St Patrick's Day Cupcakes

I haven't played around with fondant in a while and I decided at very last minute to make some cupcakes for St. Patrick's day. I thought for some reason that my husband was working on Wed ( he normally has that day off) and or I thought today ( Tuesday the 16th) was actually the 17th of March. I am chalking it up to pregnancy brain. Ha ha. So I made a vanilla cupcake, separated the batter into 3 equal portions to color yellow and green ( I left one white) so it would be the same as the Irish flag and then frosted with a basic vanilla buttercream.  I had a BLAST making the fondant toppers. I found fabulous tutorials online at the blog, The Frosted Cake and Cookie for the Leprechaun hat and the shamrock, I googled images of fondant St Patty's day cupcakes, beer mugs, pots of gold. Not for the rainbow. I went to Kindergarten and so if I couldn't remember what a rainbow looks like I would be in big trouble. ha ha. 

I made the same recipe as I did in my Tagalong cupcakes for the cupcake batter but I used all egg whites and increased the milk a little. I will post the recipe for this and the buttercream at the end of this post. Like always! I used Wilton gel colors, leaf green and golden yellow.

Yellow first. I used my small scoop or melon baller scoop so I made sure I had an even amount in each cup

Then the white. I used a toothpick to carefully spread the white over the yellow and made sure they didn't swirl

Then finally the green. Not sure why my pic is so bright. The batter really wasn't THIS neon!!

You can't really see the white as well as I would have hoped. I probably should have had the white layer be more batter than the other two. I had doubled my recipe but only made 18 cupcakes so they would puff up more. I made just 3 plain vanilla ones no coloring for a tutorial on filling and frosting cupcakes I am going to do soon.

Some of the batter on the bottom made its way to the top but then again that's what extra frosting is for. To cover up the blemishes and OOPS!

Fondant Shamrocks. I added pearl shimmer dust to make them sparkle a little. So hard to capture in the pictures. But they look great up close

Fondant pot of gold. I recommend making things with black fondant LAST. You get black all over your fingers, tools, mats etc. I made "gold" coins out of yellow fondant by rolling small balls, flattening with my fondant smoother and then dusted with gold luster dust after I put them in the pot.

Fondant rainbow. Rolled out small balls of fondant into ropes, "glued" together with water and curved as I added each color.

Fondant green beer in mug with green beer foam pouring out. The foam is colored buttercream. I tried making the foam with fondant but I never got the look I wanted.

Fondant Leprechaun hats. Step by step tutorial for these is here

All my toppers ready to go

Swirled on vanilla buttercream with my Ateco 7T tip. Big plain round tip. I like the reflection of the cupcakes in my mixing bowl

I rolled the edges in green sugar. This was a MESS to do

I used my soy sauce dish from my sushi dish set for the dipping. Notice sprinkles all over my counter

Vanilla Cupcake recipe

from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski

Makes 12 regular sized cupcakes

can easily be doubled as I did for these cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp

2 large egg whites, at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup whole milk

Directions:

Position rack in middle of oven, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12 cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners

In a bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In another bowl using an electric hand mixer or using a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and then add the vanilla and beat until just combined. Add the flour in three additions alternating with the milk. Don't wait for the flour mixture to be mixed in before adding the milk. You want the flour to be just barely combined. Scrape down the sides and then beat on medium -high speed just until no traces of flour remain about 30 seconds. Do not over beat.

Distribute evenly into the 12 cups, about 3/4 of the way full. Bake until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or the top springs back when gently pressed. About 17-20 min. Let the cupcakes cool in pan for 5 minutes then take out of pan and transfer to wire rack to cool completely before filling and frosting, About an hour.

Basic Vanilla Buttercream recipe

Ingredients:

3 sticks unsalted butter room temp

4 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp meringue powder

dash salt

1-3 tbsp heavy cream ( just add until you reach desired consistency

Directions:

Cream the butter in electric mixer with whisk attachment until light and fluffy.Add the meringe powder to the powdered sugar and slowly whisk together. Add the powdered sugar mixture one cup at a time mixing slowly at first so you don't cover your counter, kitchen, self, significant other, cats or dogs in powdered sugar. Once all the sugar is incorporated mix on high to aerate and make fluffy. Add the vanilla and salt and mix again well. Slowly add the cream one tbsp at a time until reach desired consistency. This is a stiff icing and holds shape well when frosted. makes enough to pipe 24 cupcakes or 18 with GIANT swirls.

  

Homemade Nilla Wafers - take one

I had a bowl of the leftover vanilla bean pastry cream from my Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes 

and it tastes SO GOOD I didn't want it to go to waste. It wasn't as thick as pudding but had just a thick enough consistency that I knew the perfect treat to go with it was Nilla Wafers!!!

However being that Nilla Wafers come in a box and are full of preservatives and other things I try to stay way away from in my diet ( Sorry Nabisco!) and I love trying to find recipes of common goodies and make them homemade ( like the homemade Girl Scout Cookies that I am making next!!!) so I searched the internet knowing there just HAD to be a recipe out there for homemade Nilla Wafers. To my surprise I only came across two. So I printed out both and here is the first recipe I made from Serious Eats

About to cream the butter and sugar. I am getting more used to my spatula beater. I makes and awful squeaky sound when first mixing until the butter starts to coat the bowl. But it really works great so I don't have to stop the beater and continuously scrape down the sides of the bowl

One step calls for the seeds of a vanilla bean pod. I just love using vanilla beans whenever I can. The vanilla scent and taste is a million times better than just using an extract ( in my opinion) even over the top quality extracts that are on the market. You can always save the pod to make vanilla sugar or even homemade Kahlua!!

All purpose flour with some baking powder

Milk and vanilla extract. Hey they're not called vaNilla wafers for nothing right?

And yes I love my All Clad measuring spoons. ha ha

The butter, sugar and vanilla bean starting to come together you can see the tiny black specks of the vanilla bean seeds

And a close up. I wish blogs had smell-o-vision or scratch-and-sniff. This batter really smelled amazing.

This recipe called for piping the cookies out onto baking sheets instead of spooning out to get a more uniform shape

Piping. I use silicon bake mats instead of parchment but you can use parchment paper if you don't have the mats. I just personally find the mats to be more economical than parchment paper.

The recipe said to pipe out a circle the size of a nickel

Still piping... I used my Ateco 304 tip but any large plain round tip would work

Finally first batch ready for the oven

Ummm not exactly looking like the Nilla Wafers in a box. These were TINY and if I had kept them in my oven as long as the recipe stated - well they would have been charcoal. Lets try again but BIGGER this time

I piped out the next batch larger than a quarter size

Seriously? Flat. Not even close again. I give up.

 I at least tried to make them look nicer..with some milk for my husband

And with my leftover vanilla bean pastry cream. This was AWESOME together

So the flavor was really good but the look and texture wasn't the same at all. This was more like a little crispy vanilla butter cookie. Either too much butter or not enough flour or I should just spoon out into little balls instead of flatter discs. I am keeping this recipe on file for some altering later. I have another recipe I will try soon just to see the comparison. And if that one doesn't work out either then well I might just try to come up with something on my own!!!

Homemade Nilla Wafer Recipe

recipe courtesy of Serious Eats 

Vanilla Wafers

- makes about 8 cups of cookies (it makes a lot, but I’ve never counted!) -

Ingredients

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (1 stick or 112g)
1/4teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar (210g)
1 vanilla bean, seeds only
1 large egg white (~33g)
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
1 1/3 cups AP flour (160g)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder (~3g)

Procedure

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter, salt, sugar and vanilla seeds until light.
2. Beat in egg white until well incorporated, scraping sides and bottom of mixing bowl to insure that all white has been incorporated.
3. Beat in extract and milk until well incorporated.
4. Whisk together flour and baking powder and add to butter mixture. Mix just to incorporate, scraping down sides and bottom of mixing bowl to insure that all flour has been incorporated.
5. Fit a piping bag with a large, plain pastry tip (I use Ateco #806, but slightly larger or smaller sizes will also work). Fill bag with about 1/3 of the batter. Holding the filled bag perpendicular to a parchment-lined baking sheet, pipe batter into nickel-sized rounds, about 1 inch apart. To make neat, well-shaped cookies, as you finish piping each round, sweep the pastry tip horizontally off to the side with a slight curving motion. (The cookies should cover 2 to 3 standard baking sheets. Batter will hold for a while after it is piped, so trays can be baked one or two at a time, as your oven allows.)
6. Bake at 350°F for about 15-20 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned, rotating trays every 5 minutes or so for even coloring. Cool completely before storing. Cookies will keep in an airtight container for at least a week.