Strawberry Cupcakey Goodness

So, while at Costco, the cover of the Martha Stewart Living Magazine was screaming at me to pick it up...so I did. The cover was actually a heat made out of multicolored cupcakes. So cute and I had to get it since my sister loves cupcakes and her baby shower is quickly approaching.

I found THE PERFECT strawberry cupcake recipe in it. Like Ina Garten, Martha rarely fails me. Well, I've only used one other recipe from her, but it's my fail-safe go-to easy-peezy meal: Spaghetti w/Brooklyn White Clam Sauce. We've been a huge fan of that dish since she was on Food Network waaaaaaaaay back in the day!

Anyhoo, I'm more of a cook than a baker. I'm still getting the hang of things but getting better. I get a bit nervous baking cakes from scratch but almost never use a box mix...because of the dreaded trans fats! So, after delving into one of these beauties last night (minus the buttercream which I made this morning), I was pleasantly shocked and completely amazed at the fluffy moistness that was very much like a boxed cake mix cake that this cupcake had! DELICIOUS! It could've been a bit more strawberry-er and had more of a strawberry muffin-like taste. Still...paired with a good strawberry buttercream...you can't go wrong!

I've been dying for a great strawberry buttercream. The strawberry buttercream I hold on a frosting pedestal is the strawberry buttercream from

Cake Love. Apparently, Warren Brown, owner of Cake Love, tells you right how to make it here. Surprisingly, out of the gazillion kitchen gadgets & utensils I have...I do not own a candy thermometer! Jaron's birthday is coming up soon...and my little man is going to have a strawberry cake...so we'll have to try Warren's recipe for my all-time favorite strawberry buttercream then!

For this weekend's cupcakes, I took my usual go-to buttercream recipe and played around with it to get a strawberry buttercream. This was actually possibly my third attempt and it's so cliche, but third time really was a charm!!! If I go back to this buttercream for future strawberry buttercreams, then I will change it to 2 sticks salted butter instead of just one stick salted & one unsalted. It was a tad too sweet and slightly overpowered the delicate cupcake. One plus about the buttercream this time...I found an ORGANIC SHORTENING!!! Yea-uh, Baybee!!! Anyhoo...I added strawberry extract and will NOT be doing that next time, I will add a touch of vanilla and more strawberries. I really was looking for a strong strawberry taste.

Strawberry Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 1/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs plus 1 large egg white

1 cup whole milk

1 1/2 teaspoons strawberry extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups finely chopped strawberries, plus small strawberries for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Reduce speed to low.

Mix any remaining wet ingredients (in this case the milk & extracts are the wet ingredients) in a bowl if needed. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients and ending with dry. Add chopped strawberries into the batter. Scrape sides of bowl.

Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks. Once cupcakes are cool, frost tops with strawberry buttercream. Frosted cupcakes will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 2 days. Top with a strawberry just before serving.

Strawberry Buttercream Dream Icing
2 sticks salted butter, room temperature
1 cup shortening
2 lbs. powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 - 1 cup finely minced strawberries
1-4 tablespoons very cold milk

Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer. Add the vanilla extract and combine well. Add sugar in about 3-4 separate batches and mix thoroughly after each addition. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, add about 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Mix at medium-high to high speed. Slowly add strawberries until you reach the desired consistency...adding more milk if needed.

Welcome Home & Happy Birthday!

Yes, the hubby finally came home...early & on his birthday no less!!! We rounded up a pretty darn fine meal...if I must say so myself! ;o) The meal made up for, I hope, the lack of cleaning I intended to do for his birthday gift. Hahahaha. One day we will have a clean house. Usually it's when we get stationed somewhere else. HAHAHAHAHA.

