Psych Pineapple Cupcakes!

My favorite TV show, Psych, had its series finale last night on USA.  Jim & I watched (well, I re-watched) the entire series in the last 3-4 months and happened to catch the last episode we needed to be caught up literally JUST IN TIME for the finale.  In fact, I think we missed a couple seconds of the beginning of the finale!!  It was that close.

As any true Psych-o would be, I was super into celebrating the last episode.  I painted my nails like pineapples (the show's running gag for those of you who aren't "psych-o"), made pineapple earrings (available in my etsy shop, Have A Nice Clay and pictured below), wore my lime-green sweater (the "Psych" logo color),  taught myself Gus's "Jamaican Inspector-Man" song on ukulele (from Psych: The Musical), and made pineapple (hummingbird) cupcakes.

Now let's get down to cupcake business!

The first part of the batter made a pretty pattern as I spatula'd it down.  This is just the basic flour, sugar, baking soda mix.  At some point there was also cinnamon, eggs, vanilla… But let's not get particular.

Hummingbird cupcake batter (at least in the Martha Stewart recipe) calls for crushed pineapple (the reason I chose it for Psych), shredded coconut, chopped walnuts and mashed banana (check out all those fun adjectives!  crushed, shredded, chopped and mashed! watch out, onlookers!).  Now, I have a few loved ones who do not like coconut (but I love them anyway)--my boyfriend Jim, and my dad.  Since I was making these as a surprise for Jim (and a treat for me), I realized maybe he wouldn't love a surprise involving coconut.  So as you can see in the above photo, I split the base batter in 2.  In one half I mixed all the fruity nut things, and in the other I left out the coconut. 

Crushed pineapple: 79 cents at Stop & Shop!

Coconut, pineapple, walnut, banana goodness.  Now, I'd made cupcakes for my friend Kelly's baby shower years ago, and I still had these cupcake liners left over:

They are very specific, so I can't use them for work functions or parties unless I want people to think I'm stealthily notifying them of a personal situation.  I used them for these cupcakes mostly because they are the only liners I have that have any green to them (the side, which I realize I didn't get a photo of, has a green stripe in the middle, along with white and pink).  Then I realized they DO have something to do with Psych--a couple episodes before the finale, Lassiter has a baby girl!  Hooray!  Here they are, ready to go!

If you're making hummingbird cupcakes, watch out--the batter is really tasty!  

As an aside right here, I just wanted to show off my footwear for baking.  I sprained my ankle last week & have to wear this "boot" for 2 weeks.  Wearing a heel on my other foot made it much easier to get around.  And here is my adorable apron that Jim got me :)

Anyway the kitchen smelled amazing.  I labeled which plate had coconut cupcakes on it and which had no coconut.  Then I went to bed.  The next day I put cream cheese frosting on all of them:

Then I broke out the icing gun Jim got me for my birthday!

Or should I call it a "decorating tool?"  Anyway the box is super colorful and has examples of all the kinds of decorations you can do with the assorted tips it comes with (there's even one for FILLING a cupcake with icing! Mmmm):

It was wonderful to use!  Simple to fill (I just spatula'd in all the icing and screwed the tip back on), precise handling, you control the speed, and it's easy to clean for a quick color-change too!  I used green to make the pineapple stems first, with the thinnest tip so it came out in thin lines.

Then I made dots of yellow with a thicker star tip for the spiky exterior of our friend the pineapple.

I'm super happy with how they came out!!  This icing tool is awesome!!  And my design actually looks like a pineapple!  :)

I experimented with different stems:

I only really needed a couple cupcakes.  The recipe called for 40.  FORTY!  I halved the ingredients to make 20 (it actually yielded 18) and then packed 4 in one of these adorable cupcake boxes I got from AC Moore:

Perfect for our Psych viewing party for 2!  Coconut on the left, no coconut on the right, and pineapple in ALL!  I thought the finale was PERFECT.  Plus, during the after party show, they featured a clip of ME playing ukulele to their theme song (it was a collection of clips of fans singing the theme song, and they used mine for the end of the song)!  It was an exhilarating moment!!  You can see my rendition here!  

