Blog #1

My favorite dessert of all time are cupcakes. Cupcakes are by far the easiest dessert you could make, whether it's store bought in a box, store bought mix, or made from scratch; it's always the easiest to make in my opinion. Not only the easiest but the most convenient to eat. You could bring it along for trips, make them for parties, make them for fun, or even just for those birthday celebrants at your school. Cupcakes are basically like mini cakes in a cup, hence the reason why they are called cupcakes! There are just so many kinds of materials you could use for cupcakes, for example for the cups you can use, decorated or non-decorated, small cups, gigantic cups, or normal sized cups. The toppings can vary also, whip cream frosting, or cream cheese frosting or maybe no frosting at all, but what's a cupcake without frosting? Cupcakes are also very decorative, if you go on different websites you can see that cupcakes are a great dessert to make that can go with a theme of a party, or the age of a birthday celebrant, you can just put so much onto a cupcake, or even just keep them plain and simple.

Maybe you don't really want to make the cupcakes yourself, and just want to go to a store to buy some, but want REALLY good cupcakes, well there are various places to go around the Bay Area. My favorite store to go and buy some good cupcakes is Sprinkles Cupcakes. I'm sure you've heard about these delicious cupcakes, but just in case they are located in San Francisco and Palo Alto Stanford Shopping Mall. They're a bit pricey for a cupcake, but I think that one cupcake should fill you right up. Their flavors are really interesting because they also come with gluten free red velvet cupcakes, even vegan cupcakes, banana, chocolate, coconut, and more. I'm sure they will have a cupcake flavor that will satisfy your tongue. Some other places are Kara's Cupcakes, located on Santana Row, in San Jose; The Teacake Bake Shop, located in Lafayette or Burlingame. These are my top three favorite cupcake shops.


My favorite cupcake recipe:
Milk Chocolate Cupcakes:

Ingredients

• Nonstick cooking spray
• 8 ounces cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces water
• 4 ounces unsalted butter
• 8 ounces plus 3 ounces sugar
• 4 ounces egg yolks
• 4 ounces egg whites
• 8 ounces milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare a cupcake pan with paper liners and lightly spray with nonstick spray. Sift the cake four, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.

Melt chocolates and water over low heat in a double boiler.

In a mixer with a paddle attachment, slowly cream butter and 8 ounces of sugar. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, and beat until fluffy.

In a separate bowl, with a mixer and wire whip attachment, whip egg whites and 3 ounces of sugar until stiff peaks form.

Combine milk and vanilla in a measuring glass. Fold melted chocolate mixture into butter mixture. Alternately fold the flour mixture and milk mixture into the butter mixture. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites. Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

Credits for pictures: 

http://onlycupcakes.net

http://foodnetwork.com