GO HAWKS GO!

The hiatus has been lifted! While the baking has continued, the blogging has been lacking but I'll make it up to you with a few posts of "Here's what you missed."

What better way to start than with the Blackhawks?!

As the Hawks enter the Stanley Cup Finals yet again, I took advantage and created a cupcake to support my team.

I've made these cupcakes before, but the decoration is really what's key here. I'm bringing back the red velvet cupcake with KitKat frosting, which is always a hit.  But this time I jazzed them up with the help of Party City.

That's right, I found Stanley Cup confetti for decoration! The baby Stanley Cups fit perfectly with the red flag toothpicks I found. Write your favorite team's name and boom. Welcome to the Stanley Cup(cake) Finals. 

Pretty in Pink

Last Friday I had the pleasure of babysitting my three-year-old niece for a few hours and I thought, what better way to have fun than teach her my favorite hobby: baking!

This little cutie patootie is kind of partial to the color pink. Kind of as in that's all she talks about so of course we had to translate it into a cupcake. Now I'm new to the whole "pinkalicious" movement but she loves it. So I went with it and we created the Pinkalicious cupcake.

Nothing too fancy, just some food dye, sprinkles and yellow cake. But hey, pink cupcakes are a big deal.

I've decided to always make my own frosting from now on. I never really noticed how much of a difference there is before but it's definitely there. It makes my teeth hurt thinking about the stuff in a tub so I taught Erin how to make it and well, she got a little heavy on the mixer. 

After letting the cupcakes cool we were ready to frost and no pinkalicious cupcake is complete with out some pinkalicious sprinkles. I've never seen someone so excited over pink cupcakes and sprinkles but that made it all worth it. 

And there you have it, super simple cupcakes that taste great and a super fun project for you and your favorite little one. 

Baking into Halloween

I always say holidays are a perfect excuse to bake. Not just to bake but bake with themes and decorations. The pumpkin craze continues and I still wanted to make something with pumpkin but without actual pumpkin in it. Long story short, one of the people I'm baking for cannot have actual pumpkin. To the spice cabinet!

All I needed was cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger to give it that fall/pumpkin flavor. You can even by Pumpkin Pie Spice at the grocery store.

For once, I didn't want to go too crazy with the cupcakes so I made a simple yellow cake and a simple-ish frosting. I used shortening in the frosting to help it hold a little longer too and you can't even tell the difference. There's vegetable shortening but and vegetable shortening with butter flavor. I suggest the butter so it's not too greasy and actually tastes like what it's supposed to.

One reason I didn't want to go too crazy is because I had fun Halloween stuff to add. 

Found these at HomeGoods. Make sure you don't rip the entire seal off, otherwise you may end up with way too many sprinkles on a cupcake. 

Anyway, I added some of the pumpkin spice mixture to the cake batter but mainly saved it for the frosting. A last-minute thought was also adding some brown sugar with did add a lot without overpowering anything. 

The frosting also had a chance to stand out by using a simple yellow cake recipe. All that's left is to frost, decorate and enjoy!

Wait until you see the cookies I made with the leftover frosting. Happy Halloween!

Need something sweet? Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Where the Buffalo Roam

Now, I'm not a fan of buffalo, hot sauce, any of that stuff so I didn't try this recipe but it got some pretty good reviews. My boyfriend loves anything buffalo and I wanted to make a savory "cupcake" that he would like and while it's not really a cupcake, it's close enough and he devoured it. Point, me.

I'm still kind of nervous about making a savory cupcake like this with actual cake batter so I decided to go with biscuit dough. Not really a cupcake but I still made 'em square and easy to eat. It was trickier than I thought.

I didn't make the biscuits from scratch, just bought the dough in a tube and thought if I pulled them apart in a bowl, I could make a big ball of dough to form into squares. Not so easy because at that point the biscuits have already decided they want to be round. Needless to say, I made it work.

I then used my favorite kitchen tool ever next to the Kitchen Aid Mixer; The Ninja. I had some chicken tenders that I wanted to add to the dough but I didn't want just giant chunks so I chopped them up and doused them in buffalo sauce to add to the stubborn biscuit dough.

I highly suggest you invest in the Ninja. It comes with a smaller attachment but mine is still in a box somewhere from when I moved so the pitcher works for now, also great for margaritas. I'll show you later how awesome it was to make zucchini bread with.

Anyway, mixing the chicken and buffalo sauce was kinda difficult with the biscuit dough and it ended up a little crumbly. Surprisingly ended up working out giving a nice crunch to it. At least it was okay according to my boyfriend but he wouldn't say anything bad about my baking anyway :).

I crumbled the pieces and squished them to form to the size of my pan and dabbed a little hot sauce on top of each one before I put the into the oven.

Follow the dough instructions, it's usually 350-375 for 10-15 minutes. You be the judge on how soft or hard you want them.

