Over the river and through the woods to Michigan City we go? Part 1

Hi again! Sorry I haven't blogged in such a long time! My computer crashed :( but now I'm back (and so is my computer) and ready to blog! I finally, FINALLY got to go to my neighbors cabin in Michigan City for a great week of relaxing and sun which is so conveniently placed in Indiana. Now there was a special request, "You can make cupcakes." Which also translates into, "Make me cupcakes!" Oh yes I most definitely will!

Her family and I decided on ORANGE CHIFFON CUPCAKES WITH ORANGE BUTTER ICING! Just saying it makes me drool. I had NO idea whatsoever on when I was going to make these! So thank you to people who like cupcakes!

Now unfortunately cabins are meant for taking a break from your hectic life, not cooking dinner, sleeping 'till noon, and frying in the sun until you look like a roast chicken (no offense chickens). Which is a bad case when you are baking gourmet cupcakes.

Take for example the many things we had to buy...

1. Cream of tartar. When in the world are they actually going to use this again?!
$3.59
2. Baking powder. They had some, but it was from 1988!
$2.74
3. Cake flour. Um yeah.
$5.24
4. Unsalted butter. There is nothing better than no salt!
$2.29
5. Powdered sugar! I find powdered sugar to be disgusting.
$1.50
6. Cupcake Pans. We bought them at an outlet mall only to find when we got back they had cupcake pans galore!
$9.99
7. An orange. DUH again!
69 cents
Having a great time and delicious cupcakes: Priceless

Things we had to hunt for...

1. Almond and Vanilla Extracts. At this cabin, get this, there are two kitchens, its pretty cool actually. After I couldn't find these downstairs, I went upstairs on an extract hunt, until we found them! They were old, I mean dinosaur old! But if I do remember they don't expire easily.

2. Electric Mixer. Probably the cutest electric mixer ever!

3. Cooling Rack. We used the upstairs oven rack instead.

Now time to bake!



Ingredients at hand! Ready to dive into the next un-tedious task of baking!



Lovely batter! Couldn't resist the sweet orange that beckoned to me. That made me drive my will power to the max.



The meringue was delicious!



Folding the meringue in with a mini spatula! Not that easy, not that easy. :)



It was a very thin batter, so I poured it into a water pitcher so it would be easier to fill the cupcake pan as Elinor Klivans suggested. Brilliant!



They came out perfect. Orange lingered throughout the kitchen and the creamy sweet aroma of puffy cupcakes had us all drooling, again. And we had to wait until dinner to eat them! Which was 30 minutes away! Yeah, we are such suckers when it comes to baked goods.



For some reason we had to have an equivalent amount of air circulate through these cupcakes. So you had to stack the pan on top of two cans, and flip it upside down.

Then the icing. I'm not going to go into detail about this.



After a day of zipping up and down Mount Baldy all day, I'm pretty sure we deserved these...

The result. A fabulous sensation of orange. The cupcake was light and moist and delicious without a doubt!

Fathers Day Whammie!

Two words: Fathers Day. Hear them as they go whooshing past. On this holiday, NO
freak-outs, NO television specials, and ABSOLUTELY NO bouquets of roses. Just a card and some steak. And in this case, cupcakes. And in a cupcakes case: Upside Down Pineapple Cupcakes AND Top-to-Bottom Crumb-cakes (as I like to call them). Probably the most INTERESTING cupcake. I think the last time I had canned pineapple was in FOREVER! This cupcake definitely showed my baking skill, I think.

You start with making an easy Yellow-Mix batter that I have for about the trillionth time now. So I've already starting to not measure accurately with a measuring cup. Which makes me feel like I've climbed Mount Everest. Actually that wouldn't make me feel great. That would make me feel tired and hungry and like an idiot, because now I have to go down. And since going down is the scarier part, now I just want to go home and hide. So now this might not have been a big accomplishment anyway. I split the batter in half. Saving it for the Top-to-Bottom crumb cakes (cupcakes, though I renamed them, cause I like how it just rolled off the tongue) that I would make for Fathers Day breakfast.

I made the crumbs for the crumb-cakes. I tried some, and it was salty and dry and NASTY! And they didn't even look like crumbs! It looked more like a pie crust dust.



Then I assembled the cupcakes. Crumbs, cupcake batter, crumbs. Yum yum.



Then of course they baked and I waited. And they baked. And I waited some more. Until...



Tada! They smelled SO good. The smell of cinnamon floated through the kitchen and I just wanted to eat one, bad! I had to put my will power into full gear. Finally they cooled and I just couldn't wait, so I dusted the cupcakes with powdered sugar as fast as I could, I didn't care what they looked like. But little did I know that the top wasn't fastened on tight enough to the powdered sugar duster, AND IT DUMPED ALL OVER THE CUPCAKE. It looked like a snowball! So now I had to clean up the mess BEFORE I could eat it! Eventually, it came time to eat one. It was like a little mini coffee cake. Yum.



This is how pretty they were! There was a slightly salty/sweet thing going on in this cupcake! The perfect combo! Definitely a favorite! The perfect coffee cupcakes. Tasty crumbs on the bottom and the top (hence the name) and a bit of moist yellow cupcake in the middle.

Now for the finale! (Drum roll please) PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CUPCAKES!! Hooray! I was watching Bobby Flay Throw-down at about 1 a.m (I'm such a Food Network junkie) and get this, the challenge was pineapple upside down cake! Both cakes made me want some, especially now that I finally know what it tastes like! You start my making a caramel-like glaze to go on the bottom of the pan. Then you put the pineapple rings on top of the glaze.



I had minimized the cupcake recipe for only 6 extra-large cupcakes. Don't ask why, I just did. Then I added the yellow cupcake batter and popped them in the oven. Unfortunately, I was baking this on the hottest day EVER! And the oven was not helping with this problem.



Did I forget to mention that you don't use cupcake liners? Instead, you use wax paper circles.





The cupcake was perfectly dense and moist. The caramelized pineapple was sweet, sticky, and tender in one bite. And the combination of the two was heaven! Turned out to be a pretty good cupcake day! Yum yum! Bake on!