Christmas baking - gingerbread and cupcakes

What do you do when the supermarket is handing out christmas cookie cutters?  You bake cookies!  My brother is an athlete and my parents are health freaks and I feel guilty eating a mass amount of sweets so I never have anyone to bake for.  Lucky that this year I have a wonderful mothers group that I can fatten up with cookies.  

And while we're baking cookies we may as well make use of this cute cupcake kit.  

It was my very first time baking gingerbread.  Had no idea where to start and was recommended THIS recipe.  As I was going along it did seem a bit dry, but it is truly perfect.  The dough felt and tasted absolutely amazing.  Recipe is fool proof, I promise. 

I'm not sure if I baked them for too long, or made them too thin (or if my oven sucks) but they were a little too crunchy and over baked.  But not to worry.  They are incredibly fun to bake and ice and I can't wait to do them with Ari when she's a bit older and can help decorate and press the cutters into the dough.  

Bit of cellophane, ribbon and a christmas gift tag and voila!

And the vanilla cupcakes were wonderful too!

Recipe: Magnolia Bakery Red Velvet Cupcakes

It's surreal to think that March marked 3 years since I was in New York.  It almost seems like a life time ago and so much has happened in my life since then.  So much has changed too, including me, my life and my circumstances.  I always use trips as check points, what has happened between one trip and the next?  The last trip and now?  Have I grown, have I stuck to my gym schedule, are the same people still in my life?

I'm really itching to go back.  New York is definitely one of my favourite places in the world.  The city is so diverse and each block has a completely different vibe and is like a new world.  New York is a million things and places in one. 

I sadly wasn't really blogging much back then, but I do have a few posts that you can check out here,   here, here, here, and here

Don't think many people visit New York without a stop at Magnolia Bakery, made famous by an episode or two of SATC, where the girls drown their sorrows in cake (haven't we all been guilty of that???).  The cupcakes really are as excellent as you'd hope.

We are hosting Australia's Biggest Morning Tea in the office next week (I hope you are too!) to raise funds for Cancer Council, so I wanted to do a trial batch of cupcakes and decided on the Red Velvet, using the Magnolia Bakery recipe.  I snuck out of work early and had a great night watching the voice and playing around with red food dye and measurements.  I am really happy with how they turned out and would recommend the recipe to anyone as it's fairly straight forward.  I did tweak the recipe slightly, so I am posting my own version which in my opinion makes the cake a bit more fluffy and moist.  The original recipe is freely available on the internet.

Red Velvet Cupcakes (recipe makes 24)

3 ¼ cups plain flour (sifted)
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used Lupak butter which has a bit of vegetable oil added to it)
2 ½ cups sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp red food coloring (about 2 bottles of dye available at Australian supermarkets)
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 teaspoon vinegar
3 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven (fan forced) to around 170C and line cupcake tray with papers.

1. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy
2. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until creamy
3. Combine food colouring, cocoa and vanilla extract on a bowl and then add to batter
4. Add salt and buttermilk and combine on the lowest setting
5. Add the sifted flour, again mixing on the lowest setting
6. Combine vinegar and baking soda separately and add to batter and combine the mixture well on a low setting, without overbeating
7. Spoon into cupcake papers (fill to around half to 3/4 full) and bake for 20-23 minutes
8. Cool cupcakes in the baking tray for around half an hour

The cream cheese frosting is honestly the ultimate.  You will never frost your cupcakes with anything else once you've tried this!

500g cream cheese
3/4 cup of butter, softened
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted (you will find that this is much less sugar than the original recipe, but it's honestly not necessary to use any more sugar)

1. Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth
2. Add sugar and vanilla extract and beat on high until light, fluffy and consistent
3. Fill a piping bag and generously spread over the cupcakes.