Anyhoo...here's the menu we had planned for LT Muscles:

Dinner
Gung-gung's Cabbage Salad
Garlicky Steamed Cauliflower
Churrasco
Brown/White rice

Dessert
Special Dark Chocolate Cake w/Peppermint Buttercream Frosting

Now, who the heck is Gung-gung? Well, he is my 98-year old maternal grandfather who, up until his debilitating stroke about 12 years ago, was an amazing cook! He studied the chefs in Hong Kong and cooking really was his passion. Not only could he cook, but the man could bake too!! Goodness!! Anyway, as this blog continues, I'll probably continue to post recipes from my grandfather that were passed on to my mom who is now teaching us. This way, my kids (and cousins/family) can have something of my grandfathers to always hold on to. Anyway, he is an amazing, amazing man who, long story short, was an orphan when he was still a single-digit age, immigrated to Mexico, then to Honduras, married my amazing grandmother (Lord, Lord, Lord is this woman amazing), raised nine children, owned & ran a store in Honduras, immigrated w/the whole fam to Miami, and just is plain awesome. Now...take an orphan in China (at 6, I believe and raised by his older sisters until his teens) who moves to Mexico & Honduras...has to learn another language, starts business & family, takes care of a slew of extended family back in China, moves to the US, learns another language, and takes care of everyone still. My grandmother...well, she's definitely another paragraph and I will save that for her 5-Spice Garlic Pork...mmmmmmmmmm. My paternal grandparents are equally as amazing too!! But, since this is a food blog, I digress.

My grandfather's cabbage salad is simple: thinly shredded cabbage, thinly sliced tomatoes, olive oil, oregano, salt, & lime. Simply. Here are the steps though...;o)

After slicing up the cabbage, toss it with salt (a good amount) in a colander & let it sit for a good 15-30 minutes. Then rinsed that bad boy. Toss it in with lime juice, olive oil, & good amount of oregano. Toss in the tomatoes. My mom used to top it with chopped fried bacon...and that was GOOD! I haven't made it like that in years though. But, just FYI.

For the churrasco I used flank steak. Traditionally, skirt steak is used. Flank is one of the leanest cuts of meat with barely any fat, so we cook/grill a lot with it. I say "we" but mean me. Hahaha. Anyhoo, I marinated the flank in my cousin Luis' chimichurri recipe. I let that bad boy marinate for a good 6 hours in the fridge. I typically like to marinate my meat for a looooong time.

Here's Luis' recipe w/my tweaks in red:

Luis' Chimichurri

1 cup stemmed parsley (I use more)

1 cup stemmed cilantro (I used the whole shabang since there's tons o' flavor in the stem too...I also use more than 1 cup)

6 cloves of garlic, chopped (only if you're weak do you use 6 cloves...I use MORE...mu-hahahaha)

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 1/3 cup white vinegar (Luis uses more)

1 1/3 cup water (you can completely omit this or use less for a thicker consistency)

1.5 tsp. salt (Luis also uses more on this one)

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

Combine parsley, cilantro, & garlic in a food processor; pulse to chop. Add salt and both peppers & pulse to combine. With processor running, add oil in a thin stream. Finally, add vinegar & water.

What I've started doing lately...even though it is completely anti-green is marinating my meat in Ziploc bags. I use less marinade and it completely surrounds my meat with goodness. This way, with the chimichurri, I have leftover sauce to drizzle on top of the meat. YUM! The photo below is Sean's birthday meal. The pic is deceiving since 1/2 of the plate were veggies and the rice was flattened out to look like there was more.

Now, the cake. When I first started becoming addicted to, errrr, reading The Repressed Pastry Chef's blog, I was reading about her mint chocolate cupcakes. I mean, really, after being greeted with that photo, how could you not be sucked in??? Plus, I *heart* mint chocolate. So, I used my usual chocolate cake recipe (I love you, Ina Garten!) and my usual buttercream recipe (you're my hero, Em!). Add less vanilla & WAY more peppermint to the buttercream...along with blue & green food coloring, and I was GOOD to go. Sean normally doesn't eat frosting but devoured the whole slice of cake with a huge icy glass of milk. This was RIGHT AFTER two plates of the above meal (of course his had way more meat & rice). Yup. It was that good. My kids helped decorate it. You'll be quick to notice my 3YO son's decorating skills in the center of the cake. ;o)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEAR!!!

Cupcakes & Dumplings

Mom was down for less than two weeks and just in time to save my sanity! It was a great visit and we're missing her right now! Her visit also happened to coincide with her father's 98th birthday! So, we packed up and drove down to Miami to celebrate my grandfather's Almost Centennial birthday! Knowing I had to make my grandparents' favorite pasta (Linguine w/Clam Sauce...well, favorite pasta that I make them) and some kind of celebratory dessert for his birthday, I prepped, planned, & packed for our trip.

I decided to make lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream...lemon is probably his favorite flavor (dessert, at least). So, I used two recipes from my favorite baking blog, The Repressed Pastry Chef, for cake (love this recipe since it's light, fluffy, and not cloyingly sweet) and buttercream. Needless to say, it was a hit and I had all three great-grandchildren do the decorating...ummmm, with the sprinkles that is! I wasn't about to trust two 4YOs (both almost 5) & a 3YO with frosting (I can say this since 2 out of the 3 great-grans belong to me). I wanted to ensure that we HAD frosting for the cupcakes. ;o)

Aura, the eldest great-grandchild by 5 days!

Kaia, the middle great-grandchild

Jaron, the baby & only great-grandson...for now

We also made one of Kaia's all-time favorite meals...pan-fried dumplings.

This is the pork & shrimp (and roughly half or more veggie) version. One day, I'll have to post the recipe. I make a chicken version too. Sean & Kaia like to have dumpling eating contest. Even though Sean obviously outweighs Kai-Bear, I think ounce for ounce, Kaia is the CLEAR winner. Kaia can eat 9-10 of these bad boys...which is sometimes more than me!

Healthy to Not-So-Healthy

This weekend started w/healthy foods to progressively "that-can't-even-pass-as-good-for-you" food. I started off the weekend making an Oatmeal Brulee. I found the recipe on the blog Kath eats Real Food. I really like her blog (despite her being a Duke fan...GO TERPS) since she cooks really healthy. She's actually studying to be a dietitian. Everyone knows I try to cook healthy...relatively low-fat, full of good fats, make healthy substitutions, high in fiber, high in vegs, and cooking to ensure most of the nutrients remain in place. So, yeah, I like her blog for inspiration. I made the oatmeal brulee and loved it. Since I usually don't follow recipes except when I have to bake something (and I still usually don't follow the recipe to a T), I jazzed mine up with more bananas, more cinnamon, ground flax, & raisins.

I also still have my oil (extra virgin olive oil & some Omega-3 blend) for deep-frying out. So, I wanted to make homemade french fries. Now, fries are a bit of an addiction for me. I am particular about my fries. They cannot be too dark, must be golden, have to be crisp on the outside and completely cooked on the inside, and has to be burn-my-mouth hot!!! I love steak fries, wedges, waffle fries, shoestrings...etc. As long as it's not hard, completely mushy, completely crispy...I don't care what shape they are. Again, they also cannot be brown....golden, people...is that so hard to understand? And HOT, dammit!!! Enough with that. A while ago, I had seen Paula Deen make some onion fries. Holy cow, that instantly sent me back in time to when our neighbor Delicia started throwing in onions when she made french fries. We went home and replicated it too. Granted, Delicia was about 13 and I was 9 at the time, so we'd throw the onions in the beginning w/our frozen fries and even though the fries came out all yummy & everything...the onions, did not. So, reading through this recipe made my mouth salivate and I finally remembered to buy some red potatoes to try this bad boy out. I'm so glad I did! The kids and I loved it. Kaia loved the onions especially...all nice and sweet & salty. Both Kaia & I love dipping our fries in vinegar. I'm not much of a ketchup person, but I do loves me some ketchup w/lots of Tabasco). Kaia loves ketchup too...a lot of it. We use the organic version since it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup.

So, we've gone from Oatmeal Brulee to French Fries to Cookies n' Cream Cake. Yup. Cookies n' Cream. Now, mind you, I apparently didn't have enough powdered sugar on hand to make a full batch of that fabulous buttercream I blogged about earlier. But I did, however, have enough to make a half batch...only realizing this a little bit later when the neurons started firing between the synapses. My synapses were probably in carb heaven and still snoozing. Anyhoo, I made enouch but when my cake was done, I realized it was enough for a batch of cupcakes but NOT enough for a two-layer cake. Thus, the shots of I have are good enough to not embarrass me too much. ;o) For the cake, I used Ina's recipe again. I think having all of Ina Garten's cookbooks allow me to call her Ina or I-nizza or I.G. or...ok, I really need other adults around. Anyhoo...so, Ina's recipe (using Hershey's Special Dark cocoa), vanilla buttercream, and crushed Newman's Own organic chocolate sandwich cookies. I think I actually would've use Oreos for this bad boy next time. I may think about finely crushing the cookies and mixing them into the buttercream for the middle layer instead of just placing it on top of the frosting in the middle layer.

I can say one thing healthy about this cake...I used dark chocolate which is has good nice antioxidants in it...as does the coffee in the recipe too. Also, this is one of the FEW Barefoot Contessa recipes that doesn't use butter for the cake and I used my Omerga-3 blend oil. Am I far reaching on this one since the bad outweighs the good? Yeah, I think so too.

My cookie crushing, cake decorating helpers.

Accomplished...Maduros & Cupcakes

Yup, this past Saturday...I was feeling mad accomplished. My house was messy, my dogs need baths, I need to exercise, my kids needed more Mommy-time...so, I go cook. Yup...Woman of the Year here! ;o)

My kids LOVE maduros...sweet plantains for you gringos. Tai-po (the kids' great-grandmother and my maternal grandma...although I call her Po-po) fries of tons o' batches of these bad boys for Kaia & my grandfather whenever we go to Miami. Po-po knows how much Kaia adores maduros and goes out to buy plantains whenever we go visit her and fries 'em up every morning for her. Kaia doesn't even have to ask. Mind you, this is a woman in her upper 80s with two bad knees, a bad ankle, the sole caretaker of my 97 YO wheelchair-bound grandfather who suffered a stroke over a decade ago, and birthed 9 children. Yeah, this woman is simply amazing. Anyway, I purchased the plantains when they were yellow with the black spots forming and waited for them to get blacker. If you want sweet plantains, you will need to wait for those puppies to turn black for them to be sweet. I just cut 'em up and pan-fried them in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil. The munchkins were PLENTY HAPPY with my little surprise for them.

Saturday night, we were supposed to attend a get-together at a neighbor's house. One of the hubbies just got back home from training and is going to be deployed over to the Middle East for a year. So, everyone got together to hang out. It was really nice...adult time/conversation for me and the kids ran themselves silly...quickly conking out after baths & books. YEAH BAYBEE!!! So, not wanting to go empty-handed, I baked up Ina Garten's (aka the Barefoot Contessa) Beatty's Chocolate Cake...also, I'm not a fan of boxed cake mixes since they have trans fats in them...although it's very hard to find cake recipes that can come close to the moistness & fluffiness of boxed mixes. Anyway, I digress...I had leftover buttermilk and a TON of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder that I needed to use up...it's funny, that will be a common phrase in this blog ("I had a ton of ____ and needed to use it up"). I'm not a chocolate person but do enjoy Hershey's Special Dark chocolate. Plus, I did need to brew up some coffee to add it to our ice coffee jug that we keep on hand. Anyway...the first time I made this last year, the coffee was too strong and I overcooked the cake. This time, I made the coffee w/o the extra espresso and made cupcakes out of the batter. Paired with homemade vanilla bean buttercream and we had a winner. I even got adventurous and made it decorative (my sister is the artsy creative one...although my creativity happens in the kitchen). Half of the cupcakes that I frosted, I let the kids decorate with spinkles and colored sugar. I have to stop being so darn Type A in the kitchen and start letting the kids (and anyone else for that matter) help me in the kitchen.

Sorry for the dark photos...still trying to get a hang of my new camera. Don't laugh at my cupcake decorating skills.

A word about the buttercream. I attempted to make it once last year. I tried to recreate CakeLove's strawberry buttercream and ended up with a nasty, gloppy mess. I've recently gotten hooked to the Repressed Pastry Chef's blog. I first started reading it when I was reading something about buttercream. The author of the blog really liked it, so I decided to give it a try...despite it having shortening in it. So, I buy shortening...it's the second time in my life I've EVER bought it and have a go at the recipe. OMG...it's a KEEPER...even though it has shortening in it. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!! I made it flavored with vanilla and vanilla beans. That vanilla bean flavor buttercream mellowed out the dark, rich sweet bitterness of the moist cupcakes SO well! YUM!!! And you would never know that I'm not a fan of chocolate! ;o) Now, I just have to figure out how to make a fresh strawberry buttercream....