Maple-Bacon Cupcakes

Ohhhh!  Hi!  I haven't seen you in quite some time!  I've been.. not making cupcakes.  I'm not exactly sure why the hiatus happened, but I know this summer has been very busy, leaving me with no cupcake time at all.  I was working as the music teacher at a wonderful arts camp and I'm very sad that it's over.  However, I have ample time to make cupcakes again!  (Maybe I used the word "ample" because I have "maple" on my mind.)  So last night I perused my Martha Stewart cupcake book and thought these would be perfect, since I'm planning a trip to Canada in the next few weeks!

Ah.  Maple syrup.  (Not "pancake syrup," mind you.  Martha was very specific!!)  For Maple Cupcakes.  The cake is maple, the frosting is maple.. the marzipan leaves are maybe supposed to have maple in them (I didn't do that part.  Let's not go overboard!!).  The recipe asked if I wouldn't mind bringing home some "grade B" syrup, but I couldn't find any besides "grade A."  You can't stop well-educated maple from going to the top of its class.

Martha called for a standing mixer.  I usually use a hand-held one but the frosting required a whisk attachment.  From the description, it seemed that I'd end up with lopsided muscley arms (right arm muscley, left arm not) after trying to use a plain hand-held whisk on the eggs.  So welcome back, Kitchenaid!  

It always reminds me of the alien from Alien.  That oblong head.  Anyway, I mixed 2 sticks of butter with 2 cups of maple syrup and this is what it looked like.  

Nope, those are not almonds.  It's butter.  And I got worried.  

But all for naught!  Once I added the flour (and be sure to really read the directions because when it says "flour mixture," it means flour, baking soda and salt, which I almost didn't catch), it mixed perfectly and became a real cupcake-mix-looking batch.  

I put this into my Hello Kitty cupcake molds (and some square silicone ones my friend Jeff got me) and stuck them in the oven.

Then I brought the maple syrup to a boil for the frosting.  It looks purple!

While waiting for that, I separated 6 yolks from 6 eggs and began to whisk them with the power arm.

I don't have much experience whipping eggs.  I was worried that it might never become thick and light-colored.  But again, all for naught!  This robot arm works perfectly.  Meanwhile, I thought the syrup looked pretty cool.  "What are you doing, boiling pot of maple syrup?" I decided to take a picture.  It looked cooler and cooler.  As soon as I took this picture, that imploding center of foam quickly burst forth and spilled over in every direction and onto the fire below.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" I cried.  (Seriously.  Like I said to Jim, at least I know I don't swear when under pressure.)  Eventually I figured out which direction to turn the knob so the fire would go out.  I lost a good amount of syrup.

Oh, I'd emptied what was left into the egg mixture before I took this picture.  It wasn't all lost!  But you can see the giant puddle.

No matter!!  The 4 sticks of butter had to be cut up and emptied slowly into the mixture.  (I will tell you, I could have done it much slower.)  Again, I worried that it would never congeal.  It was an egg-and-syrup mixture that should NOT go near a cupcake.  I put the mixer on a higher setting and went about my other business.

When I checked on it again, I saw this beautiful frosting in place of what I had.  What magic is this?  Oh, it's science.

I was done with Martha's instructions.  Everything was complete.  Except I took it further.  There is a wonderful bacon-on-baked-goods trend going on (it has been for a while, I know).  Maple-bacon donuts, bacon in candy bars, etc.  I don't eat bacon (it's a pig-loving thing) so I've missed out on it so far.  Until today!!  I bought turkey bacon (thin and crispy--the best) and cooked it up!

Oh man.  Bacon.

Nice 'n crispy.  I split it up into little bits and decorated the tops of half of the cupcakes (not everyone wants meat on their cupcakes).

