Black and White Cupcakes

Black and White Cupcakes

Have you ever had black and white cookies and wonder why only cookies can be two different flavors? Most cakes and cupcakes tend to only be one flavor. So for a bake sale at my school, I decided I was going to make black and white cupcakes. 

I started by just making my vanilla and chocolate batters. 

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

Ingredients:                                                                                                               Yield: 12 Cupcakes

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened          

3/4 cup sugar                                        

1 1/2 cup self rising flour                     

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F 

2- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy using an electric mixer

3- Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each

4- Add vanilla and flour. Mix just until fully incorporated

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

Ingredients                                                                                                                                               Yield: 12 Cupcakes

1 Cup Flour

1/8 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1-1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 Cup and 1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder

1/8 Teaspoon Salt

3  Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, Softened

1 Cup and 2 Tablespoons Sugar

2 Eggs

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

3/4 Cup Milk

1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2-  Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, and salt. Set aside

3- Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy

4- Add the eggs and vanilla mixing just until combined

5- Alternately mix in the flour mixture and the milk

Line a muffin pan with paper or foil wrappers. Once that is done, fill one half of the wrapper with vanilla batter. I suggest using the vanilla first as it has a thicker consistency and should stay in place better. Once the vanilla batter is in, fill in the rest of the wrapper with chocolate batter.

Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. Then let them cool.

Once the cupcakes are completely cool decorate half with vanilla icing and half with chocolate icing respectively.

And that's it! 24 simple, fun, and different cupcakes you can make for any occasion. Bake sales, birthdays, holidays, or if you are just bored! Enjoy! Happy Baking and

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Coconut Macaroons

Coconut Macaroons

Many people are currently celebrating either Easter or Passover around now. So in honor of that, I thought I would post a kosher for Passover coconut macaroon recipe. 

I went to my grandmother's for the seder for the first night of Passover and brought a batch of these macaroons and my whole family loved them. 

Ingredients                                                                                                                Yield: 24 Cookies 

3 cups sweetened, shredded, coconut

4 large eggs

1/2 cup sugar                                                

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

Toast the coconut for five minutes or until just barely starting to show color (optional)

Whisk the eggs in a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks

Gradually add in sugar and whisk until it holds stiff peaks

Whisk in the vanilla and salt

Fold in vanilla

Take the batter and shape your macaroons

Place them onto a prepared baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes

I toasted the cocunut on my macaroons and it gave them a deeper and richer coconut flavor but it is completely optional. If you decide to do it, there are many ways to toast coconut. I suggest spreading it out on a baking sheet lined with tinfoil or parchment paper and bake it in the oven for five minutes.

I then did not feel like forming perfect macaroon shapes so I took my ice cream scooper and just formed my cookies that way, which explains the strange shape my cookiees created. 

I hope you all have a Happy Easter or Passover, and if you celebrate neither, then just have a wonderful weekend!

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Cookie-in-a-Cupcake

Cookie-in-a-Cupcake

This week I had a bake sale and couldn't decide whether I should make cupcakes or cookies.... so naturally I just made both. Everyone at the bake sale loved them and both batches completely sold out!

I started by making vanilla cupcake batter. 

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

Ingredients:                                                                                                               Yield: 12 Cupcakes

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened          

3/4 cup sugar                                        

1 1/2 cup self rising flour                     

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F 

2- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy using an electric mixer

3- Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each

4- Add vanilla and flour. Mix just until fully incorporated

The next step was to make the batter for my chocolate chip cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:                                                                                                                      Yield: 4 dozen 

1 cup unsalted softened butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2- In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy

3- Beat in eggs

4- Add flour, salt, and baking soda and beat until fully blended

5- Stir in chocolate chips

Once both batters are complete, fill your cupcake tins with a thin layer of cupcake batter.

Once that is in, place a dollop of cookie batter in the middle. 

Then fill the rest of the cupcake wrapper with cupcake batter, completely covering the cookie dough.

You can take the rest of the cookie dough and bake them on a baking tray in the oven for 15 minutes to be used for decoration.

Place the cupcake tray in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cupcakes look golden brown.

Once the cupcakes are out, allow them to cool before you decorate them. 

Pipe a swirl of creamy white icing onto the cupcake. Then you can place a finished cookie and place it on the top on an angle for decoration. Your cookie-in-a-cupcake cupcakes are now done!

They will look delicious and taste evcen better! I hope you enjoy making and eating these cupcakes!

Happy baking and

don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Pi Day Cake!

Pi Day Cake

As many of you know, today is pi day.... not to be confused with pie day. Today is 

March 13, 2015 or 3/14/15 which is pi day because pi is 3.1415. So in honor of this very amazing nerdy day I made a cake! I know you are probably asking yourself why I made a cake and not a pie, well my answer for you is simple. I had a really cool pan.