For a "frosting," not really, I got an idea from my boyfriend's aunt to mix sour cream and ranch dressing. Done! Just whisk it together and spoon it on top or have it on the side for dipping. I had the idea to chop up some celery and fold it in or garnish with it but the audience I was working with isn't a fan of celery. You can always crumble blue cheese on top as well.

While it's not a cupcake, it's still pretty cute and ends up working perfectly for Sunday afternoon or Monday night football.

From this part of town, Go Bears and enjoy!

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Super Cupcakes for a Super Birthday

I was asked a very big favor a month ago and was very excited. I was asked to make cupcakes for a five-year-old's birthday and not just any kind of cupcakes (why be boring?), super hero cupcakes.

I found out he likes chocolate so I obviously had to make a chocolate cake but I didn't stop there. I added cream cheese and Nutella in the center. It definitely broke up the chocolate without losing too much of the chocolate flavor. Different textures usually help. 

My original intention was to put a hot chocolate mousse in the middle, but that didn't go so well.

Now onto the decorating. I made a normal buttercream frosting and divvied it up to make different colors per super hero. Spiderman obviously got red, Superman was red, blue and yellow (I bought the appropriate cupcake paper too) and Batman was blue. I found some toothpicks with the characters and decided to add M&M's on top, for another different texture. 

Needless it say it was a success and I'm really excited for more themed cupcakes. Shoot me an email if you're looking for something sweet for your next event! In the meantime, I can't wait for October...

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Baking Fail: How NOT to Make Mousse

I've made a lot of mistakes on this baking adventure but not so much where I sacrificed 50 cupcakes...

I was so excited to make chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chip mousse filling for a birthday party and thought I had it in the bag. I had my heavy cream, some powdered sugar and I used mostly hot chocolate packets to sweeten and give it a hint of milk chocolate flavor. Who doesn't love hot chocolate?

It came out beautiful. I had a huge geek moment. After all, not many people get excited over the fluffiness of homemade mousse. I was proud!

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but you get the point. 

I couldn't just leave it at that. Nope, I had to be gutsy which in turn became my downfall. I chopped up milk chocolate and white chocolate chips that I wanted to add to it. Well, they're kind of heavy and I got a little overboard and while it still tasted delicious, it flattened the mousse. And my spirit. 

It became a soupy mess and I was more upset than I should of been but hey, now I know. Ease up on the chips and fold them in instead of tossing them into the mixer. 

I tried baking them in the center anyway and it was a complete disaster and I had to start all over. I couldn't bare to serve them like that. 

So now we know and I thought I'd spread the word on how NOT to go about experimenting with mousse and you're welcome. :) Although I still highly recommend using hot chocolate packets. 

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Fresh fruit and new coffee!

Last month I was on a mission. I had to prepare for a coffee tasting and wanted to make something that would compliment my coffee well. Luckily enough, Starbucks came out with Kati-Kati.

It means "In Between" in swahili and is the in between or balance of citrus and spice from Kenya and Ethiopia. If any of you old timers out there remember Gazebo Blend -

It's similar but wayyy better. Gazebo Blend use to be used for Iced Coffee before Tarazza came out and it was a very good acidic and citrusy coffee that only came out in the summer. I was bummed when it left but am super excited for Kati-Kati. It's very acidic, light and fresh and goes great with fresh fruit. More specifically it pairs well with lemon and strawberry. Did you see the lightbulb go off? 

I decided to make lemon cupcakes with fresh strawberry frosting. I hit some snags but it ended up being the perfect compliment to the new citrusy summery coffee. 

That snag came with the fresh strawberries. I diced 'em up and thought I'd toss 'em in the frosting while I had the mixer going. It was good until the juices from the Strawberries made the frosting soupy. I kind of panicked but just added another stick of butter and some more powdered sugar to get that consistency back. I'm thinking maybe next time just fold the strawberries into the frosting. 

Needless to say, I killed the tasting and killed a new recipe that will be used again. 

Don't have the energy to bake or can't take the extra heat? Chop up a fruit salad and it's just as good with a fresh french press. 

Also, try it iced! Just brew it at double strength, pour over ice and refrigerate. It's that easy and just as good iced. 

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Break me off a piece of that ...

I think that Kik-Kats are kind of underrated. They're not usually the first thing people think of when you say candy bar but I realized it's the perfect mix of chocolate and crunch and good consistency for a frosting. I've also had requests for red velvet cake and instead of the normal cheesecake frosting I mixed it up with some crumbled kit-kats. Simple, but delicious.

I've done red velvet before - for Valentine's Day, how cliche! - and I wanted to mix it up. I did before by adding chopped up white chocolate and chocolate chips to the frosting and white chocolate chips in the batter but anyone can make a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. My creativity escaped and I've been thinking about what I can make with Kit-Kats and this was perfect. I LOOOVVEE Red Velvet and balancing it out with a buttery frosting with the milk chocolate from the Kit-Kats balanced it out pretty well. 

I've got quite the knack for turning candy into cupcakes. Any more ideas??

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Why don't you build me up, buttercup baby...

Now that the Foundations are in my head...