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!  You are correct.  They do taste delicious.  Which would you rather?

I'm not sure what's next, but I've been eyeing a banana recipe, and a gingerbread one.  Stay tuned!

I'm Gonna Wreck It!!

I loved Wreck It Ralph!  It made me want to spend some time in the lovely land of Sugar Rush.  It also inspired me to make some candy-concocted cupcakes!   

First I mixed 2 cans of frosting into pastel colors!  I made mint green from fluffy white, and pink from cream cheese.  Yum!

  

 

I'd gone to Fuzziwigs and picked out some candy that reminded me of Ralph.  I got some bricks (!! What! candy bricks exist? Could anything be more perfect for Wreck it Ralph?), gummy cherries (for the Pacman cherries), chocolate nonpareils, sugar-coated gummy fruit slices, tangy bananas, and some gummy circles (not quite Dots, but smaller, gummier versions).  I just wanted them to look very colorful, bright and fun!

This one has a heart, inspired by the medal Vanellope gives Ralph, with his bricks around it:

This one just makes me smile because it's so sugary and swirly:

This one has cherries like the ones Ralph takes from PacMan:

It goes on and on like this... Here I am with a very colorful one covered in "tangy bananas." 

Hopefully I've inspired you to make some of your own (or at least to eat some candy ;))!  If you love Disney, please stop by my Disney blog, Oh Boy, Mickey!  Go and see Wreck-it-Ralph, you're gonna love it!

Halloween (and Disney) Cupcakes!!

I'm never sure what kind of cupcakes to make for Halloween, but this year I ended up with spoooky red velvet :)  I was about to buy some red velvet cake mix (because when I decorate, I usually don't do the cake from scratch) but my dad pointed out this red velvet cupcake mix!  It also came with cream cheese frosting mix AND a pastry bag.  Fortunately, I'd just bought a coupler for my #6 star tip.  I'd used the tip for my rainbow cupcakes without the coupler, and this time it was much easier!

Well, I made the cupcakes with no problem:

Then I made the frosting.  It was enough for about 8 cupcakes of the 12, and that's without filling the center like the directions say.  I had to make my own and I couldn't find my Martha Stewart cupcake book!  I used some powdered sugar, butter and vanilla.  I dyed it the same orange shade as I'd dyed the first batch of frosting.  I was pretty pleased with myself! 

I had these adorable sugar ghosts holding candy corn from Party City:

 Here they are sitting pretty:

Here they are on the haunted house cupcake tower I bought last year, with some witch-finger pretzels:

Here's some favors I made after seeing them in last year's Taste of Home Halloween special:

Little cauldrons with bows and candy :)  I picked out the candy from Fuzziwigs at the mall.  Candy corn, pumpkins, and bones!  WoooOoOo!  Oh, and orange Kit Kats!

I also had these individually wrapped eyeball candy stirrers, and I bought some orange sanding sugar at AC Moore to rim the cups (just put some lime or lemon juice around the edge of the cup and dip it in a bowl of the sugar).  This drink is a Pumpkin Cream (2 parts cream, 1 part pumpkin spice liqueur), yum!

This was my costume, the Little Mermaid :) I made the costume, and I will have a separate post in my Disney blog all about it!!  I had a lot of help on the skirt from my brother-in-law, Hiro :)

And speaking of Disney, I took some pics of great Disney Halloween cupcakes when I was there last week!  I only bought one:

Mmm a chocolate and buttercream cupcake with a mouse-ears chocolate pumpkin on top!  They also had ghosts with chocolate mouse ears:

I found a video on how the pastry chef at the Contemporary (Disney hotel) makes cupcakes with a cone tip like that, which I'm excited to try.  

There were Minnie cupcakes at most fast-food stops:

Looks delicious!  And the first open spot of New Fantasyland, Storybook Circus, has some circus-themed cupcakes:

And as one would expect at Disney World, everything is...

...made fresh with magic!!  Hope you have a magical Halloween!!