The first step is to make the cake. I used this recipe for yellow cake. You have two options for your cake. You can either make one cake or make a double layer cake. I did both as I took the layer cake into school for a pi day party in math class and my parents took the single cake into work with them. This recipe is for one 9x13 inch pan or two 9 inch round pans so in order to make the double-layer cake just double the recipe.

Yellow Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup softened unsalted butter

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Beat in the eggs.
Add the flour, milk, and vanilla and beat to a soft smooth batter.
Bake 20-30 minutes in the preheated oven or until testers come out clean.

Once your cake or cakes is/are complete and completely cooled it is time to deceorate. Take your vanilla icing and cover your entire cake. If you decided on making a double-layer cake you are going to carefully place your second cake on top of the first. Take your icing and cover the entire top cake with it as well. 

If you are a nerd, kinda like me, then you can use decorating icing to write on your cake. I only wrote a few numbers on the top of my pi symbol, but I wrote 3.14159265. Feel free to not write on your cake at all, or write 100 digits of pi if you realy want.

Have a wonderful pi day!

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Sword Cupcakes

Sword Cupcakes

The other day I am sitting at home, minding my own business, when I get a text from my sister, 'Can you make me Persain War cupcakes?'. My first thought when reading this text was, what is a 'Persian War cupcake'? Well, after some thinking I decided a sword would work well. So this is how I went about making sword cupcakes.

I started by making vanilla cupcakes using my usual recipe, which you can find on Cookie in a Cupcake  post and I piped a swirl of vanilla icing on top.

My next step was taking white fondant and rolling it out to be about an 1/8 inch thick.
Using 2 1/4 inch cookie cutters I cut out 24 fondant circles.

I then drew my swords. To do this I took a tube of gold and a tube of black decorating icing. I drew one small black line a little below the center of the circle. 

I then connected another black line going in the opposite direction to create the handle of the sword.

Once the handle is completed, it is time to draw the blade of the sword. I found the easiest way to do this was to take your gold decorating icing and draw three separate lines. Your first line should be  a long line from the edge of your handle to just below the top of the circle. The line should be even with the line of the handle.

To finish the blade, take the gold decorating icing and draw two thin lines on each side of the center line. Make these two lines end a little bit earlier than your middle line to give the tip of the sword a point.

Lastly, take your fondant circles with your beautifully drawn swords and gently place them atop the iced cupcakes. 

And that's it! Simple sword cupcakes for all your weaponry cupcake needs. Next time someone needs pirate desserts, edible video game weaponry, or Persian War cupcakes, you will be able to deliver.

Happy baking and

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Hamentashen

Hamentashen

The Jewish holiday Purim is sneaking up on us very shortly and I thought I would theme this post around it.
Purim is a holiday to celebrate how the Jewish people avoided extermination in Persia at the hand of the king's adviser Hamen. Esther, a Jewish woman living in Persia, became the queen. Because of her position, she was able to save the Jewish people.
A much loved Purim treat is a triangular cookie called hamentashen. It is said that Hamen wore a three-cornered hat. Because of that, these cookies have a triangle shape.

Ingredients:                                                                                              Yield: about a dozen cookies

1/4 cup softened unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp orange juice

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375° F

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Add in the egg and mix until fully incorporated.

Stir in dry ingredients just until mixed but be careful to not overmix.

Add vanilla and orange juice and mix just until combined.

If the dough is too sticky, add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time. If the dough is too dry, add water 1 tablespoon at a time. If you do have to add water, just be careful because the dough can become too sticky very quickly. 

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface to about 1/8 of an inch thick.

 Cut the dough into 3" circles.

Place a teaspoon of your filling in the center of the cookie. You can use any jams you like or any fillings. Here I used apricot, strawberry, and raspberry jam, but feel free to use any filling you want. You can also use pie fillings as an alternative. At the class I taught, we used nutella as a filling and everyone loved it!

Once your cookies are all filled, fold over all three sides of the dough to form a triangle. If the edges aren't triangular enough, just pinch the edges to form more of a triangle. If you need, you can always then fold the pinched edges again.

Bake your cookies in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the corners start to turn a golden color.

Once you take the cookies out of the oven and they cool, you are ready to enjoy your hamentashen! Happpy Purim everyone!

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

Valentine's Day

I want to start this post by apologizing once again. I'm sorry I was not able to post over the weekend. In order to make it up to you, I am posting this special Valentine's Day post in addition to the upcoming weekend's post. 

In honor of Valentine's Day I thought I should bake something to bring into school. I decided cookies would be the easiest thing. My mom bought me this pan at Target and now is the perfect time to use it.

I started by just making a simple sugar cookie. You can use any recipe or mix you would like, but this was the recipe I used.

Yield: 48 Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted softened butter

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup confectioners' sugar 

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon salt

 Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

Cream together butter, oil, confectioner's sugar, and white sugar.

So far your dough should look a little something like this:

Next, mix in the eggs and vanilla extract.

