Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Curd

It has been a LONG time since I have pulled out my cake decorating kit.  I think the last time was when I made the red velvet lentil cupcakes.  

We invited some friends over for dinner.  I guess it was an Easter supper, but I knew I wouldn't be cooking a turkey or a ham.  So, I tried to make up for it by making an Easter-themed dessert.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Curd

I made the cupcakes and curd a day in advance.  Hopefully this means that I've evolved to pace myself appropriately when preparing food.

Lemon Curd  

Can't go wrong with anything from Ina Garten.

4 lemons, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon salt

Remove the zest of the lemons with a vegetable peeler or zester, being careful to avoid the white pith.

Squeeze the lemons to make 1/2 cup of juice and set the juice aside. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the sugar and process for 2 to 3 minutes, until the zest is very finely minced.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter with the sugar and lemon zest. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.

Pour the mixture into a 2-quart saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 10 minutes. The lemon curd will thicken at about 175 degrees F, or just below a simmer. Remove from the heat.

For the cupcakes and icing, I following this recipe from My Baking Addiction.

2 1/4 cups cake flour 

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/4 cups whole milk, room temperature

4 large egg whites, room temperature

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

seeds scraped from one vanilla bean

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Centre a rack in the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk and egg whites.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla bean seeds at medium speed for 3 minutes, or until the butter and sugar are very light. Add in the vanilla extract and one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until well incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs, beating until the batter fully incorporated and smooth, then add the last of the dry ingredients.

Once ingredients are thoroughly incorporated, give the batter a good 2-minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated. 

Using a large scoop (about 3 tablespoons), distribute the batter between 18 muffin wells, filling each well 2/3 full.

Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centers come out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Vanilla Icing

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
seeds scraped from one vanilla bean
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract (this helps maintain the bright white color)
1 ½ pounds (24 ounces) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream or milk

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and seeds from vanilla bean until fluffy. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in confectioners’ sugar, and continue beating until well blended.

Add in vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened.

Add an additional 1 to 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy.

I knew I wanted to decorate using white, green and orange icing, so I separated the recipe into three containers.

To assemble, I cut out a hole in the middle and piped in the lemon curd.

Then, I put the cut-outs back on the cupcake.

Then, I just had fun and iced the cupcakes in various ways:

Verdict -- I was happy to see our friends' kids clap their hands with excitement when the cupcakes were brought out.  Everyone enjoyed the cupcakes.  There is a tonne of sugar in them.  The icing was too sugary for my liking.  But, I'd definitely use the cake and curd recipe again.

Baby Shower Cake

Last month, my friend gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.


Yesterday, another friend and I held a shower in his honour. I quickly volunteered to bring the dessert.

It had been a while since my last cake decorating adventure (unless you count R's birthday cake) and I was itching to get my piping bags out again.

I already knew I wanted to make the Barefoot Contessa's chocolate cake and the theme colours were blue and white. I scoured the internet for baby shower cake designs and found a really cute and easy-looking option for making caked topped with baby booties.

Ultimate Chocolate Cake
from The Barefoot Contessa at Home 2006

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and/or line 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

The above instructions are different from what I did. I used an 8x3 round cake pan, so I only had one cake. I didn't line it, I just used Wilton's Cake Release.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.

3. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes (because I used one three inch, I had the cake in for closer to 50-55minutes), until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

I the meantime, I worked on making some muffins to complete the cake design (this will all become clearer further down in the post).


After the cake had cooled, I added a layer of banana pudding in the middle. I didn't know it ahead of time, but it turns out that banana and chocolate combinations are the father's favourite.
To make the muffins, I followed a recipe from the Joy of Baking.

Vanilla Cupcakes

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon (optional)
1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and lightly butter or line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

To complete the cake, I only needed three muffins.


The tip I got was to make the baby booties before putting them on the cake for ease of icing. You take one of your cupcakes and slice it down the middle (in a vertical position). With the other two muffins, you slice a layer off of the "original top" of the muffin and flip them upside down. This allows the muffins to extend outwards to create the bottom of the shoe. By flattening the top, the cupcake will be much sturdier. The rest, is pretty straightforward from the picture, below. Only other detail is that I trimmed off a bit of the sides of the muffins that were joined with icing, so that the two parts would sit closely together.


After icing the cake and the booties (I used the Wilton buttercream recipe), I placed the booties on the cake and completed the decorations. I'm still working on my lettering skills. Overall, I was very happy with the final product. I wanted the parents to feel loved and connected with their friends at a time when they probably felt disconnected from most of the outside world. I probably shouldn't associate food with love (talk to Giz and Babba about that) But I hope that with this cake (and the event as a whole), they got that message.


I also took my first (and maybe last) step into decorating cookies. I'll tell you about that adventure in my next post.

R's Birthday: Peanut Butter Cup Cake

Just before I get to today's post - I want to throw in a LAST CALL FOR PRESTO PASTA NIGHTS! The roundup will be posted tomorrow (probably mid-afternoon, EST). Got a pasta dish? Check out the "rules" here and send in your dish!

