Eggnog Cake with Eggnog-pecan frosting

original recipe
serves 12

Ingredients

    Cake:
    1/2 cup butter, room temperature
    1 1/4 cups white sugar
    3 eggs, room temperature
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 cup prepared eggnog (or see notes for recipe)
    2 tablespoons bourbon whiskey

    Frosting: (makes too  much, consider halving)
    1/4 cup all-purpose flour
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1 1/2 cups prepared eggnog (or see notes for recipe)
    1 cup butter, room temperature
    1 1/2 cups white sugar
    1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    1/4 teaspoon rum-flavored extract
    1/8 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
    1/2 cup finely chopped toasted pecans (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

If making cake: Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
If making cupcakes, place cupcake wrappers (standard or mini) in a cupcake pan.

Beat 1/2 cup butter and 1 1/4 cups sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add eggs, one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into butter mixture before adding the next. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspoon lemon peel, mixing well.

Combine 2 cups flour, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Pour flour mixture into the batter alternately with 1 cup eggnog, mixing until just incorporated. Stir in bourbon.


If making cake, divide batter evenly between prepared pans.

      Bake in preheated oven until cake springs back when touched lightly with a fingertip or a  
      toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes (test both cake layers).
      Cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting on a wire rack to cool completely.

If making cupcakes, portion the batter into cupcake wrappers and bake accordingly: standard cupcakes bake for 18 min, mini cupcakes bake for 15 minutes.

Frosting
    To make frosting, combine 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a saucepan. Gradually whisk in 1 1/2 cups eggnog, whisking until smooth.
    Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. When mixture boils, cook for 2 minutes, whisking constantly, until thickened. Remove from heat and let cool completely to room temperature.
    Beat 1 cup butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in cooled eggnog mixture, 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, rum extract, and 1/8 teaspoon grated lemon peel. Beat on high speed until mixture is fully incorporated and frosting is fluffy.



Cake Construction
    Spread cake with plain frosting between cake layers, over the top and on the sides. Coat the sides with toasted pecans, pressing the nuts onto sides in small handfuls. Refrigerate until serving time.

For cupcakes, spread frosting on the cupcakes, or pipe it with a pastry bag.

Raspberry and lemonadve cupcakes

http://www.allparenting.com/my-table/articles/965727/raspberry-lemonade-cupcakes

Raspberry lemonade cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
3 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2-1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 lemons, zested and juiced (3 tablespoons zest, 3/4 cup juice)
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1-1/4 cups buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to combine.
In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the lemon zest and sugar with a fork until the sugar is coated with lemon. Add the butter and cream until it is light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs, egg whites and vanilla. Mix it until it is combined. Add the lemon juice and mix it well. (Your mixture may start to look funny here, just continue with the next step.)

With the mixer on low add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the bowl and allow that to combine. Then add 1/2 of the buttermilk and wait for that to combine. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix. Add the other 1/2 of the buttermilk and mix it. Then finally add the remaining of the dry ingredients. Mix it until they are combined. Stop to scrape down the bowl as often as needed. Do not over mix.

Pour the batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners. Fill the liners about 2/3 full.
Bake 12-14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs.

Cool the cupcakes in the pan 1-2 minutes, then carefully remove them from the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Frost with some raspberry buttercream frosting (recipe below) when they are completely cooled.


Raspberry buttercream frosting
Ingredients:
1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
8 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 ounces raspberries, pureed and pushed through a sieve
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and shortening (about 30 seconds). Add the vanilla extract and powdered sugar. Mix on low speed until it is well combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy. Add the raspberry puree and salt. Beat until it is fluffy, about 1 minute.
Use immediately or keep refrigerated. (This frosting will keep well in the refrigerator for several days, but you may need to re-beat it for the best texture.)

Irish Car Bomb Cupcake

yield: 24 cupcakes prep time: 40 minutes cook time: 17 minutes total time: 1 hour

INGREDIENTS:
For the Cupcakes:
1 cup Guinness stout
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoons salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

For the Whiskey Ganache Filling:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons Irish whiskey

For the Baileys Frosting:
2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream

DIRECTIONS:
1. To Make the Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

2. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined. Divide the batter among the cupcake liners. Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Cool the cupcakes on a rack.

3. To Make the Whiskey Ganache Filling: Finely chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then, using a rubber spatula, stir it from the center outward until smooth. Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined. Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped.

4. To Fill the Cupcakes: Using a 1-inch round cookie cutter (or the bottom of a large decorating tip), cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes, going about two-thirds of the way down. Transfer the ganache to a piping back with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

5. To Make the Baileys Frosting: Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Reduce the speed to medium-low and gradually add the powdered sugar until all of it is incorporated. Add the Baileys, increase the speed to medium-high and whip for another 2 to 3 minutes, until it is light and fluffy.

6. Using your favorite decorating tip, or an offset spatula, frost the cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles, if desired. Store the cupcakes in an airtight container.

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes
http://karinscupcakeadventure.blogspot.com/2012/09/cherry-coke-float-cupcakes.html

These cupcakes are what happened when my previous plan went horribly horribly awry. Honestly though, I think these turned out WAY better than my original idea would have. What was my original plan you might be wondering? (or maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) I was going to make a chocolate cupcake with fresh Strawberry icing. All was going really well until I tried to pull together my icing. It seems that the fresh strawberries contributed too much moisture to the icing and to combat that I kept adding in sugar to try to absorb the liquid. I ended up with a sickly sweet strawberry icing that didn't hold together well enough to pipe onto anything. And it was way WAY too sweet. In hindsight, after pureeing the strawberries, I  probably should have placed them in some cheesecloth and  squeezed out all of the  extra liquid. But I didn't. In the meantime I had some beautiful Chocolate Coke cupcakes and no icing to top them with.

So what's a girl to do? Well, since I'd already swapped out the coffee that I normally use in my chocolate cupcakes with Coke (just to see what difference it made), I figured I'd run with it. I made a quick run to the grocery store, grabbed some cherry pie filling, more coke and whipping cream. I then cored my cupcakes, filled them with the Cherry pie filling and topped them with a  Coke glaze (to up the Coke-ness of them, since the coke in the cake isn't very  powerful). Then, since any good float is never complete without whipped cream, I whipped up the whipping cream and piped it on. Once I topped that with a Maraschino cherry I had some wonderfully decadent cupcakes that tasted just like a Cherry Coke float.

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes
3 cups all purpose flour
6 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups Regular Coke (don’t use diet coke, this recipe needs the sugar from the coke)
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 can cherry pie filling*

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake pans with cupcake liners. Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa. Set Aside.

In a large mixer bowl beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs in one at a tme, beating well after each addition.

In another small bowl combine the buttermilk, Coke and vanilla extract. Make sure you let the foam from the coke settle down before moving on to the next step.

Add the flour mixture into the butter and egg mixture in three batches, alternating with the coke mixture, starting and ending with the flour (3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of the coke/buttermilk)

Place batter into the prepared pans adding approximately 1/4 cup batter to each liner (or until they're 3/4 full. Bake in preheated oven fo18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, core center of cupcakes using either a cupcake corer, apple corer or a paring knife, then add a heaping spoonful of cherry pie filling inside each cupcake.

*Since the cherries in pie filling are still whole, they’re a bit had to fit into the cored cupcakes. I opted to chop the cherries up a bit before filling the cupcakes. To do this strain the cherries and reserve the liquid. Give the cherries a rough chop up on a cutting board and then toss them back into the reserved liquid.




Coke Glaze
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3-4 T Coke

Whisk the powdered sugar and coke together in a small bowl until smooth. Add in more sugar if needed to obtain a thicker consistency. The goal is to glaze the top of the cupcake and not be completely absorbed into the cake.

Whipped Cream Icing
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
6 Tbsp confectioners’ sugar
Maraschino Cherries for garnish

For best results, chill your mixing bowl for 10 to 15 minutes before you are ready to make your icing. Whisk heavy cream in chilled bowl on low speed. Slowly add in the confectioners’ sugar in, one tablespoonful at a time. Once all sugar has been added, increased the speed of the mixer  to medium high. Whip cream until it holds stiff peaks. Then pipe whipped cream on the cupcakes and top with maraschino cherries.

This whipped cream is excellent for many other uses, such as topping pies or fresh fruit. I pretty much use this recipe instead of cool whip or Redi-whip these days. It’s so easy and much cheaper than the pre made kinds.


Pretty!