Chocolate Dipped Birthday Cupcakes

Cupcakes, chocolate dip, marshmallow frosting, and sprinkles? That can only mean one thing...it's a birthday kind of day! Every February 26, I bake and post a special batch of cupcakes, just for a special set of twins. My little cousins, Valentina and Federico, are officially four years old today! And what better way to celebrate such a momentous birthday than with a batch of Chocolate Dipped Birthday Cupcakes?

I've made chocolate pudding-filled cupcakes, mini vanilla birthday cupcakes, and classic vanilla cupcakes topped with Nutella frosting, but this year, my sister suggested that I give hi-hat cupcakes a try. I loved the idea from the beginning, mainly because I had never actually attempted to make them myself (a hi hat cupcake, in case you're not familiar, is a cupcake topped with a towering spiral of marshmallow frosting that gets dipped in a thin chocolate coating). I'd wanted to make hi hats for a long time and never got around to it, so with the twins' birthday coming up it was the perfect occasion. There was just one small (literally) detail that gave me pause.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Cupcakes? Frosting? Sprinkles!? It's birthday time!  If you've been here a while, you know that this time of year is marked by a very special set of birthdays.  My twin baby cousins are officially 3 years old today! They're a cute set of rambunctious little toddlers who are finally out of their terrible two's, and entering their terrible three's. They're celebrating with an adorable, home-crafted Elmo birthday celebration, and even though I'm never able to be with them at their actual birthday party, I always make them an honorary batch of cupcakes to celebrate.  Two years ago I made ganache-frosted, pudding-filled chocolate cupcakes; one year ago I made tons of mini vanilla cupcakes, frosted in an array of colors, and shaped in a big "2."  This year, I wanted to keep things super classic. Nothing says kid's birthday quite like a vanilla cupcake and chocolate frosting, right?  The twins are fans of Nutella though (as evidenced by Valentina enjoying waffles with Nutella one morning during my last trip to Colombia), and since I'm also a fan of Nutella, a Nutella topped cupcake with colorful sprinkles seemed like a fun and easy twist on a birthday favorite. 

I really feel that vanilla cakes are one of the hardest things to bake. I mean, they're pretty basic in theory (because isn't a vanilla cake the basis for all flavored layer cakes anyway?), and they seem like a natural first step in cake baking, but I find this to be completely untrue. Nailing a vanilla cake is hard. I have yet to find or develop what I consider to be a perfect vanilla cake, with a recipe that develops consistent results each and every time. I've already figured out my favorite chocolate cake recipes, and most of them I only had to make once to realize that they were special in every way possible (rich, with a real chocolate taste, moist, and with a wonderful crumb). Even chocolate cakes that end up not making my list of favorites are usually really delicious anyway. Vanilla cakes are definitely not like foolproof chocolate cakes. They're more fickle; if I get the texture just right the flavor isn't quite what I'm looking for, or vice versa. Or the recipe, if it was really good, doesn't perform the same way the second time around. It's a series of trial and error, but at least it's a fun experiment! 

Mini Vanilla Birthday Cupcakes

It's a birthday kind of day on Ambrosia today!  I don't normally post on Sunday's, but today we're celebrating not just one birthday, but two.  Two birthdays for two adorable little twin toddlers turning two!  Technically, they turned two a few weeks ago, but their birthday party is being held today, so I figured it was only natural that I would make a big deal about this and make some birthday cupcakes to celebrate!

The twins in question, Valentina and Federico, are my cousin's kids who live in Colombia along with the rest of my mom's side of the family, and my sister and I just so happen to be the kiddos' godmothers!  We finally got to meet them this past summer when they came over to help celebrate my sister's high school graduation.  They were so cute, and I was so excited to finally be meeting them.  I havent' seen them in person since then, but with lots and lots of regular FaceTime-ing (is that a verb now too?), we've been able to keep in touch and the twins remember who I am!  They can say my name perfectly (it helps that it's only two syllables!) and it's so adorable to watch them on FaceTime.  They're as cute as ever and getting bigger and crazier by the minute, which makes their monkey-themed birthday party totally a perfect fit.  If you remember a post from way back when (last February, to be exact), I shared a recipe for classic chocolate birthday cupcakes to celebrate the twins'  first birthday.  This year, I wanted to make something different, and what could be more polar opposite to a classic chocolate cupcake than a classic vanilla cupcake?

Mini vanilla birthday cupcakes! In the shape of a number 2!  

