Strawberry filled Cupcakes

Once in a while at my school we have retired teachers sub in for teachers that are out.  The other day I got to spend my day with a teacher from last year who is so fabulously talented, sweet, and just an overall wonderful lady.  It was her birthday the following day so, obviously, I needed to  bake something special.  I wanted individual cupcakes for the children, but with something inside that would get them excited.

Jam!

Strawberry jam! You can get creative, but since I was working with picky little preschoolers here I decided to stick with the good stuff... Smuckers Seedless Strawberry Jam.

Here's an easy recipe for vanilla (versatile) cupcake that will never fail:

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter- room temperature

1 cup sour cream

2 large eggs,
4 large egg yolks
3 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line standard muffin/cupcake tins with paper or foil liners.

2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl. Add butter, sour cream, egg and egg yolks, and vanilla.

3. Beat at medium speed until smooth (about 30 seconds).

4. Pour into cupcake tins. Bake until cupcake tops are pale gold and toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from tin and transfer to wire rack; cool cupcakes to room temperature before cutting, adding jam, and frosting.

After they cool you're going to take a sharp knife and cut a hole in the top of the cupcake.  You're going to want to hold your knife at a 45 degree angle so that there is a hole in the center. Scoop out a little extra of the center so you can "jam the jam" down in there.

Take a tablespoon or so of your jam and place it in the hole. 

Put the tops back on!

 

Next, frosting!

Easy Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

2½ sticks unsalted butter, softened
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar
A pinch salt- please don't skip this step, it really does make a difference
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons heavy cream

Method

1. Beat the softened butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds.

2. Add confectioners’ sugar and salt.  Beat at medium-low speed until the sugar has just become wet, about a minute.

3. Scrape down the sides and continue beating for another 30 seconds until mixture is fully incorporated, about 30 seconds.

4. Add the vanilla and heavy cream, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 20 seconds, then put the speed at medium-high and beat until light and fluffy.

Put into a zip-lock and cut a slant at the tip.

Frost away!

I like to start on the outside and swirl my way to the middle leaving the height in the middle of the cupcake.

I had to cut one in half to photograph it. Here's its insides.

Jesse (my roomate) enjoyed that I needed to do that. That's his hand, not mine.

Oh, and he also made himself a lamb burger and said, "Take a picture of this and put it on your blog." Here ya go Jesse..

Spider Cupcakes

     Last week I taught the children all about ants, the previous week was about caterpillars and butterflies, and this week is all about spiders.  Teaching preschool in the spring last year was probably one the best things I've done in my life.  That is why I'm so looking forward to this year.  Teaching them about nature like the simple steps of planting a seed or the life cycles of a little creature is so fascinating to them and very satisfying for me to know I was the first one to present such a thing.  I approach them with these insects in a way where they will not be afraid of them.  Imagine not being afraid of the huge black spider that's crawling on your ceiling above your bed! I teach the children about all insects as if they were all really pretty and interesting butterflies.

Unfortunately I don't feel this way about bugs. I hate spiders and beetles, but I do have a soft spot for worms and caterpillars.  When I was a little girl my dad and I used to go fishing. I was in charge of the night crawlers. My job was to rip the worms in half and put the wiggling bloody bodies on the hooks. I loved it. Thank you dad. Thank you for teaching me such a beautiful way to appreciate living things...

Anyways, here are the "spider cupcakes".

---

Direction #1.
I said: "Okay my friends, peel off the paper and put the chocolate cupcake on your plate."
What they heard: "Blah blah blah chocolate cupcake blah blah blah."

Direction #2:
What I said: "Now take your plastic knife and your cup of frosting and frost the top of your cupcake."
What they heard: "Put as much frosting on your hands and squeeze the cupcakes into a ball of dough. Oh, and make sure you get crumbs all over the floor."

Direction #3:
What I said: "Here is some vanilla frosting you can add as well if you'd like. Frost it on top with your plastic knife."
What they heard: "Rub the frosting together on the cupcake with your hands. Please get it on the table, chairs, all over your face, and in your hair."

Direction #4:
What I said: "Gently take your fingers and place the spider's eyes (Smarties) and sprinkles on top of the frosting."
What they heard: "Immediately dump all the candy on the floor. Then step on it so it gets into the carpet."

Hahahaha. This one (above) cracks me up.

Direction #5
What I said: "Slide the pretzel sticks into the side of the cupcake. Spiders have 4 legs on each side. Put 4 pretzels on each side of the cupcake."
What they heard: "Everyone fight over and grab the plate with the pretzels in it at the same time so they spill everywhere and break into small pieces."

Although the entire classroom was a disaster after our creation, they came out awesome.

 

They also tasted awesome...judging

from the silence that came from the lunch tables while they ate them.

Almond cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting and toasted almonds

I've been so healthy lately with my posts that I thought...it's time for something devilish. Actually, it's because I've been suffering with a stuffy head and body aches for three days. I guess it's just my body telling me to treat myself to something unhealthy and delicious.

I made an almond-flavored cupcake with dark chocolate frosting sprinkled with toasted almonds.

Not a difficult recipe at all! Just takes a little more time and a few more dishes to wash to do it from scratch than one of the boxes.

LOOK at these cupcake liners I fell in love with at Target.

Almond Cupcake Recipe

I wrote it down on an envelope, I couldn't find any paper.

It says...

3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 cups milk


1. cream the butter and sugar until smooth. add the eggs, almond and vanilla extract and milk. in a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt, then mix into the wet ingredients.

2. fill cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter and bake for about 20 minutes at 375F. remove from the cupcake tray and let cool on a rack completely before frosting.


The ingredients

Wet ingredients. Dry ingredients. Combined.

Fill each lined cup about 2/3rds of the way.

I only baked mine about 16 minutes. Depending on your oven, begin checking them at 15 minutes.

Done!

Frost and sprinkle with toasted almonds!

Thick almondy-cake and a dark chocolate frosting with a crunch from the almonds on top. Yum.