Here's a take on a couple of the best candies around; peanut butter cups and Reese's Pieces. I've always made chocolate chip cookies with Reese cups in the middle but now I've turned it into a cupcake. And I couldn't just put any old frosting on top, had to add some crunch and compliment it with it's hard shelled crunchy counterpart. 

I put them in a ziplock and crumpled them up a bit, not too much so they'd still be crunchy and added them to my normal butter, powdered sugar and vanilla frosting and it's pretty epic. But before all of that, we can't forget about the hidden treasure that is the peanut butter cup in the center of the cupcake. 

Too much? No such thing. Right out of the oven they were good and still gooey but even better after a night in the refrigerator. I've always put chocolate in the refrigerator - taking after my father who does the same - and the fridge helps hold everything together. 

And there you have it, death by peanut butter. The Reese's Pieces on top balance out the rich chocolate in the center while still keeping it in the same candy family and it's perfect for a late night sweet tooth.

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

I haven't had anything yet, so how could I have some more?

This cupcake pays hommage to a baseball classic. 

S'mores are the best part of a bonfire but when you don't have the resources for a bonfire, what better way to recreate the tasty treat as a cupcake that you can bring anywhere? And how about an upgrade? Instead of Hershey chocolate bars, try Nutella. 

Just use your favorite cake recipe and in the center of each cupcake put a couple mini marshmallows and a spoonful of Nutella before baking.

As for the graham crackers? Crumble up a bunch and toss them into the frosting as it's mixing and it provides the perfect sweet cinnamon crunch. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top and voila! Portable, anywhere s'mores. 

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Two Pretzels were walking down the street, one was assaulted

I thought I hit a jackpot with these babies but making the impossible possible, I struck even more gold with caramel pretzel cupcakes. Not only that, I got to use my favorite gadget in the world to make the frosting.

I give you, the Kitchen Aid Mixer.

Yes, I've fallen in love with an appliance. If you bake, you understand. Not only that, the frosting could not have been easier to make. All it is is butter, powdered sugar and chopped up pretzels. The pretzel frosting pretty much makes the cupcake. Not only that, but I put a Werther's caramel chew in the middle of each one. 

I didn't get the gooey-consistency center like I expected but it turned out even better. It created a caramel coating on the bottom of the cupcake that had just enough candy crunch but not enough to where you feel like your teeth are going to fall out. 

And for the grand finale...

They went over pretty well, to say the least and I will be making them again. Perfect combo of sweet and salty and I'm kind of proud of myself for whipping this up on just a hunch and a trip to Aldi. 

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Beach Bums

Well, it's been awhile since I've pulled out the oven mitts but now that life has settled down a little, I'm back in business. It also helps that I've basically turned my boyfriend's kitchen into a bakery. I may have taken over three or four cabinets but I don't think he and his roommate mind getting cupcakes for cabinet space.

I've had this idea for awhile, thanks to some help from Pillsbury and finally made it happen. It's super simple but super cute. Pick your favorite cupcake recipe and grab some Teddy Grahams.

Make the cupcakes like normal and your favorite frosting (I chose vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting) and smash up some graham crackers or some Teddy Grahams to use as 'sand'. This is where the fun stuff comes in. Find some drink umbrellas at the grocery store, plant a Teddy Graham belly-up and give him some shade. 

Be warned: I tried using some red icing to draw a beach towel underneath the Teddy Graham. Sounded like a cute idea until the icing ran off the cupcake and it looked like a Teddy Graham murder scene and less like a beach scene. 

Not only are they cute but the cinnamon Teddy Grahams added an extra kick to the vanilla cupcake, just enough cinnamon crunch to make it more than just a normal cupcake. 

Super simple, super cute and just in time to finally get some nice weather out here. 

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Feeling Green

They're back! Well, they have been for a little over a month but still, it's Shamrock Shake season and it won't last for long.

My typical mindset was in place and I thought, "Hey, I can turn that into a cupcake." So, I did.

I was nervous to attempt to imitate the flavor of the shamrock shake which is probably near impossible and I've got some learning to do.

With a little liquid inspiration - Anti-Hero in a can! - I experimented with Creme de Menthe and white chocolate.

I'm not a huge fan of mint but I do like Shamrock Shakes and didn't want to get too crazy with the Creme de Menthe, so I used white chocolate to balance it out. It worked, but because of my fear of too much mint the cupcakes could have used a little more.

I made your normal buttercream frosting, had some green sprinkles left over from Christmas and topped them with red candies to look the part.

I was on a cookie kick earlier that week so I tried to make cookies out of them as well. The green color is a little weird and of course this time I put a little too much Creme de Menthe in the batter, so eventually I'll find a happy medium. It all depends on your tastebuds.

One tip, ease up on the liquids with the sugar cookie recipe if you're adding Creme de Menthe, otherwise it gets really soupy and hard to deal with.

Green food can be kind of weird but it's fun to make and perfect for St. Patty's Day!

Sláinte!

Contact It's Hip to Be Square!

Follow It's Hip to Be Square on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!