Lemon-Raspberry Cupcakes

Alright, I promise that this will be the last sour-citrus/berry flavor combo recipe for a while (I think so anyway, I'll be honest and say I haven't planned that far ahead yet).  I've already posted two blackberry-lime recipes (see here, and here), and one of them was the post directly before this one.  At least this time it's a different citrus and a different berry!  And, more importantly, the flavor combination has manifested itself in the form of a beautiful, delicious, and summery cupcake.  

It's been a long time since I posted a cupcake recipe.  The last batch of cupcakes I made for the blog were these fabulous Banana Caramel Cupcakes, which ended up being a really popular post (hooray for awesome and unconventional flavor combinations!).  Hopefully this cupcake recipe will be as popular.  I can't see why it wouldn't, though.  Picture it: fluffy and tart lemon cupcakes, with a surprise raspberry center, topped off with bright, lemony buttercream and finished off with a fresh raspberry.  Too cute.  Too yummy.  Too perfect. 

These cupcakes are a perfect summer treat, and speaking of summer, I really cannot believe it's August already. When did that happen!?  I've been living at home as a college graduate for a little over TWO months now, and it's really really really bizarre.  Time has just been flying by, and I can't believe that we're already in the last month of summer.  I feel that there's still so many summer treats that I want to make, and with only a month of so left of the season, I better get moving.  I have to take advantage of all the fresh berries that are around, summer is the perfect excuse to churn up some ice cream, and I better get my grilling fix on.  There's no time to lose!

Banana Caramel Cupcakes

Geeeeez, it's been a while since I've written anything on this little blog, or even taken the time to take a glance at it.  I've been unbelievably busy these past two weeks.  You see, my senior portfolio was due yesterday, at 5 PM, so in these past two weeks, I was literally in the architecture design lab every spare second I had.  I had an obscene amount of work to do to get my portfolio finished, and there were definitely moments where I thought I was just going to lose it.  Like I said in my last post, I did a pretty awful job of documenting my files from my early studio classes, so figuring out how to represent those studios in my portfolio was a bit of a challenge. That, along with more sleepless nights than I'm willing to admit to, too much take-out for dinner, too little exercise, and the stress of having to produce something that I could be proud of in the end was driving me (and I know all my classmates were probably thinking similar thoughts) crazy!  In the end though, it was all worth it.  I learned a TON of new Photoshop tricks when preparing my renderings, I feel way more comfortable working with InDesign, and produced a portfolio that, given the circumstances, I'm actually very proud of. There's definitely things I wish I could improve about it, but for my first portfolio, I think it came out beautifully, and I love it.  I also learned a very valuable lesson: DOCUMENT AND ARCHIVE EVERYTHING. Seriously, what was I thinking back in sophomore year!?

I'm actually not too terrible about documenting things in other areas of my life.  For instance, I have all my blog photos perfectly organized and stored on a giant external hard drive.  They're organized by month, and each recipe has folders for the original, unedited photos that make the cut to be posted on the blog, Photoshop files, web files, and web files that have been cropped and resized for submitting to sites like Foodgawker or Tastespotting.  Even all my academic work for school is perfectly organi...wait.  Why am I talking about my archiving tendencies.  That's boring and irrelevant and completely unimportant when banana caramel cupcakes are the topic of today's blog post, and this cupcake is staring at you in the face.  Just because I'm still sleep deprived doesn't mean that I can lose focus of my priorities.  Moving on to cupcakes!

Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes

Ok, first things first.  Oscar night, it needs to be discussed...although there really isn't too much to discuss here. I was very happy with all the winners of the night.  I thought Christoph Waltz, Anne Hathaway, Daniel Day Lewis, and Jennifer Lawrence all played their roles in their respective movies fantastically, and I couldn't have been happier that Argo won Best Picture.  I was literally on the edge of my seat the ENTIRE time I was in the theater watching it, despite knowing that everything would work itself out in the end, and I loved that.  If a movie to which you already know the ending can still get you that pumped up and excited, it means it must be good! Like I mentioned in my last post, I actually watched all the movies nominated for Best Picture, with the exception of Life of Pi.  This movie kept winning and winning and winning more awards, and with every award it received, I kept getting more and more annoyed with myself for NOT having seen it...oh well.  Looks like I know what I'm doing this weekend! 

But now, we move on to more current and relevant issues...chocolate birthday cupcake issues, of course.  This is always a pressing matter in my opinion.