Gradually pour in the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Here is where I put a Valentine's Day twist on my cookies. I put in pink food coloring into my cookie dough and mixed it in, creating an outcome of pink cookies.

If you have a pan, such as mine, here is where you would grease the pan and fill it with the dough. Or you can put tinfoil over a cookie sheet and make your own cookie shapes. Although this is a very good recipe for a pan, and these cookies do stick really well and are good for rolling into a ball, this is not a good recipe if you are planning on using cookie cutters.

Bake your cookies for 9-12 minutes or until golden brown.... or in this case, golden pink.

Happy Valentine's Day

and Happy baking!

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry

Popovers

Popovers

As I have previously mentioned, popovers are kinda my speciality.

My whole family loves them. If there is ever a holiday and I don't make popovers, it would be the beginning of World War III! Everyone knows I am known for these rolls; they always ask how I make them, and really it is quite simple. The trick is the pan! If you don't use a popover pan the popovers will not rise right and will not become light and airy. Below are two different views of these specialty pans. They can be purchased at any store that sells bake-ware.

Once you have your pans, you are ready to begin.

Ingredients:                                                                                                     Yield: 6 popovers

1 tablespoon melted unsalted butter

1 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

Place all the ingredients in a mixer, food processor, or blender for 1 minute or until all of your ingredients are fully incorporated.

Next you have to grease your pans. This is very important as you want your popovers to just pop right out of the pan and stay completely in tact and light and fluffy.

Once your pans are thoroughly greased, pour your batter into the cups of the popover pan.

Each cup should be about 1/3-1/2 full

Bake your popovers in the middle rack for 40 minutes or until golden and fluffy.
I suggest keeping the oven door closed until you feel the popovers should be checked on, or need to be removed from the oven.
I usually check on them at 30 minutes and keep an eye on them until they are done after that.
Make sure to keep a close eye on them as one second they look as though they need one more minute, and 30 seconds later they will start to burn a little.

Once your popovers are out of the oven I suggest you serve them as soon as possible and when they are still warm as they do not hold up very well.
One of our favorite ways to eat these is with gravy.
On holidays, my dad will make the entre with a gravy and my family then opens up their popovers and pours gravy inside.
Popovers are a delicious and different alternative to the every day dinner roll and can be eaten in many ways.

Now all you need is some hungry people to enjoy your wonderful warm popovers with you.

I suggest you hide some first though, because if your family is anything like mine, they will all be gone in seconds!

Happy Baking!

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo-Rayburry

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes!

As it is beginning to become even colder and snow is starting to fall (We're expecting a blizzard on Tuesday), everyone has one thing in mind....... warmth.

And what better way to stay warm other than hot chocolate?

Everyone loves hot chocolate..... but everyone also loves cupcakes.

So I combined the two and made hot chocolate cupcakes.

The first step to these cupcakes is making vanilla cupcakes. I made mine a little bit smaller than an average cupcake, and I think they came out pretty good. If you need a good vanilla cupcake recipe, I left mine in my post about Lacrosse cupcakes, but you can feel free to use your own, or use a mix.

Either way, once your cupcakes are complete, cut out the middle so there is room for a filling.

Once the center is hallowed out, it is time to decorate. The first step is to make your whipped cream. Put about 2 cups of heavy cream into a mixer with about a teaspoon of sugar (you can add more according to your preferences).

Turn your mixer on high and mix until the cream starts to form peaks.

Once your whipped cream is made, take about 1/4 of it out, and put it into a seperate bowl in the refrigerator.

With the rest of the whipped cream, whip in about 16 oz of chocolate pudding,

creating chocolate whipped cream.

Fill a piping bag with the chocolate whipped cream using wilton tip #10.

Place the piping bag in the refrigerator to keep it cool while creating the handles.

In order to create the handles, place a tootsie roll in the microwave for 5-10 seconds on low.

When they are soft enough, roll them out into thin log like shapes.

Take these "logs" and create a curved shape out of them. Repeat this action with about 3 or 4 tootsie rolls. Each tootsie roll should make about 5 or 6 handles.

Once this is complete, take a tooth pick, chopstick, skewer or another small stick like object and make two little holes in the cupcake. Then place each side of the tootsie roll into a hole, creating a handle.

Once all of the handles are complete, remove the chocolate whipped cream from the refrigerator.

Fill each cupcake with chocolate cupcake. Place a swirl of chocolate whipped cream on the top.

Once this swirl is completed, take a spoon and flatten it to create a surface for the normal whipped cream to rest on.

Remove the bowl of regular whipped cream from the refrigerator. 

Using a spoon, place a dollop of whipped cream atop the chocolate whipped cream. After all the cupcakes are covered, sprinkle unsweetened cocoa powder over all the cupcakes. Once this is complete, you have finished your hot chocolate cupcakes.

Now all you need is a good book and a fire place and you are all set for a cold winter day.

Happy Baking!

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry