is minimal. My sister grabbed one that hadn't been iced yet as she ran out the door to work. She loved the taste, but mentioned that they were a little dry. The cream cheese icing fixed that. They're delicious. And they're ever so pretty :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes (yields 12)

via the Kitchen Sink Recipes

1-1/4 cups cake flour
1/4 cups cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder or 1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 ounce red food coloring
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 350°F

2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder (or cream of tarter), and salt into medium bowl

3. Whisk buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring in small bowl to blend

4. Beat sugar and butter in large bowl until well fluffy, 3 minutes

5. Add eggs, beating until well blended, about 30 seconds

6. Beat in dry ingredients in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk mixture in 3 additions

7. Scoop into cupcake tins

8. Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes

9. Cool in pans 10 minutes

10. Cool completely on racks and frost with cream cheese icing

Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting (frosts 24 cupcakes)
via Milk + Honey Café

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp
5 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
8 oz Philly's Cream Cheese, cold

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter, confectioner's sugar, salt and vanilla until combined. At this point, the mix is going to look really dry and crumbly, but be patient and it will come together, about 4 minutes.
2. Add cream cheese and mix until well incorporated, about 2 minutes. DON'T OVERBEAT. Frost as desired!

Old-Fashion Pumpkin Pie

My mum owns a few cook books from the sixties, chock full of good old-fashioned recipes and complete with cute little illustrations of girls on swings, parties playing croquet, and grandmotherly women baking pies. Just like these:



Now, my pumpkin themed month wouldn't be complete without a good old-fashioned pumpkin pie, non? So for this I turned to those old cookbooks. The recipes in them are wonderful. So much more simple than most modern recipes and such simple, easy to find ingredients.

Thanks to the golden recipe from McCall's Cook Book the pie turned out a kajillion times better than any store bought one I've ever had. Which is a good thing too, since we're bringing it to my cousins for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow (with a can whipped cream of course!).

That's my mum's pretty little McCall's Cook Book right under my pretty little pie. Actually, the book's giant.



I had enough left over crust and pumpkin filling to make a little tart-type thing. With a lack of mini-pie plates I just used my tiniest springform pan. My sister and I split it and she, a person who generally likes the whipped cream more than the pie, loved it. She also noted that it looked a little like Ms Lovitt's meat pies.



The last time I made a pie I used shortening instead of lard, because the apple-pear pie was for a friend's birthday, and she's Muslim, and so couldn't eat lard. I've never noticed until I used lard again, but it's SO much easier to work with! I got my wonderfully flaky crust thanks to the recipe on the Tenderflake box :)

Pumpkin Pie
via McCall's Cook Book, 1963

Filling:
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 can (1lb) pumpkin
3 tbsp molasses
2 cans (6-oz size) evaporated milk, undiluted

9-inch unbaked pie shell
1 egg white, unbeaten

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Make filling: In large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, spices, salt, pumpkin, molasses, and evaporated milk. Stir, with wooden spoon, until mixture is smooth.
3. Lightly brush pie shell with egg white. Fill with pumpkin mixture.
4. Bake 55-60 minutes, or until tip of sharp knife inserted in centre comes out clean.
5. Let cool on wire rack. Serve garnished with whipped cream, if desired.

Pumpkin Loaf

I love October. Fall and pumpkins and Halloween. How great are those three things? Plus, by best friend's birthday is at the end of it, giving me an excuse to make the red velvet cupcakes she's been dying to try and I've been dying to make. :)

One of my friends suggested I go pumpkin crazy for October and told me I should start with a pumpkin loaf. So I checked it out, found a recipe I really liked, and made an amazing dense, moist loaf packed with pumpkin flavour.

The recipe makes two loaves, but our second loaf pan mysteriously went missing, so I made the rest into muffins. Like the snickerdoodle cupcakes, my friends at school loved them. One friend who had bought a book for me said instead of money for it, she wanted two more muffins.

Pumpkin Loaf
via. Recipezaar

2 cups pumpkin puree
2 cups white sugar
1 cup oil
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
2 cups raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 loaf pans.

Mix together well the pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and raisins, and mix well.

Pour into loaf pans and bake for 60-65 minutes or until inserted knife comes out clean.

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

I've never had actual snickerdoodles, so I wasn't too sure about making these cupcakes at first. But they sounded interesting, so I threw my doubts out the window and produced these amazing little cinnamon cupcakes. And aren't they adorable?



I actually made these a few weeks ago, but I've been too busy to post about it. I brought them to school the next day and gave them out to every friend I ran into. And they were a huge hit. Light and sweet and topped with a fluffy vanilla buttercream icing. Mmm.

The following week I had a ton of requests to make them again. Last time I hung out with my bestie she brought them up. "When are you going to make those amazing cupcakes again?!"

They're the perfect girlie cupcakes too, full of sugar, spice, and everything nice. Plus, they're pink. What more do you need?

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes
via Karen's Cookies, Cakes, and More

1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temp.
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 almond extract
3/4 c. whole milk

Preheat oven at 350. Whisk first four dry ingredients, make sure there are no clumps. Combine remaining wet ingredients in a separate bowl before mixing in with dry ingredients. Pour batter into liners and bake for 20-25 min.

Cinnamon Vanilla Buttercream frosting
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
4 cups powdered sugar
2-3 tbs. milk

With an electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat, on low speed to combine.