Angelic Angel Food Cupcakes

Halloween is officially NINE days away, and I'm getting more and more pumped for it as the days go by (I'm in my senior year of college, I promise.  Don't judge).  Now that we're getting closer and closer to the big day, I figured it was time for my second Halloween cupcake.  Like I said in my last post, I wanted to create more subtle treats this year, and drew my inspiration from two classic Halloween costumes.  What kind of cupcake could be a better match (or maybe contrast is the right word) for a Devil's food cupcake than a light and fluffy angel food cupcake?  Dressed up with fluffy Swiss meringue frosting and white chocolate angel wings, these cupcakes are perfectly angelic (and delicious!)

Angel food cake is one of those types of cakes that I only recently started eating (and enjoying).  I didn't grow up eating angel food cake, and I only remember eating it maybe twice when I was little, during those typical elementary school lunchbox swaps.  I remember having traded one of my snacks for someone's angel food cake, and I don't remember being that impressed with it.  For some reason, the texture just seemed a bit off to me...I know, it sounds crazy, but it was just too fluffy for me!  In any case though, angel food cake is definitely something I enjoy now, yet I never make it because I just don't own a tube pan (sad, I know).  Angel food cake is a perfect cake for summer, because it's so light, but when paired up with swiss meringue frosting and a pair of white chocolate angel wings, it's a perfect cupcake for Halloween too!

Devilish Devil's Food Cupcakes

It's that time of year again.  It's time to start thinking of costumes (I obviously already did this weeks ago, because I have crazy obsessions, and apparently, nothing better to do with my time), start making some sort of plans for the weekend before (I'm still working on this- Alie, Lydia, and Isabel, if you're reading this, let's get a move on!), and start buying bags and bags and bags of mini fun-sized chocolate candies (I haven't done this yet, but I plan on indulging in this sort of activity very soon).  We're about two weeks away from one of my favorite holidays ever.  Halloween is coming, and it's coming fast!

Last year, I went crazy with Halloween preparation, and made a ton of cupcakes in order to celebrate.  I went with more obvious Halloween themes, like pumpkins, candy corn, mummies, spiderwebs, and of course, these adorable little ghost cupcakes.  As much as I loved all the cupcakes I made last year, I knew that for this year, I wanted to go with a route that was perhaps a little more subtle.  I took a cue from two very popular Halloween costumes, and decided to use them as my jumping off points, both for the cupcake decorations, as well as the cupcake themselves!  For the first, a Devil's food cupcake, decorated with a devilish combination of red vanilla frosting and black fondant horns seemed like a perfectly fitting, yet subtle, tribute to Halloween. 

Funfetti Cupcakes

My very best friend at Columbia and I have a lot of things in common.  We both loveee music, have a slight obsession with Halloween (this year's Halloween costumes have already been picked out...don't judge us please), and we love to cook and bake, cupcakes in particular, obviously.  In fact, it's not far-fetched to say that baking is one of the things that got us to be friends in the first place!  We lived together in a suite during our freshman year, and she'd always be making really adorable cupcakes, whether it was for a bake sale, for one of her classes, or just for the hell of it (my personal favorite reason for making cupcakes).  Eventually, we started making them together, and we'd bring a giant tray of cupcakes all around the suite to share with all our suitemates.  Our cupcakes became pretty popular!  We're starting our senior year in a matter of just a few short weeks (!!!) and we're living in an amazinggg suite with an amazinggg kitchen (it's definitely a tiny kitchen, but by NYC apartment standards, I think it's pretty amazing), and I'm so incredibly excited.  The amount of sugary adventures that will take place in that kitchen and the cupcakes that will result from them is gonna be ridiculous, and I can't wait for it!

While my friend and I have a lot of things in common, there is one thing that we always have, and probably always will, disagree on: chocolate, or vanilla?  If you've been following me for a while, you know by now that I am a huge chocolate person, and the more chocolate that's in a recipe, the better.  My friend is the total opposite, and while she'll definitely appreciate good chocolate, she's definitely a vanilla person all the way.  We often get into silly little debates about which is better, and we always end up remaining loyal to our favorite flavors.  Chocolate will always win, in my opinion, and there's nothing I love more than experimenting with different recipes for chocolate cake.  It was only until recently that I realized that I did not have a single vanilla cake recipe on my site...every cake and cupcake was chocolate!  I decided that this needed to change, so I knew that my next step was to make a delicious vanilla cupcake.  I decided that to celebrate this endeavor into vanilla-territory, I'd throw in some rainbow sprinkles and transform my vanilla cupcakes into funfetti cupcakes!

