Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

It's finally fall which means it's time to put pumpkin in everything anything you bake!  I have always loved pumpkin bread, pumpkin bars and of course pumpkin pie, so I thought why not make pumpkin cupcakes?!  I first made and ate most of these cupcakes (not all by myself, but almost) without any form of frosting... I ate a lot of naked pumpkin cupcakes.  I did this mostly because I couldn't figure out what kind of frosting I wanted to put on them, but also because these cupcakes are so moist and full of flavor on their own that they really didn't need a topping.  However I decided, when I have the opportunity to make buttercream, I just can't pass that up!  

Note: I have wanted to try these cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, I think that would go really well with their sweet, pumpkin base.  Otherwise just a dollop of whipped cream would go well with these just like whipped cream is good on top of an actual pumpkin pie.  If anyone tries something other than buttercream, please let me know how you like it!

The first time I made these cupcakes, I used canned pumpkin, which by the way is so easy!  To be honest, I've never used canned pumpkin before these cupcakes!  I've always used either a fresh pumpkin or pumpkin that I had frozen myself.  But canned pumpkin was certainly a nice break from my normal pumpkin baking experiences - not that I'm saying we should all starting using canned pumpkin for the rest of forever. A freshly prepared pumpkin is still the best in terms of flavor and making your house smell good (something that's very important to me).  Plus, why not buy a local pumpkin now that they're popping out of every farmer's ears?

The most recent time I made these, I used fresh pumpkin.  I wanted to try something new though, so steamed the pumpkin on the stove top as opposed to baking it in the oven.  Steaming was a much faster process, I recommend it (if you want to give this a go, my directions for steaming a pumpkin are at the bottom of this post).  Keep in mind however, you're probably losing more of the pumpkin's nutritional value with steaming than you would with baking.  

OH and by they way... I finally have a new mixer!  It's so pretty.  I touch it every time I walk through the kitchen just to make sure it's actually there.  Thank you to my parents for the wonderful birthday gift!

And this was my birthday gift to myself... yay!

These were my thank-you gifts to my new co-workers...

And these, were for anyone who came to visit me while they were in my kitchen.  Since the recipe has both crystallized and ground ginger in it, I thought it would be fitting to sprinkle some crystallized ginger on top of the buttercream.  This was good and looks really nice, but only if you really like ginger.  

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes 

Ingredients: 

• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 (3.4 oz.) package instant butterscotch pudding mix
• 2 t. baking soda
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1 t. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t. ground ginger
• 1/2 t. ground allspice
• 1/4 t. ground cloves
• 1/3 c. finely chopped crystallized ginger
•  
• 1 c. butter at room temperature
• 1 c. packed brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 c. pumpkin puree
• 
  

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 24 paper cupcake liners. Whisk together the flour, pudding mix, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, cloves, and crystallized ginger in a bowl; set aside.
2. Beat the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Beat in the vanilla and pumpkin puree with the last egg. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Steamed Pumpkin

What you'll need: 

Large pot with 1-2 inches of water in the bottom

Metal Steaming collander

1 small pie pumpkin

1. Carefully cut one pumpkin in half next to stem.  If the stem is going to make the pumpkin too large to fit in the covered pot, cut off the stem.  
2. Place steaming colander in the bottom of a large pot filled with 1-2 inches of water.  
3. Place both halves, cut side up, in pot with 1-2 inches of water in the bottom. 
4. Steam for 15-20 minutes or until fork will easily insert through the pumpkin's meat to the shell.  .  
5. Remove pumpkin from steam bath and set aside for 10 minutes to cool.  Then scrape pumpkin from shell into a medium-sized bowl.  
6. Beat on high until pumpkin is smooth and even in consistency.  
7. Add to any recipe and enjoy!  

Note: Do not add hot pumpkin to any recipe!  Place pumpkin in fridge (or freezer for a short period of time) until cool.  

Happy Baking!

Graduation Season Part II: It's My Party!

It is official, my family knows how to throw an awesome party! With locally produced meat kabobs, a margarita bar, and everything occurring outside... this party was screaming my name! Today's post is about my family, me, and the amazing food that was at my graduation party.

As some of you may know, I am a meat locavore. This means that I eat meat only if it has been produced locally (i.e. raised and butchered locally - not simply packaged locally). All locavores have different parameters for what defines "local" - for me, I only eat meat that has been produced within 70 miles of wherever I am. Now, I looove meat and am not a vegetarian as many people mistakenly believe. Heck, I grew up on a dairy farm where we would pluck our own chickens for dinner and name our beef cattle after food to remind us that our "pet" would one day be our dinner. So I get it... the circle of life. It happens. In fact, my reasoning for being a locavore is that I am passionate about supporting small, local farming. I have been dedicated to this method of meat consumption for over three years now and over the course of that time, I have had many people ask me why I don't eat very much meat, especially considering the fact that my immediate and extended family all farm. My answer to this is that I not only support small farmers, but I also see no point in shipping meat from California to the Midwest (for example) when there is undoubtedly a meat-producing farm within at least a 70 mile radius of where I am. All of this shipping is not only wasted emissions, but is also upping the price which the consumer must pay to buy the meat at the store and decreasing the price our farmers receive for selling their meat. SO, with eating locally being such a passionate dedication of mine, I was pretty excited to hear that all the meat being served at my party... would be local! YAY!

My older sister Krystal and my Mom were the ones planning this fiesta. The menu consisted of orderves (meat/veggie kabobs, fruit kabobs, my Grandma's seafoam salad (trust me... it's amazing. I will have to dedicate an entire post to this stuff!), cheese produced from my aunt and uncle's dairy farm, a summer pasta salad, and guacamole (and not just any guac... this was Krystal's guacamole. I don't know what she does to it, but it is always amazing. She's given me her recipe, but mine never tastes the same... I have come to the conclusion that there are some secret ingredients at play here.). Oh... and then there were my cupcakes. Yum. Everything was made from scratch. Everything fresh. Everything delicious.

So I have never been terribly dedicated to cupcakes, I've actually always been more of a cake girl. But since making these little buttercream mounds of happiness... I'm hooked. For this party, I made three flavors. The first was a dark chocolate cupcake with a "healthy" (ha!) amount of light and fluffy white buttercream on top. They were then finished off with a little bling by adding some glitzy white sugar pearls (as recommended by my little sis', Michelle). Nice work Michelle, you were right (you may now imagine me furrowing my eyebrows at you).

This is my little sister Michelle. She also did a lot of the cooking and baking. She was like everyone's sous-chef. Michelle rocks at making scrumptious desserts; her specialty is crazy desserts I can't even begin to pronounce the names to. Her desserts are like the kind that you might be served in some five-star French restaurant. Since she has been baking more and more lately, I made her a super chic apron...

So the second cupcake flavor I made was key-lime. Yep, you heard me right. Key-lime. It was delicious. I used a white cake batter for the cupcake and for the buttercream, I used almond extract instead of clear vanilla (since sliced almonds go perfectly on top of a key-lime pie) and then squeezed about 1.5 ounces of lime juice into the buttercream. This was a refreshing and perfect summer's night cupcake.

The third and last flavor cupcake I made, was strawberry. Again I used a white cake for the cupcake. Then, starting with my basic white buttercream, I mashed enough strawberries to produce about 2 ounces of strawberry puree and again topped these cupcakes with white sugar pearls. Since buttercream has a high content of fat (ahem, it IS buttercream) and the strawberries are, well, strawberries (and are therefore composed of essentially sugar and water), the two didn't blend perfectly together and created more of a streak-effect. They looked pretty neat...

The party was outside on the patio that my Mom and Dad built by hand (the party was in Wisconsin, on the farm where I grew up). Oh, and the flower arrangement on this table was created by my little sister Michelle using clippings from various plants around the farm. So beautiful.

I also made some graduation cake pops, similar to the ones made last week for Andrew's Graduation Cake - except for these ones, I made the tassel blue to match my own graduation tassel. I think I turned my cousin Dean into a cake pop lover as well.

The actual orderves at this party were not only local... but were tasty. Super tasty. My sister Krystal was in charge of the kabob front, she's pretty much a master behind the grill. Oh, and see that person off in the distance, staring at the camera? Yep that's me. I'm holding a stick with pineapple on the end like a caveman. For some reason I thought the picture was of me even though my sister was obviously between the camera and I. But hey, it's my party right? Shouldn't the camera always be on me?... No?! Hmm, shoot.

You can see a few of the harvesters and the barn off in the distance. This is where I grew up. This is my stomping ground. I've done a lot of travelling, and this is still my favorite place on Earth. Sorry for going mushy here, but it's true.

So to make this party even better, Leah, one of my best friends from high school, came by. We've actually been friends since first grade. Leah is one of the most hilarious people you will ever meet.

These folks are my Mom and Dad. I am who I am because of these two amazing people. You may think I am being biased here, but I don't think there's ever been a better Mom and Dad duo than mine.

My party had a lot of great food at it, but what's more important is that I was surrounded by people who I know and love and who have been such a major part of my life. I am so lucky to have such a supportive family and wonderful friends. Thank you everyone for supporting me in everything that I do.

p.s. Thank you for such a great party, I feel so loved.

