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

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Pot Pie!

Hey guys! So before I begin with my recipe, I wanted to apologize for not posting last week due to too much homework. I am back to posting weekly now, but I can't guarantee the posts will be on Saturday. I can promise one post every weekend! 

So today is going to be a little bit of a different post. This post will be a cooking post! The other day I asked my dad what we were eating for dinner, and he responded by asking me what I was making. I asked him what I could make. The response: chicken pot pie. Here's the way to do it!

  

I started by making the pie crust for the chicken pot pie.

The recipe I used for the crust was very simple.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

2 Tablespoons Butter

1/8 Teaspoon Salt

1/3 Cup Milk

I started by preheating my oven to 350 degrees. Then I mixed together the flour, baking, powder, salt, cold butter, and milk in my electric mixer. I also added 1/2 teaspoon of sage for a little extra flavor. This is an optional ingredient, if you would like to enhance the flavor of your crust.

Mix these ingredients together until they form the consistency of dough. Pick the dough up and roll it into a ball. Once your dough is in a ball-like shape, roll it out. Make sure your dough is big enough to cover your baking pan. 

The next step is to make your filling.

You can put whatever ingredients into your chicken pot pie that you like, but this was what I did.

I started by browning my chicken. Once that was done, I sautéd carrots, celery, and an onion. Once that finished, I made a roux, which is a mixture of flour and fat. Traditionally, this fat is a butter, but I switched out the butter for a leaner choice--oil. I placed the flour and oil in a pan and stirred it around until it started to become a thicker consistency. In order to thicken it even more, I added milk. The milk was a replacement for it's fattier alternative, cream. Once the sauce became a thick enough consistency, I added nutmeg, salt, pepper, and sage. The sage was added to bring out the sage in the crust. Once you have all your seasonings in the pan, allow the sauce to thicken. 

Once it has reached the desirable consistency, add the chicken and mirepoix (carrots, celery, and onion mixture) to the sauce. Once this is evenly mixed, pour it into your greased pan. Once all the filling is in, cover it with your dough. Next you are going to take either melted butter or egg whites and brush them over the top of the pie crust. Lastly, take a knife and cut two slits into the crust to allow air and heat to circulate. Cook the pie in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until brown.
Here's a picture of what was left after dinner so you can get a feel for what it looks like on the inside.

I had so much fun making dinner and my whole family loved it.
Good luck making your chicken pot pies!
Anyway that's all for now!
Don't forget to put a burry on it!
xoxo-Rayburry

Lacrosse Cupcakes

Lacrosse Cupcakes!

As you all most likely know the holidays just passed, and the holidays are usually a time of giving. For my family, I make everyone their presents. This year I made everyone personalized cupcakes! One of my cousins is obsessed with Lacrosse, so of course I made him lacrosse cupcakes.

 (Warning: I know little to none about lacrosse, so please pardon my terms when referring to the lacrosse equipment we are replicating)

I started off by making simple vanilla cupcakes. You could do these with whatever flavor cupcake you prefer. You can use whatever recipe you would like, but if you would like to use mine, feel free.

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

1 teaspoon 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

5- Spoon the batter evenly into cupcake tins with your favorite cupcake wrappers

6- Bake in preheated oven until golden brown or until when a toothpick is entered into one of the cupcakes no batter is left on the toothpick. About 18-20 minutes

Once you have your cupcakes baked, let them cool completely.

If you try to decorate cupcakes while they are still warm, the icing will not stick to the cupcake and all your hard work will be wasted.

Now that your cupcakes are completely cooled, let's get to decorating! 

You are going to take your favorite icing recipe, or favorite can of icing, whichever you prefer or have time for, and make it green. I chose to make my icing a lime green for the grass, but you can do whatever shade of green you would like. In order to achieve the lime green color I wanted, I used 5 drops of the neon green dye. 

Once you achieve your goal of the perfect shade of green, it's time to start decorating! The next step you are going to do, is to place the icing into a wilton decorating bag. I used the wilton tip 233 to create the grass effect. 

Once my decorating bag was setup with my icing, tip, and coupler I was ready to start decorating my cupcakes. In order to make the icing look like grass you need to make little dots all over the cupcake. So instead of dragging the icing over the entire cupcake, squeeze the bag for about a second and pull up. Repeat this motion over and over again covering the entire cupcake. This should create that grass effect you are looking for. To top off the grass effect, while I was in A.C.Moore I found this and thought it would just complete the grass. So I just sprinkled some of this over the top just as a final touch.

So now that you have your grass, it's time to complete the lacrosse stick!

I started by getting a bag of thin pretzel sticks to be the handle of the lacrosse stick. I took each pretzel and broke it in half. Once all my pretzels were broken, I dipped them into melted chocolate. In order to melt the chocolate, I started a double boil.

Here's how a double boil works; you are going to fill a pot half way with water. Place the pot on the stove and bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling place a bowl atop the pot. Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn't touching the water. Next put your melting chocolate into the bowl. Keep stirring your chocolate until it reaches a smooth consistency, but make sure you keep moving the chocolate around, other wise it will burn. Once your chocolate is melted, work quickly so the chocolate doesn't harden, but dip the majority of each pretzel into the chocolate, creating a dark handle for your lacrosse stick. Once the pretzels are covered, let them sit to harden.

Once your lacrosse sticks are hardened, it's time to make the head of the lacrosse stick. 

In order to accomplish this, I used fondant. For anyone that hasn't used fondant before, keep in mind that if you leave it out in open air for too long it will harden. So any fondant you are not manipulating at the time place either in a ziplock bag or under a cup. Start by ripping of a small piece of fondant and rolling it out, to form a skinny log like shape, a snake if you will. Once this shape has been formed, bend this log into a tear drop shape, to create the sidewall of the head. Once this has been completed we will create the pocket. In order to do this, you will take an even smaller piece of fondant. Take this piece and once again roll it out to create a log or snake shape, only this time make the log much skinnier. You are then going to place this log across the fondant head, breaking it off to fit resting across the head. I suggest making four pieces of fondant to go across the head, creating the net. 2 going in one direction and two crossing over in the other direction. 

Once your head has been created, you can attach it to the pretzel using a piece of fondant. Once attached, you can lay the lacrosse stick in the "grass" on your cupcake. Next to that I placed a small lacrosse ball that I created out of fondant, by simply rolling a small piece of fondant between my fingers.

I also created jerseys/ As my cousin's number is 33 I created a little jersey with the number 33. In order to do this, I took a piece of fondant and rolled it out into a sheet. Once flattened, I took a knife and cut out the shape of a shirt. I then took a tube of black decorating icing and drew on the number. Once that was completed I laid the jersey down in the grass. 

And that's it! Super simple but super cute lacrosse cupcakes!

Anyway, that's all for now! 

Don't forget to put a burry on it!

xoxo- Rayburry