Mocha Cupcakes with Kahlua Cream Cheese Frosting

A few weeks back, I got the chance to make my Chocolate Stout Cake all over again.  I was super excited for this, as I absolutely loved the cake the first time I made it, and I was ready for any excuse to make it again. The cake was just so good that it definitely deserved the chance to be made once more, and I was thrilled when I got a legitimate excuse to do so.  A close friend of the family was graduating from Cooper Union, and I was placed in charge of bringing a chocolate cake for dessert for his graduation party.  Naturally, I went with the chocolate stout cake, knowing that it would be a success, and it definitely was!  

The cake needed to be large enough to feed 40 people, which meant doubling the original recipe.  You'd think that it would be obvious that if I was to double the amount of cake that I was making that I would also double the amount of ganache that I needed to make as well.  It seems obvious, but for some reason...I didn't do that. I ended up making way more ganache than I needed, more than double, because I was afraid that it just wouldn't be enough.  I obviously ended up with a ridiculous amount of ganache left over when I was finished covering the cake, and I didn't want to just throw it all away.  I ended up just putting all the ganache into a plastic bag and throwing it into my fridge, saving it for some future baking project.

Tea Party Cupcakes

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a tweet this past weekend that went along the lines of baking and decorating 6 dozen red velvet cupcakes.  I really wasn't lying, that was how I spent my Friday night! I hadn't initially intended to spend my Friday night baking and decorating so many cupcakes...this kinda just sort of felt into my lap unexpectedly.  You see, my mom had been put in charge of making the cake for my cousin's baby shower on Saturday, and we had planned out an amazinggg cake for it.  Seriously, this cake was gonna be amazing.  

The theme of the shower was a combination of Alice in Wonderland, gardens, and tea parties.  My mom and I had planned out the cake, and I drew up a sketch of what the final cake would look like.  It was to have three tiers or red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  Each tier was to be covered in fondant.  The bottom tier was to be a garden, and covered with fondant grass, flowers, butterflies, and the like.  The second tier was going to be a pale shade of pink with a white fondant bow along the bottom, and the top tier was going to be a tea party setting, complete with an engraved tablecloth and a full tea set.  It had the prospects of being a really beautiful cake.  

Note that I say, "it had..."

Unfortunately, the cake my mom and I had spent so much time planning out never actually happened.  Three days prior to Saturday's shower, on Wednesday afternoon, my mom somehow managed to fracture her hand while adding the green coloring to the fondant for the bottom tier.  I know, it sounds crazy, but it actually happened.  I guess it makes sense though...mixing fondant colors by hand is hard enough, but it's even harder when you have to mix enough fondant to cover a 16" cake that's supposed to be 4" tall!  If you've never added color to fondant by hand before, imagine that it is something like play-doh, but much much much harder.  In any case, after a relatively quick trip to the emergency room, my mom was left with a totally bandaged hand, and the next day, a bright purple cast all the way up to her elbow. 

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I've always been a fan of sticking carrots and other vegetables that might seem kinda weird (like zucchini) into baked goods, like cakes and cookies.  The combination of the two just seems to work, I think.  By this point, I'm sure you've all picked up on my indifference towards frosting, but I don't think I've shared with you  that I really don't care very much for cream cheese frosting.  Shocking, isn't it?  Cream cheese frosting seems to be a favorite for most people, but I don't know, I think I'd rather just have buttercream frosting, despite my apathy for it.  Before this post seems to get any more pessimistic I will say this.  Cream cheese frosting spread over a carrot cake cupcake is possibly one of my favorite combinations of cupcake/frosting.  I can't really tell you why I like cream cheese frosting so much when it's on a carrot cake cupcake, but for some reason, it really just works for me.  I'm weird and particular, I know.

Anyway, carrot cake has always been a real favorite of mine.  It could be because I think carrots are so versatile (if you wanna try something crazy and delicious, try making juice with carrots and fresh oranges, this is one of my favorite types of fresh juices to make).  It could also be because carrot cake is simply so timeless.  It's been around for forever, and if anything has been around for a while and is still a favorite, there has to be a reason for it.  Classics are goooood.  

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes

For some reason, I love getting the chance to drink Coke out of glass bottles; I don't really know why, there's just something really great about it.  It's just this different sort of feeling than what comes with drinking Coke out of say a can, or any other sort of glass or beverage-holding container.  I'm probably just being silly.  That is always a very plausible conclusion to come to.  I mean...just look at what I've baked for you today.  "Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes."  Say what?  Yeah.  Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes.  Sounds crazy, but let me just say, these were pretty darn good.