I can't wait to share all of the great submissions, so please come back tomorrow (Friday) to see the roundup.

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Ok. On to today's post:

September is a month full of birthdays. First, is R's. We don't celebrate most holidays with gifts, but birthdays are an exception. It's an opportunity to take time together and do something we'd both like to do -- like take a day or weekend trip. This time, one of the things we did for R's birthday was a take a boat cruise in the Thousand Islands area.

The Thousand Islands are a culmination of over 1800 islands (1000 Islands is a misnomer), shared by the United States and Canada. In a matter of minutes, you alternate through islands with Canadian and American flags. Each island has a history, some shadier than others.

But, you'll never believe this. I brought my camera, but forgot my memory card. DOH! We made a mad dash to look for a replacement memory card but had no luck. R said, I would just have to enjoy the sites with my eyes. Half in jest, I said: I don't know how to do that. Nonetheless, the day was still enjoyable. But, as a result, this is not my photo - it's from Google images - but it should give you a feel for the experience (add in a few clouds and some rain, for a more genuine perspective of our experience).


Part of the trip involved a visit to Boldt Castle, which is actually on American land (we needed our passports).


Boldt was the founding proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria. He started to build the castle around 1900, but stopped and deserted the project entirely when his wife passed away. You can read about it here.

The castle is still being renovated/repaired. The first floor is complete and depicts what the castle might have looked like if it were completed. But the upper 3 floors are in progress with definite room for improvement. The grounds were lovely. Something like 70 weddings take place on the grounds per year. Would be gorgeous, as long as the weather cooperated.

It made for an interesting trip and I'd like to go back in 5 years to see how the castle's renovations have progressed.

Another part of the birthday was a homemade cake.


I just gotta say...blogging is dangerous. By the time I post a recipe, it's usually gone. This cake is long gone because the birthday was over a week ago. :(

I end up having to recall every aspect of a food experience when I can't access the food itself. All day, I've had this song in my head. It kind of describes how I feel about this cake.



Not to belittle anyone's experience with this song. But I love the song and it reminds me of this cake.


So, unless there is a major objection, I am submitting this recipe and the song to Elly's Eat to the Beat Event.


I found the original idea for this cake at Bakerella's. But, I diverged from her recipe a fair bit, so I'll just tell you what I did and you can check out Bakerella's version too.

Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake

First step is to make the chocolate cake. Like Crepes of Wrath, I used Barefoot Contessa's recipe.
Ultimate Chocolate Cake
from The Barefoot Contessa at Home 2006

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and/or line 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

The above instructions are different from what I did. I used an 8x3 round cake pan, so I only had one cake. I didn't line it, I just used Wilton's Cake Release.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.

3. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes (because I used one three inch, I had the cake in for closer to 50-55minutes), until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.


While the cake is cooling, I prepared the icing. Instead of a chocolate icing, I went with a peanut butter one. I found the recipe here.

Peanut Butter Icing

2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth and creamy.


In addition to making the icing, I broke up about 24 peanut butter cups into smallish bits (the size can vary according to your preferences):


Once the cake was completely cooled (truth be told, I may have been a bit impatient), I cut it in two using dental floss (a trick I learned in my cake decorating class). I made a mark on the top and bottom layer of the cake to remember how to put the cake back together (another cake decorating class tip).

4. I placed the "top" layer of the cake facedown, making it the bottom of the cake. I then added a layer of icing with an offset spatula (a regular knife would probably be fine here). On top of the middle layer of icing, I added some chunks of peanut butter cup.


5. After adding the icing and peanut butter cup chunks, I placed the "bottom" layer of the cake on top of the icing, making it the top of the cake. Doing this gives you a flatter surface to work with as the original top of the cake (the part that you see while the cake is cooking) tends to round a bit due to differences in cooking speeds between the outer and middle portion of the cake. Of course, if you use the different tricks, you can prevent this rounding effect and ignore what I've discussed.

6. Ice your cake and add your peanut butter cups chunks as desired. If you check out Bakerella's cake, you'll see that she uses more peanut butter cups than I do.


It makes for a nice presentation. But be warned that this cake is very rich. As in 2 glasses of milk/slice rich.

Verdict: OMG - this cake is amazing. VERY rich. But soooo good. R was in heaven. The Barefoot Contessa recipe makes probably the BEST chocolate cake I have ever tried. I was blown away by that. If anything, make sure you use the chocolate cake portion of the recipe at some point. You won't regret it.



Peanut Butter Boy - if you have a roundup including cakes, can I include this one?

Bar Mitzvah: Torah Cake

Kodi: looking more determined than ever to get some food

The process of baking and decorating a cake is far more work than I would have ever originally thought. Maybe after a lot of practice, it becomes faster/easier. But, there are just so many things that can go wrong. In our case, we found a few of them. Here's our journey making a Bar Mitzvah cake.

You can check out the rest of our cake decorating experiences to date, here.

Our cake decorating adventure started out with a visit to Canada's premiere baking warehouse Golda's Kitchen. Can't go to their store - no worries, check out the online shopping nirvana. They ship to the states too!

