Thursday, March 10, 2011

Champagne Cupcakes






Champagne and weddings seem to go hand in hand so why not try it in a cupcake form? I had my doubts I would be able to pull these off but they ended up tasting great. Not exactly a super sweet cupcake but I could taste the champagne flavor so I'm calling it a success! These cupcakes were pretty fluffy and since they aren't overly sweet, you could use a filling and heavy frosting without too much of a sugar rush. To give the cakes a more champagne taste, I brushed each one with a champagne/powdered sugar mixture. I paired them with a basic butter cream. Not going to lie, I tried a champagne frosting but that backfired pretty quickly. Next time I make these I'm going to invest in some champagne extract for the frosting and cupcakes.






Recipe from Home Is Where The Holmans Are:

Cupcakes:
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup champagne
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
6 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pan with paper liners (recipe yields about 22 cupcakes). 

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine.  In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions of champagne combined with vanilla. 

In a clean bowl, beat egg whites on high speed until they hold stiff peaks.  Fold in about 1/3 of the egg whites to lighten the batter then gently fold in the remaining egg whites.  Transfer batter to cupcake liners, filling each about 2/3 of the way full.  Bake approximately twenty minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool about five minutes in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.










Monday, March 7, 2011

Winter Cabin Weekend, BBQ Chicken and Pizza Bites

Jake and I spent the weekend in a cabin with some faboulous high school friends.



We drank, played board games, and generally vegged out. We got some skiing in Saturday before the rain but other then that, no physical activity was involved and I loved it :) Now to the good part... the food.

For dinner on Saturday, I volunteered to make some shredded chicken BBQ.
Recipe:
6 chicken breasts
8 oz BBQ sauce
3 tbs chipotle seasoning

Boil chicken breasts in water until cooked through (about 20 minutes). Shred chicken and toss with seasoning. Coat in BBQ sauce and serve.

Joy made her mom's jalopeneo corn bread.

Later on in the night, we popped this home made pizza bites in the oven that Emily, Liz, and Joy had made earlier in the day.

These were made with pizza dough wrapped around mozzarella and pepperoni. They were brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with parmasean cheese, and baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. So freaking addictive!