But anyway.  Back to Coke in glass bottles.  They seem kinda retro to me don't ya think?  Again, that could just be a feeling I get, but I don't know, I always picture these iconic glass bottles in some sort of 1950's soda-shop or diner kind of advertisement, with say a couple kids enjoying their ice cream sundaes along with a nice tall glass of Coca-Cola.  Yes, I clearly have a very active imagination, but that's ok.  Let's just go with the whole retro vibe that I was imagining...I feel like it translates very nicely to these cupcakes.  They look like little soda floats!   Seriously, this is almost too cute. 

Champagne Cupcakes

It seems crazy to think that 2011 is practically over, and will become nothing but a mere memory in just a couple of hours.  But it'll definitely be a lovely collection of memories that will be worth looking back on!  I took a great day trip to Philadelphia, had an awesome internship with the NYC Department of Buildings during the summer, got in shape (well...that needs to be worked on again in 2012, more to come on that soon!), had one crazy and really hectic semester at Columbia (but then again, I wouldn't have had it any other way), and got to eat at several really fantastic locations in New York City (Levain Bakery being my favorite for sweets, and Acqua at Peck Slip, a really amazing Italian restaurant, being my favorite spot for dinner, both of which you guys should check out if you have a chance!).  Oh, and one more thing.  I started this little blog called Ambrosia.  You know of it, right?

How to Make Candy Corn Cupcakes

This was the last Halloween inspired cupcake my mom and I came up with.  We made ghosts, mummies, spiderwebs, and pumpkins, but something was still missing.  After some careful pondering, we realized that while all the cupcakes looked great on their own, a pop of color and a little brightness was definitely missing.  My mom kept saying, "You need something yellow."  Enter candy corn cupcakes.

How to Make Halloween Pumpkin Cupcakes

So I know that I have already mentioned several times my general disdain for over-exuberant amounts of frosting on cupcakes, but you're just going to have to pretend I have never said any of that before.  Just do it.  I love frosting (for this cupcake at least...and maybe the next Halloween cupcake that's coming up...and maybe these too). Just so we're clear, I don't like eating large quantities of frosting.  I don't know why.  I guess I just think cake is better.  However...decorating with frosting is a whole other story.  The more frosting I have to play with when it comes to frosting cupcakes, the better.  Sometimes you just need a whole lot to get that look you're going for.  There's no rule that says that you actually have to eat all the frosting on a cupcake...yes, I am that guy that will scrape off approximately 80% of the frosting off a cupcake before eating it.  But it's ok.  I like frosting today, remember?

How to Make Spiderweb Cupcakes

My original idea for my Halloween was to make a giant batch of spiderweb cupcakes, but then my mom was just like, "nope, we can do way better than that" and we ended up making 5 different types of cupcakes (two more to come!), and she was totally right.  Why stop with only spiderweb cupcakes when there's so many other great things to make?  Gotta be more creative than that.

I wasn't going to not make my spiderweb cupcakes though...that would have just been silly. I wanted them...so I made them.  They couldn't be any simpler.

How to Make Mummy Cupcakes

When my mom and I finished making the ghost cupcakes, we still had a bunch of white fondant sitting on our kitchen counter.  We wanted to incorporate it somehow into the next cupcake, but we weren't sure what we wanted to actually make.  Then, I dont remember which one of said it, but one of said, "mummies!" And then the other obviously thought it was a good idea, and here they are: adorable, bandaged, mysterious mummy cupcakes!

How to Make Ghost Cupcakes

The first cupcakes I made with my mom for Halloween were these ghost cupcakes.  My mom saw them in a magazine somewhere a couple of weeks ago, and she immediately called me saying that I HAD to make these cupcakes for Halloween.  They sounded like a good idea in my head, and I also pictured that they would look just as adorable in person, but I had no idea I would love them as much as I did when we made them! 

It's a Halloween Party!

It's October 7th today.  That means Halloween is only 24 days away.  That's three and a half weeks.  There's no time to lose, Halloween Party planing needs to start NOW…or soonish I guess.  There's really no reason to put it off because #1, Halloween is quickly approaching, and #2…these Halloween treats are too cute to put off any longer.  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I couldn't put this post off any longer.

When I went home last weekend, I had it set in my mind that I would make a batch of really great Halloween-inspired spiderweb cupcakes.  Something cute and simple that anyone could make.  I honestly hadn't really thought of making too many other Halloween things, but I knew that my spiderweb cupcakes would be great.  I enlisted the help of my mother, who is fantastic when it comes to all these sort of decorative/ seasonal type of things, and she wasn't too keen on the spiderweb idea.  At least she wasn't too keen on making only spiderwebs.  That's right.  I was going to make ONLY spiderweb cupcakes? That just wouldn't do.  My mom had so many great ideas, and I really couldn't say no to any of them, they were just too good!