Confused about what to do first, second or third? Send "Golda" an email. Response time is incredible, customer service just like the good old days when people actually cared. We took the trek to the warehouse and stood in total awe of the million different ways to spend money and be happy doing it. We were even lucky enough to have Golda come out and help problem solve. Does it get any better than that?

Ok – Golda may have thought that we were crazy and a bit last minute on our cake decorating plans. But, we used pity to our advantage and got a good 30 minutes of advice from Golda.

The plan was to make a cake that looked like an open torah with scrolls on the side. A torah is a long scroll containing the entire text of the Five Books of Moses, hand-written in the original Hebrew. It is rolled up around two ornate wooden shafts, attached to either end of the scroll. An open torah looks like this

Check out this link to see where some of our ideas came from.

The scrolls would be made out of jelly rolls and placed on top at that sides of a large cake base. We didn’t know anything about jelly rolls, except what Golda has described. So, probably a first mistake to not look into the process making a jelly roll in more detail. For future reference, here's a good starting point.

We started by using Golda’s recipe for chocolate cake:

Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake

½ c + 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa

1 cup boiling water

3 large eggs

2 ¼ tsp vanilla

2 ¼ + 2 Tbsp sifted cake flour

1 ½ cups sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

Makes 2 – 9x1 1/8 layers (we made a double recipe)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 2 9x1 ½ round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment and then grease and flour (we used two jelly roll pans)

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa and boiling water until smooth. Cool to room temp.

3. In another bowl, lightly combine the eggs, ¼ of the cocoa mixture and vanilla.

4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 second to blend. Add the butter and the remaining cocoa mixture. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed (high if using hand mixer) and beat for 1 ½ minutes to aerate and develop the cake’s structure. Scrape down the sides. Gradually add the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and strengthen the structure. Scrape down the sides.

5. Scrape batter into prepared pans and smooth the surface with a spatula. The pans will be about ½ full. Bake for 25 – 35 minutes or until a tester inserted near centre comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the centre. The cakes should start to shrink from the sides of the pans only after removal from the oven.

6. Let the cakes cool in the pans on racks for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides with a small metal spatula and invert onto greased wire racks. To prevent splitting, reinvert so that the tops are up and cool completely before wrapping airtight.

Adapted from the cake bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum.

So – sounds good. In theory. The trouble started when Giz reinverted the first cake. All I heard was “oh sh*t” and turned around to see this:

So, from this point, Giz was cut off from reinverting duties. Thankfully, we made a double recipe because we had to quickly make another cake. Generally, this is what the cake looks like after being reinverted.

Then the instructions we had were to roll the cake up right away to let it cool while in the rolled shape. That was easy enough…

Or so I thought…

Upon unrolling, I saw the first crack and thought, “oh no”. Then I continued unrolling and “oh no” turned into “oh crap”. Then… “mom, look at this”. “Mom…what are we going to do?”… Then denial. “Maybe we can fix this…with enough icing, you probably won’t notice”.

So, we proceeded to fill the roll using a similar technique as this one:

Then, I tried to roll it up…and things went from bad to worse:

So, I gave up entirely on the jelly roll. Apparently, this isn’t supposed to be terribly difficult. So, the challenge to perfect the jelly role continues. Here's bunny's roll - so you have a better idea of what a roll is supposed to look like.

At least it didn’t go to complete waste. R did his part to give our cake disaster a “good home”.

And then he came back for more:

But we still needed to figure out a quick backup plan. Neither Giz nor I trusted our ability to do a better job on the 2nd (or would that be 3rd) try… So, Giz ran out to the store and came back with these:

I know – complete cop out. But we tried – honestly!

Now…moving on to the more successful part of our baking efforts… We used Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake recipe. You know, the Daring Baker recipe from a few months back. Check out Ann from Redacted Recipe's version (also contains full recipe) of the cake. We hadn’t joined Daring Bakers at that point, so this was our first time using the recipe. We used it to make a large flat cake, I believe the pan’s dimensions were 11 X 14 X 3 (maybe larger).

So far, so good…

Split the cake down the middle and add a layer of buttercream (the same buttercream as Dorie Greenspan's recipe):

Add a layer of seedless raspberry puree on top of the buttercream:

Putting it all together, we get to this point. See the cake starting to shape up?

We iced the outside of the cake with this icing recipe:

3/4 cup water

2 Tbsp meringue powder

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup shortening

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

beat water and meringue to frothy stage, add icing sugar and beat 3-5 minutes on stand mixer (7-10 on hand mixer). Add butter, shortening and vanilla and beat until smooth.

At first it curdled on me. But, seemed to be ok after I mixed more. I thought it tasted pretty good on the cake too. But, Giz used the recipe today for a different recipe (I’m sure she’ll share it with you later) and has since announced that this icing is crap. So – use it at your own risk.

After all that – here’s the final product. We transported it without any mishaps and it went off well.

Hours to create: 16

Hours to eat: 0.5

It was an exhausting undertaking for us. Probably more stressful to make the cake than everything else we made, combined.

Looks like we weren’t the only ones who were exhausted. Here’s the bar mitzvah boy:

and, of course, Kodi: