An October Update

I really NEED to get better about updating when it is not about cupcakes! This was, after all, supposed to be a scrapbooking blog and here I am pimping it out and bribing people to leave love with my baked goods. Naughty, naughty!

October is always one of my favorite months. The weather is crispy and the colors are gorgeous... plus: Halloween! Ryan and I have been raking leaves every single weekend in a vain attempt at staying on top of the eleventy billion that fall every year. So far we can still see the lawn, which counts as a win in my book!

We also made our yearly trip to King Richard's Faire a few weeks ago. Nothing beats faire food and men in armour. :-D Here was our not-so-valiant and fair knight this year, Don Idalgo:

Yeah, he was a little cranky.

Earlier in the month we got a chance to go apple picking and they had a measley amount of raspberries left so we picked some of those too. That apple raspberry pie was something good, let me tell you! Here's a LO I did from our afternoon there:

I have been staying really busy with Creative Team tasks for A Cherry on Top and getting ready for the November 14th-16th crop there. It is going to be a blast, as always!

Friday is Halloween and I am very much looking forward to that, being one of my favorite days of the year. Hooray for kids, candy, and costumes!

Breakfast for Dessert?

I finally got around to making the third choice in the ACOT cupcake poll: French Toast Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream Frosting. These taste *strikingly* like actual french toast and seriously made me crave bacon. They are very maple-y and sweet. I was quite happy with the moistness of the cake and felt there was no need for adapting this recipe! Love that!

French Toast Cupcakes

From Julie Hasson’s 125 Best Cupcake Recipes

Makes One Dozen Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and then cooled

2 eggs

1 tsp maple extract

1/2 cup milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking pan with paper liners.

2. In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar and eggs until smooth. Make sure the butter is cool first! Add maple extract.

3. Mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

4. Alternate between whisking in flour mixture and milk. Make three additions of flour mix and two of milk. Beat until smooth.

5. Scoop batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched.

6. Cool the cupcakes on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

Maple Buttercream Frosting

2 cups confectioner’s sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Tbs pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp maple-flavored extract
pinch salt

milk as needed

1. Cream butter with maple syrup and maple extract and pinch of salt.

2. Add confectioner's sugar a cup at a time and mix until smooth.

3. Add very tiny amounts of milk to reach your desired consistency.

**NOTE** Surprisingly, I found Maple Extract very difficult to track down. I ended up getting it for a very reasonable $3.70 at Whole Foods. :-)

Oreo Cupcakes - The Final Battle

The Curse has been lifted! It had to have been the butter because my first frosting attempt with different butter was a success. But I am getting ahead of myself!

As I noted in my last post, I needed a heavier chocolate cake batter to hold the half an Oreo at the bottom of the liner. My third and final batch of these did the trick. The recipe was close to the last one I used but contained less liquid and therefore was thicker and heavier. The Oreos stayed perfectly in the bottom and sucked up some of the moisture from the batter, making them soft like the rest of the cake. Yum! These were as incredibly moist and delicious as the last batch.

The frosting is very, very sweet. It tastes strikingly like the center cream in the Oreo itself and makes a great compliment to the not-so-sweet chocolate cake. The crushed Oreos soften up in the frosting in the same way that the Oreo halves soften in the cake batter. Overall these are really fun and generally a crowd pleaser!


Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes
Makes 18

9 Oreos, twisted in half, 7-8 more crushed
1/2 cup (1 stick) room temperature butter
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temp
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (the better the powder, the better the cakes!)
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Place liners in the pan and place one half of an Oreo on the bottom of each cup, outside of the cookie faced down
- Cream the butter till it is smooth. Add the sugar and beat about 3 minutes until it is mixed and fluffy
- Add eggs, one at a time, making sure they are well mixed
- Whisk together all dry ingredients in a bowl
- Mix the milk and vanilla
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk mixture. Dry, then half the milk, dry again, the other half of the milk, and then finishing with dry
- Mix in the crushed Oreos
- Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way full
- Immediately turn your over down to 350 degrees!
- Bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes. Mine were done at 23 minutes.

Oreo Frosting

6 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
4 cups powdered sugar
5 1/2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3-4 crushed Oreos

- Cream the butter
- Add 1 cup of the sugar until well mixed
- Add the milk and beat well
- Add the remaining sugar
- Add the vanilla
- Stir in the crushed Oreos and frost your cupcakes!

**note** You may want to add a tiny bit more milk or more powdered sugar to get to the consistency you prefer. I added a wee bit more milk because I used vanilla bean paste instead of liquid vanilla extract.