The Three Rules of Eating in the Twin Cities

Who loves scrumptious cupcakes, cookies and cake?! How about ice cream?! Local meat?! Yep, that's what I thought. Mee too!

Now that I have been living in the twin cities area for a little over a year, I have discovered a couple rules to eating well...

Rule number one: If you want local meat (which is the only kind of meat you will ever see me eat), Clancey's is the place to go. Located in Linden Hills near the quaint little coop and a Great Harvest, this is a fun place to go for an afternoon (or day!) of good eats. Not only does this place bring in fresh, local meat but everything is seasoned in store with some of the most mouth-watering concoctions you can imagine. Some of the best in my book are: pork sirloin with mustard and fennel seed and German-style bratwursts; then there's beef seasoned with blue cheese and green onion, mushroom and swiss, or even bacon and cheddar. This place even has a rotating menu and makes sandwiches on the spot so you can have a hardy lunch while picking up meat for later. (Image courtesy of Heavy Table)

Rule number two: If you want ice cream, either convince my boyfriend to share some of his homemade ice cream with you or take yourself over to the Grand Ole Creamery on Grand Avenue. If you haven't been to Grand Avenue, then I suggest you take yourself there the next warm sunny day! There are tons of cute little specialty shops lining the street, with the Grand Ole Creamery on one end. You'll know when you're getting close to this place though because you'll smell their made-from-scratch sugar waffle cones on the waffle iron (my favorite part!). The awesome factor gets kicked up a notch when you go to take that last bite of your cone - there's always a little whopper in the bottom of your cone to keep the ice cream from running out if there's a tiny hole. I like to call this the ice cream cone hole-plugger! (Image courtesy of CBS Minnesota)

Rule number three: The absolute best place to get lunch, dinner, and dessert in the twin cities is at Yum! This place has the most amazing veggie sandwich I have ever had (and I've had my fair share of veggie sandwich concoctions!). I know it's basic, but this sandwich is just so darn good when you are sitting in the dinning area and you know that after you finish your amazing sandwich, you are going to go over and pick out an amazing cupcake... or cookie... or cake... or all of the above! There is also a full-service coffee bar here which makes things even better. I have yet to visit this restaurant in the morning, but it's definitely on my to-do list once I graduate.

This first cupcake is a moist chocolate with angel fluff filling and a fudge layer of chocolate amazingness on top...

Next was my boyfriend's pick - a ginormous cookie... wait no, TWO ginormous cookies with what I think was a buttercream filling inside? Can't be too sure... that one disappeared too fast. P.s. this picture does NOT do justice to the size of these cookies - they were larger than my hand!

...and last but by all means, NOT least (drum-roll)... the moistest chocolate cupcake EVER with an incredibly fluffy raspberry fluff on top (so jealous... if only my fluffs were so fluffy!). Oh, and let's not forget about the fresh raspberry on top!

Yum indeed! During my most recent visit I also had a lemon meringue cupcake - a vanilla cupcake with lemon meringue filling, lemon buttercream fluff, and a lemon-head candy as the cherry on top. As you can see by the lack of a photo for that one... I ate it without thinking to take a picture. I could not resist!

Now that I have shared my favorite places to get the goods, I want to know where your favorite place is to fix that sweet tooth, have a veggie sandwich, or to just get some all-around good eats!

What is your favorite eatery?

Meet my Snowman Family!

When I wake up to a thermostat of negative fifteen, I know it's a good day to put off my run for the sake of baking. The snow looks oh so pretty outside, so I have decided that is how I would like to keep it... outside, where I won't have to touch it. I love making snowmen and this is simply a warmer way of doing it...

This cute little family comes from the genius book, Hello, Cupcake! Check it out if you haven't yet, you'll be happy you did.

Meet papa snowman, like his tie? I do. I was given a hard time by some family members who were watching these guys come alive though... I bought a whole bag of regular Oreo and a whole bag of mini Oreo only to use one from each bag for his top hat... but I personally love having leftovers!

This is mama snowman... well, snow-woman. I loove her apron and ear-muffs, they turned out so well (the apron is even tied in a bow on the back!). I used fruity tootsie rolls for everything except the strawberry Runt for the heart-shaped broach on her chest and a grape runt split in half for the ear-muffs. Love it!

My favorite one of them all... baby snowman, or snowboy. Yes, he has a pink scarf. That too is made of fruity tootsie rolls. The hat was by far my biggest struggle with this little family. I fussed over it way too much and ended up with nothing more than a sticky situation. I finally mastered it though, five fruit tootsies later.