Pistachio Cupcakes

Although I'm on holiday, I found some free time to post one recipe that I tried for my husband's day name.

So far our holiday was great. I really envoy spending time with my family and my beloved friends. It's been almost 6 months since our last visit and everybody is so excited to see baby Thomas.
He grew  and he changed a lot,  so now he loves playing with everybody. All my girlfriends are crazy about him.

But let's return to our nice recipe.
I loved making these great green pistachio cupcakes. Very easy recipe.

 I made an almond butter cream frosting that really completed the cupcakes.
You can also put some melted chocolate on top and some shelled pistachio, crushed a little.

For these cupcakes , I used my new piping bag. LOVE it!
It's so big and you can make these beautiful swirls on cupcakes. I have to practice more, but I hope you like how my cupcakes looked.

I enjoyed my cupcakes with some fresh lime-orange-lemonade made with honey and a touch of mint.

Here is the recipe. It results 16 to 18 cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS

For the cupcakes:
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp. shelled pistachios, divided
10 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. salt

2 tpsp. green dye

For the frosting :

I used this recipe and I added almond extract

http://lovecupcakesrecipes.blogspot.ro/2013/03/buttercream-frosting-recipe.html

Directions

 To make the cupcakes

 Preheat the oven to 325˚ F/ 180˚C .

 Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

 Place ½ cup of the pistachios in the bowl of a food processor. Process until finely ground.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, cream cheese and ground pistachios.

Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Gradually mix in the sugar on medium-low speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. 

Blend in the vanilla and the green dye.
With the mixer on low, add the flour and salt, and mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated.  

Coarsely chop the remaining pistachios and evenly fold into the batter with a spatula.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared liners, filling each about three quarters full.  

Bake, rotating halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Let cool in the pan a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Pipe frosting on top of the cupcakes and decorate with chopped pistachio.

Chocolate cupcakes

This cupcake recipe is  from the 33 gourmet list. It is called Sis's Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting.

This time I haven't made the frosting from there. I just thought that it was too ''black'' for my taste. Too much chocolate ( if this can be possible :D ) I just preferred to add some white.

All I can say is that today I had a very busy day.  In my country, we are celebrating St. George tomorrow and this is my hubby's second name. So we will gonna celebrate him!

He asked me if I can make some cupcakes so he can bring to work. Obviously, I said yes.
But not only I said yes, but I decided to go for 3 different cupcake recipes. Me, happy!

This is one of them. You'll see the next ones in the future posts.
This was an excellent idea as we are going on holiday this week, and  I will have recipes to post while I'm gone.

What can I say about this recipe is that is a great one. Very, very easy to make.
You can do whatever frosting you want.  Or you can have it simple, just some icing sugar on top.

I will write here the original frosting. What I did, I went for some vanilla topping and I sprinkled some chocolate chips. 
Just feel free to improvise ;)

And now the recipe.

Ingredients

For cupcakes:
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tsp cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

For icing:
1 stick butter
5 tsp cocoa
1 lb confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk

Directions:

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in room-temperature buttermilk.

In a saucepan, melt butter and cocoa together at a low temperature.

When smooth, add water.

In a separate bowl, sift together sugar, flour, and salt.

Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed.

Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Bake at 350 F / 180 C for 20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Preparing the icing from the original recipe:
In a saucepan, melt butter at low temperature.

In a separate bowl, mix together cocoa and sugar.

Add melted butter, vanilla, and milk and beat at low speed until mixed.

Frost cupcakes generously. 

Hope you envoy the cupcakes!

Happy day name to my hubby! 

 

Banana Cupcakes with Maple Brown Butter Icing

The recipe I tried this time is from the 33 gourmet list.
It's called Banana Cupcake with Maple Brown Butter Icing. Sounds delicious, right?
And it truly is. When I was making the batter and I added the smashed bananas, this great smell started to catch my nose. Vanilla and bananas! So yummy :D

The cupcakes have a nice and moist texture and they go so good with the maple butter icing.

Great cupcakes! Love them :)

As you'll see the recipe is a little bit different, it will take you a lot more cooking time than usual ones. It stays in the oven for an hour, more or less, and then you have to transfer it to the freezer for 30 minutes. I don't know the explanation for doing this. I kept half of my cupcakes outside and I put the other half in the freezer, but in the end  they were the same.

Advice: Don't use the total amount of sugar. You can reduce it to half, as I did.  The bananas will add some sweetness to the batter. Also, the icing that results is a lot and very sweet. You can reduce ingredients to half if you want.

Ingredients

For cupcakes:

1 cup mashed bananas
1 T lemon juice
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 jumbo egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk

For icing:
1 stick butter
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup milk
3 T maple syrup


Directions:

In a small bowl, combine bananas and lemon juice.

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in egg and vanilla.

Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately while mixing.

Beat in bananas and mix until well blended.

Bake at 275 F / 135 C for one hour or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

After removing from oven, place in freezer for a half hour.

Prepare the icing
In a saucepan, melt butter at medium temperature until golden brown.

In a bowl, add butter to sugar, then add milk and syrup. 

Beat until smooth.

Top with bananas and a sprinkle of cinnamon.